August 16, 2022 • 39 mins
We have us a goddamn round table discussion about the FBI raid on Donny Trump and all the civil war talk.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Oh boy, it could happen here, and it seems to
be happening more after the last couple of days. This
is a podcast about how everything's looking pretty bad these days. Um,
and in particular right now, we're we're here. We've got
the whole team, not the whole team. We've got the
(00:27):
team here to do a round table discussion about the thing,
you know, the thing, the thing that happened this last
week that is still the main thing happening, which is
the FBI rated former President Trump's house. Um, and now
all of his fans are declaring war on the FBI,
which has so far been let's all be honest here,
(00:48):
pretty funny. Um. But everybody's also a lot there's a
lot of worry going on. There's a lot the some
folks have documented, if we'll talk about this, that like
discussion online of civil war and civil conflict has like
exploded to new heights over the last like four days
or so. UM. So yeah, we're gonna talk about all
of that. But but here's here's here's the team. We've
(01:09):
got Garrison Davis, James Stout, and we've got Christopher Wong
and of course me Sylvie. How's everybody doing today. I'm
doing great, magnificently. M Yeah, so where's where's where's everybody's
new civil war counters? At? Who here feels we're like
(01:31):
we're we're closer and who he feels like we've gotten
further away? Well, it's definitely gone up. It's definitely gone
up a little bit. Um. Yeah, temperature is a little
higher for sure. I mean we're still not really around
the averages around J six, but it's it is, it's
it's it's the highest it's been around like the Biden administration. Um, yeah,
(01:53):
I just made some ceramic armor purchases. Is where my
web when my current civil war counter is? Yes, I
did just get another set of rifle plates, got some
side pates, like you know, you know who had body
armor is the guy who single handedly attacked that FBI
field office in Ohio with a nail gun and then
(02:16):
died in a field. Okay, before we get into that,
Ricky she can we can we what the funk is
going on with that guy who like lit himself on
fire in his car and rammed into the Capitol barrier
and like I forgot about that? Yeah, like that might
adjust been a suicide because we don't seem to have
(02:37):
any clear evidence that it was political. It's just it's
just like a really weird, like I don't know that
that that's that's a kind of thing that feels like
if it was happening five years ago, would have been
like a major news story. And when I was trying
to find news stories about it, so the first thing
I did was, Okay, I googled DC car attack, and
I found a difference DC car attack, and then I
(02:58):
got DC shooting, and I've on a different DC shooting,
and like if we combining to do She's like, oh,
this is We're living in a great time. This isn't
even the first, not even the first person to drive
their car into a Capitol police barrier and then get
out to start shooting, right Like, this is this is
the United States. It's just something we do here is
(03:19):
incredible approved market and method. I mean, it just it
does kind of seem like it was just a suicide,
like that one was just a that's what the Capitol
police are saying. It was twenty nine years old, didn't
appear to be targeting any members of Congress, fired shots
into the air before taking his own life. Um no,
officers shot their weapons. It was very it was very quick.
(03:42):
Mm hmm. Okay, yeah, it is interesting because he is
he is no Ricky Schiffer. Yeah that that that the
DC stories seems sad that the Shiffer stories, Yes, much
more funny having I mean, so this is obviously you
have Donald Trump get rated by the FBI, and then
(04:05):
less than two days later you have this guy show
up outside of an FBI field office, try to force
his way through or try to break through the bulletproof
glass with a nail gun and then winds up in
an hour so long to standoff before being shot to
death by the FBI, which is very funny because he
so I guess the thing about this that's unsettling, Um
(04:26):
that that colleague of ours, Jason Wilson pointed out on Twitter,
and then I think is worth noting is that while
this kind of thing is is extremely American and very common. Um,
the thing that is kind of unsettling about Shiver is
that he's not he's he's just he's he's straight up
normal maga right, Like he's not from any of the
there's no evidence that he was kind of like dipping
(04:46):
into these other subcultures that are more explicitly like terroristic
in their nature, that he may have ties to Proud Boys.
But yeah, well we'll see. He was at JA six,
you know, so I'm sure. But I mean it's what
it is, is a a guy who is a normal
Trump's supporter um um in the Yeah, I mean, I
(05:15):
mean he was ultra to the extent of what he
did a few days ago, and he was on true
social and like he he was. Yeah, but I feel
like that's not that a regular Like if you watch
the most recent Jordan Clipper video, there's people doing like
like regular asked people saying things that are way more
(05:35):
absurdan than what they were saying two years ago. Like
the real reality has become so detached for a certain
sect of like Trump lifers, and it's just impossible to
pry them away to the point where they ineffectually attack
an FBI office with an l gun, yeah, and die
in a shootout hours later. And and Shiffer, I mean,
(05:55):
one of the things that you might compare a little
bit to Shiffer is you know, there have been particularly
during the Trump years, there were a couple of attacks
on ice facilities, um that were kind of like acts
of desperation from people who were politically radicalized by the
things happening. UM, but also felt like there was kind
of no hope of of taking any sort of useful
(06:16):
action other than being an individual going out and attacking ice.
And I think this is a lot more similar to
that in terms of the headspace of the guy that
it's similar to, for example, like the Nazis shooting up
like an El Paso fucking Walmart because they stopped by genocide,
Like this is this is a guy who was like
(06:36):
purely radicalized by mainstream conservative media um and and the
president's social media network. He was directly radicalized by President Trump,
as opposed to like finding Trump funny and then like
winding up in some some funked up places online that
radicalize him. And that is unsettling, even though it's again
pretty funny what happened to him. Um. I think both
(06:59):
of those things can be true. And I think we
have to take joy in the times when individual maga
dudes use nail guns to try and attack the entire FBI. Really,
he really thought that that you can use that that
bulletproof glass can't be broken by bullets, but you can
use nail guns to just really well, he thought that
this gets to what the communities that he was kind
(07:21):
of radicalized. And he thought that because there's a lot
of like normal gun YouTube videos where people will like,
because the thing on like gun YouTube is people will
take different kinds of firearms or other weapons and different
kinds of materials and see how the to interact together, right, Like,
do what happens when you shoot a bullet at this?
How hard is it to get through bulletproof glass? What
are ways? And like he certainly figured that out because
(07:43):
of because there are some specific videos people pointing out
that are likely the ones he watched, where like there
are ways that you can kind of damage and take
the You can gradually like make bulletproof glass fail by
using a nail gun. There are ways in which you
can do that. It just doesn't happen to be a way.
It's something you can do while you are standing in
(08:04):
front of an FBI field office without getting shot to
death by the FBI. Before before he before he died,
he posted a few messages onto truth saying, well, I
thought I had a way, and I didn't. If you
don't hear from me, it's true. I tried tacking the FBI,
(08:24):
and and it'll mean I was either taken off the internet,
the FBI got me, or they sent to the regular cops.
To be fair to this guy, he did successfully manage
to shoot a nail gun at the FBI office, and
the FBI weren't the ones who killed him. Like he
actually got away from that, which is highway patrol, wasn't. Yeah.
He also called for people to prepare themselves for combat
(08:46):
in the days after the FBI search and that we
must not tolerate this one along other posts around people
urging to kill FBI agents on site and be ready
to take down other active enemies of the people and
those who try to prevent you from doing it. All
that kind of rhetoric. And there's like, sorry, I like
(09:08):
the on site thing, Like we all have this kind
of joke about like people dressing like Feds, right, but
it's very funny that he thinks that maybe they're coming
out like men in black or something. Yeah, he's not
going to be looking for like like Feds in Patagonia,
which which is what they actually wear of. Yes. Yeah,
(09:30):
if you see if you see a Patagonia vest, that
is either a Federal agent or an Amazon executive, and
either way you should be frightened either way on site
stand by just such a generous interpretation that they take
him off the internet for the crime of like trying
(09:51):
to shoot up an FBI office. They did, James, He's
not online, that's true. Although like kind of bluntly posting
about the terroristic attack, you carry it out on the
FBI like as you are actively dying, I know, as
he's doing it. You have to say, the man had
(10:11):
the soul of a poster. He had the poster. Well,
I think it's also like it's an interesting because this
isn't like because like there's lots of like mass shooters
who sort of who kind of have poster brain, right,
but like this is like, this isn't like like he's
he's not doing it for the post has poster brain.
