Speaker 1: You know what, I think it's time to do a podcast.
Speaker 1: All right, I did it, Sophie. This is it could
Speaker 1: happen here a podcast that's begun. We talk about how
Speaker 1: things are falling apart, and occasionally, when we're feeling good,
Speaker 1: how to maybe how to maybe put them back together
Speaker 1: a little bit. But today we're more talking about the
Speaker 1: growing consensus that things in the US culture wars are
Speaker 1: heating up to an unacceptable level, and and maybe people
Speaker 1: are going to start doing some non culture type wars
Speaker 1: here in the near future, like a civil type war
Speaker 1: here in the near future. Those of you who know me, which,
Speaker 1: why would you be listening to this podcast if you
Speaker 1: if you don't know, like the earlier seasons of this
Speaker 1: exact show, uh know that I talk a lot about
Speaker 1: the potential of a mass civil conflict in the United States.
Speaker 1: I've been kind of trying to warn about it for
Speaker 1: a while, and today we're gonna do an episode about
Speaker 1: some of the more mainstream sources that have started to
Speaker 1: kind of accept this as a possibility, um and get
Speaker 1: concerned about it. Garrison, you've presented us with three articles,
Speaker 1: one from NBC News, one from The Independent, and one
Speaker 1: from the Brookings Institute, all kind of fiddling around this
Speaker 1: idea that certain unnamed journalists have spent years discussing. So yeah,
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna get into it, Garrison. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: it is the past. The past few months we have
Speaker 1: well I've I've been watching to see how how this
Speaker 1: idea has been slowly kind of gaining in popularity. Of course,
Speaker 1: there was like a spike in this around like January six,
Speaker 1: but then stuff kind of settled down, and now we're
Speaker 1: kind of seeing it come back up against We had
Speaker 1: these these three pieces, all published within like a month
Speaker 1: of each other, um, all kind of on the topic
Speaker 1: and specifically, like the pieces themselves are definitely going coming
Speaker 1: out this from a more like liberal perspective. But the
Speaker 1: thing that made them interesting is that they did have
Speaker 1: a decent number of like of of polls and uh
Speaker 1: and and surveys in them based on like what who who,
Speaker 1: what types of people think are like are thinking about
Speaker 1: this and think it's more more of a possibility. One
Speaker 1: survey published on November one, they've said eighteen percent of
Speaker 1: Americans believe that quote unquote patriots might have to resort
Speaker 1: to violence to quote save the country. Um, so, and
Speaker 1: then that included a thirty percent of Republicans, um so,
Speaker 1: but at eighteen percent of all of of of of
Speaker 1: Americans in general republicans. Yeah, so using that very specifically
Speaker 1: turn of phrase is definitely uh notable. And then another
Speaker 1: pole from morelier in the year found that forty six
Speaker 1: percent of people thought the country was somewhat or very
Speaker 1: like to have another type of civil war. And that's
Speaker 1: the plurality of the people pulled in that because only
Speaker 1: like said unlikely, so the majority of people or not
Speaker 1: the majority of people pulled, but like the most common
Speaker 1: leaned on, yes it is, I think maybe we're going
Speaker 1: to have us a war yeah, which is not great.
Speaker 1: The one that uh NBC published included in their article
Speaker 1: had but like thirty three percent of people saying no,
Speaker 1: it's it's probably not gonna happen, kind of on the
Speaker 1: maybe and and and and forty seven leaning on yeah
Speaker 1: this maybe this is this is probably gonna happen at
Speaker 1: some point soon. YEP. I mean a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot a lot of what these articles are talking about
Speaker 1: is just like kind of the increased increased threats against
Speaker 1: like elected officials and then increased almost like militancy or
Speaker 1: performative militancy of elected officials types of like like you know,
Speaker 1: like a performatively bringing your gun into Congress and that
Speaker 1: type of thing. And it lays out like a list
Speaker 1: of a list of like of of of threats or
Speaker 1: stuff enacted against governors, congressmen, all that kind of stuff
Speaker 1: in in the past, in the past, like a year
Speaker 1: year mainly. Yeah, one of the things I really disagree
Speaker 1: about the Brookings because Brookings is the one who kind
Speaker 1: of is analyzing that made that big poll and talking
Speaker 1: about it, has a list of reasons why we might
Speaker 1: have a civil war and a list of reasons why
Speaker 1: it's unlikely. And one of the reasons why it's unlikely
Speaker 1: is quote most of the organizations talking about civil war
Speaker 1: or private not public entities. Um. And note that when
Speaker 1: Southern States succeeded in eighteen sixty, they had police forces,
Speaker 1: military organizations, and state sponsored Militia's the right of that now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like there's a ton of signal posting from guys like
Speaker 1: Jim Jordan's uh Hawthorne um Gates bobert Um, a ton
Speaker 1: of signal posting of gosar from elected Republican leaders, from governors,
Speaker 1: from state level elected officials, and like regular street cops. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and like regular street cops that are like civil war adjacent, um,
Speaker 1: if not directly advocating for internet scene violence. I think
Speaker 1: that that I don't think Brookings, I don't think they're
Speaker 1: analysis is spot on with this, And I think there's
Speaker 1: just one of everything that's interesting about that, which is
Speaker 1: I think it was one of those are these our
Speaker 1: sleps were arguing that it was like, well, the Pentagon's
Speaker 1: not particularly civil like, well, the Pentagon doesn't want a
Speaker 1: civil war, They're not gonna step into it. But but
Speaker 1: I think it is also important to note that, like
Speaker 1: like if you remember what happened last summer, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of FEDS who are just like you know, like
Speaker 1: when like yeah, so so you know, the the army
Speaker 1: kind of doesn't want Trump to like send the army
Speaker 1: against protesters, but like you know, like bor Tak for example,
Speaker 1: like was just like absolutely hyped up to just like
Speaker 1: absolutely just go disappear a bunch of people. And they
Speaker 1: were very excited about that part. Yeah, Yeah, they love
Speaker 1: they love this stuff, and it's like, yeah, the notion
Speaker 1: that it's less likely because it doesn't have like formal
Speaker 1: police backing is really silly because if you spend any
Speaker 1: time monitoring these type of militia groups, you know that
Speaker 1: a good portion of them are also members of some
Speaker 1: type of law enforcement or have like family connections. To me,
Speaker 1: there have been a bunch of cases of weapons being
Speaker 1: stolen stolen from forts UM, particularly in like the West
Speaker 1: Coast right now. Like, Yeah, there's a ton of connections
Speaker 1: to the and a ton of like members in common.
