It Could Happen Here - This Week in American Terrorism

Episode Date: November 30, 2023

Robert, Gare and Mia discuss the last few months of right wing terrorist attacks in the US and UK and the social and political forces behind them.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You should probably keep your lights on for

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It's time to get rewarded for it. Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Call zone media. I have slain the God of Abraham and cast his ruin upon the mountainside, and now I am the Lord and Savior of all podcasting. Robert Evans, this is It Could Happen Here, a podcast about things falling apart and about my slow descent into theistic narcissism. Here with me today, Garrison Davis and Mia Wong.

How are you guys doing? Great. He wasn't like this like 15 minutes ago. There's been a rapid radicalization process. Yeah. Speaking of rapid radicalization. I downed a bottle of this alive ancient mushroom elixir and it has overpowered me. It's brought on delusions of grandeur.

Not a sponsor too. Free advertising here. Free advertising. But if they want to pay us, I will probably stop claiming to have slain the God of Abraham. This is This Week in Terrorism, a show title we've never used before and may never use again. But we wanted to-

Oh, we're probably gonna have to use it again. None of the terrorism we're talking about has occurred this week. It all occurred in previous weeks. We were out last week. We wanted to talk about some of our recent terrorism attacks to discuss kind of what we're seeing

in radicalization of the people who are carrying out usually shootings, but not exclusively. We're actually going to start with the hammer attack. Yeah, what we're seeing out there. Very British style actually for an American attack. Super English. I think we're ending on a

stabbing too. We're ending on a stabbing. Most of these are not shootings. I'm a liar. It's the mushroom juice. But yeah, we're're gonna start by talking about the attack on paul pelosi who's of course nancy pelosi's fuck buddy some people call him a husband um i think that's an archaic term um but yeah he got assaulted in his house by this guy brian DePayup. This was like a year or so ago. And he just recently got convicted of a bunch of stuff. He's going to be going to forever prison. But we're going to talk about that attack. Essentially, I wanted to start with kind of a little bit of audio of the attack itself. This is from police body camera. And basically what happened is this guy, Brian,

broke into the Pelosi's backyard, which was not guarded. Nancy was away from the house. She had their security detail. Capitol Police does not protect spouses and family members of congresspeople. very large backs he brought with him to bust into the house and then had a conversation with Paul Pelosi that he insists was very polite until the police showed up, at which point he started bashing him in the skull with a hammer. And we're going to get into more of what happened,

but I wanted to, I want to start by playing that audio. This is right at the point that the police opened the door. How you doing? What's going on, man? That's the guy. What? Off the hammer.

What is going on right now? And so what is actually happening in the video is this guy, Brian, who is like, he's got a big, very large hammer in his hands. And like there's a very mild struggle going on for it. Pelosi has one hand on the hammer, which is a reasonable thing to want to do in this situation. And the guy just looks kind of stunned. And the police show up and they're like, yeah, man, drop the hammer. And he says no. And they, to be fair to the police, pretty reasonably take a step towards him.

And he pulls the hammer away from Paul and hits him in the head several times. The police tackle him off. Paul got hit hurt very badly. This is a pretty ugly attack. Yeah, he's an old man. He got hit in the head with a hammer several times by a much younger man. Pretty, pretty ugly. One of the things that becomes clear if you watch the earlier footage

of this guy in their backyard because they have a security camera. And if you watch this footage, is that like this is not a guy who had a super clear plan about what he was going to do. This is a guy who was kind of flying by the seat of his pants.

And when the police came in, kind of irrationally, like based on his existing plans, decided to swing at him. And when he was in court, like some of the things DePayte said were very interesting. He he he basically like, you know, he busts into their backyard. Paul Pelosi in his pajamas like confronts him when he hears it. And DePayte asks, are you Paul Pelosi?

Where's Nancy? Where's Nancy? And Pelosi's like, she's not home? Where's Nancy? Where's Nancy? And Pelosi's like, she's not home. She's going to be gone for several days. And DePap started threatening to tie Pelosi up. He does this like 10 times. Eventually, Paul's able to get away briefly to go to the bathroom where he has a cell phone and he calls the police.

