It Could Happen Here - City of Hate: The Fascist Attack on Dallas Pride

Episode Date: June 13, 2022

We discuss the attack on a family friendly drag event by self described Christian Fascists on June 4th.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadowbride. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of fright. An anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Christ is King! Christ is King!

Christ is King! Christ is King! Christ is King! Christ is King! Christ is King! Your children should be home. Your kids aren't actually gay, you've just groomed them. You're a groomer. Welcome to It Could Happen Here.

Today we are talking about something that did happen just a few days ago, and we'll be discussing its possible ramifications going forward, and similar subsequent attacks that are most likely going to take place throughout this next month. I'm Garrison Davis. With me is Chris. Hello. Hello. Ready to hear about a lot of threats of genocide and a whole bunch of audio clips of fascists. You know, okay, I got one episode where there was like a pretty clean win and like a good thing happened and so now i'm i'm ready to go back to that's

getting exterminated that's fine this is so this episode is going to be kind of i don't speak german style i guess if we were to compare it to another one of our competitors in the field. Yeah, so, I mean, there's been a lot of threats against Pride events over the course of the past month. We've pointed towards some in Idaho. There has been some in Arizona. There has been lots in Texas. By the time this episode has dropped, the Gondolin event in Idaho would have already taken place. We are recording that

just before on June 10th. So I'm unsure of how that's gone at this point. Hopefully nothing horrible happened. But if everyone dies, that's why we're not talking about it because it hasn't happened yet. But yeah, we're going to be talking about an attack

on a pride event in dallas texas that happened on june 4th so starting starting kind of closer to the lead up to this on may 30th the conservative trend-setting libs of tiktok uh who now has over 1.2 million followers on their Twitter account, ran by Chaya Raichek, they started a thread titled, quote, Mega Drag Thread. They say it's innocent. They say it's about inclusion and acceptance. They say no one is trying to confuse, corrupt, or sexualize kids. They lie. Increasingly, many on the far right are targeting family-friendly drag events, including drag time story events at libraries across the country. The Gondolain event in Idaho was precursored by a whole bunch of attacks on drag story events at the libraries inside Idaho and the very church gathering that they announced

the event to oppose the Pride on June 11th. That whole gathering at the church was about removing LGBTQ materials from libraries and targeting any drag queens who do any types of story times. So this over 30 tweet-long thread by Libs of TikTok contained a list of drag queen story hour flyers with dates and locations and family-friendly or all-ages drag events that had recently took place over upcoming for Pride Month. One such event Rychek posted about was a Pride-themed family-friendly drag event that was to take place on Saturday, June 4th, hosted at a gay venue in a progressive neighborhood of Dallas, Texas. In their post, Libs of TikTok included the date and location for the upcoming event, as well as an unrelated

picture of one of the drag performers wearing a skimpy outfit. I think Rychik just searched the internet for a picture of this one person wearing as revealing clothing as possible based on their entire internet presence. And it's still not a nude photo. It's just someone in a skimpy outfit. But anyway, you're trying to be like, this is what your kids are going to see, which means it's not. But you know the thing they're trying to do. The tweet was shared by a new far-right group called Protect Texas Kids, who had also declared that they were organizing a protest to oppose what they called a, quote, child grooming event. They tweeted out the address of the venue and called on people to join in on opposition to the family-friendly drag show.

The initial Libs of TikTok tweet about the Dallas All Ages Drag Event raked up over a thousand retweets and thousands and thousands of likes. Less than a week later, the anti-queer attacks moved from the online sphere to the outside physical world. I wonder if the mama bear instinct is going to come out in three years when the mainstream Democrat party platformers, they want to rape your kids. And they're all going to think it's one big, smug little joke, these people, by the way. Understand that there is a bigger difference between 10 years ago and now than there would be between now and in five years when they're openly advocating for pedophilia like they've already started doing. You people are the symptom

of a dying society and you know it. You're scaring children! Shut the fuck up! We're scaring children? Shut the fuck up! But not you! That's John Doyle, a self-described Christian fascist, standing outside the family-friendly drag event at 9 a.m. in the morning, yelling through a megaphone at the families with kids lined up to get inside the brunch event. A crowd mostly in khaki shorts and button-ups

surrounded the venue and chanted, Groomer! Groomer! As the group of men kept screaming at the families stuck outside waiting in line, kids just a few feet away covered their ears amidst the screams and megaphones. One person waved a Christian demoninist flag. A man holding a rosary shrieked verbal abuse at the children and parents.

