An America that can already feel like it’s hurtling toward political disintegration has been jolted yet again, this time by the violent attack on the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi less than two weeks before Mid-term Election Day.

Seizing a hammer and leaving a trail of broken glass, an intruder broke into the couple’s San Francisco home and repeatedly struck Paul Pelosi, 82. He had surgery to repair a skull fracture and serious injuries to his right arm and hands, and his doctors expect a full recovery, the speaker’s office said.

The assailant confronted Paul Pelosi by shouting, “Where is Nancy,” according to another person familiar with the situation who was granted anonymity to discuss it. The Democratic congresswoman was in Washington at the time.

The calling out of her name was a sign that the assault could have targeted the lawmaker. The ambush was a particularly savage reminder of the extremism that has coursed through American politics in recent years, adding to a sense of foreboding with the November 8 election nearly at hand.

A police car can be seen parked outside the home of Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in San Francisco. Photo / AP

Police have not identified a motive for the attack on Pelosi’s husband. Judging by social media posts, the suspect appears to have been stewing in a mix of conspiracy theories about elections and the coronavirus pandemic.

“It’s bad regardless of the reasons, but if it’s politically motivated, it’s just another example of political violence and irresponsibility of folks who are opening the door to that type of violence against other elected officials,” Michigan Senator Gary Peters, chairman of the Senate Democrats’ campaign arm, said in an interview. “It’s a very sad time for our country right now.”

Politicians from both parties expressed outrage about the assault.

“This attack is shocking, and Americans should worry because it is becoming more common,” said Joe O’Dea, a Republican candidate for Senate in Colorado. “Partisanship and polarisation are tearing the country apart.”

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Some responses, however, reflected a sharp sense of partisanship.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin, R-Va., worked the incident into his remarks at a campaign stop for a congressional candidate as he called for Democrats to lose power in Congress.

“There’s no room for violence anywhere, but we’re going to send her back to be with him in California,” Youngkin said. “That’s what we’re going to go do.”

Flowers can be seen outside the home of Paul Pelosi. Photo / AP

From the Civil War and attacks on Black voters during Jim Crow to the assassination of elected leaders like John F and Robert Kennedy, the United States has experienced spasms of political violence. No party or ideology has a monopoly on it.

Five years ago, a left-wing activist opened fire on Republicans as they practised for an annual charity baseball game. Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana was critically wounded. In 2011, then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., was shot in the head at an event outside a Tucson grocery store.

Today, violent rhetoric and imagery have become a staple of right-wing politics in the United States, and it escalated during Donald Trump’s presidency. Democrats viewed the intrusion into Pelosi’s home as an extension of the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, when Trump’s supporters interrupted the peaceful transition of power to Joe Biden.

On that day, protesters searched for Pelosi and chanted that they wanted to hang then-Vice President Mike Pence, who had defied Trump’s demands to overturn the election results.

Less than two years later, only 9 per cent of US adults think democracy is working “extremely” or “very well,” according to this month’s poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Members of the House committee investigating the January 6 attack have received a steady stream of threats for their work.

“If we do not stop the big lie, perpetuated by those who seek to win at any cost, our democracy will cease to exist,” Rep. Elaine Luria, a Virginia Democrat who was assigned a security detail in recent months because of her work on the committee, said in an interview. “Then nothing else we do will have mattered.”