Speaker 1: It's like at the Capital riot that were like thirty
Speaker 1: something active duty police officers involved. UM. To say that
Speaker 1: there's not direct connections with law enforcement is nonsense. And
Speaker 1: it's true that like our military leadership remains pretty much
Speaker 1: a political and very like committed to being a political
Speaker 1: in the sense that like in the within the like
Speaker 1: US partisan context, right like they don't come in to
Speaker 1: prop up the Democrats of the Republicans, and I don't
Speaker 1: think that's immediately likely. But police forces in the United
Speaker 1: States are extremely politicized and have more than enough power
Speaker 1: to carry out a counterinsurgency campaign nationwide. And as long
Speaker 1: as the US military didn't step in, and why would they, like,
Speaker 1: the cops are willing and able to do the civil
Speaker 1: warring for the government. Why do you think they have
Speaker 1: all those tanks? You know? So, yeah, like there is
Speaker 1: there is a lot of backing um, at least performatively
Speaker 1: among certain types of like write politicians and of course police.
Speaker 1: But I think a lot of what the politicians are
Speaker 1: trying to do is more like encourage regular folks or
Speaker 1: people in like civilian militias to just start doing violence
Speaker 1: against other elected leaders. That seems to be like like
Speaker 1: like Bobart and that and those types aren't. They're not
Speaker 1: like telling police to go do this. They're speaking to
Speaker 1: like regular people. UM. And I think one on one
Speaker 1: decent point, the actually the nbc PS actually puts out
Speaker 1: and it says all of this kind of like a
Speaker 1: divisive um and and more violent rhetoric and behavior displayed
Speaker 1: by and towards some of our elected officials does not
Speaker 1: necessarily mean another like civil war in terms of like
Speaker 1: a military conduct contest between states. UM. It just does
Speaker 1: not mean that it's inevitable or even probable or even
Speaker 1: like probable. A more likely scenario is a turbulent era
Speaker 1: of civil disturbances, armed confrontations, standoffs, threats, assassination attempts, and
Speaker 1: other acts of political violence. In other words, one that's
Speaker 1: a lot like the last two years of American history,
Speaker 1: which I feel like, yeah, in terms of in terms
Speaker 1: of the likelihood of there being like a more formally
Speaker 1: declared kind of conflict versus just versus just like increasingly
Speaker 1: increasingly normalizing extreme violence against uh you know, quote unquote
Speaker 1: fellow countrymen. I think is is ah, yeah, like that
Speaker 1: there's we are going to be more likely to be
Speaker 1: just move being in that direction slowly and at the
Speaker 1: point when there's like frequent enough exchange of the fire,
Speaker 1: that's when we say, yeah, we're basically in a civil war.
Speaker 1: We're just not calling it that, um, which is you know,
Speaker 1: that's the points that you, Robert, you have made a
Speaker 1: lot in the in the past. Yeah, I mean, and
Speaker 1: there's I I'm I think a lot of this is
Speaker 1: just a failure of kind of imagination and ability to
Speaker 1: accept from a group like Brookings, who I know has
Speaker 1: paid some attention to the Syrian Civil War that like
Speaker 1: civil conflicts in the United States or in the in
Speaker 1: the twenty one century often don't like there's no clear
Speaker 1: regional split. Like you look at a lot of what
Speaker 1: was happening in Syria, you had cities divided up by
Speaker 1: neighborhoods between like who who was in charge? Um, you
Speaker 1: know that that's very much what we see here. And
Speaker 1: you do see like clear regional split between urban and
Speaker 1: rural divides. And it's not like they say, within specific states,
Speaker 1: but like I would say, it's very specific and limited
Speaker 1: state that don't have huge urban rural divides. Um, Like,
Speaker 1: that's that is the norm everywhere in this country that
Speaker 1: I've been. Maybe it's different in fucking Vermont or New Hampshire,
Speaker 1: but I don't trust those places. Um. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: guess I think they're overly optimistic based on kind of
Speaker 1: a fundamental misunderstanding of how these sorts of conflicts occur. Um.
Speaker 1: That said, I don't know, Like it's it's one of
Speaker 1: those things. I think the number one the number one
Speaker 1: thing you should be looking at in terms of whether
Speaker 1: or not a civil war is likely is the number
Speaker 1: of people who respond in polls with things like yes,
Speaker 1: I think we need to use violence to restore the
Speaker 1: nation or whatever. Um that it's not just enough, Like
Speaker 1: I I it's not just enough to think that a
Speaker 1: civil war is likely because a lot of that's just
Speaker 1: based on people who don't want one, but are paying
Speaker 1: attention to the same media as everybody else and are
Speaker 1: watching this and stuff we're watching and are like, well,
Speaker 1: this seems sketchy. I think that the main indicator is
Speaker 1: the number of people who respond, yeah, I think it
Speaker 1: would be awesome to use violence as a like in
Speaker 1: order to make America more like what I wanted to be. UM.
