There are ever so many ways Republicans can admit they were delighted by the attempted assassination of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, which resulted in severe injuries to her husband, who had the misfortune of being home when apparent right-wing nut David DePape broke into the couple's San Francisco home. They can pretend to condemn the attack while promoting conspiracy theories denying that it was right-wing political violence, as did Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Twitter's new owner, Elon Musk. They can make jokes about it in public appearances, the classy path pioneered by Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin. They can do both at the same time, as Donald Trump Jr. did. They can share vicious memes mocking the victim, as a Facebook page did that is evidently owned by Pennsylania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano. Or they can deflect blame by casting the villains as the victims, as Tucker Carlson did in a Fox News segment equating criticism of hate speech with censorship.
OK, it's true that so far no Republican leaders (to my knowledge) have directly congratulated the would-be assassin for his attempt on Pelosi's life, or openly expressed regret that he didn't succeed. Establishing plausible deniability is still a priority within the GOP ranks, although to a diminishing extent. But make no mistake: Any effort to minimize the violence or deflect blame for the attack on Pelosi or her husband is a tacit endorsement. It's certainly received that way by the Republican base, which has spent the past two years, ever since Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, ramping themselves up to support a fascist — and therefore inherently violent — campaign to seize power against the will of a clear majority.
