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Speaker 1: Also media.

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Speaker 2: Robert Evans here and I just finished committing a light

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Speaker 2: form of tree genocide on some invasive trees that live

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Speaker 2: in my sideyard called the trees of Paradise. If you've

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Speaker 2: ever encountered one of these trees, go murder it right now.

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Speaker 2: Stop your podcast. Kill that tree. If it's on your

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Speaker 2: neighbor's property, knock down their fence, do whatever you have

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Speaker 2: to do to get to that tree, kill it, kill

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Speaker 2: them all. Garrison Davis, Welcome to the show.

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Speaker 3: Hello, thank you.

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Speaker 2: Do you hate the tree of Paradise? Garrison?

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Speaker 3: I remember some struggles years ago, but my problems have escalated.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the tree that smells like yeast when you cut

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Speaker 2: it down and grows forever and very quickly. It's the devil.

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Speaker 2: It's the evil tree.

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Speaker 3: No, Luckily there's no trees on the East coast, so

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Speaker 3: that's problem.

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Speaker 2: They got rid of all the trees. Not as much

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Speaker 2: of a joke as we'd like it to be. Oh,

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Speaker 2: they've been growing back over the last two hundred years.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, they did kill all the old growth a

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Speaker 2: while ago. Garrison, speaking of killing the planet, You know

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Speaker 2: who loves to kill the planet?

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Speaker 3: Billionaires? I guess I don't know, fascists, billionaires, that whole area.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean billionaires, fascists, and the political party that

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Speaker 2: they largely use for a lot of their dirty work,

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Speaker 2: their Republican Party. This week, we're talking about a guy

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Speaker 2: who is responsible for kind of breaking politics in a

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Speaker 2: major way in the United States. He played a huge

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Speaker 2: role in getting Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush elected,

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Speaker 2: and he pioneered a kind of polling called push polling

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Speaker 2: that's like one of the most toxic methods of doing

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Speaker 2: you know, dirty tricks campaign ads to this day. This

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Speaker 2: is kind of the guy who invented the way modern

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Speaker 2: presidential elections work. He's a fella named Lee Atwater and

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Speaker 2: he was a strategist for the Republican Party. Have you

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Speaker 2: heard of this guy.

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Speaker 3: I've heard of the name. I feel like it's one

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Speaker 3: of those like Roger Stone types. Yes, probably like a

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Speaker 3: combined him with a few other people yet, but don't

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Speaker 3: have a clear idea like who this guy is. But

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Speaker 3: it's like one of the it's like somewhere like in

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Speaker 3: that rolodex of guy.

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Speaker 2: Yes, he's very close to Roger Stone. He was much

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Speaker 2: smarter and better at his job like Roger Stone, kind

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Speaker 2: of drafted a lot off of Lee's accomplishments. The thing

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Speaker 2: Lee is. One of the things Lee is most known

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Speaker 2: for is his protege was Carl Rove, George W. Bush's

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Speaker 2: campaign manager. Like, he was the guy who got Carl

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Speaker 2: Rove his start and taught him everything he knows, the

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Speaker 2: guy who George W. Bush nicknamed turd Blossom. That's that's

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Speaker 2: that's a true story, Garrison, And that was a compliment.

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Speaker 3: I can't believe our president would pick demeaning names for

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Speaker 3: his friends, the slash enemies. This is crazy.

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Speaker 2: It was not meant to be anyway. That's another story

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Speaker 2: for another day when we do the Carl Rove episodes.

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Speaker 2: But this guy Lee Atwater is one of my slept

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Speaker 2: on Like, if you had a time machine, who would

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Speaker 2: you go back and assassinate guys like not only I'm

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Speaker 2: going after Atwater. Yes, wow, I see how you feel

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Speaker 2: about this.

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Speaker 3: What do you think the trickle down effects of that

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Speaker 3: are going to be? Well, you know, you never know

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Speaker 3: when you go back in time and assassin this is

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Speaker 3: what you know about time travel?

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Speaker 2: Yes, Like I went back in time and assassinated you know,

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Speaker 2: Super Hitler, and we just got regular Hitler. And now

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Speaker 2: everybody thinks regular Hitler was just as bad as Super Hitler.

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Speaker 2: Trust me, Super Hitler was much worse than regular Hitler.

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Speaker 2: But you know, it turns out it's Hitler's all the

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Speaker 2: way down. If you keep Hill and Hitler's you just

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Speaker 2: get different versions of Hitler's. Anyway, a little bit of

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Speaker 2: time travel information for those of you out there looking

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Speaker 2: to go back in time and kill regular Hitler. Someone

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Speaker 2: already did it.

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Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, that is kind of what happens in Terminator, right, yes, yeah.

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Speaker 2: Basically, Yeah, that's the gist of Terminator because.

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Speaker 3: I've seen like five different cg like Arnold Schwartzenaker's at

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Speaker 3: this point, so it's no matter what you take care of,

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Speaker 3: they're always going to make some deep faked version. Again.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's really the ultimate message of the Terminator movie.

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Speaker 3: My god, deep fake Hitler. When's that going to be

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Speaker 3: in a blockbuster?

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Speaker 2: That's already the Hitler we've got, Garrison, keep up it's

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Speaker 2: not the original one. Before we close out the cold open,

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Speaker 2: I would like to do a plug for a fundraiser

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Speaker 2: we're doing for the Portland Defense Fund. They bail people

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Speaker 2: out of jail and provide support to people in custody.

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Speaker 2: Most of the people they help are houseless folks who

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Speaker 2: don't have any resources to fight the cases against them.

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Speaker 2: If you go to donorbox dot org, if you type

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Speaker 2: in Defense Fund PDX donor box, you'll find their donor

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Speaker 2: box page and that would help a lot. They could

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Speaker 2: use the donations and their venmo is at Defense Fund PDX.

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Speaker 2: So please help them out. All right, that's the end

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Speaker 2: of the cold open. We're back. So we're talking about

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Speaker 2: Lee Atwater who was born Harvey Leroy at Water, and

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Speaker 2: he would always describe his upbringing, his family background as

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Speaker 2: the middle of the middle class. Now whenever a high

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Speaker 2: ranking political strategist kind of guy that I came from

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Speaker 2: the very middle of the middle He.

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Speaker 3: Was a pretty wealthy. Yeah, top we'll say top of

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Speaker 3: the middle. He wasn't rich, but top of the middle class. Comfortable.

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Speaker 2: He and he and both his mom and his dad, know,

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Speaker 2: like their family origins in the United States going back

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Speaker 2: two hundred and something years, which is not like the

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Speaker 2: norm for an American, Right, It's a little more normal

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Speaker 2: in these kind of like Carolina families than it is

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Speaker 2: in say Oregon.

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Speaker 3: But this is not you know, with like the twenty

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Speaker 3: three and me stuff where you can like find it.

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Speaker 2: But but yeah, no, and it's they know their relatives

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Speaker 2: because they had famous answer.

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Speaker 3: They have like a family lineage, right right.

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Speaker 2: His mother was Toddy Page. She got the name Toddy

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Speaker 2: because she toddled around as a kid, I think, and

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Speaker 2: she trades. It's a very like fucking middle twentieth century

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Speaker 2: wife name, Yeah, Todty.

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Speaker 3: Uh.

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Speaker 2: She traced her family line back to a Revolutionary War

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Speaker 2: hero named Alexander Craighead. His descendants married into a North

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Speaker 2: Carolina family and migrated down to South Carolina, where they

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Speaker 2: ultimately produced Gabriel Cannon Page, who became postmaster for the

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Speaker 2: state and was the first Republican politician in the family.

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Speaker 2: And this is back when the Republicans were unequivocally the

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Speaker 2: good guys. We were talking about like reconstruction era.

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Speaker 3: Right eighteen eighteen seventies or something.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they were talk about like I think, I think

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Speaker 2: he starts before the Civil War. But yeah, this is

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Speaker 2: like around the period when like they're definitely the good guys.

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Speaker 2: He has his son called Leroy, which is where our

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Speaker 2: Lee Atwater takes his name from, who's born in eighteen

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Speaker 2: ninety one, and as a teenager, is permanently maimed, has

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Speaker 2: his leg fucked up forever in a horse drawn wagon accident.

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Speaker 2: You know it's going to be a good episode when

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Speaker 2: we get a wagon accident right off the bat, like

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Speaker 2: a load bearing wagon accident.

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Speaker 3: This is this is important.

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Speaker 2: This is an important wagon accident. I'll tell you why

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Speaker 2: in a minute now. Like most twenty year olds, in

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Speaker 2: nineteen eleven, he elopes with a sixteen year old named Irene.

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Speaker 2: He moves I don't know, like a town over. It's

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Speaker 2: not hard to elope back then, and he becomes a

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Speaker 2: mailman like his father. He's able to support his siblings

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Speaker 2: through the depression because he's the only page with a

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Speaker 2: stable job, and his family recalls that because he's got

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Speaker 2: this busted leg. He used to be a very active

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Speaker 2: guy and he can't be physically active after his leg

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Speaker 2: gets fucked up, and he compensates by becoming a really

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Speaker 2: good storyteller. He's just spellbinding. He's so good that he

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Speaker 2: publishes a volume of tales from his childhood as a book,

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Speaker 2: which I mean a guests are like partly true given

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Speaker 2: his descendants, but he's got the gift of gab and

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Speaker 2: He's going to like pass this on to his kids,

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Speaker 2: and it's going to become a thing that the men

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Speaker 2: in the Page family are known for as being like

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Speaker 2: really smooth talkers, right, really good at telling stories. Like

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Speaker 2: his father, he grows up to be an extreme partisan Republican.

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Speaker 2: In the book Bad Boy, a biography of Lee Atwater,

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Speaker 2: John Brady writes the Pages were Republicans in an era

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Speaker 2: where there was no Republican party in South Carolina. In

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Speaker 2: nineteen thirty two, when the framed portrait of FDR replaced

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Speaker 2: the picture of Herbert Hoover in the classrooms of Spartanburg,

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Speaker 2: there was enthusiastic applause from all but the Page children,

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Speaker 2: who sat on their hands. Es why the worms turned?

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Speaker 4: Why is the book called bad Boy.

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Speaker 2: Because that's his favorite song, Sophie. We'll be getting to

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Speaker 2: Lee at Water in a little bit, and his his

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Speaker 2: love of R and B.

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Speaker 3: Don't you worry, oh boy, this is this is the

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Speaker 3: beginning of the of the little switcheroo. Yes, regard like

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Speaker 3: not like a real switcheroo, but like with like shifting

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Speaker 3: shifting politics.

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Speaker 2: I guess right right, and you're seeing also shifting racial

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Speaker 2: politics like this is around the time when black voters

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Speaker 2: stop voting for Republicans and start voting for Democrats, and

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Speaker 2: you can kind of see the party this is now.

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Speaker 2: The party has gone from like the Party of Lincoln,

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Speaker 2: violently opposed to slavery and supporting at least more equality

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Speaker 2: than the other party, when they're like, fdr that fucking

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Speaker 2: communist right, like, things of things have changed. The pages

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Speaker 2: make sure that all of their children grow up voracious readers,

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Speaker 2: and they were in the we'd call them helicopter parents today. Right,

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Speaker 2: They're obsessively concerned with their kids that even their daughter's educations,

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Speaker 2: they're studying their homework, They're like quizzing them and stuff.

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Speaker 2: They're unusually involved in their education for parents of this

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Speaker 2: period of time. And most of Toddy's elders lived to

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Speaker 2: their nineties, so she raises her kids with the expectation

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Speaker 2: that you guys are going to live long lives. Right,

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Speaker 2: it's traditional for her relatives to make it into their nineties.

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Speaker 2: That is a little bit of foreshadowing.

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Speaker 3: Damn, all these fucking guys just live forever. I swear to.

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Speaker 2: God, Garrison, I'm so happy about where this story ends,

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Speaker 2: not where it middles, but where it ends for that reason.

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Speaker 2: So Lee's father is heart. We talked about his mom,

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Speaker 2: which is the Page family. His father obviously is where

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Speaker 2: he gets the Atwater name. His dad's name is Harvey Atwater,

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Speaker 2: and like the Pages, the Atwaters are one of those

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Speaker 2: families who can trace their lineage back to the birth

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Speaker 2: of the country and in fact beyond. David Atwater was

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Speaker 2: the first member of the family to flee England for

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Speaker 2: the New World, and he landed in New Haven, Connecticut

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Speaker 2: in sixteen thirty seven. He and his wife had ten children,

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Speaker 2: and the Atwater family historian, because they have one of those,

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Speaker 2: wrote that and quote their children and grand children endured

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Speaker 2: as many hardships, felled, as many trees, fought as many Indians,

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Speaker 2: burned as many witches, and tossed over as much tea,

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Speaker 2: and were as good all round pilgrim fathers and mothers

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Speaker 2: as if grandfather David had arrived in the Mayflower in

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Speaker 2: sixteen twenty.

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Speaker 3: Good, all around great.

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Speaker 2: What an incredible sentence.

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Speaker 3: So he's They're one of those families. They're one of

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Speaker 3: those families like Capital Tea.

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Speaker 2: Those yeah, those families, And it's very funny. They're the

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Speaker 2: kind of family that because again his David Atwater arrives

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Speaker 2: in sixteen thirty seven, the Mayflower I's in sixteen twenty,

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Speaker 2: and the family historing is like, well, I have to

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Speaker 2: come up with an excuse for they're as good basically

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Speaker 2: as the people who arrived at sixteen twenty, right, because

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Speaker 2: that's a big difference to us. Like the fact that

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Speaker 2: we didn't quite make it onto the Mayflower is something

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Speaker 2: that our family takes shit for. Oh, you guys got

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Speaker 2: her seventeen years later.