The fist of Christ will come down on you very soon. Ah, the fist of Christ. We're done with this. Is that your fist? You're done with this. Grimmer! Grimmer! Is your fist the fist of Christ? You disgust me!

The fist of Christ is your fist? What was described as a, quote, protest immediately materialized as a group of men and self-described Christian fascists who came to attack families at Pride, just yelling abuse at the event's attendees and staff, threatening people as they arrived and left, and creating an actually unsafe environment for children. for children, along with a gaggle of far-right grifting videographers who, quote, infiltrated the event to film kids without their consent to create viral propaganda. There was a very good article by Melissa Gira Grant, published a few days after the incident, titled A Pizzagate in Every City, with the subheading, quote, These conspiracy theories were once fringe. Now they're being fueled by Republicans and driving With the subheading, quote, Now, I'm going to read a few quotes from this piece throughout our episode today, because the writer does a very good job tying the current grooming rhetoric to the pattern of escalating violence and conspiracism embraced by the right over the past few years. So to quote the article, quote, From the idea that children inside this venue were being abused, and that such abuse was a plot by

Democrats, to the call to internet provocateurs to record their own evidence, as well as the false claims of child rescues made by those promoting these conspiracy theories, the attack on Mr. Mr., which was the venue that the strike event took place at, called to mind the same fears, if not the same threat of gun violence, as the assault on Comet Ping Pong in Washington, D.C. in 2016. A man motivated by the Pizzagate conspiracy theory arrived at the restaurant with a rifle to, quote, rescue children from the non-existent sex trafficking ring

supposedly orchestrated by prominent Democrats. Now, a little more than five years later, 25% of Republicans identify as believers of the Pizzagate successor QAnon, and the far-right's capacity for street violence has grown. At the same time, where once most elected Republican officials would at least nominally distance themselves from Pizzagate pushers out on the fringe, that wall has largely eroded. Across the country, GOP lawmakers have waged a legislative crusade targeting queer and trans kids,

smearing opponents as groomers, language that rhymes with the pedophile claims that inspired the attack on Comet Ping Pong. And where once the targets of these conspiracy theories were largely confined to a select group of Democrat lawmakers and their allies, the fear-mongering, amplified by Fox News and prominent conservative social media accounts, is now targeting all LGBTQ people, from national figures to members of your local community. The stage is set for a pizza gate in any city. Welcome, I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnal, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora.

An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. rushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network,

available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And just like Pizzagate, where cases of threats of violence escalated to the point of an attempted arson and a young white man storming the establishment, firing a rifle inside, the homophobic and transphobic violence that is advocated or physically committed is truly seen as, like, righteously justified by those who do it. And even if those who promote it don't sincerely hold those, like, illogical beliefs, successful propagandists know how to effectively frame bigoted violence as a moral imperative, simply as a way to encourage attacks on their own ideological enemies. Gruber! Gruber! Gruber! You guys are disgusting! Repent! Repent for your sins!

The far-right conservatives and fascists who made explicit threats of genocidal violence were not met unopposed. There was what seems to me a mix of more official security from the gay venue that usually functions as a bar, as well as community defense volunteers and anti-fascists who put their body in between the fascists and the families with children. Community members wore low-key, pride-infected block attire, black masks, and rainbow bandanas, with some holding trans and queer pride flags, which can come in handy for blocking off unwanted persons. Not only did the community defense protect families and attendees, but also worked to protect the performers, who were being followed after the event was over by fascists the elm fork john brown gun club did a stand-up job documenting the event as it happened and also doing work after the fact to id the people who are leading the homophobic attacks i truly believe if there was less of a community defense effort the day could have gone much, much uglier. And I think that's a part that's worth

emphasizing. Everyone who showed up to oppose the fascists did an amazing job. I mean, I've looked at so much footage of this day, from the footage the fascists were filming to the footage that the John Brown Gun Club was putting out. And there were so many times where people with rainbow masks were physically preventing fascists from chasing down kids. There was barely enough of them, right? You would always want more community defenders there, but the ones who did show up deserve much gratitude for putting their bodies on the line. Eventually, police did show up and tried to keep some of the conservative protesters who were screaming groomer at children on one side of