(10:32):
It is like this is just sort of like it is.
It is separate from someone doing a specific like memetic attack,
like an attack to entice memetic violence in the future.
This was just this was just his form of communication
as in his regular life, and it was and it
was the Ohio State troopers that pursued the vehicle. Yeah,
(10:52):
but well I think that that at this point is
something that's kind of bleak about this right, which is
like the extent to which like the extent to which
with the way this kind of politics functions is by
having like you know, social media becomes your entire like
social sphere to the point where it's like, well, what
are you doing in your last moments is you're like
running away from the cops are about the shoot was like,
(11:14):
well we're gonna post. Yeah, gotta gotta sit down at truth.
It's it's that scene from Love actually, but it's not
true anymore, right where they're like talking about what people
did at nine eleven when they were stuck in the
towers and they like quote loved ones and told them
they love them. Not this guy you have to do
on true social this this guy, this guy didn't have
(11:38):
people Ricky schefferd no um. I mean, so there is
One of the things that people have been asking again
is in the wake of this massive surge in the
right wing people talking about how it's time to have
a civil war. And one of the things you didn't
see is like as soon as Trump got rated fairly
like mainstream mega figures who to be more careful in
(12:01):
terms of their language than like the radicals talking about
like it's war, you know, now we're at war with
a cold civil war, and most of them, like Stephen Crowder,
we're doing it to sell T shirts. But that that's
still that is an escalation in danger, right because with
that the rhetoric that becomes common again, you're gonna have
more Ricky shippers. And I'm sure that was part of
(12:22):
like what was going on in this guy's head is Okay, well,
if we are in a cold civil war, then I'm
not going to just sit back and let the FBI
destroy the only hope for Western civilization. I've got to
fight back. Yeah, that's that's That's what happened. And and
if you're people are asking kind of like what is
about to happen? What is coming next? Um, I don't
(12:42):
think the thing to worry about is like, you know,
two sides taking up arms and suddenly fighting a big
civil war. That is that is not I think the
realistic threat model. But I also disagree with the folks
who are like, look, it's just gonna it's it's not
gonna be a problem. You're gonna get a couple of
like lunatics, carreat attacks, but it's all going to be fine. Now.
What is happening is, Um, we are normalizing the language
(13:06):
of political violence and normalizing that violence is the only
resolution to our political problems. And that has gotten normalized
for roughly thirty percent of the voting population of this country. UM.
That's that's where they are, and that is intensely dangerous. Um.
It is not. I don't I don't think, and I
think partly you could. There's it's not entirely bad stuff
(13:29):
that's come out as a result of Trump getting rated.
Some of it is is positive because we are seeing
that a significant number of like the media people are
UM scared of that to a degree, UM and peeling back.
There's an interesting thing that happened just today. The article
came out that apparently Trump reached out to Merritt Garland
(13:49):
and asked him how he could lower the temperature. UM.
And it's it's interesting. It's it's Garland is who for
the listeners, who doesn't do not keep up with the
attorney general? So the president of the FBI, effectively, UM,
that's not how politics works. But let's just say that
and make the people online who pay attention to the
(14:10):
way the government works very angry. But so basically what
it seems like Trump is doing is saying, hey, I
recognize that, like things are bad and scary, and the
political temperature is like at a boiling point. I want
to try to use that as leverage to work things
out with the d o J. So you could see
this as a complement. You can see it one as
(14:31):
potentially Trump being just actually concerned about the rhetoric because
they're shooting more would not be a good thing for him.
You could see it as Trump being kind of manipulative
and trying to use like, oh, well, this is now
the fact that my supporters are scary and carrying out
terrorist attacks as a way in which I can utilize
leverage and like um exercise power over the government, and
(14:54):
and it's it's kind of a bargaining chip that I
have in my fight with the FBI. Or you could
even see it as potential the evidence that he actually
is scared of potential prosecution, because maybe this is him
kind of that maybe this is a show of desperation.
It's really unclear at the moment what it is. I
can tell you I've read a couple of right wing
The New York Times is the one that broke this story,
(15:15):
and they're they're reporting on it is pretty straightforward and
mostly focuses on the uh like claims made by Trump's
legal team about like, you know, how they attempted to
comply with the requests to bring in classified information. But um,
the right wing media coverage of this has been really
different and has shown it as like Trump is just
(15:35):
sort of desperately, you know, trying to trying to be reasonable,
and you know, the Justice Department, um just isn't willing
to talk to him. It isn't willing to work with
them at all. And that's kind of the way it's
being spun right now. There was that pro Trump protest
(15:59):
in d C, which got no one to show up
because it was either canceled or a whole bunch of
like forums or image boards or for blogs told people
not to go because they thought it could be a trap.
And I think stuff like that happening in d C
might still take a long time to recover after j six,
(16:19):
But stuff that's happening in other capitals and other places
and other now FBI offices is much more concerning, and
I think more localized shows of support for President Trump
or support for just whatever the current thing is is
probably gonna it's gonna continue going with some image of
(16:42):
militancy and right, whether that's people in Hawaiian shirts showing
up with guns outside the FBI office you've seen in
Arizona just in the last couple of days, yeah, literally yesterday,
as you record this, um, when it comes to actual like, so,
one of the reasons people have been concer learned about
civil war stuff is and this is not unreasonable, is
(17:05):
the fact that you have had Republican officials, including some
state level elected officials, particularly in Florida, saying some pretty
wild shit, um, including like a state congressional candidate talking about, um,
we need to basically kick the FBI out of the
entire state. Governor to Santis needs to exercise uh like
(17:27):
the basically saying that De Santis needs to use Florida
state law enforcement to stop the FBI from investigating the
former president and where that to happen, that would be
a big deal. That would be um like, that is
the kind of thing that could lead to a massive
civil conflict, right because vaguely speaking stuff like that is
(17:48):
what causes what started the actual shooting in the last
civil war is state saying we are not recognizing the
authority of the federal government. We're not doing a thing
that the federal government tells us we have to UM.
And this is something like there's a lot of support
from MAGA folks for this. Ben Collins Um, who does
I think for NBC, was posting the other day, UM
(18:10):
a lot of like different Trump queue forums sort of
posts where people are saying, hey, don jr Um, we
know you lurk on the site, you should cross the
rubicon and you know, somehow get to santist to use
Florida law enforcement to attack the FBI. And there's some
pretty gnarly stuff in those posts. Now, I don't think
that that means there's actually I haven't seen evidence that
(18:32):
there's much political world for that. And in fact, one
of the things people are saying is that it looks
like there's a decent chance to Santis um cooperated and
helped because wants to be president, because the Santis wants
to be president, that he's actually like on board with
this because he wants to funk over Trump. Yeah, now
that is scary, and that is I think a more
(18:54):
realistic threat model than the idea that, Um, the Santis
might have the Florida State Troopers start shooting against the
SI as funny as it Maybe to watch Florida law
enforcement shoot at the FBI, that would be pretty funny,
pretty funny, I know, I know. Um, I don't think
(19:14):
the Santis will do that because De Santis really wants
to be president, um, which is just another scary possibility,
and that would want us to be less funny to watch. Um.
It's it's like, it's not great overall. It's a it's
too great, it's too not great sets of choices here. Yeah.
