Speaker 1: Al Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Welcome to it could Happen here, a podcast about things
Speaker 2: falling apart. And nothing says things falling apart better than
Speaker 2: as many Republicans as possible jammed into as small a
Speaker 2: place as possible, With half of the cops in the
Speaker 2: United States of America there as well. With me is
Speaker 2: Sophie Lichterman and Garrison Davis are on the ground reporting
Speaker 2: team for the Republican Convention National.
Speaker 3: Wow, it's true.
Speaker 4: We're here.
Speaker 2: We are at the Republican National Convention the day after
Speaker 2: former President Donald Trump was nearly struck down by an
Speaker 2: assassin's bullet. And uh, yeah, it's been a pretty fun.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The vibes are great. Vibes are great. Actually, that's kind
Speaker 2: of the thing we should start with. We I mean,
Speaker 2: the president for a president was shot yesterday, and the
Speaker 2: shit online has been absolutely un hinged. And I was
Speaker 2: expecting I was expecting a lot, but certainly a different
Speaker 2: vibe at the thing, which was I think basically the
Speaker 2: same vibe it would have had if the president hadn't
Speaker 2: been shot. People were by and large not acting different.
Speaker 1: Okay, so so set the scene. All we went to
Speaker 1: this red, White and Brew kickoff at the party.
Speaker 2: Shocking amount of free alcohol.
Speaker 1: Shocking amount of free alcohol. How many people do you
Speaker 1: think we're there?
Speaker 4: I don't know, thousands, That definitely thousands of people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the not crazy crowded, but it was big.
Speaker 6: The flyers said they were estimating ten to fifty thousand
Speaker 6: people over the course of like five six hours.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that sounds about right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Trace Adkins performed and sang a song with the lyrics
Speaker 1: Gearson Well.
Speaker 3: This was actually a spoken word intro to this.
Speaker 2: This was in the middle of the songs.
Speaker 4: Yes, We're we were.
Speaker 2: If you haven't heard. Trace is a country music star,
Speaker 2: and not a good one. I'm not sure if it
Speaker 2: was him or if it was Toby Keith that Christofferson said,
Speaker 2: did the country music what pante Hoose did to finger fucking.
Speaker 2: But that is the kind It's a famous line, Sophie.
Speaker 2: He's a terrible musician.
Speaker 3: He just died.
Speaker 4: Anyways. The line that was said was Garrison.
Speaker 6: Well, he had this little preamble about how he was
Speaker 6: getting really handsy with like.
Speaker 2: With his nurse. He's sick recently. He has a nurse.
Speaker 2: She's taken great care of him and she hasn't gotten
Speaker 2: angry that he keeps touching her against her.
Speaker 6: Getting really handsy and she would actually press charges if
Speaker 6: they weren't married, which is the punchline.
Speaker 1: Ha ha ha haa is that is that And that
Speaker 1: was kind of the energy of the entire event.
Speaker 6: So just raping your wife not even a joke, just
Speaker 6: like just like a celebratory statement. As we are walking
Speaker 6: around a crowd of like, yeah, at least five times.
Speaker 1: We walk into this event and there are like balloon
Speaker 1: wavy noodle.
Speaker 2: Guys inflatable armflaving to use car dealership. Ever seen that
Speaker 2: many of them in one place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And then there's there's dozens there's women on platforms.
Speaker 2: So there's a red carpet and all fifty state flags
Speaker 2: are lining it, and periodically in between the flags there
Speaker 2: are plints where there are what what we used to
Speaker 2: call booth babes, which is if you would go to
Speaker 2: like E three, which was the video game convention, there
Speaker 2: would be scantly clad women. Car conventions do the same thing.
Speaker 2: Cees used to do this too, women wearing very little
Speaker 2: who are there to like stand next to products or whatever.
Speaker 2: In this case, they were just mostly naked women.
Speaker 1: Dancing and waving at people. They came in and one
Speaker 1: of them winked at me, thank you so much.
Speaker 2: I hope she had a fine night, me too. We
Speaker 2: did not.
Speaker 3: I hope she got paid more than we're getting paid.
Speaker 2: There's almost no way not FASSI, because I have asked
Speaker 2: a couple of different service industry people, including Uber drivers, tonight,
Speaker 2: how are the tips, and everyone said, Doug shit, yeah,
Speaker 2: nobody's been happy with the tips.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And it took us quite a while to actually get
Speaker 1: to this place because of all the different security checkpoints
Speaker 1: and roadblocks and just the absolute chaotic, unhinged amount of
Speaker 1: out of town cops.
Speaker 2: And this is not just the R and C. If
Speaker 2: you've never been to a political convention, you will be
Speaker 2: in whatever city this year. It's the RNC is in Milwaukee,
Speaker 2: and the DNC is going to be in Chicago. But
Speaker 2: whatever city it's in, you will run into LAPD cops,
Speaker 2: Dallas cops, like every cops from every part of the country,
Speaker 2: in addition to secret Service, FBI, Homeland security investigations, like all, like,
Speaker 2: all of the kinds of cops are here, correct.
