Endless Thread - Political feuds don't take vacations

Episode Date: March 25, 2022

Ben and Amory are, sadly, not the type of people who truly "unplug" when they go on vacation, but this week's story is proof that those people do, in fact, exist! It comes to us from "Shared State" — a podcast from the Montana Free Press, Montana Public Radio and Yellowstone Public Radio — and it's the story of a couple who returned from a vacation off the grid to discover that they were entangled in a viral political feud with one of Fox News' most controversial commentators.

Support for endless thread comes from Mathworks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink Software, to design and develop engineered systems, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at Mathworks.com. Support for WBUR comes from Is Business Broken, a podcast from the Mayrotra Institute at Boston University that explores questions like, why is innovation in healthcare so hard? Is ESG just greenwashing? of course, is business broken? Listen, wherever you get your podcasts. WBUR Podcasts, Boston. Ben, you know those people who go on vacation and they say, you know, I'm going to unplug, I'm going to be off the grid, and then they actually do it. No, I've never met one of those people. I'm not one of those people. I do not know those people. But I do believe they exist and I aspire to be one. I do too. I think we have the same disease in that way. But today we're going to meet a couple from Montana who did just that.

They went on vacation, off the grid, no internet, no cell service. It was glorious until they came back. And that is when they realized they had unknowingly gone viral and ended up in a fiery feud with one of Fox News's most controversial commentators. Today's episode comes from season two of the podcast Shared State. which was reported and produced by the Montana Free Press, Montana Public Radio, and Yellowstone Public Radio. Here's Nick Mott and Mara Silvers with this story. It's summer 2021 in Cassie Heron and Dan Bailey,

a couple from Livingston are about halfway through this week-long wilderness river trip in Idaho. They're stopped at this little dot of private land with a sliver of Wi-Fi, and one of the people who lives there is waiting for them, with some news from Cassie and Dan's friend. You fit the description of these people. we received an email about there's been an emergency.

That's Cassie. With that little smidge of service there, she said Dan was able to call the person had been trying to reach them. So Dan gets on the phone. And I'm just looking at his face, and he's just like, what?

Wait, what? And I'm like, what is it? From that call, she finds out that they've gotten into some major trouble back in the real world. A few days early, they'd had what seemed like a small political confrontation with somebody back in Livingston. When they put in for the trip, they basically put that out of their mind.

Now, with days left to go on the river, their friend is telling them that the whole situation has gotten totally out of hand. They said that there were all of these death threats out against us and that we should be really worried. Welcome to Season 2 of Shared State, a podcast from Montana Public Radio, Yellowstone Public Radio, and Montana Free Press. I'm Nick Mott. And I'm Maris Silvers. This season, we have stories about Montanans and whole communities navigating deep political divides and trying to figure out how to move through them. Montanans like Cassie and Dan, who got caught up in a tornado of political strife and animosity,

one that's actually affecting most of the country right now. Even today, months later, they're still trying to understand what happened. Okay, Nick, I'm pretty intrigued. How did Cassie and Dan end up in this position? where they're learning about death threats against them while they're out in the middle of nowhere. Well, that story starts in the heat of last summer. Cassie and Dan are about to get out of Livingston

and go on this little adventure. Like I said, it's a week-long wilderness river trip. It's on the middle fork of the Salmon River in Idaho. We just ran into town to get a couple of last-minute supplies, and that was, like, headlight batteries and, like, two dehydrated meals. And to get those last minute supplies, they go to this outdoor store that's like a Livingston institution called Dan Bailey's. Wait, wait, Dan Bayley? Yep, same name as Dan, but there's actually no relation.

Cassie and Dan grab their stuff there and they get in line to pay. Dan basically grabs my hand and he's like, oh my God, Tucker Carlson just walked into the fly shop. Tucker Carlson? In Livingston? Yeah, Tucker later said on Fox News he was here for a family fishing trip. And Tucker Carlson, if you haven't heard of him, Good evening and welcome to Tucker Carlson. He's this mega-famous Fox News anchor who gets more than 3 million viewers a night.

So he's like a real-deal celebrity, and he's also super controversial. White supremacy, that's the problem. This is a hoax. Just like the Russia hoax. It's a conspiracy theory used to divide the country. Because of his views on race, immigration, and COVID, and basically every other political issue that polarizes people these days. Cassie says she and Dan are both Democrats, but she's not like a staunch party line kind of person.

