It Could Happen Here - The RNC Welcome Party

Episode Date: July 16, 2024

Robert, Gare and Sophie report from Milwaukee, Wisconsin at the Red, White, & Brew RNC welcome party.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while running errands or at the end of a busy day. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Listen to Black Lit on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. AT&T, connecting changes everything. Hey, I'm Gianna Pertenti. And I'm Jumae Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. If you're early in your career, you probably have a lot of money questions.

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Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about things falling apart. And nothing says things falling apart better than as many Republicans as possible jammed into as small a place as possible with half of the cops in the United States of America there as well with me is sophie lichterman and garrison davis are on the ground reporting team for the republican convention national wow it's true we're here we are at the republican national convention the day after former president donald trump was nearly struck down by an assassin's bullet. And yeah, it's been pretty fun. Yeah, the vibes are great. Vibes are great. Actually, that's kind of the thing we should start with.

I mean, the former president was shot yesterday, and the shit online has been absolutely unhinged. And I was expecting a lot, but certainly a different vibe at the thing which was i think basically the same vibe it would have had if the president hadn't been shot people were by and large not acting different okay so so set the scene all we went to this red white and brew kickoff at the inaugural party party shocking amount of free alcohol shocking amount of free alcohol how many people do you think were there i don't know thousands that definitely thousands of people yeah the not crazy crowded but it was big the flyer said they were estimating 10 to 50 000 people over the course of like five six hours yeah that sounds

about right yeah trace adkins performed and sang a song with the lyrics, Gerson. Well, this was actually a spoken word intro to a song. This was in the middle of the songs. Yes. We were in the middle. Trace, if you haven't heard, Trace is a country music star and not a good one. I'm not sure if it was him or if it was Toby Keith that Chris Christopherson said, did to country music what pantyhose did to finger fucking.

But that is the kind. Jesus Christ. It's a famous line, Sophie. He's a terrible musician. I just died. Anyways, the line that was said was Garrison. Well, he had this little preamble about how he was getting really handsy with like. With his nurse.

He's sick recently. He has a nurse. She's taking great care of him. And she hasn't gotten angry that he keeps touching her against her will. He's been getting really handsy. And she would actually press charges if they weren't married, which is the punchline. Ha ha ha ha ha. Is that, is that.

And that was kind of the energy of the entire event so just a raping your wife not even a joke just like just like a celebratory statement as we are walking around a crowd of like yeah at least 5 000 republicans we walk into this event and there are like balloon wavy noodle guys the wacky inflatable arm flailing like a used car dealership i've never seen that many of them in one place yeah and then there's there's dozens there's women on platforms well there's so there's a red carpet and all 50 state flags yeah are lining it and periodically in between the flags there are plinths where there are what we used to call booth babes which is if

you would go to like e3 which was the video game convention there would be scantily clad women car conventions do the same thing ces used to do this to women very wearing very little who are there to like stand next to products or whatever in this case they were just mostly naked women dancing and waving at people as they came in and one of them winked at me thank you so much i hope she had a fine night me too we did not i hope she got paid more than we're getting paid there's almost no way not possible because i have asked a couple of different service industry people including uber drivers tonight how are the tips and everyone said dog shit yeah nobody's been happy with the tips yeah and and it took us quite a while

to actually get to this place because of all the different security checkpoints and roadblocks and just the absolute chaotic unhinged amount of out-of-town cops and this is not just the rnc if you've never been to a political convention you will be be in whatever city. This year, it's the RNC is in Milwaukee and the DNC is going to be in Chicago. But whatever city it's in, you will run into LAPD cops, Dallas cops, like every cops from every part of the country. In addition to Secret Service, FBI, Homeland Security investigations, like all like all of the kinds of cops are here correct the most interesting kind of cop that i've seen a great a great number of is u.s capital police a lot of capital police here which is just a little bit funny considering what happened like uh just about four years ago this crowd assaulted capital police officers it's kind of an odd dynamic because you have like these capital police here you know providing security essentially and you know protecting attendees to some degree well there's you know a decent chance that many of them were just engaged in combat with many of these same