the street across from the venue. But even with the cops there, self-described fascists continued to chase families as they walk with their kids to their car. And anti-fascists and counter demonstrators were the ones to block the homophobes' path to prevent them from further harassing kids and families, while the counter-demonstrators were yelling at the fascists to leave the kids alone. After the police did arrive, Christian fascist leader John Doyle talked about how police should, quote, go in there and put bullets in their heads. They should be rewarded for it. That's what the badge is for. And now I'm going to play a clip of him saying that. It's a little bit hard to hear, but here's my due diligence.

So yeah, that is hearkening back to the very real history of police's willingness to enforce homophobic laws, something that these Christian conservatives and fascists want to bring back. And if you think some police wouldn't enforce such laws, then oh boy, i don't know what to tell you like yeah that's their entire job is to enforce whatever the laws are and lots of those cops i'm sure don't have great opinions on uh gay people so yeah i i know there were like like i i've had conversations with people who are like i don't know like 16 17 18 who like you know like who i don't want to be too hard on them but it's like people who got their sort of education of queer history on tumblr and they'll say things like well like cis white gay men were like never oppressed in the u.s that it's like no oh boy like oh boy like

you you yeah you you you could be just a cis white gay dude and like like really like not even really like 15 years ago it was pretty common for people to just like get the shit beaten out of them on the street for being gay yeah and cop cops participate in this like regular people participate in this and this looks like what we're heading back to but possibly even worse so if you if you look around the social media feed of many many cops as i do for fun sometimes, just like cops in their personal feeds. And if you look at who they follow, what right-wing influencers they follow, what churches they attend, don't be fooled into thinking that cops will not enforce homophobic laws. Yeah, they love this shit.

Cops will not enforce homophobic laws. Yeah, they love this shit. Anyway, one of their stated goals is to regress on gay rights and to have their version of a Christian hegemonic order enforced by the violence of law. And here is Doyle again saying as such at the event. I'm going to read what he actually says there in case you could not hear it. Quote, it's going to be so fun when we take away all of your rights, every single one of them. Let's now talk about some of the people and groups who organized this confrontation and the resulting propaganda

piece put together by the right. So one of the main people was Kelly Neudert. Neudert? Neudert? I think, I think... Who cares? They suck. Yes. One of the people was Kelly Neiedert, one of the Christian fascist organizers responsible for setting up the Facebook group for the attack on the Pride event this past weekend. She's worked with Groypers and Proud Boys in the past for her Young Conservative of Texas events at University of North Texas and is a self-described, quote, based Christian fascist. Her words, not mine. She's also hosted a campus event with Jeff Younger, an anti-trans Republican candidate for the Texas House of Representatives, who came to prominence on the right for attempting to block his daughter's access to gender-affirming health care,

and who ultimately failed on both accounts. Good for her. Yeah. Kelly's current project is a new anti-trans hate group called Protect Texas Kids. She calls herself the executive director of, but she's basically the main driving force behind. It was under the Protect Texas Kids banner that she organized the harassment attack on the All Ages Drag Show. Quoting from Pizzagate in Every City again, quote, With her new group, Niedert says that, quote,

teachers who teach LGBTQ propaganda and critical race theory. Protect Texas Kids is a friendly sounding vehicle with which self-avowed Christian fascists in Texas can go into LGBTQ community spaces armed with video and claims to be there to investigate. All of this expands on a now common playbook. Produce local events antagonizing queer and trans people, then go on Fox News, Newsmax, and other right-wing media outlets to put the videos in front of an even broader audience. Unquote. The other major figure is obviously John Doyle, the guy we've talked about a lot this episode so far, and we've included many audio clips of him screaming horrible things at kids. He is the Christianian fascist leader heard saying things like every single one of gay rights should be taken away and encouraging police to go

in there and put a bullet in their heads uh i guess the parents or drag performers he has a large youtube channel with over 300 000 subscribers don't don't worry chris it's going to get worse uh christian fascists led by both kelly neutered and john doyle have been terrorizing the university of north texas campus for months on one occasion they brought proud boys armed security and a technical pickup truck now when i say technical i mean like the military style vehicle like it was a technical pickup truck. Now, when I say technical, I mean like the military-style vehicle. It was a technical built onto a pickup truck. So basically a massive truck armed with a pretty intense gun.