Speaker 1: And again that doesn't mean we'll we'll creep over the point.
Speaker 1: There's a number of interesting things that have happened UM
Speaker 1: on kind of the we're headed towards the civil war side.
Speaker 1: The number one thing that I've seen recently is the
Speaker 1: use of paramilitary organizations UM to kind of choke uh
Speaker 1: local civil institutions UM like school boards. I I see
Speaker 1: that as very concerning and as kind of prelude to
Speaker 1: the sort of armed mobilizations that you would see unlocalized
Speaker 1: areas in any kind of civil conflict. It's it's the
Speaker 1: precursors to death squads. So that's the that's the thing
Speaker 1: that I see on the ground that worries me most
Speaker 1: um in terms of the thing that I'm I'm certain
Speaker 1: about honestly, Like, one of the things they note in
Speaker 1: here in the Brookings article that like, the sheer number
Speaker 1: of guns in the United States is a reason why
Speaker 1: we might have a civil war, and I agree with
Speaker 1: that entirely. When you have four million weapons in private hands,
Speaker 1: it increases the odds that they'll be used in some
Speaker 1: sort of scale. UM. We've also seen historic numbers of
Speaker 1: non white people of of of like folks who are
Speaker 1: from marginalized communities, UM, not just buying up weapons that
Speaker 1: unprecedented rates, but organizing with them. And I'm not really
Speaker 1: sure how to think of that. There's certainly a way.
Speaker 1: It could certainly be a very negative development, but it
Speaker 1: could also be. I think a big part of what
Speaker 1: I've seen from the right lately is the sense of impunity. UM.
Speaker 1: And I think the feeling of being matched uh in
Speaker 1: arms is an end to impunity potentially. UM. Then the
Speaker 1: big question is like, well what about the police, and like, well,
Speaker 1: if the police side with the riot against you know,
Speaker 1: there's there's still a number of questions there, and we
Speaker 1: don't have any clean answers. But UM, I don't know that.
Speaker 1: I I think that on the whole, I'm more worried
Speaker 1: than I was two years ago when I wrote it.
Speaker 1: Could happen here, um, but it's not clean. And I
Speaker 1: think in some to some extent, I'm I'm a little
Speaker 1: more worried about something like the years of Lead in
Speaker 1: Italy than I am about Syria right now, if that
Speaker 1: makes sense. I will say one thing about the years
Speaker 1: of Lead, which because a lot of people talk about
Speaker 1: the years of less, so that the years a letter
Speaker 1: this kind of like a roughly ten year period in
Speaker 1: Italy of I don't know, mass terrorismating political violence with
Speaker 1: effigant body counts in a way that stood out from
Speaker 1: the years around it. Yeah, And I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: the years of Lead has use a lit Also, there's
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of intelligent and she's involved. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of foreign kind of false false bombings, like hundred
Speaker 1: hundreds of people are being killed in bombings. And I
Speaker 1: think there's one absolutely crucial difference between now in the
Speaker 1: Years of Light. I mean, well, okay, so partially it's
Speaker 1: that unlike Italy, we don't have seventeen thousand intelligence agencies
Speaker 1: operating in the US and like trying to kidnap and
Speaker 1: kill the foreign prime minister. But the the other thing
Speaker 1: that's very important is that unlike unlike the Italian left,
Speaker 1: and you know, really unlike the whole global left of
Speaker 1: the seventies and eighties. There is no American like left
Speaker 1: wing like left wing, I guess you could call, like
Speaker 1: there's there's no left wing terrorist tradition, right like the
Speaker 1: like the left doesn't do suside bombings. The left doesn't
Speaker 1: kidnap people like like the modern American left doesn't do that,
Speaker 1: and that a big part of what was happening from
Speaker 1: the years of LED was that, you know, sometimes the
Speaker 1: left was doing this. A lot of times it was
Speaker 1: the state pretending to be the left carrying out bombings.