And I think if we're looking at like with the
(19:35):
actual kind of mass civil threat is as opposed to
De Santis declaring a secession or something and the Trump
States trying to declare their independence. I think the actual
threat is that this could damage Trump enough that he
doesn't run into Santis. Maybe is and this is very
(19:55):
unclear by the way you look at the Poland it's
extremely unclear as to whether or not to Santis would
do better than Trump in a national election right now. Um,
But some of the polling does suggest that even as
unpopular as Biden is right now, um, he still has
a sizeable lead over Trump in any headaway, because that
people fucking hate Donald Trump. Right if you are not
one of the people who was on the verge of
(20:16):
attacking an FBI building right now, you don't like him,
even if Biden has not done anything to help you,
at least in your mind, um, you know, than than
And so that that is kind of the bet that
the Santis is making. And I think what scares me
most about the rhetoric we're seeing right now, less than
the fact the idea that like Florida is going to
declare war on the fucking d C government, is the
(20:40):
threat that the rhetoric will stay at this heightened level
you're already seeing. The thing that scares me more than
talk about like we should succeed is talk about like, well,
when we're back in power, we're just going to send
the FBI after everybody that is that we considered it.
I mean, let's let's let's raid them all, you know.
And that's the thing that scares me. And that's the
thing that I think it actually lead to the highest
(21:00):
loss of life. There's there's that part. And then obviously,
like in terms of like bringing it back to what
we to stuff, we talked about on the show. A
de Santist like presidency would be extremely hostile to queer people,
way way way more so than Trump um, and that
would be varying on some very dangerous and very unshaky ground.
(21:23):
And I think in the short term too, there's there's
another danger there, which is that like we see this
kind of militancy from the right like spreading more and
more into just the other campaigns that they're doing, and
so you know, we start getting attacks of gender clinics,
we start seeing more attacks and abortion clinics, and I
think that's as possible. And I think also like another
(21:43):
thing to be thinking about is looking what what happened
to where specifically around the anti lockdown stuff. You know,
you just we just had a whole bunch of armed
people like occupying capital buildings and it worked. It was
it was incredibly effective. Right, Like there is like the
the the net result of that and the sort of
like resulting political campaign from it is that like the
(22:04):
entire Democratic Party has decided that it just doesn't like
it's not even gonna talk about COVID anymore, and like
the CDC is just like pretending it doesn't exist, and
so like like that that that strategy like that, there's
just the things again like that stuff was the actual
policies like stuff like like like like vaccine mandates for teachers,
like a sixty percent approve of renting right, like the
actual like everyone doesn't die from COVID policies are popular.
(22:28):
It's just that like this sort of you know, getting
getting getting getting a bunch of guys with guns to
go into a capital building and then yell about it
is enough of a political threat that that they can
they can force the Democrats to back down. And yeah,
there's I think there's I think there's an nonzero chance
they start trying to do this other things I start
trying to do this with like hey, if you're gonna
have gender clinics in your state, we're going to start
occupying capitals again. And you could see the fact that
(22:50):
and one of the things that is unclear that makes
it hard to tell if so, it is unclear as
to whether or not the Biden White House knew that
this rate was happen, like and and who knew. There
are definitely reports that some staffers found out about it
on fucking Twitter. I have to I have to assume
that the President was aware of it, and like it
(23:11):
was probably hint that he to some extent pushed for it. Um.
I would have trouble believing that he did not, because
it's the FBI rating a former president, right, the FBI
has a lot of power. But I don't think that's
a thing that the Feds just do because right, Like
I think, yeah, you have to have Garland on your side,
and if Garland is, you know, directing this to some extent,
(23:33):
and like I'm sure Biden is aware and that they
might be. And the FBI director that Trump appointed, yeah, yeah,
Chris Ray. Um, who sucks? They I mean, obviously they
all suck. Everybody involved in this sucks. There's a great
post someone made right after the raid that says, look,
I want to make it really clear, the FBI cannot
do good things, but they can do funny things. And
this is extremely funny. And I just like that specifically,
(23:56):
some of the some of the crimes around owned keeping
classified documents and this specific FBI director are both things
that either Trump signed into into law or he appointed himself. Yeah,
it is very funny. I have been talking to people
who have had UH security clearances and understand some of that,
(24:21):
and um, like the ship that they got from his
house and those eleven boxes or whatever is the kind
of thing that like does not get fucked with and
the way that Trump would like fucked with it. Like
it's I mean, the fact that the Espionage Act is
in play is pretty shocking. Um as is the fact
(24:41):
that brand Paul is now calling for the Espionage Act
to be dissolved, which like based absolutely incredibly based Randall.
I mean, it is, yeah, it is, really, it is.
Really it is a thing to watch everyone go like,
you know, defund FBI, abolish FBI just because power gets
used against one person one's time, and you're like, oh,
(25:03):
this power only exists to hurt minorities. Why is it
being used to hurt me or someone who I who
I look up to. There's a discourse on the left
right now that is like, should we be working with
the right to defund the FBI or whatever? And here's
the thing, in my opinion, no, you should not work
with the right on any of this stuff because they
don't want to get rid of the FBI. They want
(25:23):
to take the weaponry empower that the FBI has and
they want to like deploy it differently, but they still
want that power to exist, right, Um, so no, you
can't work with them on that. However, if they start
actually trying to remove the Spion Age Act, then absolutely
we should vote to remove the SPIO. That's that's fine.
Like just like if they actually vote to reduce funding
(25:45):
to federal law enforcement, that's fine. But that doesn't mean
like you you act as if they're legitimately fighting against
any of this stuff. But um, when it comes to so,
I think that there's some potential evidence just the fact
that this rate happened that shows that maybe there are
folks in the Biden administration who understand the stakes of
(26:07):
the fight and are taking it seriously. Because this is potential,
I mean, and we'll see how it shakes out. It's
all still too early to know if like anything more
serious than his house being disrupted is going to happen.
But like, if they really throw down legally against Trump
in this way to try to stop him from being
able to hold office again and to try to actually
punish him for his abuses of power, um, that's potentially
(26:30):
a pretty smart move if they have the stones, right,
That's a big question is like are they going to
back down because the rights starts threatening to shoot things up. So, like,
the scary thing potential here is that the right wing
starts howling about how they're going to do a bunch
of murders over this, and so the d o J
backs off and the right is like, well, what if
we just threatened to commit mass murder anytime something we
don't like happens, Maybe that's how we win politics. Now,
(26:54):
the positive with this is that, like the way fascists
succeed historically is because people who are not fascists are
not really willing to fight them, and so the fascists
go for it and everybody else backs off because they're
scared of having a fight. Right, So if this shows
that there's actually some teeth within the Democratic Party to
throw down, that's potentially a sign that like they've started
(27:16):
to recognize where the stakes are. Um, that shouldn't be
taken as too high of a possibility. I'm looking at
a post from David froome Um, famed centrist idiot, who's
talking about how he thinks of de santis nomination represented
a much better outcome for the whole country than a
Trump return. Maybe you don't like his manner or record,
(27:38):
but he's a recognizably normal US politician. Oh no, if defeated,
he'd go peacefully. Like, first off, great, incredible that that's
where we are right now, that you're like, well, he's
a fine He would be a fine candidate for the
Republicans to run because he wouldn't try to overthrow the
country if he lost. Number one, not certain about at
(28:00):
but number two, um, yikes. Again, if David Fruit is
saying something, he's wrong, right, that is that is the
rule of the rule of David Fru. He's one of
those kind of like thinkers in American politics or whatever
he's saying is not right. Yeah, And like in the
Santis like right now, is like very openly like getting
(28:20):
his people in position to take control of the Florida
like to take control of Florida's like election procedures, Like
he has this guy assaults attorney general. It's like he's
like very openly trying to do a what was the
guy's name, Kelp who rigged the election in Georgia a
few years ago. Yeah. Yeah, he's like very obviously prepping
to do that. And it's like, I'm sure it'll be fine.
(28:41):
He seems like a normal enough, guy, Yeah, we'll pa.
I do want to just read before we close out,
read a few things that how how the FBI and
how the DHS have been talking about the threats that
(29:03):
they've been seeing, because how the kind of institutions of
power talking about these same things is worth noting. Um.
