McCarthy said it will be "hard" not to hit Pelosi with gavel

[Airbrush]

Anyone else notice the connection?  For the Trumper crazies, it's a tough job to NOT hit Pelosi with a hammer. Someone tried to follow McCarthy's advice, but instead hit Pelosi's husband with a hammer.

"The crazed man who allegedly attacked the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with a hammer was charged with attempted murder by the San Francisco District Attorney on Monday. David DePape, 42, was also charged with assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, false imprisonment of an elder, residential burglary and threats to a public official and their family, according to District Attorney Brooke Jenkins."
Attempted murder charge filed against David DePape (nypost.com)

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy joked at a Saturday night event that it “will be hard not to hit” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with the speaker’s gavel if Republicans take control of the chamber in the 2022 midterms and he becomes speaker.

“I want you to watch Nancy Pelosi hand me that gavel. It will be hard not to hit her with it,” McCarthy said in audio posted to Twitter by a Main Street Nashville reporter.

Kevin McCarthy says 'it will be hard not to hit' Pelosi with gavel if he becomes House speaker | CNN Politics

Edited November 2, 2022 by Phi for All
Changed title

[Phi for All]

1 hour ago, Airbrush said:

Anyone else notice the connection?

The connection to what, idiocy? This is well-documented: Reporters think McCarthy is dumb. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/06/03/kevin-mccarthy-washington-media-taboo-intelligence-00036894

The Democrats know McCarthy is an idiot. https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3651677-gallego-hard-to-imagine-someone-as-dumb-as-mccarthy-being-speaker/

Even TFG thought he was stupid, and he should know. https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-thought-kevin-mccarthy-was-dumb-and-annoyingly-needy-book-2022-7

McCarthy, McConnell, and Graham are extremely despicable politicians who've consistently ignored the needs of the People in favor of keeping the wealthy wealthy. The Republican Party is full of police extremists, wealth extremists, religious extremists, anti-science extremists, and anti-democracy extremists. I'm not surprised at all that a party with so many idiots in it would choose McCarthy to be Speaker. He's the poster child for ignorance, division, and poor taste, and his constituents love it so they must share many of those qualities.

Disgusting words from disgusting people who know that other disgusting people are eating it up with a spoon. I wouldn't dream of hitting any of them with a hammer, and I'm ecstatic that there is this difference at least between us. 

[swansont]

Stochastic terrorism.

You send the message that violence is acceptable, and then wait for one of the millions of followers to decide they are going to follow through on it. Then the GOP applauds it or is silent on the matter.

[iNow]

26 minutes ago, swansont said:

Then the GOP applauds it or is silent on the matter.

Or suggests a false equivalence and argues that "both sides" are responsible

[Ken Fabian]

I've had a long running deep distaste for "rhetorical" violence - which often goes direct to the "kill them" option because "hit the Speaker of The House with the Official Gavel because she is a (leading) Democrat" doesn't have the rhetorical impact of "Hang Mike Pence". Most people would assume it is just rhetorical... but most people aren't subjected to politically motivated violence. To anyone who has it probably sends chills down their spines, possibly with flashbacks.

At the heart of much violence, from minor to all out war is a belief that "they deserve it".

 

[swansont]

2 hours ago, Ken Fabian said:

I've had a long running deep distaste for "rhetorical" violence - which often goes direct to the "kill them" option because "hit the Speaker of The House with the Official Gavel because she is a (leading) Democrat" doesn't have the rhetorical impact of "Hang Mike Pence". Most people would assume it is just rhetorical... but most people aren't subjected to politically motivated violence. To anyone who has it probably sends chills down their spines, possibly with flashbacks.

At the heart of much violence, from minor to all out war is a belief that "they deserve it".

 

And they get to hide behind the “rhetoric” excuse…except that there is no denouncement of the violence. You get the opposite, like Kari Lake making a joke, and people laughing about the attack. You get conspiracy nonsense offered up.

[zapatos]

The title statement is not true. Surely we don't need to exaggerate wrt the things McCarthy has said to make a point.