She says she votes for some Republicans and local elections. But Dan sees Tucker and he turns to Cassie. He says to me, I have to say something to him. Like I can't just not stand here and not approach him and give him a peace of my mind. Cassie said Dan seemed really bothered in particular by the way Tucker's rhetoric around COVID had split the country in two. Specifically, the way he'd spread misinformation about the effectiveness of vaccines. And Dan isn't a guy that's afraid to speak his minds. So what does Cassie do?

Cassie was like, you do you. I'll do me. So I said, all right, dear. Will you figure this out? I'm going to go look at bathing suits. Then she hears Dan's voice, and she looks back over. And there he is, talking to Tucker. So Cassie whips out her cell phone to take a video. She's actually a film student, so this sort of comes naturally to her.

I mean, for no reason other than And he's a famous guy, and Dan's talking to him. I mean, who wouldn't want to, like, have that? Here's the video she made. It's less than 30 seconds long. Okay, so they're talking to each other. They're pretty close to each other's faces. And they're both kind of smiling, but it definitely doesn't seem nice.

Tucker looks at the camera. I don't know. Everybody else. This is my son. Oh, you call me son, please. One. I don't know if you can hear it, but Dan says, you are the worst human being.

And Tucker calls him son, and he says, don't call me son. Okay, so Cassie takes this 30-second video. What happens when she actually turns the camera off? I mean, they just leave the store. They go home. They keep getting ready for the trip. Dan does post the video on Instagram. He thinks some friends would get to kick out of it.

But Cassie says they never thought that video would get too much attention. I mean, we're nobodies and Dan has like 200 friends. Among some other strong language in that post, Dan's caption said, quote, this man has killed more people with vaccine misinformation. He has supported extreme racism. He's a fascist and does more to rip this country apart than anyone that calls themselves an American. Oof, that is spicy. And he also added some major names with that, like MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and the left-leaning podcast, Pod Save America.

Okay, so it sounds like he was going on a bit of a rant, a little bit of a tirade. But like Cassie said, he doesn't have a big social media following. So maybe he just didn't think it was that big of a deal. Totally. I mean, he notices the video does start to get some more views than normal, but it's like nothing major. And as they're getting on this little puddle jumper of a plane to take them out of cell service and into the wilderness, Dan makes one more. That was just like, hey, peace out. We're heading into the, you know, river no return, wilderness.

See you in seven days. Then we shut our phones off. And then they just start floating the river like normal? Exactly. And on that trip through a wilderness area actually called the river of no return, there's no service. But off the river, back in the world of Wi-Fi and 24-hour cable news cycles and social media, major news outlets all over the country and the world pick up that video of Dan and Tucker.

Okay, everyone. Sit down and watch this. Man confronts Tucker Carlson at Montana store. Dan Bale is a guy's name. Posting his confrontation with a TV host. The Associated Press, CNN, ABC, NBC. The question is, should he have approached Carlson like that, Joy? Major daytime shows like The View.

Well, I'm against public confrontations like that. Okay, disagreeing with somebody's political point of view is not the same thing as what you're seeing here. It's an authoritarian mindset. You can't have a country. It's on the far right outlet, Bright Bart. It is cathartic to watch someone like Tucker Carlson who has no problem.

It's on the progressive YouTube show, the young Turks. Donald Trump Jr. tweets about it. Okay, when you get coverage like that, social media is probably also going off the rails. Oh, it's nuts. Views of the video are racking up. Watch Montana Man, Dan Bailey confronts Tucker Carlson. Instagram video goes viral.

Hashtag Montana Man was trending. on Twitter. So I just wanted to comment real quick. There are conspiracy theories about Dan being a CIA plant. What? All right. So you have the Asia Foundation, CIA, cameraman, Dan Bailey, Dan Bailey Fish Shop. What are the eyes of this happening?

YouTubers are having a field day. Let's watch this and experience orgasmic schidenfreude. And all the left is cheering it on. They have no respect for him. And among the most vocal and angry of those social media folks, it seems like there are two camps. I say confrontation. Really, Tucker Carlson was being accosted. I think it's pretty bigoted and fascist to walk up to a man in a fishing shop.

