The Art of the Lie: How Right Wing Media Covered the Paul Pelosi Attack
By Jaden Satenstein, November 9, 2022
As we wait for the GOP to recover from its historically weak midterm performance, let’s recall the deranged lengths that the right wing media went to in its effort to distort the truth about a pre-dawn hammer attack on an 82-year-old man who happened to be married to MAGA enemy No. 1. It’s a textbook example of the kind of lies we can expect during the long partisan slog to 2024.
One of the wildest theories was the claim that Pelosi and his attacker, David DePape, were sexual partners engaged in a lovers’ quarrel that turned violent. There is no evidence to back the outlandish claim, of course, but far-right articles propagating it have been shared by the likes of Donald Trump Jr, Dinesh D’Souza and the new Twitter boss himself.
Apparently, allowing misinformation to spread like wildfire on the platform wasn’t enough for Elon Musk, he had to make sure that fake news comes from his own account as well. Musk tweeted a homophobic article by the Santa Monica Observer on October 30 that perpetuated the false claim of an affair along with a caption stating that, “There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye.”
Does the Santa Monica Observer sound familiar? That’s because it’s a notorious fake news site that wrote back in 2016that Hillary Clinton died and was replaced with a body double on the campaign trail. Musk later deleted the tweet.
Some right-wing outlets conceded that DePape was in fact an intruder with no personal connection to the Pelosi’s, but they argued that he was mentally ill and denied any political motivation and in an attempt to absolve the right from any involvement. DePape’s far-right leanings are clear in his various blogs and social media posts filled with racist and anti-Semetic vitriol, COVID conspiracies and election denial.
Conservative media response to this evidence is typical – deny, deny, deny. Sites like Gateway Pundit falsely claimed that these blogs and social media accounts were created by Democrats just after the attack to make it seem as if DePape was a far-right militant. But numerous news organizations such as the BBC and The Washington Post have confirmed the validity of the blogs through time stamps, screenshots and interviews with DePape’s family members.
Desperate for a Scapegoat
It’s all part of the right’s attempt to distract from the continued rise of far-right violence and instead place blame on those they portray as the real enemies. WND argued that the attack was a hoax cooked up by San Francisco Democrats to turn “their own rampant crime and drug use into an ambush of Republicans nationwide.” American Spectator also used the incident as an opportunity to go after the liberal city, writing that the “deinstitutionalized dystopia of the Bay Area strikes as more directly responsible for what happened than words uttered by faraway Republicans.”
Not surprisingly, multiple conservative outlets have used the incident to further their pro-gun agenda ahead of the midterms, with American Thinker writing that the attack is proof that citizens must be armed, and WND facetiously arguing that if Democrats want gun control they should demand hammer control as well.
A Familiar Pattern
The right-wing media seeks to minimize the significance of the attack on Paul Pelosi (which can be legitimately viewed as an assassination attempt on the Speaker of the House) just as it did with January 6th. TheRighting’s comprehensive archive of notable conservative headlines from the last two years reveals the plethora of narratives the right-wing pushed following the attack on the Capitol.
Conservative outlets immediately downplayed the gravity of the events, with Tucker Carlson arguing the next week that, “It’s a lie that last week’s riot was an insurrection.” RedState similarly wrote that, “There Was No Riot, Insurrection or ‘Storming,’” but just a “peaceful rally,” and The Federalist portrayed rioters as misunderstood and simply wanting to make their “voices heard.”
The attack on Paul Pelosi is an eerie echo of those dark days, and a grim reminder of just how far the right will go to excuse the true threats to American democracy.
Jaden Satenstein (@jadensat) is a writer, producer and social media consultant. She has worked for WNYC, FRONTLINE PBS, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Straus News Manhattan.
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