New analysis exposes years of far-right GOPers' staging of disturbing attacks against Pelosi

29 October 2022

A new analysis is exposing the real timeline of staged attacks against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) while explaining why it should not be a surprise that the lawmaker and her husband were the victims of a home invasion.

The report, collectively written by The Washington Post's Ashley Parker, Hannah Allam, and Marianna Sotomayor, sheds light on how far-right Republicans have been depicting the top-ranking Democratic lawmaker as a target for several years. In fact, some have even suggested that she be assassinated.

In the report, the writers highlighted how the alleged home invasion assailant, identified as 42-year-old David Depape, has a history of echoing conspiracy theories. They also suggested that the Republican Party's disturbing rhetoric may also be a contributing factor to the uptick in politically charged threats and violence.

According to the Post, "For many Democrats, the attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband represents the all-but-inevitable conclusion of Republicans’ increasingly violent and threatening rhetoric toward their political opponents — a phenomenon that escalated under former president Donald Trump, who prided himself on his inflammatory oratory and who was often reluctant to denounce white nationalists and others spewing hate speech."

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) also said, "Sadly this attack was inevitable. Political violence is on the rise. And instead of GOP leaders condemning it, they condone it with silence or, even worse, glorification.”

As an example, the writers referenced the history of controversial remarks made by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). On multiple occasions, the conspiracy-driven lawmaker has encouraged threats against Pelosi.

"But the threats against Pelosi have often been particularly ferocious and date back more than a decade, when Republicans worked to make her one of the faces of former president Barack Obama’s health-care law," they wrote.

"More recently, CNN reported that in 2018 and 2019, Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) — who was elected to Congress in 2020 and quickly became known for her conspiracy theory-laden views — repeatedly expressed support for executing prominent Democratic politicians, including Pelosi."

"Greene liked a Facebook comment that said 'a bullet to the head would be quicker' as a way of removing Pelosi as speaker, CNN found. And in a video of a speech Greene gave promoting a 2019 petition she’d launched to impeach Pelosi for 'crimes of treason,' Greene calls Pelosi 'a traitor to our country' and says the speaker could be executed for treason," with Greene sen stating in a video, "It’s a crime punishable by death — is what treason is. Nancy Pelosi is guilty of treason.”

Michael Jensen, with the START consortium for terrorism research at the University of Maryland, also expounded on some of the problems that could arise when some individuals are targeted.

"If somebody sets their sights on these individuals and then they decide to mobilize, there’s virtually nothing stopping them,” Jensen said, later adding, "There was an opportunity for the more moderate elements of the Republican Party to distance themselves from the more radical elements and marginalize them, and be the start of the end of this wave. The exact opposite happened. What we saw instead was a doubling down on moving extremism into the mainstream.”

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