The Young Turks - Swimming in Guns

Episode Date: November 24, 2022

A Virginia Walmart suffered a shooting and the police say it was an employee was the culprit. The Colorado Springs shooter is to be held without bail. The Young Turks interview Luke Savage. Host: Ana Kasparian Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Woo! It's up! See watching, T. Be watching, T. Welcome,

Welcome, T. You're watching TYT. I'm your host, Anna Casparian, and it's Thanksgiving Eve. That's the most exciting part of today, the fact that we will have the next two days off. Other than that, the news cycle is what you would expect it to be a complete and utter crap show. Now, the show isn't going to be crappy. The show is going to be great.

But what we have in this country is just an endless violence spree, mass shooting sprees. We have yet another mass shooting in the same week as the tragic Colorado shooting. So we will talk about what happened in Virginia at a Walmart in a little bit. We're also going to have a wonderful guest on today. Luke Savage, who's a writer over at Jacobin and who has also published a book titled The Dead Center. We'll talk to him about the current state of the Democratic Party and the path forward for the left. In the second hour, John Iderola will join me to talk about how the largest and most

powerful lobbying group for senior citizens in this country is trying to privatize. Medicare. Believe it or not, the AARP is behind it. We'll tell you how and why in just a bit. That comes up in the second hour of the show. And then you don't want to miss Herschel Walker with the slip up of, I don't know, of the month, I guess, but he's had a lot of slip ups and a lot of Republicans engaged in a lot of really, really bad commentary. Nonetheless, you don't want to miss that. You have to be a member, though, to watch the bonus episode, t-y-t.com slash join to become a member or if you're watching us on YouTube, just click on that join button and you can become a member that way. All right, well, without further ado, let's

dive into the death and destruction in America. The emergency calls started coming in just minutes after the shots were fired at around 1015 last night. At the Walmart, 16-year-old male, his conscious is breathing, was a gunshot ballooned. I've heard now, the history is bleeding. When officers arrived at the Chesapeake Walmart, they quickly realized that they were dealing with a mass shooting incident. Six people have died in yet another mass shooting this week alone. And with the way things have been going, 2022 is a record-breaking year when it comes to gun violence.

I'll tell you the numbers and statistics in just a moment. But first, the details of this shooting, which took place at a Walmart in Chesapeake, Virginia. Now the gunman appears to have turned the gun onto himself. He took his own life, which means the total number of deaths is seven. But in terms of the number of victims, he shot and killed, six people, so I'm sorry, yes, six people so far have been reported, you know, it's reported that they have died as a result. Now, officers were dispatched to an active threat situation, according to CBS news at the Walmart Super Center at 10, 12 p.m. local time. Keep in mind, the stores are super busy with people shopping for Thanksgiving. Officers were on the scene within two minutes,

entered the store two minutes after that, and within just about an hour, they had cleared the store and located all of the victims. Now, there is still a, uh, a lack of clarity in regard to the identities of all the victims, but we do know about two of them at least at the moment. Two victims and the gunmen were found dead in the store's break room, city officials said Wednesday afternoon. Another victim was found dead toward the front of the store. Three died at area hospitals.

At least six other people were receiving treatment at hospitals and one was in critical condition. So there's still a possibility, you know, assuming that the individual and critical condition doesn't improve. There's still some possibility that there could be yet another victim, you know, another person who dies as a result of yet another mass shooting this time again in Chesapeake, Virginia. Now authorities, again, believe that he took his own life after opening fire and killing six people. They also say that he had a pistol on him, that is what they found at the scene. Walmart also confirmed that the individual, the suspect here, the person who opened fire, was a Walmart night shift manager. So he had been working at that Walmart since 2010. And Walmart did release a statement about that, stating, quote, the alleged shooter has been identified as Andre Bing.

We can confirm that he was a Walmart associate, Andre's position with the company, was overnight team lead, and he's been employed with us since 2010. Now, what's interesting about what we're hearing from his coworkers is that he seemed to, I mean, be mercurial at best and threatening at worst. So let me give you their statements so you can get an understanding of how coworkers actually felt about this guy. One person says this, he said a lot of disturbing things, said Donia Purolu, who said she was in the employee break room when Bing entered and unexpectedly opened fire. Bing came in, shot three of my friends before I took off running, she said. Half of us didn't believe it was real until some of us saw all the blood on the floor. I mean, just think about how incredibly traumatic that is. So that's one employer. just explaining what she had experience during this mass shooting. But another one of his former co-workers who actually worked at this particular Walmart between 2015 and 2018 said that he seemed to be a loner and he also seemed to have some paranoid thoughts. He was always saying the government was watching him. He didn't like social media. I mean, same, but that doesn't encourage me to open fire and kill innocent people, but let me continue.