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Speaker 3: They're still trying to make up for it. Yeah, this

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Speaker 3: has been a stain on our family history four centuries.

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Speaker 2: Why wasn't he born seventeen years earlier?

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Speaker 3: Goddamn it, David, we really did not want the second

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Speaker 3: generation Pilgrim had.

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Speaker 2: No, no, it's even second. But like now daily lace

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Speaker 2: late lace first, And to be fair, David does do

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Speaker 2: something to kind of make up for not making it

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Speaker 2: onto the Mayflower, which is that he helps to found Yale.

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Speaker 2: So again, this is the melon guy class the at Waters. Now,

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Speaker 2: his great grandson Russell is wounded during the Revolutionary War

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Speaker 2: and years later this is one of the weirdest stories

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Speaker 2: related to his family. So Russell is a Revolutionary War veteran.

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Speaker 2: And then years later when Napoleon Bonaparte goes into exile,

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Speaker 2: Napoleon's like, I think I can escape from this island

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Speaker 2: and I might make it to the New World, And

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Speaker 2: for whatever reason, he contracts with Russell to buy land

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Speaker 2: in New York State as a potential place for Napoleon

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Speaker 2: Bonaparte to retire if he escapes, which so cool. What

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Speaker 2: a wild thing that would be. If there's just like, yeah,

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Speaker 2: and that's Napoleon's house outside of Schenectady.

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Speaker 3: God, that would be fun.

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Speaker 2: I don't know if it was Schenectady, worrybot, it was

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Speaker 2: somewhere in New York State, But yeah, Napoleon was thinking

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Speaker 2: about retiring to New York, like Lee Pace.

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Speaker 3: Really two of history's giant.

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Speaker 2: Two of history's giants, only one of them in the

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Speaker 2: literal sense. So again we're not talking about super rich

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Speaker 2: old money, but we are talking about both families are

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Speaker 2: about as close as the US gets to aristocracy, right.

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Speaker 2: They have proud histories and they've got connections that go

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Speaker 2: back generations to local politics and government in the Carolinas.

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Speaker 2: And this is the legacy that Leroy Atwater, our Lee

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Speaker 2: Atwater was born to inherit when he came into the

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Speaker 2: world on February twenty seventh, nineteen fifty one, in Atlanta, Georgia.

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Speaker 2: I A, that's how you guys say it, right.

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Speaker 3: Yes, that is the pronunciation.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you, just making sure so the Reddit

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Speaker 2: doesn't come after me again. So at the time of

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Speaker 2: his birth, his.

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Speaker 3: Model it's Atlanta at that like the AT symbol.

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Speaker 2: Like that's how Yeah. So at the time of his birth,

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Speaker 2: his mother was a teacher and his father, Harvey, was

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Speaker 2: an insurance adjuster. Lee was born. Yes, I hardly know

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Speaker 2: her even we should have done that for Atwater Garrison.

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Speaker 3: What I thought about it? I don't I'm off my

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Speaker 3: game today.

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Speaker 2: It's okay. None of this is going as planned. We

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Speaker 2: had a little mix up before recording. So Lee is

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Speaker 2: born like three weeks premature, and as a result, he's

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Speaker 2: got like nervous twitches. He spasms constantly, right as like

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Speaker 2: a little kid. He like shakes and his legs are

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Speaker 2: constantly twitching, and his parents taken to the doctor, and

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Speaker 2: the doctor I don't know if this is what's actually wrong,

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Speaker 2: because if we're talking the fifties with the doctor, probably

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Speaker 2: while smoking a cigarette, it's still drunk from the night before,

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Speaker 2: is like, oh yeah, it's nervous systems not finished cooking.

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Speaker 2: Just let him finish, he'll be fine. I don't I

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Speaker 2: don't know that that's what happened. But he doesn't stop.

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Speaker 2: Like he always kind of has some of these like nervouses,

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Speaker 2: some issues, right, Like they'll plague him all of his life.

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Speaker 2: And as a result, Toddy is like his twenty four

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Speaker 2: to seven parent, Like she's not able to get like

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Speaker 2: a sitter because he cries anytime she leaves. He needs

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Speaker 2: like constant twenty four hour attention. He barely sleeps. He's

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Speaker 2: a sickly child right for the first couple of years

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Speaker 2: of his life.

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Speaker 4: So he is.

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Speaker 2: He's attached to his mom, and she is, by all accounts,

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Speaker 2: an extremely dedicated mother. He has trouble sleeping. He can't

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Speaker 2: stand being alone. One of the stories I read about

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Speaker 2: him as a baby is that he develops a habit

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Speaker 2: of banging his head on his crib to rock himself

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Speaker 2: to sleep, and he does it so often that he

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Speaker 2: gets like a bald spot callous on the back of

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Speaker 2: his head. So that's terrible, it's fucked up. He's this kid,

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Speaker 2: this kid's childhood is a nightmare. Actually, it's about to

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Speaker 2: get a lot worse. He has one of the worst

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Speaker 2: childhoods I've ever heard of. In one of these bastards.

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Speaker 2: For a kid who's got both of his parents and

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Speaker 2: has like a comfortable standard of living, it's it's rough.

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Speaker 2: Now Toddy is an attentive and devotive brother. His dad

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Speaker 2: is kind of a fifties dad. He's mainly working. He's

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Speaker 2: not super emotionally available, but there's nothing. I don't get

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Speaker 2: any sort of allegations that he was like abusive or

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Speaker 2: anything like that either. So you could do worse for

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Speaker 2: a fifties dad than his father. Now Lee is again,

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Speaker 2: he's he's kind of a late bloomer, but once he

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Speaker 2: starts going, once he starts growing up, he's it's kind

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Speaker 2: of like a He's kind of like a fucking rocket ship.

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Speaker 2: John Brady, his biographer, writes, Lee walked at one year,

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Speaker 2: but then he ran. He talked early and often by

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Speaker 2: two Onlookers thought he could read, but he had memorized

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Speaker 2: books his mother read to him on her lap. At

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Speaker 2: age two and a half, he could recite the Pledge

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Speaker 2: of Allegiance at the Charleston Commencement program in nursery school.

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Speaker 2: Proud Toddy made him say it for company, not great.

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Speaker 2: Not great.

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Speaker 3: That's always a bad start when they start acting like this.

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Speaker 2: And it's he The fact that from he gets praise

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Speaker 2: as a little kid for tricking adults into thinking he

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Speaker 2: can read is a lifelong pattern with Lee, right, and

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Speaker 2: he seems to be come up with the understanding that like,

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Speaker 2: all that matters is perception. People think I can do something,

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Speaker 2: It doesn't matter if I've done it or not. What

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Speaker 2: matters as I've tricked them into thinking I've done it, right, Like,

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Speaker 2: that's going to be the core of how this guy

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Speaker 2: relates to other people for his entire life. That like

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Speaker 2: lying and misleading someone into thinking that you did something

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Speaker 2: is as good as doing the thing.

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Speaker 3: Sounds like he's born for politics.

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Speaker 2: Sounds like he is born for politics. No one has

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Speaker 2: ever been more born for politics than Lee Atwater. It's remarkable. Wow, Now,

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Speaker 2: as I kind of insinuated here, his greatest asset is

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Speaker 2: his memory and his mother's attentiveness. She takes him to

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Speaker 2: museums and to historic sites constantly, and he files away

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Speaker 2: everything she in the different museum Docince tell him, which

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Speaker 2: gives his first teachers the impression that he's super well

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Speaker 2: read for a little boy. By the time he started preschool,

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Speaker 2: he had memorized all the presidents, and he's kind of

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Speaker 2: he's obscuring the fact that he can't read, and he

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Speaker 2: doesn't learn how to read or write for you know,

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Speaker 2: until later than would otherwise have been normal, because he's

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Speaker 2: kind of able to trick them. His handwriting is a legible.

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Speaker 2: It never really gets better throughout his life. Some of

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Speaker 2: this as a result of the nerve. He can't hold

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Speaker 2: a pin or a pencil properly. He's described as always

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Speaker 2: holding writing implements like chalk because he's got like these

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Speaker 2: weird nerve issues.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, he has like the big like vice grip thing

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Speaker 3: right right right, Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Which obviously that's not his fault, but that's you know,

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Speaker 2: a factor in how he comes up the way he does.

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Speaker 3: I wonder if if that caused him to like overcompensate

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Speaker 3: by working on his memory because he had these like

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Speaker 3: fine motor issues, because he had issues with reading, it

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Speaker 3: basically trained his brain that the best way for him

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Speaker 3: to process and hold information is just through sheer memorization.

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Speaker 3: I think not this like actual like like like active understanding.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that is what happens, and it's

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Speaker 2: a major factor in why he's good at the things

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Speaker 2: he's doing, because he's very fast on his feet. He's

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Speaker 2: very mentally fast on his feet, right, But he's not

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Speaker 2: a guy who really thinks through the consequences of his

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Speaker 2: actions or cares all that much. His bad coordination and

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Speaker 2: spasms are joined by a tendency to shake his legs

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Speaker 2: and work his mouth constantly. And today this would be

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Speaker 2: diagnosed with ADHD so fucking quickly, right, But we had

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Speaker 2: not invented that yet, And so her mom was just told,

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Speaker 2: he's got too much energy. You gotta tire about, you know, Meg,

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Speaker 2: I'm running around the yard a bunch. It being the fifties,

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00:18:13,920 --> 00:18:15,920
Speaker 2: his parents saw him no issue in letting him work

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Speaker 2: that energy out by wandering around town or in the

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Speaker 2: woods on his own. As a three year old, he

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00:18:20,400 --> 00:18:23,520
Speaker 2: became obsessed with Native American mythology and began dressing as

380
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Speaker 2: a stereotypical Indian chief on a daily basis, carrying a

381
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Speaker 2: real tomahawk wherever he went, because, again, it was the fifties,

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Speaker 2: and that was fine.

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Speaker 5: A little three year old him. He's got a little

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Speaker 5: axe isn't that cute? He's just swinging it around blade

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Speaker 5: razor sharp, you could shave with it. On November eighteenth,

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Speaker 5: nineteen fifty three, Lee's little brother, Joe was born.

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Speaker 2: Later. Family recollections would remember that Lee was frustrated by

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Speaker 2: the fact that his parents now had less attention to

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Speaker 2: shower on him, and he acted out, he's the oldest,

390
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Speaker 2: he's the oldest, Yes, eldest child, the oldest child, the

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Speaker 2: eldest boy, the oldest boy. And he acted well, no,

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Speaker 2: I think he's the oldest child. The o their daughter's

393
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Speaker 2: the youngest.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so he's the older that went right over your head.

395
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Speaker 3: It's fine, it's fine, it it's fine.

396
00:19:10,760 --> 00:19:16,520
Speaker 2: Okay uh. He acted out, tearing down curtains and causing

397
00:19:16,560 --> 00:19:19,159
Speaker 2: other messes to get her attention, which Toddy handled by

398
00:19:19,200 --> 00:19:22,000
Speaker 2: convincing Lee to play with his younger brother. In time,

399
00:19:22,119 --> 00:19:24,240
Speaker 2: he became as devoted to Joe as his mom had

400
00:19:24,240 --> 00:19:26,680
Speaker 2: been to him, and he told his parents proudly, I've

401
00:19:26,680 --> 00:19:29,080
Speaker 2: got me a playmate for the rest of my life.

402
00:19:29,680 --> 00:19:35,399
Speaker 2: That is again foreshadowing oh so sweet, yeah sweet. The

403
00:19:35,440 --> 00:19:38,159
Speaker 2: Atwaters moved around a lot during Lee's early childhood. His

404
00:19:38,240 --> 00:19:40,439
Speaker 2: father had studied to become a lawyer, but quit to

405
00:19:40,480 --> 00:19:43,040
Speaker 2: work as an insurance suggester, and his change in ambitions

406
00:19:43,080 --> 00:19:46,080
Speaker 2: was followed by moving first from Georgia to Charleston, and

407
00:19:46,119 --> 00:19:49,800
Speaker 2: then from Charleston finally to Ake in South Carolina. Now,

408
00:19:49,920 --> 00:19:52,960
Speaker 2: the year after they moved to South Carolina, their Senator

409
00:19:53,080 --> 00:19:56,840
Speaker 2: Strom Thurmond would become famous for launching the longest continuous

410
00:19:56,840 --> 00:19:59,760
Speaker 2: fill against guy. This fucking guy. Oh, Strom's a big

411
00:19:59,800 --> 00:20:02,960
Speaker 2: part to this story, Garrison, You're not ready for how

412
00:20:03,040 --> 00:20:06,520
Speaker 2: involved in all this strom fucking Thermond is, such as

413
00:20:06,640 --> 00:20:08,959
Speaker 2: like if you don't know anything, if someone's like, hey,

414
00:20:09,000 --> 00:20:11,280
Speaker 2: who do you think strom Thermond was, if they just

415
00:20:11,280 --> 00:20:12,439
Speaker 2: tell you he was a syner, he'd be like, well,

416
00:20:12,440 --> 00:20:16,399
Speaker 2: I bet he was a racist one. Yes, that's the

417
00:20:16,520 --> 00:20:21,679
Speaker 2: racist guy name, Like, that's that's on ontological or a determination.