people where there was casualties on both sides uh just just which is just a kind of an odd dynamic that you don't really see very often yeah honestly again it's uh the vibes have still been pretty much chill for an event like this it has not been heightened in terms of like levels of anger we did see as soon as we arrived at the airport literally the second we got to baggage there was a guy wearing a shirt with the picture of trump with a bloody ear right after he was shot on it he clearly made it last night himself yeah and it said the iron dawn the iron dawn but that was kind of it in terms of maybe you know it's going to take a little longer for there to be more shooting merch out there but i yeah but but more than that i just didn't hear a lot of like we sat down we got some food and some drinks when we're at this big party we sat down with these two

ladies who were delegates from texas older women one was clearly in her 80s one looked like she was more in her 60s talked with them for quite a while and they were very far right very strong views on religious conservatism very anti-trans the older lady that i talked to none of them said a single word about trump getting shot. It absolutely did not come up, which I was kind of surprised about. And I got here a little bit earlier than Robert and Sophie, and I was hanging out with some of the delegates from Idaho and North Dakota. And similarly, no one was talking about that. It was just not mentioned. It was on Fox News in the background. You could see on the TV. Every building, yeah. It's constantly playing.

But nobody in person seems to be thinking about it or discussing it as a thing. Possibly it's just because they've assumed that Trump is just always under this kind of attack. He's the most attacked man. This isn't even a big deal for them. This is just realizing

what they've already built up in their head. So I think that could maybe just be a factor this isn't like as impactful for them because they're like you know of course like he's he's he's obviously being treated so unfairly i think there's a lot of wisdom in that the only other thing i could think of maybe would be that just it hasn't sunk in yet because it's so big and so recent and everyone coming to this probably like us was just crazy busy packing and like getting their lives in order for this sure but i i think you're probably on to something with that yeah i mean it's not a a small thing i mean the the people that we talked to one of them was a delegate for the state of texas and they said

they had to travel all the way they they got their hotels in madison oh so they have to commute back and forth from madison to milwaukee to come to this event ew yeah that is that is that is a long time yeah speaking of oh you know what doesn't make me go oh these products and services yes we are sponsored first off by woodman's the grocery store that won't sell you hard liquor past midnight woodman's everyone lied to to you about Wisconsin being proper alcoholics. Hey, I'm Gianna Prandti. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline,

the early career podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. One of the most exciting things about having your first real job is that first real paycheck. You're probably thinking, yay, I can finally buy a new phone. But you also have a lot of questions like, how should I be investing this money? I mean, how much do I save? And what about my 401k? Well, we're talking with finance expert Vivian Tu, aka Your Rich BFF, to break it all down. I always get roasted on the internet

when I say this out loud, but I'm like, every single year, you need to be asking for a raise of somewhere between 10 to 15%. I'm not saying you're gonna get 15% every single year, but if you ask for 10 to 15 and you end up getting eight, that is actually a true raise. Listen to this week's episode of Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot.

Matter of fact here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit,

the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. And I have to say that the, today, the scariest part of our day was going to this Woodman's grocery store, which is open 24 hours, seven days a week. It was not walking into a crowd of 10,000 Republicans. It was in fact, walking into Woodman's at midnight was astronomically more frightening on like an existential level. It's like one of these like massive massive like walmart style but like really big walmart style stores they had a whole aisle of maraschino cherries a maraschino cherry aisle there were a shocking number there was a

fried onion aisle there were a shocking number of like four to seven year old children leaving the store walking freely in and out just it was leaving this just so going somewhere but it was so big that there was there was 25 numerical aisles plus a full like alphabetical aisle there were so many aisles they had to switch from numbers to letters they would not sell us beers and they would not accept credit cards either uh Fascinating stuff. Anyways. You Wisconsinites think you people are alcoholics. I have gone.

