Do Republicans bear any blame for the Pelosi attack?

[aubiefifty 18,402]

Do Republicans bear any blame for the Pelosi attack?

Peter Weber, Senior editor

8-10 minutes

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A hammer. Illustrated | Getty Images

 

The Justice Department and San Francisco district attorney's office laid out a handful of federal and local felony charges Monday against David DePape, formally accusing him of breaking into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) home early Friday morning, waking up her 82-year-old husband, Paul Pelosi, and threatening to bind him up for days until his wife came home so he could interrogate her and break her kneecaps to teach Democrats that their unspecified actions have consequences.

The charging documents make clear that Paul Pelosi was the victim of a home invasion by a fully clothed stranger with a hammer who was trying to abduct and harm the speaker of the U.S. House. When Pelosi managed to call 911 from the bathroom, the Justice Department charges, DePape decided not to flee "because, much like the American founding fathers with the British, he was fighting against tyranny without the option of surrender." And when the police arrived and Paul Pelosi rushed to open the door, DePape hit him on the head with a hammer because Pelosi's actions meant he was "taking the punishment instead" of his wife.

San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins told reporters on Monday that the attack was clearly politically motivated, based on DePape's own statements and comments. "It is incumbent upon us all to watch the words we say and to turn down the volume of our political rhetoric," she said.

Republicans have vilified Nancy Pelosi using charged, sometimes violent rhetoric and imagery for more than a decade, and so "for a wide swath of Republicans, Pelosi is Enemy No. 1 — a target of the collective rage, conspiratorial thinking, and overt misogyny that have marked the party's hard-right turn in recent years," The Washington Post reports. Does the Republican Party share any responsibility for this attack?

Of course Republicans brought this on

"Political violence is not an unintended consequence of the MAGA movement," Jennifer Rubin writes at the Post. "Much like Nike's swoosh, it is at the center of the movement's brand." The Republican Party has "spent years normalizing violence and violent rhetoric," and it got worse under former President Donald Trump, culminating in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, where pro-Trump rioters tried to hunt down Pelosi and "hang Mike Pence."

"When the MAGA movement turns someone such as Kyle Rittenhouse, who killed two and injured another during protests following a police shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin, into a folk hero, Republicans hold out the promise of fame to those who follow violent cues," Rubin writes. Also, "when you convince people that politicians are rigging elections, drink babies blood, etc, you will get violence," tweeted Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.).

Republicans have been targeted for violence — Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) was shot at a congressional baseball game, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh and New York gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin were threatened by men with knives — but "Americans should recognize that only one party has instrumentalized this sort of violence," Rubin argues. After those attacks, "no Democratic officeholder cracked jokes about it. Instead, President Biden and other party leaders have swiftly and unequivocally condemned each act of violence regardless of the victim's party."

You can't blame Republicans for a violent individual

Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, who asked an Ohio GOP rally "Are you ready to fire Nancy Pelosi?" hours after the Pelosi attack, told Fox News Sunday that "it's just unfair" to blame Republicans for the violence done to the speaker's husband. "You can't say people saying 'fire Pelosi' or 'take back the House' is saying 'go do violence.'" she said. "If this weren't Paul Pelosi, this criminal would probably be out on the street tomorrow" in liberal San Francisco.

Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, defended his recent "#FirePelosi" video featuring him firing a gun, on CBS's Face the Nation. "I'm sure people like to talk about anything but what the Democrats have done to this country," he said.

There has clearly been "a meteoric rise in the number of threats against public officials in recent years," and the threats are "all over the ideological map," writes Seamus Hughes at George Washington University's Program on Extremism. "Threats against right, left, and center. The central theme is that if you're a public official in the news, you're getting a threat."

More than anything, "it's a reflection of our politics," Hughes adds. "We can't disagree without being more than disagreeable. The mood music of extreme rhetoric without explicit calls for violence results in most not acting but the few that do can draw a straight line to that rhetoric."

Republicans did start this, but Democrats aren't blameless

"As communications director for the Republican National Committee in the 2010 election cycle, I was part of the 'Fire Pelosi' campaign" in 2010 that included "a picture of Pelosi engulfed in flames (fire, get it?)," and its wild financial success "felt like a political gift," Doug Heye writes at the Post. Still, when a gunman shot Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.) in 2011, "we discussed the need to roundly condemn the shooting and to do what we could to make sure none of our more caustic members said the wrong thing," he adds. The GOP attacks on Paul Pelosi suggest that's no longer possible.