418
00:20:21,720 --> 00:20:26,240
Speaker 2: Where the fuck? What is it? Uh, nominative determinism, Right, Yeah,

419
00:20:26,359 --> 00:20:28,960
Speaker 2: that's it. That's it. His name made him a racist.

420
00:20:29,119 --> 00:20:32,200
Speaker 2: That's what I'm blaming on it, not his inherent characteristics.

421
00:20:33,720 --> 00:20:37,040
Speaker 2: So he became famous for launching the longest continuous filibuster

422
00:20:37,080 --> 00:20:39,240
Speaker 2: in the history of the United States from eight fifty

423
00:20:39,240 --> 00:20:44,520
Speaker 2: four PM at that point, Yeah, until our hero Corey Booker.

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Speaker 2: Did Corey beat it one secon Yeah, check this out.

425
00:20:48,800 --> 00:20:51,840
Speaker 3: This is in the news this year. We talked about this. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So up till up until Corey Booker, strom Billy was

427
00:20:55,240 --> 00:20:58,400
Speaker 2: the longest continuous filibuster in the history of the United States.

428
00:20:58,440 --> 00:21:02,040
Speaker 2: Twenty four hours and eighteen minutes. Strom held forth a

429
00:21:02,080 --> 00:21:04,720
Speaker 2: NonStop tirade against what he saw as the most evil

430
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Speaker 2: piece of legislation in his lifetime, the Civil Rights Act.

431
00:21:09,160 --> 00:21:12,040
Speaker 2: That is what he is trying to stop. Thurman said

432
00:21:12,119 --> 00:21:15,400
Speaker 2: during his filibuster, I'm convinced that this is bad proposed

433
00:21:15,480 --> 00:21:18,440
Speaker 2: legislation which never should have been introduced, which never should

434
00:21:18,480 --> 00:21:20,520
Speaker 2: have been approved by the Senate. I urge every member

435
00:21:20,560 --> 00:21:22,960
Speaker 2: of this body to consider this bill most carefully. I

436
00:21:23,000 --> 00:21:25,840
Speaker 2: hope the Senate will see fit to kill it. Now.

437
00:21:25,840 --> 00:21:28,000
Speaker 2: That's the most polite thing Strom Thurman's going to say

438
00:21:28,000 --> 00:21:30,720
Speaker 2: about civil rights in this period of time. Thurman had

439
00:21:30,760 --> 00:21:34,479
Speaker 2: previously been governor of South Carolina and had run as

440
00:21:34,480 --> 00:21:37,560
Speaker 2: a presidential candidate for the Dixiecrats, which was, you know,

441
00:21:37,600 --> 00:21:39,959
Speaker 2: the Southern Democrats. We'll talk about what the Dixiecrats are

442
00:21:39,960 --> 00:21:42,560
Speaker 2: in a second in nineteen forty eight, and when he

443
00:21:42,680 --> 00:21:45,480
Speaker 2: wasn't up before Congress. His language about these matters was

444
00:21:45,520 --> 00:21:49,480
Speaker 2: often a lot less polite. An article in WNYC Studios

445
00:21:49,480 --> 00:21:53,320
Speaker 2: that Takeaway summarizes quote. Almost a decade before Thurman's filibuster,

446
00:21:53,440 --> 00:21:56,520
Speaker 2: Southern state separatist leaders had revolted in opposition to President

447
00:21:56,520 --> 00:21:59,760
Speaker 2: Harry Truman's civil rights platform in nineteen forty eight. Democrats

448
00:22:00,080 --> 00:22:02,919
Speaker 2: themselves Dixiecrats and spoke about taking back the country that

449
00:22:03,040 --> 00:22:06,880
Speaker 2: was being turned into an unrecognizable dictatorship. And here's Thurmont.

450
00:22:07,080 --> 00:22:09,520
Speaker 2: The Civil Rights Act simply means it's another means that

451
00:22:09,560 --> 00:22:11,480
Speaker 2: it's another effort on the part of this president to

452
00:22:11,520 --> 00:22:13,679
Speaker 2: dominate the country by force and to put into effect

453
00:22:13,720 --> 00:22:16,919
Speaker 2: these uncalled for and the damnable proposals he has recommended

454
00:22:17,080 --> 00:22:19,840
Speaker 2: under the guise of so called civil rights. And I

455
00:22:19,920 --> 00:22:22,360
Speaker 2: tell you the American people, from one side to the other,

456
00:22:22,560 --> 00:22:24,639
Speaker 2: had better wake up and oppose such a program. And

457
00:22:24,640 --> 00:22:26,880
Speaker 2: if they don't, the next thing will be a totalitarian

458
00:22:26,920 --> 00:22:29,760
Speaker 2: state in these United States. There's not enough troops in

459
00:22:29,800 --> 00:22:31,719
Speaker 2: the army to force the Southern people to break down

460
00:22:31,800 --> 00:22:35,000
Speaker 2: segregation and admit the inward race into our theaters are

461
00:22:35,040 --> 00:22:38,600
Speaker 2: swimming pools, into our homes. And into our churches, Thurman said,

462
00:22:38,760 --> 00:22:41,840
Speaker 2: and he is. It's a hard r every time. Yeah,

463
00:22:41,840 --> 00:22:44,160
Speaker 2: we should have oh boy, maybe the butt we should

464
00:22:44,200 --> 00:22:45,720
Speaker 2: have sent out the B forty nines.

465
00:22:47,440 --> 00:22:50,159
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is like one of like the last like

466
00:22:50,240 --> 00:22:53,639
Speaker 3: gasps of the Southern Democrats right before like the you know,

467
00:22:53,720 --> 00:22:57,760
Speaker 3: the the switchover apart the Social Democrats, like the progressive wing,

468
00:22:58,240 --> 00:23:01,280
Speaker 3: which gained a lot of success underdr was able to

469
00:23:01,480 --> 00:23:04,520
Speaker 3: exert more more influence over the whole party, and the

470
00:23:04,960 --> 00:23:07,920
Speaker 3: Southern Democrats kind of like fizzled through it the fifties.

471
00:23:07,960 --> 00:23:10,240
Speaker 2: Then well and they switched over. Thurmond is going to

472
00:23:10,240 --> 00:23:12,680
Speaker 2: become a Republican, right, A lot of these Southern Democrats

473
00:23:12,760 --> 00:23:15,120
Speaker 2: become Republicans. That's actually part of the story that we're

474
00:23:15,160 --> 00:23:18,280
Speaker 2: going to be telling this week. So strom Thurmond is

475
00:23:18,320 --> 00:23:20,920
Speaker 2: their senator when they moved to Ake in South Carolina.

476
00:23:21,000 --> 00:23:22,480
Speaker 2: And I bring that up not just because he's the

477
00:23:22,520 --> 00:23:25,040
Speaker 2: senator in their state, because that Lee might not have

478
00:23:25,119 --> 00:23:27,919
Speaker 2: known much about this. They move in down they're like

479
00:23:28,040 --> 00:23:30,800
Speaker 2: three doors down from strom Thurman. He is their next

480
00:23:30,920 --> 00:23:31,560
Speaker 2: doordon neighbor.

481
00:23:31,800 --> 00:23:31,960
Speaker 3: Right.

482
00:23:32,680 --> 00:23:35,560
Speaker 2: Lee Atwater meets him for the first time in on

483
00:23:35,760 --> 00:23:39,520
Speaker 2: Halloween nineteen fifty six. The year before that filibuster.

484
00:23:39,160 --> 00:23:42,879
Speaker 3: Fucking the screenwriters on the nose. Chill out, guys.

485
00:23:42,920 --> 00:23:46,480
Speaker 2: Oh I know, it's amazing, he later recalled. He came

486
00:23:46,480 --> 00:23:48,560
Speaker 2: out and gave me a Snickers candy bar. That was

487
00:23:48,600 --> 00:23:50,480
Speaker 2: the best thing I got that year. So I liked

488
00:23:50,480 --> 00:23:53,160
Speaker 2: Senator Thurmond, but I didn't know anything about politics.

489
00:23:53,200 --> 00:23:54,000
Speaker 3: Fucking give out the.

490
00:23:53,920 --> 00:23:57,359
Speaker 2: Full sized candy bars. Look, he's a racist, but full

491
00:23:57,400 --> 00:24:00,320
Speaker 2: sized candy bars for Halloween. Who's to say if he's bad?

492
00:24:00,400 --> 00:24:03,040
Speaker 3: Nickers satisfies we are. Wow, we are.

493
00:24:05,040 --> 00:24:06,480
Speaker 4: Speaking of things that satisfy.

494
00:24:07,680 --> 00:24:11,159
Speaker 2: So satisfying things. Yeah, that's right, good work, here's ads.

495
00:24:17,400 --> 00:24:20,960
Speaker 2: We're back and uh yeah, it's a If you want

496
00:24:20,960 --> 00:24:23,639
Speaker 2: to just look up Strom Thurmond, you can find a

497
00:24:23,640 --> 00:24:25,720
Speaker 2: lot of quotes of him using a lot of slurs.

498
00:24:26,040 --> 00:24:29,400
Speaker 2: This is the kind as as a kid, my parents

499
00:24:29,400 --> 00:24:31,800
Speaker 2: were both into the hole like well, he you know

500
00:24:31,840 --> 00:24:34,000
Speaker 2: he was. It was more about states rights for him.

501
00:24:34,040 --> 00:24:36,080
Speaker 2: He wasn't like it was about racism for him. That's

502
00:24:36,080 --> 00:24:38,840
Speaker 2: what Thurman said when it became unpopular to be racist,

503
00:24:38,880 --> 00:24:40,879
Speaker 2: layers that like, well, I was never racist. It was

504
00:24:41,080 --> 00:24:47,520
Speaker 2: no hard r every time, every time, like uh. Also,

505
00:24:47,720 --> 00:24:52,000
Speaker 2: when he was in his twenties, he impregnates a fifteen

506
00:24:52,080 --> 00:24:55,600
Speaker 2: year old house servant and as an interracial kid. So

507
00:24:55,680 --> 00:24:58,520
Speaker 2: he is constantly as he's preaching racism, preaching against his

508
00:24:58,560 --> 00:25:01,239
Speaker 2: own illegitimate child that he raped a child to have

509
00:25:01,840 --> 00:25:02,640
Speaker 2: strom Thermot.

510
00:25:03,040 --> 00:25:04,600
Speaker 3: That's really bad.

511
00:25:04,840 --> 00:25:07,320
Speaker 2: Fun guy. Well maybe we'll cover in one of these days.

512
00:25:07,600 --> 00:25:08,920
Speaker 4: Really glad he's dead.

513
00:25:09,600 --> 00:25:13,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, he lived way too fucking long. Motherfucker lived forever.

514
00:25:13,880 --> 00:25:16,640
Speaker 3: This like a few days ago, like like James Dobson

515
00:25:16,680 --> 00:25:19,239
Speaker 3: died at like like a ninety something. It's like, are

516
00:25:19,560 --> 00:25:24,040
Speaker 3: we gonna celebrate this? No, not really, like they're all, yeah,

517
00:25:24,080 --> 00:25:27,040
Speaker 3: I'm glad they got. He damaged everything he wanted to do.

518
00:25:27,359 --> 00:25:30,080
Speaker 3: Like Dobson's were the most successful political actors of the

519
00:25:30,119 --> 00:25:34,520
Speaker 3: past fifty years. He he won. I almost feel bad

520
00:25:34,640 --> 00:25:38,040
Speaker 3: like sharing memes like because it's it's not it's not good.

521
00:25:38,400 --> 00:25:41,080
Speaker 2: And that's what I'll tell you about this. Lee Atwater's

522
00:25:41,280 --> 00:25:44,560
Speaker 2: tactics win. He doesn't personally get to win. So there's

523
00:25:44,600 --> 00:25:48,080
Speaker 2: a little bit of satisfaction in a little a little solace,

524
00:25:48,160 --> 00:25:51,359
Speaker 2: a quantum of solace to steal from the James Bond books.

525
00:25:53,240 --> 00:25:57,280
Speaker 2: So obviously being down the street from Strong Thermont doesn't

526
00:25:57,320 --> 00:25:59,439
Speaker 2: make you a bastard, but he's gonna go on to

527
00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:01,959
Speaker 2: have a strong relationship with him throughout his life. And

528
00:26:02,040 --> 00:26:04,760
Speaker 2: while at this point his parents are Republicans and Thurmond

529
00:26:04,880 --> 00:26:07,600
Speaker 2: was a Democrat, Strom is going to change his political

530
00:26:07,640 --> 00:26:10,040
Speaker 2: affiliation in the not too distant future is it becomes

531
00:26:10,119 --> 00:26:12,760
Speaker 2: clear that the Republican Party is now the party of segregation.

532
00:26:13,680 --> 00:26:16,640
Speaker 2: Just a few weeks before that fateful Halloween happened where

533
00:26:16,640 --> 00:26:19,240
Speaker 2: he gets the full size Snickers bar, something else would

534
00:26:19,280 --> 00:26:21,480
Speaker 2: happen that was a lot less pleasant and would influence

535
00:26:21,560 --> 00:26:24,479
Speaker 2: young Lee's future life even more than strom Thurman. This

536
00:26:24,520 --> 00:26:27,320
Speaker 2: is maybe the definitive moment of his life. On the

537
00:26:27,359 --> 00:26:30,800
Speaker 2: afternoon of October fifth, Toddy decides to cook a batch

538
00:26:30,840 --> 00:26:33,720
Speaker 2: of donuts. Her husband's coming home from work, but he's

539
00:26:33,760 --> 00:26:35,880
Speaker 2: like late to dinner and she's trying to pass the time,

540
00:26:35,920 --> 00:26:38,000
Speaker 2: so she's like, why don't we make a batch of donuts.