And like while he's on the phone with the dispatcher, you can hear DePap like telling him to hang up. Um, you know, the police get there and he attacks him. Um, the first thing that happens in the wake of this, this is obviously big news and the entirety of right-wing media basically decided that this was Paul Pelosi's lover. And yeah, I was under the impression from reputable sources that this was, this, this was Paul's gay lover is what I was told that immediately comes out. Marjorie Taylor Greene spreads this. Tucker Carlson spreads this. Elon Musk spreads this. Representative Carla Tenney spreads this again because this is very clearly a right wing attack motivated by right wing media on an elected leader. Pretty brutal attack, not on an elected leader, sorry, on the husband of an elected leader.

Right. And I wanted to quote really quickly from an MSN write up on this that talks about like why DePapp says he did this. DePapp explained that he broke into the Pelosi home in order to lure University of Michigan anthropology and women's study professor Gail Rubin to their house. Rubin's research, according to her professional bio, focuses on LGBTQ studies, gay and lesbian ethnography, sexual populations, and geography, sexology, and feminist theory. She is known for her 1984 essay, Thinking Sex, which is considered a founding text of queer theory. Paul was never a

target, DePapp said in court, explaining that he was only using the Pelosi's to get to my other targets and that he felt really bad for Paul Pelosi. He explained that he spent six hours a day watching political commentary on YouTube before he was arrested, where he learned that everything was a lie coming from the press. He listed off common right-wing grievances, according to NBC News, to explain why he broke into the home. to explain why he broke into the home. He claims to have heard about Gail Rubin from anti-LGBTQ activist James Lindsay, who is the same person who claims to have popularized the groomer's slur against LGBTQ people. DePap said that he regularly listened to Lindsay's podcast.

The takeaway I got is that she wants to turn our schools into pedophile molestation factories, DePap said. So one of the things that's really interesting to me is that this guy's in the home of one of the most powerful people in the entire country who is worth $100 million or more, so also extremely wealthy person. But she's not his target. His target is this woman studies professor who James Lindsay has convinced him is trying to molest all of the kids in America, right? This is, again, this is entirely stochastic terrorism. has convinced him is trying to molest all of the kids in America, right?

This is, again, this is entirely stochastic terrorism. This is the fault. James Lindsay wanted stuff like this to happen. That's why he does what he does. This is on him. And it's a very clear example. This is if you go into this dude's backstory, he was not always like this. He used to be, I think, a pro nudity activist, but like was not a guy who was like wildly conservative. And then the pandemic hits and he's spending all day playing video games alone, increasingly isolated.

And he starts going down these YouTube and podcast, primarily listening to these right wing podcasters. Lindsay's one of them. He's also a huge Tim Pool listener who is this super right wing guy who believes that like we're already in a shooting civil war with the left. And yeah, these are all big groomer guys. These are all women's studies professors of the most dangerous people in the country. And this is a vulnerable dude who the pandemic isolated from what social networks he had had. And he just kind of completely loses his shit. what social networks he had had, and he just kind of completely loses his shit. It's a very clear radicalization path, and it's a big bummer because this is a deeply mentally unwell man who was taken advantage of by a right-wing media ecosystem that exists

to churn exactly this kind of guy towards violence against their ideological opponents. It is certainly interesting. This attack was more deeply weird than what we all initially thought. Like, Oh, like someone was trying to kill Pelosi, right? It's like,

I'm not surprised someone would try to do that. I'm not saying it's just, I'm not like saying because fuck her. I'm saying that like, I'm not surprised. She's incredibly powerful. Of course, people want to kill her.

That's just the way it is. We all saw what happened on January 6th. Like, come on guys. This is normal politics. Yes. But like the idea that you're like holding Pelosi as a hostage to get like a gender theory women's studies professor is just so much more like highlighting the type of American brain rot that is just totally taking over large swaths of the media ecosystem at this point. Yeah.

