Hillary Clinton joined those expressing serious concern about the direction of the Republican Party after a recent attack on Paul Pelosi, husband to House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Far-right assailant David DePape attacked Paul with a hammer and was apparently looking for the Speaker.
The Congresswoman’s husband suffered injuries to the head and went into surgery but is recovering. Online, DePape shared conspiracy theories including nonsense from Mike Lindell, who leads MyPillow and somehow became a leading face of pro-Trump movements challenging the basic foundation of American elections. It’s just the latest instance — well, one of the latest examples — of political violence or the threat of it. Besides the obvious Capitol riot, multiple mass shootings in the U.S. in recent years have been carried out by individuals espousing extremist ideologies, and in Arizona, extremists with guns and tactical gear have gathered outside drop boxes for mail-in ballots, photographing voters and posting those images online — potentially exposing those voters to god-knows-what in terms of further harassment. A federal judge ordered those efforts essentially stopped this week.
“There’s always been a streak of violence, of racism, misogyny, anti-Semitism,” Clinton said on MSNBC. “But I think what we’re seeing today, and it has certainly been thrown into very high relief by the horrific attack on Paul Pelosi, is not just an aberration, where one or two people or a small group engage in that kind of violent rhetoric and urge people to take action against political figures, like her, like me, like others. We’re seeing a whole political party and those who support it, those who enable it, those who run under its banner, engaging in behavior that is so dangerous and I find frankly disqualifying for people who are running for office. This midterm election, we’ve seen a lot of ads by Republicans running for everything touting crime, crime is the issue. But when an 82-year-old man is attacked by an intruder in his own home, they don’t seem to be too bothered by that, because that person is married to the Speaker of the House who’s of a different political party.”
Clinton also addressed troubling comments recently made by Tim Michels, the Republican pick for governor in this year’s Wisconsin elections. Wisconsin is known as a swing state — Trump won there in 2016, but Biden prevailed in 2020. “Republicans will never lose another election in Wisconsin after I’m elected governor,” Michels pledged. His campaign pointed those with questions to vague ideas about the candidate simply meaning Wisconsites would choose to vote for Republicans, but worries emerged about what GOP-favoring procedural changes Michels might impose. Michels hasn’t dismissed the idea of trying to invalidate the results of the 2020 presidential election in Wisconsin — something for which there is no legal (or logical) foundation, although an attempt at doing so could nonetheless conceivably create legal chaos. He won’t commit to certifying the presidential election results in 2024 — when Trump could run again. Similarly, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) has refused to commit to accepting the results of this year’s elections, in which he is also going before voters.
“They’re looking to impose one-party rule with zero accountability to voters, and they’re not being subtle about it,” Clinton warned her followers of Republicans. Polls show the Wisconsin governor and Senate races are close.
Republicans claim you should vote for them because they're tough on crime.
But when one of their cult members commits a crime against Paul Pelosi, they couldn't care less. pic.twitter.com/GnLMv1ggSc
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) November 2, 2022
They're looking to impose one-party rule with zero accountability to voters, and they're not being subtle about it. https://t.co/ElaAtUOhOx pic.twitter.com/WEapgsKrhl
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) November 2, 2022
