THEIR MASTER'S VOICE:

Pelosi has been villainized by Republicans since she first ascended to Democratic leadership.

In 2003, within days of her election as House Minority Leader, she quickly faced gendered attacks from Republicans who were, as Mark Z. Barabak wrote for the Los Angeles Times at time: "eager to attack Pelosi as a loopy San Francisco liberal and exploit her city's reputation as the odd-sock drawer of America. Within days, her face -- garish and twisted -- showed up in an attack ad slamming the Democrat in a Louisiana House race. (He won anyway.) She surfaced as Miss America, complete with tiara, in a spoof on Rush Limbaugh's Web site."

Such attacks continued throughout her tenure as minority leader, including during the 2006 election when Republicans ran a swath of attack ads featuring unflattering photos of Pelosi often looking angry, bug-eyed, or startled. And they increased in 2010, after she had become speaker. Republicans made her the face of their attacks on Democrats' Affordable Care Act and launched a "Fire Pelosi" campaign, which involved a bus tour and images of Pelosi engulfed in flames.

Under the Trump era and in the years since, the attacks only escalated in tenor. Former President Donald Trump, who has remained silent about the attack on Paul Pelosi, shared doctored videos of the speaker designed to call into question her mental fitness, retweeted accusations that she was "drinking booze on the job," and had a litany of derogatory nicknames for her, among them "Crazy Nancy," "Nervous Nancy" and "Nancy Antoinette."

Many of Trump's followers echoed his rhetoric, online and in conservative media such as Fox News. In 2021, Fox News host Mark Levin called her "nasty old bag -- that's what she is, a nasty, vicious, unhinged fool" who "has the hots for Trump" and "can't get Trump out of her head."

Rhetoric involving Pelosi has often taken violent turns as well. In 2018 and 2019, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) repeatedly seemed to suggest support for Pelosi's execution, among that of other prominent Democrats, liking a Facebook post that said "a bullet to the head" would be the most expedient way to end Pelosi's speakership. Taylor Greene also claimed in a Facebook video that Pelosi was guilty of treason, noting "a crime punishable by death is what treason is."

One candidate in the GOP primary for Senate in Arizona this year aired a Super Bowl ad that featured him dressed as sheriff shooting down an actor playing Pelosi, identified as "Crazy Face Pelosi," after he says, "The good people of Arizona have had enough of you." In the period since Labor Day, Republicans have reportedly since spent nearly $40 million on ads that mention Pelosi.

Even on Friday, just hours after the attack, Virginia's Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin linked the attack on Pelosi's husband to the November election, drawing condemnation from Democrats who called the comments insensitive.

"There's no room for violence anywhere, but we're going to send [Pelosi] back to be with him in California," Youngkin said at a campaign rally in Stafford for GOP congressional candidate Yesli Vega.

Fox News anchors have also tried to tie the attack to Republicans' message on crime in the midterms. "This can happen anywhere. Crime is random and that's why it's such a significant part of this election story," Fox anchor Bill Hemmer said on air Friday.

The vilification of Pelosi has taken an even uglier form in ultra right-wing circles online. Some on Trump's social media platform Truth Social have been openly celebrating Friday's attack, with the hashtag #PelosiCrimeFamily trending over the weekend.

Arguably the current venom aimed at Pelosi wouldn't exist without the decades of Republican vitriol against her. President Joe Biden made that connection explicit at a fundraising dinner Friday in Philadelphia, saying that political violence is the natural outcome of the kind of rhetoric that Republicans have enabled. "What makes us think that it's not going to corrode the political climate?" he asked.

[T]errorism and extremism experts believe it could be an example of the growing threat of so-called stochastic terrorism, in which sometimes unstable individuals are inspired to violence by hate speech and scenarios they see online and hear echoed by public figures. [...]

Pelosi has been demonized online and in public by both far right and far left-leaning political websites and figures. Graphics depicting her being beheaded, and a call to send immigrants to her home, with her address, circulated online this summer, according to Site Intelligence Group, which researches online extremism.

Rita Katz, executive director of Site, said the Speaker was a hate figure for much of the political right, and is the "face of the Democratic establishment and, as such, at the center of many QAnon-adjacent conspiracy theories."

Those theories and people who espouse them are sometimes promoted by more mainstream public figures, amplifying the threats, experts say.

"While the intent may be to mobilize one's political base or generate ratings it also adds to the volatility of the threat environment," said Cohen.

Individual attackers, sometimes known as "lone wolves" frequently combine personal with political grievances and are reinforced and radicalized by things they read online, the DOJ's research arm The National Institute of Justice reports.

Attacks on political figures, places of worship and races or ethnicities have occurred in the United States for decades, but law enforcement professionals say the current environment is particularly dangerous.

"Today's radical extremism threat has this powerful digital component that can really accelerate recruitment and activate violence across a broader threat landscape," Aisha Qureshi, a social science analyst at the National Institute, said in an agency podcast before the Pelosi attack.

"Just the sheer volume and speed of misinformation spread through social media really exacerbates this problem," she said.

Threats against political leaders are rising in the United States. Cases related to "concerning statements and threats" against members of Congress jumped from 3,939 in 2017 to 9,625 in 2021, according to the U.S. Capitol Police.

"Look at the FBI attack in Ohio," said Todd Helmus, a senior behavioral scientist at security research firm Rand Corp., referring to an August incident when an armed man tried to break into the Cincinnati FBI headquarters.

Helmus linked that incident to rhetoric surrounding the FBI's removal of classified documents from Trump's Florida estate. Site said the Pelosi attack was being celebrated online by far-right supporters.

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