Behind the Bastards - It Could Happen Here Weekly 197

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Starting point is 00:02:47 All right. It's it could happen here. It's me. It's Robert. And we are gathered here today to talk about one of the most annoying things. that can happen on your telephone, which is that you can be sent a tweet from Gavin Newsom. Which is, I just, no one needed that. Yeah, it's already really bad.

Starting point is 00:03:10 I see really bad things on my telephone every day. I don't need to see a tweet from Gavin Newsom. If you're not familiar with this, you're living a better life than me, and I'm proud of you. But I'm going to give you some context here. For those of you who are not familiar, Gavin Newsom is the governor of California. He's also kind of been the presumptive 2028 Democrat candidate for quite a while. He's term limited at running for California governor again, so he won't be doing that. And his term will end in January of 27.

Starting point is 00:03:40 He had for a while tried to dismiss claims that he was interested in the presidency, but he's been a lot more about it recently. Yeah. I don't believe any claims that he was not interested in this for a long time. He has definitely tried to cast himself this summer as a sort of leader of the resistance-type figure. Yeah. He hasn't done that by, for instance, ordering the California National Guard to go home, protecting people from the masked men with guns, snatching them in the street, or even standing up for trans kids. Instead, he has focused on, I guess what you could generously call Twitter trolling.

Starting point is 00:04:15 Like, it's, well, we're going to get into it. It's extremely annoying. So about a week ago now, I think the 11th of August was when he began. Newsom began his social media rebrand. He did this by posting about himself in all caps as America's favorite governor. His posts since then have mimicked Donald Trump has a pretty distinctive posting style, right? Yeah. Newsom's are written in all caps, which Trump doesn't tend to do. Trump tends to capitalize sporadically and as far as I can tell entirely randomly.

Starting point is 00:04:47 But Newsom's doing it in all caps. He uses, overuses exclamation marks, I should say. This beef between the two of them is not new, right? Trump has called him New Scum on True Social. I don't think Trump can claim the intellectual property to New Scum. I've seen that one. Yeah, yeah. Like, it's up there with like Hair Jail Hitler and New Salini.

Starting point is 00:05:10 Yeah. Anyway, if you're buying a firearm in California, you will hear someone say one of these things, almost without fail. Yeah. The claim that Newsom's team is making is that he's like holding up a mirror to Trump's bigotry by doing this. Trump-style posting. But I think in doing so, he's really illustrated the difference between him is not as profound as you'd think or hope. He, in one example, called Scott Pressler Nancy Mace,

Starting point is 00:05:38 this is Scott Presler gay, conservative right-wing figure. And then he was called out for misgendering Presler by, this will shock and amaze you, Tommy Lauren. Wow. Yeah. Which, yeah, no one knows. Okay. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:05:53 He responded, quote, you sound woke. This really isn't funny. It's just bigotry. Like, comparing gay men to women is an old, worn out, and lazy jab. Yeah. So when you combine this with him having right-wing figures like Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon on his podcast.

Starting point is 00:06:12 And just for reference, folks, I don't know how much detail we can get into legally here. But this being our business, we are aware of the numbers different podcasts do. And Gavin Newsom's podcast is not like, it does okay, but there's certain podcasts about, for example, bad people in history that lap it several times. So, like, the star power that Gavin Newsom has, I'm not seeing it. We're not talking about a guy who has shown evidence that he is capable of on his own generating, like, a super loyal fan base or continued interest in his personality. Now, I'm not saying that's that on its own isn't a bad thing. A lot of politicians who are very competent at certain things are not competent at that.

Starting point is 00:06:58 And, in fact, most of the worst politicians we have are also the people who are the best at that at building a fan base, so to speak. But what I'm saying is that Gavin Newsom is obsessed with doing something, being this Trumpian populist figure that he has not exhibited faculty for, right? Yes. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. No, and that's what I'm saying, too, is that he's confusing. engagement with actual political action. Right.

Starting point is 00:07:27 And he's confusing the kind of engagement that you get on social media when it's someone else's algorithm. And a lot of the engagement is like not people who are going to vote for you or support you, but people who the algorithm is pushing your content to because it knows they'll get pissed off by it, right? Yes, exactly that. I'm not against, you know, pissing off conservatives, but that doesn't help you necessarily, right?

Starting point is 00:07:48 Like, there's not a clear benefit to us in this. Yeah, like, good things piss off. conservatives, but pissing off conservatives are not inherently a good or useful thing. It's just a thing. It's not enough, right? Like, again, it can be, I'm not, sometimes that's, that's necessary just for morale purposes alone. Sure. But again, I don't really think Gavin Newsom is making the right scared. I don't think he's breaking their morale. I think he's just kind of creating content that people on the left are sharing because it pisses them off. People on the right are sharing because it makes them laugh.

Starting point is 00:08:25 I think they think it's sad more than anything else. And obviously, you've got a chunk of, like, a decent chunk of, like, centrist dim types who like Newsom. And I guess maybe it's working for some of them. But I don't think it's broadening his support. I don't think there's a single voter, especially in a fucking swing state, who was like, I wasn't going to vote for Gavin Newsom until I saw him mimicking Donald Trump's tweets. Yeah, exactly.

Starting point is 00:08:49 Like, he is doing in a sense what Harris did. which is this consistently failed Democrat political strategy that they seem so addicted to that no amount of losing will break them of it, which is moving to the right to try and capture moderate Republicans. They've done this, everything, Trump took the Republican Party closer, closer to fascism. Right.

Starting point is 00:09:12 Like, I want to give an example of this. Here's Gavin Newsom talking to Sean Ryan about transgender athletes. I'll be canning with you. I looked at that issue and I said, boy, they're just exploiting this. It's a handful of people. What the hell is this? It's being weaponized. It was just another cultural issue until two years ago there was a state track championship. We had a transathlete that was successful and there was a video of the girl that lost and she was devastated. That video went around everywhere. And it was very emotional. It was very real. I remember calling my team

Starting point is 00:09:45 in. I said, this is legit. And I did this podcast with Charlie Kirk. Unsurprisingly, he brought it up. And he said, tell me that's not fair. I said, it's not. fair. You're right. My party was pissed. LGBTQ caucus furious with me because I don't think it's fair. It's not. But because you oppose sports doesn't make you homophobic. And my party needs to stop saying that. Yeah. Again, I know with who he thinks this is going to help. He believes it's a religion effectively among a lot of establishment dims that there's a whole huge chunk of voters who are just itching to vote for a Democrat if they weren't in favor of all of these

Starting point is 00:10:23 icky cultural issues that are hard to touch, that the right is, you know, spends so much time harping on. And I think part of what they're seeing and where a lot of the logical disconnect comes into effect is that they see how much money, conservatives and time and discourse, conservatives have been talking about this

Starting point is 00:10:41 and obsessing over it. And they believe, well, oh, if we just kind of fold on these people, then we've taken this great weapon out of their arsenal and they'll be helpless because they're stupid. And I don't think these are fundamentally very smart people in the political sense of the world. I think they're bad politicians. I think they're bad. I think they were good politicians in terms of a competency sense at a prior age to get to where they were. But the ground has changed and intelligence is largely a product of adaptability and they have not proven adaptable. And I think what's,

Starting point is 00:11:17 actually going to happen, because we've seen this, is if they throw trans people under the bus, as they're actively talking about doing, the right will grab another chunk of their coalition and start ruthlessly trying to destroy that group of people. And these people's suggestion will once again be, okay, well, we got to, you know, throw those people under the bus, because then we'll deny them that weapon. And eventually, you won't have any Democrats left. Like, yeah, right. they'll come after same-sex marriage. They'll come after fucking interracial marriage and Newsom will try and find the middle.

Starting point is 00:11:52 Yeah. Like, where he has received praise for this is in the legacy media. I want to quote here from a CalMatters op-ed, which suggests that Newsom was, quote, someone trying to hold space for a hard conversation in his podcast. He's not. You don't have conversations with Charlie Kirk. He's never had a real one in his life.

Starting point is 00:12:10 Yeah. The conversation is not hard to have, right, trans people deserve the same fucking rights as everyone else. It's very easy to have. Also, he's having this conversation with someone who agrees with him. Like, I would love to see him tell a young trans woman that she can't play on the fucking third string high school volleyball team. Because then he's going to see a kid cry too. I don't want to go over that like trans people can compete sports.

Starting point is 00:12:33 Like, I've made my living as an athlete for much of my life. This is bullshit. And it's fundamentally disrespectful to women athletes to continue to suggest that they're biologically inferior. But I do want to talk more about Gavin Newsom's sloth. lied into mean politics. His press office claimed that after the fires in LA, I claim this in New York Times in a piece of our link, he was troubled by the misinformation that came out.

Starting point is 00:13:00 Apparently was his first fucking time in encountering misinformation on the internet. Oh, wow. Yeah. Well, when you think about the ease with which he lies, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolute comfort he has bullshitting.

Starting point is 00:13:13 It sort of makes sense. Until it hits him, he doesn't care because he's lying too. So they decided to take the fight to the internet, I guess. They began with Star Wars memes. And then when the redistricting debate in Texas, we've covered extensively on executive disorder, was kind of reaching its peak, Newsom sort of begun this sign,

Starting point is 00:13:36 I know you are, you said you are, but what am I kind of tendency in his posting? He posted in all block capitals, I'm not going to shout. Donald Trump, if you do not stand down, we will be forced to leave an effort to redraw the maps in CA to offset the rigging of maps in red states. But if the other states call off their redistricting efforts, we will do the same. Thank you for your attention on this matter. Sorry, it's hard to read because it's entirely unpuncuated, apart from at the end there. These tweets aren't on his personal account or the official, like, Governor of California one. They're on an account called Governor Newsom Press Office, but that account does have the little gray tick mark that you can get in Twitter.

Starting point is 00:14:13 now for government accounts. Then he moved on to AI-generated images and signing his post with initials like Trump does, claiming Kid Rock had endorsed him, which isn't true. Incidentally, they did this exactly a year after Donald Trump posted an AI-generated image of Taylor Swift with a Swifties for Trump montage, which shows how much time they spend

Starting point is 00:14:36 looking at Trump's post rather than doing anything fucking useful. Then they moved on to mocking Greg Abbott for using a wheelchair, saying he rolled over for Trump. Again, like, you do not build a political coalition by mocking people with disabilities. There are a million things to fucking hate Greg Abbott for. I could spend an hour talking about the loathsome shit that he has done. But using a wheelchair is not one of those things. If you cannot find anything else, that really shows the paucity of democratic politics right now.

Starting point is 00:15:08 Let's take a break and we'll come back. Awesome. All right, we're back. Unfortunately, and probably predictably, Newsome has received praise from all over the legacy media for these posts. The NYT quoted, it's actually unclear if they're quoted. I don't know if this was just a mistake that they haven't corrected, but it was phrased like she said it directly,

Starting point is 00:15:39 but it wasn't in quotation mark, so I'm a little unclear. I don't assume they quoted this lady, Sarah Roberts, the director for the Centre of Critical Internet Inquiry at UCLA, said, quote, Mr. Newsom's posts are perhaps grabbing so much attention because they stand out from the rest of Democratic Party's ineffective approach of playing it safe and proceedings as its business as usual. And then, just to double down on this useful podcast idiot John Favreau tweeted, quote, I mean, it's pretty clearly a parody of Trump's absolutely insane, all caps, often nonsensical posts. Probably why all the people in my life who aren't. political junkies keep reaching out to say they don't know much about Newsom but think the tweets are hilarious. Humor and mockery can be quite effective. Neither of them say what they are effective for, right? No one seems concerned that these make no material difference and he is doing them instead of doing things that make material difference. Right. I'm going to play another clip from Chris Hayes here. California Governor Gavin Newsom and his team have figured out a very entertaining way to deal with Donald Trump at his own rhetorical level.

Starting point is 00:16:42 They've got a new social media strategy that is both, I've got to say, pretty damn funny, and I think extremely effective, mocking the president with a spot-on impression of his very weird communication stop. Since Newsom jumped into the ongoing redistricting fight, his official Twitter account has been posting Trump style. Donald is finished. He is no longer hot, first the hand, so tiny. And now me, Gavin C. Newsom, have taken away his step.

Starting point is 00:17:05 Many are saying we can't even do the big stairs on Air Force One anymore, uses the little baby stares now. Sad. Has all the Trump trademarks, all capital letters, random quotation marks, little parentheticals, complete unhinged absurdity. I thought that's a good one. I hate Kid Rock, GCN. Reference to Trump's infamous, I hate Taylor Swift. Another drags the vice president into it. Not even JD Just Dance Vance can save Trump from the disastrous maps war he has started. Not even his eyeliner lines look as pretty as California map lines. He will fail as he always does sad and I, the peacetime governor of our nation's favorite, will save. America once again. Many are now calling me Gavin Christopher Columbus Newsom because of the maps.

Starting point is 00:17:44 Thank you for your attention to this matter. Beyond the mockery of Trump's text post, Newsom has also been posting Trump-style AI-generated images of himself, including this, I think, absolute masterpiece of Newsom deep in a moment of reflection or prayer, flanked by three MAGA icons and the laying of hands, Kid Rock, who he hates, Tucker Carlson, and the angelic spirit of the recently departed Hulk Hogan. Again, a spot-on mockery of Trump, who isn't doing any of this satirically. What has been equally hilarious has been to watch the joke

Starting point is 00:18:12 just go soaring over the heads of Trump's sycophants in the media. For the last week, Gavin Newsom, and why am I giving him advice, you have to stop it with the Twitter thing. I don't know where his wife is. If I were his wife, I would say, you are making a fool of yourself.

Starting point is 00:18:30 Stop it. Do not let your staff tweet. And if you're doing it yourself, put the phone away and start over. And if you wrote, he's got a big, job as governor of California, but if he wants an even bigger job, he has to be a little bit more serious. Yes, right. Be more serious. Stop posting exactly like the President of the United States does. Newsom's account responded to that advice quote, Dana Ding Dong Perino never heard of her until

Starting point is 00:18:51 today is melting down because of me, Gavin C. Newsom. Fox hate that I am America's most favorite governor, ratings king, saving America. Trump has lost his step and Fox is losing it because when I type, America now wins. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Again, it is just, it is a stark with someone else doing it, of how truly, utterly deranged our current president sounds whenever he communicates. And also how accustomed we've all become to this very, very weird behavior. I know, we wouldn't be talking about this because he was just bad tweets, right? Mm-hmm. We're talking about it because I think it shows a fundamental inability of the DNC to meet the moment right now.

Starting point is 00:19:28 Yeah, we're talking about it because people are dying. Yes. And more people will die as a result of this administration's policies. Other people are being imprisoned. And, like, I, you know, the damage being done, you know, to medical science, to the future of humanity, to the future of this country is tremendous in escalating. And the fact that, like, this is the best, a major, a major contender for the Democratic presidential candidate in 2028 has been able to pull out so far is, like, terrifying. Like, and again, obviously, no one should be reliant upon the dims. But unfortunately, also, like, what are you got to do?

Starting point is 00:20:07 What am I got to do, right? I don't have the resources of the Democratic Party. I don't have a bunch of elected leaders listening to me. Like, because of the status of our situation, individual people in small groups and towns. And, you know, we talk about mutual aid on this show. We talk about unions. All of these increase personal resiliency. They increase the ability of groups and of individuals within groups to be resilient.

Starting point is 00:20:30 But none of that is going to stop the fucking DHS. from turning into the SS, right? Yeah. And the Democratic Party clearly fucking isn't either. But the fact that this is what they're doing instead of effective resistance is, I mean, it's important. I wish there was more to say than we should know how badly they're failing us, right? Yeah, like a world where Democrat gets elected in, in 28, it's getting less awful,

Starting point is 00:20:58 less quickly and we should want that. Yes. Right. Like, I'm not one of these, like, like, accelerationists. No. I just, I don't think that's going to help either. Yeah. No.

Starting point is 00:21:06 Yeah. Right now, it is accelerating and it is bad. Mm-hmm. There are so many obvious challenges that Democrats can make. There are so many obvious challenges that Democrats can make. Okay. I think it's good as a contrast, right? I love most about Maine of the people.

Starting point is 00:21:38 I have never met people who are more hard scrabble, even in a place that requires you to work like two or three different jobs. We have watched this state become essentially unlivable for working class people. And it makes me deeply angry. My name is Graham Platner, and I'm running for U.S. Senate in Maine to defeat Susan Collins, a decade of military service going overseas. oysters to feed my community, diving to lend a hand to other fishermen, trying to start a family.

Starting point is 00:22:07 But everywhere I've gone, it seems like the fabric of what holds us together is being ripped apart by billionaires and corrupt politicians, profiting off of destroying our environment, driving our families into poverty, and crushing the middle class. I did four infantry tours in the Marine Corps and the Army. I'm not afraid to name an enemy, and the enemy is the oligarchy. It's the billionaires who pay for it and the politicians who sell us out. And yeah, that means politicians like Susan Collins. I'm not fooled by this fake charade of Collins' deliberations and moderation. The difference between Susan Collins and Ted Cruz is at least Ted Cruz is honest about

Starting point is 00:22:44 selling us out and not giving a damn. People know that the system is screwing them. They know it in their bones. Nobody I know around here can afford a house. Health care is a disaster. Hospitals are closing. We have watched all of that get ripped away from us. And everyone's just trying to keep it all together.

