Latest / Political Junkie Podcast / No Place of Safety

Transcript

No Place of Safety · Political Junkie Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_00: As I returned home late last night,
0:01
we had dozens of notes and packages and meals and food and
0:07
treats waiting for us.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: Members of football teams,
0:12
SPEAKER_00: baseball teams,
0:13
SPEAKER_00: basketball teams,
0:15
SPEAKER_00: music had reached out to make sure that our family was okay.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: It was very humbling to see
0:27
SPEAKER_00: how much good there is in the world today,
0:29
SPEAKER_00: and that above all,
0:32
SPEAKER_00: we are all children of the same Father in heaven.
0:36
Amen.
1:06
SPEAKER_02: At the beginning of the show,
1:08
SPEAKER_02: we heard words from Jeffrey Schaub,
1:09
SPEAKER_02: the Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
1:13
SPEAKER_02: Grand Blanc Ward.
1:14
SPEAKER_02: That's going to be our focus today,
1:16
the terrible attack on that church and the surprising way in
1:22
which it has dropped
1:22
SPEAKER_02: out of the news.
1:23
SPEAKER_02: Neil and I want to bring it back in.
1:26
SPEAKER_02: But this is the Political Junkie Substack, and I'm Claire Potter.
1:29
SPEAKER_03: And I'm Neil Young.
1:32
SPEAKER_02: And today we're going to begin with the news roundup, as we always do.
1:37
SPEAKER_02: Government shutdown, Neil.
1:39
SPEAKER_02: It began on Wednesday at 12.01 a.m.
1:43
SPEAKER_02: And although the House majority was able to pass a continuing resolution,
1:47
SPEAKER_02: they keep talking about it as a clean bill.
1:50
SPEAKER_02: They're so proud of themselves as if they got an A.
1:53
SPEAKER_02: They did it without Democratic votes,
1:55
but Senate Republicans cannot pass the continuing resolution
2:00
without Democrats,
2:01
SPEAKER_02: and they are four votes short.
2:04
SPEAKER_02: They picked up four centrists,
2:05
SPEAKER_02: one of which was the odious John Fetterman,
2:08
SPEAKER_02: but they have lost a Republican budget hawk Rand Paul of Kentucky.
2:13
SPEAKER_02: In a sign that the government is rudderless at this point,
2:17
SPEAKER_02: whether it is with a budget or without a budget,
2:21
SPEAKER_02: the shutdown plan was radically incomplete.
2:24
Workers did not know whether they were furloughed,
2:26
fired,
2:27
or should report to work.
2:29
SPEAKER_02: It is unclear what Trump will do next.
2:31
He met with the director of OMB on Thursday to discuss firing
2:37
thousands of federal
2:38
SPEAKER_02: workers,
2:38
which seems to be his only plan for ending the shutdown is to
2:42
actually destroy the
2:43
SPEAKER_02: government.
2:44
SPEAKER_02: Senator Mike Lee told Fox News that Russell Thout,
2:47
SPEAKER_02: that same director of OMB,
2:50
SPEAKER_02: has been,
2:51
SPEAKER_02: quote,
2:51
SPEAKER_02: waiting for this moment since puberty.
2:54
Can I first say it would just be really nice if all these
2:57
Republican men stopped
2:59
SPEAKER_03: talking about each other's sexual development and puberty and the like?
3:03
It's like really bizarre how often this is happening in
3:07
conservative circles these days.
3:09
SPEAKER_03: What was the question?
3:10
SPEAKER_02: What's going to happen?
3:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
3:13
SPEAKER_02: How are we going to get through this?
3:14
SPEAKER_02: Will there be a government anytime in the near future?
3:17
I don't know,
3:17
I think this point about the opportunity of it sort of gives it
3:23
all away.
3:25
SPEAKER_03: Of course, all of this is being blamed on Democrats, right?
3:27
SPEAKER_03: If you look at any White House messaging,
3:30
SPEAKER_03: if you go to a governmental department agency,
3:34
SPEAKER_03: excuse me,
3:35
SPEAKER_03: a department website,
3:36
you're greeted with this political message about Democrats
3:40
having shut down
3:41
SPEAKER_03: whatever that department is.
3:42
SPEAKER_03: Those messages are likely illegal.
3:45
But they're taking the sort of political opportunity of this to
3:48
score partisan
3:48
SPEAKER_03: points,
3:49
but also quite as they're announcing in plain daylight the
3:53
opportunity to do mass
3:56
SPEAKER_03: firing.
3:57
SPEAKER_03: So,
3:59
SPEAKER_03: you know,
4:00
does that mean that it sort of holds the Democrats feet to the
4:03
fire and they're
4:04
SPEAKER_03: forced to act here or are they going to.
4:06
SPEAKER_03: be in a stalemate for a really long time.
4:09
SPEAKER_03: I'm not sure.
4:10
But Democrats obviously are really committed to defending
4:15
Medicare and Obamacare,
4:17
SPEAKER_03: which,
4:18
SPEAKER_03: you know,
4:18
this White House has really gone after and they see it as the
4:22
last line of defense
4:23
SPEAKER_03: on those things.
4:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think that's absolutely right.
4:27
SPEAKER_02: And thanks for bringing that up, Neil.
4:29
The thing the Democrats say they want to come back to the table
4:33
is for some
4:35
SPEAKER_02: million Americans not to have their health care premiums doubled.
4:39
SPEAKER_02: And when I hear the Republicans talking about it,
4:42
they keep going on and on about how all of these people bought
4:46
health insurance
4:46
SPEAKER_02: under the ACA,
4:47
SPEAKER_02: but they never used it.
4:49
SPEAKER_02: So why should these subsidies exist?
4:52
And that belies the central fact that the whole point of
4:55
insurance is that some
4:57
SPEAKER_02: people use it and some people don't.
4:59
SPEAKER_02: That's how it's structured.
5:01
SPEAKER_02: Right.
5:02
You need a large number of people to pay in so that the people
5:05
who actually need
5:06
SPEAKER_02: health care can get what they need.
5:08
And so Republicans seem to be trying to undermine the basic
5:13
logic of what health
5:14
SPEAKER_02: insurance is,
5:14
SPEAKER_02: right?
5:15
SPEAKER_02: Right.
5:15
SPEAKER_03: Yes, a market-driven logic, we should also say, right?
5:18
SPEAKER_03: And it's worth remembering that Obamacare,
5:20
SPEAKER_03: of course,
5:21
grew out of Mitt Romney's plan that he brought about in
5:27
Massachusetts as governor
5:28
SPEAKER_03: there.
5:29
SPEAKER_03: And so,
5:30
SPEAKER_03: of course,
5:31
the Republican Party is not recognizable in any way as a party
5:35
that someone like
5:36
SPEAKER_03: Mitt Romney wants to
5:38
SPEAKER_03: once might have been the national figurehead of,
5:40
SPEAKER_03: and also Romney sort of disavowed his own Romney care in Massachusetts.
5:45
SPEAKER_03: But yes,
5:47
SPEAKER_03: this is a market-driven logic to how this operates,
5:52
and the Republicans sort of making that argument just shows
5:56
another way in which I
5:57
SPEAKER_03: think
5:58
They don't have any sort of commitment to free market
6:00
principles in general,
6:01
but also like they'll say anything to advance the political
6:07
agenda that is Trump's
6:08
SPEAKER_03: these days.
6:10
SPEAKER_02: Well,
6:10
SPEAKER_02: and the central lie in all of this,
6:13
SPEAKER_02: which you see all over X,
6:15
is spokespeople saying that what the Democrats really want to
6:18
do is spend $80
6:19
billion so that immigrants who are in this country illegally
6:23
can have health care.
6:25
SPEAKER_02: And that is a lie.
6:27
There are no federal dollars that are spent on health care for
6:32
immigrants who are
6:32
SPEAKER_02: in this country illegally,
6:34
SPEAKER_02: right?
6:34
SPEAKER_02: Right.
6:35
SPEAKER_03: Right.
6:35
SPEAKER_03: Right.
6:36
SPEAKER_03: But that's obviously a very useful line for them politically,
6:39
SPEAKER_03: or at least one that they seem committed to.
6:41
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
6:42
SPEAKER_02: And you kind of wonder when their voters are going to get it,
6:45
that they are being screwed and there aren't any immigrants
6:48
left to blame anything
6:50
SPEAKER_02: on.
6:51
SPEAKER_02: So on Tuesday,
6:53
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and President Donald Trump
6:56
summoned hundreds of
6:58
top military brass to Marine Base Quantico in Virginia to
7:01
lecture them about their
7:04
SPEAKER_02: appearance.
7:06
SPEAKER_02: In a particularly disturbing moment,
7:08
Trump announced expanded plans to station federal troops in
7:12
American cities,
7:14
SPEAKER_02: which he explained as a kind of training exercise to fight
7:19
SPEAKER_02: what he calls the war from within.
7:22
Pete Hegseth leaned in on abandoning legal and moral restraints
7:26
to the warrior
7:27
Ethos and it's particularly concerning given a recent report
7:32
about the lawlessness
7:33
SPEAKER_02: of special forces troops.
7:36
SPEAKER_02: Neil,
7:37
SPEAKER_02: there are a number of reasons why this was disturbing,
7:39
one of which is you gather all your military brass in one place
7:43
and somebody can
7:44
SPEAKER_02: drop a bomb on them.
7:45
SPEAKER_03: Right.
7:46
But what are some of the other features of this that our
7:50
listeners need to be thinking about?
7:52
SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
7:52
SPEAKER_03: not only that you could drop a bomb on that building,
7:54
but also couldn't enemy actors around the world take that as an
8:01
opportunity to do
8:03
SPEAKER_03: something when you know that
8:05
SPEAKER_03: all the generals have been called home to one place.
8:07
SPEAKER_03: And lots of folks,
8:11
SPEAKER_03: I think,
8:11
across the political spectrum have been making that point of
8:14
just what a dangerous
8:17
SPEAKER_03: event that was in itself.