There's nowhere that won't sell me liquor in fucking Los Angeles. You know, that's a drinking city. God damn it. God damn it, Garrison. What else? Well, there was also a security guy roaming inside women's. Do you know where there was also security? Oh.

Everywhere else. Literally the entire city of milwaukee right now yeah on roofs in the street on bikes on boats which we knew but well i honestly this is not abnormal i know i did not notice anything that i i didn't recall from previous conventions it did not seem i think it just might be because there's so many, there can't be more cops. Like they could not have had more cops. I'm sure people are more alert. I'm sure particularly

the rooftop sniper teams are under the gun right now. But I didn't notice anything more intense than usual. Well, and we were talking with some other people from out of town who we were just getting rides with.

And like the amount with and the amount of barricades and blockades that have been put up over the course of Sunday. It changes constantly. It's constantly changing which roads are blockaded. Earlier today, people could commute downtown fairly easier.

And progressively throughout the day, that became much, much harder to the point where now downtown is almost like you just can't drive. Like most of downtown is just literally blocked off by the type of fence that was developed in Portland back in 2020. And that is covering almost all of Milwaukee's downtown

right now. The fence is familiar from previous conventions. I don't remember the moving blockades of streets. That actually might be new. If it's not, if it happened the last convention, I didn't remember the moving blockades of streets. That actually might be new. If it happened at the last convention, I didn't recall it. Were there any, at this party, were there any booths or things that you saw that surprised your interest? Well, there was the AR-15 giveaway. There sure was.

Daniel Defense at the U.S. Concealed Carry Association. A little in poor taste, one might say. You know what? In a way, because Daniel Defense is number one. It's the company that made the AR-15 that the Uvalde shooter used. If you don't know guns, Daniel Defense is most famous to people who aren't gun people. It was the company that made the gun that the Uvalde shooter used. In general, they are like a middle high-end AR company. They're not like the very nicest on the market but they're not cheap they're

expensive guns they're pretty well made and they have made direct kind of buy-in and inroads with a lot of right-wing culture war gun figures like they have outreached more to like fascist types than most because most big government you go to like sig sauer sig sauer is not going to sponsor a nazi type adjacent person or a christian nationalist gun type person because they they do big contracts right like daniel defense has has gone out on a limb with some like real assholes it's weird because like they they didn't used to be like that as well like even like five years ago daniel offense was was typically like one of the more apolitical not apolitical but like very like less partisan gun companies i i remember when we were first talking about about like different gun brands back in like 2020 it was definitely it

was definitely different and they made some some small shifts in the past few years yeah it may just have been that just everything was a little bit less politicized than in that space i don't i don't know if i don't know enough about the company in the back end but it i'm not surprised that they were sponsoring and it you know the company the thing they were sponsoring was the u.s concealed carry association booth which offers like insurance for people who have concealed handgun licenses and the like but they were doing a free AR-15 giveaway, which is definitely, some would say in bad taste after what happened to the president.

To be honest. No one would have thought about it. I kind of think it's like, you are the people that you are. No, it's, yeah. I don't think anyone thought twice about that whatsoever. And by God, I signed up to win the gun. So me too.

I did not. Ah ah sophie we could have had an extra attempt sorry not sorry um was there anything today that you know surprised you or like a feeling you had that was like unexpected or anything like that not unexpected a long conversation with the older lady who was a delegate from texas we talked about because she she first kind of wanted to know is press she asked like basically are you liars in the in a nice old lady way right yes yes that's that's the we basically had that we had the same conversation on the other side of the table where i come from you know there's truth and there's lies and like one one is one is real and one isn't i was like well you know i've been in a lot of

situations where different people have different recollections of the same event and like i don't know because i was i wasn't there like who's telling the truth so you just kind of try to gather as so we got onto the subject of religion and her attitude was that people should be free to do whatever they want to do more or less but they should have to admit it's bad which was interesting as a take i hadn't really heard that one before where she was like well you know my husband likes to do stuff that's not godly but he just says it's bad and i don't think that gay people should be punished by the law but i think they that people should have to say that it's bad and that was that was a peculiar stance to run into you know her attitude on trump was that he was a fundamentally honest and man and good man uh she didn't think he was

