Los Angeles Times

Anita Chabria: 'It's getting worse.' The sad part of the Pelosi attack is it doesn't surprise us

Police try to hold back rioters supporting Donald Trump who gathered to storm the Capitol and halt a joint session of the 117th Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington, D.C..

Forget the insurrection. The immediate future of political violence in America is much more likely to be a lone man with a hammer and a head full of fascist propaganda.

"This is the thing we should be afraid of," Eric K. Ward, an extremism expert with the Western States Center, told me Friday afternoon, in the wake of the attack by a 42-year-old man on Paul Pelosi, who is married to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Though authorities haven't yet announced a motive, social media posts attributed to suspect David DePape are filled with the now-usual treasure trove of right-wing nightmares, including screeds against transgender people and references to "alien-human hybrid infiltrators."

More on that later, but suffice it to say, as Ward pointed out, "We are not

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