WEBVTT - How To Save America 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:05.760 The first several episodes of this podcast have gotten a 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:09.040 more enthusiastic reaction than I could have ever guessed. I'm 0:00:09.119 --> 0:00:11.799 very grateful for that. My motivation for doing the show 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:14.080 comes out of a very deep fear I feel towards 0:00:14.160 --> 0:00:16.440 where this country is headed and what might happen if 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:19.680 our present destructive course is not somehow arrested and averted. 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:22.320 So I'm glad that this has gone the podcast equivalent 0:00:22.320 --> 0:00:24.279 of viral. I'm proud that so many people have reached 0:00:24.280 --> 0:00:26.760 out to tell me the impact it's had on them. 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:29.440 But I'm also troubled by some things, and I hope 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:31.960 you'll indulge me in a little bit of creative narcissism 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:34.680 as I analyze my own work, because the success thus 0:00:34.720 --> 0:00:36.640 far of it could happen here has also given me 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:40.040 a very clear understanding of some of its flaws. For 0:00:40.120 --> 0:00:41.960 one thing, it's become very clear to me that this 0:00:42.000 --> 0:00:45.200 show has terrified an awful lot of people. To some extent. 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:47.560 That was my goal from the beginning. I've been scared 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:49.559 about this for a long time, and I wanted political 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:52.440 moderates and liberals to see the dangers I see. But 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:54.000 a number of people have reached out to me and 0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:56.840 expressed feelings of hopelessness and an ear panicked feeling that 0:00:56.880 --> 0:01:00.200 there is nothing they can do to stop This was 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:02.440 my plan to build to an episode about, you know, 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:05.560 things people could do to help make the Second American 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:07.800 Civil War less likely and in this series on an 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:10.720 optimistic note. Uh, there's certainly more than a little bit 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:13.920 of narcissism in that as well. But from a storytelling standpoint, 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:16.039 it makes sense to keep building tension right up until 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:18.920 the end and then close out on a hopeful note. However, 0:01:18.920 --> 0:01:21.640 this is not just an exercise in storytelling. It's a 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:24.399 work of journalism, and given the kind of emotional impact 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:26.399 podcasts have on their listeners, I think it would be 0:01:26.440 --> 0:01:29.760 irresponsible to go that long without providing some suggestions for 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:33.080 how folks might stop all of this. There's more darkness 0:01:33.080 --> 0:01:34.880 to come in this series, I will promise you that, 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:37.640 but I've decided this little mini episode should act as 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:40.120 an intermission to provide some practical advice on how to 0:01:40.120 --> 0:01:42.480 make everything I've talked about so far a little bit 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:45.679 less likely to happen. Now. The key to that is this, 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:48.920 we have to get better at building solidarity across our 0:01:48.960 --> 0:01:51.520 political divide. I want to make a couple of things 0:01:51.520 --> 0:01:53.640 clear before we get deeper into this. There is a 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:56.320 right way and a wrong way to foster communication between 0:01:56.320 --> 0:01:59.760 the right and the left. Many primetime television journalistic hats 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:01.240 than the way to do this is to provide a 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:05.240 platform to hate mongering nationalists like Candice Owens. Others think 0:02:05.320 --> 0:02:08.080 debate is the sav for all of our wounds. NPR 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:11.120 recently published an article titled keeping it Civil. How to 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:15.120 talk politics without letting things turn ugly now. NPR shared 0:02:15.160 --> 0:02:17.440 this article on Twitter, and the first response was from 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:21.359 my friend Molly. She said, simply, no others shared the 0:02:21.400 --> 0:02:23.920 same sentiment. Molly is a fan of my work, as 0:02:23.919 --> 0:02:26.000 I am a fan of her activism, and I understand 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:29.400 her reaction. She was deeply intimately impacted by the violence 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:31.760 at the Unite the Right rally in two thousand seventeen, 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:34.160 and she has literal Nazis threatened to kill her on 0:02:34.200 --> 0:02:36.520 a near daily basis. She's one of the people I 0:02:36.560 --> 0:02:38.720 was talking about in the first episode of this series 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:40.919 when I mentioned that for some of us, the Second 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:44.440 American Civil War has already started. So I want to 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:46.640 make it clear that I'm not saying The solution to 0:02:46.680 --> 0:02:48.760 all of this is for us to have polite debates 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:51.800 with people we disagree with. I think debate is useless. 