This is the fifth installment of an exclusive Occupy.com series about the modern Republican Party’s embrace of fascism as a political strategy. Click the hyperlinks to read parts one, two, three, and four.
With the 2022 midterm elections rapidly approaching, a wave of mass political violence appears likely regardless of which party controls Congress. As explored in part one of this series, one chief tactic of fascism dating back to 1920’s Italy is violent vigilantism and intimidation to silence and control political opponents. This particular type of politically driven violence is not only spreading unchecked across the United States, but is being enabled by national institutions – namely, the courts and the media. If we fail to prepare to counter fascist political violence, it will only worsen heading into the 2024 election cycle.
Political violence is skyrocketing across the country
Contrary to the far right’s pre-election narratives about crime supposedly on the rise, violent crime is actually trending downward. An analysis of crime data by Statista found that the violent crime rate in the United States is roughly the same now as it was in 2016, and in fact, the violent crime rate actually dropped in 2021 compared to 2020. However, political violence is currently at a fever pitch, and virtually all of it is carried out by far-right extremists.
On October 26, three men were convicted of attempting to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D), hatching the plot in response to Gov. Whitmer’s Covid-19 prevention measures in 2020. Two days later, a Pennsylvania man pleaded guilty for threatening to murder Congressman Eric Swalwell (D-California) and his Congressional staff. Swalwell is far from the only Congressional Democrat who has been threatened: In July, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington) was threatened at her home by a man armed with a 40-caliber handgun. That same month, a Florida man pleaded guilty to emailing a death threat to Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) and three other Congresswomen. The man’s daughter testified that the man did so “because [former President Donald] Trump told him to.”
It isn’t just elected officials that are being targeted by politically motivated violence – ordinary citizens have also had recent confrontations with fascists. On October 24, the Proud Boys (a far-right gang involved in the January 6 insurrection) mobilized on the campus of Penn State University as the group’s founder, Gavin McInnes, was scheduled to give a talk.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, one initiation ritual for Proud Boys members is to earn their “fourth degree” by getting into street brawls with protesters. And as photojournalist Zach Roberts described in a firsthand account of a confrontation with the Proud Boys, one member of the gang initiated a “scuffle” with counter-protesters while police stood by and failed to intervene. Then, another Proud Boy assaulted a crowd with bear mace:
In response to the scuffle, which the law enforcement did absolutely nothing to prevent, they brought in riot police on horseback. No warning was given to the students as the horses charged in, many coming close to trampling protesters. In fact, the police response, or lack thereof, has led to an uproar of criticism on campus and in the community.
Soon after the police blocked off the entrance with horses, they detained a protester. It was the only arrest this reporter witnessed throughout the evening.
Police again, standing by, stood back and watched. After about a minute of being bumped around and refusing to leave the area, one of the men released a stream of bear mace hitting multiple people around him. This included myself, another video journalist Ford Fischer and several student protesters.
The group ran past the still complacent police, one stopped for a moment as if to check in on them. No arrests were made, or attempted.
The bear macing seemed to have been what finally caused the administration to cancel the event. However, Penn State’s administration issued a statement blaming the cancellation on protesters: “We have encouraged peaceful protest, and, while protest is an acceptable means of expression, it becomes unacceptable when it obstructs the basic exchange of ideas. Such obstruction is a form of censorship, no matter who initiates it or for what reasons.”
Even in situations where political violence has the potential to break out, institutions meant to maintain order are failing to meet the moment. In Arizona, a group calling itself “Clean Elections USA” has been staking out 24-hour ballot drop boxes in Maricopa County (the state’s most populous) and elsewhere, filming video of voters as they drop off their midterm election ballots. In Mesa, Arizona, vigilantes carrying weapons and wearing tactical vests were seen near drop boxes. Maricopa County Sheriff Paul Penzone said he’s been forced to devote “considerable” resources to monitoring the group “just to give people confidence they can cast a vote safely.”
Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who is the state’s Democratic gubernatorial nominee, condemned the group’s actions as voter suppression and intimidation. But advocacy group Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans’ petition for an injunction against the group proved unsuccessful last Friday, when US District Judge Michael Liburdi argued an injunction would be a violation of the vigilantes’ First Amendment rights.
Liburdi, an alumnus of the Federalist Society (a shadowy right-wing organization that has six of its members on the US Supreme Court), was appointed to the District of Arizona by Donald Trump in 2019. At age 47, his lifetime appointment to the federal bench will likely give him outsized influence in legal proceedings affecting the Grand Canyon State for decades to come.
Mainstream media is enabling right-wing political violence
As a young journalist, one cliche I heard often in newsrooms was, “if it bleeds, it leads.” This phrase was used to explain why stories about car crashes, fires, and shootings were always at the top of nightly newscasts and on the front pages of newspapers. But curiously, when a far-right assailant with a hammer carried out a home invasion and nearly murdered House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, while allegedly shouting “where’s Nancy,” the story didn’t even make it above the fold on the next day’s issue of the New York Times (comparatively, the story about a Republican lawmaker getting shot at the Congressional baseball game in 2017 was the lead story on the paper’s front page).
