The brutal attack on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband over the weekend builds on years of Republican demonizing of the Democratic lawmaker – including violent imagery conceived right here in Livingston County.
The culprit is County Commissioner Wes Nakagiri.
Only two-and-a-half years ago, Nakagiri thought it would be funny to have a fundraiser in which donors would throw a snowball at a photo of Mitt Romney. If they hit Romney in the nose, it would cause a toilet to flush onto a cutout of Nancy Pelosi, allowing people to “P—” on her, as the Livingston Post described the apparatus in a March 2020 post.
The fundraiser never took place after the venue told Nakagiri he couldn’t use the device because it promoted violence and bullying. But it still helped train Trump Republicans to believe political violence is the norm and to react, not with empathy or compassion, but with scorn and conspiracy theories when it occurs.
As I said at the time, suggesting political violence is never acceptable. And now, after an intruder attacked the spouse of the person second in line to the presidency with a hammer in his own home, we see where years of GOP demonizing their political opponents leads.
Is Nakagiri directly responsible for the attack? No, but he is responsible for helping to promote a climate where someone could conceive that political violence is acceptable because their political opponents deserve it. He never acknowledged there was anything wrong with what he had planned, dismissing criticism as “political correctness” and vowing never to give in to it. He said he would “double down” on the theme at a future fundraiser.
I fear we are on a slippery slope right now and need to hit the brakes.
Can we count on the other side to join us in that?