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:54.720 That's why assholes like Stephen Crowder and Ben Shapiro spend 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:57.240 their lives trying to have public debates where they can 0:02:57.280 --> 0:03:00.360 destroy people they disagree with and of course sell more 0:03:00.480 --> 0:03:03.520 leftist tears mugs. In fact, I think some of the 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:06.160 most dangerous people in our society right now, the people 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:09.480 lurching us ever closer to bloody, bullet riddled calamity, are 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:12.120 fools with large platforms who provide a bullhorn for the 0:03:12.160 --> 0:03:14.760 most hateful among us and justify it by saying that 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:19.160 they're just having conversations. Joe Rogan and Logan Paul come 0:03:19.200 --> 0:03:22.800 most immediately to mind. Both men recently hosted Alex Jones 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:26.960 on their popular podcast and YouTube channel, respectively. Rogan has 0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:29.920 continued to platform Jones after the latter repeatedly threatened to 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:32.640 expose and destroy him in a series of Unhinged Info 0:03:32.639 --> 0:03:36.000 Wars rants. Joe Rogan does this because he considers Alex 0:03:36.080 --> 0:03:38.200 Jones a friend and because he has built a career 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:41.960 off of hosting unhinged conspiracy theorists. Rogan paints himself is 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:45.040 just a simple, open minded guy willing to listen to anyone. 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:47.440 I think if he were here right now, he'd say 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:49.440 he doesn't see the harm and just talking to someone 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:53.280 with different opinions. Logan Paul would probably admit, if pressed, 0:03:53.320 --> 0:03:55.280 that he hosted Alex Jones because he thought it was 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:58.440 funny and because he saw how incredibly popular Rogan's recent 0:03:58.480 --> 0:04:01.600 five hour podcast with Alex Jones was. As of the 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:04.640 writing of this episode, that podcast has been watched nearly 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:08.960 thirteen million times on YouTube alone. Thankfully, Paul's platforming of 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:11.840 Jones was less productive. That YouTube video was at around 0:04:11.840 --> 0:04:14.720 four hundred and fifty three thousand views right now, but 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:18.080 it still helped introduce Alex Jones to a much younger demographic, 0:04:18.200 --> 0:04:20.479 some of whom will follow him back to in full Wars. 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:23.560 Speaking of infull Wars, Within a couple of days of 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:26.400 that Logan Paul appearance, Alex Jones dedicated the better part 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:28.880 of an episode of his show to an unhinged rant 0:04:28.920 --> 0:04:31.960 against the drag Queen's Story Hour. Now. This is an 0:04:31.960 --> 0:04:35.000 advocacy organization all over the US and in several other 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:37.760 countries based around having drag queens read story books to 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:40.920 kids at local libraries. The goal is to introduce these 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:43.160 kids to the idea that queer people exist in the 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:46.000 world and are members of their communities too, like anyone else. 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:49.839 At least that's how most sane people interpret it. To 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:52.800 Alex Jones, it's part of a violent conspiracy to rape 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:55.600 and murder children. These drag queens stand ins for all 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:57.920 queer people are just trying to get children used to 0:04:57.960 --> 0:04:59.960 their presence so they don't fight back when they're abduct 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:06.239 it and ritually murdered. That's an inductee right there. That's 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:12.039 rim Field, a demon posing as a woman, a woman 0:05:12.080 --> 0:05:15.279 that gives life, that nurtures babies, And these poor babies. 