Speaker 6: The most interesting kind of cop that I've seen a
Speaker 6: great a great number of is US Capitol police cops,
Speaker 6: A lot of Capitol police here, which is just a
Speaker 6: little bit funny considering what happened, like, uh.
Speaker 2: This crowd assaulted Capitol police officer.
Speaker 6: It's kind of an odd dynamic because you have like
Speaker 6: these Capitol police here, you know, priding security essentially and
Speaker 6: you know, protecting attendees to some degree. Well, there's you know,
Speaker 6: a decent chance that many of them were just engaged
Speaker 6: in combat with many of these same people where there
Speaker 6: was casualties on both sides, which is just a kind
Speaker 6: of an odd dynamic that you don't really see very often.
Speaker 2: Yeah, honestly, again, it's the vibes have still been pretty
Speaker 2: much chill for an event like this. It has not
Speaker 2: been heightened in terms of like levels of anger. We
Speaker 2: did see as soon as we arrived at the airport,
Speaker 2: literally the second we got to baggage, there was a
Speaker 2: guy wearing a shirt with the picture of Trump with
Speaker 2: a bloody ear right after he was shot on it.
Speaker 2: He clearly made it last night himself.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it said the iron don.
Speaker 2: The iron down. But that was kind of it in
Speaker 2: terms of maybe, you know, it's going to take a
Speaker 2: little longer for there to be more shooting merch out there.
Speaker 2: But I do. But but more than that, I just
Speaker 2: didn't hear a lot of Like we had down, we
Speaker 2: got some food and some drinks. When were at this
Speaker 2: big party, We sat down with these two ladies who
Speaker 2: were delegates from Texas, older women, one was clearly in
Speaker 2: her eighties, one looked like she was more in her sixties.
Speaker 2: Talked with them for quite a while, and they were
Speaker 2: very far right, very strong views on religious conservatism, very
Speaker 2: anti trans the older lady that I talked to. None
Speaker 2: of them said a single word about Trump getting shot.
Speaker 2: It absolutely did not come up, which I was kind
Speaker 2: of surprised about.
Speaker 6: And I got here a little bit earlier than Robert
Speaker 6: and Sophie, and I was hanging out with some of
Speaker 6: the delegates from Idaho and North Dakota, and similarly, no
Speaker 6: one was talking about that. Yeah it was, it was
Speaker 6: just not mentioned. It was on Fox News in the background. Yeah,
Speaker 6: you could see on the TV every building. Yeah, it's
Speaker 6: constantly playing. But nobody in person seems to be thinking
Speaker 6: about it or like discussing it as like as like
Speaker 6: a thing. And possibly it's just because they've assumed that
Speaker 6: Trump is just always under this kind of attack, right right,
Speaker 6: like the most attacked man. Right, This isn't even like
Speaker 6: a big deal for them. This is just like realizing
Speaker 6: what they've already built up in their head, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I think that that could maybe just be
Speaker 3: a factor.
Speaker 6: This isn't like as impactful for them because like you know,
Speaker 6: of course, like he's he's he's obviously being treated so unfairly.
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of speriment in that. The
Speaker 2: only other thing I could think of maybe would be
Speaker 2: that just it hasn't sunk in yet because it's so
Speaker 2: big and so recent and everyone coming to this probably
Speaker 2: like us, was just crazy busy packing and like getting
Speaker 2: their lives in order for this. Sure, but I think
Speaker 2: you're probably onto something with that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's not a small thing. I mean
Speaker 1: the the people that we talked to, one of them
Speaker 1: was a delegate for the state of Texas, and they
Speaker 1: said they had to travel all the way. They their
Speaker 1: hotels in Madison. Oh, so they have to commute back
Speaker 1: and forth from Madison to Milwaukee to come to this event.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is that is that is a long time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, speaking of ugh, you know what doesn't make me
Speaker 2: go ugh?
Speaker 1: These products and services, Yes.
Speaker 2: We are sponsored first off by Woodman's, the grocery store
Speaker 2: that won't sell you a hard liquor past midnight. Woodman's.
Speaker 2: Everyone lied to you about Wisconsin being proper alcoholics.
Speaker 7: And we're back. And I have to say that the today,
Speaker 7: the scariest part of our day.
Speaker 1: Was going to this Woodman's grocery store, which is opened
Speaker 1: twenty four hours, seven days a week.
Speaker 6: It was not walking into a crowd of ten thousand Republicans.
Speaker 6: It was, in fact, walking into Woodman's at midnight was
Speaker 6: astronomically more frightening on like existential levels.
Speaker 2: It's like one of these like massive, massive, like Walmart style,
Speaker 2: but like really big Walmart style stores. They had a
Speaker 2: whole isle of Maraschino cherries.