Some people are furious at Dan for confronting Tucker the way he did because they disagree with his politics or because they say he violated Tucker's privacy. And others think Dan is this sort of folk hero. It is enjoyable to see Tucker Carlson notice that he's being berated on camera by... Opportunity knocks only once in a lifetime, man. Because he went up to Tucker in the middle of a fly shot? Yeah. He spoke truth to power.

He gave him a piece of his mind. If you're going to dish it, you better be able to take it. Well, I agree. It wasn't ambush. I thought Tucker handled it. I can tell you, this is such a breach in fishing protocol. To begin with, there's journalists, and then there's Tucker Carl. Yeah, he's not out of the late at New York time.

To have the established media. You're out of fishing shop. You're thinking about fishing. Reading this is not only newsworthy about prison. He's on a fishing trip. Because this guy is here. He has stood up to power. Fishing, the whole thing, it's a sacred to me.

Including the shops, too. This really good sake of it. Take it. So how does Tucker feel about all of this? I reached out to Tucker multiple times for comment and never heard back, but Fox News put out a statement at the time saying Dan's behavior was inexcusable and nobody should be, quote, personally accosted. And Tucker himself talked about it on a radio show with comedian Adam Carolla. Some guy confronts you at a tackle shot.

Tucker said he takes his family on a fishing trip to Montana every year, and he happened to be in the store with his daughter, though Cassie says his daughter had left the store when Dan confronted Tucker. I mean, I was being honest, I was rattled by it because it was just so crazy. And I thought, oh, man, I wish I had a gun because, you know, I mean, that's how I felt. I mean, I would have shot the guy. I'm not defending that. I'm just like, that's how I felt.

I mean, you're attacking me in front of my daughter in a fly shop? Wait, wait. Tucker said that he wishes he had been carrying a gun? I mean, he backed out of that statement later. He said he's a peace-loving guy. But his point is it was deeply unsettling for him to be confronted that way. I guess I could see how if you're a Tucker Carlson fan and you hear him saying something like that,

you're also going to be pretty mad on his behalf. Yeah, something about what went down in that video just seized what's happening in this political moment. It seems kind of like this is really nerdy, the mirror of Arisette and Harry Potter where you look into it and you see what you want. And that's what everybody saw

and it was all some version of this like rage that's just pent up everywhere now on both sides of the political aisle. The fallout went beyond just Cassie and Dan too. While those two are on the river, that blowback starts to land somewhere else. At Dan Bailey's, the fly shop where the whole thing went down.

You know, it was such a strange coincidence a person named Dan Bailey in our store which is also named Dan Bailey. That's the owner of the store, Dale Sexton. He says, how do you align the planet's like that? He told me the place was so busy. Nobody even realized the confrontation had happened

until the next day when it started getting attention online. That's when he first heard about it and started to think, this could get a little crazy. And in fact, it did. Crazy beyond anybody's imagination. First, there was the sort of positive stuff. supporters of Dan, the people who thought he was something of a folk hero, wanted something with his name on it. You know, I don't know how many Dan Bailey T-shirts and hats we sold, but quite a couple thousand dollars worth within the first 12 hours of this story hitting the airwaves, so to speak.

But then things take a darker turn. If you Google Dan Bailey Livingston, Montana, you get the store, not the human Dan in the video. So the phone number for the fly shop became something like a hotline for that video's most enraised. viewers. Oh my God. Yeah, Dale said the phone rang every couple minutes. Nearly every caller started off just screaming, assuming Dan was affiliated with the shop, even though, like I said earlier, there's absolutely no relation there. Until you've actually experienced it yourself, it's hard to understand what it actually feels like and how offensive and how hurtful it feels. It was fairly traumatic. So what kind of things were they hearing? Dale said it was things like

I'm going to come down there and teach Dan Bailey a lesson. Me and my friends are going to be down there in an hour. How do you respond to that? Hearing him say that kind of gives me goosebumps. Like, it really does sound scary. I mean, they didn't know what was going to happen at the store. They called the police just in case something materialized there. Luckily, it never did.

But Dale said they were taking this hate from actually both sides. Some people were Tucker Carlson supporters that were just furious at Dan. And others were angry that the store had let. Tucker Carlson in in the first place. Wow. So they're really hearing from these, like you said, these two camps. Yeah, and it gets so bad, they end up putting out a public statement about everything.

