December 16, 2021 • 43 mins
The gang discusses recent mainstream news articles and polls weighting out the likelihood of a second American Civil War.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
You know what, I think it's time to do a podcast.
All right, I did it, Sophie. This is it could
happen here a podcast that's begun. We talk about how
things are falling apart, and occasionally, when we're feeling good,
how to maybe how to maybe put them back together
(00:25):
a little bit. But today we're more talking about the
growing consensus that things in the US culture wars are
heating up to an unacceptable level, and and maybe people
are going to start doing some non culture type wars
here in the near future, like a civil type war
(00:46):
here in the near future. Those of you who know me, which,
why would you be listening to this podcast if you
if you don't know, like the earlier seasons of this
exact show, uh know that I talk a lot about
the potential of a mass civil conflict in the United States.
I've been kind of trying to warn about it for
a while, and today we're gonna do an episode about
some of the more mainstream sources that have started to
(01:10):
kind of accept this as a possibility, um and get
concerned about it. Garrison, you've presented us with three articles,
one from NBC News, one from The Independent, and one
from the Brookings Institute, all kind of fiddling around this
idea that certain unnamed journalists have spent years discussing. So yeah,
(01:32):
we're gonna we're gonna get into it, Garrison. Yeah, so
it is the past. The past few months we have
well I've I've been watching to see how how this
idea has been slowly kind of gaining in popularity. Of course,
there was like a spike in this around like January six,
but then stuff kind of settled down, and now we're
kind of seeing it come back up against We had
(01:54):
these these three pieces, all published within like a month
of each other, um, all kind of on the topic
and specifically, like the pieces themselves are definitely going coming
out this from a more like liberal perspective. But the
thing that made them interesting is that they did have
a decent number of like of of polls and uh
and and surveys in them based on like what who who,
(02:17):
what types of people think are like are thinking about
this and think it's more more of a possibility. One
survey published on November one, they've said eighteen percent of
Americans believe that quote unquote patriots might have to resort
to violence to quote save the country. Um, so, and
(02:37):
then that included a thirty percent of Republicans, um so,
but at eighteen percent of all of of of of
Americans in general republicans. Yeah, so using that very specifically
turn of phrase is definitely uh notable. And then another
pole from morelier in the year found that forty six
percent of people thought the country was somewhat or very
(02:59):
like to have another type of civil war. And that's
the plurality of the people pulled in that because only
like said unlikely, so the majority of people or not
the majority of people pulled, but like the most common
leaned on, yes it is, I think maybe we're going
to have us a war yeah, which is not great.
(03:20):
The one that uh NBC published included in their article
had but like thirty three percent of people saying no,
it's it's probably not gonna happen, kind of on the
maybe and and and and forty seven leaning on yeah
this maybe this is this is probably gonna happen at
some point soon. YEP. I mean a lot of a
lot a lot of what these articles are talking about
(03:41):
is just like kind of the increased increased threats against
like elected officials and then increased almost like militancy or
performative militancy of elected officials types of like like you know,
like a performatively bringing your gun into Congress and that
type of thing. And it lays out like a list
of a list of like of of of threats or
(04:01):
stuff enacted against governors, congressmen, all that kind of stuff
in in the past, in the past, like a year
year mainly. Yeah, one of the things I really disagree
about the Brookings because Brookings is the one who kind
of is analyzing that made that big poll and talking
about it, has a list of reasons why we might
have a civil war and a list of reasons why
(04:23):
it's unlikely. And one of the reasons why it's unlikely
is quote most of the organizations talking about civil war
or private not public entities. Um. And note that when
Southern States succeeded in eighteen sixty, they had police forces,
military organizations, and state sponsored Militia's the right of that now. Yeah,
Like there's a ton of signal posting from guys like
(04:47):
Jim Jordan's uh Hawthorne um Gates bobert Um, a ton
of signal posting of gosar from elected Republican leaders, from governors,
from state level elected officials, and like regular street cops. Yeah,
and like regular street cops that are like civil war adjacent, um,
(05:09):
if not directly advocating for internet scene violence. I think
that that I don't think Brookings, I don't think they're
analysis is spot on with this, And I think there's
just one of everything that's interesting about that, which is
I think it was one of those are these our
sleps were arguing that it was like, well, the Pentagon's
(05:31):
not particularly civil like, well, the Pentagon doesn't want a
civil war, They're not gonna step into it. But but
I think it is also important to note that, like
like if you remember what happened last summer, there's a
lot of FEDS who are just like you know, like
when like yeah, so so you know, the the army
kind of doesn't want Trump to like send the army
against protesters, but like you know, like bor Tak for example,
(05:54):
like was just like absolutely hyped up to just like
absolutely just go disappear a bunch of people. And they
were very excited about that part. Yeah, Yeah, they love
they love this stuff, and it's like, yeah, the notion
that it's less likely because it doesn't have like formal
police backing is really silly because if you spend any
(06:15):
time monitoring these type of militia groups, you know that
a good portion of them are also members of some
type of law enforcement or have like family connections. To me,
there have been a bunch of cases of weapons being
stolen stolen from forts UM, particularly in like the West
Coast right now. Like, Yeah, there's a ton of connections
to the and a ton of like members in common.
(06:37):
It's like at the Capital riot that were like thirty
something active duty police officers involved. UM. To say that
there's not direct connections with law enforcement is nonsense. And
it's true that like our military leadership remains pretty much
a political and very like committed to being a political
in the sense that like in the within the like
(06:58):
US partisan context, right like they don't come in to
prop up the Democrats of the Republicans, and I don't
think that's immediately likely. But police forces in the United
States are extremely politicized and have more than enough power
to carry out a counterinsurgency campaign nationwide. And as long
as the US military didn't step in, and why would they, like,
(07:20):
the cops are willing and able to do the civil
warring for the government. Why do you think they have
all those tanks? You know? So, yeah, like there is
there is a lot of backing um, at least performatively
among certain types of like write politicians and of course police.
But I think a lot of what the politicians are
trying to do is more like encourage regular folks or
(07:41):
people in like civilian militias to just start doing violence
against other elected leaders. That seems to be like like
like Bobart and that and those types aren't. They're not
like telling police to go do this. They're speaking to
like regular people. UM. And I think one on one
decent point, the actually the nbc PS actually puts out
(08:02):
and it says all of this kind of like a
divisive um and and more violent rhetoric and behavior displayed
by and towards some of our elected officials does not
necessarily mean another like civil war in terms of like
a military conduct contest between states. UM. It just does
not mean that it's inevitable or even probable or even
like probable. A more likely scenario is a turbulent era
(08:24):
of civil disturbances, armed confrontations, standoffs, threats, assassination attempts, and
other acts of political violence. In other words, one that's
a lot like the last two years of American history,
which I feel like, yeah, in terms of in terms
of the likelihood of there being like a more formally
declared kind of conflict versus just versus just like increasingly
(08:47):
increasingly normalizing extreme violence against uh you know, quote unquote
fellow countrymen. I think is is ah, yeah, like that
there's we are going to be more likely to be
just move being in that direction slowly and at the
point when there's like frequent enough exchange of the fire,
that's when we say, yeah, we're basically in a civil war.
(09:08):
We're just not calling it that, um, which is you know,
that's the points that you, Robert, you have made a
lot in the in the past. Yeah, I mean, and
there's I I'm I think a lot of this is
just a failure of kind of imagination and ability to
accept from a group like Brookings, who I know has
paid some attention to the Syrian Civil War that like
(09:30):
civil conflicts in the United States or in the in
the twenty one century often don't like there's no clear
regional split. Like you look at a lot of what
was happening in Syria, you had cities divided up by
neighborhoods between like who who was in charge? Um, you
know that that's very much what we see here. And
you do see like clear regional split between urban and
(09:52):
rural divides. And it's not like they say, within specific states,
but like I would say, it's very specific and limited
state that don't have huge urban rural divides. Um, Like,
that's that is the norm everywhere in this country that
I've been. Maybe it's different in fucking Vermont or New Hampshire,
but I don't trust those places. Um. Yeah, And I
(10:14):
guess I think they're overly optimistic based on kind of
a fundamental misunderstanding of how these sorts of conflicts occur. Um.
That said, I don't know, Like it's it's one of
those things. I think the number one the number one
thing you should be looking at in terms of whether
or not a civil war is likely is the number
(10:38):
of people who respond in polls with things like yes,
I think we need to use violence to restore the
nation or whatever. Um that it's not just enough, Like
I I it's not just enough to think that a
civil war is likely because a lot of that's just
based on people who don't want one, but are paying
attention to the same media as everybody else and are
(10:59):
watching this and stuff we're watching and are like, well,
this seems sketchy. I think that the main indicator is
the number of people who respond, yeah, I think it
would be awesome to use violence as a like in
order to make America more like what I wanted to be. UM.