Speaker 3: A Maraschino cherry isle.
Speaker 2: There were a shocking number.
Speaker 4: There was a fried onion isle.
Speaker 2: There were a shocking number of like four to seven
Speaker 2: year old children leaving the stores.
Speaker 3: Walking freely in and out.
Speaker 2: It was leaving this just so going somewhere, but it
Speaker 2: was that there was.
Speaker 6: There was twenty five numerical aisles plus a full like
Speaker 6: alphabetical aisle.
Speaker 4: There were so many asles they had to switch from numbers.
Speaker 2: They would not sell us beers.
Speaker 6: And they would not have sid A credit cards either.
Speaker 6: Fascinating stuff.
Speaker 2: Anyways, you Wisconsinites think you people are alcoholics. I have
Speaker 2: gone there's there's nowhere that won't sell me liquor in
Speaker 2: fucking Los Angeles. You know that's a drinking city. God
Speaker 2: damn it, God damn it.
Speaker 1: Garrison what else?
Speaker 6: Well, and there was also a security guy roaming inside
Speaker 6: woman's do you know where? There was also security oh
Speaker 6: everywhere else, literally the entire city of Milwaukee right.
Speaker 1: Now, on roofs, in the street, on bikes, on boats.
Speaker 3: We knew.
Speaker 2: But well, I honestly, this is not abnormal. I know.
Speaker 2: I did not notice anything that I didn't recall from
Speaker 2: previous convention. It did not seem I think it just
Speaker 2: might be because there's so many there can't be more cops,
Speaker 2: Like they could not have had more cops. I'm sure
Speaker 2: people are more alert. I'm sure, particularly the rooftops sniper
Speaker 2: teams are under the gun right now. But I didn't
Speaker 2: notice anything more intense than usual.
Speaker 6: Well, and we were talking with some other people from
Speaker 6: out of town who we were just getting rides with,
Speaker 6: and like the amount of the amount of barricades and
Speaker 6: blockades that have been put up over the course of
Speaker 6: a Sunday, like.
Speaker 4: It changes constantly.
Speaker 6: It's constantly changing which roads are blockaded. Like like earlier today
Speaker 6: people could commute downtown.
Speaker 2: That might feel a little different, fairly easier.
Speaker 6: And progressively throughout the day that became much much harder,
Speaker 6: to the point where now downtown is almost like you
Speaker 6: just you just can't drive like that are like most
Speaker 6: of downtown is just literally blocked off by the type
Speaker 6: of fence that was developed in Portland back in twenty twenty,
Speaker 6: and that is covering almost all of Milwaukee's downtown right now.
Speaker 2: The fence is familiar from previous conventions. I don't remember
Speaker 2: the moving blockades of streets that that actually might be.
Speaker 2: If it's not, maybe if it happened the last convention,
Speaker 2: I didn't recall it.
Speaker 1: Were there any at this party? Were there any booths
Speaker 1: or things that you saw that surprised.
Speaker 2: Your Well, there was the fifteen giveaway They're sure was
Speaker 2: Daniel Defense, that the US Concealed Carry Association.
Speaker 3: A little bit of poor taste, one might say, you know.
Speaker 2: What, in a way, because Daniel Defense is number one,
Speaker 2: is the company that made the air fifteen that the
Speaker 2: Evaldi shooter used. If you don't know guns, the Daniel
Speaker 2: Defense is most famous to people who aren't gun people,
Speaker 2: for it was the company that made the gun that
Speaker 2: the Uvaldi shooter used. In general, they are like a
Speaker 2: middle high end ar company. They're not like the very
Speaker 2: nicest on the market, but they're not cheap. They're expensive guns.
Speaker 2: They're pretty well made, and they have made direct kind
Speaker 2: of buy in and inroads with a lot of right
Speaker 2: wing culture war gun figures, like they have outreached more
Speaker 2: or two like fascist types than most because most big
Speaker 2: gun you go to, like SIGs Hour, sig Hour is
Speaker 2: not going to sponsor a Nazi type adjacent person or
Speaker 2: a Christian nationalist gun type person because they they do
Speaker 2: big contracts, right, like Daniel Defense has has gone out
Speaker 2: on a limb with some like real assholes.
Speaker 6: It's weird because they didn't used to be like that
Speaker 6: as well. Like even like five years ago, Daniel Defense
Speaker 6: was was typically like one of the more apolitical not
Speaker 6: a political but like very like less partisan gun companies.