Speaker 1: And that isn't really something that is happening right now
Speaker 1: because there's just like the like, the the left is
Speaker 1: not in a play where everyone is going, we need
Speaker 1: to do armed durban guerrilla movements and yeah, so and
Speaker 1: then that that makes it harder to sort of pin
Speaker 1: things like pin actual urban guerrilla movement stuff on the
Speaker 1: left because there's just none of that. But I don't
Speaker 1: think and I agree Years of Left is kind of
Speaker 1: like a broad Strokes comparison because what I see is
Speaker 1: more likely is what we're what we're already witnessing on
Speaker 1: the ground with these right wing militant groups increases, and
Speaker 1: they moved to the point of kidnapping and executing and
Speaker 1: potentially in concert with law enforcement, like doing stuff like
Speaker 1: in states that have issued harsh laws, you know, banning
Speaker 1: certain books. You have in a town, local law enforcement
Speaker 1: and militias like go after and grab individual leftists and
Speaker 1: either kill or imprison them, and conflicts over that, and
Speaker 1: you have the left increasingly organized an arm um as
Speaker 1: a defense against that, and then a number of armed conflicts,
Speaker 1: you know, as a result of that, which maybe then
Speaker 1: proceed to bombings and stuff that that's terrorism, or proceed
Speaker 1: to just more kind of skirmishes that the FEDS have
Speaker 1: a minimal response to, and local or state law enforcement
Speaker 1: kind of tacitly allows um like that. That's that's kind
Speaker 1: of obviously that's not a direct comparison to what happened
Speaker 1: in Italy, but of course we're a different country. But
Speaker 1: that's kind of that's kind of the kind of brush
Speaker 1: fire conflict I could see cropping up in the very
Speaker 1: near future in this country. You know what else will
Speaker 1: start a series of armed gun fights between left and
Speaker 1: right in American towns. The products and services they're they're
Speaker 1: working on it every day. The products and services that
Speaker 1: support this podcast urged violence on the streets of the
Speaker 1: United States. That's behind the bastards. Guarantee, Sophie, We're not
Speaker 1: doing behind the bastards? What what show are we? Who
Speaker 1: are we? Anyway? Here's ads? All right? Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: uh We're back. Yeah, what a great ad. I really
Speaker 1: nailed that transition. Um, just absolutely so. The next thing
Speaker 1: that I want to talk about, UM, something that I
Speaker 1: think has some some backing behind it and something that
Speaker 1: I think is kind of more silly. Is that one
Speaker 1: of one of the reasons that this uh NBC piece
Speaker 1: by what's his name, uh, Brian Brian Michael Jenkins is uh,
Speaker 1: he says, one of one of the reasons that we're
Speaker 1: kind of getting more okay with, you know, uh, killing
Speaker 1: or hurting our neighbors essentially is um quote, Americans do
Speaker 1: fewer things together. Church attendance is declining. Membership and civic
Speaker 1: organizations and lodges have been decreasing for decades. PTA membership
Speaker 1: has dropped by nearly half from what it was in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties, Bowling leagues have almost disappeared, and a shared
Speaker 1: national experience of military service disintegrated with the abolition of
Speaker 1: conscription in nineteen seventy three. Meanwhile, self proclaimed citizen militia's
Speaker 1: driven mainly by far right conspiracy theories have surged since
Speaker 1: to US and eight, especially in the past five years.
Speaker 1: So he is wrong, but he's yes, militias have leagues,
Speaker 1: militias have risen. But is that due to bowling leagues. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's due to a drop in bowling leagues.
Speaker 1: I think it's due to the fact that all these
Speaker 1: guys are terminally online now and we're watching Fox News
Speaker 1: for twenty years before that. That is the thing, is that, like,
Speaker 1: I don't think this guy, Brian Michael Chickens understands how
Speaker 1: the Internet intersects with extremism because he's he's doing this
Speaker 1: from a very like like he's he's acting like we're
Speaker 1: still in the seventies, and he like, like that's not
Speaker 1: how the world works, and how like people spend their time. No,
Speaker 1: people aren't doing bowling leagues, but yeah, woman, young men
Speaker 1: are spending and and you know, middleagement are spending time online,
Speaker 1: whether that be discord in a terrorist group chat, or
Speaker 1: that be a Facebook group that's for a militia and
Speaker 1: that's where that socialization is happening. And because the Internet
Speaker 1: rewards extremism and the hottest take, it's moving in that direction,
Speaker 1: even with people who would ordinarily just have historically the
Speaker 1: past joined bowling leagues. I guess, but it's very It's
Speaker 1: it's correlation doesn't equal causation. Ship It's wow. Less people
Speaker 1: are in bowling leagues and going to church, and militias
Speaker 1: have grown wildly, wildly. Um, this one must cause the other.
Speaker 1: And it's like, well, no, they're both both of those things.
Speaker 1: May have some causes in common. There may be similar
Speaker 1: factors that are driving both of those things, but they
Speaker 1: are not caused like that. They don't necessary one doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily cause the other. Um. And if you like, again,
Speaker 1: the smart person version of this would be to say, hey,
Speaker 1: people are doing less things together out in the world.
Speaker 1: People are reporting because you can find statistic backup for this.
Speaker 1: People seem to be lonelier than ever. Um, people are
Speaker 1: more depressed than ever. Suicide rates have risen, and while
Speaker 1: this is happening, militias and extremist groups have grown. Perhaps
Speaker 1: there's something about these organizations, um that makes them particularly
Speaker 1: attractive when folks are vulnerable due to these things, and
Speaker 1: like let's look at you know, the failure of our
Speaker 1: political system to confront these issues further feeds into the
Speaker 1: desire amongst some chunk of the populace for some sort
Speaker 1: of nihilistic cleansing violence. And again, pieces of all the
Speaker 1: pieces of this article could be could be reassembled into
Speaker 1: something with um some insight, but I I don't think
Speaker 1: Brian Michael Jenkins has much. I think it's also interesting
Speaker 1: thing to note here about because so the last thing
Speaker 1: he talks about this, oh, is the thing that formed
Speaker 1: the common sort of national identity was shared Universal Military service.
Speaker 1: And it's like, okay, the reason shared universal Military Service
Speaker 1: went away was that everyone kept murdering literally just blowing
Speaker 1: their officers up in Vietnam like that. And you know,
Speaker 1: if if you want to talk about like incredibly high
Speaker 1: levels of political polarization and like mass violence between Americans,
Speaker 1: I mean, the army basically fighting a civil war against
Speaker 1: itself in Vietnam is you know, in an enormously important
Speaker 1: part of this. And then simultaneously the sort of right
Speaker 1: wing vets returning home and you know, going Louis Beam
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. That you know, he's relying on
Speaker 1: this kind of mythos of this so there was a
Speaker 1: time when you know, it's it's it's basically made it
Speaker 1: make America great again. But sort of like, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: this type of rhetoric is actually very similar to like
Speaker 1: the return return to tradition and stuff, but like the
Speaker 1: solution to our extremism need to be going to church,
Speaker 1: church again, being part of civil organizations, joining bowling leagues,
Speaker 1: and conscripted conscripted military service. That's like, that is that
Speaker 1: that is just the same that that is very similar
Speaker 1: to like the make America grade again, returned to tradition
Speaker 1: sect because those are those are also their goals, except
Speaker 1: that they're just willing to use violence to achieve those goals,
Speaker 1: whereas this guy just wants people to start doing that again.