Starting point is 00:23:00 Why can't we have universal health care, like every other first world country? Why can't we take care of our veterans when they come home? Why are we funding endless wars and bombing children? Why are CEOs more powerful than unions? We fought three different wars. Since the last time we raised the minimum wage, I'm not pretending to have all the answers, but I know that I'm asking the right questions. When I tell people around here that I'm running for Senate, sometimes the initial reaction

Starting point is 00:23:26 is what the f***, but I'm... But when I tell them why I'm doing it. it because I truly do believe that we can build a system that is going to represent working people. The number one response has been, well, thank God somebody's going to do it. You're supposed to fight for the things you love. This is our home. And I will fight tirelessly for it. For you. It's Mainers first. In Maine, always. I mean, that didn't seem bad. No, it's good. That's a solid ad. Yeah. Yeah, like, the bar is reasonably low, but, like, that dude hit it, I think.

Starting point is 00:24:05 I mean, yeah, yeah, like, I would say that's just outright good. Like, if I were, if I were crafting an ad to run from other than the fact that he's lived a different life, but, like, how he's talking about the oligarchy, how he's talking about the lack of progress on things like minimum wage and how unacceptable it is and, like, how the difference between Susan Collins and Ted Cruz is that at least Ted Cruz is honest. Like, yeah, I'm on board. This guy seems like he rips. I would vote for that, dude. Like, uh, yeah, sure.

Starting point is 00:24:34 And he might turn into a fucking fattenman, but like, uh, I mean, they can all get milkshake ducked, but he's saying the right things at this point. Yeah, it's, it's remarkably straightforward, right? Like, yeah. And yet that seems to evade most Democrats. Yeah, he's got the, it's, he's got the audio of a car ad, but I guess if it works, it works. That's the thing.

Starting point is 00:24:52 I don't know. I'm not familiar with the platinum race, so I'm not sure where the, uh, polling showing. This video is like two days old. Like, he's extremely fresh. So, yeah. I will say that visually it hangs together. Doos is the same open-cell wetsuit I do.

Starting point is 00:25:06 Like, he didn't just buy all this shit. Like, didn't buy an axe and shop wood for the first time in this video. Right, right, right. He didn't do the normal, weird Democrat trying to reach out to a rural thing of, like, posing awkwardly with a shotgun. Yeah, yeah. Like, this is a dude. And just, like, physically, he appears to have done some work with his hands. Yeah, he looks like a working class guy.

Starting point is 00:25:26 Yeah. Let's compare this to, like, new social. has not done the material things that he could be doing instead of tweeting, right? Trump didn't call up the California National Guard on the Interaction Act. He used Title X section 1-2406 of the U.S. Code. That section states, orders for these purposes should be issued through the governors of the states. It also outlines procedures for DC, which we don't care about here. I don't see why he couldn't at least try to force the issue in ordering the guard to go home. He's pursuing a court case, yeah, but leg, force the crisis because we're already in one.

Starting point is 00:25:59 he has not taken a single meaningful action to stop ice-snatching people from our communities in California, nor has his attorney general taken a single meaningful action to stop individual sheriff's departments from violating SB 54. SB 54, if you're not familiar, is a California Values Act, which limits which inmates can be transferred to ICE custody and when. It doesn't oblige anyone to transfer them, but it does allow them to transfer them if certain felonies have been committed in the last 15 years. The San Diego Sheriff has been accused of violating this.

Starting point is 00:26:34 I'll link to a KPBS article on that, where they transferred someone who, according to the claims in the article, had a 21-year-old conviction, where, as I said before, the cutoff, it's 15 years. Newsom could do something about the surveillance, which is being installed all over California. These license plates readers, like the ones that San Diego has spent thousands, if not billions of dollars on, these license plate readers have had their information shared with federal agencies more than 100 times in May alone, according to CalMatters.

Starting point is 00:27:04 That is a violation of California law, specifically it's Senate Bill 34, which limits the sharing of license plate data. Rob Bontor issued an advisory, but again, this is resulting in our communities being harassed, right? Californians being snatched. Newsom has done nothing about that. He could stand up for unhoused people, but instead, alongside Todd Glory, he has led the charge against it. Todd Glory is seemingly intent on driving our city into debt to pursue castoral approach against the unhoused. Newsom posed for a photo shoot destroying unhoused people's property. He hasn't done a single thing that puts him at any risk, right?

Starting point is 00:27:48 He's presenting himself in this Sean Ryan podcast, the big risk taker, because he's. spoke out about fucking teenage girls running. Right. But he hasn't put his neck on the line once for marginalized people in California or anywhere else. Absolutely not. I think where I want to end is I don't want you to engage with Newsom's tweets. That doesn't help.

Starting point is 00:28:10 He's going to mistake that for making a difference, right? Because I think for a lot of people in the legacy media and probably knew some of his friends, the real tragedy of what's happened in the last eight months is that they have to see scary. nasty stuff on their telephones. So seeing something funny on their telephone seems like an antidote because it's not their community. It's not their people. And it's not people they fundamentally give a shit about either. That I think is why to them this seems effective. And hopefully to you, as it does to me, it seems completely ineffective. Yeah, I don't know how much else to say.

Starting point is 00:28:43 It's nice to see guys like Platner at least seem to be figuring it out. There's not, I've been looking into it and there's not, there's not much polling. There's not really. any poll then because of how recently he announced his bid to show how well he's doing. Other than that, the video's got like two and a half million views, something like that, which is good and seems to be spreading well online. But that doesn't translate electorally. What we do have electorally is that polls in Maine show that the Democratic Party is historically unpopular, including with Democrats.

Starting point is 00:29:14 This is from a July survey. There's a good article in PBS that's just titled, They Roll Right Over. many Democrats think their party is weak APNORC whole fines oh sorry this is actually no sorry this is overall across US adults sorry the the initial article I had seemed to be saying that it was this was just in Maine no this is this is nationwide right so I mean I I think that what Platner has seen the opportunity he's seen is real that there are a lot of people who are not at all interested in voting for a Republican who have not been swayed to the right

Starting point is 00:29:47 who identify as Democrats but hate the party and think it is weak, right? Like about two in 10 Democrats, according to this poll, described their party positively. One in 10 said it was empathetic and inclusive. That's terrible, right? And that is, I mean, that shows that just what we were saying kind of based on our gut, which is it's a bad idea to hang people out to dry because you don't think you can defend them. You think that it'll be beneficial politically to make the choice to, you know, let them die, basically.

Starting point is 00:30:18 Yeah. And it seems like Democrats largely are responding by saying, well, this party doesn't give a shit about us. And they are ineffective. They can't do fuck all, right? Yeah. And that's definitely what's happening. So, yeah, I don't know if Platner's going to win, but I'm growing more convinced

Starting point is 00:30:33 every day that there is opportunity for people who are actually willing to fight these bastards. Yeah. And I understand that fighting these bastards isn't just like, well, let's give them almost everything they want and hope that somehow lets us win. Yeah, yeah. Talking of not leaving people out to dry, for instance, talking about trans women in sports, he says it's a distraction from the things that impact Americans materially every single day. Then he said, I'm dedicated to equality and justice for all in this country. And I think the specific topic has become such a touchstone of the media discussion because it pulls away from the conversation that needs to be happening, which is getting every American affordable health care. It's not the best response. It's not the worst one either. And I think he is right for most of these conservative people. They don't care about women's sports, right? They're not there.

Starting point is 00:31:17 women are getting shit prize money more women are getting shit TV time this for them it's just a culture war issue he also called the genocide in Gaza a genocide which is something hey it's like yeah I enjoyed the line about where we're just killing kids with bombs yeah yeah like I like that he um he didn't mince his words about it when asked by ABC he said he's following the lead of Israeli scholars on genocide on this issue so yeah like it's remarkably easy right to to build a coalition right now of people people who are fucking mad. And a lot of people voted for Donald Trump because they were sick of this same

Starting point is 00:31:52 smarmy bullshit. Some of them also voted Donald Trump because they're hateful, terrible fucking people, right? Just to be super clear. Yeah. But like, it's so easy. And yet it seems to be evading, like you say, the presumptive nominee,

Starting point is 00:32:06 this guy who for nearly a decade, we have assumed will run in 2028. And I guess, I know, fuck Gavin Newsom. I hope that he does not succeed with his. presidential campaign ambitions. Yep. All right. Well, that's, yeah, most of what I got to say

Starting point is 00:32:22 about that son of a bit. Yep. Me too. Let's roll out. Bye. Bye. Bye. Come on.

Starting point is 00:32:41 Why is this taking so long. This thing is ancient. Still using yesterday's tech, upgrade to the thing. Thinkpad X1 carbon, ultra-light, ultra-powerful, and built for serious productivity with Intel Core Ultra-Processors, blazing speed, and AI-powered performance that keeps up with your business, not the other way around. Whoa, this thing moves. Stop hitting snooze on new tech. Win the tech search at Lenovo.com.

Starting point is 00:33:04 Lenovo, Lenovo. Unlock AI experiences with the ThinkPad X1 Carbon powered by Intel Core Ultra processors, so you can work, create, and boost productivity all on one device. There's a vile sickness in Abbas town. You must excise it. Dig into the deep earth and cut it out. The village is ravaged. Entire families have been consumed. You know how waking up from a dream?

Starting point is 00:33:37 A familiar place can look completely alien? Get back, everyone's going to next! And if you see the devil walking around inside of another man, You must cut out the very heart of him, burn his body, and scatter the ashes in the furthest corner of this town as a warning. From IHeart Podcasts and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky, this is Havoc Town. A new fiction podcast sets in the Bridgewater Audio Universe, starring Jewel State and Ray Wise. Listen to Havoc Town on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. the devil walks in Aberstown

Starting point is 00:34:16 It was an unimaginable crime It's four consecutive live terms for Brian Coburger who killed the four University of Idaho students The defense are on a sinking ship It was clear at that point he was out of options Nearly 30 months of silence Until Bombshell development Brian Coburger

Starting point is 00:34:41 Appearing set to accept a plea deal just five weeks before his quadruple murder trial was set to start. No trial, no testimony. He has pleaded guilty to five criminal counts, one of burglary and then four counts of murder. In this final season, we returned to Moscow with interviews from those still searching for answers. Why did the prosecution take this? They were holding all the cars. How on earth could you make a deal?

Starting point is 00:35:07 What message does that send? Listen to season three of the Idaho Massacre. on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The U.S. Open is here, and on my podcast, Good Game with Sarah Spain, I'm breaking down the players from rising stars to legends chasing history, the predictions, well, we see a first-time winner, and the pressure. Billy Jean King says pressure is a privilege, you know. Plus, the stories and events off the court, and of course the honey deuses, the signature cocktail of the U.S. Open.

Starting point is 00:35:39 The U.S. Open has gotten to be a very fancy, wonderfully experiential sporting event. I mean, listen, the whole aim is to be accessible and inclusive for all tennis fans, whether you play tennis or not. Tennis is full of compelling stories of late. Have you heard about icon Venus Williams' recent wildcard bids or the young Canadian, Victoria Mboko, making a name for herself? How about Naomi Osaka getting back to form? To hear this and more, listen to Good Game with Sarah Spain. I heart women's sports production in partnership with deep blue sports and entertainment on the IHart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Starting point is 00:36:16 Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. Hello, everyone, and welcome to It Can Happen Here. My name is Danelle Kurd, and I'm a writer, analyst, and researcher of Palestinian and Arab politics. I'm an associate professor of political science and a senior non-resident fellow at the Arab Center, Washington. I'm also occasional co-host of The Fire These Times. Today I want to talk about the attacks on American universities and American academia and what role Palestine plays in all of this and maybe end on what's being done to stop it. So you may or may not have heard about the attacks on universities and academia,

Starting point is 00:36:58 but given the general onslaught of disastrous news, even for those of you who have noted something is happening in higher education, may not be keeping up with the details. So let me give you a brief summary. A number of universities, including Harvard, Brown, Columbia, and UCLA, have been investigated for campus anti-Semitism related to pro-Palestine protests

Starting point is 00:37:22 on those campuses over the past two years. From there, the Trump administration has escalated by slashing federal funding that those universities receive and forcing those universities to settle with the administration not only monetarily, but also by implementing changes to how their universities are run. So, for example, Columbia University agreed to pay the Trump administration $220 million,

Starting point is 00:37:49 punish 70 students involved in the protests in a variety of ways, including by expelling them, and they agreed to monitor and report their programs for unlawful DEI goals. That's a quote. One of the ways Colombia has agreed to monitor, as the Intercept reported in April is by appointing a vice provost in charge of monitoring the Middle Eastern and South Asian and African Studies Department, in particular, for, quote, balanced curricula. The faculty in that department will no longer run that department. And as the Middle East Studies Association, in a statement back in March, noted, this placing the department under administrative receivership

Starting point is 00:38:28 is a, quote, fundamental abrogation of the autonomy of university governance. This comes at a time when the Trump administration has also attacked the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Institutes of Health, all of these are federal funding sources for the majority of research that happens at universities across disciplines, the natural sciences, social sciences, humanities. The Trump administration has also attacked foreign students and the processes by which they are able to get visa study in the United States, which is just another way to get out a major revenue source for many universities. But why is the Trump administration doing all this.

Starting point is 00:39:07 Here is Vice President J.D. Vance, speaking to the National Conservatism Conference back in 2021. We have to honestly and aggressively attack the universities in this country. Ladies and gentlemen, the universities do not pursue knowledge and truth. They pursue deceit and lies, and it's time to be honest about that fact. And we subsidize, we support, and in our own ways, all of us, reinforce the power of universities to control our lives and control how we live them. So much of what drives truth and knowledge as we understand it in this country is fundamentally determined by, supported by,

Starting point is 00:39:45 and reinforced by the universities in this country. So that's Vance, before him and Trump won the election, identifying that universities are sites of power. Therefore, he argues, very explicitly, that conservatives must destroy these sites of power or submit them to their will. Our university universities truly sites of power? The short answer is, yes, for two reasons. Number one, as Vance himself identifies, universities produce knowledge. And that knowledge produced at universities drives innovation in the private sector, in tech, in health, in weapons manufacturing. Universities are a main engine of economic growth. In fact, universities are part and parcel of American global power. They are a major source of that power for the United States.

Starting point is 00:40:34 states, whether in the students and scholars they attract, whether for the research that they produce that various arms of the American government can use, or whether for the legitimization that universities provide for certain frameworks like the free market, liberalism, et cetera, et cetera. So really, universities largely generate power for the powers that be. But sometimes universities are also sites of power that can challenge orthodoxies, with greater inclusion of scholars and students from a variety of backgrounds, we get a diversity of thought. And because of how universities are supposed to run, in theory, as governed by faculty, and as sites of free inquiry, that means sometimes, occasionally, knowledge is produced that can challenge power to.

Starting point is 00:41:24 That sometimes occasional knowledge production is too much for the J.D. Vance's of today's politics, though. So they're cracking down. The number two reason why universities are sites of power is because they offer a promise of social mobility. And that's generally true too. Even the most modest regional public school in America still offer some of the highest quality of education you can get around the world. But that shot at upward social mobility that you can get with a university education is definitely getting harder and costlier and less accessible. There's this book by Mark Busquet, I highly recommend reading, titled How the University Works. In it, the author details how, as universities became more corporatized, tuition increased, university workers were disempowered, and the value of a degree plummeted.

Starting point is 00:42:19 And this process started way before Trump. Clifford Ando, professor of classics and history at the University of Chicago, wrote for Compact Magazine recently on what's happening at the University of Chicago, right now. For those who may be unaware, at the University of Chicago, the university is stopping PhD admissions. It's increasing enrollment numbers. It's slashing budgets. It's even proposing to teach some courses using chat GPT. Ando argues that this current dismantling of University of Chicago that we're witnessing is, again, not Trump-related, but can be traced to this corporatization of the university, where universities prioritized money-making technologies and

Starting point is 00:43:00 investments and as he writes quote fundamentally corroded policymaking at universities so to get a high quality education today at a university that isn't trying to trap you as cheap labor or doesn't just use overworked adjuncts to teach courses to avoid paying faculty their worth you need to either come from money or you need to be highly highly exceptional or you need to accrue exorbitant amounts of debt and yet and yet marginalized people still made advances in this system. We saw, for example, more African-American presidents of universities, more women. We saw diversifying scholarship, courses, pathways for students as universities became more inclusive. That's what diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts did, imperfect as they were.