He didn't like social media and he kept black tape on his phone camera. Everyone always thought something was wrong with him. Yeah, I mean, look, inevitably when these mass shootings happen, there's some contingent of the right wing that wants to pivot away from any discussion about gun legislation. So they'll start talking about why didn't anyone say something? I mean, if he was suspicious, why didn't anyone say something? But so far, I mean, he was suspicious of the government, same. He put tape on his iPhone camera, which considering the surveillance that takes place in this country by corporations and the government, I don't think that's a crazy idea.

And, you know, he didn't like social media. Seems like he just didn't want to be surveilled. So so far, I'm not hearing anything too suspicious about it. But let's continue. Joshua Johnson, who worked as maintenance worker at the store until 2019, also told CNN, Bing had previously issued ominous threats. There we go, if he ever lost his job. He said if he ever got fired from his job, he would retaliate and people would remember who he was.

Now, I want to be clear that we still do not know what the motive is. This investigation is ongoing. And I'm sure that in coming days, we're going to learn more details about the guttie. I'm sure we're going to learn more details about, you know, maybe even his political views, whatever it is. But as of yet, we have not really heard much from the authorities in regard to what the possible motives are. It's also worth noting, by the way, that gun violence is at a record high in this country this year. I'm not saying that. The stats are saying that. So for all of the crime deniers, just sit down, take a deep breath and get a load of the statistics I'm about to read you.

Because are we going to do anything about this? I mean, anyway. According to data compiled by the Gun Violence Archive, there have been more than 600 mass shootings in the United States this year with at least 36 resulting in fatalities. A criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston, his name's Alan Fox, who has compiled data on shootings in the U.S. for decades, reported the same figure, which he said had made 2022 a record year for such attacks. even prior to the incident at the Walmart in Chesapeake. Wow, he must be a prop, I mean, he must be a copagandist. I mean, anyone who draws attention to record violence in the country is clearly a cop. Clearly, we should hide this. We should hide this because God forbid it stands in the way of whatever non-profit

criminal justice reform organizations are getting involved in. So let's just turn a blind eye to this, right? I've been studying mass killings for over 40 years. And I am quite confident that there has never been a year where we've had so many. So gun violence is part of the crime wave that for some reason, some portion of the country wants to pretend like is not happening. And it's driving me crazy because it is happening. Innocent people are dying. Innocent people are being assaulted. Innocent people are being raped.

So when you are lucky enough to live in a state that's somewhat sane when it comes to gun policy, you should probably enforce those gun laws, right? So if you're concerned about gun violence, if you want to keep the community safe, someone who gets caught committing a crime with an illegal gun should probably face consequences, right, for being in possession of that illegal weapon as they're committing a crime. But in L.A., that's considered a prosecutorial enhancement, and our prosecutor here doesn't like that. So illegal gun charges just kind of fall by the wayside in a state that's supposed to proudly brag about its gun legislation and gun laws. Okay. But I'm not done yet because there's more to this

story. I know I'm being very critical toward the far left on some of their insane policies when it comes to violent crime. But I'm going to go to the right now. And it's a it's a point that we've made on the show a million times. Glenn Yonkin is the Republican governor of Virginia. You know what he did? He immediately started talking about the need for mental health care. I mean, we've we've got a real problem with mental health in this country. We really, really do. We really do. Now, if Republicans have an opportunity to vote in favor of legislation that would appropriate the, you know, the necessary funding for mental health in this country, you know what they do? They vote against it. The last time the House of Representatives had the chance to vote on legislation that would fund mental health care in this country, only one Republican voted yes. One. One. So it's abundantly clear that the whole mental health talking point that they love to roll out immediately after a mass shooting is just empty talking points. That's all it is. They don't care. They just want you to move away from any discussion about necessary gun legislation.

That's what they want. That's why they mention mental health care. But when push comes to shove, they don't care about mental health at all. They don't care about the endless occurrences of mass shootings and gun violence in this country. And by the way, I mean, look, I hate that I have to add this caveat. But I'll add the caveat. I am a proponent of law-abiding citizens owning guns for self-defense, for hunting. I have one for self-defense. I just do I'm responsible with it. I'm not against firearms.

