The Paul Pelosi hammer attack is being touted as the latest example of MAGA terror by all the usual suspects. The New York Times Editorial Board declared in a November 3 headline, “America can Have Democracy or Political Violence. Not Both.”
“The attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of the speaker of the House of Representatives, was only the latest episode, and federal officials warn that the threat of violence could continue to escalate after the midterm elections,” the Times wrote.
If the federal government faced a specific and credible threat from individual Trumpers, it would act. Well-publicized arrests would be made, and the offenders would be plastered all over media as the new faces of extremism. In the absence of actionable threats, the project is to create a fear campaign with rampant speculation and vague warnings of coming chaos.
Hillary Clinton went a step further, heading to Twitter to blame mainstream Republicans for the recent violence. In Clinton’s telling, this wasn’t simply the result of one lunatic’s reckless actions. Rather the “hate” and conspiracy theories of the mainstream right are responsible for what occurred in Paul Pelosi’s home.
Though the attacker, David DePape, was anything but a mainstream Republican, and whose nudist activism and drug-oriented San Francisco lifestyle place him far outside of the GOP mainstream, an opportunity to align him with the 73-million-plus people who voted for Trump is, for Clinton and the DNC, a juicy one indeed.
Perhaps the ultimate prize is to link David DePape to the failing January 6 narrative, an effort summed up by Joe Biden himself, who compared DePape’s pursuit of the Pelosis to the January 6 protesters who allegedly asked “Where’s Nancy?” upon entering the Capitol building. “Those were the very same words used by the mob when they stormed the US Capitol,” Biden said.
Gassing up declining alarmism about the Jan 6ers would be a boon to Liz Cheney and her enervated J6 commission. Their drawn-out efforts have been met with shrugs from the Left and outright skepticism from the Right, most notably in a recent MSNBC panel of Trump supporters who looked able and ready to crush J6 Deep Dtate talking points with ease.
The ultimate purpose of this multi-faceted project of fear, as always, is to curtail civil liberties and to pathologize the opinions of a growing number of Americans. America has, for decades, lived under increasing ineptitude and insult from our leaders. The jingoist orientation, contempt for civil liberties, and embrace of strident identity politics characteristic of mainstream DC thinking is starting to resemble the real extremism in our midst.
A red wave is predicted in the 2022 midterms, as populist-right candidates gain traction and visibility. Up-and-coming media stars such as Blake Masters and Kari Lake alarm the ruling class with full-throated rejections of elite dictates. As conservative thinking increasingly resembles common sense to ordinary Americans, we can expect to endure an actual climate crisis: the growing climate of fear and hysteria created by a power-mad class that feels their grip on power weakening.