541
00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:41,760
Speaker 2: You know, Lee is in watching TV. Brother Joe was

542
00:26:41,840 --> 00:26:44,560
Speaker 2: kind of toddling around. He's like three. She's struggling with

543
00:26:44,560 --> 00:26:47,640
Speaker 2: a migraine, so she's not paying as much attention as

544
00:26:47,640 --> 00:26:49,960
Speaker 2: she normally paid to the task, and this becomes a

545
00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:53,040
Speaker 2: problem because cooking donuts at least at that point, the

546
00:26:53,080 --> 00:26:54,639
Speaker 2: only real way to do it is you're putting a

547
00:26:54,640 --> 00:26:57,320
Speaker 2: deep fat fryar on top of this stove and you're

548
00:26:57,359 --> 00:26:59,400
Speaker 2: filling it with oil. So you've got this huge thing

549
00:26:59,440 --> 00:27:02,520
Speaker 2: filled with oil. Now again, Lee, who's six, is watching

550
00:27:02,560 --> 00:27:05,320
Speaker 2: TV and three year old Joe toddles into the kitchen

551
00:27:05,720 --> 00:27:08,159
Speaker 2: and gets up on top of a trash can and

552
00:27:08,520 --> 00:27:10,600
Speaker 2: it starts like fiddling with the fryer, and she tells

553
00:27:10,680 --> 00:27:13,359
Speaker 2: him to get down, and he trips and the trash

554
00:27:13,400 --> 00:27:16,080
Speaker 2: can of falls and he pulls the fryer on top

555
00:27:16,119 --> 00:27:18,960
Speaker 2: of himself and in an instant, this three year old

556
00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:22,720
Speaker 2: boys coated head to toe in boiling oil. Now, this

557
00:27:22,800 --> 00:27:25,760
Speaker 2: is an instantly fatal injury, and that the instant it happens,

558
00:27:25,800 --> 00:27:29,040
Speaker 2: he's dead. But he doesn't die. It's just there's no

559
00:27:29,440 --> 00:27:32,879
Speaker 2: treating this today. You could fix this. He has immediately

560
00:27:32,960 --> 00:27:35,280
Speaker 2: ninety degrees like third degree birds over a ninety percent

561
00:27:35,320 --> 00:27:37,359
Speaker 2: of his body. This could not be fixed today. This

562
00:27:37,480 --> 00:27:41,639
Speaker 2: is simply an unsurvivable accident. And Lee runs into the

563
00:27:41,720 --> 00:27:44,680
Speaker 2: room to see the skin melting off of his baby brother,

564
00:27:44,720 --> 00:27:48,200
Speaker 2: who is screeching. His mom is screaming. Their dad comes

565
00:27:48,200 --> 00:27:51,080
Speaker 2: home right after this starts panicking and like throwing rice

566
00:27:51,320 --> 00:27:53,520
Speaker 2: on the ground at the kid. Just I don't think

567
00:27:53,560 --> 00:27:56,439
Speaker 2: he knows what to do. Everybody's like, this is I

568
00:27:56,480 --> 00:27:59,640
Speaker 2: can't imagine a more traumatic state, right than watching your

569
00:27:59,680 --> 00:28:03,240
Speaker 2: little brother melt to death. They get him to the hospital,

570
00:28:03,480 --> 00:28:06,639
Speaker 2: he dies several hours later. The entire family, I mean,

571
00:28:06,680 --> 00:28:09,360
Speaker 2: I should it's like saying that I'm just traumatized. It's

572
00:28:09,440 --> 00:28:11,840
Speaker 2: like that's not even necessary. Of course they are.

573
00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:14,040
Speaker 3: No matter what your family is, like, this is going

574
00:28:14,080 --> 00:28:18,800
Speaker 3: to be a tragic event, like, yeah, that's unfairly bad.

575
00:28:19,119 --> 00:28:22,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the people who knew Lee well would say

576
00:28:22,600 --> 00:28:25,480
Speaker 2: that he was This changes him forever and it's gonna

577
00:28:27,280 --> 00:28:29,000
Speaker 2: My opinion is that I think part of why he

578
00:28:29,040 --> 00:28:30,480
Speaker 2: is the way he is is that from this point one,

579
00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:32,639
Speaker 2: he is like the world's chaos. It doesn't matter what

580
00:28:32,800 --> 00:28:35,879
Speaker 2: I do. It's like it's just all about personal like gratificate,

581
00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:40,240
Speaker 2: like fuck it, fuck the world, right, That's just my interpretation.

582
00:28:40,760 --> 00:28:44,600
Speaker 2: Jane Mayer, the journalist writing for The New Yorker, knew

583
00:28:44,760 --> 00:28:47,200
Speaker 2: Lee when he was an adult and would write years

584
00:28:47,240 --> 00:28:49,080
Speaker 2: later quote he said that he heard the sounds of

585
00:28:49,080 --> 00:28:51,880
Speaker 2: his brother's screams every day of his life. And I

586
00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:54,360
Speaker 2: have no reason to doubt that Lee Atwater lies about

587
00:28:54,360 --> 00:28:57,160
Speaker 2: a lot. I have no reason to doubt that's really

588
00:28:57,200 --> 00:28:58,640
Speaker 2: you probably hear that forever.

589
00:28:59,280 --> 00:29:00,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's really bad.

590
00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:03,040
Speaker 2: I go just the worst thing I can conceive of

591
00:29:03,080 --> 00:29:08,360
Speaker 2: pretty much, that's yes, Jesus. So this is going to

592
00:29:08,360 --> 00:29:11,280
Speaker 2: be a formative experience for young Lee. And again, I

593
00:29:11,280 --> 00:29:13,200
Speaker 2: think this jerks him out of what you might call

594
00:29:13,320 --> 00:29:14,960
Speaker 2: normal life, normal society.

595
00:29:15,000 --> 00:29:17,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is going to make anyone, no matter who

596
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:19,120
Speaker 3: you are, just just a more broken person.

597
00:29:19,560 --> 00:29:19,760
Speaker 4: Yeah.

598
00:29:20,040 --> 00:29:22,200
Speaker 2: I think it gives him a sense of separation from

599
00:29:22,240 --> 00:29:25,240
Speaker 2: the rest of humanity, right, Like he's going to see

600
00:29:25,280 --> 00:29:28,480
Speaker 2: himself as subject to different rules and as a different kind.

601
00:29:28,480 --> 00:29:30,080
Speaker 2: And I think this is part of it. I think

602
00:29:30,120 --> 00:29:33,640
Speaker 2: this just almost plucks him out of the regular world.

603
00:29:33,760 --> 00:29:40,120
Speaker 2: It's like so disorienting and dissociating, this horror of this. Anyway,

604
00:29:40,240 --> 00:29:43,000
Speaker 2: that's my opinion. We'll see what you think. The next year,

605
00:29:43,080 --> 00:29:47,120
Speaker 2: Lee starts first grade and he gravitates towards the performing arts.

606
00:29:47,960 --> 00:29:50,920
Speaker 2: In nineteen sixty one, his father is promoted and they

607
00:29:50,960 --> 00:29:53,080
Speaker 2: move one last time. They'd stayed in the house for

608
00:29:53,120 --> 00:29:54,959
Speaker 2: a few years because his dad had been like, if

609
00:29:55,000 --> 00:29:57,720
Speaker 2: we move it's just hiding from what happened. We should

610
00:29:57,720 --> 00:29:59,400
Speaker 2: face it. His mom really wanted to get out of

611
00:29:59,440 --> 00:30:04,040
Speaker 2: the house where she watch boil to death. Yeah yeah.

612
00:30:04,080 --> 00:30:06,240
Speaker 2: When they move though, Lee begs his parents never to

613
00:30:06,240 --> 00:30:10,080
Speaker 2: make him change schools again, and they don't. He later

614
00:30:10,160 --> 00:30:12,560
Speaker 2: in life would express that moving around where they did

615
00:30:12,640 --> 00:30:15,680
Speaker 2: and ending up ultimately in Colombia gave him a good

616
00:30:15,720 --> 00:30:19,240
Speaker 2: ground level view of like the critical political points in

617
00:30:19,960 --> 00:30:22,600
Speaker 2: their state, which would be crucial in his political future.

618
00:30:22,920 --> 00:30:24,960
Speaker 3: So now he's no longer like next door neighbors with

619
00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:26,000
Speaker 3: Thermon A nice point.

620
00:30:26,080 --> 00:30:28,280
Speaker 2: No, but the family had become friends and they have

621
00:30:28,320 --> 00:30:30,680
Speaker 2: a connection that will last the rest of their lives. Right,

622
00:30:30,800 --> 00:30:33,960
Speaker 2: Like his parents know how to contact Straw like because

623
00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:34,440
Speaker 2: they were.

624
00:30:34,280 --> 00:30:37,400
Speaker 3: Neighbors in more waste than one. The damage is already done.

625
00:30:37,480 --> 00:30:39,640
Speaker 2: The damage is already done. You have to imagine, I

626
00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:42,360
Speaker 2: mean strom Thurman probably like reached out and brought up

627
00:30:42,360 --> 00:30:44,840
Speaker 2: a cast role after their son boiled to death or something.

628
00:30:44,960 --> 00:30:47,520
Speaker 3: You said, you said this was a few weeks before

629
00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:50,320
Speaker 3: the before the snickers. Yeah, yeah, so I guess he

630
00:30:50,360 --> 00:30:52,160
Speaker 3: like meets Thurman like a few weeks later.

631
00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:54,719
Speaker 2: Honestly, that might have been why Thurman gave them. They

632
00:30:54,760 --> 00:30:56,200
Speaker 2: may have known it, I mean, because the family had

633
00:30:56,240 --> 00:30:57,720
Speaker 2: moved in a while, but that may have been why

634
00:30:57,760 --> 00:30:59,920
Speaker 2: he got a full sized candy bar. Theurmon's like, fuck,

635
00:31:00,040 --> 00:31:01,880
Speaker 2: the least I could do is give this kid a

636
00:31:01,880 --> 00:31:08,040
Speaker 2: lot of candy. So Lee's classmates and teachers recall him

637
00:31:08,080 --> 00:31:11,120
Speaker 2: as a bad student. His friend David Yan noted that

638
00:31:11,160 --> 00:31:14,480
Speaker 2: he was quote unable to stay focused, always switching channels,

639
00:31:14,600 --> 00:31:17,440
Speaker 2: and John Brady writes in his biography, Lee learned early

640
00:31:17,480 --> 00:31:19,720
Speaker 2: how to have his way with other kids, not physically,

641
00:31:19,720 --> 00:31:22,240
Speaker 2: but through other means of manipulation and control that left

642
00:31:22,280 --> 00:31:25,280
Speaker 2: him clearly in charge of relationships. Lee became a prankster,

643
00:31:25,360 --> 00:31:27,920
Speaker 2: sending birthday invitations to all of the girls in class

644
00:31:27,920 --> 00:31:29,920
Speaker 2: from David Yan, who was too shy to throw a

645
00:31:29,960 --> 00:31:34,080
Speaker 2: party even if it was his birthday. It wasn't so like, Okay,

646
00:31:35,040 --> 00:31:36,840
Speaker 2: there's a lot of fun moments, because.

647
00:31:37,240 --> 00:31:39,280
Speaker 3: Forbid of kid have a little fun.

648
00:31:39,480 --> 00:31:41,640
Speaker 2: God forbid a child enjoy himself.

649
00:31:42,080 --> 00:31:44,800
Speaker 3: But although I could see how these tactics might become

650
00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:47,160
Speaker 3: useful and fallen ticks later down the line.

651
00:31:47,360 --> 00:31:49,960
Speaker 2: Right, And it's the point that Brady's making is like

652
00:31:50,040 --> 00:31:52,920
Speaker 2: he can't have like an equal relationship with you. Like,

653
00:31:52,960 --> 00:31:55,080
Speaker 2: that's kind of why he's always got to be pulling pranks,

654
00:31:55,120 --> 00:31:56,440
Speaker 2: is there has to be he has to know something

655
00:31:56,480 --> 00:31:58,800
Speaker 2: you don't. He has to have some degree of like power, right.

656
00:31:58,840 --> 00:32:02,480
Speaker 2: That seems to be almost composed for him. Now that said,

657
00:32:02,600 --> 00:32:04,320
Speaker 2: he's a lot of fun to be around. He has

658
00:32:04,320 --> 00:32:06,200
Speaker 2: a lot of friends and they recall him. He's always

659
00:32:06,200 --> 00:32:08,840
Speaker 2: fucking around. His pranks can be pretty mean sometimes, but

660
00:32:08,880 --> 00:32:12,520
Speaker 2: he's always a lot of fun. And depending on the source,

661
00:32:12,520 --> 00:32:15,800
Speaker 2: he's always He's either described as manipulative or a leader.

662
00:32:15,880 --> 00:32:18,000
Speaker 2: And I don't think those two things are exclusive.

663
00:32:18,120 --> 00:32:19,520
Speaker 3: No, no, no, no no.

664
00:32:19,560 --> 00:32:20,959
Speaker 2: He's just always in charge.

665
00:32:21,160 --> 00:32:23,640
Speaker 3: You know. I can't believe this. I can't believe this

666
00:32:23,720 --> 00:32:25,440
Speaker 3: cult leader was also manipulative.