And I do believe that our constitution provides some protection. for law-abiding citizens, you know, to own these weapons. But at the same time, when you have all these loopholes that allow for individuals to buy these firearms without having to undergo a federal background check, loopholes like the gun show loophole, things like that, sales between private sellers, private individuals, why do we allow those loopholes to stand? I don't know how he obtained his gun, but I would also like to see some, you know, some laws that would prosecute parents who are maybe not responsible with their weapon. Maybe they leave it laying around. Maybe they give their kids easy access to the weapon. I mean, I don't think that that's too much. I don't think that you're encroaching on Second Amendment rights among law-abiding citizens.

by wanting to strengthen gun loss to ensure that lunatics don't get access to them. But we're not going to do that. Let's just keep it real. We're not. We're not going to do that. So maybe two days from now, maybe tomorrow, maybe next week. Soon, though, let me be honest, soon, you will 100% hear about another mass shooting. And you'll hope that it doesn't come to your neighborhood, that it doesn't come to the Walmart, you know, where you live.

But it will eventually, because we're swimming in guns. There was an assault with a deadly weapon just a few feet away from where I live yesterday. I was at work, so I wasn't home when I got the alert about it. But yeah, some guy at Whole Foods takes his gun out. I don't, and decides that he wants to assault someone and threaten someone. with that gun. It's all around us. It doesn't matter where you live. It doesn't matter how protected you think you are. It doesn't matter how aware or observant you are. It could happen to anyone. And the fact that we just allow it to keep happening over and over again because we have

a political system that's so incredibly broken just infuriates me beyond words. If you have gun laws, you should enforce the gun laws. And if there are certain areas where new gun laws are necessary, we should fight to get those gun laws passed. Period. Otherwise, we're just going to keep dealing with this issue. And look, I actually see gun violence as a much more complex issue than I think most people realize. Because when it comes to something like, let's say, homelessness in Los Angeles, that is a complex problem. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to it. And with gun control, with gun violence in this country, I should say,

simply passing legislation isn't enough. We absolutely do need mental health care in this country. I think there is a huge problem with how atomized we are, how detached we are from one another, how alienated young men in particularly feel. And these are all issues that we need to come at in a robust, comprehensive way. If we are genuine about doing something substantive about gun violence. Otherwise, we're going to keep hearing about these stories over and over again. We're going to keep hearing about innocent people being gunned down by lunatics. All right, let's move on. Let's move on to the next story. This show and this job really does take a toll on you because it's just nothing makes

sense. Everyone is so concerned with their personal brand. Everyone's so concerned without peering one another in their respective political group that they say garbage. It doesn't make any sense. And it's frustrating. It really is. There's no room for nuance. There's no room for common sense. Because, hey, I got to market myself as the most left or the most right, the most this, the most that. And you know what that leads to? Nothing. Nothing substantive. It might lead to positive brand building for the players in the game. But that's it. Everyone else loses out, everyone. All right, I actually have to take a break, guys. I'm sorry about that. When we come back, we'll do some updates on the Colorado shooter. He has come out as non-binary.

We'll talk about that and what it means for his prosecution right after the break. Welcome back to TYT, everyone. We will get to the updates on the Colorado shooter in the next segment. But for now, we have a great interview with Luke Savage. Luke Savage joins us to talk about his upcoming, well, actually his book has already been published. And you can purchase it today, it's titled The Dead Center, Reflections on Liberalism and Democracy after the end of history. And you can purchase it over at ORBooks.com. O.R. Books.com purchase it there rather than Amazon. You won't be sorry.

Luke, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for driving me. It's a pleasure to be here. Well, I wanted to kind of start off by laying the foundation of what your book is about. because in America, I think people get kind of confused with the phrase or the term liberalism. And what you're referring to when you mention liberalism and the title of your book is very different from, let's say, a liberal Democrat. So talk to me about what liberalism is in the context of your book. And then we'll move on from there. Sure, yeah. Well, I mean, I would say that in the context of my book, liberalism has both a very broad and a very specific meaning.

I definitely use the term in a way that will be, you know, very familiar to, you know, people watching, people listening, to refer to the kinds of politics, you know, centrist politics that you might associate with something like, you know, the modern Democratic Party. But I'm also talking, I'm taking a longer view with it as well. The book, I think, is really a critique not only of something like the Democratic Party and other parties like it in 2022 or 2020, which is when much of the book was actually written. But also, you know, the kind of political consensus, you know, liberalism as it's been for the past 30 or 40 years. So the liberalism that follows and accommodates itself to Ronald Reagan in Britain to Margaret Thatcher.

And, you know, that was kind of a counter-revolution that happened across the world more generally. And so, you know, moved all of these liberal parties, but especially the Democratic Party further to the right than they'd been before. So I think, you know, very, very quickly, anyway, very briefly, that's what I mean by liberalism when I use it in the book. Right. So it's this notion that the economy is best suited to kind of follow this so-called free market ideology. I think neoliberalism is a good way of kind of thinking about it, right? And in a neoliberal society, government does have a role. And I always love to bring this up. It's just that the government's role is not to take care of its people.

