Trump supporters who deny details of the attack on Paul Pelosi — the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) — are building a bridge to "something even more sinister," according to New York magazine columnist Jonathan Chait.
In a column on Wednesday, Chait argued that supporters of President Donald Trump "needed to believe there was some account for [suspect David DePape's] actions other than the obvious one sitting in plain sight, on DePape’s online commentaries: He subscribed to the same right-wing conspiracy theories held by millions of Republicans."
Chait said Republicans obfuscate the facts to avoid "a disruption in the right’s meta-narrative of victimization" and it "allows them to avoid having to confront a faction within their own coalition."
"And even if DePape did it, the key thing is to avoid conceding he was motivated by shared resentments shared by their party," the columnist noted. "The attack on Pelosi, like the January 6 invasion, becomes fundamentally another episode of conservatives suffering persecution."
Chait concluded: "The remorseless pattern of the Trump era is that every right-wing impulse that begins as resentment of the critics of some element of their movement ultimately evolves into direct support. The anti-anti-DePape right is clearing the way for something even more sinister."
Read the entire column here.