Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2022 | 2 a.m.
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We’ve reached that point in the devolution of what used to be considered common decency when even thoughts and prayers are too much to expect.
I refer, of course, to the Trump, Trumper and “Chief Twit” responses to the hideous Friday attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 82-year-old husband, Paul.
Paul Pelosi’s skull was fractured by someone who before breaking into their San Francisco home shouting, “Where is Nancy?” in an homage to the failed pro-Trump coup of Jan. 6, posted a bunch of delusional MAGA- and QAnon-inspired virtual attacks.
The suspect, David DePape, spewed antisemitism and racism, repeated Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen, and in an August post that DePape’s daughter confirmed to the Los Angeles Times had been written by him, said, “Either Q is Trump himself or Q is the deepstate moles within Trumps inner circle.”
“I’m a little shocked” that DePape acted on his far-right fantasies, his daughter told the paper, “but not really that shocked, in all honesty.”
Donald Trump has weighed in on any number of topics since Pelosi was pummeled with a hammer and had to be rushed into surgery. In the first day alone, the former-but-please-God-never-again president posted about himself, his legal problems, conspiracy theories, allies and antagonists, plus RIP Jerry Lee Lewis.
But here’s what he said about Paul Pelosi:
Nothing, of course. When Trump cultists praise his honesty, what they must mean is not that he tells the truth, but that he doesn’t even pretend not to hate immigrants or Democrats or journalists.
The former president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., made his lack of empathy even clearer, retweeting a photo of underwear and a hammer, captioned, “Got my Paul Pelosi Halloween costume ready.” That the son of an American president could respond so callously to violence against the husband of a House speaker is stunning even now.
Some of those who have spread the same election lies promoted by Trump and swallowed by DePape do at least continue to care enough about the conventions of civilized behavior to wish the speaker’s husband the full recovery that is never guaranteed after a head injury.
Because manners themselves are anti-MAGA — walk ahead of the elderly queen if you feel like it, and shove aside the prime minister of Montenegro because you can — Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Ted Cruz of Texas and Rick Scott of Florida, and Pennsylvania Senate candidate Mehmet Oz stood out just for sending him “get well” messages.
Most Republican officials who dared to do the same are those who have sometimes disagreed with Trump, such as Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and former Vice President Mike Pence, who after he refused to be pressured by the then-president into breaking the law on Jan. 6, 2021, could easily have been killed by the pro-Trump mob shouting, “Hang Mike Pence!”
Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, one of four Republican lawmakers shot in 2017 by an Illinois man who had been “living out of his gym bag” and was upset that Trump had won the presidency, also tweeted, “Disgusted to hear about the horrific assault on Speaker Pelosi’s husband Paul.” I don’t doubt it.
Many elected Trumpers, however, followed the leader and ignored the attack, while others responded to the bludgeoning of an 82-year-old with sick jokes.
Before any facts were known, Fox News personalities blamed the beating on soft-on-crime Democrats instead of questioning the wisdom of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s completely serious suggestion that Pelosi should be executed for treason. Or Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s laugh line that it would be hard to refrain from hitting Nancy Pelosi with the speaker’s gavel if he ever got his hands on it.
Over the past 16 years, the GOP has spent millions every cycle on ads not just opposing but vilifying Pelosi, repeatedly depicting her as the Wicked Witch, a ravenous monster and, scariest of all, a woman who isn’t young.
One nominee for the most heartless reaction to the violence done to Paul Pelosi is Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, who retweeted and then deleted a link from a fake news site suggesting without any evidence that the attack involved a “dispute with a male prostitute.” Along with the link, Musk tweeted that there’s “a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye.”
Or not, right? No wonder Trump is so excited about Musk’s ownership of the platform, where the use of the n-word reportedly increased by 500% on his first day in full control.
When news of the attack first broke, I was so angry that had I written about it then, it would have come out in all caps and begun something like this: “ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?”
At this point, though, we know the answer: Yes, some are.
Dinesh D’Souza, whose film “2000 Mules” also pushes Trump’s big lie about widespread voter fraud, tweeted his delight: “Not only are we not BUYING the wacky, implausible Paul Pelosi story but we are even LAUGHING over how ridiculous it is.”
When I moved to Washington in 1995, more than a few members of Congress and their families still socialized across the aisle. That some current lawmakers, like Ohio Rep. Mike Loychik, who tweeted, “I hope San Francisco dispatched their very best social worker to respond to the brutal assault of Nancy Pelosi’s husband,” now see a politically motivated attack on the speaker’s spouse as too delicious not to make light of would have shamed many in the pre-Trump GOP.
But then, as even those who can’t stop tittering will tell you, that party doesn’t exist anymore.
Melinda Henneberger is a columnist for The Sacramento Bee.