Speaker 1: I guess, um, I don't know. Yeah, Like in terms
Speaker 1: of like military service not leading to extremism, I mean
Speaker 1: like Oklahoma City bombing, I don't, I don't, I don't
Speaker 1: really there is other stuff going on there. But like
Speaker 1: in terms of terms of that being like an example,
Speaker 1: it is it is very silly because a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of the guys, even inside
Speaker 1: you know, are are current like three per centers and stuff.
Speaker 1: A lot of them have former military service, so that
Speaker 1: I mean, but like, yeah, citizen militias in terms of
Speaker 1: gaining popularity specifically due to um kind of overall distrusted
Speaker 1: the federal government and the type of socialization that being
Speaker 1: online too much results in, has yes, grown grown, grown
Speaker 1: the militia movement a lot um And and I just
Speaker 1: don't see how Bowling is going to solve that issue
Speaker 1: in terms of in terms of how do we people
Speaker 1: to trust the federal government solve that issue? Garrison. But
Speaker 1: but you've never watched The Big Lebowski, so you wouldn't
Speaker 1: You wouldn't understand. I've not watched The Big Lebowski. So
Speaker 1: I'm kind of I'm kind of I'm kind of done
Speaker 1: with the kind of done with the NBC piece there.
Speaker 1: I know there was there was something Brian Michael Jenkins.
Speaker 1: The other thing on on the Brookings thing that I
Speaker 1: have a decent issue with is that they're one of
Speaker 1: the reasons they give for and and this is actually
Speaker 1: something that Brian Michael Jenkins also brings up with the
Speaker 1: MPC piece, is that one of the reasons why they
Speaker 1: believed the civil wars not as inevitable is because there
Speaker 1: is no clear regional split like a North South divide,
Speaker 1: and they, for some reason think this means that there
Speaker 1: is less likely to be civil conflict. Um. They they
Speaker 1: recognized there is an urban rule divide in most states,
Speaker 1: but because there is no large, kind of obvious north
Speaker 1: South divide, they think this is going to make a
Speaker 1: civil war less likely. Well, the map would really be
Speaker 1: a pain in the ass, so it probably won't happen, right,
Speaker 1: Like that's that's the thing they're thinking, is like, oh,
Speaker 1: if I was gonna if I have to map this out,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be too complicated. When I read that, I
Speaker 1: had flashbacks to my first trip to a war zone
Speaker 1: in Ukraine, where we were like taking Google Maps up
Speaker 1: to a certain point and then we had to use
Speaker 1: like hand drawn notes because he was like, well, the
Speaker 1: different like the different chunks of this air next like
Speaker 1: twenty acres that are owned by the separatists as opposed
Speaker 1: to the government, or like you can't use Google it'll
Speaker 1: send you into enemy territories because it's not a clean
Speaker 1: break because you had literally suburbs of cities fighting each
Speaker 1: other and you still do Yeah, this is a this
Speaker 1: is you know, I think personally this this this is
Speaker 1: a sort of peak American brain thing because you know,
Speaker 1: there's there's been like five ever civil wars that are
Speaker 1: broken like this, and the problem is that there's American
Speaker 1: Civil War and then we also fought in both Vietnam
Speaker 1: and North Korea. But like, yeah, yeah, we were really
Speaker 1: civil war. Yeah yeah, yeah, that's that's there was fighting
Speaker 1: between two halfs of the country that it was a
Speaker 1: proxy for two others several other kindries and that's yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's and that's the thing that like it's the
Speaker 1: combination of the American Civil War was very unique civil war,
Speaker 1: and then the other major things that we think of
Speaker 1: as like quote unquote civil wars were you know, we're
Speaker 1: basically cold war stuff. And I mean, you know, like that,
Speaker 1: there there are a couple other like yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: there have been other examples of like successionist stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Like I mean, in in any civil war, like there's
Speaker 1: a lot of other countries that get involved. In the
Speaker 1: US Civil War, there was a significant amount of of
Speaker 1: that sort and even even even even in the US
Speaker 1: Civil War, like there are just like towns in the
Speaker 1: middle of like Confederate territory. They're like, no, funk this,
Speaker 1: We're not going over. But everyone but people have this
Speaker 1: just like incredibly myopic view of what a civil war is.
Speaker 1: And it's like every other civil war that's been fought
Speaker 1: in the last like fifty years has been just seven
Speaker 1: thousand factions like neighborhood fighting each other. I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's just incredibly frustrating to watch these people not understand this.
Speaker 1: It's very America brained, and it's very sad because I'm
Speaker 1: going to read a quote that's gonna make us want
Speaker 1: to purge our ears. There are urban rural differences within
Speaker 1: specific states, with progressives dominating the city as while conservatives
Speaker 1: reside in rural communities, but that is a far different
Speaker 1: geographic divide than when one region could wage war on another.
