A Newsletter With An Eye On Political Media from The American Prospect
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A NEWSLETTER WITH AN EYE ON POLITICAL MEDIA

The Pelosi Attack as a Right-Wing Big Laugh

And the New York Times story notwithstanding, the attack had nothing to
do with rising rates of San Francisco homelessness.

As Paul Pelosi, the husband of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi,
who was violently attacked
<[link removed]>
in his home, recovered from a skull fracture and awaited brain surgery,
Kari Lake, Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, and many other Republican leaders
found the entire story of the attack hysterically funny. Virginia Gov.
Glenn Youngkin referenced it to attack the Speaker. Lunatic homophobic
conspiracy theories abounded among Republicans, unsurprisingly promoted
by noted convicted felon Dinesh D'Souza, convicted felon Steve Bannon,
convicted felon Roger Stone, Twitter's new owner (and one day ...)
Elon Musk, Donald Trump Jr. (also perhaps one day soon), all
demonstrating that none have learned from the example set by the
cautionary tale of their fellow hallucinogenicist Alex Jones. Charlie
Kirk sought to raise a defense fund for the antisemitic, QAnon follower,
anti-vaxxer, election denier David DePape, who carried out the attack.
DePape told the cops that had the Speaker been there he would have
busted her kneecaps, "which would show other members of Congress there
were consequences to actions
<[link removed]>."

It's hard to imagine anything that could draw a clearer distinction
between America's two major political parties. It's true that among
the countless murderous attacks and threats made to politicians since
the Trump era began, an extremely small percentage have come from the
left against politicians of the right. But when a deranged leftist shot
Republican representative Steve Scalise at a congressional softball game
in 2017, he was denounced and deplored by literally every well-known
liberal or Democratic politician who offered an opinion. With the
Republicans, however, the embrace of violence, both rhetorical and real,
together with various forms of conspiratorial insanity, is business as
usual. (Fox's Laura Ingraham can be seen demonstrating her
characteristic respect for truth and accuracy on the issue in this
brilliant video
<[link removed]>.)
Denouncing not only the act, but its source, has been left to Never
Trumpers such as David Frum, "Only the GOP Celebrates Political Violence
<[link removed]>";
Max Boot, "Don't Blame 'Both Sides.' The Right Is Driving
Political Violence
<[link removed]>";
and Tom Nichols, "The Dark Heart of the Republican Party
<[link removed]>."

And yet many in the mainstream media have become so inured to this
development-when they are even willing to recognize it at all-that
nothing about it strikes most of its members as all that significant.
The New York Times, the MSM's standard-bearer, barely could find room
on its next-day front page for a report on the attack, running the story
on the bottom corner. The lead story in its top right-hand corner was
one of hundreds of stories it has run about inflation, which just
happens to be one of the Republican Party's two most important
election arguments for this coming November 8. Rather incredibly, the
Times story contained this sentence, as if it were at all relevant to
this bizarre attack (rather than the Republican Party's other main
election talking point): "For San Francisco, the break-in and assault
comes at a time when the city is awash in crises over crime and disorder
in the streets, where open-air drug dealing is commonplace and concerns
over burglaries, especially in wealthy neighborhoods, helped fuel the
successful recall of the city's avowed progressive district attorney,
Chesa Boudin, this year
<[link removed]>."

(Before moving on, take a moment to compare that with the treatment
received when Republican congressman Steve Scalise was shot in an
attempted assassination
<[link removed]>. Now compare it
to just a few days of "HER EMAILS
<[link removed]>.")

By contrast, the Los Angeles Times distinguished itself by reporting,
immediately on October 28
<[link removed]>,
that that this was another case of right-wing violence inspired by
Trumpist/alt-right conspiracy-mongering. It noted that in his "personal
blog <[link removed]> that DePape maintained, posts
include such topics as 'Manipulation of History,' 'Holohoax' and
'It's OK to be white.' He mentioned 4chan, a favorite message
board of the far right. He posted videos about conspiracies involving
COVID-19 vaccines and the war in Ukraine being a ploy for Jewish people
to buy land."

"DePape's screeds," the L.A. paper continued, "included posts about
QAnon,
<[link removed]>
an unfounded theory that former President Trump is at war with a cabal
of Satan-worshipping elites who run a child sex ring and control the
world. In an Aug. 23 entry titled Q, DePape wrote: 'Either Q is Trump
himself or Q is the deepstate moles within Trumps inner circle.'"
DePape even went in for that notion that liberal politicians are
participating in "pedo rape parties and ... kiddie rape orgies," and the
absolutely insane "Pizzagate
<[link removed]>"
story that so many members of the Republican base have embraced and
which almost led to a mass murder in a Washington, D.C., pizzeria in
2016. Trump BFF, and fellow coup plotter, MyPillow chief executive Mike
Lindell was also a mainstay of DePape's posting.