They released a memo saying that there are threats quote
occurring primarily online and across multiple platforms, including social media sites,
web forms, video sharing platforms, and image boards. The FBI
and DHS have observed an increase and violent threats post
(29:25):
on social media against federal officials and facilities, including a
threat to places so called dirty bomb in front of
the FBI headquarters and issuing general calls for civil war
and armed rebellion. UM. So yeah, they said that they're
they're they're looking at their looking at threats through like
(29:46):
uh specifically and identifying proposed targets, tactics and weaponry. Um.
And you know, it goes it goes on to talk
about the targeted for people in like the judicial system,
enforcement government officials associated with the Palm Beach search, the
targeting the federal judge who who approved the search warrant um,
(30:09):
and the FBI has also observed the personal identifying information
of possible targets of violence, such as the home addresses
and identification of family members, disseminated online as additional targets.
So in terms of like what like the attack surfaces
on these types of you know, image boards and social
media sites. Uh even UM. But before before Schifferd did
(30:34):
his attack, he posted when they come for you kill them,
being American and not a steer, And I think other
kind of things that could be at play and things
that are worrying me as stuff develops. Not they're worrying me,
not because they're convincing. They're worrying me because they don't
need to be convincing. UM. Deceptively edited photos and videos
(30:57):
have gone viral across social media over the past week
following the search UM. While guest hosting Tucker Carlson tonight
on Fox News, Brian Clemide showed a fake image of
the judge who signed off on this on the search warrant,
sitting beside uh is Glyssie and Maxwell. How do how
do you say her name? Jis Lane? Jis Lane? You
(31:22):
know it's it's gill Gill Gillen Backwell, so, you know,
showing this you know, quote unquote meme while not saying
it's a meme, just showing the picture. On Friday, a
fake video purporting to show another Fox host, Sean Hannity
arguing with Florida Governor Ronda Sante's over the definition of
what an FBI rate is, But that discussion never happened.
(31:43):
This was spliced together footage from years apart in different
interview segments. Um hours after the video went viral on Twitter,
the platform did play the manipulated media label. Umuh and yeah,
it's it's it's this kind of stuff that is going
to be you know, in terms of like you know,
trying to prospect, trying to like prospect what the next
few years could be, depending on who who the president is,
(32:06):
what types of like media is going to be popular,
How this is going to kind of impact the temperature
politically and how people take in information and how people
are willing to turn information into action in terms of
taking out violence. How often these little small things are happening.
Is it's it's this, It's could be the start of
(32:27):
a of a thing that becomes a much bigger problem
very soon. Yeah. Um, I think maybe like in terms
of the temperature rising. We should discuss just really briefly,
these other sort of um more or less baseless or
sort of wildly off base conspiracies around law enforcement that
(32:49):
we've seen on the right, like in the last few weeks.
Um we do we want to talk about those? Do
we want to talk about those separately? I'm not sure
what you're referring to. So there's there's a couple of
things that have happened that have sent like the right
pretty sort of crazy in the last few weeks. One
is the in the Inflation Reduction Act. There's there's this
(33:11):
part where they say they're going to hire eighty seven
thousand new I R S agents, right, Yes, yes, A
large part of that is replacing the massive amount of
virus people who are about to retire. UM, and the
rest of it is getting them back up to sort
of where they were a few years ago. It's not
like they're going to actually hid three pandemic levels. Yeah. Yeah,
So there are like seventy thousand I think half of
(33:33):
them I supposed to retire in the next five years.
They want to hire eighty seven thousand over the next
ten years, so that will get them up like twenty
thirty two to to where they were in nineteen or whatever.
So it's not what it's portrayed as. But that combined
I think with um, the A t F visiting a
guy's house, which I know Garrison and I saw memes
(33:55):
about in this crazy little conservative newspaper that we are there.
We came across when we're reporting on a story, UM
and the A t F reclassifying some think as of
things that are called A R pistols, which you probably
don't need to explain everything, saying that they're a workaround
for federal firearms or is that fair. Yeah, there's a
bunch of different there's a bunch of kinds of guns
(34:18):
that you're not supposed to be allowed to have without
a special tax stamp, which is like a whole additional
legal process in order to basically make sure that poor
people can't own certain types of specific firearms. And there's
workarounds where things function the same way as those guns
that are normally illegal, but they aren't technically that in
the FBI or not in the A t F is
about to crack down on some of that. UM And
(34:42):
so yeah, yeah, at the sort of combination of these
things has led a lot of figures on the right.
You'll see it in that thread. I think Rubbert shared
it and I shared it of like these dozens of
tiktoks talking about civil war that came out the day
after Trump with raided. They talk a lot about I R.
S raids and about people coming for their for their
guns and their short barreled rifles specifically, which I think
(35:05):
is the combination of these things leading to this sort
of again, like it's if you misunderstand each of those
three things completely, you get to the conclusion that the
the I R S has hired eighty seven thousand arms
shock troops and they're coming after a R pistol, which
it's not true, but that narrative has definitely been sort
(35:27):
of spread around. And again it's not exactly decreasing the temperature, no,
I mean just I think today Trump was on Fox
News Digital and he said, people are so angry at
what's taking place. Whatever we can do to help, because
the temperature has to be brought down in the country.
If it isn't, terrible things are going to happen. The
(35:50):
people of this the people of this country are not
going to stand for another scam. So huh. I wonder
what he meant by that. Oh boy, Yeah, yeah, I guess.
Like the other thing that I mean we've kind of
(36:11):
touched on, but I think is an important to understand
is the extent to which like Trump is kind of
a singular figure in his ability to actually get a
bunch of people to do a thing. And like I
think that like that that power I think is reduced sense,
you know, I'm like, he's like he's not president anymore, right,
because it's reduced since six, Yeah, since six, But like,
(36:32):
you know, he still has the ability to mobilize, like
ability to mobilize parts of the right that like you're
sort of like weird neo Nazi guy like can't and
he like you know, and like he he seems to
be aware of this, and he seems to be aware that,
like you know, he can use he uses as a
bargaining chip or uses to sort of like threaten people.
(36:54):
But yeah, like that that's a real thing. Like it
is a real thing that there's an incredibly large part
of the country who like if Donald Trump told them
to like go die for him on normany beach or
something like, they probably would, yea. Yeah, the FBI and
DHS and their member also warrant that midterm elections in
November could be seen as an additional flashpoint in which
(37:17):
will continue to escalate threats against perceived ideological opponents, including
federal lawenforce and personnel. So stay tuned. Yeah, it should
if people I haven't realized. By the way, it was
bright Bot who named the FBI agents obtained the warrant. Yeah,
didn't bother to google what their jobs were. They were like,
(37:39):
what is what is the sacronym stand for? No one knows.
It's very secret pop journalism there. Yeah, well good, we
seem to be in a nice place then, mm hmm.
It's going well yeah, yeah, start organizing now. The best
time to start this was yesterday. The second best time
(38:00):
is now, the third best time is tomorrow. And don't
don't let them take how funny this is as well funny.
There is another lessons here, which is that like, there
is an enormous amount you can get away with politically
as long as it's funny, and like, frankly we we
we have we have not been utilizing that towards the
potential the left end, like anarchists in general, have forgotten
(38:23):
how to do good funny ship for the past ten years,
and we have to bring it back. Yeah, it is.
This is We've been given a precious gift and how
funny this is. And we have a couple of responsibilities,
and one of them, of course, is to organize in
order to be prepared to counter increasing like attempts to
(38:43):
impose an authoritarian violence on us. But another thing that
it is response that we have a responsibility to do
is laugh at how funny this is and make sure
that other people don't forget how funny this is. So
go out into the world and remind somebody that a
fucking trump nerd tried to take on the FBI with
(39:04):
a nail gun in an a R fifteen and died
in a fucking field in Ohio. Because that's pretty funny.