Speaker 6: I remember when we were first talking about about like
Speaker 6: different gun brands back in like twenty twenty, it was
Speaker 6: definitely it was definitely different and they made some small
Speaker 6: shifts in the past few years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it may just have been that just everything was
Speaker 2: a little bit less politicized than in that space. I
Speaker 2: don't I don't know if I don't know enough about
Speaker 2: the company in the back end, but it I'm not
Speaker 2: surprised that they were sponsoring and it you know, the
Speaker 2: thing they were sponsoring was the US Concealed Carry Association
Speaker 2: both which offers like insurance for people who have concealed
Speaker 2: handgun license and the like. But they were doing a
Speaker 2: free AR fifteen giveaway, which is definitely, some would say
Speaker 2: in bad taste after what happened to the president. To
Speaker 2: be honest, no one would have thought about it at all.
Speaker 2: I kind of think it's like you are the people
Speaker 2: that you are.
Speaker 6: No, you know, I don't think anyone thought twice about
Speaker 6: that note whatsoever.
Speaker 2: And by God, I signed up to win the guns,
Speaker 2: so me too, I did not, Ah, Sophie, we could
Speaker 2: have had an extra attempt.
Speaker 4: Sorry not sorry.
Speaker 1: Was there anything today that you know, surprised you, or
Speaker 1: like a feeling you had that was like unexpected or
Speaker 1: anything like that.
Speaker 3: Not.
Speaker 2: I had a long conversation with the older lady who
Speaker 2: was a delegate from Texas. We talked about because she
Speaker 2: she first kind of wanted to know is press. She
Speaker 2: asked like, basically, are you liars? And in a nice
Speaker 2: old lady way, right.
Speaker 4: Yes, Yes, that's that's the we basically had that.
Speaker 3: We had the same conversation.
Speaker 2: You know where I come from. You know, there's truth
Speaker 2: and there's lies, and like one is real and one isn't.
Speaker 2: I was like, well, you know, I've been in a
Speaker 2: lot of situations where different people have different recollections of
Speaker 2: the same event, and like, I don't know because I
Speaker 2: wasn't there, like who's telling the truth? So you just
Speaker 2: kind of try to gather as So we got onto
Speaker 2: the subject of religion, and her attitude was that people
Speaker 2: should be free to do whatever they want to do,
Speaker 2: more or less, but they should have to admit it's bad,
Speaker 2: which was interesting as a take. I hadn't really heard
Speaker 2: that one before, where she was like, well, you know,
Speaker 2: my husband likes to do stuff that's not godly, but
Speaker 2: he just says it's bad. And I don't think that
Speaker 2: gay people should be punished by the law, but I
Speaker 2: think that people should have to say that it's bad.
Speaker 2: And that was a peculiar stance to run into. You know,
Speaker 2: her attitude on Trump was that he was a fundamentally
Speaker 2: honest and good man. She didn't think he was perfect.
Speaker 2: You know, she knows she's done some shady things because
Speaker 2: he's a businessman, right, but she thinks he's basically really good.
Speaker 2: It was interesting like hearing her kind of lay some
Speaker 2: things out that way her. We talked about trans issues,
Speaker 2: and she is fully convinced that little kids are getting
Speaker 2: mutilated all the time with transgender surgeris. But I asked, like,
Speaker 2: what if a twenty two year old or a twenty
Speaker 2: four year old wants to get on hormones and she
Speaker 2: or a gender you know, transition surgery. And she was like, well,
Speaker 2: an adult should be able to do whatever they want, which
Speaker 2: is interesting. That is interesting, but yeah, you know, from
Speaker 2: a lady in her eighties or whatnot. Like, we had
Speaker 2: a relatively pleasant conversation even though she is clearly someone
Speaker 2: who thinks that Christianity should be the law of the
Speaker 2: land and the official religion of the state, and everybody
Speaker 2: should have to acknowledge that Christians are right. That was interesting.
Speaker 2: I'm always fascinated by actually like trying to drill down
Speaker 2: with people at these events, what they believe in, how
Speaker 2: much of the rhetoric that, like we see online is
Speaker 2: specifically transferred over to them, And when you get right
Speaker 2: down to it, they often believe in a lot of
Speaker 2: like the heart like you know, believe that there are
Speaker 2: kids being mutilated or whatever. But also a lot of
Speaker 2: the rhetoric you get around, like well we need to
Speaker 2: make it I legal to believe other things isn't as
Speaker 2: widely shared. Although I don't think that lady would actually
Speaker 2: fight against or have any real issue with people so
Speaker 2: people people being criminalized for not being Christian, it's just
Speaker 2: clearly not her primary focus either.
Speaker 1: Besides the mistrust of media and press. The conversation that
Speaker 1: Gary and I had with the other woman, she was
Speaker 1: giving her version of, you know, her opinion on Rob
Speaker 1: Wade in abortion and things like that, and one of
Speaker 1: the things she said to us was when she found
Speaker 1: out that we lived in Portland at a time, she
Speaker 1: was like, what was like living in a city with liberals?
Speaker 1: And I think that's funny and yeah, but.
Speaker 3: It's like a different species to them.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I played around with saying when people would ask
Speaker 2: where I'm from, either Texas or Portland, because both of
Speaker 2: those are technically accurate. And every time I said Portland,
Speaker 2: you got it like you can got a look. Every
Speaker 2: single time you bring up Portland you get a look.
