The Pelosi Attacker Ascends to the Right’s Brotherhood of Perpetual Victimhood
In San Francisco, authorities released videos documenting a residential break-in and assault on Paul Pelosi, the 82 year old husband of the then-Speaker of the House. It clearly showed the veracity of official accounts of the crime, and was released partly in response to widely spread conspiracy accounts amplified by prominent figures and elected officials.
From the New York Times:
“Within hours of the brutal attack last month on Paul Pelosi, the husband of the speaker of the House, activists and media outlets on the right began circulating groundless claims — nearly all of them sinister, and many homophobic — casting doubt on what had happened,”
Coincidentally ???? The Fox News affiliate in San Francisco received and broadcast a recorded phone call a few hours later from the man seen assaulting Pelosi in those videos.
“What I did was really bad,” the man says in the audio. “I’m so sorry I didn’t get more of them. … I should’ve come better prepared.”
From the Washington Post:
Pelosi suffered a skull fracture and serious injuries to his right arm and his hands. He spent six days at a hospital and was expected to make a full recovery.
The attack on Pelosi, which took place a few days before the midterm election that would lead to Democrats losing control of the House, is widely considered an act of political violence. The attacker has said he had intended to kidnap Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who at the time was speaker of the House but has since stepped aside from party leadership…
(My minimizing in using the attacker’s name is deliberate.)
…The targeting of the then-House speaker reinvigorated concerns about the nation’s deeply polarized political culture. The longtime congresswoman has for years been demonized by Republicans, and rioters yelled that they were searching for her while rushing into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Groundless conspiracy theories appeared to have motivated _____, who had published online rants full of racist and antisemitic commentary. He had compiled a list of other targets, he told investigators, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.
The conspiracies spread on the right by high profile people who ought to know better makes a point that should not be ignored, namely the normalization of the glorification of violence.
“Fascism,” wrote author Jay Griffiths, “not only promotes violence but relishes it, viscerally so. It cherishes audacity, bravado and superbias, promotes charismatic leaders, demagogues and ‘strong men’, and seeks to flood or control the media.”
Notably silent was Fox News Tucker Carlson, who likes to say he’s just “asking questions” as he shares unfounded rumors and whose followers respond to those “questions” with death threats aimed at any individual unlucky enough to get caught in the crossfire.
MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan called out Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who initially made a big deal about getting the bodycam footage released as he “asked questions:”
Hasan played a supercut of Carlson demanding the body cam footage.
“We’re not the crazy people, you’re the liars,” Carlson ranted last year over the lack of footage.
Hasan wondered if Carlson will apologize now that the footage has been released and doesn’t support any of the conspiracy theories.
“No, of course not,” he said, answering his own question. “You simply cannot engage in good faith with these people.”
The person arrested told police his original intention was to kidnap Speaker Pelosi (who was in Washington DC at the time) and break her kneecaps if she would say what he wanted to hear. The fact that he admitted to political reasons for this violent attack makes it clear this crime could have been charged as “domestic terrorism.”
As Dean Obiedlla of SIRiUS XM pointed out:
As we’ve seen countless times before, the corporate media is very hesitant to use the word terrorist to describe white Americans. If, of course, an attacker is Muslim, they are instantly called a terrorist. As a Muslim American, that is not only unjust, but it also makes us less safe as a nation. FBI Director Wray stated during that March 2021 testimony that the greatest threat to our nation in terms of terrorism comes from right wing forces from white supremacists to anti-government groups to right wing militias.
The attack on the Pelosi was domestic terrorism under U.S. law—arguably even MAGA terrorism like the Jan 6 attack. That is the way the media should be describing this in order to alert our fellow Americans that the greatest terrorist threat to our nation currently emanates from the white right. Anything else makes us all less safe from terrorism.
The attacker has pleaded not guilty to state and federal counts that include attempted kidnapping of a federal officer and assault on a family member of a federal official. If convicted, he could face life imprisonment.
What’s really a shame in this situation is the crowning of the attacker as part of the brotherhood of perpetual victimhood by right wing media. People living in the Fox News silo will never know about this man’s obvious mental illness problems or that he absorbed right wing media’s regular demonization and deceit as motivation for his attack.
Below in this New York Times graphic are the 21 elected officials, candidates and other prominent figures who spread misinformation or cast doubt on the attack.
***
You can follow me at:
Twitter (for now)---> @DougPorter506
Post —→DougPorter@wordsdeedsblogger
Tribel ——> DougP Porter@dougporter506
Mastodon ——> DougPorter506@mastodon.social
Facebook —----> https://www.facebook.com/WordsAndDeedsBlog
Email me at WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com