I think one of my favorite details from this is that if you go into his court case, why he chose to attack the home of, again, Nancy Pelosi, super wealthy, powerful person with a security detail, is because he believed this Gail Rubin, this professor, lived in a fortress that he could not break into. This women's studies professor lives in an underground bunker. It was easier to get to the Speaker of the House's home than it is a women's studies professor's house. I think it's interesting, too, that it was specifically James Lindsay. I don't know.

Have we talked about him really on the show? I'm sure in passing. We had a big twitter fight with him earlier this year i yeah i've had i've had several yeah yeah my you know so he's an interesting kind he's like kind of like a proto chris ruffo like in a lot of ways but he's interesting because he's one of these people who makes a very classic mistake in in when you're trying to become a media person which is that he tries to do theory bullshit yes and it's on it it's it's nonsense like he like it's it's you know but his thing is he's trying to derive basically like effectively what he's trying to do is derive a theoretical

basis for the whole like judeo-bolshevik conspiracy which he he was one of the big sort of cultural marxism people yeah well he he is he is probably most known for uh propagating the critical race theory kind of debacle that happened a few years ago that that was mostly uh spearheaded by this guy james lindsey yeah and he's trying to, like his project, his intellectual project, is he's trying to trace this line from Hegel through Marx, through Gramsci, through Mao,

through the Frankfurt School, through the 60s radicals. And it's interesting though, because what he's doing is he's part of this really systemic attempt to completely, and we saw this. The result of this is this Paul Pelosi attack. It's to completely obscure the actual power relations of American society to the point where, yeah, the thing we've been talking about happens where because this person thinks that this Marxist conspiracy from gender studies professors is actually the thing that controls the U.S. He is like kidnapping one of like the husband

of one of the most powerful people in the United States because he thinks that as a way to get to a gender studies professor. It's this interesting, I think like, I don't know. I think it's this interesting demonstration of- Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show,

where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens. So if you love hearing real, inspiring stories from the people you know, follow, and admire, join me every week for Post Run High. It's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all. It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and very fun.

Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me as the fire and dare enter? Nocturnum, 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.

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. 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. 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 audio books 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.

Of how right-wing ideology is specifically designed to act to, to like conceal the actual power relations of society and then blame like queer people for it. And it's like, no, it's the same thing. Lindsay comes out of academia too, right?

He's like this professor at a, in Washington. He's like a, he's like a math professor or something. He's like, no, no. So it's like a staff professor.

The gist of what, why, what happens is he realizes you're never going to get rich being a math professor. But if you become a right wing thought leader, you know, there's money in that. So he makes these series of bullshit claims about how he's being oppressed by fucking evil progressive fascism. This is why also all of his grievances are so focused around academics is because he still has academia brain worms where everything that matters is like what this handful of upper middle class professors at fancy Ivy League schools argue about. He also believes that queer people are engaging in a form of ancient hermetic magic, which is pretty funny. Now that part, Steve Garrison, if I know you at all, that part's true.

Like, that's accurate. It's so funny that he got there because when I was arguing with him, he was trying to argue that Mao had read this Gramsci, who's this Italian Marxist theorist, who he demonstrably cannot have read because Gramsci's prison notebooks

don't come out until, like, aren't translated into Chinese until after Mao dies. So it's like, it's physically impossible for him to have done this. But it's funny, because, like, he's gone from that to, like, the queer hermetic, like... Yes, yes. Seriously, to destroy the...

Who do we want to talk about next? Because I have my Dayton shooter, and I know we have a list of guys. Yeah, let's do Dayton shooter and then close out with the two anti-Palestinian. Yeah, so, yeah. I don't know shit about this, so Dayton me up, motherfuckers. So, a few days before Thanksgiving. Wait, hold on.

We should take it out before we date. Oh, yeah. Speaking of Thanksgiving, you know what I'm thankful for? The fact that we're supported by advertisers. And we're back. OK, let's talk about this fucking Dayton shooting. A few days before Thanksgiving, someone walked into a Walmart in Beaver Creek, Ohio, with, I believe it was a High Point.45 caliber carbine. Oh, wow, a High Point. Okay, yeah.