This person has no affiliation with the business other than sharing a name with the founder who passed away back in 1982. Dan Bailey saying the whole thing was just one big coincidence. They're just an outdoor store trying to do right by their customers. But in the end, they get these thousands

of calls, thousands of emails, hundreds of negative reviews posted online. It was all part of this like vortex of hate that's just spinning and spinning and spinning and heading right for Cassie and Dan. Dan Bailey. I thought he was being a total jack. I think this guy's a total. What exactly was waiting for Cassie and Dan further down the river after a quick break? At Radio Lab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science, neuroscience, chemistry.

But we do also like to get into other kinds of stories, stories about policing or politics. Country music. Hockey. Sex. Of bugs. Regardless of whether we're looking at science or not science, we bring a rigorous curiosity to get you the answers. And hopefully make you see the world anew.

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Become a thought leader. Recruit new talent. Reach new audiences. Whatever your goal, we can help. Discover how the magic is made at WBUR.org. slash creative studio. Welcome back to Shirt State.

When we left off, Cassie Heron had taken a video of her husband, Dan Bailey, confronting Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson. And it went viral. But Cassie Herald. and Dan had no idea. They were out of service on a river trip.

Nick, how did that trip go for them? Cassie says the trip started off a blast. They're hitting rapids and their green raft, enjoying being unplugged. On the third day, they get to this private ranch, and a person walks up to them and says, Hey, do you guys have a green raft? And jokingly, Dan goes, yeah, why? Is it floating away? And the woman says, no, there's been an emergency.

Cassie assumes the worst. You don't contact your friends or family deep in the wilderness unless something really bad has happened. They have that tiny bit of service, so Dan calls the person who'd emailed the ranch owner. And he looks at me and he goes, the video that I posted, it went viral. So that's how they find out that the video blew up and that they're getting all these death threats. Exactly. And specifically, what they hear. is apparently there was a group of people in Idaho that were going to like band together

and come greet us at the takeout and you know treat us the way apparently we treated Tucker Carlson and that we should be really worried. So what do they do? That's pretty scary. They did the only thing they could. The river just goes one way. So they put back in and they kept on floating. Once again, they're totally out of touch with no connection to the outside world. They tried to enjoy the trip as best they could, but Cassie says, We still probably talked about it three or four times every day. Near the end of their journey, they start floating next to a road. Cassie notices there's this

big black SUV. It's stopping and starting as they go down the river, and she's starting to feel like it's following them. Oh my God. Yeah, she's worrying that it's this greeting squad. that they've been warned about. When they do get to that takeout, sure enough, there's that car. The people that are in it walk up to them. It's not angry Tucker Carlson fans at all. They're actually reporters from the Daily Mail, a British tabloid that want comment on the video from dad.

Oh, my God. Yeah, they've been following them for days. A British tabloid? Yeah, it just shows like this had global implications. At least they were not wielding weapons, just pencils. I guess that's a better scenario than the one that they were expecting, but it sounds like they're starting to get a sense of how massive the fallout actually was from this one video. And now they have to go back to Livingston and deal with that mess.

Yeah, as soon as they get back to service, their phones are flooded with messages from friends and family checking in, and also messages from strangers. Cassie said some of the stuff they got was vile and disgusting. People found out where we lived and sent us hate mail. Cassie says some of it was scary and like really, really far-reaching. Some people online were trying to get Dan fired from his job, reaching out to his employer. Dan didn't want to talk with me at all for this story because he just wanted to put the whole thing behind him. He thought talking about it with a journalist would only stir the pot.

But Cassie also told me that so far, all that hate hasn't physically shown up in Livingston. That has been encouraging in that, you know, the top on the shoulder. has been, hey, you're that guy. I want to buy you a beer. We're definitely worried about the day when the tap on the shoulder is a fist, but so far that hasn't happened. You know, what's striking to me about this whole thing is that these two camps are so clear about their version of what happened

and what they see in that video. And that seems so reductive, like just falling into this kind of black or white thinking. And if I'm being cynical, it's also not that surprising to me, just knowing how partisan everything is right now. Yeah, I wanted to go to a person who could help me zoom out and actually get some perspective on this whole thing. I'll admit, I'm not a huge Tucker Carlson fan. Jesse Binion teaches political science at Montana State University and Carroll College. But my initial reaction to that is I feel very uncomfortable with that sort of conflict playing out in a public place like that. I don't necessarily know if that really heals any divide that we have.