"More and more in our politics, the loudest, angriest, most divisive voices get the most attention (and money)," Heye writes. "As a Republican, I know the original sin begins with us," but "if the Republican embrace of Trump represents our sin, Democrats should not be sharpening stones to throw."

Before the aborted attack on Kavanaugh, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he had "released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price" for overturning Roe v. Wade, for example, Heye notes. "Now, was Schumer calling for supporters to attack Kavanaugh? Of course not. No more so than an old political banner led to last week's assault of Paul Pelosi. But what we say is often not what people hear and everyone in political life has a duty to do better."

But Republicans are still attacking the Pelosi family

"I think Pelosi's attacker is a lot like the guy who shot Scalise," but "there are two differences," writer Tom Nichols suggests. First, "there seem to be a lot more unstable people motivated to violence on the right," and second, "more pundits on the right celebrating the violence." But "this incident feels like a turning point," and not for the better," he adds. "If we're not going to ostracize people who are yukking it up over taking a hammer to a man in his 80s, then we're a different society."

Regardless of what Republicans did before the attack, many of them have continued making it worse and trying to "justify the violence" by spreading "insane, offensive, and false conspiracy theories" about the attack, including the "deranged smear" that Paul Pelosi was in a sexual relationship with the man who nearly killed him, CNN's Jake Tapper said Monday night. "In addition to being an inhuman and inhumane response to a tragedy, it's a lie," and "part of the same sickness that got Paul Pelosi injured to begin with."

The conspiracy about "Paul Pelosi's leftist gay lover" will almost certainly "be accepted by a sizable percentage of the GOP base" within a week, because the right has carefully nurtured a "parallel media ecosystem" tailor-made "to create and propagate conspiracy theories like the latest drivel about the Pelosi attack" Matt Gertz writes at Media Matters. "Sprawling conspiracy theories like 2020 election denial, QAnon, Pizzagate, and Gamergate — all of which DePape had championed — worked their way through these networks."

The right-wing conspiracy theories that sprung up around the Pelosi assault also aim to make the attack about "the depravity of the left," Gertz adds. "They cannot accept that the assailant believed right-wing conspiracy theories without taking on responsibility, so they've developed an alternate explanation instead." Democrats don't have anything like this — or any way to pierce the right-wing bubble.

[I_M4_AU 9,023]

No, it was totally the fault of an insane man.

[aubiefifty 18,402]

12 minutes ago, I_M4_AU said:

No, it was totally the fault of an insane man.

mind if i use your toilet?

[I_M4_AU 9,023]

14 minutes ago, aubiefifty said:

mind if i use your toilet?

I understand your reference now that I read you other post.  Sure if you can make it here to NC I have a bathroom you can use.  You might find the nearest rest stop as it would be closer.

[aubiefifty 18,402]

Just now, I_M4_AU said:

I understand your reference now that I read you other post.  Sure if you can make it here to NC I have a bathroom you can use.  You might find the nearest rest stop as it would be closer.

hey maybe i can fertilize your garden this spring..............i am cheap lol

[I_M4_AU 9,023]

Just now, aubiefifty said:

hey maybe i can fertilize your garden this spring..............i am cheap lol

Hopefully your issue will be solved by then. 🤞

[icanthearyou 4,468]

The cult narrative is:  Democrats want to destroy our country.

This lie alone has severely damaged our country, our society.

[SaltyTiger 8,633]

Do Republicans bear any blame for the Pelosi attack?

no

[Cardin Drake 2,085]

When the dome of silence drops and the press gets strangely incurious about obvious questions, there is probably much more to the story than is being told. It's too early to assign blame because we don't know what actually happened.  White hot campaign rhetoric has inflamed both sides, but I'm skeptical that is what has happened here. I don't think the facts will come out until after the election.

[icanthearyou 4,468]

The question is not about blame.  The question is more about their total lack of empathy.

One of the biggest reasons I no longer vote Republican is their lack of basic human decency in the political realm.

[homersapien 12,281]

5 hours ago, Cardin Drake said:

When the dome of silence drops and the press gets strangely incurious about obvious questions, there is probably much more to the story than is being told. It's too early to assign blame because we don't know what actually happened.  White hot campaign rhetoric has inflamed both sides, but I'm skeptical that is what has happened here. I don't think the facts will come out until after the election.

Obviously, the (direct) blame must be assigned to the guy who did it.

But that's not really the point.  The point is, who is most responsible for setting the political cultural tone of evil and hate?