Speaker 2: You can definitely tell that it's a shibboleth to these people. No,
Speaker 2: its something.
Speaker 6: It's like it's the city of the enemy, like it
Speaker 6: is like the representation of ego.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that was really interesting. The other thing I
Speaker 2: noticed was just saying you were media, people's attitude changed
Speaker 2: a bit. But when we mentioned that we worked for
Speaker 2: the radio station that we worked for, I think most
Speaker 2: of them have heard, because there's a lot of right
Speaker 2: wing talk radio that are technically coworkers of ours. That
Speaker 2: changed their attitudes back. And I think like radio, weirdly enough,
Speaker 2: it is registered. It's actually it makes total sense.
Speaker 3: It's like a nostalgia thing, right, Yeah, it's.
Speaker 2: Not just said it's like radio is right wing media. Sure,
Speaker 2: the right owns, particularly talk right. And I think that
Speaker 2: when we set when you say radio, when you say media,
Speaker 2: they start to think one thing. But when you say radio,
Speaker 2: that's not something that people have a negative attitude.
Speaker 6: Not tied like the coastal eleitism of like newspapers, TV, channels. Yes,
Speaker 6: speaking of coastal elitism, here's these ads brought to you
Speaker 6: by companies probably based on one of the coasts, maybe not,
Speaker 6: maybe a Midwest company.
Speaker 2: God, I hope not, because the Midwest. Again, it doesn't
Speaker 2: sell liquor at Woodsman's after after midnight.
Speaker 4: Or twenty for our grocery store. Let us have some alcoholic?
Speaker 2: What is wrong with you people?
Speaker 3: Okay, we are back.
Speaker 2: We're back. So at the end of this we are
Speaker 2: going to talk about the assassination attempt on former President Trump.
Speaker 2: More has happened since Monday, so we're going to catch
Speaker 2: you up on what we're thinking about that and kind
Speaker 2: of the conclusions that we've droven. We wanted to talk
Speaker 2: a little bit about. One last thing are the convention,
Speaker 2: which is kind of what we're expecting for the coming days. Tomorrow.
Speaker 2: There's an AI panel there is there is is.
Speaker 3: Women in AI, Women and Democracy.
Speaker 2: God Microsoft sponsored by Microsoft, so that's going to be great.
Speaker 6: There's there's a number of other interesting panels. Unfortunately, all
Speaker 6: of the Turning Point USA panels are closed to press.
Speaker 3: Real bummer. Another another event that.
Speaker 6: Is closer press is about two or three times every
Speaker 6: day there is a film screening of a new Ronald
Speaker 6: Reagan movie. Start Reagan the Movie, Reagan the Movie starring
Speaker 6: Join Voyd, which we've received some free merch for.
Speaker 3: We have these wonderful hats made in totally totally fine military, totally.
Speaker 6: Fine, totally chill. That's going to be showing every single day,
Speaker 6: multiple times. Also closed depress. So that's unfortunate. Yeah, there's
Speaker 6: rumors and talk that Trump might make an early appearance,
Speaker 6: that he might. They might try to secure the nomination
Speaker 6: a little bit early, just so he gets extra secrets
Speaker 6: detailed because of weird laws.
Speaker 4: Interesting.
Speaker 1: Some of the speakers that are supposed to come are
Speaker 1: Nikki Hayley, Jadie Vance, Ricky Rubio for me, Ricky.
Speaker 7: That's an NBA player from Spain, Marco Rubio suicide.
Speaker 2: I wish the Ricky Rubio from Spain was the Vice President.
Speaker 4: Spain was coming.
Speaker 7: He's so sorry.
Speaker 2: I guess he doesn't know much about our laws. That said,
Speaker 2: neither is jd Vance putting.
Speaker 3: Ron's gonna make an appearance.
Speaker 2: Good old Pudding Ron.
Speaker 1: Interesting to me, but to neither of you had any
Speaker 1: name recognition. But Ember Rose is going to speak.
Speaker 2: I don't know that who used to I'm at the
Speaker 2: Republican Convention. I got to blend in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she used to.
Speaker 1: I don't know if she curly does, but she used
Speaker 1: to run a thing called slut Walk in l A
Speaker 1: and dated Kanye West. Anyways, I guess it makes a
Speaker 1: little more sense when you add the Kanye Wes to it.
Speaker 4: But she's speaking.
Speaker 2: Kanye y if we were like nothing, nothing about what
Speaker 2: she's doing could surprise me now.
Speaker 1: And like all the Trump relatives are speaking besides Ivanka anyways,
Speaker 1: because she's not participating this time around for her kids.
