Speaker 1: Kyota.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and This is the Front Page, a
Speaker 2: daily podcast presented by The New Zealand Herald. The assassination
Speaker 2: of conservative activist Charlie Kirk has shone a spotlight on
Speaker 2: political violence in the US and around the world. The
Speaker 2: thirty one year old was shot at a Utah University
Speaker 2: last week in front of thousands of people. The alleged
Speaker 2: killer is twenty two year old Tyler Robinson, who's set
Speaker 2: to appear in court this week. While his motive remains unclear,
Speaker 2: the killing has sparked conversations about the widening gap between
Speaker 2: left and right politics. It's also highlighted the deep dark
Speaker 2: depths of the Internet and how young people can be
Speaker 2: radicalized online. Today on the Front Page, Massy University emeritus
Speaker 2: professor and sociologist Paul Spoonley is with us to dissect
Speaker 2: the inner workings of those who perpetrate political violence and
Speaker 2: how we might be able to stop them. So, Paul,
Speaker 2: the race is on to try and figure out why
Speaker 2: this shooter targeted Charlie Kirk. And there are a lot
Speaker 2: of accusations being thrown around at the moment. At the
Speaker 2: end of the day, though, does it really matter what
Speaker 2: side he was on, left or right, It's still political violence,
Speaker 2: isn't it.
Speaker 1: It is political violence, and unfortunately, and particularly in the US,
Speaker 1: we're seeing more of it. And the difficulty, the difficulty
Speaker 1: there and the difficulty here in New Zealand is that
Speaker 1: when we get these local actors, these homegrown local actors,
Speaker 1: very often they're invisible. They send out quite weak signals.
Speaker 1: And I think, Chelsea, we're naive. I think we're naive
Speaker 1: to think that this is something that happens in America,
Speaker 1: not here. It has happened here, and it will happen here.
Speaker 1: But we're also a naive in terms of what we
Speaker 1: need to look for, because in the case of the
Speaker 1: Charlie Kirk killing, but also in the case of the
Speaker 1: christ Church shooter, there were people around both of those
Speaker 1: shooters who would have seen something but didn't possibly didn't
Speaker 1: know what they were looking at. So I do think
Speaker 1: we need to increase the awareness of families and peers
Speaker 1: and teachers in terms of what they might look for
Speaker 1: as people get radicalized.
Speaker 2: And in terms of that as well, I mean, I've
Speaker 2: seen a lot of conversation around on the Internet and
Speaker 2: kind of deciphering this language used I know that bullets
Speaker 2: found after the shooting carried a range of messages and
Speaker 2: the Internet is kind of racing to decipher those, and
Speaker 2: it looks like, you know, they're referencing video games, meme culture.
Speaker 2: I mean, it seems to me like a completely different language.
Speaker 2: And that isn't foreign to these kind of people, right.
Speaker 1: No, it's not. And I mean I would go to
Speaker 1: the christ Church shooter and the advantage, if there are
Speaker 1: any advantages there was that he published a manifesto, so he,
Speaker 1: like the killer of Charlie Kirk, had insignia or memes
Speaker 1: or sayings on the guns and the ammunition. In the
Speaker 1: case of the christ Church shooter, he did have that
Speaker 1: as well, but he also had a manifesto, so we
Speaker 1: can get a sense of why what prompted him to
Speaker 1: do what he did in christ Church in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit more difficult with this one, particularly
Speaker 1: as the shooter is not being cooperative and so we
Speaker 1: now got to do a forensic check of what's happened online,
Speaker 1: what we can get from that, and of course what
Speaker 1: the police and other are athorities are doing, which is
Speaker 1: talking to family and friends.
Speaker 2: I mean, regardless what these inscriptions actually mean it just
Speaker 2: it points to a person who's like deeply entrenched in
Speaker 2: those online forums and that online culture, and this is
Speaker 2: where a lot of that radicalization happens nowadays.
Speaker 1: Hey, yes it does, and it's actually relatively recent Chelsea
Speaker 1: in terms of what we're seeing. Last year the Five
Speaker 1: Eyes of which New Zealand's part, produced a very interesting
Speaker 1: report on young people in the five countries and radicalization.