perfect you know she knows she's done some shady things because he's a businessman right but she thinks he's basically really good it was interesting like hearing her kind of lay some things out that way her we talked about trans issues and she is fully convinced that little kids are getting mutilated all the time with transgender surgeries but i asked like well what if a 22 year old or a 24 year old wants to get you know on hormones and she or gender you know transition surgery and she was like well an adult should be able to do whatever they want which was interesting that is interesting but yeah you know from a lady in her 80s or whatnot like we had a a relatively pleasant conversation even though

she is clearly someone who thinks that christianity should be the law of the land and the official religion of the state and everybody should have to acknowledge that christians are right that was interesting i always i'm always fascinated by actually like trying to drill down with people at these events what they believe and how much of the rhetoric that like we see online is specifically transferred over to them and when you get right down to it they often believe in a lot of like the heart like you know believe that there are kids being mutilated or whatever but also a lot of the rhetoric you get around like well we need to make it illegal to believe other things isn't as widely shared um although i don't think that lady would actually fight against or have any real issue with people being criminalized for not being Christian.

It's just clearly not her primary focus either. Besides the mistrust of media and press, the conversation that Gare and I had with the other woman, she was giving her version of her opinion on Roe v. Wade and abortion and things like that. And one of the things she said to us was when she found out that we lived in Portland at a time, she was like, what was it like living in a city with liberals? And I think that's funny.

It's like a different species to them. Yeah. I played around with saying when people would ask where I'm from, either Texas or Portland, because both of those are technically accurate. And every time I said Portland, you got it. You got a look. Every single time you bring up Portland, you get a look.

You can definitely tell that it's a shibboleth to these people. No, it's like it's theeth to these people. It means something. It's like it's the city of the enemy. It is the representation of evil. Yeah, and that was really interesting. The other thing I noticed was just saying you were media, people's attitude changed a bit. But when we mentioned that we worked for the radio station that we worked for,

I think most of them have heard, because there's a lot of right-wing talk radio that are technically co-workers of ours that changed their attitudes back and i think like radio weirdly enough it is registered it actually makes total sense it's like a nostalgia thing right yeah it's not just that it's like radio is right-wing media sure the right owns particularly talk radio and i think that when we said when you say radio when you say media they start to think one thing but when you say radio that's not something that people have a negative attitude towards it's not tied to like like the coastal elitism of like newspapers tv channels

that sort of thing yes speaking of coastal elitism here's these ads brought to you by companies probably based on one of the coasts maybe not maybe a Midwest company god I hope not because the Midwest again doesn't sell liquor at Woodsman's after midnight

your 24 hour grocery store let us have some alcohol what is wrong with you people hey I'm Gianna Prudente and I'm Jemay Jackson Gadsden we're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, the early career podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. One of the most exciting things about having your first real job is that first real paycheck. You're probably thinking, yay, I can finally buy a new phone.

But you also have a lot of questions like, how should I be investing this money? I mean, how much do I save? And what about my 401k? Well, we're talking with finance expert Vivian Tu, aka Your Rich BFF, to break it all down. I always get roasted on the internet when I say this out loud, but I'm like, every single year you need to be asking for a raise of somewhere between 10 to 15%. I'm not saying you're going to get 15% every single year, but if you ask for 10 to 15%. I'm not saying you're going to get 15% every single year, but if you ask for 10 to 15 and you end up getting eight, that is actually a true raise. Listen to this week's episode of Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment.

I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. Hey, I'm Jack B. Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit. It's the one with the green guy on it. dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Blacklit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands,

for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Black Lit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life.