Speaker 3: Good for her.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's good, although I don't know if she
Speaker 2: doesn't participate enough, she might wind up on a golf
Speaker 2: course too.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: Dark Anyways, I'm just saying he did it speaking of that,
Speaker 1: speaking of death. Oh no, no, sorry, bad transition. Anyways,
Speaker 1: It's gonna be great. Guys, super super super optimistic about
Speaker 1: everyone's worried about it.
Speaker 2: It's it's it's it's pretty chill. There were some protests,
Speaker 2: but the only protests were people that.
Speaker 1: Were complaining that the that the GOP was not pro
Speaker 1: life enough.
Speaker 2: I talked about this when talking about kind of like
Speaker 2: fracture points that are already starting to appear in the GOP.
Speaker 2: One of the big ones is Trump removed mandatory national
Speaker 2: abortion ban from the Republican platform and there were a
Speaker 2: group of people protesting out in front of the R
Speaker 2: and say very angry about that.
Speaker 7: Yep.
Speaker 2: Most of the people who I heard a couple of
Speaker 2: people talking about them, seem to think they were idiots,
Speaker 2: which is interesting. Yeah, had that experience.
Speaker 6: Yeah, only protests we've seen so far as people from
Speaker 6: as people farther farther to the right on certain issues.
Speaker 2: People lose, sucked even worse than the people there.
Speaker 6: I guess it won last time, but I will share
Speaker 6: that kind of segues into our next discussion involving firearm.
Speaker 6: So I had I had a little room mix up
Speaker 6: with the with the with another with some like North
Speaker 6: Dakota delegate because we have the same last name. So
Speaker 6: we got our rooms switched. So I was just sitting
Speaker 6: on my laptop working and this this guy you know,
Speaker 6: scans in and starts opening the door.
Speaker 3: It's like, oh, sorry, I didn't realize, you know. Blah
Speaker 3: blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 6: We figured it out we were both So then we
Speaker 6: got in the elevator, both to go down to the
Speaker 6: front desk, like get this sorted. And he remarks to
Speaker 6: me saying, well, I'm I'm sure glad you weren't packing
Speaker 6: when I when I busted in the hotel room, and
Speaker 6: I'm like, yeah, yeah, I guess. And it's just it
Speaker 6: was just a fascinating little glimpse that like that was
Speaker 6: the first thing that came into his mind. Is that
Speaker 6: if someone opens your hotel room door, is that.
Speaker 3: You're gonna You're just gonna start blast. You're just gonna
Speaker 3: start blasted.
Speaker 6: Like that was that was that was like It's like
Speaker 6: immediate thought, is that the good thing, good thing you
Speaker 6: didn't have your gun on you, And like there was
Speaker 6: just such like an assumption of that's like of like
Speaker 6: that it is like the correct thing to do. Yeah,
Speaker 6: is if you if you see your door you start
Speaker 6: to get opened, you just start firing away. And I
Speaker 6: found that to be a really really interesting moment. Speaking
Speaker 6: of firearms.
Speaker 2: Speaking of firearms, let's talk about that dude who shot
Speaker 2: the president and then got barely and also killed that
Speaker 2: guy whose Twitter presence wasn't great. Yeah, So I want
Speaker 2: to talk about the shooting a little bit because we're
Speaker 2: we're now at the point where some stuff has started
Speaker 2: to settle out, and we we have. It's at the
Speaker 2: point where I think it's very unlikely we are going
Speaker 2: to find much more on his social media. It would
Speaker 2: have been found by now based on the way these
Speaker 2: things work. Could be a manifesto somewhere, could be a
Speaker 2: treasure show of info somewhere, but I think something would
Speaker 2: have come out about it. So my guess is this
Speaker 2: is like the Vegas shooting, if you think back Stephen
Speaker 2: Paddock shooting where he killed like seventy something people at
Speaker 2: that country music show. Something that's going to be an
Speaker 2: enigma to people for a while. And it makes a
Speaker 2: lot of sense to me. I know it makes a
Speaker 2: lot of sense to you too, Garrison, and I kind
Speaker 2: of want to talk about why, because what we do
Speaker 2: know about them that is confirmed is some of their
Speaker 2: former classmates have talked depressed. Some of those classmates have said,
Speaker 2: I don't recall the shooter being particularly political. There are
Speaker 2: some people who said, no, he was really conservative. You know,
Speaker 2: when we would have like class debates, he would sometimes
Speaker 2: be the only guy on like the right wing side
Speaker 2: of it, you know, arguing a point or whatever. But
Speaker 2: no one seemed to say that he was like weirdly right,
Speaker 2: like he was conservative the way that like right wing
Speaker 2: ca in a school are, but not in a way
Speaker 2: that people are like, oh, that kid's a fucking.
Speaker 6: Notze in a way that makes you just kind of
Speaker 6: like antisocial, alienated, because.
Speaker 2: Yes, and he was not a very social kid. Some
Speaker 2: people say he was bullied. Most kids are. I was,
Speaker 2: you know, bullied, So I don't know that he was
Speaker 2: exceptionally bullied. He tried out once for the school rifle team,
Speaker 2: was not very good. Was so bad they didn't let
Speaker 2: him try out again, which is interesting.