It's not to provide protection for its people. It's to work on behalf of corporations. So that's what the whole neoliberal ideology is really about. It's about free markets and serving corporate interests. And you're right. I mean, the Democratic Party has done a great job transitioning to that direction. And I think that transition has been complete. We've certainly noticed that during the pandemic where literally 10 million Americans were laid off through no fault of their own.

And they received, I mean, relatively speaking, relative to other countries that have a far more robust social safety net, very little help to make themselves whole during that pandemic. That's right. And I mean, the pandemic is a really good case study. I think for a lot of the things I'm arguing in the book, because you would think, and I mean, I'm embarrassed to say I kind of did think when the pandemic was starting, that an event like this would cause, you know, even people as kind of stagnant in their thinking as America's liberals to rethink things in a more fundamental way. So maybe this is when finally the Democratic Party gets on board with single payer health care, you know, for example. You know, could this be an occasion like cataclysmic events in the past,

the Second World War comes to mind where a whole new consensus is forged out of a crisis. And I think that in spite of a lot of kind of buzz about how the Biden administration is going to be this big radical thing, it's going to have kind of transformative ambitions, it's going to try to be like, you know, it's going to try to do a modern New Deal, et cetera, et cetera. I would argue we haven't really seen anything like that

out of the Biden administration. It's certainly not at the level of them actually delivering it. They have talked about some things, which would be to the left of what Democrats have talked about in the past. I would argue, though, that they have not adopted anything like the kind of strategy that would be necessary to, you know, achieve any of those things. And I think I suspect we're going to see an even more conservative administration after the midterms, you know, the midterms have concluded than we did even in the first two years when we were hearing all about how radical Biden is going to be.

Yeah, you know, let's stay on that point because I think it's a good one. And I have the same concerns because I really think that the Democratic Party is learning all the wrong lessons from the midterm election, right? Because the Biden administration came nowhere close to FDR-like policies to improve the economy and to stabilize people's personal finances and economic situation. However, while there was a lot of fear that his failure to deliver on those issues would lead to a red wave, a political bloodbath and all that, that didn't happen. And so I'm really concerned that they're going to dig their heels in further, deeper to continue on with this, no, no, no, most of the country is moderate. And most of the country loves unaffordable health

insurance. And they love going bankrupt when they have health issues. And you know what I'm saying? Like, it's interesting that it works out that way. There's a pretty incredible sleight of hand that you see from kind of Democratic spin doctors and media surrogates, you know, people like James Carville, who there's an one of my favorite essays in the book is actually about James Carvel. I'll just drop that in here. But, I mean, there's an incredible slate of hand you see from these people after every election, which is that regardless of whatever the result is, it's always a vindication of

this exact same strategy that they want to do every time, which is the, you know, Bill Clinton, strategy later kind of honed by Rahm Emanuel and in, you know, ahead of the 2006 midterms. And it's basically the strategy they just did, which, you know, you could argue worked in 2018. The Democrats took back the House. You could argue that it worked this time. I mean, you could plausibly argue. I would have a lot of quibbles with that.

But you can also think about all of the times it didn't work. I mean, it was basically the strategy the Democrats just pursued in the midterms was essentially the strategy that lost Hillary Clinton, the presidency in 2016. And, you know, regardless of whatever, you know, regardless of what the result is, you will always hear these people say that their strategy is correct. And when they fail, it's the left's fault, even when the left isn't in charge or, you know, steering the ship at all. So as a remarkable sight of hand here, it's whatever the result, they will always say the same thing because that's what they're, that's what the ideology they're, they're signed up for, you know, beliefs. Yeah, it is incredible that they blame the left or progressives at any time they lose elections, even though their strategy has been for the last, I don't know, a few decades actually,

to just run as Republican light. But if you're running as Republican light against a Republican candidate, why wouldn't the constituents just go for the Republican candidate? Like, it makes no sense. But I have also noticed this other disconnect, Luke, that I wanted to ask you about. So when comes to campaigning, when it comes to the promises that are just being doled out by these Democratic politicians, they're actually quite progressive, you know, canceling some portion of student loan debt. To be fair to Biden, he was never in favor of canceling all of it. But when it comes to health insurance, I mean, you think about campaign Obama versus President Obama and it's night and day. So they get elected through pushing a progressive

message on economic issues oftentimes. But then once they're elected, they do not deliver. And why is it that Democratic voters don't punish them more for that or hold them accountable for that? Because clearly they elected them to actually carry out the policies they claim they would carry out. Yeah, I mean, I think that's true. I mean, I think that the Democratic electorate, broadly speaking, is further to the left. In many cases, anyone on many issues than your average Democratic Party politician, certainly to the left of, you know, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi. As to why they're not punished, I mean, that's a pretty big question.