[Phi for All]

22 hours ago, zapatos said:

The title statement is not true. Surely we don't need to exaggerate wrt the things McCarthy has said to make a point.

You're right. I amended the title. Also, McCarthy said this in the summer of 2021. And it was a gavel McCarthy referred to, not a hammer.

[iNow]

Tonight in our neighborhood a neighbor down the street from us got home from work to find the political candidate sign they’d put out in their yard had been pulled up by someone, thrown aside, and replaced by a sign supporting the opponent.

These politics are toxic. 

[Peterkin]

I can picture your founding fathers looking down on this travesty of American governance and say to one another "What have we wrought?" Would they immediately fall to hitting one another with mallets over who was wrong to make what additions to those documents? 

[dimreepr]

8 hours ago, Peterkin said:

I can picture your founding fathers looking down on this travesty of American governance and say to one another "What have we wrought?" 

I think they'd be saying, "see, I told you"...

Edited November 2, 2022 by dimreepr

[toucana]

The Meidas Touch news site recently produced a viral super-cut video after Fox anchor Laura Ingraham asked "Which Republican official or candidate has ever condoned or encouraged any form of violent physical assault ? Can you start naming them ?  I can't think of any". 

The video was featured by Stephanie Ruhle on MSNBC last night as her sign off to the 'The 11th Hour".

 

[StringJunky]

1 hour ago, toucana said:

The Meidas Touch news site recently produced a viral super-cut video after Fox anchor Laura Ingraham asked "Which Republican official or candidate has ever condoned or encouraged any form of violent physical assault ? Can you start naming them ?  I can't think of any". 

The video was featured by Stephanie Ruhle on MSNBC last night as her sign off to the 'The 11th Hour".

Collective memory loss.

Reports suggest this is going to be drawn out over days, so I won't be staying up here in the UK.

[dimreepr]

18 hours ago, StringJunky said:

Collective memory loss.

Indeed, McCarthy did a splendid job of introducing a Trump...

[TheVat]

I tend to view Americans as somewhat prone to loose and aggressive talk, a style that can certainly impact unhinged minds out there when it comes from public officials at any level of government.  Unfortunately, that style seems to be endemic in much of America, and I'm not sure how much difference it makes to castigate every politician who has a hot mic moment, or drops a violent metaphor while speaking to a rally or an assemblage of donors.  One reason this happens, and it was a problem before Trump came along and further debased the national discourse, is that a lot of people who run for office here are not really the brightest people or have the best impulse control.  Americans are just besotted with charisma and may overlook the deficiencies of some new and shiny thing that's dangled in front of them.  My sense is that we can worry about everything that a Kevin McCarthy or Marjorie Taylor Green or Louie Gohmert says when they feel like venting, or just focus on how to get them voted out of office.  The media has too much substantial material to keep in front of the public, it's irresponsible journalism to expend too many column-inches on the mouthfarts of the cognitively impaired.  

[Arete]

On 11/8/2022 at 10:32 AM, TheVat said:

I tend to view Americans as somewhat prone to loose and aggressive talk, a style that can certainly impact unhinged minds out there when it comes from public officials at any level of government.  

I will preface the following with the fact that the US is very socio-politically diverse and generalizations are just those. The US has some of the best education, healthcare, most socially progressive programs, etc in the world - for some people. 

Being an immigrant that has lived in the US for 13 years, it's not just talk. The US is a violent country. The US violent death rate is 7 times higher than the average for high-income countries. While a lot is explained by the firearm homicide rate being 25 times higher, the non-firearm homicide rate is also three times higher than average.

Violence is glorified/normalized throughout US culture. I was watching a PG 13 movie with my son, with smoking and coarse language being the two causes listed for the rating. Someone got shot in the head in the first two minutes. Boobs will make a movie age restricted faster than beheading, and half the population has boobs. Then you have the weird juxtaposition between between conservative morality laws - over a quarter of Kentucky counties are dry (i.e. possession of alcohol is a crime), and yet it has stand your ground legislation - if you fear for your life and you shoot someone in your home or anywhere else, you are immune from criminal or civil prosecution. 