667
00:32:25,680 --> 00:32:29,480
Speaker 2: Right. His friend in future South Carolina governor Carol Campbell,

668
00:32:29,520 --> 00:32:32,280
Speaker 2: recalled him being good at organizing people. He would get

669
00:32:32,280 --> 00:32:34,520
Speaker 2: people to go to All Star Pro Wrestling in the

670
00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:38,040
Speaker 2: sixth grade. And by the way, Atwater is a huge

671
00:32:38,080 --> 00:32:40,800
Speaker 2: wrestling fan, you know how, Like in twenty sixteen that

672
00:32:40,920 --> 00:32:43,520
Speaker 2: rash articles came out being like wrestling is how you

673
00:32:43,520 --> 00:32:46,400
Speaker 2: should understand Donald Trump. Trump thinks about politics in a

674
00:32:46,440 --> 00:32:50,360
Speaker 2: wrestling way. The first guy to explicitly say us politics

675
00:32:50,360 --> 00:32:52,400
Speaker 2: works the way wrestling does and explain it is lee

676
00:32:52,440 --> 00:32:55,520
Speaker 2: atwater in like the seventies. He's talking about like wrestling

677
00:32:55,560 --> 00:32:58,320
Speaker 2: is really the way to understand like k faban shit

678
00:32:58,400 --> 00:32:59,920
Speaker 2: is the way to understand how politics work.

679
00:33:00,080 --> 00:33:02,680
Speaker 3: Without him, Trump never would have had that that razor

680
00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:05,080
Speaker 3: palmed to fake the assassination attempt.

681
00:33:05,120 --> 00:33:07,400
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right. He wouldn't have been able to garrison.

682
00:33:07,440 --> 00:33:08,720
Speaker 2: Don't feed the blue and Ons.

683
00:33:09,800 --> 00:33:15,560
Speaker 3: God damn sorry, I'm writing about the assassination conspiracy theories

684
00:33:15,680 --> 00:33:17,080
Speaker 3: right now. Is that I couldn't help it.

685
00:33:17,200 --> 00:33:19,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is just gonna make it worse. An air

686
00:33:19,400 --> 00:33:21,240
Speaker 2: fifteen would have blown his head off if it struck

687
00:33:21,280 --> 00:33:25,320
Speaker 2: his ear. That's right, damn it, that's right. In fifth grade,

688
00:33:25,400 --> 00:33:28,480
Speaker 2: he got a job selling eggs door to door. Now,

689
00:33:28,520 --> 00:33:30,560
Speaker 2: as would be the case his entire life, he proved

690
00:33:30,560 --> 00:33:33,280
Speaker 2: to be an incredible salesman, and he gets promoted rapidly

691
00:33:33,320 --> 00:33:36,160
Speaker 2: to manager. His mother is frustrated by the fact that

692
00:33:36,200 --> 00:33:38,440
Speaker 2: he loves selling stuff, but he'll like lose the money

693
00:33:38,440 --> 00:33:41,120
Speaker 2: he makes. He is not interested in having money.

694
00:33:40,880 --> 00:33:44,800
Speaker 3: Or the process. It's that process satisfies him. Yes, it's

695
00:33:44,840 --> 00:33:47,920
Speaker 3: like you're you're like outsmarting someone like you're you're able

696
00:33:47,960 --> 00:33:49,880
Speaker 3: to like yeah, yeah.

697
00:33:49,920 --> 00:33:52,400
Speaker 2: He likes convincing people to buy things. You know, he

698
00:33:52,440 --> 00:33:53,920
Speaker 2: doesn't so much care about money.

699
00:33:53,960 --> 00:33:56,120
Speaker 3: You're winning someone over, and that is that can be

700
00:33:56,160 --> 00:33:57,720
Speaker 3: like an exhilarating thing to do.

701
00:33:58,160 --> 00:34:00,480
Speaker 2: Yes, and even as an adult he makes good money.

702
00:34:00,480 --> 00:34:03,200
Speaker 2: But he's never greedy in the financial sense. He's greedy

703
00:34:03,240 --> 00:34:06,440
Speaker 2: in the power since right, He's greedy in the influence sense.

704
00:34:06,520 --> 00:34:07,880
Speaker 2: That's what motivates him.

705
00:34:08,320 --> 00:34:11,040
Speaker 3: Can I make you do this thing? What will it

706
00:34:11,080 --> 00:34:12,480
Speaker 3: take for me to get this result?

707
00:34:13,000 --> 00:34:16,359
Speaker 2: Now? His teachers, as you might expect, have profoundly mixed

708
00:34:16,360 --> 00:34:19,960
Speaker 2: opinions about him. He is obviously very intelligent, and they

709
00:34:19,960 --> 00:34:21,680
Speaker 2: will all say in terms of what he would say

710
00:34:21,760 --> 00:34:26,280
Speaker 2: during class, he's really smart. He participates in classroom discussions,

711
00:34:26,320 --> 00:34:30,040
Speaker 2: he's great at those. He just won't do any work period,

712
00:34:30,320 --> 00:34:32,160
Speaker 2: so his grades are always shitt even though he's clearly

713
00:34:32,200 --> 00:34:34,680
Speaker 2: like the smartest kid in most of his classes. One

714
00:34:34,719 --> 00:34:38,640
Speaker 2: of his English teachers described she signed his yearbook by

715
00:34:38,680 --> 00:34:42,400
Speaker 2: calling him my first nightmare every morning with an exclamation point.

716
00:34:43,360 --> 00:34:43,839
Speaker 3: That's fun.

717
00:34:43,920 --> 00:34:47,120
Speaker 2: That's fun. So in eighth grade, when the class takes

718
00:34:47,120 --> 00:34:49,839
Speaker 2: a trip to Washington, d c his teacher, the teacher

719
00:34:49,880 --> 00:34:52,760
Speaker 2: who's like their chaperone, is shocked at how being around

720
00:34:52,800 --> 00:34:56,000
Speaker 2: the nation's political taxis seems to snap him out of

721
00:34:56,040 --> 00:34:59,480
Speaker 2: this this like thing where he can't pay attention or

722
00:34:59,520 --> 00:35:02,680
Speaker 2: focus right like he instantly, she said, he asked better

723
00:35:02,760 --> 00:35:05,560
Speaker 2: questions than anyone else in the class. He was totally

724
00:35:05,600 --> 00:35:08,920
Speaker 2: focused the whole time. He was excited. They get to

725
00:35:08,920 --> 00:35:11,680
Speaker 2: take a picture with his old family friends strom Thurmond,

726
00:35:11,719 --> 00:35:12,880
Speaker 2: and he's super psyched.

727
00:35:12,960 --> 00:35:13,160
Speaker 3: You know.

728
00:35:13,719 --> 00:35:16,520
Speaker 2: It's yeah, it's this, it's this. You can see the

729
00:35:16,560 --> 00:35:20,480
Speaker 2: fucking shadow of Darth Vader behind Anakin moment thing right like,

730
00:35:20,640 --> 00:35:21,520
Speaker 2: oh no.

731
00:35:21,760 --> 00:35:24,760
Speaker 3: Whenever a kid gets too excited in the capitol again,

732
00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:26,680
Speaker 3: you got you gotta fixed that early.

733
00:35:26,840 --> 00:35:29,239
Speaker 2: Look. We can talk about, you know, the ethics of

734
00:35:29,280 --> 00:35:31,759
Speaker 2: giving kids drugs for like ADHD, But if you get

735
00:35:31,760 --> 00:35:35,000
Speaker 2: a kid who's into politics, like it's just time, you

736
00:35:35,040 --> 00:35:37,959
Speaker 2: should prescribe them heroin, right, something to slow him down,

737
00:35:38,120 --> 00:35:43,080
Speaker 2: you know, got to knock him out of the running somehow. So, Sophie,

738
00:35:43,360 --> 00:35:46,040
Speaker 2: it's fine for you as long as it's pure, you know,

739
00:35:46,280 --> 00:35:48,040
Speaker 2: as long as it's uncut, it's safe.

740
00:35:48,360 --> 00:35:48,960
Speaker 3: No comment.

741
00:35:49,680 --> 00:35:53,600
Speaker 2: Yeah. Outside of politics, Lee's other primary interest is music,

742
00:35:53,719 --> 00:35:57,480
Speaker 2: specifically the music of James Brown. He loves aren't he

743
00:35:57,560 --> 00:36:00,680
Speaker 2: loves black music right like he loves R and B.

744
00:36:00,800 --> 00:36:02,560
Speaker 2: He listens to James Brown for the first time in

745
00:36:02,600 --> 00:36:04,839
Speaker 2: his dad's car and he's just that's it for him.

746
00:36:04,880 --> 00:36:07,440
Speaker 2: He has found his true love in life. And this

747
00:36:07,600 --> 00:36:10,839
Speaker 2: is the thing he is passionate about, right, the thing,

748
00:36:10,920 --> 00:36:14,400
Speaker 2: the actual thing He's deeply passionate about. Right. He's passionate

749
00:36:14,440 --> 00:36:16,560
Speaker 2: about winning in politics. His friends will always say he

750
00:36:16,600 --> 00:36:18,840
Speaker 2: could have been a Republican or a Democrat. Republican was

751
00:36:18,920 --> 00:36:22,759
Speaker 2: just easier, Like, he's not passionate about conservatism. He likes

752
00:36:22,800 --> 00:36:25,640
Speaker 2: the process, and he loves fucking blues and rock and

753
00:36:25,719 --> 00:36:29,600
Speaker 2: roll right he like and yeah. He also he prefers

754
00:36:29,680 --> 00:36:31,560
Speaker 2: most of the artists he likes, and he will befriend

755
00:36:31,680 --> 00:36:33,719
Speaker 2: and play with because he's in the band most of

756
00:36:33,719 --> 00:36:36,440
Speaker 2: his life. He'll play with a number of like famous

757
00:36:36,440 --> 00:36:40,840
Speaker 2: blues and R and B like artists. He also develops

758
00:36:40,840 --> 00:36:42,640
Speaker 2: a love for Elvis Presley and from the time he's

759
00:36:42,680 --> 00:36:44,960
Speaker 2: a little kid, one of his go to entertaining tricks

760
00:36:45,120 --> 00:36:47,200
Speaker 2: is to like shake his hips and ass like the King,

761
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:50,560
Speaker 2: or do a slide like James Brown would do. Like

762
00:36:50,600 --> 00:36:53,640
Speaker 2: he gets really good at mimicking all of these movements

763
00:36:53,680 --> 00:36:56,560
Speaker 2: from his favorite musicians, and he'll do them as like

764
00:36:56,600 --> 00:36:57,320
Speaker 2: party tricks.

765
00:36:57,600 --> 00:37:00,439
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's putting in inputs to get a certain output, right,

766
00:37:00,680 --> 00:37:03,840
Speaker 3: same thing with selling, same thing with your class clown

767
00:37:04,160 --> 00:37:06,680
Speaker 3: manipulative high jinks exactly right.

768
00:37:07,120 --> 00:37:09,160
Speaker 2: And his parents, you know this, being a kind of

769
00:37:09,160 --> 00:37:11,440
Speaker 2: blue bloody family, they try to get him interested in

770
00:37:11,480 --> 00:37:14,520
Speaker 2: a respectable instrument, the piano, but they give up on

771
00:37:14,560 --> 00:37:16,920
Speaker 2: that pretty quickly, and by the time he's an adolescent

772
00:37:17,080 --> 00:37:21,760
Speaker 2: forward his favorite hobby is playing the guitar. On Basically,

773
00:37:21,760 --> 00:37:23,839
Speaker 2: they make him a deal where like, yeah, you can

774
00:37:23,880 --> 00:37:26,040
Speaker 2: if you take piano classes for three years, we'll buy

775
00:37:26,080 --> 00:37:28,720
Speaker 2: you a guitar. So he takes piano classes for exactly

776
00:37:28,719 --> 00:37:31,120
Speaker 2: three years and then never plays piano again, Like as

777
00:37:31,120 --> 00:37:33,879
Speaker 2: soon as he gets a guitar, that's it for him.

778
00:37:34,280 --> 00:37:36,400
Speaker 2: On one occasion, his friends told a story about like

779
00:37:36,440 --> 00:37:38,359
Speaker 2: they had a sleepover with him, and he bets them

780
00:37:38,400 --> 00:37:40,680
Speaker 2: fifty cents each that he can play the same five

781
00:37:40,760 --> 00:37:44,279
Speaker 2: notes repeatedly longer than they can stand to listen, and

782
00:37:44,320 --> 00:37:46,879
Speaker 2: at around three am they give up and pay him. Right,

783
00:37:47,080 --> 00:37:49,520
Speaker 2: like his fingers are bleeding, but he just will not

784
00:37:49,719 --> 00:37:53,759
Speaker 2: stop until they like. He loves making wagers and it's

785
00:37:53,760 --> 00:37:56,160
Speaker 2: not about the money, it's about the winning.

786
00:37:56,239 --> 00:37:58,200
Speaker 3: You know. That's the other thing to watch out for,

787
00:37:58,239 --> 00:38:01,560
Speaker 3: if any kid really likes making bets. Got us top

788
00:38:01,600 --> 00:38:02,040
Speaker 3: that quick?

789
00:38:02,360 --> 00:38:04,760
Speaker 2: Yes, now, I was that kind of kid in high school.

790
00:38:04,760 --> 00:38:06,319
Speaker 2: And we did get one of our friends to try

791
00:38:06,360 --> 00:38:08,440
Speaker 2: to drink an and tighter gallon of milk and he

792
00:38:08,560 --> 00:38:14,880
Speaker 2: vomited everywhere. It was very funny. Lee's health issues persist

793
00:38:14,960 --> 00:38:18,839
Speaker 2: as he becomes a teenager. He's never good at sports.