I think that there has been, I think this is actually one of the big differences between the right in the United States and what calls itself the left in America, what's often I think erroneously called the left in America, which is that on the Republican side, I think the base, often no matter how kind of feral and like comical and absurd it is, the base tends to drive the agenda much more. And there are institutions on the right that facilitate that. And I would argue that there are exceptions in this and I'm generalizing, but I think on the democratic side, there's much more of a culture of deference. There's a culture of whatever democratic politicians do is the best of all possible worlds. Whatever positions

they stake out, that is by definition, the furthest left, the most progressive position, they can possibly do. And, you know, that's an argument. that a lot of people find persuasive. I don't think it's true, but I think a lot of people find it persuasive, particularly as the Republican Party moves further and further to the right. And, you know, embrace, you know, it's been especially true since Trump became the face of the Republican Party as well. But it was true before that as well. I mean, the kind of bogie scape go to the right and the kind of the way that the political ecosystem is understood to just be this binary. And Democrats themselves are by many people not really understood to be participants in this.

They're just dealing with, you know, the rough weather of a country whose politics are defined by the right. I mean, that whole narrative, which I think a lot of people accept, is just wrong because the Democrats have been part of the country's shift to the right as well. And you only have to look at the Clinton and Obama presidencies to see that. Just going back to the Just going back to the Clinton administration. I mean, I can understand the disdain American workers have toward the Clintons because of what Bill Clinton did when he was president in these free trade deals that led to jobs being outsourced to other countries with these corporations exploiting, you know, cheap labor

and of course incredibly abusive working conditions for these workers as well. And you see parts of this country, certainly the Rust Belt, just completely decimated as a result of that. So I can totally understand, you know, the disdain people have for the Clintons and for what's currently transpiring economically for the ordinary worker. And I think that's also leading to workers starting to finally take matters into their own hands and organize. I'd like to see even more momentum on that front. But it's been really inspiring to see workers at Starbucks, for instance, tell Howard Schultz to kick rocks because they're gonna do a union vote and they're gonna demand that Starbucks recognize their union.

It's wonderful to see that. But you know, the other thing that I've kind of noticed, that's been that's been kind of frustrating about this is, I think Americans are distracted, and I think they're distracted on purpose, right? So if they stop and think about what they're unhappy about in their lives, like what they would like to see improved materially in their lives, there's widespread agreement, right? Whether you're on the right or the left, People want to be made whole. They want financial stability. They want health care. I mean, it's it's not rocket science. But right now, the country, it always feels like the country's on the verge of civil war. And it feels like we're so polarized and we hate each other so much. When to your point, both parties, the political class, there's a lot of similarity when it comes to economic policy. So I want to ask you, why do you think both Democrats and Republicans lean into war narrative so hard. Do you think that's part of the distraction? Do you think it's intentional? Or are these issues that they genuinely are, like, do you really think that Republicans

are genuinely concerned about transgender athletes, which they can't even name a single one in their state oftentimes? Well, to the last part of the question, I mean, yes, I think trans people make them very uncomfortable. And, you know, I think that the moral panics we see on the right around, you know, targeting trans people in particular. I certainly think that's genuine, but I don't think that's, you know, mutually exclusive with it also being a distraction. And I think, you know, a lot of what passes for debate between the two parties often is a distraction.

And I think there's a very straightforward reason for that, which is that the two parties have converged in all kinds of fundamental questions. You know, you go back, we're talking about the Clinton administration. I'm forgetting the name might have been Dick Morris, the Clinton, the Clinton advisor who summed up that their approach, I think in 1996 by saying, we're going to fast track the Gingrich agenda. I mean, that just tells you right there. And so when the two parties, you know, converge, but you still have this spectacle of

democratic politics where, you know, you have to have disagreement because there are elections in their campaigns. And of course, you know, this is also generalizing. There are all kinds of fundamental questions in which liberals and conservatives still do disagree. but on a lot of these fundamental economic questions, you know, issues where, as you said, you know, health care is just the perfect example. I come back to it again and again. Poll after poll tells us that a majority of Americans feel one way, and yet you do not find that view reflected in the mainstream of either of the two major political parties.

