The attack at the Pelosis’ home was part of a dangerous pattern

IT WAS AROUND 2AM in San Francisco when a man broke in through the back door of Nancy Pelosi’s home. “Where is Nancy?” he reportedly shouted. The Speaker of the House of Representatives, and her protective detail of Capitol Police, happened to be in Washington, DC. Unfortunately, her 82-year-old husband, Paul Pelosi, was at home. He was attacked with a hammer. The altercation ended with Mr Pelosi requiring surgery on his skull and right arm. The suspect, a 42-year-old man named David DePape, was arrested and charged with attempted homicide, among other felonies. Preliminary scourings of his online life show a man hopped up on right-wing conspiracies—over the origins of covid-19, the attack on the Capitol on January 6th 2021, and QAnon, an influential myth system spreading a belief that former president Donald Trump is trying to save America from its secret control by a deep state of cannibals, paedophiles and satanists.

Although the attempt to assassinate Mrs Pelosi may have been amateurish, it would be a mistake to dismiss it as an outlier incident committed by a deranged man. As American politics have grown more feverish, the number of near-misses has been rising at a disturbing pace. In June an armed man incensed at the Supreme Court’s anticipated ruling to overturn Roe v Wade was arrested outside the home of Brett Kavanaugh, a conservative Supreme Court justice who secured his post after highly contentious confirmation hearings. The man was charged with attempted murder. In July another armed man was arrested outside the Seattle home of Pramila Jayapal, a leading progressive Democrat in Congress. The same month a man armed with a knife attacked Lee Zeldin, a Republican congressman running to be governor of New York, when he was on stage.