It's pretty funny. It could happen here as a production
of cool Zone Media. Well more podcasts from cool Zone Media,
visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check
us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
(39:26):
or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources
for It could Happen here, updated monthly at cool zone
media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening,
Oh boy, it could happen here, and it seems to
be happening more after the last couple of days. This
is a podcast about how everything's looking pretty bad these days. Um,
and in particular right now, we're we're here. We've got
the whole team, not the whole team. We've got the
(00:27):
team here to do a round table discussion about the thing,
you know, the thing, the thing that happened this last
week that is still the main thing happening, which is
the FBI rated former President Trump's house. Um, and now
all of his fans are declaring war on the FBI,
which has so far been let's all be honest here,
(00:48):
pretty funny. Um. But everybody's also a lot there's a
lot of worry going on. There's a lot the some
folks have documented, if we'll talk about this, that like
discussion online of civil war and civil conflict has like
exploded to new heights over the last like four days
or so. UM. So yeah, we're gonna talk about all
of that. But but here's here's here's the team. We've
(01:09):
got Garrison Davis, James Stout, and we've got Christopher Wong
and of course me Sylvie. How's everybody doing today. I'm
doing great, magnificently. M Yeah, so where's where's where's everybody's
new civil war counters? At? Who here feels we're like
(01:31):
we're we're closer and who he feels like we've gotten
further away? Well, it's definitely gone up. It's definitely gone
up a little bit. Um. Yeah, temperature is a little
higher for sure. I mean we're still not really around
the averages around J six, but it's it is, it's
it's it's the highest it's been around like the Biden administration. Um, yeah,
(01:53):
I just made some ceramic armor purchases. Is where my
web when my current civil war counter is? Yes, I
did just get another set of rifle plates, got some
side pates, like you know, you know who had body
armor is the guy who single handedly attacked that FBI
field office in Ohio with a nail gun and then
(02:16):
died in a field. Okay, before we get into that,
Ricky she can we can we what the funk is
going on with that guy who like lit himself on
fire in his car and rammed into the Capitol barrier
and like I forgot about that? Yeah, like that might
adjust been a suicide because we don't seem to have
(02:37):
any clear evidence that it was political. It's just it's
just like a really weird, like I don't know that
that that's that's a kind of thing that feels like
if it was happening five years ago, would have been
like a major news story. And when I was trying
to find news stories about it, so the first thing
I did was, Okay, I googled DC car attack, and
I found a difference DC car attack, and then I
(02:58):
got DC shooting, and I've on a different DC shooting,
and like if we combining to do She's like, oh,
this is We're living in a great time. This isn't
even the first, not even the first person to drive
their car into a Capitol police barrier and then get
out to start shooting, right Like, this is this is
the United States. It's just something we do here is
(03:19):
incredible approved market and method. I mean, it just it
does kind of seem like it was just a suicide,
like that one was just a that's what the Capitol
police are saying. It was twenty nine years old, didn't
appear to be targeting any members of Congress, fired shots
into the air before taking his own life. Um no,
officers shot their weapons. It was very it was very quick.
(03:42):
Mm hmm. Okay, yeah, it is interesting because he is
he is no Ricky Schiffer. Yeah that that that the
DC stories seems sad that the Shiffer stories, Yes, much
more funny having I mean, so this is obviously you
have Donald Trump get rated by the FBI, and then
(04:05):
less than two days later you have this guy show
up outside of an FBI field office, try to force
his way through or try to break through the bulletproof
glass with a nail gun and then winds up in
an hour so long to standoff before being shot to
death by the FBI, which is very funny because he
so I guess the thing about this that's unsettling, Um
(04:26):
that that colleague of ours, Jason Wilson pointed out on Twitter,
and then I think is worth noting is that while
this kind of thing is is extremely American and very common. Um,
the thing that is kind of unsettling about Shiver is
that he's not he's he's just he's he's straight up
normal maga right, Like he's not from any of the
there's no evidence that he was kind of like dipping
(04:46):
into these other subcultures that are more explicitly like terroristic
in their nature, that he may have ties to Proud Boys.
But yeah, well we'll see. He was at JA six,
you know, so I'm sure. But I mean it's what
it is, is a a guy who is a normal
Trump's supporter um um in the Yeah, I mean, I
(05:15):
mean he was ultra to the extent of what he
did a few days ago, and he was on true
social and like he he was. Yeah, but I feel
like that's not that a regular Like if you watch
the most recent Jordan Clipper video, there's people doing like
like regular asked people saying things that are way more
(05:35):
absurdan than what they were saying two years ago. Like
the real reality has become so detached for a certain
sect of like Trump lifers, and it's just impossible to
pry them away to the point where they ineffectually attack
an FBI office with an l gun, yeah, and die
in a shootout hours later. And and Shiffer, I mean,
(05:55):
one of the things that you might compare a little
bit to Shiffer is you know, there have been particularly
during the Trump years, there were a couple of attacks
on ice facilities, um that were kind of like acts
of desperation from people who were politically radicalized by the
things happening. UM, but also felt like there was kind
of no hope of of taking any sort of useful
(06:16):
action other than being an individual going out and attacking ice.
And I think this is a lot more similar to
that in terms of the headspace of the guy that
it's similar to, for example, like the Nazis shooting up
like an El Paso fucking Walmart because they stopped by genocide,
Like this is this is a guy who was like
(06:36):
purely radicalized by mainstream conservative media um and and the
president's social media network. He was directly radicalized by President Trump,
as opposed to like finding Trump funny and then like
winding up in some some funked up places online that
radicalize him. And that is unsettling, even though it's again
pretty funny what happened to him. Um. I think both
(06:59):
of those things can be true. And I think we
have to take joy in the times when individual maga
dudes use nail guns to try and attack the entire FBI. Really,
he really thought that that you can use that that
bulletproof glass can't be broken by bullets, but you can
use nail guns to just really well, he thought that
this gets to what the communities that he was kind
(07:21):
of radicalized. And he thought that because there's a lot
of like normal gun YouTube videos where people will like,
because the thing on like gun YouTube is people will
take different kinds of firearms or other weapons and different
kinds of materials and see how the to interact together, right, Like,
do what happens when you shoot a bullet at this?
How hard is it to get through bulletproof glass? What
are ways? And like he certainly figured that out because
(07:43):
of because there are some specific videos people pointing out
that are likely the ones he watched, where like there
are ways that you can kind of damage and take
the You can gradually like make bulletproof glass fail by
using a nail gun. There are ways in which you
can do that. It just doesn't happen to be a way.
It's something you can do while you are standing in
(08:04):
front of an FBI field office without getting shot to
death by the FBI. Before before he before he died,
he posted a few messages onto truth saying, well, I
thought I had a way, and I didn't. If you
don't hear from me, it's true. I tried tacking the FBI,
(08:24):
and and it'll mean I was either taken off the internet,
the FBI got me, or they sent to the regular cops.
To be fair to this guy, he did successfully manage
to shoot a nail gun at the FBI office, and
the FBI weren't the ones who killed him. Like he
actually got away from that, which is highway patrol, wasn't. Yeah.
He also called for people to prepare themselves for combat
(08:46):
in the days after the FBI search and that we
must not tolerate this one along other posts around people
urging to kill FBI agents on site and be ready
to take down other active enemies of the people and
those who try to prevent you from doing it. All
that kind of rhetoric. And there's like, sorry, I like
(09:08):
the on site thing, Like we all have this kind
of joke about like people dressing like Feds, right, but
it's very funny that he thinks that maybe they're coming
out like men in black or something. Yeah, he's not
going to be looking for like like Feds in Patagonia,
which which is what they actually wear of. Yes. Yeah,
(09:30):
if you see if you see a Patagonia vest, that
is either a Federal agent or an Amazon executive, and
either way you should be frightened either way on site
stand by just such a generous interpretation that they take
him off the internet for the crime of like trying
(09:51):
to shoot up an FBI office. They did, James, He's
not online, that's true. Although like kind of bluntly posting
about the terroristic attack, you carry it out on the
FBI like as you are actively dying, I know, as
he's doing it. You have to say, the man had
(10:11):
the soul of a poster. He had the poster. Well,
I think it's also like it's an interesting because this
isn't like because like there's lots of like mass shooters
who sort of who kind of have poster brain, right,
but like this is like, this isn't like like he's
he's not doing it for the post has poster brain.
