There is a flaw in the construction of "just asking questions" speculations--not all questions are created equally, have equal merit, or come from a place of good faith. When right-wing pundits, gadfly social media owners and even elected officials speculated that there was something "more than met the eye" regarding the break-in at the Pelosi residence and vicious hammer attack on the husband of the Speaker of the House, it's not hard to see what the point of that was--to deflect from the violence in current RW rhetoric and to imply that the Pelosis deserved violence.
Police reports and court filings have now filled in the picture: the break-in appeared on a security camera that hadn't been manned. The assailant had broken in with a hammer. It's been verified, from DePape himself, that he went there with the intent of kidnapping and breaking the kneecaps of Nancy Pelosi if she did not tell the truth, because he believed that the Democratic party, of which she was the leader, was full of lies.
Think about that--what it means to "tell the truth" to a person who believes weird anti-vax, Qanon. and election denier conspiracies. Imagine what having to please a violent, demanding lunatic and say only what pleased him would be like.
If that sounds a little like a metaphor for the bigger picture of how people are coping with the reality of heightened threats of political violence where a media ecosystem exists (Fox News, Newsmax, freaking Mike Lindell TV, whatever that is) that promote unhinged lies and poor mental hygiene--well, bingo.
Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald weighs in on the Paul Pelosi attack:
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) November 2, 2022
"Skepticism itself can never be wrong ... Even if evidence does emerge later on to prove it, the skepticism itself was not just valid, but necessary." pic.twitter.com/4ClCuPMnVb
When an argument is made to dismiss the actual conspiracy theory (that the altercation was not political at all, but that Mr. Pelosi was assaulted by a much younger gay lover/prostitute) by claiming that people were "just asking questions" like responsible skeptics, I smell a rat.
It might be reasonable to hold an open space for the possibility that the assault was committed by someone who was non-political, although the threats against the Speaker are well-known and that it was likely to be political would be irresponsible to dismiss. It is unreasonable to play a game of connect the dots with dots that don't even exist.
(Which also hilariously highlight stereotypical conservative biases--it's San Francisco; what makes more sense than a squalid tussle between an elderly queer sugar-daddy and a hippie hustler? I mean. who the hell else lives in SF?)
But even if the insinuations weren't unnecessary in themselves, the use of an 82-year-old man's fractured skull as a punchline tells be what kind of people we are dealing with--see the title of the post?
It isn't skeptics.
No comments:
Post a Comment