Listen to Black Lit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, we are back. We're back. So at the end of this, we are going to talk about the assassination attempt on former President Trump. More has happened since Monday. So we're going to catch you up on what we're thinking about that. And kind of the conclusions that we've drawn, we wanted to talk a little bit about one last thing, re the convention, which is kind of the conclusions that we've drawn. We wanted to talk a little bit about one last thing, RE, the convention, which is kind of what we're expecting for the coming days. Tomorrow, there's an AI panel.

There is. Is it women and AI? Women and democracy. Oh my God. Sponsored by Microsoft. Sponsored by Microsoft. So that's going to be great. There's a number of other interesting panels.

Unfortunately, all of the Turning Point USA panels are closed to press. Real bummer. Another event that's closed to press is that about two or three times every day, there is a film screening of a new Ronald Reagan movie. Reagan the movie. Reagan the movie starring John

Voight, which we've received some free merch for. We have these wonderful hats made in myanmar totally fine totally chill that's going to be showing every single day multiple times also closed to press so that's unfortunate yeah there's rumors and talk that trump might make an early appearance that he might they might try to secure their nomination a little bit early just so he gets extra secret service detail because of weird laws interesting some of the speakers that are supposed to come are nikki haley jd vance ricky rubio um for me ricky oh

did i ricky i made you call him ricky rubio that's an nba player you and ricky were so close that's an nba player from spain Okay. Marco Rubio. So sorry. I wish the Ricky Rubio from Spain was the vice president. I wish Ricky Rubio from Spain was coming. He's so sorry. I'm going to guess he doesn't know much about our laws. That said, neither does JD Vance. Pudding Ron's going to make an appearance.

Oh, good old Pudding Ron. Interesting to me, but to neither of you had any name recognition, but Amber Rose is going to speak. I don't know that broad. Jesus Christ. I'm at the Republican convention. I got to blend in. Yeah, we do. I don't know if she currently does, but she used

to run a thing called Slut Walk in LA and dated Kanye West. Anyways, I guess it makes a little bit more sense when you add the Kanye West to it, but she's speaking. When you say you used to date Kanye West, Anyways, I guess it makes a little bit more sense when you add the Kanye West to it, but she's speaking. Yeah. When you say used to date Kanye West, if we were like nothing,

nothing about what she's doing could surprise me now. And like all the Trump relatives are speaking besides Ivanka. Anyways, because she's not participating this time around for her kids. No. Good for her. Yeah. That's good.

Although I don't know if she doesn't participate enough, she might wind up in a golf course too. Wow. Dark. Anyways. I'm just saying he did it. Speaking of that, speaking of death.

Oh no, no, sorry. Bad transition. Anyways, it's going to be great guys. Yeah. Super,

super, super optimistic about everything. I'm less worried about it. It's, it's, it's going to be great, guys. I'm super, super, super optimistic about everything in the world. I'm less worried about it. It's pretty chill. There were some protests, but the only protests were- People that were complaining that the GOP was not pro-life enough. I talked about this when talking about kind of like fracture points that are already starting to appear in the GOP. One of the big ones is trump removed mandatory national abortion ban from the republican

platform and there were a group of people protesting out in front of the rnc very angry about that yep most of the people i heard a couple of people talking about them seemed to think they were idiots which is interesting but yeah had that experience yeah only protests we've seen so far as people from as people farther farther to the right on certain issues people who sucked even worse than the people there i guess one last tip but i will share that kind of segues into our next discussion involving a firearm so i i had i had a little room mix up with the with the uh with another with some North Dakota delegate because we have the same last name.

So we got our rooms switched. So I was just sitting on my laptop working, and this guy scans in and starts opening the door. He's like, oh, sorry, I didn't realize, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We figured it out. So then we got in the elevator, both to go down to the front desk to get this sorted. And he remarks to me saying,

well, I'm sure glad you weren't packing when I busted in the hotel room. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, I guess. And it was just a fascinating little glimpse that that was the first thing that came into his mind is that if someone opens your hotel room door is that you're just going to start shooting them. You're just going to start blasting?