And that's because the leaderships of both parties are, you know, barely responsible, if at all, to genuine democratic pressure or majority opinion. They're responsive to a class, a permanent class of donors and other kinds of patrons. I mean, like you said off the top, neoliberalism rewrites the state, not so that the state is rolled back, but so that it's rolled back in particular areas. And what remains is there to serve the corporate interests that have captured the state and want to use it and rewrite policy for their own purposes and self-interest. I think that would be how I'd answer your question. I mean, the culture war is a reflection

of the fact that the two parties have converged in all kinds of fundamental questions. And you have to have, you know, people, there has to be content for cable news. So you've got to have something to argue about. Yeah, no, that's exactly right. And I do think that to some extent, the culture wars offer an opportunity for these two parties that have really considerably like melded into one party on economic policy. You know, we don't have many options when it comes economic policy. The two parties have totally melded together due to, you know, unlimited campaign donations from corporate interests. So they differentiate themselves by debating about, you know, the culture war stuff for sure. So final question for you, for the sincere left in the United

States, right? I'm not talking about broadly the left. I'm talking about people who identify as democratic socialists or leftists, how do they navigate this? Because I can't help but think about Bernie Sanders 2016 versus Bernie Sanders 2020. There was a difference between those two campaigns. And I feel like because of the way he was treated by the press, by the Democratic establishment in 2016, he was kind of sucked into focusing some portion of his 2020 campaign on the social issues. Is that something, and when I say social, I specifically mean like the culture war narratives, right? He had to like dip his toe into it or else he'd be attacked pretty viciously.

He was attacked anyway. But how do you navigate that in a way that doesn't take away from your economic messaging while also kind of covering your basis to make it abundantly clear that you do care about the social issues, doing something about discrimination, doing something about, you know, anti-transgender hatred in this country? How do you balance that all? Well, I wish you had more time to get into the two Bernie campaigns. I mean, generally speaking, I think Bernie is very effective at this.

I mean, I think that he is somebody who has for a long time, you know, staked out ground that is, you know, that is, you know, decidedly on the left when it comes these big economic questions. But if you go back through his history, he also has a pretty impeccable record on all kinds of other stuff, which, you know, made it so ironic, it made so ironic the kinds of attacks that were directed in, particularly by Clinton in in 2016. So I think that I mean, I guess we don't have much time here, but I guess I'll answer your question by saying, I think that you lead with the things that a majority of people agree on,

but you don't, you know, you don't cast the other stuff away. Sometimes it's important for, you know, you can't just chase majority opinion. Bernie Sanders is also somebody and, you know, I think this can be expanded to, to apply to the left as a whole, right? It's not our job to always just look for a show of hands. Sometimes you do have to stake out positions that are held by a minority because you are trying to persuade people. But in terms of modern electoral politics or in terms of organizing your workplace, you focus on the fundamental questions that, you know, the points of shared self-interest on which everyone agrees.

And even though Bernie was not successful in either of his presidential runs, I do think that there's a roadmap to be found in both of them. for how we move forward if we ever get a chance to try something like that again. Yeah, I totally agree with you on that. Well, Luke, thank you for being so generous with your time. Everyone go check out his book. It is a great one and you will enjoy it. I promise you that. I read it myself. The Dead Center reflections on liberalism and democracy after the end of history, which by the end of history, like, all right, and by the way, make sure you check that out over at at ORBooks.com, that's ORBooks.com. You'd also check out Luke on his podcast, Michael and Us, and you could read his work over at Jacobin. Luke, thank you again. Thanks to my channel.

All right, everyone. Let's take a brief break. And when we come back, we've got more news for you, including some updates on the shooter from Colorado. Welcome back to the show, everyone. I'm Anna Casparian, you're watching TYT. And we do have some updates, big updates on the gunmen who opened fire in a mass shooting in Colorado, killing five innocent individuals and wounding dozens of others. Turns out that his defense attorneys had a message they wanted to send. So let's talk about it.

The gunmen who opened fire and murdered five people at Club Q in Colorado Springs is now being investigated for potential hate crimes. Now he decided to open fire at a gay club, an LGBTQ club, and there is some concern that his violent act was motivated by a bias against members of the LGBTQ community. But now we're also learning from his defense attorneys that he identifies, I'm sorry, that they identify as non-binary. Now look, I can tell you what I suspect, but it's just what I suspect. So I want to be clear about that because at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter. And the shooter might actually genuinely identify as non-binary. My hunch is that maybe there was some thinking that if you identify as non-binary, some of these hate crime charges can go away. It doesn't work like that. It actually makes no difference at all what he identifies as. So who knows? I mean, look, for the sake of this

discussion, let's just respect the gender identity of this shooter, okay, instead of getting bogged down with a debate about whether or not, and they like to go by they, identify as non-binary. Okay, so here's what we know. Here are the latest details. The motive in the shooting was still under investigation, but authorities said that Aldridge, that's the shooter here, faces possible murder and hate crime charges. Hate crime charges would require proving that the shooter was motivated by bias, such as against the victim's actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. The charges against Aldridge are preliminary and prosecutors have not yet filed formal charges. So I think that part, that very last part is relevant to the defense attorneys coming out and