That seems not legal somehow, but it's Texas. Oh, it's Texas. Oh, okay. It is absolutely legal. I'm going to play some audio from a University of North Texas campus event that took place last October featuring Doyle and his crew of fascists. What is wrong with Christian fascism? Go ahead and get my face. I have a YouTube channel with 300,000 subscribers.

I am radicalizing the youth, and you can do nothing about it. You guys better improve your sound, because when we hear my voice, how bad things are going to happen to you. I would play more audio, but a high-pitched whistle drowns out the rest of what he says, and I will not subject you to the audio of the whistle, because it does a fantastic job making the audio completely unlistenable. So much so that very soon, Doyle just, like, gave up talking, because the whistle did a really good job dread shit trying to come

out um but for more background on doyle i'll quote from a pizza gate in every city again quote john doyle who yelled about rape at children through a megaphone has organized a stop the rally with nick fuentes was a special guest at the White Nationalist America First PAC conference in 2022, and is the leader of a group titled the American Populist Union. He was in audience at a 2021 event billed as Hitler Youth Without the Hitler. Wait, so can I ask a question about this? So I've heard about this event. Did they literally write that?

Yes, it was called that by one of the organizers, Ariel Early, an 18-year-old white nationalist social media influencer billed as a special guest at the camping retreat, saying, I always say these events are Hitler Youth without the Hitler. And what do I mean by that? You have to get to the youth. They claim Gen z might be the most conservative generation but honestly i'm not seeing it i mean i guess that's good news

but also if you ignore that if you ignore the hitler part that yes that's yeah well maybe they'll follow their leader also uh kyle rittenhouse says that he's a john doyle fan so ah great Kyle Rittenhouse says that he's a John Doyle fan. So... Ah, great. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora.

An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network,

available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we are back. I'm going to continue to quote from the Pizza Game Every City article again. Quote, Given many existing media connections, videos from the event made by far-right content creators,

some confronting attendees and performers, were widely picked up across right-wing social media by people including Andy Ngo, Benny Johnson, and Pizzagate promoter Jack Sobiak, who shared a video of one drag performer and instructed his followers to contact the state's Department of Family and Protective Services. When some of these same videos made it to Tucker Carlson's show on Monday night,

he introduced the segment by saying, just another weekend in Weimar, selectively airing moments when adults yelled back at people like Doyle, accusing them of abuse, or when other adults used their bodies to block men from forcing their way into the event. All of this was used to portray the people threatening the Pride event as the actual victims. Unquote. So yeah, less than 48 hours after the all-ages drag event had began, it was headlining on Tucker Carlson. Just another weekend in Weimar. On Saturday, a nightclub in Dallas held an event called Drag Your Kids to Pride. At the event, little kids dance with drag queens and tip them with dollar bills. This is grotesque. Sexualizing children always is. So there were a small number of brave protesters

outside. One of them was our friend Alex Stein. He tried to get into the event because it was a public event. And so he was assaulted. Watch. The event on June 4th also attracted an assorted collection of far-right media personalities, or those who aspire to be. They themselves referred to their group of far-right videographers as the, quote, Avengers of Homophobes. Among which, as mentioned by Tucker, was aspiring comedian and small far-right commentator Alex Stein, who was prevented entry to the venue by event security and community defenders, or as Tucker would say, was assaulted. Here's audio of that interaction.

Also, I want to note that in the video, Alex Stein has a big old smirk on his face the entire time, and I think you can actually hear that through the way he talks. I just understand. We're denying the entry. We're asking to leave. Oh my god. They're denying the entry. They're bigoting. They're bigoting. They're not letting me in here. I can't believe they're not letting me in a game.

