Last night in San Francisco, 42-year-old David Depape broke into the home of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and went looking for her, yelling, “Where is Nancy?’
“Nancy” wasn’t home, but her octogenarian husband Paul was. He and Depape scuffled and Depape beat Mr. Pelosi with a hammer.
According to San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott, “The suspect pulled the hammer away from Mr. Pelosi and violently assaulted him with it. Our officers immediately tackled the suspect, disarmed him, took him into custody, requested emergency backup and rendered medical aid.” CNN’s Jamie Gangel scooped that the attacker was attempting to tie up Paul Pelosi “until Nancy got home,” and said he was “waiting for Nancy.” (She was in D.C. at the time.)
Although 82-year-old Paul Pelosi suffered serious injuries (a hammer will do that) he is expected to make a complete recovery. And there you are. An assassination avoided. Let’s all move on.
Well, not so fast. Let me tell you a story.
In the 1890s and early 1900s, Europe’s political tectonic plates began moving precipitously as wealthy elite landowners were being challenged by emerging socialism whose leaders demanded power for the working classes, something anathema to the elites. One of the issues intensifying the socialist movement in France was the Dreyfus case.
In 1894, Captain Alfred Dreyfus had been falsely accused and convicted of treason for delivering French military secrets to the German Embassy in Paris. He was sentenced to life in prison on Devil’s Island in French Guiana. Dreyfus was a 35-year-old Jewish Alsatian French artillery officer, and, yes, from its beginning antisemitism hung heavily over what came to be known as the Dreyfus Affair.
Born in 1859, Jean Jaurès was a highly respected leader of the socialist movement in the Legislative Assembly. He, among others, took up the cause of Dreyfus and was instrumental in forcing a second trial once it became known that high military officers had conspired to frame Dreyfus. In 1896, after 12 years, Dreyfus was fully acquitted and went on to serve with distinction in the First World War. The Dreyfus Affair propelled Jaurès to the forefront of French politicians.
Between the end of the Dreyfus Affair and the war, Jaurès became the intellectual champion of the socialist cause as leader of the French Socialist Party. He was an antimilitarist who was able to pragmatically straddle France’s left and right political wings and could see both sides of an issue. However, in the feverish fervor of the run-up to World War I, while the vast majority of the French were convinced the ignominy of the Franco-Prussian War, with its mortifying defeat at Sedan and humiliating Treaty of Versailles, had to be avenged and Germany crushed, Jaurès advocated diplomacy. He continued tirelessly to prod the public to reject the calls for war.
On 31 July 1914, the day before both the Germans and French mobilized for battle, Jaurès, knowing he had lost the argument and worn out from his efforts, went to the Café Croisant a little after 9:00 pm, for dinner, sitting with his back to a window that looked out onto the street. That was when Raoul Villain, a 29-year-old French nationalist who’d been following him since the evening before, shouted “pacifist” and “traitor,” and fired two shots into his back. Jaurès slumped forward. Five minutes later, he was dead.
The killing of Jaurès stunned Paris. Everything came to halt. He was buried on 4 August, the day the war began.
The death of Jaurès is what can happen when seemingly rational people lose their rationality and are magnetically drawn to violence. Last night in San Fransisco we could have had a similar result.
The political rancor and hatred oozing throughout America today, with its tangible potential for violence, has been brewing for decades. Donald Trump did not begin it. He just made it fashionable.
Although both Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy were quick to condemn last night’s home invasion, I’m wondering what they and the legislators they’re supposed to lead will do now. Will any of them condemn the former president for inciting this violence? Will they condemn any of the Republican leaders who, cult-like, mimic Trump’s incitement? The next 24 hours will be interesting.
On 6 January 2021, in the corridors of the Capitol, the traitorous insurrectionists were yelling, “Where’s Mike Pence?” I ask you what would have happened if they’d found him? And what would have happened last night in San Francisco if the Speaker of the House, the third-highest ranking person in US government, had been home?
Please. Think about that.