And again that doesn't mean we'll we'll creep over the point.
(11:20):
There's a number of interesting things that have happened UM
on kind of the we're headed towards the civil war side.
The number one thing that I've seen recently is the
use of paramilitary organizations UM to kind of choke uh
local civil institutions UM like school boards. I I see
that as very concerning and as kind of prelude to
(11:41):
the sort of armed mobilizations that you would see unlocalized
areas in any kind of civil conflict. It's it's the
precursors to death squads. So that's the that's the thing
that I see on the ground that worries me most
um in terms of the thing that I'm I'm certain
about honestly, Like, one of the things they note in
(12:02):
here in the Brookings article that like, the sheer number
of guns in the United States is a reason why
we might have a civil war, and I agree with
that entirely. When you have four million weapons in private hands,
it increases the odds that they'll be used in some
sort of scale. UM. We've also seen historic numbers of
non white people of of of like folks who are
(12:24):
from marginalized communities, UM, not just buying up weapons that
unprecedented rates, but organizing with them. And I'm not really
sure how to think of that. There's certainly a way.
It could certainly be a very negative development, but it
could also be. I think a big part of what
I've seen from the right lately is the sense of impunity. UM.
(12:46):
And I think the feeling of being matched uh in
arms is an end to impunity potentially. UM. Then the
big question is like, well what about the police, and like, well,
if the police side with the riot against you know,
there's there's still a number of questions there, and we
don't have any clean answers. But UM, I don't know that.
I I think that on the whole, I'm more worried
(13:09):
than I was two years ago when I wrote it.
Could happen here, um, but it's not clean. And I
think in some to some extent, I'm I'm a little
more worried about something like the years of Lead in
Italy than I am about Syria right now, if that
makes sense. I will say one thing about the years
of Lead, which because a lot of people talk about
(13:31):
the years of less, so that the years a letter
this kind of like a roughly ten year period in
Italy of I don't know, mass terrorismating political violence with
effigant body counts in a way that stood out from
the years around it. Yeah, And I mean, you know,
the years of Lead has use a lit Also, there's
there's a bunch of intelligent and she's involved. There's a
(13:52):
lot of foreign kind of false false bombings, like hundred
hundreds of people are being killed in bombings. And I
think there's one absolutely crucial difference between now in the
Years of Light. I mean, well, okay, so partially it's
that unlike Italy, we don't have seventeen thousand intelligence agencies
operating in the US and like trying to kidnap and
kill the foreign prime minister. But the the other thing
(14:15):
that's very important is that unlike unlike the Italian left,
and you know, really unlike the whole global left of
the seventies and eighties. There is no American like left
wing like left wing, I guess you could call, like
there's there's no left wing terrorist tradition, right like the
like the left doesn't do suside bombings. The left doesn't
(14:36):
kidnap people like like the modern American left doesn't do that,
and that a big part of what was happening from
the years of LED was that, you know, sometimes the
left was doing this. A lot of times it was
the state pretending to be the left carrying out bombings.
And that isn't really something that is happening right now
because there's just like the like, the the left is
(14:59):
not in a play where everyone is going, we need
to do armed durban guerrilla movements and yeah, so and
then that that makes it harder to sort of pin
things like pin actual urban guerrilla movement stuff on the
left because there's just none of that. But I don't
think and I agree Years of Left is kind of
like a broad Strokes comparison because what I see is
(15:21):
more likely is what we're what we're already witnessing on
the ground with these right wing militant groups increases, and
they moved to the point of kidnapping and executing and
potentially in concert with law enforcement, like doing stuff like
in states that have issued harsh laws, you know, banning
certain books. You have in a town, local law enforcement
and militias like go after and grab individual leftists and
(15:44):
either kill or imprison them, and conflicts over that, and
you have the left increasingly organized an arm um as
a defense against that, and then a number of armed conflicts,
you know, as a result of that, which maybe then
proceed to bombings and stuff that that's terrorism, or proceed
to just more kind of skirmishes that the FEDS have
(16:05):
a minimal response to, and local or state law enforcement
kind of tacitly allows um like that. That's that's kind
of obviously that's not a direct comparison to what happened
in Italy, but of course we're a different country. But
that's kind of that's kind of the kind of brush
fire conflict I could see cropping up in the very
near future in this country. You know what else will
(16:31):
start a series of armed gun fights between left and
right in American towns. The products and services they're they're
working on it every day. The products and services that
support this podcast urged violence on the streets of the
(16:51):
United States. That's behind the bastards. Guarantee, Sophie, We're not
doing behind the bastards? What what show are we? Who
are we? Anyway? Here's ads? All right? Oh my gosh,
(17:17):
uh We're back. Yeah, what a great ad. I really
nailed that transition. Um, just absolutely so. The next thing
that I want to talk about, UM, something that I
think has some some backing behind it and something that
I think is kind of more silly. Is that one
(17:38):
of one of the reasons that this uh NBC piece
by what's his name, uh, Brian Brian Michael Jenkins is uh,
he says, one of one of the reasons that we're
kind of getting more okay with, you know, uh, killing
or hurting our neighbors essentially is um quote, Americans do
(18:02):
fewer things together. Church attendance is declining. Membership and civic
organizations and lodges have been decreasing for decades. PTA membership
has dropped by nearly half from what it was in
nineteen sixties, Bowling leagues have almost disappeared, and a shared
national experience of military service disintegrated with the abolition of
conscription in nineteen seventy three. Meanwhile, self proclaimed citizen militia's
(18:26):
driven mainly by far right conspiracy theories have surged since
to US and eight, especially in the past five years.
So he is wrong, but he's yes, militias have leagues,
militias have risen. But is that due to bowling leagues. Yeah,
I don't think it's due to a drop in bowling leagues.
(18:48):
I think it's due to the fact that all these
guys are terminally online now and we're watching Fox News
for twenty years before that. That is the thing, is that, like,
I don't think this guy, Brian Michael Chickens understands how
the Internet intersects with extremism because he's he's doing this
from a very like like he's he's acting like we're
(19:08):
still in the seventies, and he like, like that's not
how the world works, and how like people spend their time. No,
people aren't doing bowling leagues, but yeah, woman, young men
are spending and and you know, middleagement are spending time online,
whether that be discord in a terrorist group chat, or
that be a Facebook group that's for a militia and
that's where that socialization is happening. And because the Internet
(19:31):
rewards extremism and the hottest take, it's moving in that direction,
even with people who would ordinarily just have historically the
past joined bowling leagues. I guess, but it's very It's
it's correlation doesn't equal causation. Ship It's wow. Less people
are in bowling leagues and going to church, and militias
have grown wildly, wildly. Um, this one must cause the other.
(19:55):
And it's like, well, no, they're both both of those things.
May have some causes in common. There may be similar
factors that are driving both of those things, but they
are not caused like that. They don't necessary one doesn't
necessarily cause the other. Um. And if you like, again,
the smart person version of this would be to say, hey,
people are doing less things together out in the world.
(20:17):
People are reporting because you can find statistic backup for this.
People seem to be lonelier than ever. Um, people are
more depressed than ever. Suicide rates have risen, and while
this is happening, militias and extremist groups have grown. Perhaps
there's something about these organizations, um that makes them particularly
attractive when folks are vulnerable due to these things, and
like let's look at you know, the failure of our
(20:39):
political system to confront these issues further feeds into the
desire amongst some chunk of the populace for some sort
of nihilistic cleansing violence. And again, pieces of all the
pieces of this article could be could be reassembled into
something with um some insight, but I I don't think
Brian Michael Jenkins has much. I think it's also interesting
(21:00):
thing to note here about because so the last thing
he talks about this, oh, is the thing that formed
the common sort of national identity was shared Universal Military service.
And it's like, okay, the reason shared universal Military Service
went away was that everyone kept murdering literally just blowing
their officers up in Vietnam like that. And you know,
(21:21):
if if you want to talk about like incredibly high
levels of political polarization and like mass violence between Americans,
I mean, the army basically fighting a civil war against
itself in Vietnam is you know, in an enormously important
part of this. And then simultaneously the sort of right
wing vets returning home and you know, going Louis Beam
(21:41):
and stuff like that. That you know, he's relying on
this kind of mythos of this so there was a
time when you know, it's it's it's basically made it
make America great again. But sort of like, yeah, that's
this type of rhetoric is actually very similar to like
the return return to tradition and stuff, but like the
solution to our extremism need to be going to church,
(22:03):
church again, being part of civil organizations, joining bowling leagues,
and conscripted conscripted military service. That's like, that is that
that is just the same that that is very similar
to like the make America grade again, returned to tradition
sect because those are those are also their goals, except
that they're just willing to use violence to achieve those goals,
(22:23):
whereas this guy just wants people to start doing that again.