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:18.880 The last thing they see when the inner hell is 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:23.880 men dressed as women. The last thing they see is 0:05:23.920 --> 0:05:26.599 they're hacked up and torn into pieces, and as their 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:33.800 blood is slobbingly delict into the mouths, and no men 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:37.680 will stand against them. And unless we convince ourselves that, 0:05:37.680 --> 0:05:40.000 no one really listens to Alex Jones when he says 0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:42.680 this crazy ship. Here's a clip from later in the episode, 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:45.400 when a caller who identifies himself as a cop talks 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:48.800 about his desire to murder drag queens without consequence. One 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:50.400 thing you say that I like is you don't need 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:55.119 orders from headquarters, well as of the civilian, a parent 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:58.360 or a legal guardian doesn't need the police. In my eyes, 0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:00.880 I've being the cop to go to school and grab 0:06:00.960 --> 0:06:03.599 that drag queen and drag him out the parking lot 0:06:03.680 --> 0:06:06.600 and dispose of them. If you're in that school and 0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:08.960 you're in kids, and somebody's not stopping it, I should 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:11.040 have the legal right to go in and and put 0:06:11.120 --> 0:06:14.320 you down. And we're already percussions. Thanks to Dan from 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:17.000 the Knowledge Fight podcast for both of those clips. So 0:06:17.080 --> 0:06:18.599 I think I've made it clear at this point that 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:21.359 there is absolutely a wrong way to talk to the 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:23.680 other side of the aisle. We do not need to 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:27.760 talk to Alex Jones or Miloianopolis or Richard Spencer or 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:31.120 Candice Owens. Ben Shapiro does not need to be debated 0:06:31.160 --> 0:06:33.840 about his racist claim that eight hundred million Muslims are 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:37.280 dangerous radicals. None of these people deserve to be platformed 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:40.599 or debated. They need to be ignored. The people we 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:43.400 need to talk to the people. We cannot ignore our 0:06:43.400 --> 0:06:46.320 fellow citizens. They are people who may have fallen under 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:49.040 the spells of some of these demagogues or of Trump himself, 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:52.359 but many of them are fundamentally decent human beings acting 0:06:52.400 --> 0:06:55.960 based on their imperfect knowledge of the world. In episode 0:06:55.960 --> 0:06:58.080 two of this series, I talked about the revenge of 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:01.200 rural America. I tried and perfectly, I'm sure, to make 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:04.640 the point that these people have legitimate grievances before detailing 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:06.720 how they could bring this country to its knees if 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:09.680 pushed far enough. I think it's important for liberals to 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:12.000 understand this because a lot of the rhetoric I've seen 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:16.440 from scorn Clinton supporters towards conservative America is extremely dangerous. 0:07:16.960 --> 0:07:19.800 Here's one example. In March of two thousand nineteen, the 0:07:19.840 --> 0:07:22.600 news dropped that an Ohio g implant was shutting down 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:25.160 Trumpet campaign in the area on the promise that he 0:07:25.160 --> 0:07:28.800 would keep this factory open. Many liberals reacted jubilantly at 0:07:28.800 --> 0:07:31.800 seeing their political enemies take a hit. The first comment 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:34.880 I found on one article about the story read quote 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:37.640 to all of the union members that placed an X 0:07:37.680 --> 0:07:41.240 beside that nazi bastard's name, you got what you deserved. 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:44.720 Since Trump's upset victory, there's been a lot of talk 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:47.760 on the left about eliminating the electoral College. Now, I'm 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:50.679 not going to defend that institution because it's just super dumb, 0:07:50.960 --> 0:07:53.040 But I don't think people who urge its destruction really 0:07:53.080 --> 0:07:56.040 think about the implications of what they're suggesting. Yes, it 0:07:56.200 --> 0:07:58.760 is unjust that three million more people voted for Hillary 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:01.600 Clinton and she's still laws, But it's also unjust to 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:04.240 say fuck it, we enlightened city dwellers should get to 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:07.280 decide everything for rural Americans and funk what they want 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:10.520 if they disagree with us. That impulse right there will 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:14.800 lead us to a civil war as surely as anything else. Now, 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:17.640 the good news is that the vast, vast majority of 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:21.280 rural Americans don't want to become violent insurgents. They don't 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:23.680 want to kill you. They do want their world to 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:26.640 stop falling apart. They want to stop being ignored and 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:29.120 written off as hicks by people in the cities. More 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:31.520 than anything, they want to have hope for the future. 