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On Sunday, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued an ominous warning about MAGA-inspired political violence and its ongoing threat to democracy four years after Donald Trump attempted to subvert the 2020 election.
Pelosi’s comments, in an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” were a stark reminder that the threat of MAGA violence was not a moment in time. Rather, it continues to loom large, particularly as Trump prepares to return to the White House.
“Now it didn’t end that day,” Pelosi said of the pro-Trump violence that occurred on Jan. 6, 2021.
“As you know, he [Trump] called out to these people to continue their violence — my husband being a victim of all of that, and he still has injuries from that attack," she continued, referring to the 2022 attack against her husband, Paul Pelosi, in their San Francisco home by a right-wing conspiracy theorist. "So it just goes on and on. It isn’t something that happens and then it’s over.”
Pelosi is right. Violent political terror, which is an accurate descriptor of the Jan. 6 attack, serves to instill fear in its victims about what may happen to them down the line if they don't comply. So even if Republicans hadn't become cheerleaders for MAGA extremists in the years since that riot, the threat of violence would still be casting a pall over our politics four years later.
Of course, Republicans have openly downplayed — and at times, celebrated — violent acts of MAGA vigilantism ever since Jan. 6, 2021. That includes the violent assault on Pelosi's husband, which Republicans like Trump have mocked, and the MAGA movement’s praise for Jan. 6 rioters, whom Trump has portrayed as patriots and vowed to pardon in some cases. Conservatives have also made celebrities out of white vigilantes — like Daniel Perry, who was convicted of murdering an anti-racist protester in 2020 and later pardoned by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. His pardon last year became a cause célèbre among some conservatives.
We’ve also seen various incidents of political violence on behalf of the MAGA movement beyond those that have captivated the conservative horde. That includes the Las Vegas car bomb incident outside a Trump hotel on New Year’s Day. The suspect — who officials say died by suicide before the explosion — has been identified as a Trump supporter. His recent writings urged the removal of Democrats from the federal government and military "by any means necessary.” And last month, Trump supporter Patrick Egan allegedly assaulted a Pacific Islander journalist in Colorado after questioning his immigration status and declaring, “This is Trump’s America now.” (Egan has not yet pleaded to the charges. His lawyer said during a court hearing last week that Egan has had mental health issues for years.)
Pelosi’s statement about the persistence of MAGA violence was an urgent warning not to think of Jan. 6 as a moment we’ve moved on from, but instead as a crisis we continue to endure.