(10:32):
It is like this is just sort of like it is.
It is separate from someone doing a specific like memetic attack,
like an attack to entice memetic violence in the future.
This was just this was just his form of communication
as in his regular life, and it was and it
was the Ohio State troopers that pursued the vehicle. Yeah,
(10:52):
but well I think that that at this point is
something that's kind of bleak about this right, which is
like the extent to which like the extent to which
with the way this kind of politics functions is by
having like you know, social media becomes your entire like
social sphere to the point where it's like, well, what
are you doing in your last moments is you're like
running away from the cops are about the shoot was like,
(11:14):
well we're gonna post. Yeah, gotta gotta sit down at truth.
It's it's that scene from Love actually, but it's not
true anymore, right where they're like talking about what people
did at nine eleven when they were stuck in the
towers and they like quote loved ones and told them
they love them. Not this guy you have to do
on true social this this guy, this guy didn't have
(11:38):
people Ricky schefferd no um. I mean, so there is
One of the things that people have been asking again
is in the wake of this massive surge in the
right wing people talking about how it's time to have
a civil war. And one of the things you didn't
see is like as soon as Trump got rated fairly
like mainstream mega figures who to be more careful in
(12:01):
terms of their language than like the radicals talking about
like it's war, you know, now we're at war with
a cold civil war, and most of them, like Stephen Crowder,
we're doing it to sell T shirts. But that that's
still that is an escalation in danger, right because with
that the rhetoric that becomes common again, you're gonna have
more Ricky shippers. And I'm sure that was part of
(12:22):
like what was going on in this guy's head is Okay, well,
if we are in a cold civil war, then I'm
not going to just sit back and let the FBI
destroy the only hope for Western civilization. I've got to
fight back. Yeah, that's that's That's what happened. And and
if you're people are asking kind of like what is
about to happen? What is coming next? Um, I don't
(12:42):
think the thing to worry about is like, you know,
two sides taking up arms and suddenly fighting a big
civil war. That is that is not I think the
realistic threat model. But I also disagree with the folks
who are like, look, it's just gonna it's it's not
gonna be a problem. You're gonna get a couple of
like lunatics, carreat attacks, but it's all going to be fine. Now.
What is happening is, Um, we are normalizing the language
(13:06):
of political violence and normalizing that violence is the only
resolution to our political problems. And that has gotten normalized
for roughly thirty percent of the voting population of this country. UM.
That's that's where they are, and that is intensely dangerous. Um.
It is not. I don't I don't think, and I
think partly you could. There's it's not entirely bad stuff
(13:29):
that's come out as a result of Trump getting rated.
Some of it is is positive because we are seeing
that a significant number of like the media people are
UM scared of that to a degree, UM and peeling back.
There's an interesting thing that happened just today. The article
came out that apparently Trump reached out to Merritt Garland
(13:49):
and asked him how he could lower the temperature. UM.
And it's it's interesting. It's it's Garland is who for
the listeners, who doesn't do not keep up with the
attorney general? So the president of the FBI, effectively, UM,
that's not how politics works. But let's just say that
and make the people online who pay attention to the
(14:10):
way the government works very angry. But so basically what
it seems like Trump is doing is saying, hey, I
recognize that, like things are bad and scary, and the
political temperature is like at a boiling point. I want
to try to use that as leverage to work things
out with the d o J. So you could see
this as a complement. You can see it one as
(14:31):
potentially Trump being just actually concerned about the rhetoric because
they're shooting more would not be a good thing for him.
You could see it as Trump being kind of manipulative
and trying to use like, oh, well, this is now
the fact that my supporters are scary and carrying out
terrorist attacks as a way in which I can utilize
leverage and like um exercise power over the government, and
(14:54):
and it's it's kind of a bargaining chip that I
have in my fight with the FBI. Or you could
even see it as potential the evidence that he actually
is scared of potential prosecution, because maybe this is him
kind of that maybe this is a show of desperation.
It's really unclear at the moment what it is. I
can tell you I've read a couple of right wing
The New York Times is the one that broke this story,
(15:15):
and they're they're reporting on it is pretty straightforward and
mostly focuses on the uh like claims made by Trump's
legal team about like, you know, how they attempted to
comply with the requests to bring in classified information. But um,
the right wing media coverage of this has been really
different and has shown it as like Trump is just
(15:35):
sort of desperately, you know, trying to trying to be reasonable,
and you know, the Justice Department, um just isn't willing
to talk to him. It isn't willing to work with
them at all. And that's kind of the way it's
being spun right now. There was that pro Trump protest
(15:59):
in d C, which got no one to show up
because it was either canceled or a whole bunch of
like forums or image boards or for blogs told people
not to go because they thought it could be a trap.
And I think stuff like that happening in d C
might still take a long time to recover after j six,
(16:19):
But stuff that's happening in other capitals and other places
and other now FBI offices is much more concerning, and
I think more localized shows of support for President Trump
or support for just whatever the current thing is is
probably gonna it's gonna continue going with some image of
(16:42):
militancy and right, whether that's people in Hawaiian shirts showing
up with guns outside the FBI office you've seen in
Arizona just in the last couple of days, yeah, literally yesterday,
as you record this, um, when it comes to actual like, so,
one of the reasons people have been concer learned about
civil war stuff is and this is not unreasonable, is
(17:05):
the fact that you have had Republican officials, including some
state level elected officials, particularly in Florida, saying some pretty
wild shit, um, including like a state congressional candidate talking about, um,
we need to basically kick the FBI out of the
entire state. Governor to Santis needs to exercise uh like
(17:27):
the basically saying that De Santis needs to use Florida
state law enforcement to stop the FBI from investigating the
former president and where that to happen, that would be
a big deal. That would be um like, that is
the kind of thing that could lead to a massive
civil conflict, right because vaguely speaking stuff like that is
(17:48):
what causes what started the actual shooting in the last
civil war is state saying we are not recognizing the
authority of the federal government. We're not doing a thing
that the federal government tells us we have to UM.
And this is something like there's a lot of support
from MAGA folks for this. Ben Collins Um, who does
I think for NBC, was posting the other day, UM
(18:10):
a lot of like different Trump queue forums sort of
posts where people are saying, hey, don jr Um, we
know you lurk on the site, you should cross the
rubicon and you know, somehow get to santist to use
Florida law enforcement to attack the FBI. And there's some
pretty gnarly stuff in those posts. Now, I don't think
that that means there's actually I haven't seen evidence that
(18:32):
there's much political world for that. And in fact, one
of the things people are saying is that it looks
like there's a decent chance to Santis um cooperated and
helped because wants to be president, because the Santis wants
to be president, that he's actually like on board with
this because he wants to funk over Trump. Yeah, now
that is scary, and that is I think a more
(18:54):
realistic threat model than the idea that, Um, the Santis
might have the Florida State Troopers start shooting against the
SI as funny as it Maybe to watch Florida law
enforcement shoot at the FBI, that would be pretty funny,
pretty funny, I know, I know. Um, I don't think
(19:14):
the Santis will do that because De Santis really wants
to be president, um, which is just another scary possibility,
and that would want us to be less funny to watch. Um.
It's it's like, it's not great overall. It's a it's
too great, it's too not great sets of choices here. Yeah.