He shot four people before eventually dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Victims were transferred to the hospital. It looks like nobody actually died besides the shooter. So, hey, that's a win. Great, great job, medical teams. But upon looking into this guy's home, it's very, very kind of standard stuff ever since 2016. We have Nazi flags. We have Nazi books. He went to a Christian online school. He was 20 years old he spent almost all of his time at home on the on the internet um he did not believe the holocaust was real he had been to

the hospital before for mental health evaluations uh the fbi referred to his beliefs as a quote loosely organized movement of individuals and groups that espouse some combination of racist anti-semitic xenophobic islamophobic misogynistic and homophobic ideology which is a very very broad broad way of saying yeah he was like a far-right nut job he was very very typical kind of nazi guy he had two swastika flags um now because he died uh it's it's where people are still putting together like what exactly led to him to like do this specific act because they can't like talk to him. But yeah, it was a very, very typical sort of thing of this guy deciding to go into a Walmart and do a shooting. This is something that other Nazi accelerationists have done before. It's something that will probably keep happening.

Oh, yeah. I mean, for sure. It's not like a big story. It's just another thing that's happened. But it is weird, the sort of like normalization of it, of like, oh, yeah, Nazi did a Walmart shooting again, isn't actually a story anymore. It's just like, it's just,

it's just another Tuesday. No. And this is like what the right wants, by the way, is that like when they do these mass shootings, it does not make the news. And whenever they can blame a shooting on a queer, a trans person, they try to keep it,

make it be the only thing anyone talks about. Right. Like this is, this is part of the plan, you know? Yeah. And it's a bummer that it's it's worked just because like it's impossible to stay at an equal level of anger every time this happens it's so common you know like you just can't you can't continue existing and and have the same reaction to these that you had in 2019 yeah so i mean like that i don't have

much else on this because it's just it's this guy who played video games alone for most of his life went to a christian online homeschool never really interacted with the public is almost almost solely existed within this this like media ecosystem online um which pushed him towards buying a book on the history of the SS and buying multiple Nazi flags and not thinking the Holocaust is real. And this is the inevitable result of this sort of thing. So I guess, do we want to segue to Vermont for our next? Like something happened, I think think less than a week later

it sure did but first Garrison speaking of segways did you realize that the guy who bought the segway company died in a segway crash in Scotland yeah his segway drove him off of a cliff yeah he did he sure did Garrison he sure did you know this is

this is why I think there is a little bit of magic that is real because every once in a while, the funniest thing happens. Oh, man. What a stupid product. Segues. I remember when those first came out and people were like, this is the future of transportation. And then everyone who was not completely brain dead was like, of course they're not. Look at how dumb those things look.

Nobody's going to want to drive these. I mean, if I was a self-educated finance guy, I'm sure I would be able to estimate the life cycle of the Segway. You're not going to make it if you just walk like a peasant. You've got to get a one wheel that explodes. You got to get a one wheel that explodes. It's so funny to me, too, because it's like like I think they're like I genuinely think is a real kind of shift in in in our modes of transportation is that people really did start using electric bikes more. And that has a lot. Yeah, those are great and stuff. Yeah. But it's like, you know, we built the same way instead.

No, it's like, yeah, we don't need you don't need to fuck with the form factor. People are happy using bikes they're just too slow and sometimes too too much effort is required so you make that easier and then people don't drive as fucking much great idea speaking of a bad idea let's talk about the this other mass shooter in vermont from from last week this actually happened on thanksgiving day um so this guy i think it was on thanksgiving day um it may have been like a day or two later oh it was saturday night so that would have been yeah that would have been like the day you were two after two two days after thanksgiving so two days after thanksgiving you know you've got these three

20 year old palestinian men um who are in town visiting family you know they're doing I think they go over and do a Thanksgiving dinner with some friends they're over another I think people yeah yeah the specific thing they were leaving was it was they went to an eight year old's birthday party yes yeah yeah

yeah they're with them one of them's uncle who lives in Burlington and these kids are all students at different northeast. I think all northeast colleges. One's from Brown University. One's from Haverford. One is from Trinity College. Two of them are citizens. And the other is, I think, they're they're hanging out at this event, family event. They're like, let's go on a walk. You know, it's a nice night. Let's let's have a walk around. And they're they're walking around. They're near an apartment building. And this 48 year old man named Jason J. Eaton steps off his porch, pulls out a gun and apparently without saying anything, fires at least four shots at these three young men. Two of them are shot in their torso.