I thought you guys were inclusives, right? Look, I'm not allowed in here, but they let children in here dance. You guys don't think that's weird, right? Some of these videographers did make it inside with their cameras, shooting videos that misrepresented the drag performances as threatening to children or acting in an inappropriate sexual manner, all while making threatening comments of their own online or outside in person. One who interrogated a drag performer captioned his video, quote, these groomers need to be exposed for what they are. A woman who shot some video from inside of the venue later tweeted, quote, this summer is slaying groomers summer. Two far-right members of the self-described homophobic Avengers who made it inside the event to film kids were Taylor Hansen, who got a lot of notoriety after filming the Ashley Babbitt shooting as he was participating in the storming of the Capitol, similar to how Elijah Schaefer was making the event seem like

it was this big heroic thing and then getting a lot of press coverage off of his footage. It was this big heroic thing, and then getting a lot of press coverage off of his footage. Someone else who was going inside the event to film kids was Aldo Buziani. After the event, the little collection of self-described Christian fascists and their propagandists got together on Elijah Schaefer's Blaze Media podcast to do a sort of roundtable report back. Now, Elijah Schaefer was not actually on that episode. John Doyle was filling in as the host, self-described Christian fascist John Doyle. But Schaefer brands himself as a classic, I'm going to say Christian fascist, because that's what his rhetoric means. Now, Schaefer himself doesn't use the word fascist, but he does share Sonnenrab memes on Twitter,

and his rhetoric is indistinguishable from Doyle's, who, of course, Doyle does use the word fascist. And, of course, Schaefer is totally fine with having Doyle fill in as him for host on his own show. Anyway, here is Doyle introducing people on that episode, including Turning Point USA representative, Elizabeth Riley. We also have fellow e-girl, Isabella Riley. I want to be and I want white confetti, please. Yeah, white confetti. She likes her confetti how she likes her country. So anyway, tell me what you saw, Aldo, because you got there a little bit before I did.

And now we all had this sort of like, you know, homophobic Avengers assemble kind of thing where everyone did their part. I knew that I probably couldn't get in. So I just thought that I would assemble my army of young men to go and confront these people. But Aldo and Isabella actually infiltrated the event and got the viral footage that you've probably seen if you've been watching literally any news coverage of this event.

So that podcast can be found on YouTube and Apple Podcasts, just openly hosting content that's hosted by a Christian fascist saying shit about wanting a white america a half a million subscribers on youtube just yep so this ecosystem of aspiring right-wing content creators is part of this wave of like 20 something conservative influencers like 20 something i said like age like they're all like they're mid-20s or something. But these conservative influencers that are trying to market like old school right-wing evangelical bigotry to young people as like a cool trad counterculture using meme aesthetics. Fundamentally, these people are attention hounds.

As they cover events like these on the ground, you can see them smirking the entire time, even when people are acting hostile to them. The spectacle is the point. If they're not posing an actual active threat, what these far-right videographers hate the most is non-engagement, right? If there's the ability to do non-engagement, that's what they don't like. The most annoyed these people get is when they're met with cold, still silence, like in this case with Taylor Hansen. Can either of you guys give me any information on, I mean, how you feel about what took place in here today and about these counter-protesters? What do you guys think?

protesters what do you guys think? Why do you hide your face? Is it because you're committing crimes? Maybe crimes against children? So they hide their face because they're too scared of being identified as pedophiles and groomers so I mean you see this is a constant reoccurrence with Antifa and with left-wing anarchist groups is they'll hide their face because they think they're all tough and hard in big groups but the minute that they're soloed out and are actually asked questions they have nothing to say about their ideology their beliefs or about

the fact that they are actually the fascists here in this situation. So, I mean, I'd really like to just get one word out of you, ma'am, because, I mean, you just want to be so silent, but you're so vehemently defending this. I mean, do you have anything to say? One more chance. They know they are saying ridiculous things,

none of which reads as genuine. They know the absurdity of their own replies. In their podcasts, they talk about how disgusted they were watching people dance together. But in their own videos, they're smiling, relaxed, excited about what's going on and how they'll spin whatever's happening to boost their career. they'll spin whatever's happening to boost their career. If they were actually concerned about children, they wouldn't be having little giggle fests while inside events like these, right? They call it a child grooming event and they're not acting like there's anything bad happening. Like you can say like, oh, they're trying to play it cool because they're doing infiltration.