The alleged assailant’s motive was unquestionably political. According to court documents, the man told police that his goal was to kidnap Speaker Pelosi and break her kneecaps so that she would have to be “wheeled into Congress.” When police searched his backpack, they found a roll of tape, a white rope, a hammer, and a journal. Police also said the man had a list of other targets to potentially assault had he gotten away from the Pelosi home unscathed.
The alleged attacker’s social media profiles were filled with various right-wing conspiracy theories regularly stoked by right-wing politicians and media personalities. Local media reported that the suspect shared a video from MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell claiming the 2020 election was supposedly stolen from Trump, unfounded allegations about Covid-19 vaccines causing fatalities, and debunked arguments that George Floyd’s death was caused by a drug overdose rather than by Derek Chauvin. He also subscribed to the QAnon conspiracy theory that both Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) and former President Donald Trump have amplified.
The context in which a politically motivated assassination attempt on the third most powerful person in the United States government was reported in conservative media was even worse.
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Fox News contributor Caitlyn Jenner – who herself killed a 69-year-old woman with her car in 2015 – brushed off arguments that the attack was a “partisan issue,” and put blame for the incident on Pelosi, suggesting she should have had more adequate security.
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In the aftermath of the attack, Fox News host Jesse Watters suggested the assailant should have been bailed out the next day, saying “a lot of people get hit with hammers.”
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Arizona Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake insinuated to Fox News host Laura Ingraham that the attack was actually the fault of “leftist elected officials.”
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Fox News personality-turned-Trump administration official Monica Crowley tweeted “the Pelosi house is the kind of place that looks normal but has all kinds of crazy ass stuff going on behind closed doors.”
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Billionaire Elon Musk, who just acquired Twitter, tweeted and then deleted an article from a disinformation source amplifying a baseless conspiracy theory about Paul Pelosi. That same source had previously published an article claiming former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had died on the campaign trail and was replaced by a body double.
The lackadaisical approach conservative media is taking toward a clearly politically motivated assault has been perhaps viewed as a green light for right-wing political figures to adopt a similar tone – none of which bodes well for hopes of calmer rhetoric.
Republicans are priming their base for more political violence
Conservative politicians have largely laughed off the attempted assassination and used it as fodder to score political points. Republican Royce White, who is running against Ilhan Omar, baselessly suggested Pelosi was “assaulted during a gay lovers’ sex quarrel.” Rep. Clay Higgins (R-Louisiana) tweeted and deleted a post referring to the man who almost murdered Nancy Pelosi’s husband as a “nudist hippie male prostitute LSD guy.” Kari Lake cracked a joke during a political rally about the politically motivated murder attempt. Donald Trump Jr. retweeted a supporter who posted a photo of a pair of briefs and a hammer as their “Paul Pelosi Halloween costume.”
“The internet remains undefeated,” Donald Trump Jr. tweeted.
This is a sharp contrast from the 2017 shooting of Rep. Steve Scalise (R-Louisiana) at the Congressional baseball game, when House Democrats stopped their own game to pray for the Republican Whip after he and several staffers were shot by an assailant with clear-cut political motives. As NBC News reported at the time, the attacker asked then-Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Florida) whether or not those playing on the baseball diamond were Republicans or Democrats before he opened fire. The shooter’s social media history was full of posts critical of President Donald Trump and other Republicans. And yet, liberal media figures still made sure to publicly express condolences for Scalise and root for his recovery.
“Obviously everyone in the country is pulling for your colleague, Steve Scalise, and all the people that were injured today,” MSNBC host Chris Hayes said to Reps. Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) and Leonard Nance (R-New Jersey) on the night of the shooting. “They’re in our thoughts. They’ve been in our thoughts all day.”
When blatant acts of severe political violence are not condemned by both parties, the followers of the party that laughs it off will naturally become emboldened to carry out more of it. And when the media figures that recklessly propagate lies for the sake of firing up an audience for clicks and revenue go unchallenged, that disinformation can lead to the radicalization of other would-be terrorists to continue carrying out more violent acts for the sake of the cause.
The best form of immediate accountability would be for Republicans to suffer massive losses in the upcoming midterms, or at least to fail to capture a chamber of Congress. If not, the trend of right-wing political violence will reach a boiling point, possibly right on time for the 2024 presidential election.
“If we don’t cut this out right now – not just the normalization of violence, but the idea that reality can’t even exist anymore because it cannot catch up to lies on the internet… this is how it gets really bad,” NBC News reporter Ben Collins recently said, in reference to Elon Musk’s tweet about Paul Pelosi. “If you are getting the guardrails off of truth to where it literally cannot catch up with lies on the internet… then that’s how you lose your democracy.”
