another article explaining our modern political violence
WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 6: Pro-Trump protesters gather in front of the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC. Trump supporters gathered in the nation’s capital to protest the ratification of President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory over President Trump in the 2020 election. A pro-Trump mob later stormed the Capitol, breaking windows and clashing with police officers. Five people died as a result.
Republicans continue to feed conspiracy theories about the attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, with Fox News leading the way. They’re almost right about one thing: This was the product of a sort of conspiracy—except to the extent that the long-running Republican effort to demonize Pelosi was not secret. Top Republicans have spent well over a decade setting up their supporters to have violent feelings toward Pelosi, and now that someone has acted on that, Republicans are lying about what happened and trying to distract from the fact that the attacker embraced Republican rhetoric.
And he did. “If you got him talking about politics, it was all over,” David DePape’s friend and part-time employer told The New York Times. “Because he really believed in the whole MAGA, ‘Pizzagate,’ stolen election—you know, all of it, all the way down the line.”
RELATED STORY: Republicans are dodging so hard now because they did so much to inspire an attack on Nancy Pelosi
That’s reflected in police accounts of DePape’s break-in and attack on Paul Pelosi.
“Well, she’s No. 2 in line for the presidency, right?” police report DePape told Paul Pelosi, speaking about Nancy Pelosi. He also said, highlighting that this was not just a kidnapping and assault attempt, “we’ve got to take them all out.”
This is a man who listened to prominent Republicans and far-right pundits and influencers and bought into a whole host of conspiracy theories they were pushing, to the point where he broke into the home of the official second in line for the presidency with the intent of at least kidnapping her and breaking her kneecaps with a hammer, but possibly making her the first in an effort to “take them all out.”
Pelosi has the most extensive security of anyone in Congress, because she receives the most threats of anyone in Congress, by far. But The Washington Post offers important context on what the overall threat environment for members of Congress is, and how the nation’s political environment has shaped that. A key fact: “Since 2016, when Donald Trump was elected president, threats of violence against lawmakers recorded by the Capitol Police have surged from roughly 900 cases in 2016 to 9,625 in 2021.” Threats against Pelosi, already high, rose when Trump took office.
This isn’t something that’s just happening organically. Threats against Nancy Pelosi are high because Republicans have put a lot of money and time into making her the face of everything they tell their supporters to fear and hate about Democrats. Threats against Pelosi and Congress more generally rose after 2016 because that is the politics Donald Trump cultivated.
The Post notes that Pelosi isn’t the only member of Congress to have security. Ten members of leadership have regular security, while other members of Congress may have added security when they face specific threats. How that works out is both predictable and instructive: “It has become common over the years to see members on Capitol Hill with agents walking alongside them everywhere they go. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) had personal security in 2017 after a death threat that came from Venezuela, while liberal targets like Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) often appear with security.”
Rubio had security for a while because of one specific death threat coming from outside the country. Ocasio-Cortez and Omar are targeted regularly—and for much the same reason as Pelosi. They’re convenient figures for Republicans to use to incite their base to hate Democrats more. And if that hatred is increasingly expressed through threats and violence, well, the only reason that would worry Republicans is if it looked likely to hurt them politically. Because political power comes well before human life in today’s Republican Party.
K: and some will respond with “whataboutism” and outright lies…
with a big dose of “fake news” and why?
because they have nothing else…
Kropotkin