I guess, um, I don't know. Yeah, Like in terms
of like military service not leading to extremism, I mean
like Oklahoma City bombing, I don't, I don't, I don't
really there is other stuff going on there. But like
in terms of terms of that being like an example,
it is it is very silly because a lot of
a lot of a lot of the guys, even inside
(22:46):
you know, are are current like three per centers and stuff.
A lot of them have former military service, so that
I mean, but like, yeah, citizen militias in terms of
gaining popularity specifically due to um kind of overall distrusted
the federal government and the type of socialization that being
(23:07):
online too much results in, has yes, grown grown, grown
the militia movement a lot um And and I just
don't see how Bowling is going to solve that issue
in terms of in terms of how do we people
to trust the federal government solve that issue? Garrison. But
(23:27):
but you've never watched The Big Lebowski, so you wouldn't
You wouldn't understand. I've not watched The Big Lebowski. So
I'm kind of I'm kind of I'm kind of done
with the kind of done with the NBC piece there.
I know there was there was something Brian Michael Jenkins.
The other thing on on the Brookings thing that I
(23:49):
have a decent issue with is that they're one of
the reasons they give for and and this is actually
something that Brian Michael Jenkins also brings up with the
MPC piece, is that one of the reasons why they
believed the civil wars not as inevitable is because there
is no clear regional split like a North South divide,
and they, for some reason think this means that there
is less likely to be civil conflict. Um. They they
(24:13):
recognized there is an urban rule divide in most states,
but because there is no large, kind of obvious north
South divide, they think this is going to make a
civil war less likely. Well, the map would really be
a pain in the ass, so it probably won't happen, right,
Like that's that's the thing they're thinking, is like, oh,
if I was gonna if I have to map this out,
it's gonna be too complicated. When I read that, I
(24:35):
had flashbacks to my first trip to a war zone
in Ukraine, where we were like taking Google Maps up
to a certain point and then we had to use
like hand drawn notes because he was like, well, the
different like the different chunks of this air next like
twenty acres that are owned by the separatists as opposed
to the government, or like you can't use Google it'll
send you into enemy territories because it's not a clean
(24:58):
break because you had literally suburbs of cities fighting each
other and you still do Yeah, this is a this
is you know, I think personally this this this is
a sort of peak American brain thing because you know,
there's there's been like five ever civil wars that are
broken like this, and the problem is that there's American
Civil War and then we also fought in both Vietnam
and North Korea. But like, yeah, yeah, we were really
(25:22):
civil war. Yeah yeah, yeah, that's that's there was fighting
between two halfs of the country that it was a
proxy for two others several other kindries and that's yeah,
and that's and that's the thing that like it's the
combination of the American Civil War was very unique civil war,
and then the other major things that we think of
(25:42):
as like quote unquote civil wars were you know, we're
basically cold war stuff. And I mean, you know, like that,
there there are a couple other like yeah, I mean
there have been other examples of like successionist stuff like that.
Like I mean, in in any civil war, like there's
a lot of other countries that get involved. In the
US Civil War, there was a significant amount of of
that sort and even even even even in the US
(26:03):
Civil War, like there are just like towns in the
middle of like Confederate territory. They're like, no, funk this,
We're not going over. But everyone but people have this
just like incredibly myopic view of what a civil war is.
And it's like every other civil war that's been fought
in the last like fifty years has been just seven
thousand factions like neighborhood fighting each other. I don't know,
(26:26):
it's just incredibly frustrating to watch these people not understand this.
It's very America brained, and it's very sad because I'm
going to read a quote that's gonna make us want
to purge our ears. There are urban rural differences within
specific states, with progressives dominating the city as while conservatives
reside in rural communities, but that is a far different
(26:47):
geographic divide than when one region could wage war on another.
The lack of a distinctive or uniform geographic division limits
the ability to confront other areas organized supply chains and
mobilize the population. There can be local skirmaches between different forces,
but not a situation where one state or region attacks another,
which is complete nonsense. And that's not how like it's
(27:10):
like they don't understand that guerrilla fighting exists and they
don't understand how the whole, the whole, the whole part
about organizing supply chains and mobilized population, like that is
just another way to fight a war is by exploiting
that specific thing like the fact that cities are so
isolated um and lack and and and lack of homemach
(27:33):
of resources, and the fact that rural areas are isolated
in a different way and lack separate resources. That is
not something that makes a civil war less likely. That
just makes it more complicated and makes it fighting over
Amazon fulfillment centers and the like. Yeah, like it's it's
the it is. It is ridiculous, um saying that, Yeah,
(27:53):
saying that the that that it's it's far different from
a geographic divide that one reacher could wage more and
others like that. No, that you're you're just saying something
that is just completely wrong and like you have not
studied any type of like urban conflict whatsoever. Yeah, And
I think there's important thing, which is that regions mostly
(28:17):
it's not that regions wage warning. Yeah, it's not people
don't do the fighting. Yeah, Like regions aren't the things
that are fighting, it's the people in areas and people
can move around, and people can block off access to areas,
and like it's it's this, it's a weird it's a
it's super weird way to think about things. And it's
the fact that if if this is something that like
(28:38):
the Brooking Institution um is, if this is what they
think on this topic, that's pretty sad indicator for what
a lot of people how they how like a lot
of mainstream levels are going to view the possibility of
any type of civil conflict. And I don't know, maybe
they feel very secure in their cities, um, which which
is a weird thing. I've I've not felt that in years. Yeah,
(29:00):
And I think the everything that's very weird about this
is that because so a lot of people writing about
this are x are um like kind are like kind
of terrorism people, right, and the kind of terrorism kind
of resurgence people. It's weird because they used to understand
this like you know, like a lot of like you know,
because like in in you know, in in the twentieth
century and in even sort of the early century, like
(29:20):
the the the sort of the sort of standard like
guerrilla insurgency doctrine was you know, it's some some some
some variation on the like maoists fish in the sea,
like surround the cities where we're like royal areas, etcetera,
etcet etcetera, and like and you you even see versions
of this, you know, in things that are quite civil
(29:41):
wars but are kind of like what happened, like the
water and gas wars and Oblivi and the the three
Thousand's where like you know, what what what, Yeah, you
have kind of an urban reyal divide with they have
allies in the cities, but the sort of you know,
like the you have a bunch of rural regienous groups
that literally just you know, they blockade every road in
the country and then start of the cities out right.
(30:02):
I mean, this is this, this is this is just
a thing that happened. It's just like, yeah, that is like, yeah,
that is that. That is going to happen sooner than later,
whether that be caused by accident, by some type of
climate natural disaster, or on purpose by a militia like that.
It's just a matter of time until we have to
deal with this massive problem. Yeah. Um. And it's like
(30:25):
I've been reading recently about um Uruguay and what happened
with them, and like the seventies when their dictatorship took
over and they had a left wing group that was
like very much engaged in kind of a lot of
acts of poetic terrorism, like you know, robbing banks to
steal paperwork that they would then hand over to like
somebody to reveal malfeasance within a company, or like stealing
(30:48):
trucks of food going to like some big wealthy Christmas
party and redistributing it in poor neighborhoods. Pretty rad stuff
and one of the ways in which the new incoming
dictatorial regime cracked down them as they deputized like ten
thousand jud's and gave them guns and sent them in
with the army. Um. And I was like, yeah, I
could absolutely see ship. Could that happen? Yeah, Like if
(31:11):
there was some sort of uprising in a in a
liberal city, there's areas around them filled with juds there
and there was precedent, There is precedent for police doing that. Um,
they have done it within your r I shot garrison
like on small scales. So I think we'll have one
(31:31):
more break and come back and talk about a talk
about a Hedge fund. Oh funk I love hedge funds.
Let me get let me get my hedge funds. Shared
out the shirt that I wear when talking about hedge funds.
(31:52):
All right, I have my hedgephone shirt on UM. As
you can all see, it's a picture of Ringo star
filating himself. I don't know why that's my hedge fund shirt.
I don't know either, but I love the beach Boys. UM. Anyway,
so thank you perfect nailed it. Uh we should we
(32:13):
talk about this hedge fund guy? Yes? I do want
to talk with this hedge fund guy because this is
when something with this much money is talking about this
one just for fun, right, he's doing this just for ships,
for funds. Yeah, he's doing it for ships and giggles.
And he wrote a book kind of on this topic
and he proposed one one solution. He came up with
(32:36):
one thing that will prevent us from entering a civil war. Um,
which shows how smart these hedge fund people are. Um.