And I think if we're looking at like with the
(19:35):
actual kind of mass civil threat is as opposed to
De Santis declaring a secession or something and the Trump
States trying to declare their independence. I think the actual
threat is that this could damage Trump enough that he
doesn't run into Santis. Maybe is and this is very
(19:55):
unclear by the way you look at the Poland it's
extremely unclear as to whether or not to Santis would
do better than Trump in a national election right now. Um,
But some of the polling does suggest that even as
unpopular as Biden is right now, um, he still has
a sizeable lead over Trump in any headaway, because that
people fucking hate Donald Trump. Right if you are not
one of the people who was on the verge of
(20:16):
attacking an FBI building right now, you don't like him,
even if Biden has not done anything to help you,
at least in your mind, um, you know, than than
And so that that is kind of the bet that
the Santis is making. And I think what scares me
most about the rhetoric we're seeing right now, less than
the fact the idea that like Florida is going to
declare war on the fucking d C government, is the
(20:40):
threat that the rhetoric will stay at this heightened level
you're already seeing. The thing that scares me more than
talk about like we should succeed is talk about like, well,
when we're back in power, we're just going to send
the FBI after everybody that is that we considered it.
I mean, let's let's let's raid them all, you know.
And that's the thing that scares me. And that's the
thing that I think it actually lead to the highest
(21:00):
loss of life. There's there's that part. And then obviously,
like in terms of like bringing it back to what
we to stuff, we talked about on the show. A
de Santist like presidency would be extremely hostile to queer people,
way way way more so than Trump um, and that
would be varying on some very dangerous and very unshaky ground.
(21:23):
And I think in the short term too, there's there's
another danger there, which is that like we see this
kind of militancy from the right like spreading more and
more into just the other campaigns that they're doing, and
so you know, we start getting attacks of gender clinics,
we start seeing more attacks and abortion clinics, and I
think that's as possible. And I think also like another
(21:43):
thing to be thinking about is looking what what happened
to where specifically around the anti lockdown stuff. You know,
you just we just had a whole bunch of armed
people like occupying capital buildings and it worked. It was
it was incredibly effective. Right, Like there is like the
the the net result of that and the sort of
like resulting political campaign from it is that like the
(22:04):
entire Democratic Party has decided that it just doesn't like
it's not even gonna talk about COVID anymore, and like
the CDC is just like pretending it doesn't exist, and
so like like that that that strategy like that, there's
just the things again like that stuff was the actual
policies like stuff like like like like vaccine mandates for teachers,
like a sixty percent approve of renting right, like the
actual like everyone doesn't die from COVID policies are popular.
(22:28):
It's just that like this sort of you know, getting
getting getting getting a bunch of guys with guns to
go into a capital building and then yell about it
is enough of a political threat that that they can
they can force the Democrats to back down. And yeah,
there's I think there's I think there's an nonzero chance
they start trying to do this other things I start
trying to do this with like hey, if you're gonna
have gender clinics in your state, we're going to start
occupying capitals again. And you could see the fact that
(22:50):
and one of the things that is unclear that makes
it hard to tell if so, it is unclear as
to whether or not the Biden White House knew that
this rate was happen, like and and who knew. There
are definitely reports that some staffers found out about it
on fucking Twitter. I have to I have to assume
that the President was aware of it, and like it
(23:11):
was probably hint that he to some extent pushed for it. Um.
I would have trouble believing that he did not, because
it's the FBI rating a former president, right, the FBI
has a lot of power. But I don't think that's
a thing that the Feds just do because right, Like
I think, yeah, you have to have Garland on your side,
and if Garland is, you know, directing this to some extent,
(23:33):
and like I'm sure Biden is aware and that they
might be. And the FBI director that Trump appointed, yeah, yeah,
Chris Ray. Um, who sucks? They I mean, obviously they
all suck. Everybody involved in this sucks. There's a great
post someone made right after the raid that says, look,
I want to make it really clear, the FBI cannot
do good things, but they can do funny things. And
this is extremely funny. And I just like that specifically,
(23:56):
some of the some of the crimes around owned keeping
classified documents and this specific FBI director are both things
that either Trump signed into into law or he appointed himself. Yeah,
it is very funny. I have been talking to people
who have had UH security clearances and understand some of that,
(24:21):
and um, like the ship that they got from his
house and those eleven boxes or whatever is the kind
of thing that like does not get fucked with and
the way that Trump would like fucked with it. Like
it's I mean, the fact that the Espionage Act is
in play is pretty shocking. Um as is the fact
(24:41):
that brand Paul is now calling for the Espionage Act
to be dissolved, which like based absolutely incredibly based Randall.
I mean, it is, yeah, it is, really, it is.
Really it is a thing to watch everyone go like,
you know, defund FBI, abolish FBI just because power gets
used against one person one's time, and you're like, oh,
(25:03):
this power only exists to hurt minorities. Why is it
being used to hurt me or someone who I who
I look up to. There's a discourse on the left
right now that is like, should we be working with
the right to defund the FBI or whatever? And here's
the thing, in my opinion, no, you should not work
with the right on any of this stuff because they
don't want to get rid of the FBI. They want
(25:23):
to take the weaponry empower that the FBI has and
they want to like deploy it differently, but they still
want that power to exist, right, Um, so no, you
can't work with them on that. However, if they start
actually trying to remove the Spion Age Act, then absolutely
we should vote to remove the SPIO. That's that's fine.
Like just like if they actually vote to reduce funding
(25:45):
to federal law enforcement, that's fine. But that doesn't mean
like you you act as if they're legitimately fighting against
any of this stuff. But um, when it comes to so,
I think that there's some potential evidence just the fact
that this rate happened that shows that maybe there are
folks in the Biden administration who understand the stakes of
(26:07):
the fight and are taking it seriously. Because this is potential,
I mean, and we'll see how it shakes out. It's
all still too early to know if like anything more
serious than his house being disrupted is going to happen.
But like, if they really throw down legally against Trump
in this way to try to stop him from being
able to hold office again and to try to actually
punish him for his abuses of power, um, that's potentially
(26:30):
a pretty smart move if they have the stones, right,
That's a big question is like are they going to
back down because the rights starts threatening to shoot things up. So, like,
the scary thing potential here is that the right wing
starts howling about how they're going to do a bunch
of murders over this, and so the d o J
backs off and the right is like, well, what if
we just threatened to commit mass murder anytime something we
don't like happens, Maybe that's how we win politics. Now,
(26:54):
the positive with this is that, like the way fascists
succeed historically is because people who are not fascists are
not really willing to fight them, and so the fascists
go for it and everybody else backs off because they're
scared of having a fight. Right, So if this shows
that there's actually some teeth within the Democratic Party to
throw down, that's potentially a sign that like they've started
(27:16):
to recognize where the stakes are. Um, that shouldn't be
taken as too high of a possibility. I'm looking at
a post from David froome Um, famed centrist idiot, who's
talking about how he thinks of de santis nomination represented
a much better outcome for the whole country than a
Trump return. Maybe you don't like his manner or record,
(27:38):
but he's a recognizably normal US politician. Oh no, if defeated,
he'd go peacefully. Like, first off, great, incredible that that's
where we are right now, that you're like, well, he's
a fine He would be a fine candidate for the
Republicans to run because he wouldn't try to overthrow the
country if he lost. Number one, not certain about at
(28:00):
but number two, um, yikes. Again, if David Fruit is
saying something, he's wrong, right, that is that is the
rule of the rule of David Fru. He's one of
those kind of like thinkers in American politics or whatever
he's saying is not right. Yeah, And like in the
Santis like right now, is like very openly like getting
(28:20):
his people in position to take control of the Florida
like to take control of Florida's like election procedures, Like
he has this guy assaults attorney general. It's like he's
like very openly trying to do a what was the
guy's name, Kelp who rigged the election in Georgia a
few years ago. Yeah. Yeah, he's like very obviously prepping
to do that. And it's like, I'm sure it'll be fine.
(28:41):
He seems like a normal enough, guy, Yeah, we'll pa.
I do want to just read before we close out,
read a few things that how how the FBI and
how the DHS have been talking about the threats that
(29:03):
they've been seeing, because how the kind of institutions of
power talking about these same things is worth noting. Um.