(And a corollary to promoting that climate, who is portraying the consequences of that culture into a joke and not to be taken seriously):

https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-jr-mocks-paul-pelosi-attack-halloween-costume-tweet-2022-10

 

Edited November 4, 2022 by homersapien

[homersapien 12,281]

22 hours ago, SaltyTiger said:

Do Republicans bear any blame for the Pelosi attack?

no

Curious Salty,  do you think Republicans bear any blame for introducing the generalized prospect of using violence against the political opposition as possibly appropriate?

[SaltyTiger 8,633]

4 hours ago, homersapien said:

Curious Salty,  do you think Republicans bear any blame for introducing the generalized prospect of using violence against the political opposition as possibly appropriate?

Not anymore than I do social media rhetoric of the day. Do you see it appropriate for our president to connect this attack to republicans? Guy has more problems than political alliances. You are way to smart not to realize. 
 

Much more concerned about the very real violence I see by visiting New Orleans. 

[homersapien 12,281]

29 minutes ago, SaltyTiger said:

Not anymore than I do social media rhetoric of the day.

 

How about Trump's suggestion that "maybe the 2nd Amendment people" can stop Clinton's supreme court picks?

Was that the fault of social media or did it just reinforce it?

 

Only the GOP Celebrates Political Violence

Both parties suffer partisan bloodshed. One glorifies it.

By David Frum

Oct. 29 2022

In March 2020, a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives posted a video message addressed to two Democratic political candidates that issued a threatening challenge if they passed laws he did not like. Standing in his Capitol Hill office, Ken Buck of Colorado’s Fourth District gestured toward a rifle mounted on the wall.

“I have a message for Joe Biden and Beto O’Rourke. If you want to take everyone’s AR-15 in America, why don’t you swing by my office in Washington, D.C., and start with this one.” At this point, Buck reached for a stars-and-stripes-decorated rifle mounted on the wall. He brandished the weapon, smiled what he must have imagined was a tough-guy smile, and said, “Come and take it.”  (Was this social media or rhetoric straight from a politician's mouth?)

At the time the video was released, Biden was the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. Normally, the Secret Service takes an interest in threats of violence against potential presidents. I could find no indication that it did so in this case. It probably understood—as most of us would understand—that Buck would never make good on his threat to assassinate political opponents if they enacted gun-control legislation. He was only performing a threat, in a way that has become dully familiar in American politics.  (In other words, fanning the violent rhetoric of social media.)

Missouri Governor Eric Greitens resigned in disgrace in 2018 after facing allegations that he had used explicit photographs to blackmail a former lover. He tried to revive his career with a Senate run in 2020. Guns became a major theme of that campaign, culminating in a video ad that pictured him carrying a gun as he broke open the door of a house. Accompanied by two armed goons, he urged: “Get a RINO-hunting permit. There’s no bagging limit, no tagging limit, and it doesn’t expire until we save our country.” (Was this social media or rhetoric straight from a politician's mouth?)

Facebook removed the ad. Greitens said his threat against “Republicans in Name Only” was intended humorously.

And it’s not only marginal Republican backbenchers and embittered ex-officeholders who threaten violence.

Don’t miss what matters. Sign up for The Atlantic Daily newsletter.

In his campaign to become Georgia’s governor in 2018, Brian Kemp released an ad in which he pointed a hunting rifle at a seemingly frightened young man who wanted to date Kemp’s daughter.

Dan Crenshaw—one of the most intelligent Republicans in the House, someone who ought to be a next-generation party leader—in January released a deliberately absurd ad that cast him as a movie superhero. All in good fun, until the final scene that showed him apparently smashing a car windshield to reach and destroy two lurking political adversaries.

I could list many similar examples over dozens more paragraphs. But here’s the point: There’s nothing partisan about political violence in America. It has struck Republicans such as Steve Scalise, who was shot along with four others and nearly killed, as he played baseball in suburban Virginia. The gunman was a Bernie Sanders supporter who had traveled from Illinois with a legally purchased weapon and a target list of Republican members of Congress. It has threatened conservatives such as Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, stalked by a would-be assassin angry about the overturning of Roe v. Wade. And it has struck citizens of very different persuasions as they took part in street protests—as when Kyle Rittenhouse, acting as an armed vigilante, gunned down two demonstrators in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in August 2020, and when Michael Forest Reinoehl, a self-described anti-fascist, hunted and killed a political enemy in Portland in September.

But if both Republicans and Democrats, left and right, suffer political violence, the same cannot be said of those who celebrate political violence. That’s not a “both sides” affair in 2020s America.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/10/pelosi-republicans-partisan-political-violence/671934/

I am not trying to argue that Republicans are equivalent to "social media" or many other things off the internet. (Well, except for a few like MTG, who is just as bad.)