But first, uh, I Chris would love to I would
love for you to explain who who this? Who this
dude is? Okay, So Rage is a hedge fund manager
and he is so he runs Bridge Bridge Water Associates,
(33:00):
which is one all the world's largest hedge fund firm. Yeah,
and it depends how you de find anything, but yeah,
it's a very large fund. And this guy, this guy
is weird by like venture capital standards. So the Bridgewaters
whole thing is that everyone in the company is constantly
surveiled at all times, and anyone else when the company
could look at when anyone else is doing its supposed
(33:21):
to be like it's like total transparency. And what it
actually means again, is it like you can you can
look at like fucking what any of your colleagues, like
also working at this place is doing, just sucking at
their day job. You can see all their records, you
can see everything they're looking at. And the other thing
that he's known for is that he doesn't trust anyone
else to like run the hedge fund after he retires.
Your dies, So he's trying to build like like a
(33:42):
cybernetic version of his brain to keep running the hedge
funds the like other hedge fund weirdos think this guy
is fucking wild. And yeah, he's he's a time and
he runs one of the world's just hege funds. It's great,
it's we it's it's amazing and good. We give these
people this much money to control. So I will say,
when it comes to his actual analysis of like whether
(34:04):
or not it's likely, I don't particularly disagree with anything. Yes,
it's it's broadly reasonable. Yeah, his looking Yeah for what,
he's just doing this because because he thinks it's fun.
He has enough money, he's gonna survive whatever. Um. But yeah,
he's also I mean, part of why this is fairly
credible is he's I mean, if you're if you're good
(34:26):
at this, it means that you have one actual talent,
which is is judging risk. Um. And I think he's
probably pretty good at judging risk. Yeah. So he he
he said that he believes there's like a high likely
could that a civil war or something resembling it will
break out within the decade. Um is the number he gives.
He's the number he gives and then he um, yeah wait,
(34:47):
let's see. Yeah he said there's also he have a quality.
He says, it's a we're we're in a we're in
a high risk position right now. Um. And yeah. He
talks about the different kind of reasons why he believes
so in this book, most of which are like pretty reasonable. Um,
in terms of like uh, in in terms of like
looking at a population and how much how like you know,
(35:11):
the various like polarization between politics and culture and all
this kind of stuff. Um, But the solution that he
gives to this is that, um, we should make a
formal judgment for quote unquote close elections and have the
losers respect the outcomes, and then once that happens, the
(35:34):
order is going to be like restored and respected, and
then we will avert a civil war. So he he
thinks that a civil will will probably be like enacted
by some type of election dispute, which that is actually
very reasonable in terms of what happened in our last election.
If there's like a big if there's big election dispute,
that could absolutely spark some type of conflict. But the
(35:55):
idea that we can avert a civil war by just
having an organization to judge close elections, like, but that's
not gonna, like, that's not gonna if you do that,
that's not gonna solve the close election problem. That'sn't even
if you do it, that won't be a solution, you know.
And I I will say, like, yeah, I excuse some
(36:16):
saying credit credit where minor credit is due Radalio is
in fact right that the difference between two thousands, which
is when the last time someone actually literally stolen election happened,
where yeah, but Bush Bush openly rings the election. It's
incredibly obvious, Like there there's like six ways he does this.
(36:39):
Everyone knows what's happening, and the reaction is every were
just kind of shrugs because they're like, oh, this dream
courts legitimate compared to both, which, yeah, that that's you know,
that's that's that's there. There there's been an actual break there.
It's just that I don't know, maybe I think it's
it's almost just like a lip brained thing where it's
like you think that if if you have an institution
(37:01):
that sets down rules this, this will make everything okay
because everyone will obey it. And that's just not where
we are anymore. Yeah, I mean, there was just a
poll that came out recently. It should like Americans trust
in the military has fallen to its lowest level ever registered,
and like that was kind of the one thing left
that most people felt positively about. Not to say that's
(37:21):
even a good thing, but just like the there is
such a complete fucking lack of faith in institutions across
the spectrum in the United States. But it's like, how
unless you're hiring I don't know, Um fucking no. I
would say Tom Hanks, but Tom Hanks has even gotten politicized,
even viruses. So yeah, there's no one they could pick
(37:44):
to get do this job that people would feel good
about if they Yeah, I mean, I'm sure if they
brought Mr Rogers back from the dead, half the country
would call him a cuck. So I don't I don't
know what what. I don't know who Daio thinks is
going to like get everybody on board. So maybe maybe,
uh maybe, um Danny DeVito, Danny DeVito might be able
(38:07):
to do it. Well, I think if if we put
all of our hope in Danny DeVito, that is a
better solution than what any of these articles and the
Supreme Court. It beats it beats every other quote solution
the articles posited. I mean Odin Kirk brought Twitter together
that one week. Maybe yeah, you know, with with the
(38:29):
practice in your court, if you just picked twelve random
people off the street, and we're like, that's that's the thing,
It's like, I am I am all four. It's the
term isn't the term isn't a democracy, Um, it's it's
I forget the other term, yes, of of almost I
forget exactly. But it's when a government is not composed
(38:50):
of elected leaders, composed of a random selected a random
selection of people, and they make decisions and then their
decisions over then we then we get a new selection.
I'm all four that model of government over almost any other.
It sounds way better than what we have. Yeah, yeah,
so that that is. That is the three pieces I
want to talk about. The independent piece on the Hedge Fund,
(39:12):
Brooking Institution on the Civil War, and then uh, Brian
wentnot not not Brian, Yes, Brian Michael jenkins Um, senior
advisor to the President of RAND Who who who wrote
the who who wrote the thing for NBC? So yeah,
that is just the terms of in terms of you know,
(39:33):
people in institutions talking about the topic more generally and
sometimes decent ways, oftentimes not decent ways. That is that
is the stuff from like the just the past between
the past week two months of people with big salaries
talking about the Civil War or in terms of the
in terms of the Hedge Fund guy, not a salary,
(39:55):
just billions of dollars, Yeah, just billions of dollars and
thinking it's neat. Um, I don't know. You know, every
time one of these comes out, I get tagged by
a bunch of people, um, saying like Robbert is the
thing you were talking about? Other people are talking about it,
and um, I don't know, I don't like that this
(40:16):
is the thing other people are talking about that I've
been talking about as opposed to mass Zeppelin transit or
something more fun. Yeah, these people could dedicate the resource
into something more manageable for them. And because they don't
have a good grasp, especially that Brian Michael guy has
and has no grasp on how extremism works. Um, And
(40:36):
it would be better if they dedicate the resources to
something else. But this is the world we live in.
It would be better if perhaps Brian Michael Jenkins dedicated
his his efforts and his platform at NBC to looking
into Mr Dario and whatever the funk he's been up to. Um,
that might that might do more. Man, he just get
plan them on, he would absolutely, Brian Michael Jenkins would
(40:58):
get PanAm on so fun and quick. Alright, Well, the Panamanians,
motherfucker in journalism just just like not even not even
downtime before that car gets bombed as he's talking on air.
The Okay, Brian Michael Jakins is seventy nine years old,
(41:20):
so it won't it wouldn't be hard. I just that
that that's like a ten minute job. I'm just I'm
just thinking, like Brian Michael Jakins, he's a quote unquote
an American expert on terrorism and transportation security with four
neckends of analysis. This is why he doesn't understand modern extremism.
It's because, yeah, he's still thinking in the seventies mode.
(41:41):
That's sure. I'm sure of his thoughts on terrorism are
just him rehashing opinions about like Hezbollah in the eighties. Yeah,
all of all of his stuff is superdated. So that's
that's why I I said that previously, is that he
still views terrorism as like as it was in the seventies.
And yeah, this is this is why. Um so that's
great guy, that's that's him. Um anyway, that wraps up
(42:04):
our show. Um, yeah, watch out for the one. The
one Brian Michael Jenkins prediction I do think will happen
is that there's a decent chance we might be back
in an assassination territory because it is, but it has
been a long time since that has happened. It's it
has been a hot minute, and definitely leagues. It keeps
happening in the UK. Yeah, I I was meaning specifically
(42:28):
in in in America, and well, yeah, that's what I'm saying.
We're We're not that far away from them in terms
of like things happening, so that I'm kind of surprised
it hasn't had. I think it's probably just because maybe
American legislators are all much more concerned about assassination because guns,
so people like our elected leaders take more precautions than
(42:50):
British ones. Did. I don't know. Maybe I don't know either. Well,
speaking of assassinations, you can follow us on Twitter and Instagram.
That happened here media. If we go missing, it was
Ray Dalio. If we go missing, it was Ray Dalio. Right,
could pie forbuddy
You know what, I think it's time to do a podcast.