No, they're just being chill. Like they're giggling and laughing and looking like, look at the silly gay people doing these things. I can't wait to use footage of this to boost my career and misrepresent it to a wider audience. We're in this, like, post-irony world. In many aspects, the level of sincerity does not actually matter, right? All that's necessary is saying the lines from the script that the audience wants to hear. It's like algorithmically generated politics. You can talk about how victims of sexual abuse should themselves be locked up so they won't go on to abuse other people in the future. And even though you look at

the camera at the end and give a knowing smirk, it doesn't matter because you're just saying the things that are going to get traction. And you're saying the things that your misogynist audience wants to hear. Here's the Turning Point USA representative, Isabel Riley, on the Blaze Media podcast, who at the end of the clip does indeed give a very knowing look to camera and a little smirk. It's a total coach.

Should we lock up people that have had sexual trauma in their childhood because they tend to become abusers in the future? Also, just a few other notes on this on this uh blaze media podcast so i i listened to this whole podcast like twice to get to get clips for my coverage here and just to kind of get a sense of what they were doing um what one of the speakers on the on the podcast blamed like the recent mass shootings on the presence of nearby sex shops um some of

the videographers who were on the show went on to alex jones's show the next day uh you know it was it was full of pretty i mean it was pretty bad homophobic rhetoric but i mean it's just so ever present that it's hard to even selectively get certain clips of it like they they were doing a lot of work to tie mental illness to gayness, saying that these two things are intrinsically linked, and that if we just locked up more mentally ill people in institutions, we

wouldn't have as many gay people. I think the other interesting thing that I found to be really funny in the podcast is that for their first ad break, they were selling testosterone-boosting supplements. So in this very anti-trans podcast, the first product they were selling

was supplements to boost your natural male testosterone. And it's just very funny because they're talking about how evil HRT is and how evil and irreversible it is. And then they're also selling things that are supposed to boost testosterone levels, right? Like we are in a post-irony world. It doesn't like this. Anyway, here's, here's one more clip from the podcast talking about how the bigoted community is so diverse. And you'll notice too, our group was very diverse, which I think we made this point yesterday as well. The bigoted

community is so accepting. All you have to be is also bigoted and you're allowed to hang out with us. And so we had this nice mob of well-dressed, handsome young guys to go confront these people because no one else would. All right. That is enough of that. Onto our final section of the day. So, Texas-based journalist Stephen Monticelli reported that later that same night of the drug event, incidents that police categorized as terroristic threats of an anti-homosexual nature were reported by bar owners in the same neighborhood. After the event, the venue and gay bar released a media statement saying that its weekly drag brunches are normally for guests who are 21 and over, but decided to host a special pride

drag brunch for all guests, including those who can't attend other drag shows because of the drinking age restrictions, and as a part to raise money for a local LGBTQ youth organization. Adding that it was, quote, more than happy to open our doors to celebrate pride in a family-friendly, safe environment, because we believe that everyone should have a space to be able to celebrate who they are, unquote. I'm gonna read another quote from, I think this is our last quote from Pizzagate in Every City. Quote, The street confrontation to video, to Fox News, to Republican Party pipeline took only a little more than two days to complete.

By the next Monday, Texas Republican State Representative Brian Slayton cited the Protect Texas Kids attack on the Dallas event in his announcement to introduce, quote, a bill to ban drag shows in the presence of minors in Texas, unquote. A Florida state representative pledged to follow suit. U.S. Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Bobbert voiced their support. Green and Lauren Bobbert voiced their support. By then, Protect Texas Kids had already moved on to a new target, an LGBTQ-affirming church that was having a service next Sunday, and the group had already announced several more plans to protest LGBTQ spaces this month. What we are already seeing this Pride season is alarming, but it did not come out of nowhere. It is a continuation of campaigns targeting drag queen story hours. It is a continuation of campaigns targeting drag queen story hours. It was fed by Republican attacks on queer and trans kids and state

legislators across the country. And it is coordinated by people on the far right who have names and very specific movement affiliations. As these threats continue, as they generate yet more videos of confrontations, they may also give heft to the lie that supporting LGBTQ youth is grooming and that queer community spaces are commercial settings for child abuse. No Republican would say the Pizzagate shooter had a point. But now, simply based on videos of deliberate confrontations with kids at Pride events, they're happy to co-sign. Unquote. Lawmakers won't be able to consider Slanton's proposal on a statewide ban of kids being around drag performances until the 10th of January in 2023, which is when the next Texas legislative session kicks off. But if the No Drag Around Minors law gets enacted, that could have