Jessie said the bigger picture there is that the video points to like this central fact of where we're at in politics today. You know, we're really, really polarized. It's no question we can probably all see it in our daily lives. Maybe we can see it within our own families. People are very connected more than ever to political parties. Jesse says polling data shows that over the last several decades we've been getting more and more divided in this country. People increasingly exist in these bubbles of media and communication. They don't understand the beliefs of the other party or really even try to.

I mean, here's an example of how bad it's getting. For the first time ever, that data shows that people by and large hate the other party more than they love their own. Like the sheer scale of this hatred and vitriol, lots of scholars say, is new on the political scene. and really a defining feature of our politics today. And Jesse says the fallout from Dan's video reflects all that anger and that partisanship. And also just how frustrated people are with how divided we've become. That response and analysis makes sense to me from a national level for sure, like that people are that divided about these topics.

But I've also kind of seen Montana as being unique or different from that. Jesse said that for a long time at least, like that way of thinking about Montana, that is a purple state that had prides itself on being a place where people vote for candidates over parties and people reach across the aisle and compromise. She said that way of thinking about Montana was true for a super, super long time. But recently, a lot of that's changed. The 2020 election really highlighted that we really can't call ourselves a purple state anymore. If you're just looking at the electoral outcome, it was a red wave. It signaled to me as an observer of politics and elections that we are kind of headed into a new era.

What does all that mean for how we, I don't know, live with each other? I asked Jesse exactly that question. As far as democracy goes, where you're trying to, you know, have this pluralistic society with all these different backgrounds come together to govern itself, it's going to be quite difficult. So, yeah, that question keeps political scientists up at night. It really does. Jessie is just as perplexed about our path forward as the rest of us. But she said every time she starts a new class, she has this suggestion for her students to try to approach politics with some humility. Just to be curious, to be able to learn new things from each other, even if we don't agree, that's really the goal of the class.

And I think that we can kind of take that same approach in the politics of our every, everyday life as well. She knows her students are part of the next generation of public officials, figuring out how to navigate this weird and partisan time. And seeing her students learn from each other and exchange ideas in the classroom, she finds hope. And in that same vein, she said people showing humility and curiosity in their day-to-day lives outside of that national context that can help bridge divides.

It's there, at the local level, where people are often forced to see each other eye-to-eye. That's where things get complicated and gray. And Jesse said, that's a good thing. To approach stories, to approach politics at the more local level, at the more, you know, nuanced level, I think that that is actually a remedy for a lot of what we're seeing. So she's saying, like, if you start talking to real people about real things that are happening in their direct lives, it's harder for everything to be so black and white. And I think that that makes sense, right? Like, it's not like tensions and disagreements don't exist at all, but maybe people feel more open to learning about each other

when it gets a little bit closer to the personal. Yeah, I want to bring us back to Livingston and back to how Dan Bailey, that fly shop, dealt with all this. Because I think it really attests to how things look on the ground. Dale Sexton, the guy who owns that fly shop, he said that at the same time that hate was just flooding into the store over the phone and online, the community was deeply supportive. And just the whole thing felt totally different on that ground level.

Just to emphasize the number of people who, hey, what can we do? Can we come answer your phones? Let's go have a beer. Let's talk about this. We've got your back, whatever we can do to help. I really feel like the community was there because it was, yeah, it was a big profile thing. And it was so crazy. It's like, how do you come to terms with it?

And a lot of people could really empathize with our scenario. Dale said the store still gets a message or two about the video a week. And he says they may never totally get past it. You don't really forget something like that. It's really fascinating and interesting and fun and tragic all at the same time. The store was reluctant to go on record with me at all. They were worried about rekindling that fire that had sent all that hate in the first place. But I told Dale about this season of the show that were telling stories of Montanans working through these kinds of divides.

You're acknowledging a divide that exists and acknowledging an issue. I mean, how do you deal with an issue without first coming to terms with it, right? That was Nick Mott and Mara Silvers from Shared State, a podcast from a podcast from Montana Free Press, Montana Public Radio, and Yellowstone Public Radio. There's more info about the show and about this episode on our website, wbUR.org slash endless thread. And by the way, shared states whole season is out now, so you should definitely check it out if you'd like to hear more stories

about communities navigating deep divides. You can listen to them wherever you listen to us. And we'll be back next week. And Ben, we're going to Greenland. We're going. Get ready. I'm so ready. Okay, bye.

Bye.