saying that Aldridge identifies as non-binary because there haven't been formal charges yet. And maybe the thinking is, well, maybe this will dissuade prosecutors from formally pursuing these hate crime charges. I don't know if that's the thinking. But defense attorney said late Tuesday that the suspect is non-binary, standard court filing submitted by the defense team referred to the suspect as MX Aldrich. And the attorney's footnotes assert that Aldridge is non-binary and uses they-them pronouns. The motions deal with issues like unsealing documents and evidence gathering, not Aldridge's identity. And there was no elaboration about it. So right-wingers think that this is some weird victory for them.

So they've been spewing all sorts of anti-trans and also in the case of Florida and their don't say gay bill, just anti-LGBT, just vile garbage. That's what they've been spewing. That's what they hung their hat on in the lead up to the midterm elections, thinking that that would help them win elections. And I was really happy to find that the red wave never happened, probably because they weren't offering a goddamn thing to their constituents. And instead, we're just engaging in manufactured culture wars,

demonizing people, you know, trying to make people's lives work. rather than better. I don't know. Color me shocked that that's not a compelling campaign message. And the American people, for the most part, didn't buy it. But the hatred that was spewed and continues to be spewed by right-wing figures, both politicians and members of the media, absolutely has an impact on people who might already be predisposed to mental health issues, might have paranoid thoughts.

it might be what makes the difference in persuading them to carry out an act of violence. When you're constantly talking about transgender people being dangerous groomers, when you're constantly talking about them preying on girls and girls' locker rooms, I mean, think about the kind of paranoia, ordinary people who don't know better, people who have mental health issues who don't know better. Think about the kind of thought process that might go through their head. in a country just swimming in guns. So they thought the defense attorney coming out to say that the shooter here is non-binary,

means that a non-binary identifying individual can't be anti-trans. So this gruesome, horrific act of violence was not the fault of the right wingers stoking, you know, fears, fears and tensions and all sorts of negativity among American constituents. They don't want to take any responsibility for that. That's what this is about. So they're pointing to the shooter and arguing, well, I mean, if this person identifies as non-binary, that means that, you know, Aldridge cannot have any hatred in their heart toward members of the transgender community. It means that this act of violence was not motivated through our endless hateful discourse directed at transgender individuals and the LGBTQ community.

Except we know that people of whatever race you want to talk about, whether it be Latino, Asian, black, they can be part of that group, part of that race, and still be racist. We've seen endless examples of that. Jesse Lee Peterson talked about Donald Trump as if he would, He dubbed Donald Trump the great white hope and then proceeded to spew some of the most vile, vicious statements about the black community. In the case of this gunman, seems like he came up came from a pretty awful family. I have no problem saying that. Anyone who wants to come at me with, oh, but his poor, poor father, he's addicted to meth,

Poor poor father. Sit down, not interested in hearing about, you know, how we need to protect the poor, poor meth addicts who spew hatred toward the gay community, which he did just today in an interview where he said to a reporter, oh, when I found out about my son and the incident, I was really concerned that he might be gay. He was relieved. The guy was relieved. His father was relieved to find that his son, is not gay, but never mind the fact that he gunned down and killed five people. I mean, that's just a side note for his disgusting bigoted father. So there is a possibility that this individual does identify as non-binary and was overwhelmed with so much self-hatred thanks to his family members. I'm sorry. And I don't mean to, this is a difficult story to report on. I have difficulty with the pronouns, not intentionally. I'm trying to get this right. I keep messing up. So apologies, I'll do better. But yeah, I mean, if you're part of the Mormon church, which the Mormon

church confirmed that this shooter was part of their church. And that church tells you being part of the LGBTQ community is wrong, that it's a sin. You have a father who clearly has deep bigoted thoughts that he was probably sharing and talking about when, you know, his child was around. Yeah, that leads to self-hatred. That leads to anger. That leads to maybe frustration to the point where you carry out this act of violence. So I want to go to Ben Shapiro's Twitter thread today. Because once news broke that the shooter identifies as non-binary,

by the way, the other thing I want to mention is just last year, Aldridge was in a standoff with the cops. We talked about that. He had made a bomb threat against his mother. He threatened to harm her with other weapons as well. Police showed up to the scene. the scene, he decided to stream the entire incident. And Aldridge referred to himself at the time as he. So I don't know, I don't know, maybe Aldridge didn't want to come out with the non-binary

thing yet. I don't know if it's real, I don't know if it's fake. If I had to bet money on it, I don't think that Aldridge identifies as non-binary. But again, even if Aldridge did and does identify as non-binary. This is a win. Let me read you, Ben Shapiro's tweet. The entire left-wing legacy media and virtually every major Democrat in the country smeared traditional conservatives who oppose SSM, drag queen story hour, or transing the kids, blaming them for the club queue shooting.