I am saying Republicans are empowering these (crazy) folks by tacitly making the use of violence sound acceptable.  They are reinforcing fantasies - if not actual intentions - of doing so. 

And that's deliberate.  They are making an appeal to such people for their votes. 

Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.

 

Edited November 5, 2022 by homersapien

[homersapien 12,281]

30 minutes ago, SaltyTiger said:

Much more concerned about the very real violence I see by visiting New Orleans. 

Maybe if you were a poll worker getting threatening phone calls, you'd feel differently.

Do you really think those calls aren't coming from MAGA Republicans?

 

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-trump-georgia-threats/

Trump-inspired death threats are terrorizing election workers

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-election-threats-law-enforcement/

U.S. election workers get little help from law enforcement as terror threats mount

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-election-threats/

Reuters unmasks Trump supporters who terrified U.S. election officials

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-election-threats-georgia/

Trump campaign demonized two Georgia election workers – and death threats followed

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-threats-georgia-exclusiv-idCAKBN2IP0VZ

Exclusive-Two election workers break silence after enduring Trump backers' threats

 

 

 

 

Edited November 5, 2022 by homersapien

[SaltyTiger 8,633]

17 minutes ago, homersapien said:

Maybe if you were a poll worker getting threatening phone calls, you'd feel differently.

Do you really think those calls aren't coming from MAGA Republicans?

 

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-trump-georgia-threats/

Trump-inspired death threats are terrorizing election workers

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-election-threats-law-enforcement/

U.S. election workers get little help from law enforcement as terror threats mount

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-election-threats/

Reuters unmasks Trump supporters who terrified U.S. election officials

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-election-threats-georgia/

Trump campaign demonized two Georgia election workers – and death threats followed

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-threats-georgia-exclusiv-idCAKBN2IP0VZ

Exclusive-Two election workers break silence after enduring Trump backers' threats

 

 

 

 

Have no clue who they are coming from and neither do you. Hopefully they don’t  drive down the wrong street in NOLA.

[homersapien 12,281]

Just now, SaltyTiger said:

Have no clue who they are coming from and neither do you. Hopefully they don’t  drive down the wrong street in NOLA.

Any rational person who is vaguely familiar with MAGA "Trump won" politics, has got a pretty good idea about who is threatening poll workers.

Just as those reports indicated.

[SaltyTiger 8,633]

25 minutes ago, homersapien said:

Was that the fault of social media or did it just reinforce it?

Yes. People like you flamed that fan. Attendees took as the joke intended. Think that was in Panama City. 

[SaltyTiger 8,633]

1 minute ago, homersapien said:

Any rational person who is vaguely familiar with MAGA "Trump won" politics, has got a pretty good idea about who is threatening poll workers.

Just as those reports indicated.

I have no knowledge of anyone threatening poll workers. I also do not spend time on on social media or the internet searching for the few times it may occur. 

[homersapien 12,281]

6 minutes ago, SaltyTiger said:

Yes. People like you flamed that fan. Attendees took as the joke intended. Think that was in Panama City. 

Did that really sound like a "joke" to you?

Suggesting people with guns could address political appointees they don't like is funny?

[SaltyTiger 8,633]

Just now, homersapien said:

Did that really sound like a "joke" to you?

Suggesting people with guns could address political appointees they don't like is funny?

Poor humor but yes. 

[homersapien 12,281]

Just now, SaltyTiger said:

I have no knowledge of anyone threatening poll workers. I also do not spend time on on social media or the internet searching for the few times it may occur. 

Well, I suggest you start paying attention to the news and educate yourself.  Such obliviousness of patriotic citizens - such as yourself - represents part of the danger to our country.

You can start with those news articles I posted.

[arein0 1,109]

5 minutes ago, SaltyTiger said:

I have no knowledge of anyone threatening poll workers. I also do not spend time on on social media or the internet searching for the few times it may occur. 

I have no knowledge of anyone threatening poll workers so it must be fake news

[homersapien 12,281]

9 minutes ago, SaltyTiger said:

Poor humor but yes. 

Well, I suppose that makes you part of the problem. 

Proposing the idea of using guns as a political solution is about as undemocratic as it gets.  And if don't recognize that, perhaps I gave you too much credit when I said you were a patriotic American.

 

Edited November 5, 2022 by homersapien

[SaltyTiger 8,633]

9 minutes ago, arein0 said:

I have no knowledge of anyone threatening poll workers so it must be fake news

Did not say it was fake. Sure it happens.