In her latest film, Alexandra Pelosi asks an interview subject point blank “Did you go to the Capitol to assassinate my mother?”
This is just a small sign of how willing Pelosi is to ask the tough questions as she follows people who, for various reasons, stormed the capital on January 6, 2021, breaching her mother’s office, the then Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.
The Insurrectionist Next Door, produced and directed by Pelosi, features the documentarian speaking with several individuals charged with crimes for participating in the January 6th, 2021 United States Capitol attack.
Shooting all of the footage herself, so only appearing on camera very briefly, Pelosi often relentlessly questions these ‘average’ Americans who explain their reasoning for showing up in Washington, D.C. that day.
The subjects are an intriguing array of citizens, including a gay former military man who shares his wedding photos, a father of four who has “Proud Boy” tattooed on his forehead, and a young parkour practitioner.
The details surrounding their personal journeys is fascinating.
One young man says he went because his sister was going. He admits, “I’m not the brightest. I was in special education in school growing up. I grew up eating bagel bites, pizza rolls, and hot pockets,” he says, trying to explain coming from what he calls, ‘a very broken family.’
He and his sister, who is pregnant, now have court dates to determine the length of their incarceration.
Emily Hernandez says that she simply wanted to go on a road trip, mostly to get, ‘out of the house and out of Missouri.’
“I don’t follow politics,” explains Hernandez. “My uncle asked me if I wanted to go to a Trump speech [in Washington, D.C]. I didn’t really want to hear the speech, I just wanted to see the area.”
But Hernandez ended up inside the Capitol and photos show her holding a portion of a sign from Nancy Pelosi’s office.
It was when she was with Hernandez that Alexandra Pelosi asked the young woman the pointed question about killing her mother. Hernandez replied with an emphatic, “No!”
She says, “I didn’t even know what Nancy Pelosi looked like,” admitting that when she looked Pelosi up, she was surprised that she was, ‘this little old lady.’
In another of Pelosi’s profound, yet hilariously accurate, statements she says to one of those convicted for his January 6th actions, “So you’re telling me that the left is responsible for your prostitute girlfriend leaving, you so you took it out on the left by storming the Capitol and participating in an insurrection?”
The subject responds, simply, “Men are weird.”
She adds, “So a hooker broke up with you and that turned you into a Christian conservative?” He doesn’t respond directly to this question but seems to agree that the assertion is accurate.
The proudly tattooed Proud Boy, plays some rap songs he wrote for Pelosi, including one that contains the lyrics, “F*ck Joe Biden, f*ck Nancy Pelosi.” He says that it’s not meant to be helpful but that, “That’s how I feel.”
Pelosi responds with, “I don’t like any of your songs, but I support your right to sing them.”
While there isn’t much discussion about the First Amendment in the documentary, it’s important to remember while watching that the Supreme Court of the United States has held that the First Amendment does not protect speech that is “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action. Mere advocacy of lawbreaking or violence remains protected speech as long as it is not intended to and or produce such action.”
Pelosi doesn’t hold back as she says what she thinks to the participants, sometimes outright yelling at a few, especially when one of them compares himself to Rosa Parks.
She also asks every one of the protests how they feel about Trump after everything that’s happened to them.
It’s interesting to see which participants are still Trump fans and which are no longer enamored with him anymore.
What’s also curious is that a few of the protestors proudly admit that they previously had voted for Obama. One even admits that he didn’t vote for Trump in 2020, that he voted for Biden! All of which makes one wonder just how these people ended up defending Trump using such extreme measures.
Throughout the documentary, Pelosi herself is many things — appropriately inquisitive, sometimes a bit judgmental, at times brisk with her statements, and a tad funny, a combination that provides just the right tone for the documentary.
This is not to say that viewers won’t feel a mix of emotions as they watch, with some portions evoking indifference while others produce a sense of rage. In fact, just the very presence of footage from January 6th, 2021 may be triggering for some people.
But, having said all of this, The Insurrectionist Next Door feels like required viewing. How else will the average person understand why these people were at the Capitol that day, and, more importantly, why they were there?
All of the questions surrounding are certainly answered here, but it’s key to remember that some of these people will be voting in the next election, so it’s necessary to understand who they are, and what they see as the future of the country.
‘The Insurrectionist Next Door’ is available for streaming on Max.
Read the full article here