Starting point is 00:43:50 And even though the university as an institution continues to exploit labor, continues to exploit their own students, often doesn't deliver enough on the promise of social mobility. Even delivering a little was too much for the JD vances of the world. They don't want upward social mobility for some Americans. And they don't want those challenges to power, even at the margins. So they're cracking down. The attacks on Harvard, Brown, George Washington, UCLA, the list goes on, is predicated on attacking DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Starting point is 00:44:25 Conservatives allege that universities taking a person's background into consideration in admissions or in hiring or in scholarships, etc. All of that violates anti-discrimination laws. And our conservative Supreme Court, in its recent ruling in the cases of Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina and Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, agreed. They overturned the 2003 Greta v. Bollinger case that had allowed higher education institutions to consider race in admission. And all of this comes at a time after decades of the university as an institution eroded itself. But I would say attacking DEI wasn't effective enough, especially after the Black Lives Matter movement. Saying DEI is bad is a harder sell for an American public, 51% of which say they support Black Lives Matter. And this was according to a 2023 study by the Pew Research Center.

Starting point is 00:45:22 Now, 51% isn't overwhelming, but it's not nothing either. So conservatives, to attack the university, have had to exploit the weaknesses that already exist within the academy. That has meant exploiting the way the university as institution has become sensitive to money and endowments and donors, and that has meant exploiting the way the university has not actually been a site of free inquiry or expression for particular people and particular topics. And by exploiting and expanding that gap, they are now trying to take those freedoms away from everybody. This is where Palestine comes in.

Starting point is 00:46:06 The truth is, attacks on student protesters for Palestine, attacks on scholars who work on Palestine, or speak on Palestine. That all started before Trump. And that has become the blueprint for attacking universities and academic freedom generally. They're using the pro-Palestine protests, pro-Palestine programming, or just any knowledge production about Palestine as an excuse to allege anti-Semitism, enter into these investigations, and demand the universities do what they want. After the Hamas October 7th attacks, we saw student protesters detained, like Mahmoud Khalil at Columbia

Starting point is 00:46:49 and Ramiza Osterk at Tufts and many more. We have seen diplomas withheld like what Virginia Commonwealth University attempted to do to many students, including students Srin Haddad. We have seen professors put on leave or fired like what Mullenberg College did to Mara Finkelstein. The list goes on and on. But again, a lot of this pattern started before Trump.

Starting point is 00:47:14 In a November 2023 poll conducted by political scientists Mark Lynch and Shibli Talhami called the Middle East Scholar Barometer. The results show that 66% of faculty members who study the Middle East quote, self-censor when speaking

Starting point is 00:47:31 about the Middle East in an academic or professional setting. And that number goes up to 77.4% when talking about Israel-Palestine. On the Israeli-Palestin issue in particular, almost 52% of scholars have concerns about pressure from external advocacy groups. And of those who said they self-censor,

Starting point is 00:47:52 a full 83% said the issue they most feel the need to censor themselves about is anything related to criticism of Israel. This is a crazy number, if you consider that of the same group, only 1.6% of respondents said they censored criticism of U.S. policy. And a full 98% of assistant professors,

Starting point is 00:48:13 untenured professors, quote, feel the need to self-censor when speaking about the Palestinian-Israeli issue in an academic or professional capacity. Part of this story, the censorship story, is the large-scale adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism. Back during his first term, President Trump's executive order on combating anti-Semitism directed government bodies to take the IRA definition into consideration when enforcing Title VI, which is a part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, that prohibits discrimination based on

Starting point is 00:48:51 race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. The Biden administration didn't overturn any of that either. They implemented that executive order themselves throughout their tenure. And this definition is one definition of anti-Semitism that critics say conflates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. In fact, the main drafter of the IRA definition, Ken Stern, has expressed concerns that this definition is being used as a, quote, blunt instrument to label anyone an anti-Semite. And it's for that reason that Human Rights Watch and 104 other organizations signed a letter urging the UN not to use this IRA definition as a result. There are, of course, a number of competing definitions of anti-Semitism, such as the Jerusalem Declaration on

Starting point is 00:49:39 anti-Semitism, that has a more nuanced understanding of when criticism of Israel becomes anti-Semitism. As their website notes, the Jerusalem Declaration is a product of an initiative that originated in Jerusalem and includes in their numbers international scholars working in anti-Semitism studies and related fields, including Jewish, Holocaust, Israel, Palestine, and Middle East studies. But of course, the IRA definition is the one that the Trump administration wants to follow and the one that universities are adopting. Maybe it goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway. It's not because this administration that engages with the far right and propagates conspiracy theories like the Great Replacement. It's not like they actually care about

Starting point is 00:50:20 anti-Semitism. It's just a tool, as Jewish organizations working to combat anti-Semitism, such as the Nexus Project, explicitly point out. It's a way to, quote, weaponize anti-Semitism by attacking free speech, DEI, foreign students. And in this environment, we can understand why there's so much fear to speak up and so much self-censorship. You can be falsely accused of anti-Semitism for bringing up Palestine

Starting point is 00:50:48 as a topic of discussion, for trying to study what's happening, for trying to produce any sort of knowledge on what's going on. I also really want to underscore that this self-censorship and fear that already

Starting point is 00:51:04 existed in a space in academia is a word trend today, but it definitely existed before October 7th, too. Take it from me as someone who studies Palestine in American academia. Palestinian scholars have long been under attack in the American Academy. But after October 7th and before Trump, this of course got worse. External actors and donors got involved in campus governance, as we saw in Harvard and many other places. University administrations crack down on students, professors, everyone, often preemptively doing the work of the right wing, because they thought that taking away freedoms from some groups wouldn't come

Starting point is 00:51:40 back to bite them. And this is how Palestine is now one of the cudgels that Trump is using to attack universities and the academy. And it's an effective cudgel because some liberals in universities and outside universities can also be persuaded to attack scholarship on Palestine and students who speak on Palestine. But those exceptions to academic freedom that have long existed in the academy, are now being used to attack everyone. A quick note here to outline what academic freedom for a faculty member actually means. As the American Association of University Professors, the AAUP, notes on their website, academic freedom has these main elements. Number one, the freedom to discuss relevant matters in the classroom. Number two, the freedom to explore all avenues of

Starting point is 00:52:29 scholarship, research, and creative expression, and to publish the results of such work. Number three, intramural speech, freedom from institutional censorship or discipline when addressing matters of institutional policy or action. And number four, extramural speech, freedom from institutional censorship or discipline when speaking or writing as citizens. So faculty members are allowed to speak on matters as citizens. Being a faculty member and being a member of the university community does not take away their right to be citizens.

Starting point is 00:53:00 That last one is worth emphasizing. To maintain universities as sites of free inquiry and knowledge production, there has to be academic freedom. And that freedom includes teaching, research, intramural speech, and extramural speech. You can't censor people you don't like or don't agree with, and think your institution and your university will continue to function. You certainly can't do that and think the right wing won't sniff it out and use it against you. So what's to be done? Things are happening. People are fighting back. And just like Palestine has been the canary and the coal mine for so many things, including the assault on American academia, Palestine may be one of those crucial issues that

Starting point is 00:53:41 helps academics and students and faculty to organize in this moment. For example, because of the arrests of pro-Palestine students and their attempted deportation, the American Association of University Professors, alongside the Middle East Studies Association, and the Knight First Amendment Institute sued the Trump administration over this policy of arresting and threatening deportation for lawful speech on Palestine. The AAUP is also now a plaintiff in a number of cases, challenging the Trump administration on attacks on DEI, attempting to abolish the Department of Education, cuts in federal funding of research, etc. And attacks on students and faculty after October 7th, which set off this whole barrage of attacks on university since then,

Starting point is 00:54:25 have galvanized people to demand their university. administration's uphold academic freedom. In 2024, nearly 40 chapters at the AAUP were founded or reestablished across the U.S. Even professors who don't teach or study the Middle East or Palestine are starting to speak out about the dangers of these moments and these trends. I think people are starting to realize that American universities will have to uphold their ideals of faculty governance, free inquiry, free thought, for everyone. Or they really will cease to exist. That's all I have for you today. I'll be back soon to talk more about the latest developments in Palestine.

Starting point is 00:55:03 Stay strong, everybody. Thanks for listening. Intel core ultra processors, blazing speed, and AI-powered performance. It keeps up with your business, not the other way around. Whoa, this thing moves. Stop hitting snooze on new tech. Win the tech search at Lenovo.com. Lenovo, Lenovo.

Starting point is 00:55:42 Unlock AI experiences with the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, powered by Intel Core Ultra processors, so you can work, create, and boost productivity all on one device. There's a vile sickness in Abbas town. You must excise it. Dig into the deep earth and cut it out. The village is ravaged. Entire families have been consumed. You know how waking up from a dream?

Starting point is 00:56:13 A familiar place can look completely alien? Get back, everyone! And if you see the devil walking around inside of another man, you must cut out the very heart of him. Burn his body and scatter the ashes in the furthest. corner of this town as a warning. From IHeart Podcasts and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky, this is Havoc Town, a new fiction podcast sets in the Bridgewater Audio Universe, starring Jewel State and Ray Wise.

Starting point is 00:56:44 Listen to Havoc Town on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The devil walks in Aberstown. It was an unimaginable crime. It's four consecutive live terms for Brian Koberger who killed the four University of Idaho students. The defense are on a sinking ship. It was clear at that point. He was out of options. Nearly 30 months of silence until... Bombshell development, Brian Koviger, appearing set to accept a plea deal just five weeks before his quadruple murder trial was set to start.

Starting point is 00:57:23 No trial, no testimony. He has pleaded guilty to five. criminal counts, one of burglary, and then four counts of murder. In this final season, we returned to Moscow with interviews from those still searching for answers. Why did the prosecution take this? They were holding all the cars. How on earth could you make a deal? What message does that send? Listen to season three of the Idaho Massacre on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Starting point is 00:57:55 The U.S. Open is here. podcast, good game with Sarah Spain. I'm breaking down the players from rising stars to legends chasing history. The predictions will we see a first time winner and the pressure. Billy Jean King says pressure is a privilege, you know. Plus, the stories and events off the court and of course the honey deuses, the signature cocktail of the U.S. Open. The U.S. Open has gotten to be a very fancy, wonderfully experiential sporting event. I mean, listen, the whole aim is to be accessible and inclusive for all tennis fans, whether you play tennis or not. Tennis is full of compelling stories of late.

Starting point is 00:58:32 Have you heard about Icon Venus Williams' recent wild card bids? Or the young Canadian, Victoria Mboko, making a name for herself. How about Naomi Osaka getting back to form? To hear this and more, listen to Good Game with Sarah Spain, an Iheart women's sports production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart. women's sports.

Starting point is 00:59:00 Welcome to InQadap here, a podcast about things falling apart, and also sometimes about how not to put them back together and how to fail to put them back together. I am your host, Mia Wong, and today we are going to be talking about the place where the anti-trians crusade began, North Carolina, and about the recent spade of anti-trans bills that have been passed there. And with me to talk about this is David Forbes, an editor and journalist with the Trans News Network and the Asheville Blade, David, welcome to the show. Thank you. So I think some people, if you're listening to this show, you may remember that North Carolina is the state that passed the first bathroom bills.

Starting point is 00:59:43 But what has gotten significantly less attention is, A, everything that happened after that, and B, a series of two really sweeping and hideous anti-trans bills that have been passed. in the last, like, month or so. And David wrote a really, really good piece for Trends News Network about both these bills and also how Democrats in the state helped pass them. So I want to talk about that. And I guess the place to start is can you talk about what these two bills, HB 805 and SB 442, got started? Sure.

Starting point is 01:00:19 So of the two, HB 805 is the more sweeping broadly. at least. They're both terrible anti-trans bill. It affects everything from changing your birth certificate to state health plans not covering trans health care, to really ominously like what jail or prison you get put into if you're a trans person and you're arrested. Yeah. That one, it's kind of a laundry list of, you know, far right anti-trans ideas. The other SB 442 is one of those where it takes some digging. And here I'm really thankful that TNN's policy analyst, who I think y'all have had on here a few times,

Starting point is 01:00:56 Kareen Green, was actually there to, yes, was a huge help in reviewing this bill. I've been covered North Carolina politics and its various horrors for a long time, but even still, it's good to have, like, legislative expertise on that. And S.E.442 changes the definition of child abuse to not include transphobic child abuse,

Starting point is 01:01:21 essentially. It was written against the very fictional specter of like, oh, if you have questions about this trans stuff and you get your kid's pronouns wrong, DSS could come like snatch them overnight, which is not a thing that has ever happened. No. Including in especially North Carolina, like. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:01:40 So, but what it does is just bluntly open the way, especially in the state foster care system for just anti-trans bigotry across the board. You know, at this point, it's like, okay, well. placement. It can't be denied based on someone's religion or their race and being a trans vote. Yeah. You know, it's like that's, that's being added, the list predict identities. It's also essentially letting the ground work for just even more legal sanctioning of conversion therapy, which is, of course, torture and abuse.

Starting point is 01:02:13 Yeah. I think Kareen summed up as that if you, if you don't have a trans kid to abuse, foster care will provide one for you. Yeah. It's really bleak. Yeah. We chuckle, but we chuckle in the, like, Gallo's humor because it's that absurd. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:02:27 So SB 442 was the one that kind of went through the whole legislative process first. And in some ways, it had less of a party line treatment than HB805 eventually did. So, you know, I wouldn't say credit where due, but NC Senate Democrats, of whom there aren't terribly many, but there are some, did universally vote against this bill. They were like, no, we're not approving it. However, the GOP has a two-thirds majority in there, so it's really not as necessary. They can potentially override a veto in there. Where things really came down to was North Carolina House, and there are nine Democrats joined with the Republicans to pass this.

Starting point is 01:03:07 And then it got to the desk of Governor Josh Stein, who wanted a landslide last year. Like, North Carolina Democrats, despite how Jerry Mayor of the State is, which we'll talk about more in a little bit, actually did pretty well. The GOP no longer had a supermajority in the House, and the Democratic candidate for governor, former Attorney General Josh Stein, won in a route. So, essentially, that was supposed to prevent bills like this from becoming law. Yeah. Because, okay, if the Dems held the line in the North Carolina House, the Republicans no one of the supermajority, then the governor vetoes it. Then they can't override the veto.

Starting point is 01:03:41 That didn't happen. So not only did nine Democrats side with Republicans, Stein signed the bill. Yeah. which is hideous. Yeah, and it was bleakly insulting the way he did it, too, because it was just like, he didn't even issue a statement or, oh, like, well, we still believe in trans, rights, this is a bureaucratic thing, or even bothered to make an excuse. It was just tucked in a list of bills that he signed that day, alongside, like, some other

Starting point is 01:04:09 bureaucratic stuff involving, like, retirement communities and recognizing driver's licenses. So it's definitely kind of insult to injury sort of situation. And interestingly, North Carolina's gay ink organizations are kind of like the mainline non-profits. And in North Carolina, there's like equality in C. There's the campaign for some of the quality, which is regional, but is based in the state here in Asheville. They actually had been very strongly against this bill, despite some Democrats supporting it. But they stopped short, as will become a theme, with condemning or attacking any of the Democrats who did, which was a giant signal that this is not an issue you're really going to fight Democrats on. So the governor then thinks, well, there's no political capital be lost signing this thing.

Starting point is 01:04:51 On the same day, he did veto HB805, along with a bunch of other bills targeting, you know, in quote marks DEI measures, which are basically just attempts to smash out anything that's not far right and further resectate the state. And he did veto those. The language he used, though, was definitely what a lot of us have become used to. It's the, oh, this was divisive. No trans people mentioned. No trans health care mentioned.

Starting point is 01:05:16 trans rights mention, just vaguely, well, this is divisive and it's a distraction. So HB 805 does actually go back to the legislature. And one Democrat had voted for HB805. So there was a tension turning of, okay, is this guy going to still vote for a veto override, Representative Dante Pittman, because it's a big deal, supposedly anyway, for a Democrat to defy their own governor. It's one thing when it's like you're just, okay, you know the bill's going to pass. It's still horrible, but it's supposedly a harder,

Starting point is 01:05:46 far to reach, or at least that's what various, you know, ostensibly pro-queer Democrats are telling us for them to go on the record and be like, no, I'm joining with the other party to override your veto and, like, give you the middle finger, essentially. But what happened when he got back the house? He actually did, did vote to hold with the veto. But another representative had been out on a pretty dubious excused absence when HB. 805 was originally there, Democratic rep, Nassif Majid, voted in favor. And that was enough to make it law. So, The one thing that among queer and transing North Carolina, who, like a lot of their places, voted very heavily against the Republicans, you know, for the Democratic candidates and all. It's one reason they did fairly well last year.