794
00:38:18,920 --> 00:38:21,880
Speaker 2: To get girls interested in him, he starts a band,

795
00:38:22,120 --> 00:38:24,640
Speaker 2: and he starts smoking cigarettes at the ripe old age

796
00:38:24,640 --> 00:38:27,959
Speaker 2: of twelve. He is a daily heavy smoker from age

797
00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:32,759
Speaker 2: twelve on. It's so funny it was easy to get

798
00:38:32,800 --> 00:38:33,839
Speaker 2: cigarettes back then.

799
00:38:34,200 --> 00:38:36,600
Speaker 3: A twelve year old in a suit smoking a cigarette.

800
00:38:36,719 --> 00:38:41,279
Speaker 2: Hell yeah, yeah, just Shane smoking lighting one with the other. Yeah,

801
00:38:41,320 --> 00:38:44,080
Speaker 2: waking up with his hand shaking if he can't immediately

802
00:38:44,120 --> 00:38:46,479
Speaker 2: burn a couple of camels before he gets out of bed.

803
00:38:46,800 --> 00:38:48,080
Speaker 3: Do you know what his cigarette was?

804
00:38:49,200 --> 00:38:51,160
Speaker 2: No? Actually I don't. I'm gonna guess.

805
00:38:51,200 --> 00:38:54,439
Speaker 3: Paul Mall biographers need to we need to get better

806
00:38:54,480 --> 00:38:58,480
Speaker 3: at it. Get there, breaking sure, we know which cigarette

807
00:38:58,560 --> 00:39:00,319
Speaker 3: a person smokes. I think it tells you a lot

808
00:39:00,400 --> 00:39:01,000
Speaker 3: about a person.

809
00:39:01,120 --> 00:39:04,680
Speaker 2: Vonnegut was a pall mall man, you know, okay, And

810
00:39:04,760 --> 00:39:08,160
Speaker 2: obviously all the hip kids today smoke American spirits. But

811
00:39:08,200 --> 00:39:10,440
Speaker 2: what it matters? What like brand you're smoking?

812
00:39:10,560 --> 00:39:10,759
Speaker 3: Right?

813
00:39:10,920 --> 00:39:11,040
Speaker 2: Like?

814
00:39:11,520 --> 00:39:12,560
Speaker 3: You know? Color? Yeah?

815
00:39:12,680 --> 00:39:15,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, some people, some people like that green bullshit. I'm

816
00:39:15,680 --> 00:39:19,400
Speaker 2: more into my into the grays, you know, Okay. I

817
00:39:19,440 --> 00:39:21,520
Speaker 2: don't smoke cigarettes. I just always keep a pack of

818
00:39:21,520 --> 00:39:22,920
Speaker 2: cigarettes on me in my jacket.

819
00:39:23,239 --> 00:39:23,799
Speaker 3: There you go.

820
00:39:24,400 --> 00:39:26,840
Speaker 2: It's always useful. You never know who's gonna need a cigarette.

821
00:39:26,960 --> 00:39:29,319
Speaker 2: Do you need a cigarette? If so, why not take

822
00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:30,760
Speaker 2: it while listening to ads?

823
00:39:31,239 --> 00:39:40,080
Speaker 4: Jesus Christ, we're back.

824
00:39:40,200 --> 00:39:44,000
Speaker 2: I hope you've all had a delicious cigarette, A delightful cigarette.

825
00:39:44,400 --> 00:39:48,000
Speaker 2: Apologies to anyone who just quits smoking and is finding

826
00:39:48,040 --> 00:39:51,239
Speaker 2: themselves triggered. I don't have an issue with cigarettes. I

827
00:39:51,320 --> 00:39:53,879
Speaker 2: just like to tempt people into smoking them. It's good

828
00:39:53,880 --> 00:39:58,560
Speaker 2: for you. Try it, Garrison, are you still smoking? Are

829
00:39:58,640 --> 00:40:00,120
Speaker 2: you having enough cigarettes in your die?

830
00:40:00,320 --> 00:40:04,359
Speaker 3: I smoke aesthetically to complete an outfit, of course, not

831
00:40:04,520 --> 00:40:06,360
Speaker 3: like I'm not like a smoker.

832
00:40:06,480 --> 00:40:08,480
Speaker 4: R scare, what.

833
00:40:10,280 --> 00:40:11,719
Speaker 2: Don't cigarettes?

834
00:40:11,840 --> 00:40:13,520
Speaker 4: Don't smoke cigarettes? Thank you.

835
00:40:13,920 --> 00:40:16,440
Speaker 3: I mean it's again, it's it's only for the outfit, Sophie.

836
00:40:16,520 --> 00:40:18,880
Speaker 2: If someone shoots at you, smoke a cigarette, that's what

837
00:40:18,920 --> 00:40:19,839
Speaker 2: they're for. They're great.

838
00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:21,640
Speaker 3: Shot at me in a while. That that's the thing.

839
00:40:22,000 --> 00:40:24,640
Speaker 2: I know. Then you can't got to find somebody to

840
00:40:24,640 --> 00:40:26,560
Speaker 2: shoot at you. So you can get a smoke in,

841
00:40:28,200 --> 00:40:30,279
Speaker 2: go to a waffle house. You'll get shot out of it.

842
00:40:30,600 --> 00:40:32,720
Speaker 3: Outside the Manhattan Hilton.

843
00:40:33,160 --> 00:40:38,839
Speaker 2: Yeah, there you go. So his peers recall him being

844
00:40:38,960 --> 00:40:42,640
Speaker 2: very awkward around women and falling back offers talent, lying

845
00:40:42,800 --> 00:40:45,000
Speaker 2: to try and convince them that he knew what sex

846
00:40:45,160 --> 00:40:47,600
Speaker 2: was and that he was totally dating girls. Right, oh yeah,

847
00:40:47,640 --> 00:40:50,320
Speaker 2: this is really He's just bullshitting about it at first,

848
00:40:50,880 --> 00:40:53,640
Speaker 2: but he does. He figures it out at a pretty

849
00:40:53,680 --> 00:40:56,560
Speaker 2: young age. He has his first serious girlfriend in ninth grade.

850
00:40:56,960 --> 00:40:59,480
Speaker 2: John Brady writes quote at school dances, he would get

851
00:40:59,480 --> 00:41:02,600
Speaker 2: on stage, dance around, playing air guitar, mugging with his

852
00:41:02,640 --> 00:41:06,320
Speaker 2: blues face upstaging act creating God's contests in the area

853
00:41:06,440 --> 00:41:09,320
Speaker 2: right in front of the stage. Afterward, he would apologize

854
00:41:09,320 --> 00:41:11,680
Speaker 2: to Debbie, his girlfriend, for behavior that must have struck

855
00:41:11,719 --> 00:41:14,319
Speaker 2: her as being compulsive. I know I acted badly. He

856
00:41:14,320 --> 00:41:16,200
Speaker 2: would say on the phone the next day, I hope

857
00:41:16,200 --> 00:41:19,440
Speaker 2: you'll still go out with me, and she did for

858
00:41:19,480 --> 00:41:22,960
Speaker 2: a while, but she starts being like, I don't know.

859
00:41:23,000 --> 00:41:24,719
Speaker 2: This is a little much for me. And Lee is

860
00:41:24,719 --> 00:41:28,400
Speaker 2: eventually like, what's wrong here, and she explains, like, you know,

861
00:41:29,200 --> 00:41:32,120
Speaker 2: girls like it when a guy is like honest and open,

862
00:41:32,440 --> 00:41:36,000
Speaker 2: and she could tell that they really like her, And

863
00:41:36,640 --> 00:41:38,959
Speaker 2: I can't tell what you think, like you're just such

864
00:41:39,000 --> 00:41:41,239
Speaker 2: a liar, Like I can't tell if you like me

865
00:41:41,400 --> 00:41:43,799
Speaker 2: or what you're doing here. She tells him, I'm just

866
00:41:43,840 --> 00:41:45,759
Speaker 2: tired of being the second half of the show. I

867
00:41:45,800 --> 00:41:49,080
Speaker 2: feel like I've got to be part of a stunt routine.

868
00:41:49,480 --> 00:41:51,120
Speaker 2: I think that tells you a lot about the kind

869
00:41:51,160 --> 00:41:54,560
Speaker 2: of kid he is. He can't honestly connect with people

870
00:41:55,200 --> 00:41:57,680
Speaker 2: very easily. They've got to be a part of the

871
00:41:57,719 --> 00:41:59,719
Speaker 2: show for him. That's kind of the only way he's

872
00:41:59,719 --> 00:42:04,200
Speaker 2: able to have a relationship with someone. Yeah, almost by

873
00:42:04,239 --> 00:42:05,680
Speaker 2: turning it into a performance.

874
00:42:05,840 --> 00:42:09,480
Speaker 3: And yeah, I can oddly relate to that in some ways,

875
00:42:09,520 --> 00:42:13,640
Speaker 3: and it's it's yeah, no, it's I kind of understand

876
00:42:13,680 --> 00:42:15,120
Speaker 3: that that disconnection.

877
00:42:15,680 --> 00:42:18,319
Speaker 2: I relate to a lot of about him because he

878
00:42:18,440 --> 00:42:21,400
Speaker 2: is a class clown and so was I and so

879
00:42:21,480 --> 00:42:24,120
Speaker 2: are like a lot of people who wind up in entertainment,

880
00:42:24,239 --> 00:42:27,080
Speaker 2: and we all have that like piece of us that

881
00:42:27,160 --> 00:42:30,440
Speaker 2: I think other people aren't missing that makes that makes

882
00:42:30,480 --> 00:42:33,680
Speaker 2: you want to perform, Like I think there's fundamentally a

883
00:42:33,760 --> 00:42:37,239
Speaker 2: difference between people who become performers and people who don't.

884
00:42:37,320 --> 00:42:39,600
Speaker 2: And Lee Attwater is a performer, right.

885
00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:41,719
Speaker 3: And the important thing is that they stay in wrestling

886
00:42:41,880 --> 00:42:45,040
Speaker 3: or entertainment. Whenever they switch over to politics, that's where

887
00:42:45,080 --> 00:42:45,560
Speaker 3: it gets bad.

888
00:42:45,680 --> 00:42:50,840
Speaker 2: It's awful, it's the worst and every time. Yeah, yeah,

889
00:42:50,840 --> 00:42:53,840
Speaker 2: that's and leads that kind of figure right where he

890
00:42:53,840 --> 00:42:56,840
Speaker 2: he would probably have preferred to be a professional musician.

891
00:42:57,160 --> 00:42:59,000
Speaker 2: He might have been able to make it happen. He's

892
00:42:59,040 --> 00:43:01,960
Speaker 2: pretty good and he like isn't a band most of

893
00:43:01,960 --> 00:43:05,120
Speaker 2: his life. He actually is nominated for a Grammy What

894
00:43:05,239 --> 00:43:09,000
Speaker 2: the fuck? Like he's okay, And I think it's one

895
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:10,560
Speaker 2: of those things where he could have been really good

896
00:43:10,760 --> 00:43:13,360
Speaker 2: if he'd had the courage to commit, but it's just

897
00:43:13,440 --> 00:43:16,160
Speaker 2: too much of a long shot for him and politics,

898
00:43:16,360 --> 00:43:19,080
Speaker 2: there's no risk of failure. He can tell, right, like,

899
00:43:19,080 --> 00:43:21,360
Speaker 2: because he's he's just got the brain for it.

900
00:43:21,400 --> 00:43:22,120
Speaker 3: And that sucks.

901
00:43:22,320 --> 00:43:23,640
Speaker 2: I'm getting ahead of myself here.

902
00:43:24,040 --> 00:43:27,560
Speaker 1: So he gets Chris want to show Garrison a photo

903
00:43:27,760 --> 00:43:29,600
Speaker 1: of leat Water with chick?

904
00:43:29,600 --> 00:43:34,439
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, because because I thoroughly enjoyed it.

905
00:43:34,520 --> 00:43:38,720
Speaker 1: Because he he looks like uh to for Grace from

906
00:43:38,800 --> 00:43:40,560
Speaker 1: and then in this phot he looks like to for

907
00:43:40,600 --> 00:43:43,040
Speaker 1: Grace when he was on that seventy show.

908
00:43:43,680 --> 00:43:45,320
Speaker 2: That he does look a lot like to for Grace.

909
00:43:45,920 --> 00:43:49,320
Speaker 3: Okay, look at his dork Yeah yeah, yeah, what a medium?

910
00:43:49,440 --> 00:43:50,640
Speaker 2: What the hairs?

911
00:43:51,000 --> 00:43:53,960
Speaker 3: I want James or Banniac to play him in a movie.

912
00:43:54,200 --> 00:43:57,080
Speaker 2: James or Banniac could definitely play Lee. You'd have to

913
00:43:57,120 --> 00:43:59,600
Speaker 2: do a Southern accent because oh but you'll you'll hear

914
00:43:59,680 --> 00:44:00,680
Speaker 2: Lee and a little bit here.

915
00:44:00,960 --> 00:44:02,239
Speaker 3: He can he can do it.

916
00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:03,080
Speaker 2: He could do it.

917
00:44:03,120 --> 00:44:05,160
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that would be good casting.