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:34.839 There are many committed, bone deep Trump supporters out in 0:08:34.920 --> 0:08:37.520 rural America, but those people are outnumbered by the folks 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:39.760 who just voted for him because they saw no hope 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:42.400 for politics as usual. To deal with the crippling opioid 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:45.640 problems in their communities, the collapse of rural infrastructure, and 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:47.600 the utter lack of hope they see on the faces 0:08:47.600 --> 0:08:50.480 of their children. That sense of terror at what comes 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:52.840 next is actually one area where we can all find 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:55.240 common ground. I know this because I've seen it on 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:57.800 the faces of many urban liberals and leftists as we 0:08:57.880 --> 0:09:00.719 digest the latest heart wrenching story about climate change or 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:03.199 read about the concentration camps our government has built in 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:06.440 El Paso. Once we start talking, we may find that 0:09:06.480 --> 0:09:08.520 we have more points we can agree on than we thought. 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:10.960 We should not be debating each other. We should be 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:13.480 focusing on finding solutions to the problems that we can 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:16.800 all see. Climate change is actually a good example. Eight 0:09:16.800 --> 0:09:19.560 and ten Americans believe the climate is changing, bringing with 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:22.800 it more extreme weather conditions. This includes more than sixty 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:27.480 percent of Republicans. A healthy majority of Americans consider climate 0:09:27.559 --> 0:09:31.439 change a serious problem. Just this spring, South Dakota, Nebraska, 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:36.240 and southern Minnesota experienced apocalyptic mud slides after unprecedented spring rains. 0:09:36.559 --> 0:09:39.280 The mud did billions of dollars in damage and obliterated 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:42.560 many local economies. These mud slides in the north and Midwest, 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:46.559 echo equally apocalyptic mud slides experienced by Californians in early 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:50.400 two thousand eighteen. Solidarity is a word with a long 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:54.920 and confusing ideological pedigree. It crept into popular political discourse 0:09:54.960 --> 0:09:57.559 in the eighteen forties, as socialism began to take off 0:09:57.600 --> 0:10:00.800 around the world and utopian experiments where launched throughout the West. 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:04.320 By nine hundred, the concept of solidarity was so widely 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:06.160 understood that it would be fair to call it the 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:10.120 global cornerstone of progressive politics. Around the turn of the century, 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:14.360 the great sociologist Emil Durkheim explained, quote, the sense of 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:17.800 solidarity is the foundation of morality, since it is necessary 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:19.760 to show the young that human beings are by no 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:23.000 means isolated within themselves, but are part of a totality 0:10:23.040 --> 0:10:25.840 from which they cannot be separated other than in their thoughts, 0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:29.200 that society lives and operates in them and represents the 0:10:29.240 --> 0:10:44.200 best aspect of their own. Nature. Of fascist political success 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:47.360 relies wholly on separation. The people who want to raise 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:50.440 the temperature in our society and provoke open, bloody violence 0:10:50.480 --> 0:10:53.000 between left and right thrive when the rest of us 0:10:53.000 --> 0:10:57.360 isolate ourselves. Their ideas metastasized when rural Americans hide on 0:10:57.400 --> 0:11:00.000 their farms and in their small towns, and urban Americans 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:03.240 preached to each other from the safety of their ideological bubbles. 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:06.520 A two thousand fourteen Pew survey found that thirty one 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:09.840 percent of consistent conservatives and forty four percent of consistent 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:13.560 liberals have muted or unfriended a follower based on political disagreements. 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:16.680 During the two thousand sixteen election, seventy five percent of 0:11:16.679 --> 0:11:19.040 Clinton voters did not have a single Trump supporter in 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:21.960 their network. More than half of Trump and Clinton voters 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:26.280 reported not regularly discussing politics with someone who disagreed with them. 