Starting point is 01:06:27 To stop exactly the sort of legislation becoming law, it just became law. And it did so thanks to members of the Democratic Party and in one bill, the Democratic governor. both of these bills are unbelievably draconian like these are things that even like two years ago like banning state funding for like all trans health care for the state health plan we should specify yeah yeah sorry it is like the state health care but comma and this is my understanding of it is that this is a ban on all ages yes for anyone on the state health care plan so if someone is a state employee or a teacher yeah or like your kids are Exactly. And this kind of actually, it's close to home for me because I grew up poor in North Carolina. And one of the only reasons we had health care growing up was, was my mom, as poorly paid as she was, was a public school teacher. So, you know, it's a trans kid in where I was now, where we know, you know, it's easier for trans kids to know who they are. It's not quite as a race as it was back in the 90s. Can't get health care. A trans adult who's a teacher can't have their health care covered anymore.

Starting point is 01:07:45 And that's a thing that, like, two years ago, Ron DeSantis wasn't calling for this. No. Right? The Daily Wire at that point, like two years ago, is explicitly calling for trans exterminationist things. But they're not specifically proposing adults can't use trans health care. That's not a thing. Like, that was even on the table.

Starting point is 01:08:05 And now you have, like, you have a Democrat overriding their own governor's veto to get this through. Yes. A Democrat in a solidly blue district. Majid's district is in the middle of Charlotte, which for folks who may not be familiar with the state, like, Charlotte's the largest city here, and it is not known for being, like, at least on voting-wise, it doesn't go for the GOP, generally. Yeah, and then, this is the same point that I want to make about this bill, like, redefining what child abuse is, like, even by the standards of sort of, like, far-right anti-trans bills, those are really weird and radical. Corrine said it was one of the worst that she'd seen in the country as far as like on the child care front

Starting point is 01:08:47 from my covering of this too, yeah, this is one of the worst things I've ever seen and the Democratic Party passed it. Passed with nine Democrats in favor and the governor signed it. Yeah. That's unbelievably horrifying. And the fact that the queer wars in the state were unwilling to

Starting point is 01:09:03 condemn the Democrats who passed this is just horrifying. It is. And actually goes one further than that because afterwards, they didn't even bother to put out perfunctory, oh, we're disappointed in Governor Stein, you know, we will continue to try to fight this legislation in court or something like that. They did nothing. Yeah. They just, they went silent.

Starting point is 01:09:24 So, and, you know, their condemnations of SB 442, especially before this bill passed, they were all correct. It is horrible. Yeah. It does sanction child abuse. It is horrific on every single front. It is a catastrophe. It is draconian, all that. It didn't stop being so when Democrats started supporting.

Starting point is 01:09:41 it. Yeah. The kids hurt by this, family's hurt by this, aren't going to be any less hurt because a Democrat signed on to it. Yeah. And before we go to break, the thing I want to sort of close this section with is that like, you know, I think it's a very, very common thing to focus on like, okay, why are you focusing on the Democrats right now when the Republicans are doing all of the stuff? And this is a case where very explicitly, and this is the dynamic, I think you've seen across the board with, for example, like, Chuck Schumer, like helping to get the Republican budget through, right? Yes. The stuff the Republicans are doing, a lot of it can't be implemented without the support of the Democrats. And the Democrats

Starting point is 01:10:23 have been willing to support the fascist governments implementing this stuff. And that makes them a collaborationist party. Yes. In a lot of extremely important cases. And when that happens in North Carolina is one of the places at the forefront and has been at the forefront for like a decade. For nearly a decade. Yeah, for nearly a decade. It's like eight years, seven, seven, eight years? Nine. Nine? As of this year, it's nine years since HB2 came along in the spring of 2016. 2016, yeah. Oh, that is, yeah. See, this is, do not, do not go to sleep at five in the morning and then try to do math live on air. It will come for you too. Really, truly. It was trying to subtract 16th of 20.

Starting point is 01:11:10 Okay, this is this, this is your one moment of levity and a bunch of extremely bleak shit is trying and failing to do your math on air. Look, I can drive. That's why I'm sticking to it. But what we are seeing here is the way in which, like, resistance

Starting point is 01:11:26 to the GOP, and this is a place, like North Carolina is a state where in the midst of a just unbelievable national right-wing turn, right? queer people turned out to stop this and their reward for their resistance was the people that they

Starting point is 01:11:45 had put in charge of defending them in as staggering of an example of the banality of evil as I've ever seen just signed this horrific piece of anti-trans legislation that couldn't have been passed without them into effect in the same thing as like fucking as a bunch of regulatory

Starting point is 01:12:02 bullshit. Yeah. And then gay inked nothing. Yeah. The groups they're supposed to lobby at the club club. Well, this is the point of their existence. Did nothing. Yeah. At that point.

Starting point is 01:12:13 They just, they let, they let it go, you know, on the next fundraising cycle, onto the next AI meme to, on your page to boost, you know, content generation or whatever. And here we are. We are back. Now, for the brevity of this show, I am not going to go into my giant rant about how this is what happened with Mitterrand and the French socialists and how Mitterrand and the Socialist Party instituted neoliberalism in France. But, comma, we are, instead of doing that or me going on another rant about the absorption of social movements by the NIS of Bolivia or another rant about the 17 different iterations of this that we've seen over the year. my episodes on Lula, see many, many, many, many

Starting point is 01:13:08 things I've done. We're going to go back and talk about this in the context of North Carolina, because I think there's a really very, a very important thread that David, you have been pulling on in this piece and in general that is really not well understood

Starting point is 01:13:24 anywhere that is about the structure and function of the Democratic Party in the South and the way that North Carolina has functioned is it's sort of like the the moderate human face of, like, the Greensboro Massacre? Oh, my, yeah. And this is one of those where to start thing.

Starting point is 01:13:44 There's a quote that I have in the piece by civil rights historian Timothy Tyson that since I read it, I think over a decade ago, really just kind of hit me like a hammer and is kind of simple. A lot of the experience I've seen as a, you know, impoverished trans woman living in North Carolina and covering, you know, local state government and how federal government works on the ground here,

Starting point is 01:14:04 too, like beneath the green ivy of civility, but a stone wall of coercion. Yeah. And that is one of the better summaries. And it applies to other circumstances, too. But it is, it just perfectly sums up kind of the historical route, the North Carolina Democratic Party. And when Tyson was doing that, he was tracing this whole history from the 1898 Wilmington Kudata massacre, which is one of the most decisive events in American history. And I'd even say in like the history of the rise of fascism, too.

Starting point is 01:14:34 to the current day he was riding the late 90s. And as part of a project of historians, and one of the terms they were using was that North Carolina has this progressive mystique. While you were having governors under Southern States during the civil rights era where, you know, giving angry speeches from courthouses and things like that.

Starting point is 01:14:52 And North Carolina was trying to be the moderate example of the South. Oh, you know, we put money into, look at all these schools and roads we're building, this college system we're building. We just built research Triangle Park. You know, we're attracting, you know, it was the too busy to hate kind of myth.

Starting point is 01:15:10 And on that note, they generally were more careful about repression, but it still happened. You know, North Carolina doesn't make the headlines in something like Selma did, for example. But there was a history of riots and a brutal attempt of repression from the 40s all the way to the 70s in North Carolina. And they happened like in almost every city, major city there is here. You know, and some that weren't so major. That's the thing that we've talked about a little bit on the show with the whole week uprising and the sort of the whole wave of riots kind of culminating in the assassination of Martin Luther King.

Starting point is 01:15:45 But, like, yeah, like statistically most of the riots that happened in that entire period happened in these small and mid-sized cities. Yeah. That have just, like, the historical memory of which has been completely fucking buried. Yeah. And North Carolina, as you're saying, like, is one of the critical sites of this. Yeah. Durham was rioting in the 40s. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:16:03 Like that, that's how far back it goes. And I think a lot of the time people think, oh, well, not much happened in this era. And I think it's just a lack of knowledge of history, especially radical history. Did it not happen or was it suppressed and then erased? Yeah, yeah. And that happened a lot of this. So you had, you know, and figures like Governor Terry San for the time, who was, you know, famous North Carolina Democrat. And yeah, if the Klan was like openly marching to murder people, he might say like, okay, look, a massacre's bad news.

Starting point is 01:16:30 we are going to, like, put the state troopers out to deter them from doing that. But a lot of civil rights activists end up dead. Yeah. You know, or there's still, there's, like, violent crackdowns, you know, during the Greensburg, if it was a site of both of some really well-organized, like, civil rights efforts and sit-ins and more radical action, too, but also have a lot of repression. You know, by 1979, when the state's boosters are portraying, you know, all that upheaval is a thing of the past, this anti-racist march or anti-claim march, specifically,

Starting point is 01:17:00 organized by this communist group in Greensboro was massacred. The claimant of neo-Nazis came in. They just opened fire on people. Largely they were acquitted later. And in suing years, a lot of investigations been done into this. And various levels of local and state and after-the-fact federal law enforcement were very complicit. And things ranging from just kind of trying to sweep the under the rug to outright, especially in the local level, like cooperating with the clan. Yeah. A lot of them were either a way. this is going on and did nothing to stop it or even actively fed the clan information. There's a book recently called Morningside that goes into a lot of this detail that I encourage

Starting point is 01:17:40 folks take a look at. But like, that's the reality of North Carolina. And that's the reality beneath the progressive mystique. And one of the historians, I quote in the piece, mentioned that this is an exquisite instrument of social control. Because you've kind of already framed the discussion as, oh, it's just this genteel civil thing. We'll hear you out. Just be a little more patient. But if stuff ever really escalates, there is the option of just flat out smears, violence, and massacre. And knowing the history of North Carolina, you know, a lot of this was directed at black North Carolinians, but also it was used to crush labor stuff. A lot of the people killed in the Greensboro Massacre were also organizing in the textile mills. And North Carolina,

Starting point is 01:18:22 under the Democrats, under their moderate period, had and continues to have some of the most draconian anti-labor laws in the country, which takes some work. So that's kind of the reality in North Carolina and of the Democratic Party here. And they lean on that mystique heavily. And honestly, I think a lot of it is what they evoke as, you know, were the defenders

Starting point is 01:18:42 of the sane, sensible, civil status quo. Even Salton's and Stein's statements about HB805 when he did veto it. It's like, well, this is divisive. It's making too many waves. We need to get back to business, which they mean not just the business of government. They literally mean business. Yeah, as far as.

Starting point is 01:18:57 marketing the state and making more money and in everything means making more money for the gentry. So that's kind of the reality of North Carolina beneath this kind of, you know, how things supposedly are better and more progressive here. In the end of the day, you can still get massacred. Yeah. And I think on a sort of structural level, right, I think there's going to be people who are being like, well, okay, why the fuck do I give, do I give a shit about North Carolina? And one, and this is something that you point out in the piece, something that's really obvious if you spend literally any time in the south is that what i think it's 36% of the south is like what's the actual number i should have looked this up before so of the national population of queer and trans people

Starting point is 01:19:40 36% live in the south which is far more than any other region like by a wide margin yeah i think under that same uh 2023 calculation and there was another reason sort of they came out specifically about trans people all these have faults yeah it is a general rule that trans people is especially in areas where they are more legally and violently marginalized are wildly undercounted. But it maps to about the same numbers. I think of trainspeople in the country. The estimated about 33 or 36% live in the south. And in the 2023 one, the next highest amount live in the Midwest, which is kind of different

Starting point is 01:20:15 from how you see things portrayed that, you know, we're just this. Yeah, this coastal, like, elite bohemians on a few coastal cities. As a matter of fact, there are a lot of trains people in the south and the Midwest. We've been here for ages. We're still here. Yeah. Yeah. It's North Carolina.

Starting point is 01:20:32 It's Texas. It's fucking New Orleans. West Virginia. Florida. Yeah. And again, like, in terms of like, okay, so I'm not in those places. Like, A, but we all have a responsibility to all queer people, like, as queer people, right? Like, we have a responsibility to each other and we should fucking fight for each other.

Starting point is 01:20:50 And B, you can look at what happened in North Carolina. It was deliberately, this is. the place where the right wing's anti-trans strategy was born and it was exported from the success that they had in North Carolina to the entire rest of the fucking country. Yes. Right? With the bathroom bills, and this is something we're going to get into in a second with the way the Democratic Party didn't react to those bathroom bills.

Starting point is 01:21:17 The last point that I want to make here is that this strategy of control is also very similar to the one that the Democrats use in places like. San Francisco, where you have this sort of progressive veneer over, you know, that the constellation, well, I guess the consolation of class forces is getting more similar as, as big tech moves into, like, that part of the South. But, you know, it's this constellation of like, oh, hey, we are the queer rights party, but our actual interests are this combination of housing developers, landlords, and tech giants. And so as a method of social control, we're going to do this, like, hey, We're extremely pro trans, and then we're going to throw a whole bunch of fucking trans homeless people into concentration camps.

Starting point is 01:22:04 Yeah. And that's the thing that, like, you know, we're going to, I'm going to talk more about this on the show another time with the ways that Trump's anti-homeless executive orders. Some of the models for it are the way that sweeps have been working in places like Oakland's. We've talked about this on the show before. But this mechanism of social control is one that's really, really widespread. And the South operates as a laboratory for that, too, in the same way that it operates as a laboratory for the right. Yeah. And I think that's really important because since this is a point, I can't hone this point enough and make it sharp enough, frankly.

Starting point is 01:22:45 Folks need to take it really seriously. Whether you call the South or not, fascists do. The far right does. And they have for a long, long time viewed it not as a place to ignore, but as a place to consolidate power and try out their tactics. Too often the left, even the queer left, has not. Yeah. We have all suffered for it. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:23:04 And this is the whole thing for the historical left, right? Like, one of the things that broke the American labor movement, like, was the defeat of the CIA in the South. Yeah. I mean, all the way back to, I mean, defense, you were literally talking about, like, the defeat of reconstruction. Like, this is, this is why this country is like this. if you don't want the country, it'll be like this, you have to fucking fight in the South. Yes. That's all we've got time for for today.

Starting point is 01:23:28 But tomorrow, we will be back to talk about the long and sorted history of the Democratic Party's progressive veneer in North Carolina and what truly lies beneath it. And we will look at how the original response to the 2016 bathroom bills set the stage for both the Democratic Party in North Carolina's passing events. anti-trans laws today and the future of the rest of the country. Ah, come on. Why is this taking so long? This thing is ancient. Still using yesterday's tech, upgrade to the ThinkPad X1 carbon, ultra-light, ultra-powerful, and built for serious productivity with Intel core ultra-processors, blazing speed, and AI-powered performance. It keeps up with your business, not the other way around.

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Starting point is 01:24:49 You must have. excise it. Dig into the deep earth and cut it out. The village is ravaged. Entire families have been consumed. You know how waking up from a dream? A familiar place can look completely alien? Get back everyone! He's going to next! And if you see the devil walking around inside of another man, you must cut out the very heart of him. Burn his body and scatter the ashes in the furthest corner of this town. As a warning. From IHeart podcasts and grim and mild from Aaron Manky, this is Havoc Town, a new fiction podcast set in the Bridgewater Audio Universe, starring Jewel State and Ray Wise. Listen to Havoc Town on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Starting point is 01:25:41 The devil walks in Aberstown. It was an unimaginable crime. It's four consecutive live terms for Brian Koberger who killed the four University of Idaho students. The defense are on a sinking ship. It was clear at that point. He was out of options. Nearly 30 months of silence until... Bombshell development, Brian Koberger, appearing set to accept a plea deal just five weeks before his quadruple murder trial was set to start. No trial, no testimony.

Starting point is 01:26:16 He has pleaded guilty to five. criminal counts, one of burglary, and then four counts of murder. In this final season, we returned to Moscow with interviews from those still searching for answers. Why did the prosecution take this? They were holding all the cars. How on earth could you make a deal? What message does that send? Listen to season three of the Idaho Massacre on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The U.S. Open is here. podcast, Good Game with Sarah Spain. I'm breaking down the players from rising stars to legends

Starting point is 01:26:52 chasing history. The predictions will we see a first time winner and the pressure? Billy Jean King says pressure is a privilege, you know. Plus, the stories and events off the court and of course the honey deuses, the signature cocktail of the U.S. Open. The U.S. Open has gotten to be a very fancy, wonderfully experiential sporting event. I mean, listen, the whole aim is to be accessible and inclusive for all tennis fans, whether you play tennis or not. Tennis is full of compelling stories of late. Have you heard about Icon Venus Williams' recent wild card bids or the young Canadian Victoria Mboko making a name for herself?