All right, I did it, Sophie. This is it could
happen here a podcast that's begun. We talk about how
things are falling apart, and occasionally, when we're feeling good,
how to maybe how to maybe put them back together
(00:25):
a little bit. But today we're more talking about the
growing consensus that things in the US culture wars are
heating up to an unacceptable level, and and maybe people
are going to start doing some non culture type wars
here in the near future, like a civil type war
(00:46):
here in the near future. Those of you who know me, which,
why would you be listening to this podcast if you
if you don't know, like the earlier seasons of this
exact show, uh know that I talk a lot about
the potential of a mass civil conflict in the United States.
I've been kind of trying to warn about it for
a while, and today we're gonna do an episode about
some of the more mainstream sources that have started to
(01:10):
kind of accept this as a possibility, um and get
concerned about it. Garrison, you've presented us with three articles,
one from NBC News, one from The Independent, and one
from the Brookings Institute, all kind of fiddling around this
idea that certain unnamed journalists have spent years discussing. So yeah,
(01:32):
we're gonna we're gonna get into it, Garrison. Yeah, so
it is the past. The past few months we have
well I've I've been watching to see how how this
idea has been slowly kind of gaining in popularity. Of course,
there was like a spike in this around like January six,
but then stuff kind of settled down, and now we're
kind of seeing it come back up against We had
(01:54):
these these three pieces, all published within like a month
of each other, um, all kind of on the topic
and specifically, like the pieces themselves are definitely going coming
out this from a more like liberal perspective. But the
thing that made them interesting is that they did have
a decent number of like of of polls and uh
and and surveys in them based on like what who who,
(02:17):
what types of people think are like are thinking about
this and think it's more more of a possibility. One
survey published on November one, they've said eighteen percent of
Americans believe that quote unquote patriots might have to resort
to violence to quote save the country. Um, so, and
(02:37):
then that included a thirty percent of Republicans, um so,
but at eighteen percent of all of of of of
Americans in general republicans. Yeah, so using that very specifically
turn of phrase is definitely uh notable. And then another
pole from morelier in the year found that forty six
percent of people thought the country was somewhat or very
(02:59):
like to have another type of civil war. And that's
the plurality of the people pulled in that because only
like said unlikely, so the majority of people or not
the majority of people pulled, but like the most common
leaned on, yes it is, I think maybe we're going
to have us a war yeah, which is not great.
(03:20):
The one that uh NBC published included in their article
had but like thirty three percent of people saying no,
it's it's probably not gonna happen, kind of on the
maybe and and and and forty seven leaning on yeah
this maybe this is this is probably gonna happen at
some point soon. YEP. I mean a lot of a
lot a lot of what these articles are talking about
(03:41):
is just like kind of the increased increased threats against
like elected officials and then increased almost like militancy or
performative militancy of elected officials types of like like you know,
like a performatively bringing your gun into Congress and that
type of thing. And it lays out like a list
of a list of like of of of threats or
(04:01):
stuff enacted against governors, congressmen, all that kind of stuff
in in the past, in the past, like a year
year mainly. Yeah, one of the things I really disagree
about the Brookings because Brookings is the one who kind
of is analyzing that made that big poll and talking
about it, has a list of reasons why we might
have a civil war and a list of reasons why
(04:23):
it's unlikely. And one of the reasons why it's unlikely
is quote most of the organizations talking about civil war
or private not public entities. Um. And note that when
Southern States succeeded in eighteen sixty, they had police forces,
military organizations, and state sponsored Militia's the right of that now. Yeah,
Like there's a ton of signal posting from guys like
(04:47):
Jim Jordan's uh Hawthorne um Gates bobert Um, a ton
of signal posting of gosar from elected Republican leaders, from governors,
from state level elected officials, and like regular street cops. Yeah,
and like regular street cops that are like civil war adjacent, um,
(05:09):
if not directly advocating for internet scene violence. I think
that that I don't think Brookings, I don't think they're
analysis is spot on with this, And I think there's
just one of everything that's interesting about that, which is
I think it was one of those are these our
sleps were arguing that it was like, well, the Pentagon's
(05:31):
not particularly civil like, well, the Pentagon doesn't want a
civil war, They're not gonna step into it. But but
I think it is also important to note that, like
like if you remember what happened last summer, there's a
lot of FEDS who are just like you know, like
when like yeah, so so you know, the the army
kind of doesn't want Trump to like send the army
against protesters, but like you know, like bor Tak for example,
(05:54):
like was just like absolutely hyped up to just like
absolutely just go disappear a bunch of people. And they
were very excited about that part. Yeah, Yeah, they love
they love this stuff, and it's like, yeah, the notion
that it's less likely because it doesn't have like formal
police backing is really silly because if you spend any
(06:15):
time monitoring these type of militia groups, you know that
a good portion of them are also members of some
type of law enforcement or have like family connections. To me,
there have been a bunch of cases of weapons being
stolen stolen from forts UM, particularly in like the West
Coast right now. Like, Yeah, there's a ton of connections
to the and a ton of like members in common.
(06:37):
It's like at the Capital riot that were like thirty
something active duty police officers involved. UM. To say that
there's not direct connections with law enforcement is nonsense. And
it's true that like our military leadership remains pretty much
a political and very like committed to being a political
in the sense that like in the within the like
(06:58):
US partisan context, right like they don't come in to
prop up the Democrats of the Republicans, and I don't
think that's immediately likely. But police forces in the United
States are extremely politicized and have more than enough power
to carry out a counterinsurgency campaign nationwide. And as long
as the US military didn't step in, and why would they, like,
(07:20):
the cops are willing and able to do the civil
warring for the government. Why do you think they have
all those tanks? You know? So, yeah, like there is
there is a lot of backing um, at least performatively
among certain types of like write politicians and of course police.
But I think a lot of what the politicians are
trying to do is more like encourage regular folks or
(07:41):
people in like civilian militias to just start doing violence
against other elected leaders. That seems to be like like
like Bobart and that and those types aren't. They're not
like telling police to go do this. They're speaking to
like regular people. UM. And I think one on one
decent point, the actually the nbc PS actually puts out
(08:02):
and it says all of this kind of like a
divisive um and and more violent rhetoric and behavior displayed
by and towards some of our elected officials does not
necessarily mean another like civil war in terms of like
a military conduct contest between states. UM. It just does
not mean that it's inevitable or even probable or even
like probable. A more likely scenario is a turbulent era
(08:24):
of civil disturbances, armed confrontations, standoffs, threats, assassination attempts, and
other acts of political violence. In other words, one that's
a lot like the last two years of American history,
which I feel like, yeah, in terms of in terms
of the likelihood of there being like a more formally
declared kind of conflict versus just versus just like increasingly
(08:47):
increasingly normalizing extreme violence against uh you know, quote unquote
fellow countrymen. I think is is ah, yeah, like that
there's we are going to be more likely to be
just move being in that direction slowly and at the
point when there's like frequent enough exchange of the fire,
that's when we say, yeah, we're basically in a civil war.
(09:08):
We're just not calling it that, um, which is you know,
that's the points that you, Robert, you have made a
lot in the in the past. Yeah, I mean, and
there's I I'm I think a lot of this is
just a failure of kind of imagination and ability to
accept from a group like Brookings, who I know has
paid some attention to the Syrian Civil War that like
(09:30):
civil conflicts in the United States or in the in
the twenty one century often don't like there's no clear
regional split. Like you look at a lot of what
was happening in Syria, you had cities divided up by
neighborhoods between like who who was in charge? Um, you
know that that's very much what we see here. And
you do see like clear regional split between urban and
(09:52):
rural divides. And it's not like they say, within specific states,
but like I would say, it's very specific and limited
state that don't have huge urban rural divides. Um, Like,
that's that is the norm everywhere in this country that
I've been. Maybe it's different in fucking Vermont or New Hampshire,
but I don't trust those places. Um. Yeah, And I
(10:14):
guess I think they're overly optimistic based on kind of
a fundamental misunderstanding of how these sorts of conflicts occur. Um.
That said, I don't know, Like it's it's one of
those things. I think the number one the number one
thing you should be looking at in terms of whether
or not a civil war is likely is the number
(10:38):
of people who respond in polls with things like yes,
I think we need to use violence to restore the
nation or whatever. Um that it's not just enough, Like
I I it's not just enough to think that a
civil war is likely because a lot of that's just
based on people who don't want one, but are paying
attention to the same media as everybody else and are
(10:59):
watching this and stuff we're watching and are like, well,
this seems sketchy. I think that the main indicator is
the number of people who respond, yeah, I think it
would be awesome to use violence as a like in
order to make America more like what I wanted to be. UM.