A third is shot in the lower extremities. They are all alive. Still, they're all expected to live. I think one of them was more seriously injured than the others, but they're all like going to survive, thankfully. And then Eaton flees on foot. I think like the next day, the police catch up with him. He used a 380 pistol, if that matters to you, which is a fairly small handgun, which probably explains why everybody survived. And yeah shooting. There's no evidence that he knew these guys. They are apparently speaking in a mixture of Arabic and English as they walk by, which and also at least I think two of them were wearing like Palestinian color sort of shemaghs or keffiyehs.

I don't think that I don't know if that's like like not like colors of the Palestinian flag, but like the color palette that is used in that specific. It's like the white and black scarves. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Eaton was a finance broker and advisor kind of part time. I don't know how much money he actually made from it. Yeah, he was like working on a farm part time. Yeah, was employed at Edward Jones a few years ago. He's kind of.

Yeah, he's this this libertarian finance bro. Yeah. And so, yeah, people found his social pretty quickly. There's like an archived Twitter, which is really standard libertarian stuff. He talks about like, he complains about the Fed an awful lot. He quotes Elon Musk a number of times. stuff he talks about like um he complains about the fed an awful lot uh he quotes elon musk a number of times he seems to be a fan of him but he's also a huge fan of bernie sanders and describes like the only good man in politics pretty much yeah i think it's kind of like it's kind of like

the joe rogan libertarian of like right right yes very much so you you like bernie because he's like he like cares about like the people he's not like and he's not like falling for like the big finance corporation stuff blah blah blah blah yeah it's like it's this old sort of like the oh my god why i've forgotten his name uh the libertarian guy from the 2000s and early 2010s uh yeah the guy who wore the riddler suits no i the he was a congressman. He was like, he was like, one of the fashions in Occupy was like these weird libertarians.

And it's like, this seems like there's like the ideological ascendance of those people who didn't turn into like neo-confederate like people. And it's in his old archived Twitter account. He describes himself like his profile describes him as radical citizen patrolling democracy, which he spells with a K and capitalism for Oath Keepers. Well, Oath Creepers, I don't know entirely what all of that means.

And then hashtag wild type with the little atomic symbol, which I guess means he likes science. the little atomic symbol, which I guess means he likes science. He describes himself as a dad and a part-time farmer, a reformed stockbroker, and his archived account includes a link to his sub stack, which is RDKL radical. He describes it as wandering ramblings of a reformed broker on the ADHD ASD spectrum.

He's claiming at least to have adhd and autism um it's uh he's deleted by the time we got to them everyone got to them most of the posts on his sub stack um the only thing on there is a really extensive post where he's like talking about how how restaurants can keep dishwashers employed he seems to have worked as one and be angry that they're not always paid fair wage commensurate to back on the line or the front of the line staff, I guess, which is like, yeah, not unreasonable, but an odd thing for him to be so focused on. No, he has a really. Hey, guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show,

where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens. So if you love hearing real, inspiring stories from the people you know, follow, and admire, join me every week for Post Run High.

It's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all. It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and very fun. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. 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. 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. Hey, I'm Jack B. 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 audio books 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 iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast interesting online footprint yes at least like everything like pre-pandemic is like he's like this regular libertarian finance guy like there's no like there's nothing too concerning he's like or

hateful yeah he's like retweeting like the libertarian party of tennessee saying that they like bernie sanders and like he's yeah he he has like this podcast where he talks about penny stocks and it's like, yeah, it's a lot of like. You see a lots of these types of guy around and most of them are just like guys in their 40s because that's what he is. He's he was just like a libertarian guy in his 40s who lived in Vermont. So like, yeah. So, you know, as you kind of stated, Garrison, he's pretty normal up until he gets like COVID hits. And that seems to be what pushes him over the limit. I want to read a quote from Vice News here, who's done a lengthy breakdown of his social media presence.