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:28.920 Only about twenty percent of voters on either side had 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:32.520 truly mixed social networks and discussed politics regularly with people 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:35.080 they didn't agree with. When we don't talk to each 0:11:35.080 --> 0:11:38.160 other at all, we miss opportunities for solidarity. I've been 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:40.080 fortunate enough to spend a lot of my life as 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:42.600 a leftist in deeply read territory, so I'd like to 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:46.000 expand on another opportunity for solidarity. The end of the 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:51.400 billionaire Class. Dan Riffle, Alexandria Accacio Cortes's senior policy adviser 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:53.839 made the news recently when he changed his Twitter name 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:57.240 to every billionaire is a policy failure. Now, this is 0:11:57.240 --> 0:11:59.520 not a statement you're likely to get most conservatives on 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:01.959 board with if you phrase it that way, But when 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:04.040 you get into the meat of what Accassio, Cortes and 0:12:04.080 --> 0:12:07.680 other Democrats suggest in order to reduce income inequality, there's 0:12:07.679 --> 0:12:11.000 actually less daylight between right and left than you might suspect. 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:15.400 Seventy six percent of registered voters want the wealthiest Americans 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:18.200 to pay more in taxes. Sixty one percent of us 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:21.320 support the sort of wealth tax proposed by Elizabeth Warren, 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:23.920 which boosts the taxes on those with a net worth 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:27.280 of over fifty million dollars. Forty five percent of Americans 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:31.520 support Alexandria Acasio Cortes's seventy percent top marginal tax rate 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:34.280 on people who make more than ten million dollars. Across 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:37.839 the political spectrum, Americans increasingly agree that the rich are 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:40.040 not paying their fair share and that they ought to. 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:43.280 Hammer and simple flags and talk of guillotines will not 0:12:43.360 --> 0:12:46.680 convert anyone to supporting a higher marginal tax rate, but 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:49.120 you might see some success in talking to them about 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:52.600 the Sackler family. The Sacklers are the billionaire clan behind 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:55.920 Perdue Pharmaceuticals. Starting in nineteen ninety five and running right 0:12:55.960 --> 0:12:59.120 up until the present day, they conducted a fraudulent advertising 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:03.120 campaign to hide the addictiveness of their most profitable product, OxyContin, 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:05.440 and get it into the bodies of as many Americans 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:08.640 as possible. Because of the Sacklers, opiate pain killers went 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:11.600 from something only the seriously ill were prescribed to something 0:13:11.640 --> 0:13:14.000 commonly handed out for the kind of chronic pain they 0:13:14.040 --> 0:13:16.719 do not help with. As a result, more than two 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:20.199 hundred thousand Americans have died of prescription pain killer overdoses. 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:23.320 Whole towns in rural America have been decimated, in some 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:26.360 cases nearly wiped out by a plague of addiction. And 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:28.960 while small town Americans have died in their thousands, the 0:13:29.000 --> 0:13:31.520 Sacklers have increased their net worth from tens of millions 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:35.200 of dollars to around fourteen billion dollars. They've spent a 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:37.720 tidy chunk of that Monday funding a number of radical 0:13:37.760 --> 0:13:42.440 anti Muslim organizations dedicated to stoking right wing fears of Islam. 0:13:42.640 --> 0:13:44.680 I don't know about you, but I like the idea 0:13:44.720 --> 0:13:47.160 of fighting a war against the billionaires through the ballot 0:13:47.160 --> 0:13:50.040 box alongside conservatives more than I like the idea of 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:52.640 fighting conservatives with bullets while the Sacklers and their ilk 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:56.160 fleeted compounds in New Zealand. There are other opportunities for 0:13:56.200 --> 0:13:58.720 cross political solidarity. Some of them are nestled in the 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:01.560 things that seem most frightening about our current political climate. 