918
00:44:05,400 --> 00:44:10,360
Speaker 2: H So yeah, it's interesting to me that Debbie is

919
00:44:10,400 --> 00:44:13,839
Speaker 2: the first person to realize what Lee Atwater is and

920
00:44:13,920 --> 00:44:16,160
Speaker 2: call him out while they're in like ninth grade, because

921
00:44:16,200 --> 00:44:19,920
Speaker 2: this is going to be a devastatingly accurate description of

922
00:44:19,960 --> 00:44:22,200
Speaker 2: the man until the last chapter of his life, and

923
00:44:22,239 --> 00:44:25,040
Speaker 2: Debbie summarized her opinion on him this way. There were

924
00:44:25,080 --> 00:44:27,920
Speaker 2: sides of Lee that I certainly adored but the opportunist

925
00:44:27,960 --> 00:44:30,640
Speaker 2: in him, the person seeking popularity in a stage, would

926
00:44:30,680 --> 00:44:33,560
Speaker 2: almost always overrule the nice guy, the more genuine part

927
00:44:33,600 --> 00:44:36,919
Speaker 2: of him. I don't think he could stop it, right, Yeah,

928
00:44:36,920 --> 00:44:38,879
Speaker 2: And that's that's what you get from people who knew

929
00:44:38,920 --> 00:44:42,319
Speaker 2: him and were appropriately critical of him but cared about him,

930
00:44:42,400 --> 00:44:45,120
Speaker 2: where there's almost this I don't know how much I

931
00:44:45,160 --> 00:44:48,040
Speaker 2: feel like he was partly out of control of himself.

932
00:44:48,480 --> 00:44:51,520
Speaker 2: Not that that like mitigates his culpability and the evil

933
00:44:51,600 --> 00:44:55,000
Speaker 2: he does, but like he almost can't stop himself from

934
00:44:56,000 --> 00:45:00,200
Speaker 2: being from being a false Like he can't be the

935
00:45:00,200 --> 00:45:03,440
Speaker 2: real version of himself. He has to play a role, right, Like,

936
00:45:04,120 --> 00:45:06,799
Speaker 2: and maybe that's some protective thing, maybe it's I don't

937
00:45:06,800 --> 00:45:08,680
Speaker 2: know fully what's going on, but this is something you'll

938
00:45:08,680 --> 00:45:12,000
Speaker 2: get expressed that, Like, it's he's almost incapable of being himself.

939
00:45:12,120 --> 00:45:15,759
Speaker 2: He has to put on an act. In interviews about

940
00:45:15,760 --> 00:45:17,759
Speaker 2: his own early life, Lee would claim to be a

941
00:45:18,080 --> 00:45:20,680
Speaker 2: have been a voracious reader as a kid, going through

942
00:45:20,719 --> 00:45:23,040
Speaker 2: two or three books a week while in grade school.

943
00:45:23,400 --> 00:45:25,200
Speaker 2: And he always makes this claim in the context of

944
00:45:25,200 --> 00:45:28,080
Speaker 2: being explaining why his grades were shitty, right, because he

945
00:45:28,080 --> 00:45:30,600
Speaker 2: has to, like he always acknowledges. I did terribly in school,

946
00:45:31,280 --> 00:45:33,759
Speaker 2: but I was really like, I was self educated, right,

947
00:45:33,760 --> 00:45:37,279
Speaker 2: he was an autodid act and so like he would

948
00:45:37,280 --> 00:45:39,719
Speaker 2: always say, the only reason he got bad grades is

949
00:45:39,760 --> 00:45:42,800
Speaker 2: he thought getting good grades was uncool, and that refusing

950
00:45:42,880 --> 00:45:44,640
Speaker 2: to do well in class when you're smart enough to

951
00:45:44,640 --> 00:45:47,680
Speaker 2: do well in class is cool. He would say, quote,

952
00:45:47,719 --> 00:45:49,279
Speaker 2: the only thing that would keep me from reading a

953
00:45:49,320 --> 00:45:52,000
Speaker 2: book was if it was a signed reading. And so

954
00:45:52,320 --> 00:45:54,160
Speaker 2: it's interesting to me. That's very important to him, the

955
00:45:54,160 --> 00:45:56,319
Speaker 2: fact that you know, he got bad grades because he

956
00:45:56,560 --> 00:46:00,520
Speaker 2: chose to, but he was really smart. His mother later

957
00:46:00,600 --> 00:46:03,120
Speaker 2: recalled he decided that since he wasn't the smartest in

958
00:46:03,120 --> 00:46:04,880
Speaker 2: the room, he would be the dumbest. He had to

959
00:46:04,920 --> 00:46:08,759
Speaker 2: be different. And I don't think she's fully accurate there,

960
00:46:08,800 --> 00:46:11,120
Speaker 2: and I don't think Lee is being fully honest here.

961
00:46:11,520 --> 00:46:14,720
Speaker 2: I think Lee is. He's definitely smart, he's definitely capable

962
00:46:14,760 --> 00:46:17,000
Speaker 2: of doing better in school than he did. He chose

963
00:46:17,040 --> 00:46:19,799
Speaker 2: to fuck up in school. But I also think he's

964
00:46:19,800 --> 00:46:22,960
Speaker 2: deeply insecure because of these issues he has reading as

965
00:46:23,000 --> 00:46:26,200
Speaker 2: a kid, he's never as well read or educated as

966
00:46:26,239 --> 00:46:28,640
Speaker 2: he wants to be. And as his charisma in his

967
00:46:28,680 --> 00:46:31,960
Speaker 2: gift of gab lets him mimic being right. He's able

968
00:46:32,000 --> 00:46:34,719
Speaker 2: to pretend to have the depth of education that he

969
00:46:34,760 --> 00:46:38,960
Speaker 2: doesn't have, and he doesn't. I don't think he actually

970
00:46:39,000 --> 00:46:41,120
Speaker 2: read two or three books a week during this period

971
00:46:41,160 --> 00:46:44,520
Speaker 2: of time, like that's what he claims. But he's going

972
00:46:44,600 --> 00:46:48,160
Speaker 2: to make this claim again years later when he's starting

973
00:46:48,160 --> 00:46:50,320
Speaker 2: to make a name for himself as a Republican Party

974
00:46:50,400 --> 00:46:53,560
Speaker 2: campaign strategist. And I want to quote from an article

975
00:46:53,600 --> 00:46:55,879
Speaker 2: for The New York Times by Marine Daud writing about

976
00:46:55,880 --> 00:46:57,480
Speaker 2: this period of time. And this is later in life,

977
00:46:57,480 --> 00:46:59,040
Speaker 2: but I think it's relevant to the claim he makes

978
00:46:59,040 --> 00:47:01,920
Speaker 2: while he's in grade school. Quote as a Reagan aid,

979
00:47:02,000 --> 00:47:04,160
Speaker 2: he bragged that he read three books a week, everything

980
00:47:04,160 --> 00:47:07,279
Speaker 2: from Dostoyevski to Alvin Toffler, and then hired an aide

981
00:47:07,360 --> 00:47:10,319
Speaker 2: named James Pinkerton to read the books and give him summaries. Well,

982
00:47:10,320 --> 00:47:12,440
Speaker 2: he jogged on the treadmill at the White House. Jim.

983
00:47:12,560 --> 00:47:14,960
Speaker 2: It was a good joke about all the reporters who

984
00:47:15,000 --> 00:47:17,880
Speaker 2: wrote about his prodigious reading habits, and the lofty quotes

985
00:47:17,920 --> 00:47:21,040
Speaker 2: also impressed young women. He really did read The Great Gatsby,

986
00:47:21,080 --> 00:47:25,920
Speaker 2: Pinkerton recalls Fogley, so that's good. I think he's doing

987
00:47:25,920 --> 00:47:27,799
Speaker 2: that a version of that int highest because basically having

988
00:47:27,840 --> 00:47:29,960
Speaker 2: chatchypet summarized books for you, that's what he be doing

989
00:47:30,040 --> 00:47:31,720
Speaker 2: it and he gets it's what he was doing now, Yeah,

990
00:47:31,760 --> 00:47:33,840
Speaker 2: and he memorizes a couple of quotes so that he

991
00:47:33,840 --> 00:47:35,719
Speaker 2: can drop a quote from the book and seem like

992
00:47:35,760 --> 00:47:36,760
Speaker 2: he knows what he's talking about.

993
00:47:36,840 --> 00:47:38,680
Speaker 3: This is the same thing he was doing as a kid, right,

994
00:47:38,760 --> 00:47:41,400
Speaker 3: like as like as like a little kid, and to

995
00:47:41,400 --> 00:47:45,000
Speaker 3: like impress adults. It's this is like even connected to

996
00:47:45,080 --> 00:47:48,560
Speaker 3: his like urge to like perform. It's like the deception

997
00:47:48,640 --> 00:47:51,360
Speaker 3: of the performances all that matters that overrides any like

998
00:47:51,440 --> 00:47:54,520
Speaker 3: actual like substance. Yes, behind this, because no one can

999
00:47:54,520 --> 00:47:57,880
Speaker 3: actually truly like understand the substance unless you let them in.

1000
00:47:58,080 --> 00:48:00,160
Speaker 3: And if you're always putting on this character, then no

1001
00:48:00,160 --> 00:48:03,160
Speaker 3: one's going to get level close enough to understand that,

1002
00:48:03,640 --> 00:48:04,520
Speaker 3: right right.

1003
00:48:04,360 --> 00:48:07,960
Speaker 2: And I think it also he is he could do

1004
00:48:08,040 --> 00:48:10,879
Speaker 2: better in school than he does, but not as much

1005
00:48:10,920 --> 00:48:12,920
Speaker 2: better as he Again, like his mom said, he wouldn't

1006
00:48:12,920 --> 00:48:15,759
Speaker 2: have been the best. He wasn't that smart, and so

1007
00:48:15,800 --> 00:48:20,080
Speaker 2: he's he has to kind of he both said talking

1008
00:48:20,120 --> 00:48:22,879
Speaker 2: about how purposefully he fucked up school and about how

1009
00:48:23,080 --> 00:48:24,799
Speaker 2: much he read and how smart he really was. Those

1010
00:48:24,840 --> 00:48:28,040
Speaker 2: are both like coping mechanisms to protect his ego to

1011
00:48:28,080 --> 00:48:31,319
Speaker 2: an extent. His grades are bad enough that in tenth

1012
00:48:31,400 --> 00:48:34,240
Speaker 2: grade his parents send him away to a military school.

1013
00:48:34,400 --> 00:48:36,960
Speaker 2: He goes to Fork Union Military School with starting in

1014
00:48:37,000 --> 00:48:39,360
Speaker 2: the fall of nineteen sixty six. And this is the

1015
00:48:39,440 --> 00:48:41,759
Speaker 2: kind of place, like all the kids there are kids

1016
00:48:41,800 --> 00:48:44,759
Speaker 2: who are misbehaving and not doing well in class, and

1017
00:48:44,800 --> 00:48:47,800
Speaker 2: you have to think about this academy as one big

1018
00:48:47,840 --> 00:48:51,759
Speaker 2: sizzling pot of adhd. Right every kid there could like

1019
00:48:51,880 --> 00:48:55,960
Speaker 2: be swallowing riddle in by the fucking pound. John Brady

1020
00:48:56,000 --> 00:48:58,200
Speaker 2: talks to several of his classmates. One of them later

1021
00:48:58,200 --> 00:49:01,520
Speaker 2: claimed he was a manipulator, get you to agree to anything,

1022
00:49:01,840 --> 00:49:04,279
Speaker 2: and this is a sentiment basically everyone who knew him

1023
00:49:04,320 --> 00:49:07,040
Speaker 2: during this period of time would agree with. One of

1024
00:49:07,040 --> 00:49:09,920
Speaker 2: his hobbies is collecting record albums, and early on at

1025
00:49:09,960 --> 00:49:13,320
Speaker 2: fork Union he started convincing his other classmates there was

1026
00:49:13,360 --> 00:49:15,879
Speaker 2: this like record club that if you got someone else

1027
00:49:15,920 --> 00:49:18,600
Speaker 2: to join, they'd send you a free album. And so

1028
00:49:18,640 --> 00:49:21,839
Speaker 2: he'd do this to get a bunch of free albums. Yea, yeah,

1029
00:49:21,880 --> 00:49:24,160
Speaker 2: and then he bribed a friend. He gave him a

1030
00:49:24,160 --> 00:49:26,759
Speaker 2: bunch of albums if he would jump out of their

1031
00:49:26,800 --> 00:49:29,840
Speaker 2: window two floors up, if you'd compete with him and

1032
00:49:29,920 --> 00:49:31,560
Speaker 2: jumping out of their window two floors up and then

1033
00:49:31,560 --> 00:49:34,239
Speaker 2: sneaking back in without being caught. And so Lee does

1034
00:49:34,239 --> 00:49:36,239
Speaker 2: it first, he jumps out, and he sneaks back in

1035
00:49:36,280 --> 00:49:38,879
Speaker 2: and he's fine. And then when his roommate jumps out,

1036
00:49:39,120 --> 00:49:41,640
Speaker 2: Lee blocks the door to their room with a locker

1037
00:49:42,000 --> 00:49:45,080
Speaker 2: to ensure that his friend gets caught and loses the bet.

1038
00:49:45,320 --> 00:49:48,399
Speaker 2: Like that's the kind of shit he's bully. He's such

1039
00:49:48,400 --> 00:49:53,560
Speaker 2: a little psycho. He starts drinking. I mean it's kind

1040
00:49:53,560 --> 00:49:56,200
Speaker 2: of funny, but like it's subjectively shitty.

1041
00:49:56,800 --> 00:49:58,640
Speaker 3: Yes, he starts.

