Reflecting on Melissa Hortman and Flag Day 2025

By Emerson Bannon Cutri

Yesterday we celebrated Flag Day, a day honoring the US Flag and its historic adoption on June 14th, 1777. The day began with schoolteachers as a way to reflect on US history.

June 14th, 2025 was a landmark occurrence of the holiday, featuring a military parade put on by the Army, a first in the country, as well as the first nationwide No Kings Protests in response to the actions of Donald Trump, for whom the date is also his birthday. However, the day was also impacted by severe political violence, most notably a pair of assassinations of legislative leaders in Minnesota. Melissa Hortman, Democratic State House Leader, and John Hoffman, Democratic State Senator, were both killed by a conservative extremist Vance Luther Boelter.

It is incredible how quickly the day has faded from public memory, likely due to the whirlwind of events that have happened in the past year, but also due to a notable Republican media bias that coverage has adopted in the last few years. It should not be quickly forgotten however, the No Kings protests sparked by the day have expanded into one of the largest protest movements in American history, and Minnesota has remained at the epicenter of state political violence in the year since. Hoffman and Hortman’s names were the first major political killing of Trump’s second term, but she unfortunately wasn’t the last. Marchello Woodard was killed in Erie weeks later, and Portside’s first article was a reflection of the memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good during the DHS occupation of Minneapolis. If Bleeding Kansas was the harbinger of political crisis in the 1850s, Bleeding Minnesota is that harbinger today.

That theme of political violence, of state violence, has loomed over Erie as well. It has been the subtext, the fear, the need for strong leadership, in a number of our local races last year, and in a crop of ordinances this year to protect Erie from a potential federal occupation. With the spectacles we see every day, the headlines, it is too easy to move on. We must be intentional in reflecting and remembering, or it will find us unaware. I call on the City of Erie to remember the political violence that has rocked this country over the past year, and designate a space to honor Melissa Hortman, so her name is not lost in the endless stream of headlines.