Starting point is 01:27:29 How about Naomi Osaka getting back to form? To hear this and more, listen to Good Game with Sarah Spain, an IHeart women's sports production in partnership with deep blue sports and entertainment on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart. women's sports. Welcome to It Could Happen to a podcast about things falling apart and also sometimes about how claiming that you were going to put things back together and then not doing it makes things

Starting point is 01:28:01 fall apart even worse. I am your host, Mia Wong, and today we're going to be continuing with part two of my interview with David Forbes, an editor and journalist for the Trans News Network and the Ashville Blade, about the history of the North Carolina Democratic Party's progressive veneer over their agreement with Republican policies, and importantly, how the Democratic Party's original response to the anti-trans bathroom bills from 2016 paved the way for where we are today. So enjoy. Let's talk about the original bathroom bills, because I think there's some knowledge, well, okay,

Starting point is 01:28:41 I don't know, it's been almost a decade. So I think people may have forgotten how this all started. So let's talk about the first bathroom bills, what happened, and then how the Democrats kind of ensured that they would stay in place? Sure. So there is the big one everyone knows about is HB2 because it became kind of internationally famous as the North Carolina bathroom bill. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:29:02 And even, I think, for folks who memories may have faded, it has come up recently as kind of a benchmark. And often a misinterpreted one, as we're about to get into, for how far things have shifted. Because on paper, it looks like this really horribly backfired. And in some ways, it did initially. HB2 was a bill that was kind of slapped in last minute. It clearly drew from the larger anti-trans, far-right policy circles, which North Carolina Republicans are highly connected to.

Starting point is 01:29:35 North Carolina Dems often kind of view themselves their own little, like, institution. Like, where the Democratic moderates, like North Carolina Democrats have always been at their best. people of that tradition we just talked about, the Republicans here were like, okay, we're now in power, which they were starting in 2011. Let's try out this stuff from Alec. Let's try out this stuff from some secure right-wing think tank. And that meant they were plugged in when in the wake of Obergefell and also North Carolina as well, the year before, you'd had equal marriage for that whole swath of the south was kind of imposed by a federal court order or recognized by a federal court order. So they were, were like, okay, this isn't working. There is not just more de-sure. There is more de facto on the ground popular acceptance of equal marriage now. That's not the wedge it was previously. So what do we shift to? Well, we shift to trans people. And so North Carolina legislators very eager to try out far right policies. The North Carolina GOP is far right even by Southern standards, which is interesting because the state's very split as far as like votes and demographics go. So

Starting point is 01:30:39 2016's rolled around. Four years earlier, the Dems had done the usual thing. They'd run a super conservative, super pro-business, white guy Democrat. He got trounced by Pat McCrory, who was the former mayor of Charlotte. And Rain was like, oh, I'm a moderate, sensible Republican. I'm going to bounce out the legislature a little bit. But unlike too many outside the region and the state, who kind of wrote, okay, North Carolina is just becoming this red state now like other southern states have, they knew their hold was actually really precarious. Now, they gerrymandered, extensively, so extensively that, like, North Carolina, the same year as HP2 passed, stopped being recognized as a democracy by the, like, policies there was a study. As a matter of fact, the district

Starting point is 01:31:21 Carolina, they did a whole commentary later that year that these were the most rigged districts, the most area-man districts they'd seen not just in the U.S., but anywhere in the world. So that is where we live. That's where we live for some time. And, uh, but the governor's elected statewide. So he's in a more precarious position, and they wanted a wedge issue in their view to drive out conservative votes. They also hate trans people and want to hurt us. Yeah, yeah. So this HB2 said that trans people can't go into bathrooms unless they use the one matching their birth certificate in any state building in North Carolina. And this technically also includes like local government buildings. It includes like social services. It includes like any educational setting, pretty much.

Starting point is 01:32:08 So this was clearly a slap dash of fare. They didn't even have like an enforcement mechanism in there. But it did a few other things too. I think people forget about, which is it also stripped the ability of localities to make their own minimum wage rules. So it was also an attack on labor because those always go together and not unrelated. Trans and queer people are only working class demographics, which I don't think it's said enough.

Starting point is 01:32:31 And also essentially this was an reaction to Charlotte adding gender identity to its existing non-discrimination ordinance. There's always a local one. But in reality, you know, if Shara had never done that, they would have done a bill like this pretty shortly anyway. Yeah. It was kind of just the excuse. And they also struck down all non-discrimination ordinances across the state,

Starting point is 01:32:53 like local non-discrimination ordinances. So this is a broad attack with trans people as kind of the point of the spear, as it were, like the ones most in the front lines. It's a familiar pattern. You know, go after trans rights. You're also going. after broad rights for any marginalized group, because non-information stuff is being struck down left and right, and also you're attacking labor. Yep. So, you know, it really kind of set the

Starting point is 01:33:18 model for things to come. HB2 sparks a massive international backlash. I think the end estimate was $400 million. The state lost $400 million as companies pulled out, events pulled out. There was a boycott, a fairly effective one, honestly, that was started as grassroots, though, gay ink groups, and even like just random non-profits and some Democratic Party officials later joined in on it. So the money's being hemorrhaged left and right. McCory's being turned into a national laughing stock. If anything, it's proving a rallying point for the other side because 2016 rolls around and in a year where Trump takes North Carolina and generally the Republicans do fairly well

Starting point is 01:33:59 throughout the South, even in a swing states like NC, McCory loses. He loses to the Attorney General Roy Cooper as a Democrat. Now, I would never say his portrays or about against some major betrayals he did. He was more willing to say, at least perfunctory statements about trans rights than any North Carolina Democratic politician at a statewide level before and honestly sense, including the current governor. And, yeah, he proceeded to win. So he gets an office. North Carolina gentry are historically plenty fine with bigotry.

Starting point is 01:34:39 But the Republicans had, by this point, broken one of their cardinal rules, which was they fucked with the money. Yeah. Because, like, the state was losing money. They were losing business deals, corporate headquarters and stuff. And this is a lot of what the status quo,

Starting point is 01:34:52 very anti-labor status quo, that North Carolina Democrats and Republicans had generally both supported in varying ways was in danger. And, you know, some of them personally were losing money. So they basically tell the Republicans in early 2017, to knock it off.

Starting point is 01:35:07 Like, okay, you've gone far enough. It didn't work. You lost the election. They still do the Jerry Manning. Had a lot of power in the state legislature, but they didn't have the governor's office anymore. So, you know, repeal this. Like, we're getting too much bad publicity.

Starting point is 01:35:21 And what really escalated it was basketball was kind of a religion in North Carolina, especially college basketball. And the NCAA said, look, we'll pull the tournament out of HB2 is still in the books. And at that point, there became like these back and forth sessions, earlier in December, there was this compromise effort where supposedly Charlotte would strike

Starting point is 01:35:40 its non-discrimination stuff on its end. It was currently like this source of legal challenge. They'd gone to court to fight to uphold it. And this should have been a warning sign. The governor-elect Cooper at that point brokered kind of this deal where, okay, Charlotte, you take trans people out of your non-scriming shordon and it's out of your own accord

Starting point is 01:35:58 and the state will repeal HB2. Well, that didn't happen. They did the first part. And then the legislative legislators were like, okay, well, that's nice. We're not doing anything about this. That should have been a lesson about complying in advance, but it didn't really seem to take, sadly. So HV2 was sold in the books by March. You know, March Madness is coming up and all that.

Starting point is 01:36:20 And so they finally do a repeal. And this is still hailed as, oh, look, like back in the day, like even Republicans, some Republicans would, like, repeal a trans bill when it got this big backlash. Their federal funding was being threatened as well for the state. That's not like federal education funding and all. That's not what happened, though. And what happened, I think, is actually it was a lot more ominous and a lot more revealing. What passed instead was, honestly, a second bathroom bill called HB142 or HB2. Or HB2.2. As a lot of activists and queer folks in the ground and trans with the ground dubbed it.

Starting point is 01:36:53 And what this bill did was it technically took out the bathroom ban, but it's put in a bunch of Byzantine provisions about who could use the bathroom when, so it would still take a court case for a trans woman to go use the women's bathroom, it kept all the anti-labor stuff, and it kept all the non-discrimination stuff struck down for years, like you couldn't pass local non-strication protections for years. And at this point, the pressure is mounting. The Democratic Party, for the first time most of a decade, their votes in the legislature actually matter because the Republicans are split between kind of the capitalist who are hate trains who were using this as a wedge issue, and now the money's being fucked with. They're ready to repeal it.

Starting point is 01:37:33 And some of the others were like, no, no, no, we really are dedicated to hating trans people. The state can burn as long as trans people's lives are made more miserable. So they didn't have the votes in their own caucus to pass this. So for once, Dems had a lot of power. And they could have easily been like, no, full repeal or nothing. And they probably would have gotten it through. They did not. They sided with the Republicans.

Starting point is 01:37:53 They passed this mess that essentially kept the status quo. It was just barely enough for the NCAA, who even noted, they even noted their corporation, basically. they know it was reluctant, that they were, you know, putting the tournament back in NC, but they did. The governor, new governor, Democratic governor signed it. And I probably forgot this mentioned earlier. HB2 passed with two Democratic votes in the first place. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:38:15 So this is like not a new trend of this happening. Heck, anti-queer stuff even well before that would often pass with Democratic support as well as Republican support, often be signed by Democratic governors. So this is not an entirely new thing. And this is also a point where you can see, A. Inc. splitting a bit because Gay Inc. did actually, had actually condemned HB.2.0. But once it became passed, they either offered tepid statements or they backed down.

Starting point is 01:38:43 And so the lesson from HB2 wasn't, okay, back in the day, you know, nine years ago, trains rights used to be more of a consensus, even among like moderate conservatives, at least basic protections for it. And a good example was how unpopular HB2 was. And it was repealed under all this backlash. It did get a back. backlash, but it wasn't really repealed. And as a matter of fact, what the far right learned was that when it comes down to it, the Democrats, North Carolina, it turned out elsewhere, will fold if trans rights is made an issue. Yeah. And you know, and you can watch everything that has happened since with trans rights has just been the Democrats folding over and over and over

Starting point is 01:39:26 again and getting weaker and weaker language until we're in this place now. You know, And I think the thing that is a little bit different is that, like, you used to have to, like, claim you had done something. Yeah. About the anti-trans bill. And now you can just sign it. Yeah. And it becomes law. And this is something that has played out across the country.

Starting point is 01:39:44 Like, there have been a lot of states where Democratic governors have signed anti-trans bills. Yes. Or vetoed pro-trans bills, like in California. Yeah. And, you know, even in states where, like, Pritzker, the governor of Illinois has been being held up as, like, the big pro-trans people. I see, like, even trans left is doing this. And, you know, like, there are a lot of things in Illinois that are very good for trans people because of the weird Pritzker corruption, his sister is trans.

Starting point is 01:40:08 And also, the moment the government was like, oh, hey, we're going to, like, sort of make a big show of threatening, like, health care funding. Prisker just folded and let all these hospitals stop providing trans care to youth, even though it is literally a violation of Illinois, like, of Illinois anti-discrimination legislation. Yeah. They just backed down and refused to do it. Yeah. And the way that this starts is that there is a gap between the rhetoric of someone like Pritzker being like, oh, no, like we support trans rights. Trans rights are an important civil rights issue. And then you watch them, like, allow a bunch of hospitals in Illinois to stop providing care to trans kids.

Starting point is 01:40:44 And the place where that ends is more and more Democrats just straight up voting for this stuff. Yeah. And the Democrats, you know, as you're talking about with HB2 is like, you know, there were democratic votes on that one. Yeah, HB1.42, especially, yeah, the compromise bill. But even HB2 itself, yeah, there were Democrats who support that too. Yeah, and so this is, I think, the critical part of this is that, like, this stuff only can happen with the support of the Democrats, and that's why it's happening. It's because, because, like, and this is something that's incredibly important right now, we're, like, all of the shit that is happening, all the things Republicans are doing are hideously unpotting. Like, 30% approval ratings across the board for, like, all of this.

Starting point is 01:41:26 just hideously hated. The only way it can happen is if the Democrats go collaborationists and side with the Republicans and that's what they're doing. Nazis always need whizzlings. Yeah, and they're relying on the image of resistance

Starting point is 01:41:42 to distract everyone for the fact that they're helping these policies go through. And if you want to stop them, you have to stop them from collaborating. I think that also brings up kind of the third element in this. You've got the are always fascist increasingly fascist Republican Party. You've got the increase in collaborationist Democratic Party. And especially on queer and trans rights, you have gay ink, which, and I go into some examples in the piece. After HP2.0, they put out some preferring three statements, but then they turned to gatekeeping.

Starting point is 01:42:19 And the ensuing years, they very consistently tried to stifle any activism that was, more radical or more principled to try to get this stuff off the books. Yeah. And especially if it came to holding Democratic officials feet of the fire, I literally have an example in the article that I was physically there for and witnessed where a director with a canvas inequality sees the mic as was being passed as some candidates to answer a stronger question from some trans activists and change the question to something that didn't actually put any pressure on them at all.

Starting point is 01:42:50 Like just kind of absurd petty stuff like that. But the coup of effect has been that, you know, they turn to thinking about their political careers and their fundraising. And when push comes to shove, again and again, they've shown they won't hold Democrats' feet to the fire. If anything, they will tell the trains people trying to hold their feet, the fire to shut up. So if you know that the lobby, the official lobby that's supposed to, you know, ostensibly on some level stand up for some mild version of trans and queer rights, will never give someone any shit for breaking ranks, not even like we condemn officials so-and-so and their bigotry or whatever,

Starting point is 01:43:28 or we are sorely disappointed in or any one of the boilerplate things, they won't even go that far. That's too far for them. So you have Democrats collaborating and a gay ink structure that has taken the energy and funding out of law of other queer activism, but we'll absolutely will not fight when Democrats are involved.

Starting point is 01:43:48 So if you're fascist, all you have to do is get some Democrats involved. Yeah, and that's how you give Vichy France. Yeah, and honestly, this is, it's a question I put to folks because, you know, look, I'm honestly dealing with North Carolina Democrats is one of the things that made me an anarchist. So, so it's, you know, I've not had any faith in them for a very, very long time. But for folks that, you know, kind of do put a little more energy into electoral processes, I just, you know, so questions of the piece that I think are worth asking them, like,

Starting point is 01:44:18 what's the point of people who are just going to support your enemies? What's the point of people that you elect? Maybe even like get out, you know, and dock doors or whatever to get elected who then don't do the one thing they're elected to do. And I'd ask too for some of the folks who support some of these gay incorgs.

Starting point is 01:44:37 I was like, if they won't fight now, what is the point of them? Yeah. Why do they deserve any support from us as a community? Or is it far past time to look to other alternatives? there wasn't a lesson HB2 taught as well, which is if you want even the most diehard bigot to start losing their nerve, you attack their money and their power.

Starting point is 01:45:00 Yeah. And then you don't stop if so, say, oh, you have to compromise. If a pragmatic solution, you ignore them, laugh in their faces, do whatever. But you keep pressing them because that was the other thing H2. There was a really effective campaign to boycott. Yeah. And it did have a substantial effect. you know, the lovely weapon of vicious mockery really came in handy.

Starting point is 01:45:22 And even the Rojas didn't like becoming a national laughing stock. So there were less about how stuff could be fought as well. And the more radical history in North Carolina, you know, there are queer radicals here. You know, my city was hit by a massive hurricane last year. And honestly, it was a lot of those radicals getting out on the ground that kept things from getting even worse. And, you know, just folks on the ground pitching in outside of government structures. not waiting for the official non-profits who were either devastated or had not planned for this. So there are other alternatives, you know, and or heck that the, hell, I have to remember I could curse here.

Starting point is 01:46:01 That the fact that civil rights reform had a lot of tension has gone to citizens. And there was a lot of organizing in those movements. It's a lot more militant than folks remember. That also went along three decades of riots in cities throughout the state before the old order even began to bud, a little bit. And the lesson from that, North Carolina Democrats and North Carolina status quo,

Starting point is 01:46:23 and I see throughout the South and throughout the country, it only budges, even starts to move when the cost of continuing the way it is become far too high. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:46:34 And our job is to impose that cost. Yes. Because if we don't impose that cost, they're going to keep pushing and they are going to continue to write us out of existence until they have the guns to do it. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:46:44 And honestly, that is a mentality. I think a lot more people need to absorb. And I think one of the lessons from, you know, fighting the far rate at some points for my entire, like, adult life, basically, and even a little bit before then

Starting point is 01:46:59 in North Carolina is that the more you fight them, the weaker they are. Yeah. But also, and this is something one of the more experienced trans-rines and South I know has emphasized, you won't always win. You can always inflict a cost. Yeah. And I think a little more like thinking outside of elections,

Starting point is 01:47:17 a little more bloody-minded determination can really come in handy of the sense of like if our enemies are like, okay, court rules against us, we're still pressing the attack. Okay, election goes against us. We're still pressing the attack. I think we can do way meaner

Starting point is 01:47:33 and way better than they do on that front. Something goes against us. That's nice. We're still pressing the attack. You know, there's nothing in this hellscape of an empire we have to abide by, especially not in the South. Yeah. Yeah. So if something doesn't go our way once, okay, learn, regroup, redouble, make sure you inflicted some costs, go out and inflict more of them. They're not invincible. Trust me.

