David DePape's 'Bizarre' Rant Largely Indistinguishable From Regular Conservative Rants

Honestly we have heard a lot weirder.

On Friday, following the release of the police body cam footage of David DePape bludgeoning Paul Pelosi with a hammer, DePape contacted — from jail — a local Fox TV outlet to tell his side of the story. Sort of. He explained that "people" were out here killing "freedom and liberty" and that the only thing he was sorry for was that he "didn't get more of them."

Transcript:

Freedom and liberty isn’t dying. It’s being killed systematically and deliberately. The people killing it have names and addresses. So I got their names and addresses so I could pay them a little visit. Have a heart to heart about their bad behavior. The tree of liberty needs watering, it needs men of valor. Patriots willing to put their own lives on the line, to stand in opposition to tyranny.

I would also like to apologize. I want to apologize to everyone. I messed up. What I did was really bad. I’m so sorry I didn’t get more of them. It’s my own fault, no one else is to blame. I should have come better prepared.

I spent all my time exposing government corruption online, only to have them silence my freedom of speech as quickly as they could. It circumvented the Constitution, private industry. When the ruling class outsources the recession of these civil rights to private industry, it’s called fascism. I have a lot more to say. I had a website of over 300 pages. That’s 300 pages of stuff they don’t want you to hear.

I’m in the process of trying to set up a new site out of the reach of tyrannical globohomo fascists and their internet censors. [The video says "global," but he's definitely saying "globohomo." ]

The rant, which the outlet described as "bizarre," was largely in line with other things DePape has been known to say and write. His interview with police after the attack went about the same way

Transcript via KTVU:  

POLICE: Do you know why you're in custody?

 DEPAPE: Absolutely.
 
I want to make sure you're OK… How did you end up there today?

 I know exactly what I did.
 
Was there a reason? Did you feel the Pelosis did something to you?

   Not me specifically to me. But to the American public honestly. She was the leader of the pack.
 
How so?

 Fucking liars. It's insane. She has to be like … (unintelligible) with Trump being in office. What they did was so far beyond. It's just crazy. ... It originates with Hillary. But Pelosi ran the lie, day in and day out. The person on TV lying every day was Pelosi.
 
   This is a record-breaking crime spree, the Democratic Party. They are criminals. They were submitting fake evidence to spy on rival campaigns. ... Yeah, Trump. … It's an endless fucking crime spree ... until they were able to steal the election.
 
What was your intention? Was your intention to make her change her ways?

 Well, I was going to basically hold her hostage. And I was going to talk to her.
 
Do you regret that you did this?

 No, it needed to be done.
 
But Paul, the person you attacked, is not a target. Do you know how many times you hit him?

   No clue. I swung at him.
 
[When the police arrived] Why didn't you just leave?

  Like the founding fathers. It's like they fought the British, They fought the tyranny. When I left my house, I went to fight tyranny.

The thing is, other than the "I should have bashed more people in the head with a hammer for freedom" bit, literally nothing he is saying is more bizarre than what conservative pundits say every day of the week. In fact, I might argue that it is significantly less bizarre than the theories the Right has concocted about David DePape. Everything he's saying is straight up boilerplate. "Tree of liberty," "men of valor," "tyranny," etc. That's like Tier 1 rightwing wackiness. That's "I watched a couple episodes of 'Hannity' and that guy sure makes some good points" level rhetoric. I can go to literally any rightwing message board or social media site and find something 10 times weirder than this shit. Donald Trump said 47 stranger things than any of this over the weekend.

I mean, there are people losing their houses because a lady who says she is the Queen of Canada told them they didn't have to pay their bills anymore.

Ever-wacky far-right propaganda site Gateway Pundit actually published an article on the interrogation titled, in part, "Even David DePape Knew the 2020 Election Was Stolen" — though I don't know that "See, even the hammer wielding psychopath agrees with us" is the own they think it is.

The comment section, of course, is filled with people claiming that DePape is obviously a communist deep state plant on a mission to make the Right look bad by attacking his secret lover, Paul Pelosi, with a hammer and pretending to be MAGA. It's been the same line, really, on many of the usual far-right forums, including the Great Awakening, Patriots.Win, and the various Telegram accounts of conspiracy theorists.

Is this theory meant to be somehow less embarrassing to the Right than David DePape? I can't see how it would be. At least with him they have the excuse of "this guy is just a random wacko."

The scary thing about David DePape is that he was essentially taking entirely mainstream rightwing talking points to their logical conclusion. These pundits and influencers, day in and day out, tell people that the Democrats and the Leftists and the Deep State are all coming together to take their freedoms away. They talk endlessly about that thirsty-ass "tree of liberty" and tell people that the reason they have guns is so that they can overthrow the government in case the government tries to do tyranny to them. This guy thought the government was doing tyranny to him and he acted accordingly.

This what happened with the January 6 people, many of whom were also accused of being antifa/deep state plants trying to make the Right look bad. It is going to keep happening as long as they keep pushing rhetoric that encourages people to act in ways that make them "look bad."

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