Then you have a poor education level. 54% of US adults read below the 6th grade level. 1 in 5 US adults are completely illiterate. 30% of US adults can't do basic math in whole numbers. Research shows that a lack of basic education leads to a narrow and fear based world view. 

This means that a phenomenally large proportion of the US population is morally conservative, narrow minded, fearful, and has normalized violence. Appeals to violence by politicians are attractive to a huge population base in the US.  

[CharonY]

5 hours ago, Arete said:

This means that a phenomenally large proportion of the US population is morally conservative, narrow minded, fearful, and has normalized violence. Appeals to violence by politicians are attractive to a huge population base in the US. 

The fear part is also what stuck in my mind. When I lived there, I was astonished how frequently and casually folks (including academics) were certain that they need weapons do defend themselves. While certain (typically anti-immigrant) sentiments are quite common also in Europe in elsewhere, straight up violence would (in the past) generally only promoted in safe spaces and not expressed to random strangers.

Another thing that was related to that is the fear of their children being harmed. Apparently not watching your kids every minute of the day was considered a offense and could get cops involved. Meanwhile, elsewhere kids where shooed out of the house during the day and you would have dinner with whoever managed to get back in time (well not exactly like that, but you get the idea). The assumption is that violence and murder is at every corner and you need to be prepared to answer with like any second. Police training also reflects that and in my mind this is very much the hallmark of a frightened society.

[zapatos]

4 minutes ago, CharonY said:

The fear part is also what stuck in my mind. When I lived there, I was astonished how frequently and casually folks (including academics) were certain that they need weapons do defend themselves.

I often hear that Americans are fearful but I must be living in a bubble as I've never found that to be the case. I've lived in St. Louis (or the surrounding area) most of my life. St. Louis is considered one of the deadliest cities in the country. I have never once been confronted by someone with a gun (or any weapon) or heard a gun fired in the streets. 

Most people I know don't own guns. The ones who do (me included) generally don't carry them (never saw the need), and the ones who do carry them (I can only think of one) are not afraid, as they are carrying a gun.

My experience has been that if you are not involved with illegal activities or those who are, you don't have much to fear. Living in a part of town where there are illegal activities going on certainly does make you more vulnerable, but I personally have not lived in an area like that.

This is not to say I don't recognize there is crime, but even with the relatively high rates in the US, it is still infrequent enough that it has never once hit me or those close to me.

[Arete]

32 minutes ago, zapatos said:

and the ones who do carry them (I can only think of one) are not afraid, as they are carrying a gun.

I think this is the crux - in most developed countries, if someone felt they needed to carry a concealed firearm to the grocery store to protect themselves, they'd probably be diagnosed as clinically paranoid and be given therapy and meds. 

Let alone passing legislation so you can't even be prosecuted if you shot someone you were afraid of - indicating you're afraid of both people attacking you and getting in trouble for shooting them... or building a 30ft tall, 200 mile long fence to keep people you're afraid of out of your country, etc and so on. 

St Louis is a liberal city and my guess is that violent crime is heavily stratified by socio-economics. I'd also hazard a guess that most of the people  you associate with are well educated (given you're on a science forum). 

Edit: I live in rural California and everyone owns guns, liberals, conservatives, the lot. I told my neighbor I wasn't allowed to buy a gun on an H1B visa and he gifted me a shotgun. The people with CCWs and the weird 2A stickers/shirts/hats tend to also have Trump paraphernalia along with it though. 

Edited November 11, 2022 by Arete

[zapatos]

6 minutes ago, Arete said:

in most developed countries, if someone felt they needed to carry a concealed firearm to the grocery store to protect themselves, they'd probably be diagnosed as clinically paranoid and be given therapy and meds. 

True, but in most developed countries the citizens you run into are not likely to own a gun of their own.