Speaker 1: The lack of a distinctive or uniform geographic division limits
Speaker 1: the ability to confront other areas organized supply chains and
Speaker 1: mobilize the population. There can be local skirmaches between different forces,
Speaker 1: but not a situation where one state or region attacks another,
Speaker 1: which is complete nonsense. And that's not how like it's
Speaker 1: like they don't understand that guerrilla fighting exists and they
Speaker 1: don't understand how the whole, the whole, the whole part
Speaker 1: about organizing supply chains and mobilized population, like that is
Speaker 1: just another way to fight a war is by exploiting
Speaker 1: that specific thing like the fact that cities are so
Speaker 1: isolated um and lack and and and lack of homemach
Speaker 1: of resources, and the fact that rural areas are isolated
Speaker 1: in a different way and lack separate resources. That is
Speaker 1: not something that makes a civil war less likely. That
Speaker 1: just makes it more complicated and makes it fighting over
Speaker 1: Amazon fulfillment centers and the like. Yeah, like it's it's
Speaker 1: the it is. It is ridiculous, um saying that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: saying that the that that it's it's far different from
Speaker 1: a geographic divide that one reacher could wage more and
Speaker 1: others like that. No, that you're you're just saying something
Speaker 1: that is just completely wrong and like you have not
Speaker 1: studied any type of like urban conflict whatsoever. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I think there's important thing, which is that regions mostly
Speaker 1: it's not that regions wage warning. Yeah, it's not people
Speaker 1: don't do the fighting. Yeah, Like regions aren't the things
Speaker 1: that are fighting, it's the people in areas and people
Speaker 1: can move around, and people can block off access to areas,
Speaker 1: and like it's it's this, it's a weird it's a
Speaker 1: it's super weird way to think about things. And it's
Speaker 1: the fact that if if this is something that like
Speaker 1: the Brooking Institution um is, if this is what they
Speaker 1: think on this topic, that's pretty sad indicator for what
Speaker 1: a lot of people how they how like a lot
Speaker 1: of mainstream levels are going to view the possibility of
Speaker 1: any type of civil conflict. And I don't know, maybe
Speaker 1: they feel very secure in their cities, um, which which
Speaker 1: is a weird thing. I've I've not felt that in years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think the everything that's very weird about this
Speaker 1: is that because so a lot of people writing about
Speaker 1: this are x are um like kind are like kind
Speaker 1: of terrorism people, right, and the kind of terrorism kind
Speaker 1: of resurgence people. It's weird because they used to understand
Speaker 1: this like you know, like a lot of like you know,
Speaker 1: because like in in you know, in in the twentieth
Speaker 1: century and in even sort of the early century, like
Speaker 1: the the the sort of the sort of standard like
Speaker 1: guerrilla insurgency doctrine was you know, it's some some some
Speaker 1: some variation on the like maoists fish in the sea,
Speaker 1: like surround the cities where we're like royal areas, etcetera,
Speaker 1: etcet etcetera, and like and you you even see versions
Speaker 1: of this, you know, in things that are quite civil
Speaker 1: wars but are kind of like what happened, like the
Speaker 1: water and gas wars and Oblivi and the the three
Speaker 1: Thousand's where like you know, what what what, Yeah, you
Speaker 1: have kind of an urban reyal divide with they have
Speaker 1: allies in the cities, but the sort of you know,
Speaker 1: like the you have a bunch of rural regienous groups
Speaker 1: that literally just you know, they blockade every road in
Speaker 1: the country and then start of the cities out right.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is this, this is this is just
Speaker 1: a thing that happened. It's just like, yeah, that is like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that is that. That is going to happen sooner than later,
Speaker 1: whether that be caused by accident, by some type of
Speaker 1: climate natural disaster, or on purpose by a militia like that.
Speaker 1: It's just a matter of time until we have to
Speaker 1: deal with this massive problem. Yeah. Um. And it's like
Speaker 1: I've been reading recently about um Uruguay and what happened
Speaker 1: with them, and like the seventies when their dictatorship took
Speaker 1: over and they had a left wing group that was
Speaker 1: like very much engaged in kind of a lot of
Speaker 1: acts of poetic terrorism, like you know, robbing banks to
Speaker 1: steal paperwork that they would then hand over to like
Speaker 1: somebody to reveal malfeasance within a company, or like stealing
Speaker 1: trucks of food going to like some big wealthy Christmas
Speaker 1: party and redistributing it in poor neighborhoods. Pretty rad stuff
Speaker 1: and one of the ways in which the new incoming
Speaker 1: dictatorial regime cracked down them as they deputized like ten
Speaker 1: thousand jud's and gave them guns and sent them in
Speaker 1: with the army. Um. And I was like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: could absolutely see ship. Could that happen? Yeah, Like if
Speaker 1: there was some sort of uprising in a in a
Speaker 1: liberal city, there's areas around them filled with juds there
Speaker 1: and there was precedent, There is precedent for police doing that. Um,
Speaker 1: they have done it within your r I shot garrison
Speaker 1: like on small scales. So I think we'll have one
Speaker 1: more break and come back and talk about a talk
Speaker 1: about a Hedge fund. Oh funk I love hedge funds.
Speaker 1: Let me get let me get my hedge funds. Shared
Speaker 1: out the shirt that I wear when talking about hedge funds.
Speaker 1: All right, I have my hedgephone shirt on UM. As
Speaker 1: you can all see, it's a picture of Ringo star
Speaker 1: filating himself. I don't know why that's my hedge fund shirt.
Speaker 1: I don't know either, but I love the beach Boys. UM. Anyway,
Speaker 1: so thank you perfect nailed it. Uh we should we
Speaker 1: talk about this hedge fund guy? Yes? I do want
Speaker 1: to talk with this hedge fund guy because this is
Speaker 1: when something with this much money is talking about this
Speaker 1: one just for fun, right, he's doing this just for ships,
Speaker 1: for funds. Yeah, he's doing it for ships and giggles.
Speaker 1: And he wrote a book kind of on this topic
Speaker 1: and he proposed one one solution. He came up with
Speaker 1: one thing that will prevent us from entering a civil war. Um,
Speaker 1: which shows how smart these hedge fund people are. Um.