Speaker 1: And what we're seeing is that younger people, sometimes educated
Speaker 1: so well educated, perhaps students who are doing well or
Speaker 1: university students and you know that's the case with this shooter,
Speaker 1: are attracted and then they go down these rabbit holes
Speaker 1: into conspiratorial extreme views and ideologies. I have to say
Speaker 1: that the the bulk of people who express those extreme
Speaker 1: views online do not necessarily act out those views. But
Speaker 1: we still have that possibility and what we need to
Speaker 1: understand and I don't think we do really as much
Speaker 1: as we would like to. What's the process who's vulnerable
Speaker 1: in the first instance, but what's the process whereby people
Speaker 1: get convinced that these extreme views are views that they
Speaker 1: should hold, in which they demonize others. The difficulty at
Speaker 1: the moment is we're really paralyzed, and we've got declining trust.
Speaker 1: We've got declining trust and politicians, unfortunately Chelsea, and the media,
Speaker 1: and so we tend to revert to these echo chambers
Speaker 1: in which we get affirmation of our own views. So
Speaker 1: what starts that process? What leads you into that echo chamber?
Speaker 1: And you know, we know vulnerability, we know social isolation.
Speaker 1: There are a number of cues that we need to
Speaker 1: be aware of, but we really do need to understand
Speaker 1: more about it. And how do we intervene much earlier
Speaker 1: in that process before they do get radicalized?
Speaker 2: And generally we're talking about this kind of right wing conservatism,
Speaker 2: it's disenfranchised young men as well. Nine times out of ten.
Speaker 2: How do we get to that group and steer them
Speaker 2: away from these kind of forums that make them feel
Speaker 2: so included and so part of a pack, so to speak.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I was at the University of California at
Speaker 1: Berkeley with an author called Ali Hodgchild, and what she
Speaker 1: pointed to in the American context was the disaffection and
Speaker 1: the alienation of particularly white working class men, increasingly white
Speaker 1: middle class men in terms of the recognition of diversity.
Speaker 1: So what we've got is an inversion. In the past,
Speaker 1: we would have probably said that particular groups, let's say
Speaker 1: Afro Americans, have been the victims of institutional racism, to
Speaker 1: use a word. What we're now seeing is the flip
Speaker 1: of that, and that the victims in modern society are
Speaker 1: very often white males who were being excluded from promotion,
Speaker 1: from jobs. And so we're getting this combination of economic circumstances.
Speaker 1: And remember a lot of us began to emerge during
Speaker 1: the global financial crisis two and eight twenty twelve, and
Speaker 1: then got accelerated during COVID, and so's there's certainly a constituency.
Speaker 1: And by the way, there is a constituency in New Zealand.
Speaker 1: If you look at a group like right wing Resistance,
Speaker 1: they tended to be young males and very much into
Speaker 1: the manisphere, so you know, a toxic masculinity, and a
Speaker 1: number of them were a university student. So those old
Speaker 1: ideas that somehow the people who are going to be
Speaker 1: recruited were not educated, were not aware of the world
Speaker 1: around them, is no longer true.
Speaker 2: These interpretations of the messages as well as the shooters
Speaker 2: online blueprint, it's hard to decipher what his political leaning is.
Speaker 2: So you've got these very niche references to anti fascism,
Speaker 2: but you've also got these references used by groups like
Speaker 2: neo Nazi nick for Winters as followers who didn't actually
Speaker 2: like Charlie Kirk. Does this show that the far right
Speaker 2: isn't as black and white anymore?
Speaker 1: Yes. And indeed our own groups inside New Zealand, our
Speaker 1: security and intelligence agencies, but also the Combined Threats Assessment Group,
Speaker 1: which is the main government group that looks at the
Speaker 1: threat landscape in New Zealand, have developed some new categories.
