The violence stalking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is a grave danger to the United States
This isn’t the first time a deranged person hunted for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Political violence stalked one of the most powerful women in the history of American politics even before her 82-year-old husband was attacked in their San Francisco home early Friday by a suspect demanding, “Where is Nancy?”
The price Pelosi and her family paid for their power and success has always been daunting. But with each new jeer and insult from her political rivals, many of them laden with hate and misogyny, the threat of violence has come perilously closer to the California congresswoman.
Not enough is known about David DePape, the suspect in the assault on Paul Pelosi, to be certain about his motive for attacking Pelosi. But news outlets such as CNN reported that he had posted conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection on Facebook. DePape’s relatives confirmed that the account was his and told the network that he was estranged from his family, while an acquaintance said he seemed “out of touch with reality.‘’
While we wait for more information about DePape, we already know that conspiracy theories and threats of violence have entered mainstream American politics. And we know that those most invested in the political downfall of Pelosi routinely use violent imagery to activate their base.
Pelosi has reason to worry about some of her own Capitol Hill colleagues as well as the people listening to them.
Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, for example, said earlier this year that if the Justice Department investigated former President Donald Trump, there would be “blood in the streets.” At a fundraiser last year, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy joked that if Pelosi handed him the speaker’s gavel — as is the custom when the House leadership changes — “it would be hard not to hit her with it.” (A McCarthy flack later claimed that the California Republican was “obviously joking.”) Marjorie Taylor Greene, the conspiracy-theorizing Republican congresswoman from Georgia, called Pelosi “a traitor to our country.”
Illustrating the danger of such rhetoric, insurrectionists storming the U.S. Capitol last year were hunting for the speaker just as the man who broke into her home apparently was. “Oh, Nancy!’ some shouted as the mob searched for her in vain.
Does anyone wonder what that mob would have done if it had found Pelosi? And what if she had been home in San Francisco on Friday instead of in Washington?
Political violence has been an intermittent reality of American politics since the nation was founded, but the abuse routinely visited on Pelosi is different and extreme. She has become a symbol of female and Democratic leadership that her rivals seem motivated not only to defeat but to destroy.
When extremist mobs and individuals go searching for blood, who is one of their favorite targets? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
On Jan. 6, 2021, we lost the precious distinction of being a nation where power had been transferred without bloodshed for over a century and a half. The threat of political violence is now normal.
That’s where we are now in this nation. That’s who we have become. If we continue on this trajectory, the targets of violence will only grow longer.
A recent New York Times poll found that voters are broadly concerned about democracy but don’t consider saving it a priority. If that’s true, it explains the danger Pelosi faces, and the danger we all face.
This story was originally published October 28, 2022 at 12:52 PM with the headline "The violence stalking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is a grave danger to the United States."
