The apparent attempt to assassinate Nancy Pelosi last week is yet another sign that the United States faces a de facto insurrection against our democracy from the Republican Party, the revanchist movement it represents, and the violent actors it inspires. The refusal of the Democratic Party to talk about this violent anti-democratic movement as such, and the media’s automatic insistence on presenting increasing incidents of right-wing violence as a “both side do it” problem, indicate that neither institution is close to fully grappling with the depth of a political crisis rooted in GOP authoritarianism, or with their proper roles in responding to it.
Among other thing, the attempt, which ended with a far-right extremist taking a hammer to the head of Pelosi’s husband, should be seen in the context of the January 6 attack on the Capitol and Donald Trump’s broader coup attempt against the United States — as the latest chapter in an ongoing insurrection to overthrow American democracy by a combination of violent and legalistic means. The connection couldn’t be more direct — just as rioters at the Capitol shouted out for “Nancy,” with plans afoot to kill the Democratic leader, Pelosi’s would-be assassin shouted “Where is Nancy?” before attacking Paul Pelosi.
The basic brokenness of the media coverage is evidenced by the fact that this event simply has not dominated the headlines in accordance with its import; as David Roberts predicted, it’s become a one- to two-day story. Instead, the murder attempt has been subsumed into observations about the increase of violent threats against members of Congress, regardless of party. As one New York Times piece notes, of charges filed against those who threatened members of Congress, about a third were by Republicans or Trump supporters, and a fourth were by Democrats. But while we absolutely should not dismiss the reality of threats coming from Democrats as well as Republicans, a broad media default to talking about the “rise of political violence,” as if it is a problem equally common to both parties, is simply misleading. Only one party includes politicians who regularly dehumanize their opponents; only one party encompasses a universe of media outlets and pundits who routinely incite violence against the Democratic Party and its constituents; only one party has made common cause with far-right militias whose very existence is based in the violent overthrow of the United States government; only one party has rallied around a former president who committed a violent coup attempt against American democracy. It’s far too narrow a measure to look at threats against members of Congress; for when we widen our lens to take in the scope of violent political activity across American politics, the great majority of it is coming from the right, in a way that is increasingly systematic and integral to the right-wing’s hopes of rolling back the last 50 or 100 years of American social, racial, gender, and economic progress.
But while it’s disappointing to see this level of media failure, it’s not surprising, given that it’s on a continuum with the studied refusal to choose a side in the existential fight for democracy that we all lived through during the Trump years, and have subsequently experienced during the first two years of the Biden presidency as well. In other words, it’s nothing new, despite the hopes of many that there would have been more evolution, at least in the aftermath of January 6.
More puzzling to me is the obvious institutional decision by the Democratic Party not to foreground this assassination attempt as part of making a larger case against the GOP’s “ultra MAGA” or “semi-fascist” turn (to echo terms used by the White House in recent months). While there are obvious risks to such a tactic — among them, the counter-argument could be made that the would-be assassin was mentally ill and not a fully self-aware political actor, or that the Democrats were engaging in desperate opportunism in the closing days of the midterm campaign — there are also enormous benefits to pointing to a concrete example of the malevolent, murderous level of anti-democratic and anti-Democratic hatred that is now at the center of Republican politics. At a very basic level, how can we expect Democrats to defend America when they cannot even bring themselves to fully denounce the Republican rhetoric and incitement to violence that created this atmosphere in which an assassination attempt against their third-highest official was not only likely, but nearly inevitable? As some stories have pointed out, such as this one in the Washington Post, Pelosi has long been “a target of the collective rage, conspiratorial thinking and overt misogyny that have marked the party’s hard-right turn in recent years.”
Part of the problem is that to date the Democrats have not been making a strong case against GOP and right-wing incitement to violence, so that they were not able to immediately point to the attempted Pelosi assassination as further confirming evidence that they had been speaking the truth about the GOP threat. Instead, were they to make a point of calling out GOP rhetoric and strategies as the necessary preconditions for this attack, it would indeed run the risk of looking opportunistic, given the proximity of the November elections. This isn’t to say that it wouldn’t be a good idea to make a stand now — I think it would be — but to point out the importance of making a consistent, long-term case that the GOP is the party of violence. Beyond just being a crucial and accurate way to communicate the dangerous state of American politics and make clear what side the two parties respectively stand on, this would also prepare the Democrats to encourage a righteous backlash against the GOP whenever political violence occurs — which should be a key strategy in breaking the GOP’s sinister political momentum.
At this point, it should be clear that the GOP’s encouragement of violent rhetoric and violence won’t just stop on its own, since it’s reflective of the current nature of the Republican Party and the forces energizing it. Sure, Republicans might think, perhaps such talk also encourages a few crazy Democrats to threaten Republican members of Congress — but is this really too big a price to pay for the benefits of driving honest election officials out of their jobs, making Americans afraid to attend civil rights protests lest they be attacked by Proud Boys, and helping create a sense that America is beset by crime and violence that a self-declared party of law and order is quite happy to take advantage of?
Another way of saying this is that the GOP has no incentive to stop encouraging violence, because encouraging violence is working for them. And a big part of the reason it’s working for them is that the Democrats have been unwilling to take a concerted stand that makes the GOP pay a political price for it. This, to me, sometimes feels like the single most frustrating fact of American politics. You can see it playing out in the aftermath of the attack on Paul Pelosi. Democrats are basically lamenting GOP rhetoric, and in some cases calling on Republican politicians to dial back their inciting language — which of course the GOP politicians refuse to do, because why would they ever apologize for something they actually believe in, or would want to show weakness to their base by backing down?
In the face of this, Democrats should draw the logical conclusion — that the GOP fully stands by its incitement of violence — and instead start talking nonstop about the GOP’s encouragement of mayhem and murder as basic facts about the party that every American should be aware of. Not incidentally, this would also have some chance of changing the current dynamic in which media largely refuse to take a clear stand on GOP incitement. The point, though, is not simply to hack away at the GOP’s credibility and legitimacy by tying the party to violent rhetoric in the abstract, but by also making the broader point that the violent rhetoric is the inevitable outcome of a party that has been overtaken by the most retrograde elements of American society, and that seeks to remake American politics in its cracked image. Just as violent rhetoric and outright violence serve the GOP by accomplishing what the party can’t achieve by democratic means, calling out this violence is a way of illustrating for the American people how backwards and unpopular the Republican Party’s agenda actually is.
Of course, keeping Republican incitement under public focus won’t be sufficient on its own to rally support for the Democrats. The party must also tie the Republicans’ violent rhetoric with their efforts to subvert elections, which ties into the GOP’s broader opposition to policies that most Americans support, from Social Security and affordable health care to the rights to unionize and marry who you love. The GOP seeks to promote mayhem because it has already lost so many of the battles for what sort of future most Americans want. The Democrats should point to Republican insurrectionism as not just intrinsically bad, but as a glaring indication that the GOP has lost faith in its ability to offer attractive policies that appeal to a majority of Americans.