One post from March 2022 titled Thought Crime is an anti-vax greed that labels COVID-19 as a government conspiracy. The scale and scope of this operation was next level, he wrote. He also shared other anti-vax sentiments on his LinkedIn and wrote last year that he'd started deleting or unpublishing certain posts because my ideas make some people not want to hire me. He also has an Instagram account, which is largely dedicated to sharing images from his farm. Only one post hints at any ideological or political outlook, which is a screenshot

from the Urban Dictionary definition of America with a K, a word used to describe the worst sense of the United States, i.e. imperialism, corruption, and the global exportation of American culture. His Instagram links to another blog,

which has the same name as his sub stack and contains rambling podcasts about the financial system. He's uploaded documentation of his various qualifications over the years. One document indicates that he was a boy scout leader between at least 2017 and 2021 um don't worry everyone the boy scouts are not letting this guy continue to be an adult leader yeah it's it's the the home page of his of his website just reads to uh together no king

yeah and there's a lot of stuff that looks like it's been deleted. A lot of weird financial advice under the name of radical citizen, spelled all stupid. But no, I found his YouTube pretty quick. I found his LinkedIn pretty quick. There's a lot of like, his YouTube starts with a lot of vaccine hesitancy stuff. Yeah. lot of like vacs it's his youtube starts with a lot of like vaccine hesitancy stuff yeah um and then on his linkedin he moves into like full full like weird like covid conspiracies vaccine denial um vaccine conspiracy theories and i will say i've never seen a shooter post like this on linkedin

before yeah that's an interesting one unique it's it's a really unique thing like so you'll find stuff like this on like reddit you'll find stuff like this on Reddit. You'll find stuff like this on Twitter. But having a shooter share this types of conspiratorial content on LinkedIn and then talk about how he has to delete some because he's not getting hired because LinkedIn is a place to help you get hired. It's a really weird platform. Yes. This could just be his libertarian-ness showing and they use LinkedIn because it's for business and finance. But it is certainly weird.

The way he was using it is unlike most either COVID conspiracy shooters, vaccine shooters, or whatever his motivation was for this, for targeting three Palestinian people. It's certainly a unique facet of this incident. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know. I mean, in some ways, this is a pretty standard case in that, like not the specific things that this guy, his starting point, but just the fact that this is a guy who's clearly open to some level of right wing politics and thought influencers. And it seems as if COVID-19 drove him off a wall ideologically. Yeah. this winds up being a very, you know,

if we wind up finding out that a specific motivation for this anti-Palestinian racism, because yeah, well, yeah, we, we don't, it probably is, but his mom describes him as a Christian who takes spirituality

very seriously. She said that he thought the whole state of the world was kind of like a big mess right now. Like everything, everything spiritually is kind of like a big mess right now like everything everything spiritually is kind of falling apart is is what his mom said because he he he was he was at thanksgiving dinner with his family like two nights before this happened um yeah they said he seemed to act be acting like like his usual self not not saying like you know not saying that he was acting good but like he was acting normal for him um yeah but no he certainly had some some degree of religious affiliation he

talked about using his religious status uh as to to get like vaccine exemptions for his kids um so there's stuff stuff like that that that does tie to his religious background, which could certainly contribute to anti-Palestinian violence. Yeah. And I don't know if I had to assume kind of how this went down without more evidence. My guess would be he was having a bad day, probably, you know, that kind of after the holiday depression. That's not uncommon. He's like listening to or reading some sort of listening to some sort of weird conspiracy podcast, or he's just falling down another rabbit hole online. He's gets angrier and angrier, and he hears some people talking in Arabic outside,

looks out his window, sees a Palestinian keffiyeh and decides I'm going to just start shooting. I don't actually know, like, I don't know what else it could be. He can't have, these people were not like regular walkers in his neighborhood. So this can't have been like, he wasn't laying in wait for them.