The New York Times, however, led with its apparently unbreakable "both
sides" frame. In its story headlined "Pelosi Attack Highlights Rising
Fears of Political Violence
<[link removed]>"
that ran the following day, readers learned that "Members of Congress
have watched warily in recent years as threats and harassment against
them have crescendoed, privately worrying that the brutal language and
deranged misinformation creeping into political discourse would lead to
actual violence." Finally, on the third day of coverage, the Paper of
Record told its readers the truth that L.A. Times readers had learned in
the immediate aftermath of the attack. In the story headlined "Pelosi,
Vilified by Republicans for Years, Is a Top Target of Threats
<[link removed]>,"
it noted that the attack came after a decades-long campaign by
Republicans to "demonize and dehumanize Ms. Pelosi in increasingly ugly
ways." It's quite a good piece and you should read it all. But what is
most crucial about those attacks are the countless incitements to
violence, subtle and not, that Republicans regularly employ when
discussing the House Speaker. Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), the
highest-ranking Republican in the House, has said, "I want you to watch
Nancy Pelosi hand me that gavel. It will be hard not to hit her with it
<[link removed]>." He
also continued to attack her after the news of the attempted kidnapping
broke. The story further mentioned "Marjorie Taylor Greene's claim
that Pelosi was "guilty of treason," to which she added, "it's a crime
punishable by death, is what treason is." She liked a Facebook post that
advocated "a bullet to the head" for Ms. Pelosi
<[link removed]>,
according to posts unearthed by CNN
<[link removed]>.
She was moreover "a particular fixation of the rioters who stormed the
Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, who hunted for her and menacingly called her
name. 'Bring her out here,' one woman yelled at the Capitol Police.
'We're coming in if you don't bring her out.'" The article noted
a number of other violent threats to her, up to and including murder.
Might this have something to do with the fact that "Since 2018,
Republicans have spent more than $227 million on advertisements
featuring her" that "aired nearly 530,000 times." In 2022 alone,
Republicans have spent over $61 million on 143,000 advertisements that
featured her. In addition, on November 1, four days after its original
misfire, the Times also followed up with this helpful angle: "With
Falsehoods and Ridicule About Pelosi Attack, Republicans Mimic Trump
<[link removed]>."

[link removed]

Back to the Times' bothsidesism: What's the single stupidest
paragraph you've seen this election cycle? Here's my nomination. In
an article headlined "Fears Over Fate of Democracy Leave Many Voters
Frustrated and Resigned
<[link removed]>,"
Jonathan Weisman wrote this: "Of course, just what is threatening
democracy depends on who you talk to. Many Republicans are just as
frustrated, convinced that the threat stems from liberal teachers,
professors or media personalities who they fear are indoctrinating their
children; undocumented immigrants given a path to citizenship; or
Democrats widening access to voting so much that they are inviting
fraud." After resigning in shame, Mr. Weisman (and his editors) might
wish to peruse this article in Mother Jones, "How Wisconsin Became the
GOP's Laboratory for Dismantling Democracy
<[link removed]>,"
to learn the difference between actual evidence and unadulterated
bullshit.

I spent countless hours of my benighted adolescence growing up in
Westchester County at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, New York
<[link removed]>. I was a little young to catch any
of the six shows the Grateful Dead played there in 1971 (though I did
see the New Riders of the Purple Sage a bunch of times). It's been
great, therefore, to be able to see so many Phil Lesh and Friends shows,
which now top more than a hundred. I caught the final night of their
residency this year, which took place on Halloween. Now, Halloween with
Deadheads is a decidedly acquired taste, as is a concert floor where all
the seats (below the balcony) have been torn out to give costumed
Deadheads room to dance and spin. But hey, this iteration of Phil and
Friends, which featured his own son along with Dicky Betts's son on
guitar and David Crosby's son on keyboard, was terrific. It opened
with a long, languid "Dancing in the Street" and peaked with a wonderful
"Help/Slip/Frank," broken up by "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" and closed
out with "Blue Sky," with Duane Betts looking and sounding scarily like
his dad. One always misses Jerry, but Phil's, too, was a "band beyond
description," so I'll just stop right here and let them do the
talking.

Here's "Dancing in the Street
<[link removed]>" and "The
Music Never Stopped
<[link removed]>" (with
the awesome Nicki Bluhm on vocals), and "Frank into Blue Sky
<[link removed]>."

See you next week.

~ ERIC ALTERMAN

Become A Member of The American Prospect Today!
<[link removed]>

Eric Alterman is a CUNY Distinguished Professor of English at Brooklyn
College, an award-winning journalist, and the author of 12 books, most
recently

**We Are Not One: A History of America's Fight Over Israel** (Basic
Books, November 2022). Previously, he wrote The Nation's "Liberal
Media" column for 25 years. Follow him on Twitter @eric_alterman
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