Of course,this is not how it was meant to go. As DePape explained to San Francisco police,he was planning to hold Pelosi hostage until she told him “the truth”.If she lied,he’d break her kneecaps. That way,when she was next wheeled into Congress,her colleagues would know there are consequences for their lies.
These details are contained in the FBI’s affidavit,filed this week. If they’re accurate,we’re looking at a textbook case of terrorism. It is quite plainly violence enacted for a political cause. It even has that performative element so common in terrorism:that it is intended to send a message to a broader audience.
Right now,this sort of thing is exploding. While Paul Pelosi was being assaulted,a Pennsylvania man pleaded guilty to making death threats against a Democrat Congressman. A couple of days before that,three men in Michigan were convicted of a plot to kidnap and kill the Governor for her COVID policies.
And on Monday,a Democrat candidate for the Pennsylvanian Congress was knocked unconscious outside his house. He can’t say for sure that the attack was politically motivated but in the past few weeks – as America’s midterm elections rapidly approach – he’s had someone spray-paint threatening messages on his garage door and throw a brick through a window of his house. Before that,he says,his neighbourhood had no crime.
Now we see all the usual post-terrorism tropes play out. Where once we had September 11 conspiracy theories of an “inside job”,we now have conspiracy theories of the Pelosi attack as a “false flag” operation perpetrated by Democrats to make the far-right look bad (and other far more bizarre ones). Where once we saw attempts to categorise Osama bin Laden as something other than a Muslim,we see attempts to cast DePape as a left-wing,nudist hippy. Where right-wing politicians would castigate Muslims for failing to condemn terrorism clearly enough,now Republicans are largely stopping short of saying that violence is never acceptable,even if they say this is a terrible attack. Some Trumpist commentators have simply mocked the whole thing.
We shouldn’t be terribly surprised at this because,while terrorist attacks vary wildly – and obviously September 11 is light years away from anything like the Pelosi attack – the basic psychology of radicalisation is the same. It is always rooted in a loss of faith in the machinery of conventional politics. This means mainstream political action is insufficient and something more radical is required. From there,extreme action – like violence – becomes a morally viable option,perhaps even a moral necessity. But you can only really act on that once you’ve come to see your enemy as something less than human. Evil,even.