This seems like from, you know, it must've been like a spur of the moment thing, right? He waited for the ATF to come to his door. He said, he said like, I've been expecting you or I've been waiting a spur of the moment thing. Right. I, he waited for the ATF to come to his door. He said, he said like, I've been expecting you or I've been waiting for you or something. And he said, I don't want to say anything without a lawyer.

It's like he, he, he had like, you know, like the libertarian script of like, here's what you say. If the police are coming to arrest you, it's like,

he, he, he didn't, he didn't like kill himself at the end of this act of violence. A lot of other shooters do. He was very, very like put together weirdly. And he's,

he's lawyered up. I guess we'll learn more, but yeah, no, it's, it's, it's certainly interesting. I mean,

I'm scrolling through the past two years of LinkedIn posts where he posted a lot on like LinkedIn's like social platform. And it's a big mix of like big mix of like a financial conspiracy theories and, and COVID conspiracy theories and vaccine conspiracy theories uh and and covid conspiracy theories and vaccine conspiracy theories i can certainly see how the way the way like libertarians in general the past three years past like five years six years maybe even since like the tea party realistically have just you have been getting increasingly aligned with like other aspects of the far right where it

contributes to like transphobia or contributes to racism xenophobia homophobia like that that has big that that Venn diagram is slowly becoming more of a circle and I can certainly see if this guy this guy obviously was listening to podcasts if he was making he was making a financial podcast at some point yeah he like I can totally see if obviously was listening to podcasts. If he was making, he was making a financial podcast at some point. Um, he like, I can totally see if, if you're listening to libertarian podcasts, um, you slowly getting all of these other kinds of beliefs that have been seeping in to almost the entirety of the libertarian political project. Um, if you see like a few years ago, he was like retweeting posts from like the libertarian parties of these various states.

And now many of those accounts are just run by Nazis. Like, yeah, it is. It is like watching how the posting trends of like official libertarian party affiliated accounts have changed the past few years. Specifically, the New Hampshire account. Yeah. Oh, my God. Quite is quite something. is quite something.

Yeah, and it's not always what you'd think because the Louisiana Libertarian Party is like super chill, reasonable, anti-racist guy. Whereas, yeah, the New Hampshire Libertarian Party dude is like just a straight up Nazi. Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. Good stuff.

Should we do our second ad break? Did we already do that? Did we already do it? Anyway, Daniel, if we Should we do our second ad break? Did we already do that? Did we already do it? Anyway, Daniel, if we didn't do a second ad break, here's our second ad break. Ah, we're back after either our second ad break or that will be edited out because i we already did too we forgot which daniel will figure it out and you the listener will never know if i fucked up daniel keep it in if i fuck up yeah and speaking of speaking of stuff that's fucked up um yeah yeah so the the last thing i want to talk about is this is this is an older this is from

like october right yeah this is from it's october 14th and i think it's specifically this is this is seven days after the sort of hamas attack that started all of the sort of stuff that's been happening in palestine yeah so in plainfield which is this kind of yeah it's like a it's a really far suburb of chicago yeah it's in it's in these things where it's like it's in the kind of i don't know almost the borderline of is it a suburb like it is it's a place that sucks ass yeah and no offense to anyone living there we know lucky there there are good people there but it some of them i assume are good people yeah so on on the 14th a 71 year old man named joseph kuspa who was the landlord of a palestinian woman and her son um and you know okay so this story this

story just sucks they had actually, so this family and their landlord had been, like, pretty close friends. Like, the family had considered him like a grandfather. And this guy comes through the door, and the six-year-old kid runs up to go hug him, and he stabs the kid 26 times and kills him, nearly kills his mom um he's screaming like the entire time about like yeah he's screaming you muslims have to die uh you're killing our