They released a memo saying that there are threats quote
occurring primarily online and across multiple platforms, including social media sites,
web forms, video sharing platforms, and image boards. The FBI
and DHS have observed an increase and violent threats post
(29:25):
on social media against federal officials and facilities, including a
threat to places so called dirty bomb in front of
the FBI headquarters and issuing general calls for civil war
and armed rebellion. UM. So yeah, they said that they're
they're they're looking at their looking at threats through like
(29:46):
uh specifically and identifying proposed targets, tactics and weaponry. Um.
And you know, it goes it goes on to talk
about the targeted for people in like the judicial system,
enforcement government officials associated with the Palm Beach search, the
targeting the federal judge who who approved the search warrant um,
(30:09):
and the FBI has also observed the personal identifying information
of possible targets of violence, such as the home addresses
and identification of family members, disseminated online as additional targets.
So in terms of like what like the attack surfaces
on these types of you know, image boards and social
media sites. Uh even UM. But before before Schifferd did
(30:34):
his attack, he posted when they come for you kill them,
being American and not a steer, And I think other
kind of things that could be at play and things
that are worrying me as stuff develops. Not they're worrying me,
not because they're convincing. They're worrying me because they don't
need to be convincing. UM. Deceptively edited photos and videos
(30:57):
have gone viral across social media over the past week
following the search UM. While guest hosting Tucker Carlson tonight
on Fox News, Brian Clemide showed a fake image of
the judge who signed off on this on the search warrant,
sitting beside uh is Glyssie and Maxwell. How do how
do you say her name? Jis Lane? Jis Lane? You
(31:22):
know it's it's gill Gill Gillen Backwell, so, you know,
showing this you know, quote unquote meme while not saying
it's a meme, just showing the picture. On Friday, a
fake video purporting to show another Fox host, Sean Hannity
arguing with Florida Governor Ronda Sante's over the definition of
what an FBI rate is, But that discussion never happened.
(31:43):
This was spliced together footage from years apart in different
interview segments. Um hours after the video went viral on Twitter,
the platform did play the manipulated media label. Umuh and yeah,
it's it's it's this kind of stuff that is going
to be you know, in terms of like you know,
trying to prospect, trying to like prospect what the next
few years could be, depending on who who the president is,
(32:06):
what types of like media is going to be popular,
How this is going to kind of impact the temperature
politically and how people take in information and how people
are willing to turn information into action in terms of
taking out violence. How often these little small things are happening.
Is it's it's this, It's could be the start of
(32:27):
a of a thing that becomes a much bigger problem
very soon. Yeah. Um, I think maybe like in terms
of the temperature rising. We should discuss just really briefly,
these other sort of um more or less baseless or
sort of wildly off base conspiracies around law enforcement that
(32:49):
we've seen on the right, like in the last few weeks.
Um we do we want to talk about those? Do
we want to talk about those separately? I'm not sure
what you're referring to. So there's there's a couple of
things that have happened that have sent like the right
pretty sort of crazy in the last few weeks. One
is the in the Inflation Reduction Act. There's there's this
(33:11):
part where they say they're going to hire eighty seven
thousand new I R S agents, right, Yes, yes, A
large part of that is replacing the massive amount of
virus people who are about to retire. UM, and the
rest of it is getting them back up to sort
of where they were a few years ago. It's not
like they're going to actually hid three pandemic levels. Yeah. Yeah,
So there are like seventy thousand I think half of
(33:33):
them I supposed to retire in the next five years.
They want to hire eighty seven thousand over the next
ten years, so that will get them up like twenty
thirty two to to where they were in nineteen or whatever.
So it's not what it's portrayed as. But that combined
I think with um, the A t F visiting a
guy's house, which I know Garrison and I saw memes
(33:55):
about in this crazy little conservative newspaper that we are there.
We came across when we're reporting on a story, UM
and the A t F reclassifying some think as of
things that are called A R pistols, which you probably
don't need to explain everything, saying that they're a workaround
for federal firearms or is that fair. Yeah, there's a
bunch of different there's a bunch of kinds of guns
(34:18):
that you're not supposed to be allowed to have without
a special tax stamp, which is like a whole additional
legal process in order to basically make sure that poor
people can't own certain types of specific firearms. And there's
workarounds where things function the same way as those guns
that are normally illegal, but they aren't technically that in
the FBI or not in the A t F is
about to crack down on some of that. UM And
(34:42):
so yeah, yeah, at the sort of combination of these
things has led a lot of figures on the right.
You'll see it in that thread. I think Rubbert shared
it and I shared it of like these dozens of
tiktoks talking about civil war that came out the day
after Trump with raided. They talk a lot about I R.
S raids and about people coming for their for their
guns and their short barreled rifles specifically, which I think
(35:05):
is the combination of these things leading to this sort
of again, like it's if you misunderstand each of those
three things completely, you get to the conclusion that the
the I R S has hired eighty seven thousand arms
shock troops and they're coming after a R pistol, which
it's not true, but that narrative has definitely been sort
(35:27):
of spread around. And again it's not exactly decreasing the temperature, no,
I mean just I think today Trump was on Fox
News Digital and he said, people are so angry at
what's taking place. Whatever we can do to help, because
the temperature has to be brought down in the country.
If it isn't, terrible things are going to happen. The
(35:50):
people of this the people of this country are not
going to stand for another scam. So huh. I wonder
what he meant by that. Oh boy, Yeah, yeah, I guess.
Like the other thing that I mean we've kind of
(36:11):
touched on, but I think is an important to understand
is the extent to which like Trump is kind of
a singular figure in his ability to actually get a
bunch of people to do a thing. And like I
think that like that that power I think is reduced sense,
you know, I'm like, he's like he's not president anymore, right,
because it's reduced since six, Yeah, since six, But like,
(36:32):
you know, he still has the ability to mobilize, like
ability to mobilize parts of the right that like you're
sort of like weird neo Nazi guy like can't and
he like you know, and like he he seems to
be aware of this, and he seems to be aware that,
like you know, he can use he uses as a
bargaining chip or uses to sort of like threaten people.
(36:54):
But yeah, like that that's a real thing. Like it
is a real thing that there's an incredibly large part
of the country who like if Donald Trump told them
to like go die for him on normany beach or
something like, they probably would, yea. Yeah, the FBI and
DHS and their member also warrant that midterm elections in
November could be seen as an additional flashpoint in which
(37:17):
will continue to escalate threats against perceived ideological opponents, including
federal lawenforce and personnel. So stay tuned. Yeah, it should
if people I haven't realized. By the way, it was
bright Bot who named the FBI agents obtained the warrant. Yeah,
didn't bother to google what their jobs were. They were like,
(37:39):
what is what is the sacronym stand for? No one knows.
It's very secret pop journalism there. Yeah, well good, we
seem to be in a nice place then, mm hmm.
It's going well yeah, yeah, start organizing now. The best
time to start this was yesterday. The second best time
(38:00):
is now, the third best time is tomorrow. And don't
don't let them take how funny this is as well funny.
There is another lessons here, which is that like, there
is an enormous amount you can get away with politically
as long as it's funny, and like, frankly we we
we have we have not been utilizing that towards the
potential the left end, like anarchists in general, have forgotten
(38:23):
how to do good funny ship for the past ten years,
and we have to bring it back. Yeah, it is.
This is We've been given a precious gift and how
funny this is. And we have a couple of responsibilities,
and one of them, of course, is to organize in
order to be prepared to counter increasing like attempts to
(38:43):
impose an authoritarian violence on us. But another thing that
it is response that we have a responsibility to do
is laugh at how funny this is and make sure
that other people don't forget how funny this is. So
go out into the world and remind somebody that a
fucking trump nerd tried to take on the FBI with
(39:04):
a nail gun in an a R fifteen and died
in a fucking field in Ohio. Because that's pretty funny.
It's pretty funny. It could happen here as a production
of cool Zone Media. Well more podcasts from cool Zone Media,
visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check
us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
(39:26):
or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources
for It could Happen here, updated monthly at cool zone
media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening,
It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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