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:04.480 In episode one, I talked about the increased prevalence of 0:14:04.559 --> 0:14:07.440 left wing gun advocacy groups. This can be seen as 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:10.600 a proto insurgency situation, something that leads to more fear 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:13.360 and division and eventually violence, but it could also be 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:16.640 another opportunity to find common ground. I've spent a lot 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:18.720 of time in Los Angeles gun stores. There's some of 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:20.880 the only places in this city where you're regularly run 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:23.680 into vocal Republicans. I also recently went out to a 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:26.120 shooting range with a John Brown Gun Club, a leftist 0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:29.400 gun organization. In both places and surrounded by both groups 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:31.240 of people, I heard a lot of the same complaints 0:14:31.240 --> 0:14:35.120 about California's confusing and often unproductive gun laws. In the 0:14:35.160 --> 0:14:37.960 weeks since the first episode of this podcast launch, dozens 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:40.640 upon dozens of liberals and leftists have reached out to 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:43.240 me asking if they should buy firearms. Many told me 0:14:43.280 --> 0:14:45.800 they were already in the process of buying their first guns. 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:48.400 I realized that these people on the left were starting 0:14:48.440 --> 0:14:50.280 to feel something that many on the right have felt 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:52.440 for a while, the desire to arm up in the 0:14:52.440 --> 0:14:55.200 face of an uncertain future. I do worry that all 0:14:55.240 --> 0:14:58.280 these guns might wind up being used in violence, absolutely 0:14:58.320 --> 0:15:00.520 I do. But I also have hope at the presence 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:03.119 of a left wing gun culture might foster some productive 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:07.800 conversations across the political chasm, because the current conversations we're 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:10.880 having about guns in this country are not productive. This 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:13.720 is embodied well by a message Eric Swawell, a Democratic 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:17.560 representative from California, recently received from a furious gun nuts. 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:23.720 Eric's all, well, here's a little duty for you. Thirty 0:15:23.800 --> 0:15:27.600 round clip. You're all gonna drop and I'll give up anymore. 0:15:27.640 --> 0:15:30.680 Your mother, I think you've got some new young motherfucker 0:15:30.800 --> 0:15:35.120 going to take over the constitution. You want to go 0:15:35.200 --> 0:15:38.320 to war, We're going to war, and you're going to 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:43.880 be a mother. Now. That's obviously terrifying and fucked up, 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:47.080 and I'm afraid that reperative. Swallow's response only made it worse. 0:15:47.280 --> 0:15:50.560 Immediately after playing that audio, he played this text on screen. 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:53.760 We recently passed background check bills in the House. We 0:15:53.840 --> 0:15:57.120 must ban and buy back assault weapons next. Now, this 0:15:57.160 --> 0:15:59.120 probably sounds reasonable to many of you, and I'm not 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:01.320 trying to talk you out of whatever your views on 0:16:01.320 --> 0:16:04.359 this issue are. But I also see it as another escalation, 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:07.160 taking this nuts violent rhetoric and giving him exactly what 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:10.040 he wants, a left wing boogeyman coming for his guns. 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:13.680 Of American households own a gun, and the A R 0:16:13.760 --> 0:16:16.440 fifteen is by far the most common single firearm in 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:19.640 this nation. Gun ownership in America is on a significant 0:16:19.680 --> 0:16:22.440 upward trend. After dropping form much of the nineteen nineties, 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:25.640 it's ticked steadily higher in the twenty first century. Drawing 0:16:25.640 --> 0:16:28.200 a hard political line by saying fuck you, We're going 0:16:28.240 --> 0:16:30.640 to take your weapons is not nearly as bad as 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:33.560 threatening murder, obviously, and I'm not trying to equate the two, 0:16:33.760 --> 0:16:36.640 but it is not a productive step forward either, because 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:39.040 most gun owners are not literal madman like the guy 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:43.320 who threatened. Representative Swallow of n r A members support 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:47.080 comprehensive background checks. Not only is that number nice, it 0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:50.760 shows widespread support for an into unregulated face to face sales, 0:16:50.960 --> 0:16:53.360 what some pundits referred to as the gun show loophole. 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:56.200 Seventy eight percent of non n r A gun owners 0:16:56.240 --> 0:16:59.960 like myself support universal background checks. Now when we tell 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:03.000 about other gun control measures like gun violence restraining orders, 0:17:03.080 --> 0:17:06.000 raising the age required to purchase firearms, and implementing waiting 0:17:06.000 --> 0:17:09.399 periods in more states, things get more controversial. But still 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:13.680 half of American gun owners support a national firearms Purchased database. 