1042
00:49:58,360 --> 00:50:00,880
Speaker 2: Drinking at age fifteen, and he finds a store that

1043
00:50:00,920 --> 00:50:03,960
Speaker 2: doesn't check IDs and sells papst blue ribbon that is

1044
00:50:04,000 --> 00:50:07,840
Speaker 2: his child beer. In his biography of Lee, John the

1045
00:50:07,920 --> 00:50:11,560
Speaker 2: scribes ahead of his times, he grew a little pencil

1046
00:50:11,640 --> 00:50:15,680
Speaker 2: mustache too. John Brady describes the parties he went to

1047
00:50:15,760 --> 00:50:18,839
Speaker 2: with his bunk mates in incredible terms. In the car

1048
00:50:18,920 --> 00:50:21,640
Speaker 2: he changed back into civies and hugged beers and long

1049
00:50:21,680 --> 00:50:24,520
Speaker 2: extended gulps like a sword swallower. He could consume a

1050
00:50:24,560 --> 00:50:27,720
Speaker 2: six pack in ten miles, tossing cans out the car window,

1051
00:50:27,760 --> 00:50:30,680
Speaker 2: then arriving at a rock or soul dance thoroughly blitz

1052
00:50:31,000 --> 00:50:33,920
Speaker 2: on the dance floor. He did James Brown splits and pirouettes.

1053
00:50:34,080 --> 00:50:36,120
Speaker 2: He picked up girls who were impressed at first by

1054
00:50:36,120 --> 00:50:38,440
Speaker 2: his wildness and wit, but who slowly froze on the

1055
00:50:38,520 --> 00:50:45,200
Speaker 2: unbearable ride home. Fun kid, I.

1056
00:50:45,800 --> 00:50:47,720
Speaker 3: Like that they're measuring drinking by the mile.

1057
00:50:48,000 --> 00:50:50,520
Speaker 2: By the mile, that's how you know you're really doing

1058
00:50:50,600 --> 00:50:52,160
Speaker 2: some underage drinking.

1059
00:50:52,080 --> 00:50:55,960
Speaker 3: Six and every ten miles.

1060
00:50:54,680 --> 00:50:57,440
Speaker 2: Just hurling the empty beers out the window. Fuck it,

1061
00:50:57,520 --> 00:51:00,319
Speaker 2: who's gonna stop us? Not a seat belt inside? The

1062
00:51:00,400 --> 00:51:02,040
Speaker 2: cops are just as drunk as you.

1063
00:51:02,640 --> 00:51:02,840
Speaker 1: It was.

1064
00:51:03,080 --> 00:51:04,840
Speaker 2: We used to be a proper country garrison.

1065
00:51:06,600 --> 00:51:11,200
Speaker 3: Alas his grade, Yeah, alas, until people like this came around.

1066
00:51:11,360 --> 00:51:13,480
Speaker 2: Until people like this came around and ruined it. That's right.

1067
00:51:14,320 --> 00:51:16,719
Speaker 2: His grades improve a little at Fork Union, and so

1068
00:51:17,120 --> 00:51:19,520
Speaker 2: in his second semester there he starts begging his parents.

1069
00:51:19,520 --> 00:51:23,000
Speaker 2: He has this like, very like methodical plan to convince

1070
00:51:23,040 --> 00:51:24,880
Speaker 2: his parents to let him go back to high school.

1071
00:51:25,120 --> 00:51:27,359
Speaker 2: He wants to go to J. C. Flora High which

1072
00:51:27,360 --> 00:51:29,120
Speaker 2: is where several of his friends had gone and is

1073
00:51:29,200 --> 00:51:32,080
Speaker 2: like a college campus in size and organization more than

1074
00:51:32,120 --> 00:51:34,880
Speaker 2: like a traditional high school. Yeah, it's a public school

1075
00:51:35,280 --> 00:51:37,520
Speaker 2: and it's a big one. It sounds kind of like

1076
00:51:37,560 --> 00:51:41,480
Speaker 2: where my high school, where it's like a college size campus.

1077
00:51:42,480 --> 00:51:46,160
Speaker 2: His parents agree, and yeah, he's able to go back

1078
00:51:46,160 --> 00:51:48,680
Speaker 2: to public school. And as soon as he is, Lee

1079
00:51:48,800 --> 00:51:51,720
Speaker 2: gets back to his old tricks. For Jane Mayer's article

1080
00:51:51,719 --> 00:51:54,880
Speaker 2: in The New Yorker. The first presidential campaign that Atwater

1081
00:51:54,960 --> 00:51:56,640
Speaker 2: managed was a bid to get a friend of his

1082
00:51:56,719 --> 00:51:59,719
Speaker 2: elected as student body president. Against the friend's wishes, he

1083
00:51:59,760 --> 00:52:02,160
Speaker 2: created did a list of false accomplishments, and devised a

1084
00:52:02,160 --> 00:52:05,360
Speaker 2: fake rating system that ranked his friend first. The poll

1085
00:52:05,520 --> 00:52:08,839
Speaker 2: was called big Ats Comedy Ratings, and it was distributed

1086
00:52:08,880 --> 00:52:11,800
Speaker 2: as a flyer listing the funniest boys and girls in school.

1087
00:52:12,160 --> 00:52:14,920
Speaker 2: To continue with Mayor's quote, he plastered the school with

1088
00:52:14,960 --> 00:52:18,000
Speaker 2: posters declaring his friend's platform of false promises of free

1089
00:52:18,000 --> 00:52:21,360
Speaker 2: beer on tap in the cafeteria, free dates, free girls.

1090
00:52:21,760 --> 00:52:24,840
Speaker 2: The campaign took a darker turn when Atwater's sidekicks stomped

1091
00:52:24,840 --> 00:52:27,160
Speaker 2: on the bare feet of a hippie like student until

1092
00:52:27,200 --> 00:52:30,319
Speaker 2: his feet bled profusely. Afterward, the group threatened to do

1093
00:52:30,360 --> 00:52:33,360
Speaker 2: the same to younger students unless they voted for Atwater's candidate.

1094
00:52:33,680 --> 00:52:37,160
Speaker 2: Atwater recalls thinking that he privately reveled in the tactics

1095
00:52:37,200 --> 00:52:40,520
Speaker 2: and was proud he could participate in intimidating his fellow students,

1096
00:52:40,960 --> 00:52:43,719
Speaker 2: but publicly he feigned concern or, as he writes, I

1097
00:52:43,840 --> 00:52:47,040
Speaker 2: was acting like Eddie Haskell, saying, oh my gosh, young people,

1098
00:52:47,200 --> 00:52:51,040
Speaker 2: you could be next. His candidate won in an upset victory,

1099
00:52:51,239 --> 00:52:54,200
Speaker 2: but the school declared it void owing to a technicality.

1100
00:52:54,440 --> 00:52:57,080
Speaker 2: I learned a lot, he writes. I learned how to organize,

1101
00:52:57,120 --> 00:52:59,759
Speaker 2: and I learned how to polarize.

1102
00:52:59,000 --> 00:53:00,439
Speaker 4: Well a lot.

1103
00:53:00,480 --> 00:53:00,680
Speaker 2: There.

1104
00:53:01,160 --> 00:53:04,120
Speaker 3: Wow, that's horrifying.

1105
00:53:04,280 --> 00:53:06,399
Speaker 2: That's nuts. Yet it's so fucking odd.

1106
00:53:06,480 --> 00:53:09,160
Speaker 1: I learned how to organize, and I learned.

1107
00:53:10,520 --> 00:53:13,799
Speaker 2: Beating kids because he's fucking yeah, like and he's like

1108
00:53:14,160 --> 00:53:21,240
Speaker 2: and I this mob, Yeah what a cool guy. Yeah

1109
00:53:21,600 --> 00:53:23,440
Speaker 2: this this kid's gotta be evil.

1110
00:53:23,960 --> 00:53:28,000
Speaker 3: Uh that's that's that's wild.

1111
00:53:28,280 --> 00:53:31,799
Speaker 2: Right, and it's it's it's something else like that is

1112
00:53:31,880 --> 00:53:33,000
Speaker 2: sinister as fuck.

1113
00:53:33,520 --> 00:53:36,279
Speaker 3: That also sounds like a great like eighties film. That's

1114
00:53:36,320 --> 00:53:37,719
Speaker 3: like it does so.

1115
00:53:37,760 --> 00:53:39,759
Speaker 2: Much of his childhood right, even like an eighties or

1116
00:53:39,800 --> 00:53:40,840
Speaker 2: early nineties movie.

1117
00:53:41,080 --> 00:53:44,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, like, yeah, it would be such such a good

1118
00:53:44,120 --> 00:53:47,880
Speaker 3: like person running for class president like a movie.

1119
00:53:48,480 --> 00:53:51,880
Speaker 2: If he had just written like, if he just become

1120
00:53:51,960 --> 00:53:54,840
Speaker 2: like John Hughes, you know, we could have been saved

1121
00:53:54,840 --> 00:53:58,600
Speaker 2: a lot of horror as a as a species. If only,

1122
00:53:59,200 --> 00:54:02,120
Speaker 2: if only. Wow. But you know who won't be saved

1123
00:54:02,120 --> 00:54:06,799
Speaker 2: from the horrors? Garrison us? The people who listen to

1124
00:54:06,840 --> 00:54:09,680
Speaker 2: your podcasting on it could happen here, or follow you

1125
00:54:09,719 --> 00:54:11,680
Speaker 2: on social media? You got anything you want to plug?

1126
00:54:12,880 --> 00:54:15,120
Speaker 3: I mean no, just just it could happen here. Are

1127
00:54:15,239 --> 00:54:19,239
Speaker 3: our weekly news show, Executive Disorder, where we where we

1128
00:54:19,320 --> 00:54:22,680
Speaker 3: talk about the news every week the horrors for what

1129
00:54:22,920 --> 00:54:25,839
Speaker 3: like how bad things is thirty thirty thirty five weeks now?

1130
00:54:26,000 --> 00:54:29,799
Speaker 1: Jesus, you changed your handle on the social medis, didn't?

1131
00:54:29,960 --> 00:54:30,280
Speaker 2: Yes?

1132
00:54:30,440 --> 00:54:33,560
Speaker 3: Yes, I changed my handle for fun to buy shown

1133
00:54:33,640 --> 00:54:36,759
Speaker 3: in type on all social media platforms. I mean, I'm

1134
00:54:36,800 --> 00:54:38,240
Speaker 3: still trying to use blue sky.

1135
00:54:38,400 --> 00:54:43,360
Speaker 4: But it's a bummer hashtag.

1136
00:54:43,560 --> 00:54:46,600
Speaker 3: I don't know that's true. It's all of them are it's.

1137
00:54:46,280 --> 00:54:48,800
Speaker 4: A bummer, and then it's a fascist bummer.

1138
00:54:49,040 --> 00:54:53,080
Speaker 2: There's you know, I yeah, the other bad there's nothing

1139
00:54:53,120 --> 00:54:55,440
Speaker 2: good trying, trying, try for.

1140
00:54:55,440 --> 00:54:59,960
Speaker 3: The podcasts, but but you know, occasionally occasionally.

1141
00:54:59,600 --> 00:55:03,960
Speaker 4: Yeah, uh well, we'll be back with part two.

1142
00:55:04,040 --> 00:55:07,120
Speaker 2: Yeah uh yeah. Perhaps.

1143
00:55:07,360 --> 00:55:10,800
Speaker 3: Oh this guy didn't just end running for president.

1144
00:55:11,320 --> 00:55:13,520
Speaker 2: No, no, this he did not drop.

1145
00:55:13,360 --> 00:55:17,720
Speaker 1: Dead after organizing school election.

1146
00:55:17,800 --> 00:55:21,600
Speaker 3: And I thought that was that's right, that's a great ending.

1147
00:55:21,960 --> 00:55:24,440
Speaker 2: No, we'll we'll hit you with part two. But first

1148
00:55:24,760 --> 00:55:28,880
Speaker 2: we're gonna roll out for the day. But you can, everybody,

1149
00:55:28,880 --> 00:55:32,960
Speaker 2: please go to Defense Fund PDX donor box, type that

1150
00:55:33,000 --> 00:55:36,680
Speaker 2: into Google Defense Fund PDX donor box, and donate to

1151
00:55:36,800 --> 00:55:39,560
Speaker 2: the Portland Defense Fund to help people who have literally

1152
00:55:39,600 --> 00:55:41,719
Speaker 2: no one else looking out for them get bailed out

1153
00:55:41,800 --> 00:55:46,360
Speaker 2: and you know, get some help not falling into a

1154
00:55:46,400 --> 00:55:52,520
Speaker 2: black hole if they get charged with a fucking misdemeanor. Generally, yeah,

1155
00:55:52,560 --> 00:55:54,839
Speaker 2: please help and good out. I love you.

1156
00:55:58,480 --> 00:56:01,200
Speaker 1: Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.

1157
00:56:01,560 --> 00:56:04,840
Speaker 1: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia

1158
00:56:05,000 --> 00:56:08,200
Speaker 1: dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

1159
00:56:08,280 --> 00:56:11,440
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Behind the

1160
00:56:11,440 --> 00:56:13,400
Speaker 1: Bastards is now available on YouTube.

1161
00:56:13,600 --> 00:56:15,200
Speaker 4: New episodes every.

1162
00:56:15,000 --> 00:56:16,200
Speaker 1: Wednesday and Friday.

1163
00:56:16,520 --> 00:56:20,280
Speaker 4: Subscribe to our channel YouTube dot com. Slash at behind

1164
00:56:20,280 --> 00:56:20,960
Speaker 4: the bastards