Forget the insurrection. The immediate future of political violence in America is much more likely to be a lone man with a hammer and a head full of fascist propaganda.
"This is the thing we should be afraid of," Eric K. Ward, an extremism expert with the Western States Center, told me Friday afternoon, in the wake of the attack by a 42-year-old man on Paul Pelosi, who is married to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Though authorities haven't yet announced a motive, social media posts attributed to suspect David DePape are filled with the now-usual treasure trove of right-wing nightmares, including screeds against transgender people and references to "alien-human hybrid infiltrators."