You're just going to start blasting. That was his immediate thought is that of course oh good thing good thing you didn't have your gun on you and like there was just such like an assumption of that's like of like that is like the correct thing to do yeah is if you if you see your door you start to get open you just start firing away and i found that to be a really really interesting moment speaking of firearms speaking of firearms let's talk about that dude who shot the president and then got shot barely and also killed that guy whose twitter presence wasn't great yeah so i want to talk about the shooting a little bit because we're we're now at the point where some stuff

has started to settle out and we we have it's at the point where i think it's very unlikely we're going to find much more on his social media it would have been found by now based on the way these things work could be a manifesto somewhere could be a treasure trove of info somewhere but i think something would have come out about it so my guess is this is like the vegas shooting if you think back steven paddock shooting where he killed like 70 something people at that country music. Something that's going to be an enigma to people for a while. And it makes a lot of sense to me. I know it makes a lot of sense to you too, Garrison.

And I kind of want to talk about why. Because what we do know about them that is confirmed is some of their former classmates have talked to press. Some of those classmates have said, I don't recall the shooter being particularly political there are some people who said no he was really conservative you know and we would have like class debates he would sometimes be the only guy on like the right wing side of it you know arguing a point or whatever but no one seemed to say that he was like weirdly right like he was conservative the way that like right wing kids in a school are but not in a way that people are like oh that kid's a fucking nazi in a way that makes you just kind of like anti-social alienated because yes or yeah and he was not a very social kid some people say he was bullied

most kids are i was you know bullied so i don't know that he was exceptionally bullied he tried out once for the school rifle team was not very good was so bad they didn't let him try out again Tried out once for the school rifle team. Was not very good. Was so bad they didn't let him try out again, which is interesting. He wore hunting gear to class. He would wear hunting gear to class. That's not abnormal. That's like real tree camo.

We're in the Midwest. That's not uncommon. Not wildly weird. I guess he's in Pennsylvania, but still in Pennsylvania. It was nothing that really set anyone off. But it is also like all pretty conservative stuff. And just like the the gun youtube channel he's wearing a demolition ranch shirt demolition ranch is probably the largest

gun youtube channel they are effectively like a media company like they're a small media empire but they're also you know they're definitely conservative some of the guys who work at that company you can tell associate with further right guys but the videos they put out go yeah they their videos are relatively free of politics because they're big enough that that's bad for their business right really or they don't indulge in like partisan politics or like political opinion it is it's not like there are guys like there's a guy like named lewis botkin who does a lot of videos where he will be doing like literally assassination drills where he's basically planning to like murder people in their cars yeah or people who you know pepper their videos with like anti

trans jokes right which we're seeing lots more of this is this was not that and i'm not saying that some people on twitter when i bring this up get like angry being like you're trying to protect the concern no i don't care about that i'm just saying this isn't the shirt you wear if you want to signal that you're like far right this is a shirt you wear if you're kind of into guns but maybe not very good with them yeah right like it's just kind of a very light hobbyist yes yes it means about as much as a guy wearing a john wick t-shirt yeah right like that that is kind of the level of what that implies, more or less. So I guess kind of where we're standing is when we think about why he did this, and that's the question everybody's kind of asking, I don't get the feeling that this guy was motivated by what most people call politics i think he was a guy who was certainly

more on the conservative end of things i don't get the hint that he thought trump was a dictator he needed to stop i don't get the hint he may have been an accelerationist and that he thought that this would push some sort of civil war to completion and you know that that would go well for the right that's not impossible but I haven't seen any evidence of that. The most interesting thing that you said to me about it, Robert, and I think, Gary, you also said the same thing, is he was local, this was local,

it was convenient. I think the feeling I get is that if Biden had showed up, he would have taken a shot at Biden. No, I think that the model that we can look at this is the same model people have used for a lot of school shootings. There is a degree of apathetic, a degree

of just suicidal action, and a degree of wanting to make some kind of impact, wanting to do some kind of thing that gains you a sense of infamy. School shootings simply just don't do that anymore. Mass shootings don't really do that anymore. You could kill five or six people,

10 people at a grocery store. It doesn't move the needle. I believe there's a decent chance based on kind of the very like unpolitical online presence this guy has had, including from his Discord account. There's just simply no evidence he was like, he had any kind of real political motivation.