And again that doesn't mean we'll we'll creep over the point.
(11:20):
There's a number of interesting things that have happened UM
on kind of the we're headed towards the civil war side.
The number one thing that I've seen recently is the
use of paramilitary organizations UM to kind of choke uh
local civil institutions UM like school boards. I I see
that as very concerning and as kind of prelude to
(11:41):
the sort of armed mobilizations that you would see unlocalized
areas in any kind of civil conflict. It's it's the
precursors to death squads. So that's the that's the thing
that I see on the ground that worries me most
um in terms of the thing that I'm I'm certain
about honestly, Like, one of the things they note in
(12:02):
here in the Brookings article that like, the sheer number
of guns in the United States is a reason why
we might have a civil war, and I agree with
that entirely. When you have four million weapons in private hands,
it increases the odds that they'll be used in some
sort of scale. UM. We've also seen historic numbers of
non white people of of of like folks who are
(12:24):
from marginalized communities, UM, not just buying up weapons that
unprecedented rates, but organizing with them. And I'm not really
sure how to think of that. There's certainly a way.
It could certainly be a very negative development, but it
could also be. I think a big part of what
I've seen from the right lately is the sense of impunity. UM.
(12:46):
And I think the feeling of being matched uh in
arms is an end to impunity potentially. UM. Then the
big question is like, well what about the police, and like, well,
if the police side with the riot against you know,
there's there's still a number of questions there, and we
don't have any clean answers. But UM, I don't know that.
I I think that on the whole, I'm more worried
(13:09):
than I was two years ago when I wrote it.
Could happen here, um, but it's not clean. And I
think in some to some extent, I'm I'm a little
more worried about something like the years of Lead in
Italy than I am about Syria right now, if that
makes sense. I will say one thing about the years
of Lead, which because a lot of people talk about
(13:31):
the years of less, so that the years a letter
this kind of like a roughly ten year period in
Italy of I don't know, mass terrorismating political violence with
effigant body counts in a way that stood out from
the years around it. Yeah, And I mean, you know,
the years of Lead has use a lit Also, there's
there's a bunch of intelligent and she's involved. There's a
(13:52):
lot of foreign kind of false false bombings, like hundred
hundreds of people are being killed in bombings. And I
think there's one absolutely crucial difference between now in the
Years of Light. I mean, well, okay, so partially it's
that unlike Italy, we don't have seventeen thousand intelligence agencies
operating in the US and like trying to kidnap and
kill the foreign prime minister. But the the other thing
(14:15):
that's very important is that unlike unlike the Italian left,
and you know, really unlike the whole global left of
the seventies and eighties. There is no American like left
wing like left wing, I guess you could call, like
there's there's no left wing terrorist tradition, right like the
like the left doesn't do suside bombings. The left doesn't
(14:36):
kidnap people like like the modern American left doesn't do that,
and that a big part of what was happening from
the years of LED was that, you know, sometimes the
left was doing this. A lot of times it was
the state pretending to be the left carrying out bombings.
And that isn't really something that is happening right now
because there's just like the like, the the left is
(14:59):
not in a play where everyone is going, we need
to do armed durban guerrilla movements and yeah, so and
then that that makes it harder to sort of pin
things like pin actual urban guerrilla movement stuff on the
left because there's just none of that. But I don't
think and I agree Years of Left is kind of
like a broad Strokes comparison because what I see is
(15:21):
more likely is what we're what we're already witnessing on
the ground with these right wing militant groups increases, and
they moved to the point of kidnapping and executing and
potentially in concert with law enforcement, like doing stuff like
in states that have issued harsh laws, you know, banning
certain books. You have in a town, local law enforcement
and militias like go after and grab individual leftists and
(15:44):
either kill or imprison them, and conflicts over that, and
you have the left increasingly organized an arm um as
a defense against that, and then a number of armed conflicts,
you know, as a result of that, which maybe then
proceed to bombings and stuff that that's terrorism, or proceed
to just more kind of skirmishes that the FEDS have
(16:05):
a minimal response to, and local or state law enforcement
kind of tacitly allows um like that. That's that's kind
of obviously that's not a direct comparison to what happened
in Italy, but of course we're a different country. But
that's kind of that's kind of the kind of brush
fire conflict I could see cropping up in the very
near future in this country. You know what else will
(16:31):
start a series of armed gun fights between left and
right in American towns. The products and services they're they're
working on it every day. The products and services that
support this podcast urged violence on the streets of the
(16:51):
United States. That's behind the bastards. Guarantee, Sophie, We're not
doing behind the bastards? What what show are we? Who
are we? Anyway? Here's ads? All right? Oh my gosh,
(17:17):
uh We're back. Yeah, what a great ad. I really
nailed that transition. Um, just absolutely so. The next thing
that I want to talk about, UM, something that I
think has some some backing behind it and something that
I think is kind of more silly. Is that one
(17:38):
of one of the reasons that this uh NBC piece
by what's his name, uh, Brian Brian Michael Jenkins is uh,
he says, one of one of the reasons that we're
kind of getting more okay with, you know, uh, killing
or hurting our neighbors essentially is um quote, Americans do
(18:02):
fewer things together. Church attendance is declining. Membership and civic
organizations and lodges have been decreasing for decades. PTA membership
has dropped by nearly half from what it was in
nineteen sixties, Bowling leagues have almost disappeared, and a shared
national experience of military service disintegrated with the abolition of
conscription in nineteen seventy three. Meanwhile, self proclaimed citizen militia's
(18:26):
driven mainly by far right conspiracy theories have surged since
to US and eight, especially in the past five years.
So he is wrong, but he's yes, militias have leagues,
militias have risen. But is that due to bowling leagues. Yeah,
I don't think it's due to a drop in bowling leagues.
(18:48):
I think it's due to the fact that all these
guys are terminally online now and we're watching Fox News
for twenty years before that. That is the thing, is that, like,
I don't think this guy, Brian Michael Chickens understands how
the Internet intersects with extremism because he's he's doing this
from a very like like he's he's acting like we're
(19:08):
still in the seventies, and he like, like that's not
how the world works, and how like people spend their time. No,
people aren't doing bowling leagues, but yeah, woman, young men
are spending and and you know, middleagement are spending time online,
whether that be discord in a terrorist group chat, or
that be a Facebook group that's for a militia and
that's where that socialization is happening. And because the Internet
(19:31):
rewards extremism and the hottest take, it's moving in that direction,
even with people who would ordinarily just have historically the
past joined bowling leagues. I guess, but it's very It's
it's correlation doesn't equal causation. Ship It's wow. Less people
are in bowling leagues and going to church, and militias
have grown wildly, wildly. Um, this one must cause the other.
(19:55):
And it's like, well, no, they're both both of those things.
May have some causes in common. There may be similar
factors that are driving both of those things, but they
are not caused like that. They don't necessary one doesn't
necessarily cause the other. Um. And if you like, again,
the smart person version of this would be to say, hey,
people are doing less things together out in the world.
(20:17):
People are reporting because you can find statistic backup for this.
People seem to be lonelier than ever. Um, people are
more depressed than ever. Suicide rates have risen, and while
this is happening, militias and extremist groups have grown. Perhaps
there's something about these organizations, um that makes them particularly
attractive when folks are vulnerable due to these things, and
like let's look at you know, the failure of our
(20:39):
political system to confront these issues further feeds into the
desire amongst some chunk of the populace for some sort
of nihilistic cleansing violence. And again, pieces of all the
pieces of this article could be could be reassembled into
something with um some insight, but I I don't think
Brian Michael Jenkins has much. I think it's also interesting
(21:00):
thing to note here about because so the last thing
he talks about this, oh, is the thing that formed
the common sort of national identity was shared Universal Military service.
And it's like, okay, the reason shared universal Military Service
went away was that everyone kept murdering literally just blowing
their officers up in Vietnam like that. And you know,
(21:21):
if if you want to talk about like incredibly high
levels of political polarization and like mass violence between Americans,
I mean, the army basically fighting a civil war against
itself in Vietnam is you know, in an enormously important
part of this. And then simultaneously the sort of right
wing vets returning home and you know, going Louis Beam
(21:41):
and stuff like that. That you know, he's relying on
this kind of mythos of this so there was a
time when you know, it's it's it's basically made it
make America great again. But sort of like, yeah, that's
this type of rhetoric is actually very similar to like
the return return to tradition and stuff, but like the
solution to our extremism need to be going to church,
(22:03):
church again, being part of civil organizations, joining bowling leagues,
and conscripted conscripted military service. That's like, that is that
that is just the same that that is very similar
to like the make America grade again, returned to tradition
sect because those are those are also their goals, except
that they're just willing to use violence to achieve those goals,
(22:23):
whereas this guy just wants people to start doing that again.