many, many ramifications depending on enforcement. One possible scenario is not being allowed to have drag at Pride or people under the age of 18 just not being allowed to attend Pride, right? Because if you're having a Pride parade and there's drag performers and there's kids there, now it's a crime. You're all going to jail um you could also just see this as an attempt by texas to recriminalize cross-dressing because by and large drag shows and events are usually taking place at 21 and up bars right generally unless it's the drag time story time stuff like drag's not around kids super often right and including like like, non-sexual drag. It's just, because of how laws work around bars, usually those things don't have much

crossover. But that's not what they're targeting, though, right? They just don't want gay people or men in dresses to be around kids, right? If you're seen cross-dressing while a child is nearby, now that's a drag show. You're going to jail. And if you think a ban on, quote, drag in front of children won't be applied to just trans people existing in public, then again, I don't know what to tell you. Because depending on how they define what drag is, like, they're not limiting this to, like, drag shows. They're not limiting this to drag shows. They're talking about men in dresses. That's what it's going to be

because they're targeting library events. They're targeting events in public. It's not about drag shows with tickets and stuff. It's about men wearing dresses or, in the case of trans people, just existing. Here's the homeomo Public Avengers talking about the introduced legislation after their little propaganda campaign.

But wow, the guys, we really did, and I'm not trying to pat ourselves on the back, but with Brian Slaton, with the legislation he's trying to put through exposing these people, we really did take a W in the culture battle. We didn't win the culture war yet. I don't think I've ever seen such an after effect of an event. I mean, in positivity for us.

I mean, I don't think I've ever seen a bunch of journalists go and expose an event like this and then have actual legislation drafted almost immediately after. I think this is a new sphere that we're entering in. And I think, I mean, we got to freaking roll with it. Yeah, I really hope that the momentum is maintained. To close off, I'm going to riff off a point made by Steven Monticelli. At what point will become clear to those in media

who run quotes or use selective footage from these people that intentionally obscure the extreme nature of their beliefs, right? These are not like simple economic conservatives. However, if contemporary mainstream conservatives are willing to accept this sort of politics in their movement, then it's the case that mainstream conservatism in America has become almost indistinguishable from fascism. Much of the coverage of the protest of this pride event gives credibility to the fascist side, basically endorsing their homophobic framing, positioning the drag performers as somehow inherently sexual

for wearing femme outfits and doing dances that are, in reality, more conservative than your basic high school cheerleading team. Mainstream media and pundits, and even some leftist ones, mainstream media and pundits and even some leftist ones quote like quote-unquote leftist pundits fell for the bait and treated kids playing musical chairs with people in drag and giving the performers cash from their parents as more inappropriate than the mob of open fascists hurling verbal abuse at kids and chasing them down as they head to their cars. So that is my little write-up on what has happened in Dallas last week. The Protect Texas Kids group is planning more and more events in Texas for Pride Month. They're targeting not just events with kids. They're also targeting 21 and up, drag brunches. They're targeting not just events with kids they're also targeting 21 and up

drag brunches, they're targeting churches they're doing the bit, right? They're doing the thing and people really fell for the bait on this one people really did I've seen all of the videos from the events there's nothing inherently sexual about these people's style of dancing there's nothing inherently sexual about these people's style of dancing there's nothing inherently sexual about their outfits right playing with gender isn't inherently sexual

it's playing with gender it's it those are two different things um that's so but yeah a lot of a lot of a lot of people fell fell for the bit. A lot of people took the bait. We're sharing photos and being like, look at this. How can you defend this? And like, defend what? It's people dancing. You would see it's the dances are not like, they're not about sex. They're not imitating sex acts.

It's just, it's fun and chill. People got really mad that there was a sign at the venue that was an innuendo. And there's a ice cream shop like a block away from the venue with the very same sign. They're not actually mad about that. Like that's not what they're actually mad about. Because you can walk down the street and look at so many things that are innuendos. If you watch a Pixar movie, right, there will be innuendos.