Speaker 1: And it looks as though those new categories of people
Speaker 1: who bring together various traditions both sort of less than right,
Speaker 1: as you've pointed out, to provide new political view points,
Speaker 1: but they're still extreme. And for me, I think one
Speaker 1: of the things that I've focused on the extreme right,
Speaker 1: but one of the things that strikes me is that
Speaker 1: when you look at the extreme left and the extreme right,
Speaker 1: very often they look quite similar. They look the way
Speaker 1: in which they demonize particular people. They might demonize different people,
Speaker 1: but the way in which they demonize people and the
Speaker 1: way in which they justify are violence towards government. And
Speaker 1: so what we've seen, and I think the US evidence
Speaker 1: over the last two decades. They've got an excellent report
Speaker 1: on what's contributed to tourist attacks and redcalization is that
Speaker 1: seventy percent have come from the extreme right. And yes,
Speaker 1: white supremacists, so they would be classic sort of Nazi
Speaker 1: fascist groups. But the other major category is anti government.
Speaker 1: And so I think what we've seen as a new
Speaker 1: set of as a new set of groups begin to emerge,
Speaker 1: particularly since COVID, in which attacking the government, attacking the
Speaker 1: police sovereign citizens would be a case in point. And
Speaker 1: so we had a we had an activist, Richard Silvill,
Speaker 1: who was sentenced and earlier this year, and he was
Speaker 1: sentenced because he shared objectionable material the christ Church stream
Speaker 1: of the shooting, but because he threatened to kill the
Speaker 1: Prime Minister, just Sindra Adourn. And so I think we're
Speaker 1: getting these diverse but mixed set of messages and positions
Speaker 1: that are beginning to emerge. It's much more complex than
Speaker 1: when I first began to look at the extreme right
Speaker 1: some decades ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, because it's from my learnings online, it's
Speaker 2: not really right versus left anymore. And even that kind
Speaker 2: of spectrum, you can question whether that's a particularly good
Speaker 2: way of describing these groups. I learned that there are
Speaker 2: factions of the far right actually in conflict with each other,
Speaker 2: so these people called gropers who think MAGA is actually liberal.
Speaker 2: So knowing the kind of colorful array and all of
Speaker 2: the different gray bits in between will probably help us
Speaker 2: moving forward, right.
Speaker 1: It will. It will, but we need to map that landscape.
Speaker 1: So it's changed and constantly changing. So I've talked about
Speaker 1: its diversity, but we're also seeing new positions beginning to emerge,
Speaker 1: which is what you've highlighted. And we do need good
Speaker 1: evidence for this, And can I go to There's a
Speaker 1: private group in New Zealand called Global Risk Consulting Group,
Speaker 1: and their latest assessment, which came out a while ago,
Speaker 1: think says that there's a seventy percent chance that we
Speaker 1: will see a terrorist act in the next five years
Speaker 1: in New Zealand. And I think we've got to take
Speaker 1: that seriously. So one of the things I would dearly
Speaker 1: love us to do is to understand both the international
Speaker 1: but also the domestic landscape here, because I do think
Speaker 1: we face the possibility that because we don't understand all
Speaker 1: of these permutations, somebody's going to come out of somewhere
Speaker 1: that we haven't actually paid much attention to. And that was,
Speaker 1: of course the Royal Commission's concern after the christ shooting,
Speaker 1: that we paid too much attention to Islamic terrorism and
Speaker 1: not enough to write a white supremacy terrorism.
Speaker 3: Jennie Vancier live from my office in the White House
Speaker 3: complex and filling in for somebody who cannot be filled
Speaker 3: in for. But I'm going to try to do my
Speaker 3: best my dear friend, the great Charlie Kirk. The thing is,
Speaker 3: every single person in this building we owe something to Charlie.
Speaker 3: He was a joyful warrior for our country. He loved
Speaker 3: America did voted himself tirelessly to making our country a
Speaker 3: better place. He was a critical part of getting Donald
Speaker 3: Trump elected as president, getting me elected as vice president,
Speaker 3: and so much of our success over the last seven
Speaker 3: months is due to his efforts, his staffing, his support
Speaker 3: in his friendship.
Speaker 2: I think it's quite interesting in the US if we
Speaker 2: go back to the Charlie Kirk shooting. Donald Trump has
Speaker 2: continued to accuse his political opponents of inciting violence and
Speaker 2: placing blame on the left. He said, the problem is
Speaker 2: on the left. It's not on the right. He then
Speaker 2: blamed left wing radicals. Then we have JD. Vance signaling
Speaker 2: a growing and powerful minority on the left as well,
Speaker 2: and the very quick to point fingers. And I read
Speaker 2: a comment from Seawan Westwood. He's the director of the
Speaker 2: Polarization Research Lab at Dartmouth College, and he said, in
Speaker 2: the aftermath of the assassination attempt against Donald Trump, say,
Speaker 2: leaders on both side of the IOWA called the national
Speaker 2: temperature issuing unified condemnation, and in the way of Kirk's murder,
Speaker 2: the opposite is happening. He said, We're witnessing the cynical
Speaker 2: minting of a martyr and a call to fight instead.
