The dangers of stochastic terrorism continue to rise, led by the ex-president. The suspect who allegedly targeted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and brutally beat her husband Paul with a hammer after breaking into their San Francisco home late last week was charged in federal court on Monday with assault and attempted kidnapping. A trail of recent social media activity indicates that 42-year-old David DePape was fixated on a toxic brew of far-right conspiracy theories and may have been delusional and suicidal. On Monday, evidence emerged suggesting that DePape was motivated at least in part by demagoguery espoused at great length by Donald Trump and his allies in the Republican Party. According to an FBI criminal complaint, DePape told police investigators that he’d intended to kidnap Nancy Pelosi, who was in Washington at the time, and to “break her kneecaps” while interrogating her. In an echo of the January 6 insurrection, he had zip ties with him for his planned hostage-taking and assault. DePape further stated that he regarded Pelosi as the “leader of the pack” of lies told by the Democratic Party, and that he saw himself as similar to Americans during the Revolutionary War, “fighting against tyranny without the option of surrender.” Wherever DePape may fall on the continuum of deeply aggrieved to mentally ill, his case is Exhibit A for the escalating dangers of stochastic terrorism—a method of rhetorical incitement that Trump brazenly ushered into the American presidency and successfully spread throughout the GOP. By continually vilifying alleged political enemies while in office, Trump emboldened far-right extremists, giving rise to white-supremacist violence and the January 6 insurrection. There is no both sides-ing this problem, despite assertions to that effect by Fox News pundits and Republican officials in the days since the harrowing assault at the Pelosi’s home. While examples of politically motivated threats and attacks have also emerged from the left in recent years, including the 2017 mass shooting at a congressional baseball practice and a recent plot to assassinate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the collective behavior by leaders of the Trump-dominated Republican Party has zero equivalence across the aisle.
via mother jones: Yes, Trump and the Republican Party Own the Attack on Paul and Nancy Pelosi