Starting point is 01:47:57 Yeah. Another gender is possible. You just have to go out and fight for it. Exactly. Yeah. So I think on that note, David, where can people find your work? You can find my stuff for trans news network at transnews.network, including this most recent piece. And you can find some of my local reporting. as part of the Ashful Blade co-op at ashfulblade.com. Awesome. And y'all at both the Transn News Network and the Ashfield Blade

Starting point is 01:48:26 have been doing a bunch of absolutely incredible work. Thank you. And I encourage you for one to support both because ideally the function of journalism is to be the targeting mechanism

Starting point is 01:48:34 of the class. And these are two groups of working class trans journalists who do it. And both organizations are worker run, I should add. Yep. This has been it could happen here.

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Starting point is 01:49:35 and boost productivity all on one device. There's a vile sickness in Abbas town. You must excise it. dig into the deep earth and cut it out the village is ravaged entire families have been consumed you know how waking up from a dream a familiar place can look completely alien

Starting point is 01:50:01 and if you see the devil walking around inside of another man you must cut out the very heart of him burn his body and scatter the ashes in the furthest corner of this town as a warning. From IHeart podcasts and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky, this is Havok Town, a new fiction podcast set in the Bridgewater Audio Universe,

Starting point is 01:50:27 starring Jewel State and Ray Wise. Listen to Havoc Town on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The devil walks in Aberstown. It was an unimaginable crime. It's four consecutive. live terms for Brian Coburger, who killed the four University of Idaho students. The defense are on a sinking ship.

Starting point is 01:50:52 It was clear at that point. He was out of options. Nearly 30 months of silence until... Bombshell development, Brian Coburger, appearing set to accept a plea deal, just five weeks before his quadruple murder trial was set to start. No trial, no testimony. He has pleaded guilty to five criminal counts, one of burglary, and then four counts of murder.

Starting point is 01:51:16 In this final season, we returned to Moscow with interviews from those still searching for answers. Why did the prosecution take this? They were holding all the cars. How on earth could you make a deal? What message does that send?

Starting point is 01:51:32 Listen to season three of the Idaho Massacre on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The U.S. Open is here, and on my podcast, Good Game with Sarah Spain, I'm breaking down the players from rising stars to legends chasing history. The predictions will we see a first time winner and the pressure. Billy Jean King says pressure is a privilege, you know.

Starting point is 01:51:55 Plus, the stories and events off the court and, of course, the honey deuses, the signature cocktail of the U.S. Open. The U.S. Open has gotten to be a very fancy, wonderfully experiential sporting event. I mean, listen, the whole aim is to be accessible and inclusive for all tennis fans, whether you play tennis or not. Tennis is full of compelling stories of late. Have you heard about Icon Venus Williams' recent wildcard bids? Or the young Canadian, Victoria Mboko, making a name for herself. How about Naomi Osaka getting back to form?

Starting point is 01:52:27 To hear this and more, listen to Good Game with Sarah Spain, an Iheart women's sports production in partnership with deep blue sports and entertainment on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. This is It Could Happen Here, Executive Disorder, our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world, what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis. This episode, I'm joined by Mia Wong and Robert Evans. We're covering the week of August 21st and August 27th. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:53:06 We sure are. I can't believe Cracker Barrel would do that. It's outrageous. Yeah, that's clearly the biggest news. Thankfully, they switched it back. They took the cracker out of the barrel, and thankfully, though, they reversed course. And put the cracker back in. I really don't understand how it's awoke. I mean, I do understand, because I understand how this messaging works, but...

Starting point is 01:53:28 It doesn't matter. Anytime anything happens and they can see a backlash forming, you, after the fact, because people were starting to get pissed off about the fucking cracker barrel thing. In the same way, like, that has one with fucking games workshop earlier this year. Like, they redid their logo in a shitty way. And it's the same, like, minimalist bullshit. Yeah, it's just the flat minimalism. It's not, it's not woke.

Starting point is 01:53:48 Yeah. It's just incentivizing, like, capitalist conformity. This is why they've changed all of the buildings of, like, you know, McDonald's a Pizza Hut to the same structure so you can use the property and resell it over and over and over again without having to do big renovations. It's just all about capitalist efficiency. It's not, it's not about woke. It's got nothing to do with woke. But there's people whose whole, like Chris Rufo, whose whole job is sitting around. And as soon as you started to see the backlash forming and realize, like, oh, there's probably

Starting point is 01:54:16 going to be a spree of these companies coming in with these new minimalist logos, because it's clearly a trend in, like, consultancies, right? Like, it's started happening. This is not the first one. So I'm just going to look around until I see one of these that feels like it's got culture war potential. And Cracker Barrel is an obvious one. Like, if I'm looking, if I was looking out there, that's one I would pick, right?

Starting point is 01:54:36 Like, I think they're also responding to, like, you know, the past few years where we've been removing like racist characters from logos right with like like aunt jemima's and like lando lakes and and using this in a similar way except they took away the white guy leading against the barrel yeah so it's part part of that whole backlash as well it's funny though i have seen like i i don't i don't if it's from chris rufo but you know people similar in that orbit talking about how this thing actually is wokeism because minimalism is based on brutalism which was invented by communists. So actually turning everything into this minimalist

Starting point is 01:55:15 design is actually a plot from the Frankfurt School and the communists are taking over. I mean, look, it doesn't matter. Outside of the fact that people, whenever you buy into it, you're helping to feed, like even dunking on them, that's part of

Starting point is 01:55:33 like the problem, is that like, just talking about this shit at all fuels the feedback loop, right? And that's what this is, is a feedback loop that there very good at manipulating for political purposes. And I'm not going to sit here and lecture you and say, like, stop commenting on this, stop talking about this stuff. But we do need to understand that this is, the olds in the audience, remember the old Simpsons Halloween episode where the different, like, mascots from different companies, like come alive and start

Starting point is 01:56:02 murdering people in town. And the solution that's an old ad man gives everyone is like, well, if you want to stop the monsters, just look away. Advertising feeds on attention. you know, and once everyone ignores the monsters, they go away. And unfortunately, that's not how things actually work, because there's 350 million people in the country. And so whatever you choose to do about this isn't going to matter, but the feedback loop is going to continue unabated. That much I can say.

Starting point is 01:56:28 Cracker barrel has fallen, and like Christ, after three days, has rose again. Yeah, great. Anyway, speaking of memes, unfortunately, We should talk about this horrible mass shooting. That is probably going to be the big story this week. I mean, I hate to reduce it to that, but yeah. We're recording this on Wednesday a few hours after the shooting. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:56:53 This is in Minneapolis. Yes, there was a mass shooting at a Minneapolis Catholic school, Annunciation Catholic School. This happened earlier the day that we're recording this. So that's going to be Wednesday, August 27th. As of right now, at about 2.11 p.m. PST. Two children are dead. 17 people, mostly children are wounded. The shooter is also dead. And the shooter has been identified as Robin Westman, who graduated from the school in 2017. Their mom also worked at the school until very recently. Yep. And that's not at all an unusual kind of situation. Mass shooters at schools often are either attending the school or recently graduated. There's been a couple of cases where a family, I remember worked at the school, like, this stuff is all pretty standard for somebody shooting up a school.

Starting point is 01:57:45 What's different is one of the things that's different is that the shooter basically followed in Brenton Tarrant, the Christchurch shooter's footsteps by covering their firearms and the gear that they were wearing and draw, like, I guess drew or painted on. I'm not sure. It looks like with like a white paint pen. Like white out or something like that, a white paint pen. And covered it in the names of other mass shooters, references to racial. annihilation memes like the removed kebab meme, which is, in short, a meme celebrating the Bosnian genocide. And it was a meme that was specifically, Brent and Tarrant had signaled

Starting point is 01:58:21 in his, like, manifesto, and I think on his gun, he had to remove kebob reference. But it's something he signaled and was on the shooter's firearm as well as the names. I mean, Tarrant, there's references to Tarrant on there. Timothy McVeigh, Tim McVeigh's name, just the word McVeigh is painted on there. Ted Kaczynski. Ted Kaczynski. the Unabomber. A whole bunch of other more recent mass shooters people who are in like the mass shooter fandom.

Starting point is 01:58:46 As well as just a collection of memes from like old memes too. Utterly unrelated to shooting. Like there's a loss meme on there. And if you're, a lot of people are going, wait, what the fuck really? And if you're too young for loss, there used to be a wet, well I think there still is, a web

Starting point is 01:59:03 comic called Control Alt Delete. It started in like the early 2000s, it might have gotten started in the late 90s. And it was part of like this, there's this boom in web comics in the late 90s, when suddenly people are able to make their own comics online and make livings off of them. A whole bunch of guys made gaming comics after Penny Arcade, which was like the big one that blew up. And one of them was Tim Buckley, who did a comic called Control Alt Delete that was not good.

Starting point is 01:59:27 And he tried to have a serious storyline where his character's girlfriend has a miscarriage. And the strip in which he finds her having a miscarriage is called loss. And it's gotten to the point where people are abstract. the four panels into like a minimalist line representation of how the blocking looked like it's a bit people have done everything like lost put loss memes on everything like that's the joke at this point more than a reference to the show is like look at this new crazy place somebody put a loss meme and so yeah it's a game and a lot of what we're seeing with the shooter is like oh this is the natural extent of a bunch of things and a fucking mass shooter

Starting point is 02:00:03 putting a loss meme on the bear or on the side of their gun before shooting up a school is the the natural furthest, craziest extent of the loss meme, right? If this is anything, it is like a memetic shooting. It is based on a whole bunch of memes about other mass shootings as well. Specifically in the way that engages in like anti-Semitism and racism and includes slurs and catchphrases, it's not in the way that the shooter actually believes these things ideologically. It is just to gesture to them as they exist in the lineage of other mass shootings. It is, like, it's a perfunctory use of slurs and of messaging that just kind of wraps around this whole, like, nihilistic fandom culture around other mass shooters.

Starting point is 02:00:49 And, like, that is, that's what this shooting is. I've watched now, like, 17 minutes of video of the shooter, like, showing off their weapons, going through their, like, diaries and journals, inspired by a whole bunch of, like, Eastern European mass shooters as well. and this shooter reminds me of participants of what's called the true crime community or TCC, not as in like the genre of true crime podcasts or documentaries, but it's more of an online fandom based on a personal obsession with mass killers themselves and specifically school shooters. And this community encourages reenactments and tries to get some people to do their own mass shootings. Yeah. And this is not the first one of these we've had in this past,

Starting point is 02:01:32 year. The shooting in Wisconsin last December by Samantha Rupnaau, which we reported on it could happen here, was also in this variant of like column biner, true crime community shootings. Rupinow's name is on one of this shooters, rifles. Yes. There was a shooting in Tennessee a few months later, which also referenced Rupnau, done by a black white supremacist insel, whose manifesto was full of like plagiarized memes and other manifestos. It's about this like, this complete lack of meaning. Like they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, scatter shot all of these memes and references and like bits of manifestos and like images to just to make this whole like mess of stuff to look at but none of it actually like means

Starting point is 02:02:13 anything well and the draining of meaning the flattening of meaning is part of the point that's the point is taking a man who shot fucking 50 people to death and turning that into the same thing as a 20 year old joke about a comic strip in terms of its impact and severity because if that's no more serious or meaningful or painful than fucking a joke about Tim Buckley's dumbass cartoon. Yeah. Like, once you get someone in a mindset where they accept that, they're willing to accept a lot of terrible things, right? And the goal here is creating content in the form of mass shootings, right?

Starting point is 02:02:48 Yeah. Like, that is the goal. And that is also what people are consciously, a lot of people want to be a part of themselves. You mentioned the last year shooting that committed by Samantha Rup now. But there's also, I found a December 30th, 2024 article in Wisconsin Public Radio, WPR.org, their website. It talks about Rupnow, but it also gives the story of 13-year-old Jamie Sites, who killed herself in 2024 and was a member of the true crime community.

Starting point is 02:03:16 The police went through her phone, and they found a bunch of memes and reference, and, like, her contributing to online discussions and telegrams and stuff for PCC, she was obsessed with the Columbine kids, right? She, like, engaged in a lot of those conversations, and she was posting about her plan to kill herself, but she was not interested in carrying out, like, a mass shooting or killing other people, and that fit in fine within the discourse. Like, people encouraged her, basically, right? Like, I think part of the thrill here is just wanting to feel like you sitting on your ass on the computer, you're impacting the world, in part because, like, you feel like that's the only chunk of the world that you've got, right? and that's tied into like the hopelessness and the nihilism of all of this. I found a just random poster on Reddit in a discussion of the TCC community.

Starting point is 02:04:05 I actually really liked this person's summary of it, and this is like seven years old. Interestingly enough, it's not a new phenomenon. It dates back to the interwar period Germany. There were many Germans at the time who were fascinated with the topic of extremely grisly murder and torture, especially such instances where sexual arousal was involved. The German language even has a word for it, lust murder or lust murder, serial killers were on the rise at the time, and many of them claimed to get extreme amounts of carnal pleasure

Starting point is 02:04:28 from the act of killing or maiming. And there is this weird vein. I found another study, as I was looking into this, that uses the true crime community term. It's from 2015 by Naomi Barnes of Utah State University, and it was like looking into fandoms that had grown up around serial killers and around spree killers online.

Starting point is 02:04:50 And Naomi is using the word true crime community for just that general term of people who were interested in true crime, not in the way that you and I have been using it? Yeah, because we're using this term to refer to like a specific fandom around like, around these shootings, not the general milieu of like true crime podcasts and like documentaries and people who are into that sort of content. We're referring to a much more niche group of people online who operate on like telegram, discord, Tumblr, and other social media accounts. It's based around like specifically like an obsession over actually doing these acts

Starting point is 02:05:24 and like they like cosplay as these people. This isn't like your average white woman who likes listening to True Crime Podcasts. This is something very different. No, and that's important, but it's also important to note that like what you've been talking about, this need to recreate

Starting point is 02:05:39 and not just prior to actually carrying out a shooting because most of them don't ever do that. There's this obsession with the aesthetics to want to own clothing and objects and whatnot that like look like Erica Dillon or whatever. right? The Columbine band shirt. Yeah, right. And this does extend to the shootings. Like, there's a number of shooters who have, like, worn that KMFDM shirt because one of the Columbine guys wore it. Samantha Rup now. And I believe this recent shooter also had had a KMDF shirt picked out.

Starting point is 02:06:09 And what's interesting about that 2015 study is that it is looking at the true crime community, because Columbiners were already a thing. There'd been a number of copycat attacks. But the kind of social fandom around like that aspect of it had not really taken hold at a mass level in a way that the internet and virality could really make use of. It evolved on Tumblr in that era. Yes. It's more like an infant compared to like the fully grown version that it is now. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:06:38 And what's interesting to me is this paper kind of catches the communities it's starting to calve off. And so there's a chunk of the paper where she's quoting from a couple of different people who went and visited. in one case, they visited, like, Adam Lanzah's house and the Sandy Hook Elementary School, and it's people visiting places like that, sites associated with, like, mass shootings and the like, and she gives this mix of people being like, oh, like, the first person she quotes who went to Lanz's house is, like, I was actually just really sad, and I just wish none of it had ever taken place. Like, it was all really horrible, and it made me feel bad. But then a bit later,

Starting point is 02:07:14 she gives you responses from people who have the opposite reaction. Like, there's this fella, Paul, who does not specify which murder site they visited, but specified that it was a place where a murder victim's body was found. And Paul responded, honestly, I felt ecstatic. Like, wow, I'm going to a place someone was killed. What if there are ghosts? The murderer, him or herself, I was absolutely off my kid. We dug up some dirt and we keep it in a little glass bottle. It's like a religious pilgrimage. Right, right. And that's the ecstatic. And that's what this starts to document. And that's where I'm like, oh, this is, this study is mostly about an unrelated, just a normal fandom, but you can see the bits, like, already popping up in 2015,

Starting point is 02:07:53 these people who are having these ecstatic, again, like, almost like psychosexual experiences being at the site of a mass shooting. Yeah. And the further extension of that is then doing one yourself. And obviously this also is like a part of like a suicidal drive, a suicidal intention, a lot of these people kill themselves in the course of the act. Right. It's a way of making your suicide not just be about yourself. Right. And there's more to say about like the cultural of fame in this country and like how yeah uh how how how virality and whatnot has made it so that like these people tend to get what they want or at least how they know they've got a good chance of getting what they want right they're obviously not around to experience it but like as long as

Starting point is 02:08:35 you do something sufficiently like weird and bloody you're likely to get a good amount of attention for a while so that's the actual like background of what this shooting was i think now we should probably mention how the shooting's being talked about more broadly. Yeah. Because it takes a very different angle from the actual, like, nihilistic, like, TCC fandom aspect. It is, it is making this a, more about, like, woke contemporary politics, I suppose. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:09:05 Cash Patel has announced that he's investigating this as an anti-Catholic hate crime. Yeah. Which is just not true. I mean, it's almost certainly by a Catholic. Catholic or somebody who was raised Catholic. Yeah, all the people who hate Catholics most are often lapsed Catholics. Very early on, people started claiming that this shooter was trans. Now, a few years ago, they did change their name to Robin, and the name change petition

Starting point is 02:09:31 stated that at the time, they identified as female. At this point, we still know very little about the actual shooter, beyond, like, the videos they posted on YouTube of their weapons and a journal written in Cyrillic. a note that they left to their parents discussing their fear of dying of cancer due to vaping. I've not been able to look at their internet presence or activities in the intervening years since changing their name, and their current gender identity is still not very clear. In a translation of their Cyrillic journal, they discussed detransition, quote, I don't want to dress girly all the time, but I guess sometimes I really like it. I know I am

Starting point is 02:10:12 not a woman, but I definitely don't feel like a man. I regret being trans. I wish I was a girl. I just know I cannot achieve that body with the technology we have today. I also can't afford that. I only keep my long hair because it is pretty much my last shred of being trans. I'm tired of being trans. I wish I never brainwashed myself. I can't cut my hair now as it would be an embarrassing defeat. And it might be a concerning change of character that could get me reported. It just always gets in my way. I will probably chop it on the day of the attack." Unquote. Now, discussion of gender takes up a very small percentage of the journal. Most of their writing is about admiration for previous mass shooters and fantasizing about killing children from a very young age. On the cover of their journal, alongside a bunch of other gun stickers, they do have a defend equality progress flag sticker with an AK-47. Yep. For my perspective, this is just another one of those memes

Starting point is 02:11:17 that they're wrapping into everything. On one of their magazines, they wrote, I am the Wokler, why so queerious? Right. And the other side of the magazine had an anti-queer slur.