I guess, um, I don't know. Yeah, Like in terms
of like military service not leading to extremism, I mean
like Oklahoma City bombing, I don't, I don't, I don't
really there is other stuff going on there. But like
in terms of terms of that being like an example,
it is it is very silly because a lot of
a lot of a lot of the guys, even inside
(22:46):
you know, are are current like three per centers and stuff.
A lot of them have former military service, so that
I mean, but like, yeah, citizen militias in terms of
gaining popularity specifically due to um kind of overall distrusted
the federal government and the type of socialization that being
(23:07):
online too much results in, has yes, grown grown, grown
the militia movement a lot um And and I just
don't see how Bowling is going to solve that issue
in terms of in terms of how do we people
to trust the federal government solve that issue? Garrison. But
(23:27):
but you've never watched The Big Lebowski, so you wouldn't
You wouldn't understand. I've not watched The Big Lebowski. So
I'm kind of I'm kind of I'm kind of done
with the kind of done with the NBC piece there.
I know there was there was something Brian Michael Jenkins.
The other thing on on the Brookings thing that I
(23:49):
have a decent issue with is that they're one of
the reasons they give for and and this is actually
something that Brian Michael Jenkins also brings up with the
MPC piece, is that one of the reasons why they
believed the civil wars not as inevitable is because there
is no clear regional split like a North South divide,
and they, for some reason think this means that there
is less likely to be civil conflict. Um. They they
(24:13):
recognized there is an urban rule divide in most states,
but because there is no large, kind of obvious north
South divide, they think this is going to make a
civil war less likely. Well, the map would really be
a pain in the ass, so it probably won't happen, right,
Like that's that's the thing they're thinking, is like, oh,
if I was gonna if I have to map this out,
it's gonna be too complicated. When I read that, I
(24:35):
had flashbacks to my first trip to a war zone
in Ukraine, where we were like taking Google Maps up
to a certain point and then we had to use
like hand drawn notes because he was like, well, the
different like the different chunks of this air next like
twenty acres that are owned by the separatists as opposed
to the government, or like you can't use Google it'll
send you into enemy territories because it's not a clean
(24:58):
break because you had literally suburbs of cities fighting each
other and you still do Yeah, this is a this
is you know, I think personally this this this is
a sort of peak American brain thing because you know,
there's there's been like five ever civil wars that are
broken like this, and the problem is that there's American
Civil War and then we also fought in both Vietnam
and North Korea. But like, yeah, yeah, we were really
(25:22):
civil war. Yeah yeah, yeah, that's that's there was fighting
between two halfs of the country that it was a
proxy for two others several other kindries and that's yeah,
and that's and that's the thing that like it's the
combination of the American Civil War was very unique civil war,
and then the other major things that we think of
(25:42):
as like quote unquote civil wars were you know, we're
basically cold war stuff. And I mean, you know, like that,
there there are a couple other like yeah, I mean
there have been other examples of like successionist stuff like that.
Like I mean, in in any civil war, like there's
a lot of other countries that get involved. In the
US Civil War, there was a significant amount of of
that sort and even even even even in the US
(26:03):
Civil War, like there are just like towns in the
middle of like Confederate territory. They're like, no, funk this,
We're not going over. But everyone but people have this
just like incredibly myopic view of what a civil war is.
And it's like every other civil war that's been fought
in the last like fifty years has been just seven
thousand factions like neighborhood fighting each other. I don't know,
(26:26):
it's just incredibly frustrating to watch these people not understand this.
It's very America brained, and it's very sad because I'm
going to read a quote that's gonna make us want
to purge our ears. There are urban rural differences within
specific states, with progressives dominating the city as while conservatives
reside in rural communities, but that is a far different
(26:47):
geographic divide than when one region could wage war on another.
The lack of a distinctive or uniform geographic division limits
the ability to confront other areas organized supply chains and
mobilize the population. There can be local skirmaches between different forces,
but not a situation where one state or region attacks another,
which is complete nonsense. And that's not how like it's
(27:10):
like they don't understand that guerrilla fighting exists and they
don't understand how the whole, the whole, the whole part
about organizing supply chains and mobilized population, like that is
just another way to fight a war is by exploiting
that specific thing like the fact that cities are so
isolated um and lack and and and lack of homemach
(27:33):
of resources, and the fact that rural areas are isolated
in a different way and lack separate resources. That is
not something that makes a civil war less likely. That
just makes it more complicated and makes it fighting over
Amazon fulfillment centers and the like. Yeah, like it's it's
the it is. It is ridiculous, um saying that, Yeah,
(27:53):
saying that the that that it's it's far different from
a geographic divide that one reacher could wage more and
others like that. No, that you're you're just saying something
that is just completely wrong and like you have not
studied any type of like urban conflict whatsoever. Yeah, And
I think there's important thing, which is that regions mostly
(28:17):
it's not that regions wage warning. Yeah, it's not people
don't do the fighting. Yeah, Like regions aren't the things
that are fighting, it's the people in areas and people
can move around, and people can block off access to areas,
and like it's it's this, it's a weird it's a
it's super weird way to think about things. And it's
the fact that if if this is something that like
(28:38):
the Brooking Institution um is, if this is what they
think on this topic, that's pretty sad indicator for what
a lot of people how they how like a lot
of mainstream levels are going to view the possibility of
any type of civil conflict. And I don't know, maybe
they feel very secure in their cities, um, which which
is a weird thing. I've I've not felt that in years. Yeah,
(29:00):
And I think the everything that's very weird about this
is that because so a lot of people writing about
this are x are um like kind are like kind
of terrorism people, right, and the kind of terrorism kind
of resurgence people. It's weird because they used to understand
this like you know, like a lot of like you know,
because like in in you know, in in the twentieth
century and in even sort of the early century, like
(29:20):
the the the sort of the sort of standard like
guerrilla insurgency doctrine was you know, it's some some some
some variation on the like maoists fish in the sea,
like surround the cities where we're like royal areas, etcetera,
etcet etcetera, and like and you you even see versions
of this, you know, in things that are quite civil
(29:41):
wars but are kind of like what happened, like the
water and gas wars and Oblivi and the the three
Thousand's where like you know, what what what, Yeah, you
have kind of an urban reyal divide with they have
allies in the cities, but the sort of you know,
like the you have a bunch of rural regienous groups
that literally just you know, they blockade every road in
the country and then start of the cities out right.
(30:02):
I mean, this is this, this is this is just
a thing that happened. It's just like, yeah, that is like, yeah,
that is that. That is going to happen sooner than later,
whether that be caused by accident, by some type of
climate natural disaster, or on purpose by a militia like that.
It's just a matter of time until we have to
deal with this massive problem. Yeah. Um. And it's like
(30:25):
I've been reading recently about um Uruguay and what happened
with them, and like the seventies when their dictatorship took
over and they had a left wing group that was
like very much engaged in kind of a lot of
acts of poetic terrorism, like you know, robbing banks to
steal paperwork that they would then hand over to like
somebody to reveal malfeasance within a company, or like stealing
(30:48):
trucks of food going to like some big wealthy Christmas
party and redistributing it in poor neighborhoods. Pretty rad stuff
and one of the ways in which the new incoming
dictatorial regime cracked down them as they deputized like ten
thousand jud's and gave them guns and sent them in
with the army. Um. And I was like, yeah, I
could absolutely see ship. Could that happen? Yeah, Like if
(31:11):
there was some sort of uprising in a in a
liberal city, there's areas around them filled with juds there
and there was precedent, There is precedent for police doing that. Um,
they have done it within your r I shot garrison
like on small scales. So I think we'll have one
(31:31):
more break and come back and talk about a talk
about a Hedge fund. Oh funk I love hedge funds.
Let me get let me get my hedge funds. Shared
out the shirt that I wear when talking about hedge funds.
(31:52):
All right, I have my hedgephone shirt on UM. As
you can all see, it's a picture of Ringo star
filating himself. I don't know why that's my hedge fund shirt.
I don't know either, but I love the beach Boys. UM. Anyway,
so thank you perfect nailed it. Uh we should we
(32:13):
talk about this hedge fund guy? Yes? I do want
to talk with this hedge fund guy because this is
when something with this much money is talking about this
one just for fun, right, he's doing this just for ships,
for funds. Yeah, he's doing it for ships and giggles.
And he wrote a book kind of on this topic
and he proposed one one solution. He came up with
(32:36):
one thing that will prevent us from entering a civil war. Um,
which shows how smart these hedge fund people are. Um.