And instead, all of what we've heard about his behavior and his politics seem just way more similar to the profiles of mass shooters. And I think the Trump thing was a measure of convenience, having this happen in your hometown. I think it possibly could be just as likely if Joe Biden was doing a rally, he might have tried the same thing. I don't think this was any more politically targeted than that because we simply don't have any evidence to suggest that and the the few the few evidence we do have matches up with a lot of the profiles of of these older kind of like more like columbine

style mass shootings this seems like a columbiner more than anything columbine there's been well over a hundred different mass shootings inspired by that mass shooting. And I, the thing overwhelmingly that occurs to me just with what we get about this kid is I would, if I had to describe his politics as relates to the shooting, it's not, he's a right winger or a left winger. His politics are,

he's a mass shooter, right? This is a guy who worships the, probably did to some extent was obsessed with the aesthetics of mass shootings this was a guy who wanted yeah to be famous and he saw an opportunity to do it in a place where he wanted to make it in history books and this was the only way and he did he'll be in them you know and uh i i'm interested in what that means because we had a way we've had a wave for

years of people doing mass shootings in public places because it used to get you into the history books not anymore not anymore this kid is in the history books now and i kind of wonder if this is going to lead to a shift in the people who have previously been shooting up schools and grocery stores going well if i want to get noticed shooting up a school won't do it but if i take a shot at insert political candidate please secret service this is theoretical i think this actually reminds me of a great deal is like this is feels more similar to like the john lennon shooting honestly like that is that is i think a much a much closer model and i think a lot of people who are viewing this as political violence find this to be a very confusing incident. And I don't think it's useful to view it the way that we typically view political violence.

I think it's much more understandable as being akin to something like Columbine, the Las Vegas shooting, the John Lennon shooting. And when you bring that up to people, it makes them angry because it's a shooting of Donald Trump, the most politicized man who maybe has ever lived in the most politicized election of anyone's lifetimes. And people get really angry when you suggest this might not have been political in the way that you want to conceive of politics, because they want it to fit into, even if it's a scary box, a box that makes sense. And there's something so alienated about a guy who, this was just the best way for me to be, to die and be remembered is so different.

And this guy is younger than I am. 20. Trump for him has been a forever character of politics he was 12 when the campaign started Trump has always been a political character this is just someone who represents what politics is he's not like an abnormal

you know fascist like threat the same way that people who've studied politics for a long time can view Trump historically being like oh this is like a worrying trend this is just like what regular politics are to people younger than me. So I think that's also another interesting way to view it when it's like, this is just like, this is just who you grew up with as being the guy.

This is just the guy. And you know, I, we, we started this talking about why it seemed like at least from the conversations we were having, the assassination attempt was such a mild topic or such a non-topic around the people we met. And I wonder if some of it is confusion about what it means.

Because this clearly isn't like an Antifa guy. Yeah, it wasn't an Antifa guy. It wasn't a trans person with blue hair, right? It wasn't something that fit into their narratives. It looked like probably a lot of people's grandkids. Most people here are considerably older. Wearing a gun t-shirt that probably a third of the people

in this have or at least they watch the channel. That is an interesting way to view it. The mass shooter looks like a lot of these people's grandkids. That is an interesting aspect. Well, anyway folks, I is an interesting aspect. Yeah. Well, anyway, folks,

I hope this has been enlightening. This is just the start of our week. So we're in for five more days that I'm sure each will be a worse time than the last. We're all going to go to sleep now and never go to Woodman's ever again. No, but we're going to find a place to get liquor tomorrow. I promise you that ladies,

gentlemen, and garrisons. 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 iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. Hey, I'm Jacqueline Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks

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