Originally published at: Pelosi hammer attacker David DePape tearfully testifies that he was radicalized by Gamergate | Boing Boing
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He began listening to right-wing podcasters and watching political YouTube videos. “At that time, I was biased against Trump,” Mr DePape said, “but there’s, like, truth there. So if there’s truth out there that I don’t know, I want to know it.”
So…maybe he was radicalized by Gamergate. Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and say he was. So what? What’s the point of this defense? He didn’t plead insanity, so what difference does this make? I do not understand what his defense is doing. The testimony got better:
He said he formulated a “grand plan” that involved luring “targets” to the Pelosi home.
The names on his list included University of Michigan academic Gayle Rubin, California Governor Gavin Newsom, Tom Hanks, congressman Adam Schiff, former Vice-President Mike Pence, former Attorney General Bill Barr, Senator Bernie Sanders and liberal mega-donor George Soros.Ultimately, Mr DePape said, he wanted to confront President Joe Biden’s son Hunter, and after he got his targets to admit to corruption, he planned to ask the president to pardon everyone he considered a “criminal”.
“It’s just easier giving them a pardon so we can move forward as a country,” he said, crying on the stand.
He said he planned to wear an inflatable unicorn costume and upload his interrogation of her online. He was arrested with zip ties and duct tape in his possession.When asked why he hit Mr Pelosi, he responded: “I reacted because my plan was basically ruined.”
“He was never my target and I’m sorry that he got hurt,” he said.
WTF. What is this defense?! If this is what he was going to get up there and say, he should have plead guilty and taken a deal! What is he doing? If he actually thought this defense was a good idea, and his lawyer advised against it, they might actually have a decent argument that he isn’t competent to stand trial. Holy shit, this guy is living in a different reality.
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Exactly! You can accuse those doing the ‘radicalising’ of being guilty of assorted heinous things but you cannot blame them for the fact that you became ‘radicalised’. You can only blame yourself for that, for being a gullible fuckwit.
And whatever your ‘radicalised’ views, they are no excuse for personal violence.
But I suspect this was not really part of his defence, it was more an “if I bleed all over your carpets, perhaps you’ll temper your judgements with a little sympathy” tactic.
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Yeah but if that’s your goal, you’re better off taking a plea deal. A judge or a jury in the sentencing phase is going to be more sympathetic to a defendant who has accepted responsibility for what he did than to one who is saying, “Well sure, I did it, but it’s not my fault!” He either has a bad lawyer, or he’s insisting on this defense and his lawyer’s hands are tied.
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Should be easy. Just write them a note saying “Free Adrenochrome at Nancy’s Place”
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Fascism came to Germany in the early 20th century in part via their loss in a terrible war and a catastrophic economy. Fascism came to America in the early 21st century in part because a bunch of man-child failures couldn’t stand the fact that women were good at making video games and because a bunch of other idiots thought a celebrity paedophilia ring was being run out of the basement of a DC pizza place that has no basement. What a stupid time to be alive.
[Yes, pedants, I know it’s more complex and that white supremacy and anti-Semitism and conspiracism were at the base of both. Give me this one.]
I’ve been assuming the latter, given his penchant for grand foolproof plans to get his way. I know there are incompetent lawyers out there but it’s hard to see even one of them holding himself up to easy ridicule in such a high-profile case.
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He was an iron filling, looking for a magnetic field to fall into. I think a headline of “Canada Man” was always in his future.
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Actually, it’s about ethics in game journalism. /s
OK sorry.
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You gave me mine, I’ll give you yours. Nicely done!
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I guess that they’re trying to say that people like DePape are not responsible for their actions if they get radicalized online?
I’m sure he thinks he’s above the law, like Trump…
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So he got to use his zip ties after all. 
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But what if they were busy abusing children in the basement of a pizza restaurant and couldn’t come?
I’ll say this for him, he knows how to put together a guest-list.
What I really want to know is what he planned to do with the second inflatable unicorn suit. Was it just a spare in case the first one got punctured? Or did he plan to have his victims wear it for their confessions?
I do think that live video of an inflatable unicorn tearfully confessing to high crimes and misdemeanors while a second unicorn threatens them with a hammer would be significantly weird, even for this timeline.
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I think that’s about right, pedantry aside, in terms of how we got here. I’d throw in the dissolution of Dodd Frank and the Citizen’s United decision. Eisenhower warned us all. But then came Reagan and Gingrich and the rest (Sorry historians, I’ll stop talking outside my expertise).
Anyway, seems he got driven crazy by his anger at the female pr. So yah, this has to be his defense. Otherwise seems like insanity defense would be straightforward? IANAL.
What was upsetting to me was my wife (who is from Russian and has conservative leanings while collecting support for her parents from both the state and federal agencies) said that she understands how the people just aren’t being served by the democrats at all, and shouldn’t someone else try something. Sigh.
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Maybe he’s trying to martyr himself within the Q-nuts?
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Or prove to them he’s not a gay antifa false flag plant, as some of them claim.
Discouraging, even though I do see that kind of thing a lot from people who came to the U.S. after living or growing up in the misery of the old Soviet bloc.
This clown, however, was born into and lived in a prosperous liberal democracy that provided him with single-payer universal healthcare and a quality K-12 school system. He has no excuses.
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“I’m sorry that he got hurt” by the hammer which I was using in an attempt to beat him to death.
Just once I would love to see a lawyer say “Your honor, I object, on the grounds that the apology extended by the accused in an attempt to garner sympathy with the court was not actually an apology.”
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This is also highlighting how social media algorithms have fucked us up.
Few people go looking for this bullshit, but it gets served up to them. And once they fall down into the hole of BS it is really hard to claw your way back out. It preys on the gullible and insecure, and uses man’s fears and biases.
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I think he was leaning hard towards ‘asshole’ before he got ‘radicalized’.*
(Firefox is the pedant, not me.)
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That could be, what he did is indefensible, so he might as well use his fifteen minutes of fame to grift. Or to enhance his name recognition for his upcoming congressional campaign.
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