kids in israel you palestinians don't deserve to live and this is a i think this is a kind of a kind of different kind of shoot of well actually a different kind of like killing than the ones we've been talking about because this is a very sort of like wake of 2001 killing where you have this enormous enormous spike in islamophobia very specifically here you have this incredible spike in in anti-palestinian racism and you have this this period like especially in the week i mean and this is still happening to this day but in like the week after in the week after this all started you could say fucking anything about palestinians you could say you could you could like you could talk about fucking turning the gaza strip into glass like you could talk about fucking dropping nukes you

could talk about killing every single palestinian on earth and it was and no one fucking said anything right yeah all these fucking people, all of these fucking, all these fucking journalists said nothing. All like the, the president, like the president only starts talking about Islamophobia after this fucking kid gets stabbed to death. And,

you know, and this guy is listening to right wing talk radio, which is why, you know, this is like, this is a, this is an older, like this is a,

this is a specific kind of killing that like, I think is very, very similar to the, the enormous number of muslims who were killed not so sick people too because these people are just really racist yeah and palestinians people who were just killed right after 9 11 because there's just this wave of the u.s that gets into one of these sort of murder frenzies um like what are these sort of racist frenzies and this kid gets stabbed to death and yeah this

guy you know and i mean in like i i think i think the thing about this case right it's like this is you know this is a radicalization in terms like in terms of like going from going from literally like this kid is running up to hug him because yeah like he had built like a tree house for the family yeah before this right like like in over the course of like seven days this guy goes from that to like we need to kill all muslims we need to like stab them to death right like it's it's horrible um and and this is you know like this kind of stuff just keeps happening and you know like the the only time the only the media literally only covers this stuff like in terms of like oh it's costing a democrat's support and it's like you guys just

i don't know the the extent to which the media has been utterly and completely complicit in anti-palestinian racism has been appalling and, you know, it's killed people now. Yeah. And there will be no reckoning with this because the US media does this shit all the time and no one cares. Yeah, by a wide margin, the most disturbing thing about this is just – and I think what separates this from the 2001 stuff, because this version of this attack in 2001 would have just been some racist stranger who saw a Muslim person or just a person he assumed looked like they were Muslim and attacked, but did not have a relationship with them. This guy is super close to this kid, right?

This is like an example of how fairly integrated this community was. And it's, again, an example of kind of what we're seeing in most of these other attacks we've talked about, except for that Nazi is like these people who are a lot more normal. And then I'm going to guess if we, when we find out more about the dude who stabbed that kid, a lot of his drift happened after COVID, right?

You know, and it's, it's a product of this right-wing media ecosystem that again exists purely to do this sort of thing but it's also a product of of covid right it's a product of this lockdown that that just fucking shattered so many people it's the one other thing i will mention because it is relevant because the trial is starting is another extremely targeted attack with the murder of uh brianna jai yeah yeah the perpetrators were very familiar they were they were interested in killing her specifically because brianna was trans and that i don't i don't know if we talked about this on the show at the time i don't think we did i don't think

it happened yeah yeah no but with with the trial happening we've gotten text exchanges between the two people who were involved in the killing um and it's it's very very very telling the the the way they were talking about uh brianna like as this as this like object um and very very very, very specifically like a, like almost like stalking and gaining familiar with her specifically to kill her out of like fascination. Oh, wait. So,

so I, for people who don't know what this is, Brianna was, I think she was 15, 16, 16, 16 year old trans girl in the UK who was stabbed to death by two other kids.

And yeah, so the trial's like happening right now and it's it's really it's really fucking sucks um yeah she was she was killed earlier this year um yeah and yeah i mean if you if you if you want to understand what transphobes think about trans people, like, those texts are as clean as an example that you're going to get about how, like, all of the fucking right-wing media people and all of the sort of, like, you know, like, all of the most sort of, like, absolutely, like, committed transphobes think about trans people and how they talk about us like in in closed like like behind closed doors where they think yeah we'll never see it and this is just this is just how they talk about us and this is what happens is people

like people fucking murder trans people and yeah yep well that yep all right well folks this has been uh it could happen here a podcast about terrorism

goodbye do we want to try to end this any literally any other way um I'm not you know no Garrison we're not that's the end of the podcast goodbye

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 guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series,

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