Speaker 2: How important is it that they're taking this route as
Speaker 2: opposed to unifying and calling for condemnation of all political violence.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that's really disappointing. And so I
Speaker 1: think there are a number of public commentators and politicians
Speaker 1: in the United States that have asked, we're toning down
Speaker 1: at the temperature around this, because if you look at
Speaker 1: the evidence of President Trump's own agencies, then the major
Speaker 1: threat comes from the far right, not from the far left.
Speaker 1: So this attempt to recategorize where the threat is coming
Speaker 1: from is actually not supported by the evidence. So the
Speaker 1: Department Justice has done some really good works around looking
Speaker 1: at where terrorism is likely to come from. And if
Speaker 1: I can give an example, Timothy McVeigh was a sovereign
Speaker 1: citizen and he was involved in the Oklahoma bombing. So
Speaker 1: those major events of terrorism have involved the far right,
Speaker 1: and I just don't think it's helpful, I mean politically,
Speaker 1: but also in terms of how you rebuild trust. You're
Speaker 1: really effectively cementing in some of the divisions and some
Speaker 1: of the hostility and the polarization and the demonization of
Speaker 1: particular groups. And of course we forget or have forgotten,
Speaker 1: and it's not mentioned now that a Democratic senator was
Speaker 1: shot in their own home not so long ago. So
Speaker 1: why the outrage now not the outrage?
Speaker 2: Then?
Speaker 1: It seems very one sided to me and very unfortunate,
Speaker 1: because how do you rebuild when you dig these sort
Speaker 1: of trenches and conduct the sort of warfare.
Speaker 2: How do we catch up to these kind of groups,
Speaker 2: and how do we learn their language online? And how
Speaker 2: can New Zealand make sure that nothing similar happens here?
Speaker 1: I think there's some excellent work being done internationally. So
Speaker 1: the International Strategic dialogue and one of the researchers might
Speaker 1: have come Ifort has done some really good work in
Speaker 1: New Zealand. By the way, that research shows that New
Speaker 1: Zealand is accessing far right YouTube or Facebook, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure which sites. Was double the rate of Australian, triple
Speaker 1: the rate of Canada. So why is that the case?
Speaker 1: And I think we need to access some of the
Speaker 1: initiatives and the understanding that's available internationally. The EU has
Speaker 1: done some really good work around what to do in
Speaker 1: terms of identifying the dynamics of a particular country and
Speaker 1: internationally and then what we might do. By the way,
Speaker 1: there are some initiatives in New Zealand which I think
Speaker 1: we need to acknowledge. The New Zealand Security Intelligence Service
Speaker 1: had produced a very good little Booklet's saying No the Signs.
Speaker 1: So there is something that is happening here. There are
Speaker 1: some things that are happening here. But I would really
Speaker 1: like us to pay more attention, fund more activity to
Speaker 1: make sure that we are on top of what's happening.
Speaker 1: And particularly I think we're going to struggle given the
Speaker 1: volume of material that's appearing online and so our agencies,
Speaker 1: our security and intelligence agencies are really swamped by this material.
Speaker 1: The amount of material and then trying to identify where
Speaker 1: the potential risks might be coming from just got to
Speaker 1: be a much more community wide response. And I do
Speaker 1: think we need to talk about digital literacy and digital citizenship.
Speaker 1: We've really got to understand what's happening, particularly to young
Speaker 1: people but also others online at the moment and what
Speaker 1: the possibilities and the problems.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us, Paul.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Chelsea. Always a pleasure.
Speaker 2: That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
Speaker 2: can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
Speaker 2: at enzidherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is
Speaker 2: produced by Jane Ye and Richard Martin, who is also
Speaker 2: our editor. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to The Front Page
Speaker 2: on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune
Speaker 2: in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.