Speaker 1: But first, uh, I Chris would love to I would
Speaker 1: love for you to explain who who this? Who this
Speaker 1: dude is? Okay, So Rage is a hedge fund manager
Speaker 1: and he is so he runs Bridge Bridge Water Associates,
Speaker 1: which is one all the world's largest hedge fund firm. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it depends how you de find anything, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a very large fund. And this guy, this guy
Speaker 1: is weird by like venture capital standards. So the Bridgewaters
Speaker 1: whole thing is that everyone in the company is constantly
Speaker 1: surveiled at all times, and anyone else when the company
Speaker 1: could look at when anyone else is doing its supposed
Speaker 1: to be like it's like total transparency. And what it
Speaker 1: actually means again, is it like you can you can
Speaker 1: look at like fucking what any of your colleagues, like
Speaker 1: also working at this place is doing, just sucking at
Speaker 1: their day job. You can see all their records, you
Speaker 1: can see everything they're looking at. And the other thing
Speaker 1: that he's known for is that he doesn't trust anyone
Speaker 1: else to like run the hedge fund after he retires.
Speaker 1: Your dies, So he's trying to build like like a
Speaker 1: cybernetic version of his brain to keep running the hedge
Speaker 1: funds the like other hedge fund weirdos think this guy
Speaker 1: is fucking wild. And yeah, he's he's a time and
Speaker 1: he runs one of the world's just hege funds. It's great,
Speaker 1: it's we it's it's amazing and good. We give these
Speaker 1: people this much money to control. So I will say,
Speaker 1: when it comes to his actual analysis of like whether
Speaker 1: or not it's likely, I don't particularly disagree with anything. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's it's broadly reasonable. Yeah, his looking Yeah for what,
Speaker 1: he's just doing this because because he thinks it's fun.
Speaker 1: He has enough money, he's gonna survive whatever. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: he's also I mean, part of why this is fairly
Speaker 1: credible is he's I mean, if you're if you're good
Speaker 1: at this, it means that you have one actual talent,
Speaker 1: which is is judging risk. Um. And I think he's
Speaker 1: probably pretty good at judging risk. Yeah. So he he
Speaker 1: he said that he believes there's like a high likely
Speaker 1: could that a civil war or something resembling it will
Speaker 1: break out within the decade. Um is the number he gives.
Speaker 1: He's the number he gives and then he um, yeah wait,
Speaker 1: let's see. Yeah he said there's also he have a quality.
Speaker 1: He says, it's a we're we're in a we're in
Speaker 1: a high risk position right now. Um. And yeah. He
Speaker 1: talks about the different kind of reasons why he believes
Speaker 1: so in this book, most of which are like pretty reasonable. Um,
Speaker 1: in terms of like uh, in in terms of like
Speaker 1: looking at a population and how much how like you know,
Speaker 1: the various like polarization between politics and culture and all
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff. Um, But the solution that he
Speaker 1: gives to this is that, um, we should make a
Speaker 1: formal judgment for quote unquote close elections and have the
Speaker 1: losers respect the outcomes, and then once that happens, the
Speaker 1: order is going to be like restored and respected, and
Speaker 1: then we will avert a civil war. So he he
Speaker 1: thinks that a civil will will probably be like enacted
Speaker 1: by some type of election dispute, which that is actually
Speaker 1: very reasonable in terms of what happened in our last election.
Speaker 1: If there's like a big if there's big election dispute,
Speaker 1: that could absolutely spark some type of conflict. But the
Speaker 1: idea that we can avert a civil war by just
Speaker 1: having an organization to judge close elections, like, but that's
Speaker 1: not gonna, like, that's not gonna if you do that,
Speaker 1: that's not gonna solve the close election problem. That'sn't even
Speaker 1: if you do it, that won't be a solution, you know.
Speaker 1: And I I will say, like, yeah, I excuse some
Speaker 1: saying credit credit where minor credit is due Radalio is
Speaker 1: in fact right that the difference between two thousands, which
Speaker 1: is when the last time someone actually literally stolen election happened,
Speaker 1: where yeah, but Bush Bush openly rings the election. It's
Speaker 1: incredibly obvious, Like there there's like six ways he does this.
Speaker 1: Everyone knows what's happening, and the reaction is every were
Speaker 1: just kind of shrugs because they're like, oh, this dream
Speaker 1: courts legitimate compared to both, which, yeah, that that's you know,
Speaker 1: that's that's that's there. There there's been an actual break there.
