Pelosi update

The pendulum is swinging back to the original narrative, that DePape is a violent delusional. It resembles the UK case of the murder of MP Jo Cox and is similarly a gift to those who hate the so-called ‘right wing.’

According to the affidavit of FBI Special Agent Stephanie Minor, a private security guard nearby had seen DePape approaching the residence clad in black and when police searched the intruder’s backpack it contained ‘a roll of tape, white rope, one hammer, one pair of rubber and cloth gloves, and a journal.’

In order to enter, DePape broke glass by the handle of the front door (which he admitted in police questioning) and went to the Pelosis’ bedroom where Paul Pelosi was sleeping. Pelosi said he had never seen the man before and that DePape had demanded to talk to Nancy; told that Nancy was not due home for days, DePape said he would wait.

Pelosi managed to call 911 at 2:23 am and police arrived at 2:31. Despite the call, DePape had not fled because, he told police in subsequent interview, ‘much like the American founding fathers with the British, he was fighting against tyranny without the option of surrender.’

Duly Mirandized, Depape said he had intended to hold Nancy hostage and force ‘the truth’ from her, otherwise he would break her kneecaps and wheel her into Congress to demonstrate that actions had consequences.

DePape has been living in a house garage in Richmond, California for the past two years. Among other items found in a search of the premises were ‘two hammers, a sword, and a pair of rubber and cloth gloves.’

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23245804-depape-fbi-affidavit

Clearly the man is a dangerous lunatic.

Other aspects of this case are also interesting.

Former President Obama has warned of

politicians who 'stir up division to make folks as angry and as afraid of one another ... for their own advantage'

presumably with Donald Trump in mind, though opponents of the Democrats might easily point to the politicised violence and ‘occupied protest’ of June 2020 in Seattle and other disturbances elsewhere.

Similarly,

President Joe Biden denounced the attack on the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi blaming it on extremist rhetoric and urging Americans to reject “political violence.”

The modern American culture of mutual political demonization and refusal to engage in debate has become so perilous that many fear the stirrings of a civil war.

Yet despite his professed abhorrence of political violence Biden himself and many American politicians before him have been happy to support the IRA, partly no doubt to curry favour with US citizens of Irish extraction:

‘As Joe Biden inched closer to the White House last night, his own much-trumpeted Irish roots were placed under the spotlight. He is pictured above with Gerry Adams and IRA fugitive Rita O'Hare’ - Daily Mail, 6 November 2020

And it were tedious to rehearse America’s direct and indirect involvement in regime change and revolutions in so many foreign countries.

Another relevant topic is the culture of gross, unabashed lying and slander. The Internet responded to the Pelosi incident with rumours of drunkenness and homosexual dalliance. For every claim made on the Web there are detailed counter-claims; such a fog of sensational blether that we hardly know what to believe, even about the most basic facts.

Is it down to Show And Tell in US schools, where youngsters are trained in public presentation? Compared to us Brits, Americans seem so much more articulate, sometimes even downright glib. Given that facility of speech, one wonders how court prosecutions can result in reliably correct verdicts.

Still, at this stage of the furore it looks as though the Democrats may indeed be able to use Pelosi’s attacker to tar their opposition with the same brush and so reinforce their own ascendancy over the disadvantaged and brutalised American underclass.