Speaker 4: You were hunting geared a class gear.
Speaker 3: It's like it's like real tree camo.
Speaker 6: We're in the Midwest, Like that's not that's not uncommon,
Speaker 6: not wildly weird. He's in Pennsylvania, but still in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2: It was nothing that really set anyone off. But it
Speaker 2: is also like all pretty conservative stuff. And just like
Speaker 2: the the gun YouTube channel, who's wearing a Demolition Ranch shirt.
Speaker 2: Demolition Ranches probably the largest gun YouTube channel. They are
Speaker 2: effectively like a media company, like they're a small media empire,
Speaker 2: but they're also you know, they're definitely conservative. Some of
Speaker 2: the guys who work at that company you can tell
Speaker 2: associate with further right guys. But the videos they go, yeah,
Speaker 2: they their videos are relatively free of politics because they're
Speaker 2: big enough that that's bad for their business, right.
Speaker 6: Really, they don't indulge in like partisan politics or like
Speaker 6: political opinion.
Speaker 7: It is.
Speaker 2: It's not like there are guys like there's a guy
Speaker 2: like named Lewis Botkin who does a lot of videos
Speaker 2: where he will be doing like literally assassination drills or
Speaker 2: he's basically planning to like murder people in their cars.
Speaker 6: Or people who you know, pepper their videos with like
Speaker 6: anti trans joke rights, which we're seeing lots more of.
Speaker 2: This is this was not that, And I'm not saying that.
Speaker 2: Some people on Twitter when I bring this up get
Speaker 2: like angry, being like you're trying to protect the concern. No,
Speaker 2: I don't care about that. I'm just saying, this isn't
Speaker 2: the shirt you wear if you want to signal that
Speaker 2: you're like far right. This is the shirt you wear
Speaker 2: if you're kind of into guns but maybe not very
Speaker 2: good with them, right, Like it's just kind of a
Speaker 2: very hobbyist. Yes, yes, it means about as much as
Speaker 2: a guy wearing a John Wick t shirt right like
Speaker 2: that that is kind of the level of that that
Speaker 2: like of what that implies more or less. So I
Speaker 2: guess kind of where we're standing is when we think
Speaker 2: about why he did this, and that's the question everybody's
Speaker 2: kind of asking. I don't get the feeling that this
Speaker 2: guy was motivated by what most people call politics. I
Speaker 2: think he was a guy who was certainly more on
Speaker 2: the conservative end of things. I don't get the hint
Speaker 2: that he thought Trump was a dictator he needed to stop.
Speaker 2: I don't get the hint he may have been an
Speaker 2: accelerationist and that he thought that this would push some
Speaker 2: sort of civil war to completion, and you know that
Speaker 2: that would go well for the right. That's not impossible,
Speaker 2: but I haven't seen any evidence of that.
Speaker 1: The most interesting that you said to me about it, Robert,
Speaker 1: and I think Gary, you also said the same thing
Speaker 1: as like he was local, this was local, it was convenient.
Speaker 2: I think the feeling I get is that if Biden
Speaker 2: had showed up, he would have taken a shot at Biden.
Speaker 6: I think that the model that we can look at
Speaker 6: this is the same model people have used for a
Speaker 6: lot of school shootings. There is a degree of like apathetic,
Speaker 6: a degree of just like suicidal action, and a degree
Speaker 6: of wanting to make some kind of impact, wanting to
Speaker 6: do some kind of thing that gains a sense of
Speaker 6: like infamy, and school shootings simply just don't do that anymore.
Speaker 6: Mass shootings don't really do that anymore.
Speaker 2: You could kill five or six people, ten people at
Speaker 2: a grocery store, doesn't move the needle.
Speaker 6: I believe there's a decent chance based on kind of
Speaker 6: the very like unpolitical online presence this guy has had,
Speaker 6: including from his discord account, there's just simply no evidence
Speaker 6: he was like he had any kind of real political motivation,
Speaker 6: and instead all of what we've heard about his behavior
Speaker 6: and his politics seemed just way more similar to the
Speaker 6: profiles of mass shooters. And this I think the Trump
Speaker 6: thing was was a convenient was a measure of convenience
Speaker 6: having this happened in your hometown. I think it possibly
Speaker 6: could be justice likely if Joe Biden was doing a rolly,
Speaker 6: he might have tried the same thing. I don't think
Speaker 6: this was any more politically targeted than that, because we
Speaker 6: simply don't have any evidence to suggest that, and the
Speaker 6: few evidence we do have matches up with a lot
Speaker 6: of the profiles of these older kind of like more
Speaker 6: like Columbine style mass shootings.