They are hacks and liars, and they've been exposed as such. that's interesting because I can think of one hack and liar who was exposed as such very recently happens to be a colleague of Ben Shapiro's his name's Matt Walsh and while there isn't really much fact checking that ever takes place on Rogan's podcast luckily it happened this time around so let's watch how many people have had this done depends on what I don't think we have exact numbers but it's if we're talking about the drugs it's I millions. You're talking about hormone blockers?

Yeah. Millions of kids have been on hormone blockers, really? I'm sure someone's going to fact-check me on me. But my guess is that we're into the millions now at this point, yeah. That would be my guess. This says over the last five years, there were at least 4,780 adolescents who started puberty blockers and had a prior gender dysphoria diagnosis. It says it's kind of undercounted, but that's...

That would be a big undercounting. Less than 1,000 people a year. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I would guess, you know, hundreds of thousands at this, but I could be wrong. Million sounds great. Yeah, I could be wrong. Yeah. The media matters level of fun with that clip.

Yeah, no one's interested in hearing what you would think or what you would guess. Matt Walsh lies. He was wrong, but I suspect he was wrong on purpose because that's his bread and butter, just constantly fear mongering about a non-issue, about a non-issue. I mean, we had, what, a full year of the Republican Party sending their rabid mothers to school board meetings over a made-up fear that critical race theory was being taught in elementary schools. And the whole argument was parents should be able to make decisions about their own children. Never mind the fact that We're talking about public schools where there are other parents who actually want their kids to learn, you know, history, accurate history, not some revisionist right wing version of history.

But that was the argument, right? Parents know what's best for their kids. So who here thinks that Matt Walsh, of all people, knows better than the parents who might have children who identify as transgender? Like, it's just so creepy that they spend all day fear mongering about this stuff. And they do it because it's profitable for them, I'm sure. They love stoking fear among right wing voters. But it's also, you know, content matter that they can talk about without their funders being concerned that they're, you know, dipping their toe too much into the economy territory. Because their views on the economy and what needs to be done.

in terms of economic policy, not popular. So they lean in to this disgusting, rabid, hateful rhetoric. They lie about how many children are taking hormone blockers. They lie and make it seem as though children are being generally, genitally mutilated. They just lie, that's what they do, they lie. There's a small percentage of, you know, transgender male. who in their late teens decide they want to have top surgery. Really, the right way is going to be, the right one's going to pretend like they're concerned about that.

Do you know, do you know how many high school girls get work done? You know, are they upset about that or is it just the transgender people that they want to fear monger about? Anyway, this is who they are. Let me get to the rest of it. They could have simply waited for all the facts. kind of like how the right wing could have waited for all the facts. Every time there was a bombing or a shooting and they preemptively blamed it on a Muslim individual. But nonetheless, they could have simply waited for all the facts, but they didn't.

They wanted their false narrative so they could push for censorship of those with whom they disagree. They're cynical and vile. Let me be very clear right now, okay? I have no interest in censoring or violating the free speech rights of Ben Shapiro. and Matt Walsh, okay, they're free to say whatever they want, and they have been free to say whatever they want. They have a right wing billionaire protecting them on Twitter as we speak. Elon Musk is going around deleting tweets that he doesn't like, which we'll get to later in the show, obviously from leftists. But, you know, when they're always the victims, it is amazing,

As they're spewing garbage that incites violence, as we see endless mass shootings with innocent people getting gun down and killed in this country, as we see the high rates of suicide among the transgender community because of the vile garbage, they spew about them day in and day out. They want to make themselves out to be the victims. You guys are not only free to talk, you guys never shut up. So please spare me the nonsense about how they're victims of the left, Spare me, please. And yes, you can be non-binary, you can be transgender, you could be a person who's actually gay and then carries out an act of violence against the gay community because you're steeped in an environment that tells you over and over again that you're a bad person, that you're going to burn in hell for eternity. This man was a product of his environment and the environment that we're living in,

is one in which you have right wingers constantly saying the most vicious things about individuals who have no impact on their lives at all. Transgender people deserve rights, they deserve to be happy, and their gender identity takes no toll on my life or my happiness. I think Ben Shapiro and Matt Wall should ask themselves why they're so concerned and what kind of impact the transgender community has on their lives because it's zero. But they'll talk about it endlessly anyway and pretend like they're being censored while doing so. All right, we got to take a break. We'll be back with the second hour of the show. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks.

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