0:17:14.000 --> 0:17:17.080 There is clearly room for conversation and for real progress 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:19.879 on these issues. The n r A and certain politicians 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:23.119 stand the most extreme versions of their respective policies, but 0:17:23.240 --> 0:17:26.760 most American voters, including gun owning voters, can be convinced 0:17:26.800 --> 0:17:29.480 to support more nuanced policies that still have a real 0:17:29.520 --> 0:17:32.680 impact on gun violence. I've been shooting since I was 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:34.880 seven years old, and I own what most people would 0:17:34.920 --> 0:17:37.400 describe as a funkload of firearms, and I can tell 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:39.920 you that much of the frustration rational gun owners feel 0:17:39.960 --> 0:17:42.840 towards politicians like Representative Swallow comes from the fact that 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:45.240 most gun control laws are written by people who don't 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:49.159 understand firearms. Some laws make objective sense to me, waiting 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:51.600 periods are sane and sensible. I can get behind banning 0:17:51.600 --> 0:17:54.960 people under twenty one from purching semi automatic weapons, But 0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:58.600 then there's California's assault weapons ban. Most liberals probably think 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:00.680 it means I can't own air fifteens or a K 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:03.080 forty sevens, but I own both in the city of 0:18:03.119 --> 0:18:05.640 Los Angeles. The largest means that I've had to stick 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:08.600 as silly and very easily removable plastic flipper on the 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:11.160 pistol grip of my rifle, so it doesn't technically count 0:18:11.200 --> 0:18:13.800 as a pistol grip. This is part of why I 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:16.320 think more firearms ownership among the left could lead to 0:18:16.359 --> 0:18:19.200 more effective gun control if the people writing those laws 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:21.240 know what they're talking about, and if gun owners on 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:24.080 the right see broad support for a reasonable interpretation of 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:26.200 the Second Amendment. If they see a lot of people 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:28.520 on the other side of the aisle also own firearms 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:31.119 and are trying to take their guns, they might be 0:18:31.160 --> 0:18:34.240 more open to talking about common sense gun control policies. 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:37.320 I think one of Barack Obama's biggest mistakes during his 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:40.560 first presidential campaign was referring to rural Americans as people 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:42.800 who cling to their guns and Bibles. If you live 0:18:42.800 --> 0:18:45.320 in a major urban area, don't regularly go to church, 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:48.359 and have never fired a gun. Obama's words probably rang true. 0:18:48.600 --> 0:18:51.679 They jelled with what you believed, especially about rural Americans. 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:54.080 But think about how those words would feel from the 0:18:54.119 --> 0:18:56.760 perspective of someone whose town has an unemployment rate more 0:18:56.760 --> 0:18:59.600 than double the national average. Someone who has lost multiple 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:02.560 friends and family members to opiate addiction. Someone for whom 0:19:02.560 --> 0:19:04.960 the center of their social life is church on Sunday. 0:19:05.280 --> 0:19:07.360 Someone from whom access to a firearm is the best 0:19:07.400 --> 0:19:10.040 way to get affordable meat. Someone who's best memories of 0:19:10.080 --> 0:19:13.000 their granddad, father, or uncle involved learning how to shoot. 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:16.040 To that person, Barack Obama's words sounded less like an 0:19:16.040 --> 0:19:18.440 apt diagnosis and more like a slap to the face. 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:32.080 We don't all right. None of this is an apologia 0:19:32.160 --> 0:19:34.520 for the literal Nazis among the right wing people like 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:37.119 that gang of fascists arrested in Florida with a rocket 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:40.800 launcher earlier this year. Fuck those people. But most conservatives 0:19:40.800 --> 0:19:42.679 are not those people. And if we can reach out 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:45.320 to them in solidarity over the problems we share, if 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:47.399 they can be shown they have cause and pain in 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:50.399 common with poor people, in inner city America. If they 0:19:50.400 --> 0:19:53.240 can see that the socialists yelling about billionaires are pissed 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:56.560 at the same people whose poison pills killed their mom, well, 0:19:56.560 --> 0:19:59.200 that presents a path forward, and to be honest, it's 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:01.760 the only path I can see that isn't drenched in blood. 0:20:02.480 --> 0:20:04.920 So this brings us to the question of what you, 0:20:05.160 --> 0:20:07.520 the listener, can start doing right now to help with this. 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:11.960 The bad actors in our society, people like doctor Jordan Peterson, 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:15.280 don't want you to do anything. Dr Peterson, who was 0:20:15.320 --> 0:20:19.040 also platformed into the mainstream by Joe Rogan, says this quote. 0:20:19.640 --> 0:20:21.800