Speaker 2: This seems like a Columbiner more than anything Columbine. There's
Speaker 2: been well over one hundred different mass shootings inspired by
Speaker 2: that mass shooting. And the thing overwhelmingly that that occurs
Speaker 2: to me just with what we get about this kid
Speaker 2: is I would if I had to describe his politics
Speaker 2: as relates to this shooting, It's not he's a right
Speaker 2: winger or a left winger. His politics are. He's a
Speaker 2: mass shooter.
Speaker 3: Yes, right.
Speaker 2: This is a guy who worships the probably did to
Speaker 2: some extent, was obsessed with the aesthetics of mass shootings.
Speaker 2: This was a guy who wanted, yeah, to be famous,
Speaker 2: and he saw an opportunity to do it in a place.
Speaker 3: Where he wanted books, and this was the only way.
Speaker 2: And he did. He'll be in him, you know, And
Speaker 2: I'm what that means because we had a way. We've
Speaker 2: had a wave for years of people doing mass shootings
Speaker 2: in public places because it used to get you into
Speaker 2: the history books. Not anymore, not anymore. This kid is
Speaker 2: in the history books now. And I kind of wonder
Speaker 2: if this is going to lead to a shift in
Speaker 2: the people who have previously been shooting up schools and
Speaker 2: grocery stores going Well, if I want to get noticed,
Speaker 2: shooting up a school won't do it. But if I
Speaker 2: take a shot at insert political candidate, please see good service.
Speaker 2: This is theoretical.
Speaker 6: I think this action reminds me of a great deal.
Speaker 6: Is like this feels more similar to like the John
Speaker 6: Lennon shooting. Honestly, like that is that is I think
Speaker 6: a much a much closer model. And I think a
Speaker 6: lot of people who are viewing this as political violence
Speaker 6: have find this to be a very confusing incident, and
Speaker 6: I don't think it's useful to view it the way
Speaker 6: that we typically view political violence. I think it's much close.
Speaker 6: I think it's it's much more understandable as being a
Speaker 6: kin to something like Colin Buying, the Las Vegas shooting,
Speaker 6: the John Lennon shooting.
Speaker 2: And when you bring that up to people, it makes
Speaker 2: them angry because it's a shooting of Donald Trump, the
Speaker 2: most politicized man who maybe has ever lived in the
Speaker 2: most politicized election of anyone's lifetimes. And people get really
Speaker 2: angry when you suggest this might not have been political
Speaker 2: in the way that you want to conceive of politics
Speaker 2: because they want it to fit into even if it's
Speaker 2: a scary box, a box that makes sense. And there's
Speaker 2: something so alien about a guy who this was just
Speaker 2: the best way for me to be to die and
Speaker 2: be remembered. Is so different.
Speaker 3: And and this guy is younger than I am.
Speaker 2: Twenty.
Speaker 6: Trump, for him has been a forever character of politics.
Speaker 2: He was twelve. He's just when the campaigns.
Speaker 6: A political character. This is just someone who represents what
Speaker 6: politics is. Yeah, He's not like an abnormal, you know,
Speaker 6: fascist threat the same way that people who've studied poblics
Speaker 6: for a long time can view Trump's storically being like, oh,
Speaker 6: this is like a worrying trend. This is just like
Speaker 6: what regular politics.
Speaker 3: Are to people younger than me. Mm hm.
Speaker 6: So I think that's also another interesting way to view it,
Speaker 6: when it's like this is just like this is just
Speaker 6: who you grew up with as being the guy.
Speaker 3: This is just the guy.
Speaker 2: And you know, we started this talking about why it
Speaker 2: seemed like, at least from the conversations we were having,
Speaker 2: the assassination attempt was such a mild topic or such
Speaker 2: a non topic or the people we met, And I
Speaker 2: wonder if some of it is confusion about what it means.
Speaker 3: This isn't this clearly isn't like an antifa guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it wasn't. It was an antifa guy. It wasn't
Speaker 2: you know, a trans person with blue hair, Right, it
Speaker 2: wasn't something that fit into their.
Speaker 3: Areage, like probably a lot of people's like grandkids.
Speaker 6: Yeah, right, Like, because most people here are considered considered older.
Speaker 2: Wearing a gun T shirt that probably a third of
Speaker 2: the people in this have or at least they watched the.
Speaker 6: Channel, right, isn't that is an interesting way to view
Speaker 6: it is that the mass shooter looks like a lot
Speaker 6: of these people's like grandkids. That that is an interesting aspect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, anyway, folks, I hope this has been enlightening.
Speaker 2: This is just the start of our week. So we're
Speaker 2: in for five more days that I'm sure each will
Speaker 2: be a worse time than the last. We're all going
Speaker 2: to go to sleep now.
Speaker 4: And never go to Woodbans ever again.
Speaker 2: No, but we're going to find a place to get
Speaker 2: liquor tomorrow. I promise you that. God, gentlemen and garrisons, it.
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Speaker 4: Thanks for listening.