That's not what they're talking about. They're talking about gay people being around kids. And I would like for people to stop falling for the bait. Anyway, we're going to be doing another episode on the city of hate, on the homophobic stuff in Dallas later this week. We're going to be talking about Steadfast Church. I'm still writing that episode at the moment,

but I'm planning to put that out later this week as well. And depending how the Gundalain event went in Idaho and the various other things, I'm sure we'll be talking more about this type of stuff as Pride goes on. So yeah. Chris, any thoughts on the word vomit I just gave for the past 40 minutes?

You know, I mostly just, like, I don't know, it's it's we've somehow managed to create a version of like the like worst at parts of like the queer bashing 2000s, but like even worse because now there's there's an even larger media cycle around it yeah and like i i think it's worth mentioning that like one of the ways that stuff ended was that like a lot of people most of them were like like cis and straight right like people a bunch of people who weren't queer were just like literally fuck this and started attacking people back and you know you see this in working-class neighborhoods right like there'd be a period of time where you have these evangelical churches who are just, you know, like, openly inciting attacks on people until they got the shit beat out of them by a bunch of working class kids.

And that's when that shit stopped. And unless we fucking fight these people, they're going to keep doing this until people start getting murdered. And I guess a more positive thing to end on would be saying big thank you to everyone who showed up to physically oppose this. When I was listening to the Homophobic Avengers podcast, John Doyle said that there was a few points where he was scared. There were some people wearing pride bandanas and stuff who had handguns. And he did not, John Doyle did not like that.

At one point, he talked about how he was heading to his car and the counter demonstrators were following him to make sure he was actually going to leave. And he saw that some of the people were carrying. And he saw that some of the people were carrying. And he freaked out. He screamed for police. And he said that these people were threatening to shoot him. Which is, I mean, just an attempt to get police to shoot the counter demonstrators, right? It's just John Doyle screaming, These people have guns! They're trying to shoot me!

Right? Even though they weren't even holding their guns they were they were they were just have having guns but like these people can't be scared and again no one was even violent against john doyle that was just people who were who were carrying standing near him um and i just big thank you to everybody who showed up to try to prevent these fascists from chasing down these kids, from hurling abuse at these kids. I would recommend you follow the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club on Twitter. They did a really good job documenting this. And then for the stuff in Idaho, you can follow Redoubt Anti-Fascists.

this stuff in idaho you can follow read out anti-fascists um those those would be the two the two people i say to follow on twitter right now um for tracking these attacks on pride in texas and inside idaho um i guess i think yeah yeah i guess the last thing i would say is like it's important to remember that unlike a lot of the periods in queer history like these people are actually a minority and, and like they're trying to regress, right? Like they, we've already got to this point.

They're trying to pull it back. Yeah. This is kind of a new thing. Um, but it's like, but yeah, but it's like this thing, like we,

like on, on, on, unlike the fucking seventies, like we are actually the silent majority here. Yes. And if enough people fucking show up and just like, these people need to be framed as

yeah i excuse my i guess semi-ableist language here but like i i deal with my ideal mental health i deal with mental health issues of my own but like these people need to be framed as wackos right they these people need to be framed as fringe these people need to be framed as as crazy extremists they they need to be belittled they need to be put These people need to be framed as crazy extremists. They need to be belittled. They need to be put down. They need to be viewed as pathetic, as scared, right? Like, that's the way to do successful propaganda framing. Because they need to stay outside the majority, right? Like, they need to be othered. That's the way to win this, right? That's the thing they always try to do, right? That's why they always try to frame gay people

as being severely mentally ill all the time, right? Like that's all what they try to do. And because enough of progress has happened, we just need to defend the line that is already drawn because like I said before, right right like these people are not regular economic conservatives right but if mainstream conservatism is going to be is is continue is going to continue to accept this politics in their movement then mainstream conservatism will be the same as fascism right so you need to point at the people like john doyle point at the people who call themselves christian fascists and be so demeaning to them and making them feel so separate

from every part of regular social life. Because their whole goal is to integrate themselves into the larger conservative movement, integrate themselves into larger American politics, and that can't happen. It Could Happen Here is a production of cool zone media for more podcasts from cool zone media visit our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts you can find sources for it could happen here updated monthly

at coolzonemedia.com sources thanks for listening you should probably keep your lights on for nocturnal tales from the shadow Thanks for listening. terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.