While there are of course people who think they may get shot at the grocery store, I think that misrepresents the mindset of the average gun carrier. I think they carry guns the same way they carry spare tires around. You know you probably won't need it, but it's nice to know that you are prepared just in case.

[CharonY]

1 minute ago, zapatos said:

True, but in most developed countries the citizens you run into are not likely to own a gun of their own.

While there are of course people who think they may get shot at the grocery store, I think that misrepresents the mindset of the average gun carrier. I think they carry guns the same way they carry spare tires around. You know you probably won't need it, but it's nice to know that you are prepared just in case.

I get that, but again, for a non-American this thought process is bewildering. To many of us it is more like having a chainsaw around just in case. While going out to get sandwiches. This is not meant as an insult, but just an attempt to highlight how different these things appear to many of us.

[Arete]

7 minutes ago, zapatos said:

I think they carry guns the same way they carry spare tires around. You know you probably won't need it, but it's nice to know that you are prepared just in case.

If you don't live in a war zone, that's an exceptionally fearful mindset. Especially when the research show you are substantially more likely to accidentally shoot yourself than an attacker. 

I say this as a gun owner. I just keep mine in a safe when not in use, which is ironically next to where I store my chainsaws. 

Edited November 11, 2022 by Arete

[geordief]

5 minutes ago, Arete said:

I think this is the crux - in most developed countries, if someone felt they needed to carry a concealed firearm to the grocery store to protect themselves, they'd probably be diagnosed as clinically paranoid and be given therapy and meds. 

Let alone passing legislation so you can't even be prosecuted if you shot someone you were afraid of - indicating you're afraid of both people attacking you and getting in trouble for shooting them... or building a 30ft tall, 200 mile long fence to keep people you're afraid of out of your country, etc and so on. 

I was in America some 45 years ago.I only spent some   3 months  there but I was directly  threatened with a gun on one occasion ,witnessed a landlord threaten his tenants with a firearm on another occasion ,was physically threatened with a rubber hose when collecting my wages and  was picked up in a car whose owner was driving to his ex-wife's house  to put a bullet in his/hers horse which he did not want her to have.

 

I also witnessed first hand an example of a white person calling the police on a black person and the police simply took the former's  word and dragged the black man away with no ceremony.

I was amazed to be told by friends that we stayed with in Washington that the sounds we could hear at night were gunshots.

The advice at the time (worse then than now I think) was to avoid eye contact with strangers in the street.

[zapatos]

1 minute ago, CharonY said:

I get that, but again, for a non-American this thought process is bewildering. To many of us it is more like having a chainsaw around just in case. While going out to get sandwiches. This is not meant as an insult, but just an attempt to highlight how different these things appear to many of us.

Sure, I can see where it is bewildering. And I think the bewilderment primarily comes from living in a country with no guns. People who live in the dessert carry water just in case. People who live where there is a lot of sun carry sunscreen just in case. And people who live where trees may fall across rural roads they travel carry chainsaws just in case. Do you find it bewildering that a person may train in martial arts in case they need to defend themselves?

Guns are common tools in this country. You can go to the store and walk out with one in about 20 minutes. 

7 minutes ago, Arete said:

If you don't live in a war zone, that's an exceptionally fearful mindset. 

I don't carry a spare tire because I am exceptionally fearful. Guns are scary to people who have no exposure to them. But then so are chainsaws.

[Arete]

7 minutes ago, zapatos said:

I don't carry a spare tire because I am exceptionally fearful. Guns are scary to people who have no exposure to them. But then so are chainsaws.

You can't really hurt yourself, a bystander or your family with a spare tire, and a flat is a few orders of magnitude more likely than being attacked by a "bad guy". The relative risk analysis of concealed carry is unequivocal - carrying concealed every day is not a rational decision - it's an emotive one, and I'm unsure what emotion other than fear of attack that would motivate one to carry - it's not like you can cut tape or open bottles with a handgun. 

I didn't mean for this to turn into a gun debate. I outlined many ways some Americans are susceptible to suggestions of violence due to the prevailing culture.