Pelosi slams ‘normalised’ violent speech
VIOLENT behaviour and rhetoric against politicians is becoming “normalised”, the former speaker of the US House of Representatives said yesterday.
Nancy Pelosi added attacks against people in public life have become more common and are “detrimental to a democracy”.
She made the comments as she spoke to reporters at the residence of the US ambassador to Ireland in Dublin.
The 84-year-old will receive the Sutherland Leadership Award at an event at University College Dublin.
Ms Pelosi said: “People have a right to their opinion. I myself came up through being an organiser so I respect the views that some people have on the street, but when they resort to a violent rhetoric, and they do so in a way that is frightening to families in their homes.
“You have some exposure to that here now, we have it massively in the
US. That’s detrimental to a democracy.
“That’s why we have to pull ourselves back from this path that we have gone on, that has been normalising violent behaviour and rhetoric.”
While referring to Donald Trump without naming him, Ms Pelosi added there is a need to “tone down the rhetoric”.
She added: “A president who would say, ‘If you beat up the reporters I’ll pay for your lawyers’. That’s not right, and it certainly has no place in a democracy.
“We have to tone down the rhetoric and as we make our distinctions about why you should vote for us and our case, civil liberties, woman’s right to choose, protect the planet, stop gun violence, and the list goes on.
“Let’s stick with the issues rather than being bankrupt of ideas about how to take our country forward as they are and resorting to violence and misrepresentations and dark money suffocating airways.
“So one of the things we have to do is make our democracies more democratic so that people know that their voice is as important as anyone’s, that big money is not more important than the voices of so many of our grassroots people.
We have to pull back from this path we’ve been on NANCY PELOSI US EMBASSY, DUBLIN