Starting point is 02:11:29 So I view this type of stuff in the same way I view the inclusion of like the lost meme or like Ted Kaczynski or all this other stuff, this like meme-fied version of trying to throw everything at the wall just to make everything mean nothing.

Starting point is 02:11:43 Right. And it's, it's extremely, like, obnoxious and annoying. But it, it works. But, yeah, it works. And I don't know what else I want to say on this, on, like, the trans angle. We don't want to deny that, like, this is going to cause a problem, that this is going to be used by the right. Like, there will be, there will certainly be rhetoric.

Starting point is 02:12:02 And I've already seen rhetoric from, you know, Jack Posobic and that crowd around it about. Trans people targeting Catholics. This is why these people shouldn't have weapons or whatever. Like, this is why we should put them all in. and I'm not going to minimize that. That didn't start with this, that kind of rhetoric, that conversation, and this is useful to that crowd, and, you know, that is bad. We don't know what's going to happen, or to what extent this is like, we're talking

Starting point is 02:12:28 right now that they clearly would like to use this and are trying to use this. One thing that I would point out, and I don't know, this is certainly not an on-balance, optimistic thing. But making Americans focus on a mass shooting for more than a day or two, not as easy as it used to be. No, yeah, which is really devastating. It's not good that we're there, but like two people dead, I'm just saying, like, Americans ignore way bigger numbers all the time. Now, the right, you know, there's not always a media campaign like there's going to be with this beyond trying to make this huge, but also they've done that before, right? They did that with the Rupnow shooting, right? Like, there were attempts to make that and it didn't.

Starting point is 02:13:11 Every mass shooting, they have tried to paint it's being done by a trans person. And I think in some ways, that is depowered this rhetoric as a tactic by claiming every shooter is trans. Most Republicans already believe that to be the case. So whether this person either was trans or used to be trans, it may not matter that much to the right because they already think every shooter is trans. Like Trump's already targeting queer people. The right doesn't. need an excuse to go after queer people. I don't think an event like this will make the hammer come down much harder. This could be a boy who cried wolf situation for the anti-trans right, since their base already thinks that every mass shooter from the past three years is trans. I did a whole

Starting point is 02:13:58 episode on this last year called fake trans terrorists. The Gun Violence Archive says that there have been 286 mass shootings in the United States so far in 2025. If one or two trans people do a mass shooting, that would still mean trans people at 1% of the population are less likely to do a shooting compared to cis people. There was like one legitimate trans mass shooting targeting a school a few years ago in Nashville. And if this happens to be the second, I don't think that this new brain rot, Columbine, true crime community shooting will make much of an impact on trans people nationwide. Think of how quick conservatives moved on from the Zizians. And certainly, being trans is not a motivating factor of this shooting. If you look at their writing and videos posted on

Starting point is 02:14:47 YouTube before they did this. This nihilistic meme maximalism has no trans causation. It has nothing to do with being trans. There's no coherent or ideological leftist screed. There's no pronoun pins. Their journal talks both about, quote-unquote, hating fascism and inequality, while also hating Jews, Arabs, Mexicans, Indians, calling Somalis subhuman and criminal, writing that, quote, white people should rule the world, unquote, but that minorities should, quote, and quote, have rights. While talking about ideological Nazi killers, they remarked, quote, I don't often find myself aligning with these killers' specific ideologies, unquote. They said that they disliked racism, but also were racist. They wrote about killing, quote-unquote, fags, while also

Starting point is 02:15:36 calling themselves one on one of their weapons. This shooter and all the memes and rhetoric they use is most similar to the Rupnow shooting last December in Wisconsin, in terms of the Neo-Columbiner school shooter obsession, as well as the white supremacist, memetic black in-cell, shooting in Anok, Tennessee last January. All these shootings are heavily referential, contradictory, and intentionally incoherent. Every single extremist political faction is represented there because that that is the point, is combining all of these references to two previous mass shootings, so they're incorporating everything they can. And things that they just think are funny, like just a whole bunch of, like, meaningless memes. Yep. And that's vastly more important than whatever

Starting point is 02:16:23 gender identity the shooter happens to have right now at this point in 2025. All right. Well, anyway, folks, there's going to be a lot of people going, the sky is falling over what this is going to mean for people and how this is going to be used. And obviously, this is terrible. I'm not telling you not to feel terrible about a mass shooting. You should feel bad about the actual mass shooting. You should feel bad about the mass shooting.

Starting point is 02:16:49 The sky, I mean, the sky's been falling, right? Yeah. Let's give this one a little bit to see if it makes the sky fall any faster or if in a week we're like, no, this guy's still falling at about the same rate, which isn't good. It's just what happens. It's where we are. All right. Ads.

Starting point is 02:17:18 And we're back. We can safely leave the brain rot in the, previous section. And now talk about something totally real, the economy. Yes, the economy, which never kills people. Okay. So speaking of things that have never killed any one, that's so not true. The Volcker shot killed so many people. But a very, very critical Rubicon was crossed on Monday of this week when Trump attempted to fire a member of the Federal Reserve Board, Lisa Cook. Now, Lisa Cook is refusing to step down under the fairly obvious justification that the president does not have the power to do this. Trump has been cooking a very weird thing

Starting point is 02:18:05 accusing her of mortgage fraud as a way to remove her from the Federal Reserve Board. But Trump does not have the power to do this. So we are in the midst, effectively, of a confrontation over this, where Lisa Cook has continued to just not actually leave her position at the Federal Reserve and is going to court. This is an extremely significant escalation of what up until this point had largely been a series of attacks on the Federal Reserve's governor, Jerome Powell. There are a few factors here that one of the most important things is Trump's anger over continuing high interest rates or sort of high interest rates

Starting point is 02:18:51 Trump wants to slash interest rates because he thinks it'll make the economy grow more. Now, when I said this was the crossing of the rubicon, what this is, is this is the beginning of the fight over whether the Federal Reserve is going to be an independent density.

Starting point is 02:19:07 Right. Trump has been attempting to, as we've talked about on this show, appoint Stefan Mirren as another one of the governors on the Federal Reserve's board. Muren very explicitly wants to eliminate the independence of the Federal Reserve or what to talk about exactly what that means in a second, but I want to read this quote from Fortune magazine's report on it, describing a J.P. Morgan analysis of the situation

Starting point is 02:19:32 because this has really spooked a bunch of major financial institutions for very obvious reasons. In a note on Friday, J.P. Morgan analysts led by chief economist Bruce Casman, highlighted key proposals, such as giving at-will power to the president to fire Fed Board members and Fed Bank presidents, giving Congress control of the Fed's operating budget, and shifting the Fed's regulatory responsibility over banks and markets to the Treasury. So this is what Stefan Mirren has been proposing. This is what looks to be the long-term plan of Trump and the people around him. Eliminating the Federal Reserve is a long, long-time goal of

Starting point is 02:20:16 the far right for a extremely convoluted a variety of reasons. The Fed, in and of itself, is an extremely confusing entity. Its creation has spawned a full century of academic arguments about what the state even is, and it's complicated to describe also because most of the information, well, not most, but a significant portion of the information about it is just anti-Semitic conspiracy, because this is eliminating the Federal Reserve and the return to quote-unquote sound money is one of the key elements of a massive network of sort of right wing, very old right wing conspiracy theories. But I think that the thing that's best understood by people kind of is just about the Federal Reserve is the Fed printer meme. And the Federal Reserve is the body

Starting point is 02:21:03 that creates money, that is that is authorized to create the U.S. dollar. That is why it's the Federal Reserve Bank, it is critical on a level that is difficult to express to the entire functioning of the world economy. Now, the Federal Reserve Board is technically a government entity, but it was set up explicitly to be quote-unquote non-political. Now, the extent to which that's true is fuzzy, obviously, but the point of it was so that there would be a large-scale financial institution that controls the money supply effectively, that controls enormous portions of U.S. sort of macro-economics policy through its due as control of interest rates, would not be able to be, like, directly interfered with by the president or Congress. That is the whole

Starting point is 02:21:57 point of this, you know, it is effectively a measure to instill confidence that the U.S. isn't going to just, like, turn the printers on and print a bunch of money from every other capitalists in the world. Yeah, and like so much when that promise goes away, what happens? I don't know. Yeah. Well, and this is, this is something that I think is not understood very well, right? The current conflict is largely over Trump wanting to be able to control the Federal Reserve's interest rates, right? So he wants to lower federal interest rates to make it cheaper to borrow money because he thinks this will pump more money back into the economy and this will make the economy grow and he thinks that he's being like sabotaged by the fed. The fed's worried about

Starting point is 02:22:36 inflation. But I actually think that focusing just on that part of the Federal Reserve is significantly underestimating how important the Federal Reserve is to the entire structure of the economy. There are so many just sort of random things that it does that are not particularly well understood. I was talking about this earlier in a meeting, but a significant a portion of the gold held by countries around the world is literally just kept in a vault under the New York Federal Reserve building. And that's just a sort of a seemingly random thing that it does. I was reading about its payment system for reasons that I'll talk about it in the episode to do about this next week. It just in a footnote about the payment system,

Starting point is 02:23:20 there is a part where it says that the Federal Reserve runs the payment system for the World Bank. So this is something that is a critical, critical, an extremely complicated center of the entire capitalist world, right? Its payment infrastructure has trillions of dollars a year and moving through it. If this infrastructure stops working or breaks a little bit, a lot of the very subtle management of the economy at the Federal Reserve does can stop working. And, you know, again, we've been talking mostly about interest rates and its ability to sort of print money, which is oversimplification. But, you know, for example, the Fed also does these things like carries out these like massive overnight repo agreements, like inject liquidity into the market. There's all of these massive, we are talking billions and billions of dollars of financial interventions that you basically never even hear about that have been stabilizing the economy since 2008. And this apparatus, if it is dismantled, if it is seized control of by Trump, and part of what's going on with this board is that Trump is trying to get a majority of the people on the board of governors of the Federal Reserve to be his appointment so that he can control it directly, and so they can start bringing it

Starting point is 02:24:38 directly under the control of, I mean, the president effectively, right? This is something where if you unleash the Doge people on the Federal Reserve and the payment systems, the settlement and clearance systems, stop working. We are talking about a catastrophe that it's unclear to me whether it's even been modeled. There are so many different complicated things that this institution does, that these people do not understand particularly well at all and think that they can use to just sort of permanently create a bubble economy that they can ride. And this is the first sort of shot over the bow wasn't even the right where But this is the first engagement over the fight for that.

Starting point is 02:25:23 There's also been a lot of sort of taco analysis of this, arguing that this is actually Trump backing down from trying to fire Jerome Powell to just try to fire one of the Reserve Board members. That's not backing down. There's also a chance to hope that if this works, he's going to try to fire Powell, too. So we're going to keep watching a situation. I'm going to talk more about it next week when we know more and also talk about what the Federal Reserve is as an institution.

Starting point is 02:25:46 And we're going to continue monitoring the situation because it is extremely. important and handing the keys over to these people is something that is dangerous enough that it is creating significant pushback among the actual people in finance and in the banking system who matter. Great. Well, it's so good. I mean, we'll see if this means anything other than more suffering for, you know, people. I guess that's where I am. Is there even a level of fucking with the money that Trump can do that that's enough to seriously cause consequences for him. And there must be, but it's just hard to imagine. If there was, it's this. Yeah. We'll see. I mean, that's the fun thing with the big stories we've got this week, is they're all

Starting point is 02:26:31 like, well, could get a lot worse, could just stay as bad as it is right now. Well, we'll continue to wait to see what's going to happen with all of that. Speaking of something that we don't have to just wait and wonder what's going to go on because the news changes every single week, here's the tariff song. Oh, boy, Casma, Rocky Casper. Terry, if I don't like it, Rocky Casper, Rocky Casper. Oh, boy.

Starting point is 02:27:06 So, in yet another instance of the whole Trump backing down thing not happening, the tariffs on India that Trump had been threatening for the purchases of Russian oil have in fact taken effect, the tariff rate on India. is now 50%. This is a significant barrier to any trade between India and the US. It is again sort of unclear

Starting point is 02:27:30 whether India is going to bow to the political pressure here because as with many of these tariffs, we've talked about the situation with Brazil fairly extensively on this show. The thing about imposing tariffs on a country to get them to fall in line with

Starting point is 02:27:45 American policy is that it pisses off everyone in the country regardless of whether or not, they would traditionally be U.S. allies. And so there's, you know, it creates a massive countervailing pressure against the financial incentive to fall in line and stop buying Russian oil. I also very briefly want to talk about something that I think is sort of part and parcel of the tariff policy that Gerson, you have mentioned to talk about, which is like the U.S. purchasing 10% of Intel.

Starting point is 02:28:13 Yes, socialism has been achieved. We did it. Uh-huh. Now you can finally call Trump a. national socialist. That's right. Yeah, and this is sort of a intensification, I guess, of a

Starting point is 02:28:27 degree we talked about a while back where Intel was talking about giving part of its profits to the U.S. This is just the U.S. government is just buying a stake in these companies. And this is actually a very, very weird maneuver by the U.S. because the U.S.

Starting point is 02:28:43 has obviously bought companies before, right? This is how lot of the bailout worked. But The thing about, if you look at the bailout from 2008 and you look at the U.S. like purchasing the automakers, the U.S. got these really weird specific shares that don't give any kind of controlling interest. And here, the direct rationale for this is that the U.S. should just own part of the chip manufacturers because they're effectively like domestic national security resources.

Starting point is 02:29:11 Significant portions of the market think that this is going to be a continuing trend and the U.S. is going to continue buying stakes in these companies. there is a sort of symbiotic relationship here in the sense that on the one hand it's obviously not great to have sort of stakes in you bought by the U.S. governments and have U.S. government federal policy

Starting point is 02:29:30 directly dictating what these companies do. But on the other hand, it creates, for these actual companies themselves, it creates a sort of symbiosis where these people now have effectively guaranteed state backing. That can bail

Starting point is 02:29:46 them out of all of their unbelievably terrible business decisions around basing all of their production around AI. So, yeah, and this, this is all sort of part of the same hyper-nationalist direct. National socialism, if you will. Yes, kind of natural socialism. But the most stupid form we've ever seen. Yeah, yeah. I don't know.

Starting point is 02:30:11 There's going to be a lot of hype about this being like American state capitalism or something. and just ignore that. Just ignore it. It's bad. I think it's in the same category as a lot of the things here, which is the Trump administration is trying to consolidate

Starting point is 02:30:26 as much power over the economy as they can, both the Federal Reserve, and through just straight up taking controlling parts of companies. This is a trend that's going to continue, and it's not good.

Starting point is 02:30:37 Do you know what is good, though? You beat me to that exact pivot. That's right. The fact that we get a nice 90 to, I don't know, a 120 second break to listen to these ads. All right, we are back. There has just been so much news this week.

Starting point is 02:31:05 It's kind of outrageous. Trump is continuing his attacks against the Smithsonian for going woke. He's promised a Department of Justice lawsuit against California for their new redistricting map. A GOP House probe has begun to investigate if the D.C. crime stats have been faked this whole time, making it look like crime is low, even though it's obviously super high, as we all know. As Mia said, we have socialism now with 10% of Intel.

Starting point is 02:31:33 And Trump and Hague says announced that they want to change the name of the Department of Defense back to the Department of War because it, quote, unquote, sounds stronger. All right, guys. This is the only one of those that I actually agree with. They should do this. Like, calling it anything other than the Department of War is incredibly dishonest. Yeah. I wonder that'll make it a harder to get people on board increasing funding. So it used to be called the Department of War, and it had a stronger sound.