Speaker 1: It's just that I don't know, maybe I think it's
Speaker 1: it's almost just like a lip brained thing where it's
Speaker 1: like you think that if if you have an institution
Speaker 1: that sets down rules this, this will make everything okay
Speaker 1: because everyone will obey it. And that's just not where
Speaker 1: we are anymore. Yeah, I mean, there was just a
Speaker 1: poll that came out recently. It should like Americans trust
Speaker 1: in the military has fallen to its lowest level ever registered,
Speaker 1: and like that was kind of the one thing left
Speaker 1: that most people felt positively about. Not to say that's
Speaker 1: even a good thing, but just like the there is
Speaker 1: such a complete fucking lack of faith in institutions across
Speaker 1: the spectrum in the United States. But it's like, how
Speaker 1: unless you're hiring I don't know, Um fucking no. I
Speaker 1: would say Tom Hanks, but Tom Hanks has even gotten politicized,
Speaker 1: even viruses. So yeah, there's no one they could pick
Speaker 1: to get do this job that people would feel good
Speaker 1: about if they Yeah, I mean, I'm sure if they
Speaker 1: brought Mr Rogers back from the dead, half the country
Speaker 1: would call him a cuck. So I don't I don't
Speaker 1: know what what. I don't know who Daio thinks is
Speaker 1: going to like get everybody on board. So maybe maybe,
Speaker 1: uh maybe, um Danny DeVito, Danny DeVito might be able
Speaker 1: to do it. Well, I think if if we put
Speaker 1: all of our hope in Danny DeVito, that is a
Speaker 1: better solution than what any of these articles and the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. It beats it beats every other quote solution
Speaker 1: the articles posited. I mean Odin Kirk brought Twitter together
Speaker 1: that one week. Maybe yeah, you know, with with the
Speaker 1: practice in your court, if you just picked twelve random
Speaker 1: people off the street, and we're like, that's that's the thing,
Speaker 1: It's like, I am I am all four. It's the
Speaker 1: term isn't the term isn't a democracy, Um, it's it's
Speaker 1: I forget the other term, yes, of of almost I
Speaker 1: forget exactly. But it's when a government is not composed
Speaker 1: of elected leaders, composed of a random selected a random
Speaker 1: selection of people, and they make decisions and then their
Speaker 1: decisions over then we then we get a new selection.
Speaker 1: I'm all four that model of government over almost any other.
Speaker 1: It sounds way better than what we have. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so that that is. That is the three pieces I
Speaker 1: want to talk about. The independent piece on the Hedge Fund,
Speaker 1: Brooking Institution on the Civil War, and then uh, Brian
Speaker 1: wentnot not not Brian, Yes, Brian Michael jenkins Um, senior
Speaker 1: advisor to the President of RAND Who who who wrote
Speaker 1: the who who wrote the thing for NBC? So yeah,
Speaker 1: that is just the terms of in terms of you know,
Speaker 1: people in institutions talking about the topic more generally and
Speaker 1: sometimes decent ways, oftentimes not decent ways. That is that
Speaker 1: is the stuff from like the just the past between
Speaker 1: the past week two months of people with big salaries
Speaker 1: talking about the Civil War or in terms of the
Speaker 1: in terms of the Hedge Fund guy, not a salary,
Speaker 1: just billions of dollars, Yeah, just billions of dollars and
Speaker 1: thinking it's neat. Um, I don't know. You know, every
Speaker 1: time one of these comes out, I get tagged by
Speaker 1: a bunch of people, um, saying like Robbert is the
Speaker 1: thing you were talking about? Other people are talking about it,
Speaker 1: and um, I don't know, I don't like that this
Speaker 1: is the thing other people are talking about that I've
Speaker 1: been talking about as opposed to mass Zeppelin transit or
Speaker 1: something more fun. Yeah, these people could dedicate the resource
Speaker 1: into something more manageable for them. And because they don't
Speaker 1: have a good grasp, especially that Brian Michael guy has
Speaker 1: and has no grasp on how extremism works. Um, And
Speaker 1: it would be better if they dedicate the resources to
Speaker 1: something else. But this is the world we live in.
Speaker 1: It would be better if perhaps Brian Michael Jenkins dedicated
Speaker 1: his his efforts and his platform at NBC to looking
Speaker 1: into Mr Dario and whatever the funk he's been up to. Um,
Speaker 1: that might that might do more. Man, he just get
Speaker 1: plan them on, he would absolutely, Brian Michael Jenkins would
Speaker 1: get PanAm on so fun and quick. Alright, Well, the Panamanians,
Speaker 1: motherfucker in journalism just just like not even not even
Speaker 1: downtime before that car gets bombed as he's talking on air.
Speaker 1: The Okay, Brian Michael Jakins is seventy nine years old,
Speaker 1: so it won't it wouldn't be hard. I just that
Speaker 1: that that's like a ten minute job. I'm just I'm
Speaker 1: just thinking, like Brian Michael Jakins, he's a quote unquote
Speaker 1: an American expert on terrorism and transportation security with four
Speaker 1: neckends of analysis. This is why he doesn't understand modern extremism.
Speaker 1: It's because, yeah, he's still thinking in the seventies mode.
Speaker 1: That's sure. I'm sure of his thoughts on terrorism are
Speaker 1: just him rehashing opinions about like Hezbollah in the eighties. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all of all of his stuff is superdated. So that's
Speaker 1: that's why I I said that previously, is that he
Speaker 1: still views terrorism as like as it was in the seventies.
Speaker 1: And yeah, this is this is why. Um so that's
Speaker 1: great guy, that's that's him. Um anyway, that wraps up
Speaker 1: our show. Um, yeah, watch out for the one. The
Speaker 1: one Brian Michael Jenkins prediction I do think will happen
Speaker 1: is that there's a decent chance we might be back
Speaker 1: in an assassination territory because it is, but it has
Speaker 1: been a long time since that has happened. It's it
Speaker 1: has been a hot minute, and definitely leagues. It keeps
Speaker 1: happening in the UK. Yeah, I I was meaning specifically
Speaker 1: in in in America, and well, yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: We're We're not that far away from them in terms
Speaker 1: of like things happening, so that I'm kind of surprised
Speaker 1: it hasn't had. I think it's probably just because maybe
Speaker 1: American legislators are all much more concerned about assassination because guns,
Speaker 1: so people like our elected leaders take more precautions than
Speaker 1: British ones. Did. I don't know. Maybe I don't know either. Well,
Speaker 1: speaking of assassinations, you can follow us on Twitter and Instagram.
Speaker 1: That happened here media. If we go missing, it was
Speaker 1: Ray Dalio. If we go missing, it was Ray Dalio. Right,
Speaker 1: could pie forbuddy