But first, uh, I Chris would love to I would
love for you to explain who who this? Who this
dude is? Okay, So Rage is a hedge fund manager
and he is so he runs Bridge Bridge Water Associates,
(33:00):
which is one all the world's largest hedge fund firm. Yeah,
and it depends how you de find anything, but yeah,
it's a very large fund. And this guy, this guy
is weird by like venture capital standards. So the Bridgewaters
whole thing is that everyone in the company is constantly
surveiled at all times, and anyone else when the company
could look at when anyone else is doing its supposed
(33:21):
to be like it's like total transparency. And what it
actually means again, is it like you can you can
look at like fucking what any of your colleagues, like
also working at this place is doing, just sucking at
their day job. You can see all their records, you
can see everything they're looking at. And the other thing
that he's known for is that he doesn't trust anyone
else to like run the hedge fund after he retires.
Your dies, So he's trying to build like like a
(33:42):
cybernetic version of his brain to keep running the hedge
funds the like other hedge fund weirdos think this guy
is fucking wild. And yeah, he's he's a time and
he runs one of the world's just hege funds. It's great,
it's we it's it's amazing and good. We give these
people this much money to control. So I will say,
when it comes to his actual analysis of like whether
(34:04):
or not it's likely, I don't particularly disagree with anything. Yes,
it's it's broadly reasonable. Yeah, his looking Yeah for what,
he's just doing this because because he thinks it's fun.
He has enough money, he's gonna survive whatever. Um. But yeah,
he's also I mean, part of why this is fairly
credible is he's I mean, if you're if you're good
(34:26):
at this, it means that you have one actual talent,
which is is judging risk. Um. And I think he's
probably pretty good at judging risk. Yeah. So he he
he said that he believes there's like a high likely
could that a civil war or something resembling it will
break out within the decade. Um is the number he gives.
He's the number he gives and then he um, yeah wait,
(34:47):
let's see. Yeah he said there's also he have a quality.
He says, it's a we're we're in a we're in
a high risk position right now. Um. And yeah. He
talks about the different kind of reasons why he believes
so in this book, most of which are like pretty reasonable. Um,
in terms of like uh, in in terms of like
looking at a population and how much how like you know,
(35:11):
the various like polarization between politics and culture and all
this kind of stuff. Um, But the solution that he
gives to this is that, um, we should make a
formal judgment for quote unquote close elections and have the
losers respect the outcomes, and then once that happens, the
(35:34):
order is going to be like restored and respected, and
then we will avert a civil war. So he he
thinks that a civil will will probably be like enacted
by some type of election dispute, which that is actually
very reasonable in terms of what happened in our last election.
If there's like a big if there's big election dispute,
that could absolutely spark some type of conflict. But the
(35:55):
idea that we can avert a civil war by just
having an organization to judge close elections, like, but that's
not gonna, like, that's not gonna if you do that,
that's not gonna solve the close election problem. That'sn't even
if you do it, that won't be a solution, you know.
And I I will say, like, yeah, I excuse some
(36:16):
saying credit credit where minor credit is due Radalio is
in fact right that the difference between two thousands, which
is when the last time someone actually literally stolen election happened,
where yeah, but Bush Bush openly rings the election. It's
incredibly obvious, Like there there's like six ways he does this.
(36:39):
Everyone knows what's happening, and the reaction is every were
just kind of shrugs because they're like, oh, this dream
courts legitimate compared to both, which, yeah, that that's you know,
that's that's that's there. There there's been an actual break there.
It's just that I don't know, maybe I think it's
it's almost just like a lip brained thing where it's
like you think that if if you have an institution
(37:01):
that sets down rules this, this will make everything okay
because everyone will obey it. And that's just not where
we are anymore. Yeah, I mean, there was just a
poll that came out recently. It should like Americans trust
in the military has fallen to its lowest level ever registered,
and like that was kind of the one thing left
that most people felt positively about. Not to say that's
(37:21):
even a good thing, but just like the there is
such a complete fucking lack of faith in institutions across
the spectrum in the United States. But it's like, how
unless you're hiring I don't know, Um fucking no. I
would say Tom Hanks, but Tom Hanks has even gotten politicized,
even viruses. So yeah, there's no one they could pick
(37:44):
to get do this job that people would feel good
about if they Yeah, I mean, I'm sure if they
brought Mr Rogers back from the dead, half the country
would call him a cuck. So I don't I don't
know what what. I don't know who Daio thinks is
going to like get everybody on board. So maybe maybe,
uh maybe, um Danny DeVito, Danny DeVito might be able
(38:07):
to do it. Well, I think if if we put
all of our hope in Danny DeVito, that is a
better solution than what any of these articles and the
Supreme Court. It beats it beats every other quote solution
the articles posited. I mean Odin Kirk brought Twitter together
that one week. Maybe yeah, you know, with with the
(38:29):
practice in your court, if you just picked twelve random
people off the street, and we're like, that's that's the thing,
It's like, I am I am all four. It's the
term isn't the term isn't a democracy, Um, it's it's
I forget the other term, yes, of of almost I
forget exactly. But it's when a government is not composed
(38:50):
of elected leaders, composed of a random selected a random
selection of people, and they make decisions and then their
decisions over then we then we get a new selection.
I'm all four that model of government over almost any other.
It sounds way better than what we have. Yeah, yeah,
so that that is. That is the three pieces I
want to talk about. The independent piece on the Hedge Fund,
(39:12):
Brooking Institution on the Civil War, and then uh, Brian
wentnot not not Brian, Yes, Brian Michael jenkins Um, senior
advisor to the President of RAND Who who who wrote
the who who wrote the thing for NBC? So yeah,
that is just the terms of in terms of you know,
(39:33):
people in institutions talking about the topic more generally and
sometimes decent ways, oftentimes not decent ways. That is that
is the stuff from like the just the past between
the past week two months of people with big salaries
talking about the Civil War or in terms of the
in terms of the Hedge Fund guy, not a salary,
(39:55):
just billions of dollars, Yeah, just billions of dollars and
thinking it's neat. Um, I don't know. You know, every
time one of these comes out, I get tagged by
a bunch of people, um, saying like Robbert is the
thing you were talking about? Other people are talking about it,
and um, I don't know, I don't like that this
(40:16):
is the thing other people are talking about that I've
been talking about as opposed to mass Zeppelin transit or
something more fun. Yeah, these people could dedicate the resource
into something more manageable for them. And because they don't
have a good grasp, especially that Brian Michael guy has
and has no grasp on how extremism works. Um, And
(40:36):
it would be better if they dedicate the resources to
something else. But this is the world we live in.
It would be better if perhaps Brian Michael Jenkins dedicated
his his efforts and his platform at NBC to looking
into Mr Dario and whatever the funk he's been up to. Um,
that might that might do more. Man, he just get
plan them on, he would absolutely, Brian Michael Jenkins would
(40:58):
get PanAm on so fun and quick. Alright, Well, the Panamanians,
motherfucker in journalism just just like not even not even
downtime before that car gets bombed as he's talking on air.
The Okay, Brian Michael Jakins is seventy nine years old,
(41:20):
so it won't it wouldn't be hard. I just that
that that's like a ten minute job. I'm just I'm
just thinking, like Brian Michael Jakins, he's a quote unquote
an American expert on terrorism and transportation security with four
neckends of analysis. This is why he doesn't understand modern extremism.
It's because, yeah, he's still thinking in the seventies mode.
(41:41):
That's sure. I'm sure of his thoughts on terrorism are
just him rehashing opinions about like Hezbollah in the eighties. Yeah,
all of all of his stuff is superdated. So that's
that's why I I said that previously, is that he
still views terrorism as like as it was in the seventies.
And yeah, this is this is why. Um so that's
great guy, that's that's him. Um anyway, that wraps up
(42:04):
our show. Um, yeah, watch out for the one. The
one Brian Michael Jenkins prediction I do think will happen
is that there's a decent chance we might be back
in an assassination territory because it is, but it has
been a long time since that has happened. It's it
has been a hot minute, and definitely leagues. It keeps
happening in the UK. Yeah, I I was meaning specifically
(42:28):
in in in America, and well, yeah, that's what I'm saying.
We're We're not that far away from them in terms
of like things happening, so that I'm kind of surprised
it hasn't had. I think it's probably just because maybe
American legislators are all much more concerned about assassination because guns,
so people like our elected leaders take more precautions than
(42:50):
British ones. Did. I don't know. Maybe I don't know either. Well,
speaking of assassinations, you can follow us on Twitter and Instagram.
That happened here media. If we go missing, it was
Ray Dalio. If we go missing, it was Ray Dalio. Right,
could pie forbuddy
It Could Happen Here News
Host
Robert Evans
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