Starting point is 02:32:07 And as you know, we won World War I. We won World War II. We won everything. Now we have a Department of Defense with defenders. I don't know. If you people want to, standing behind me, if you take a little vote, if you want to change it back to what it was

Starting point is 02:32:21 when we used to win wars all the time, that's okay with me. All right? That's coming soon, sir. You let me know if you want to do it. I think Department of War. It just sounded bad. He said, sir, on behalf of the Department of Defense,

Starting point is 02:32:31 defense, I don't want to be defense only. We want defense, but we want offense, too, if that's okay. So you'll make a decision. But, you know, as Department of War, we won everything. we won everything and I think we're gonna have to go back to that

Starting point is 02:32:48 all right man cool stuff happening in the Oval Office I mean I do like that when he starts that speech he has to go like we won World War one like he's like there's a question at the end there where he's like he's like giving an AIDA and look like double check that one

Starting point is 02:33:04 for me just make sure I don't really remember if we won that one or not but we definitely won the second one and others when as to how he would go about change the name as it requires an act of Congress, Trump replied, quote, we're just going to do it. I'm sure Congress would go along if we need that. I don't think we even need that. But if we need that, I'm sure Congress will go along. I don't know that we, do we need, I don't know if what you need to change the name of the Department of Defense. You do. Yeah. You do need, that makes,

Starting point is 02:33:35 that makes sense. On a macro sense, right, what Trump is suggesting here is, wouldn't it simply be more efficient if there was simply a fewer, a single person to make all the decisions. He said a lot of things in that vein recently is, like, Congress being more of a symbolic, symbolic branch of government that if we need them, they'll probably just agree with me, but like we don't really need them. That's your standard dictator stuff. That's how he's been talking about it recently. Yeah. Now, early this week, a redacted transcript of Gillene Maxwell's, or Gis Lane Maxwell's meeting with Trump's DOJ has been released, where she denied that she ever witnessed President Trump engaged in inappropriate behavior,

Starting point is 02:34:15 saying, quote, I actually never saw the president in any type of massage setting. The president was never inappropriate with anybody, and at the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects, unquote. She also denied allegations that Prince Andrew ever had sex with a minor in her home, saying that a substantiating photograph is, quote, unquote, fake. Well, I can't imagine why she'd lie. and also claim that there is no Epstein, quote unquote, client list. So, yeah, that all about wraps that up.

Starting point is 02:34:42 I think we got to the bottom of the whole Epstein case. We don't need to worry about this anymore. I would say of all of those, the one of those that I might have believed before she denied it, was that there wasn't an additional client list outside of what we've already seen, like his black, well, yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't keep all of that many notes on a criminal conspiracy. Yeah, I don't think he has a list of being like, here's all of my pedophile friends in one place. Here's what does make me wonder now. And this really is the first time I am, which is that they clearly came to her with a list of here is all of the things you need to say

Starting point is 02:35:14 you didn't see. Like, maybe. Or she's just savvy enough to know what to say. Like, I don't even think, we don't even need to allege a larger conspiracy here. I think everyone involved in this is quite savvy and knows what they should say and shouldn't say. Yeah, I mean, I think the conspiracy is obvious. Like, that's, that's all there is. There doesn't need to be an explicit quid pro crow here. Yeah, I don't know. It's interesting to me that she brings up Prince Andrew. If nobody brought that up to her, she was asked about it. That's what I'm saying is I believe there's a conversation we're not privy here to where she got marching orders in exchange for getting, you know, she's basically out on work release, right? I don't need to jump to such outrageous

Starting point is 02:35:52 conspiratorial beliefs such as that. I'm okay with it at this point. Yeah. I don't know what to what extent it was, but yeah, I don't know. This is pointless. Like, you, I don't know if this helps with his base. I don't know that his base is going to be like, well, if Gillen Maxwell says it. No. Yeah. I mean, people have responded positively.

Starting point is 02:36:15 Like, Marjor Taylor Green, who was previously going on a slight offensive on the Epstein thing, has now fully come around, being like, well, there you go. It turns out Trump is a pedophile after all. Thank goodness. That was a close call there. I know this is being disseminated to his influencers. network, right? And to the network of people that he, like, uses for stuff like this. I'm wondering about the actual

Starting point is 02:36:39 like voter base, fan base, like... Time will tell, I guess. And the folks who are a step or two further than Marjorie Taylor Green, like the people who are more like on the Rogan side of things, like, does this really move the needle for them? Sure. I hate having the cares like, is Joe Rogan

Starting point is 02:36:55 going to buy this schlop? But this does seem like shameful even for him. I mean, I think a lot of people can see that there is an incentive for Galane to say certain things. And I think people are smart enough to understand that I don't think she's going to tell the Trump's own DOJ about like a smoking gun involving Trump. Why would that help her try to get a pardon from the president?

Starting point is 02:37:19 Yeah. I think I think the important thing for this is that like the people who are going to believe this are the people who just don't want to believe that Trump did this and this is this is a reinforcing thing that you can feed them. But the question is what happens for everyone else? It's not particularly compelling for them. All right. We have four executive orders to get through before we close this episode, starting off with

Starting point is 02:37:40 cashless bail. On Monday, Trump signed two executive orders targeting cashless bail, one specific to Washington, D.C., which directs law enforcement to charge people federally and hold them in federal custody, and to use federal funding and services as leverage to pressure D.C. to change its cashless bail policies. The other executive order targets cashless bail nationwide and asks the attorney general to make a list of, quote, states and local jurisdictions that have, in the Attorney General's opinion, substantially eliminated cash bail as a potential condition of pretrial release from

Starting point is 02:38:11 custody for crimes that pose a clear threat to public safety and order, including offenses involving violent, sexual, or indecent acts, or burglary looting, or vandalism. The Attorney General shall update this list as necessary. Unquote. So using that list, Trump's cabinet will then, quote, identify federal funds, including grants and contracts currently provided to cashless bail jurisdictions that may be suspended or terminated unquote. So it's trying to bribe states and local municipalities to cease cash to bail policies using federal funds, the same way that they've tried to do for a whole bunch of other, like, anti-woke policies Trump has tried to force onto unwilling states.

Starting point is 02:38:49 Second executive order from August 25th, titled, Prosecuting Burning of the American Flag. Let's start with a clip from Trump. I don't want to just play super long Trump clips, because I that can be annoying. But the way that he talks about this order is kind of more interesting than the way the order is written. But we will talk about some of those smaller details included in the actual text. But here's a clip from C-SPAN. Flag burning. All over the country, they're burning flags. All over the world, they burn the American flag. And as you know, through a very sad court, I guess it was a five to four decision. They called it freedom of speech. But there's another reason, which is,

Starting point is 02:39:32 perhaps much more important, it's called death. Because what happens when you burn a flag is the area goes crazy. If you have hundreds of people, they go crazy. You can do other things, you can burn this piece of paper. You can, and it's, but when you burn the American flag, it incites riots at levels that we've never seen before. People go crazy.

Starting point is 02:39:56 In a way, both ways. There are some that are going crazy for doing it. There are others that are angry, angry about them doing it. Do you want to discuss that? Sure. What the executive order does, sir, charges your Department of Justice with investigating instances of flag burning, and then where there's evidence of criminal activity, where prosecution wouldn't fall afoul of the First Amendment and instructs the Department of Justice to prosecute those who are engaged in these instances of flag burning.

Starting point is 02:40:24 And what the penalty is going to be, if you burn a flag, you get one year in jail, no early exits, no nothing. You get one year in jail. If you burn a flag, you get... And what it does is incite to write. I hope they use that language, by the way, did that? Insight to riot. I love that he has to check. Yeah. Because God forbid him

Starting point is 02:40:45 actually read what he's citing. Trump, Trump, Autopenn. That's right. So, included in the order, it says, quote, notwithstanding the Supreme Court's ruling on First Amendment protections, the court has never held that American flag desecration

Starting point is 02:41:01 conducted in a manner that is likely to incite imminent lawless action or that is an action amounting to quote-unquote fighting words is constitutionally protected. See, Taxes v. Johnson, unquote. The order directs the Attorney General to enforce criminal and civil laws against acts of American flight discretion that cause harm unrelated to First Amendment expression, which could include charging people with violent crimes, hate crimes,

Starting point is 02:41:25 illegal discrimination against American citizens. What? Violations of American civil rights. crimes against property and peace, as well as conspiracies and attempts to violate and aiding and abetting others to violate such laws. So it's like an anti-rioting thing. The DOJ will also look for cases where American flagged discretion could violate applicable state or local laws, such as open burning restrictions, disorderly conduct laws, or destruction of property laws, and will refer such matters to state and local authorities for potential action.

Starting point is 02:41:55 Finally, the Secretary of State shall deny, prohibit, terminate, or revoke visas, residence permits, naturalization proceedings and other immigration benefits or seek to deport any foreign national that has engaged in American flag desecration activity. So that's how they're going to go after it. Robert, do you have anything to say on this flag burning thing? I mean, they're waiting, I mean, and they didn't wind up waiting long. Someone did it immediately as they knew they would so that they can get a case that they can take up to the Supreme Court. So we'll see, we'll see what happens. We'll see. Yeah. Yeah. They want to prosecute one of these things. and appeal it all the way to the Supreme Court

Starting point is 02:42:33 to maybe change that ruling so they can apply it more broadly. Right. So it's part of the same test that they've done with a number of other things that seems unconstitutional. It seems to violate Supreme Court rulings. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:42:44 But the point is to test that and see if they can change it, just like they did with abortion. Yeah. Can we go further? And if this works, if we feel like we made progress on this, can we start pushing and saying other things

Starting point is 02:42:55 our incitement to write, you know? Can we start going after people who aren't even present who writes something that is like, this was incitement to write because they wrote about the police murdering this guy, right? Like, yeah, the party of free speech strikes again. This is the kind of thing where can I war game out. Would they try this if they can get that far?

Starting point is 02:43:11 Yeah, they will if they can get that far. Will they get that far? You know, is the Supreme Court going to give them everything they want on this? I don't actually know. Like, I really don't know. So I'm going to try not to doom spiral too much. Just, you know, let's see. None of us have any choice in the matter at this stage.

Starting point is 02:43:28 Finally, let's address the, quote, additional measures to address the crime emergency in the District of Columbia. So it's another executive order from August 25th. Trump wants to establish an online portal for Americans with law enforcement experience, quote, or other relevant backgrounds and experience to apply to join federal law enforcement entities to support the policy goals described in executive order 1433. That's the Making a D.C. safe and beautiful order from a few weeks ago. Right.

Starting point is 02:43:58 The Secretary of Defense is instructed to create and begin training, manning, hiring, and equipping a specialized unit within the District of Columbia National Guard, who will be deputized to enforce federal law. To quote the order, quote, the Secretary of Defense shall immediately begin ensuring that each state's National Army Guard and Air National Guard are resource trained, organized, and available to assist federal, state, and local law enforcement in quelling civil disturbances and ensuring the public safety and order whenever the circumstances necessitate. as appropriate under law. In coordination with respective adjuncts general, the Secretary of Defense shall designate an appropriate number of each state's trained in National Guard members to be reasonably available for rapid mobilization for such purposes. In addition, the Secretary of Defense shall ensure the availability of a standing National Guard quick reaction force that shall be resource trained and available for rapid nationwide deployment. Unquote. National Guard walking the streets of D.C. are now carrying firearms after first

Starting point is 02:44:58 being deployed without their service weapon. And since the operation in D.C. began on August 7th, there have now been over a thousand arrests, including dozens of undocumented immigrants. Currently, the Pentagon is planning to deploy thousands of National Guard to Chicago to continue Trump's alleged crime crackdown. I would have much more respect for Prisker if he'd call me up and say, I have a problem. Can you help me fix it? I would be so happy to do it. I don't love, not that I don't have the right to do anything I want to do. I'm the president of the United States.

Starting point is 02:45:29 If I think our country's in danger, and it is in danger in these cities, I can do it. No problem going in and solving, you know, his difficulties. But it would be nice if they'd call and they'd say, would you do it? He's hurt. Poor guy. They want to ask him for help. His widow feelings.

Starting point is 02:45:50 He's going to have to deploy the National Guard without Pudskill's approval. You know, gang, in all of this, focus on the people being killed and persecuted by the government, I don't think any of us has stopped and spent enough time thinking, how does Donald Trump feel? And shame on us, you know, shame on us. But it's not just Chicago. On Friday, the Pentagon told Fox News that upwards of 1700 National Guard troops will be mobilized in 19 states to be deployed across the country to assist ICE in the nationwide hunt for undocumented immigrants. The Guard will be activated in states like Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana,

Starting point is 02:46:31 Nebraska, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming, with effective status ranging from August through mid-November and operations expected to start in early September. Importantly, as we saw in D.C., National Guard from other states might deploy to other states, specifically in the case where Trump doesn't get cooperation from the governor, who is in control the National Guard of each state, he can deploy National Guard from somewhere else, like what he did in D.C., pulling National Guard from other Red States being deployed to D.C., but mobilized in those red states. So National Guard from all of these states could be deployed in a town near you, no matter where you

Starting point is 02:47:15 live. And this operation specifically with these 1,700 National Guard troops, is specifically to assist ICE. His plan to do this, like, anti-crime, deployment in Chicago is a separate yet similar plan what's also pulling from National Guard. But these things are two separate operations, according to White House officials. And I think one of the important things about this is that, you know, obviously there's the part of this where it's like, yeah, they want to, at the very least, look like they're just occupying cities and they are arresting huge numbers of people. But they also just don't have the manpower to do this kind of stuff, which is why they're pulling

Starting point is 02:47:55 the National Guard, is why they're trying to expand the number of people on ice. This is why they're pulling National Guard out to do this kind of stuff, which is that, like, they don't actually have the repressive capacity to just occupy cities, and they're trying to find the manpower to be able to do it. So, we will keep an eye out in September for these possible military deployments around the country. Yep.

Starting point is 02:48:19 Hey, everyone, this is Garrison, recording a short update on Thursday, since we have a little bit more information about the Minneapolis-Minnesota school shooting. So right after we recorded, rumors started circulating that this shooter was linked to neo-Nazi satanic pedophile groups, 09A, and 764. Someone on Twitter found a neo-Nazi forum account that they alleged belonged to the school shooter. This account used an 09A symbol, and an affiliated Twitter account made other 09A references. These claims gained a lot of traction from leftist accounts and armchair experts on Twitter and Blue Sky. Lots of people were very eager to talk about something else besides that this shooter was trans,

Starting point is 02:49:11 and many pinned the blame on 764, the child exploitation group that operates on Discord and Telegram, that black males children and encourages some to commit acts of violence like school shootings. I talked about 764 on my nihilist violent extremism episode from earlier this year. As these claims spread online, I remained skeptical because this shooter did not seem to really fit the profile of a 09A or 764 grooming victim. This shooter did not really seem like an 09A acolyte. They more closely resembled the true crime community. fandom. And while sometimes True Crime Community or TCC may use O9A references because other mass shooters have or because previous mass shooters have been affiliated with O9A and related groups,

Starting point is 02:50:02 I do not see much evidence linking this shooter to O9A based on the videos they posted to YouTube. And while some Nazi Satanist types have helped facilitate the Columbiner or TCC fandom, there was no solid evidence linking a group like 764 to this latest shooting. The shooter was in their mid-20s. They weren't a 14-year-old being groomed into doing a mass shooting. And then on Thursday morning, the forum account alleged to be the Minneapolis shooter, and the source of claims calling them a 09A or 764 grooming victim, started posting again on the forum.

Starting point is 02:50:41 It wasn't the shooter's account. The shooter did not fit that profile. They weren't an occult Nazi Satanist. They were obsessed with mass killers. And translations of their Cyrillic journal have helped to substantiate this. A journal entry discussed taking pleasure in dressing up as a school shooter, quote, Today I assembled a school shooter cosplay, unquote.

Starting point is 02:51:03 And in translations of their journal, they made explicit references to true crime community, TCC, saying that they might cringe if they joined an online TCC community, and it could make them not want to follow through on doing an attack, viewing online TCC fandom as mostly full of posers, quote, I think joining a community would alienate my future, unquote. And, quote, I feel a very small portion of TCC feels as I do, harbors admiration of intent, unquote. One more update before I close the episode. Earlier today on Thursday, RFK Jr. was asked if he would now be looking into if gender transition drugs

Starting point is 02:51:46 cause violence. He responded by saying that they were already doing studies looking into that and then quickly pivoted to talking about, quote, launching studies on the potential contribution of some of the SSRI drugs and some of the other psychiatric drugs that might be contributing to violence, unquote. This lines up with RFK Jr's general focus on psychiatric drugs. SSRI's depression medication, as he has previously stated. That's all for us today on It Could Happen Here. We reported the news. We reported the news.

Starting point is 02:52:26 Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia. Or check us out on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources where it could happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. In the heat of battle, your squad relies on you. Don't let them down.

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Behind the Bastards - It Could Happen Here Weekly 197

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