8:19
I think this war from within language is really,
8:23
really scary and concerning.
8:26
And lots of people have been warning that the goals of the
8:30
Trump administration in this term
8:33
SPEAKER_03: were to turn the military on American citizens.
8:36
SPEAKER_03: And again,
8:37
it seems like they're announcing that that's exactly what's
8:39
going to be done,
8:40
SPEAKER_03: even as they expand dramatically these categories of terrorism under,
8:46
SPEAKER_03: I guess,
8:47
SPEAKER_03: not under US law,
8:48
SPEAKER_03: but as they're defining it via executive order.
8:51
SPEAKER_03: This feels really, really alarming.
8:53
SPEAKER_03: I think the sort of measure of hope here is that the generals were
9:02
SPEAKER_03: really not cooperating in a lot of ways in the ways that Trump wants.
9:07
SPEAKER_03: Right.
9:07
Like he they didn't cheer for him because that's not something
9:09
generals do.
9:10
SPEAKER_03: They didn't give any sort of reaction to anything that he said.
9:13
SPEAKER_03: And even, you know, was chiding them at different points in the speech.
9:16
SPEAKER_03: Like it was off.
9:17
SPEAKER_03: It's awfully quiet in here.
9:18
SPEAKER_03: Like, you know, other places they give standing ovations for this stuff.
9:23
SPEAKER_03: They didn't,
9:24
and that's good because it reinforces the military as a
9:30
nonpartisan branch or
9:36
SPEAKER_03: nonpartisan entity.
9:38
SPEAKER_03: But it also,
9:39
SPEAKER_03: I think,
9:40
sort of foreshadows and really sort of plainly spells out what
9:44
Trump wants and
9:45
SPEAKER_03: expects of his military and how he might go about getting it.
9:52
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and also the ways in which the military can be reshaped for that.
9:57
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
9:57
SPEAKER_02: one of the things Pete Hegseth was talking about is,
10:01
SPEAKER_02: you know,
10:01
that women now have to meet the highest military standard to go
10:05
into combat.
10:06
SPEAKER_02: Well, they already do.
10:08
SPEAKER_02: Come on.
10:09
And similarly,
10:10
the stuff about people's weight strikes me as an excuse to get
10:16
rid of people.
10:17
SPEAKER_02: You know, you there's somebody you don't want in the command.
10:20
SPEAKER_02: You tell them they're overweight.
10:21
SPEAKER_02: You give them two weeks to drop that weight.
10:23
SPEAKER_02: And when they don't, they're out.
10:26
SPEAKER_02: You know, military people have also been saying.
10:30
Like any organization,
10:31
different people do different things in the military.
10:35
SPEAKER_02: If your job is sitting at a desk,
10:36
SPEAKER_02: if your job is doing the dry cleaning,
10:39
SPEAKER_02: if your job is being a cook,
10:41
SPEAKER_02: you have different skills than people whose job it is,
10:45
SPEAKER_02: for example,
10:46
SPEAKER_02: to,
10:47
SPEAKER_02: you know,
10:48
SPEAKER_02: sweep through a village and detain all of the
10:53
SPEAKER_02: insurgents that they find there.
10:54
SPEAKER_02: But the flip side of all of the silliness is that,
10:59
SPEAKER_02: for example,
10:59
SPEAKER_02: when I was researching this,
11:01
SPEAKER_02: one of the things I saw is that back in July,
11:03
SPEAKER_02: Hegseth,
11:05
SPEAKER_02: who went on and on in this meeting about beards,
11:09
got rid of the special dispensation that black men have to grow
11:13
facial hair in the
11:15
SPEAKER_02: military.
11:16
And that dispensation is because black men often because their
11:20
hair is so curly,
11:22
they get these sort of blocked pores and they get infections
11:25
and they get scars
11:26
SPEAKER_02: from it and so on.
11:27
SPEAKER_02: And growing a beard is a way to resolve that.
11:31
SPEAKER_02: And Hegseth just doesn't like the way that looks.
11:33
So this is gonna be an excuse to either push black men out of
11:38
the military or kick
11:39
SPEAKER_02: black men out of the military.
11:41
SPEAKER_02: Then we have,
11:42
SPEAKER_02: and this is sort of a tangential piece of news,
11:45
SPEAKER_02: but I think it speaks to what you're talking about there,
11:47
SPEAKER_02: Neil,
11:49
the apartment building in Chicago that was rated as if it was a
11:55
building in Gaza
11:57
SPEAKER_02: full of Hamas terrorists.
12:01
SPEAKER_02: And people were just pulled out of bed.
12:03
SPEAKER_02: They were thrown out on the street.
12:04
SPEAKER_02: Children were zip tied together.
12:06
SPEAKER_02: People were naked.
12:08
SPEAKER_02: It's horrifying.
12:10
SPEAKER_02: And I mean,
12:11
I can't even imagine what the response would have been if Joe
12:15
Biden had done
12:16
SPEAKER_02: something like that,
12:17
SPEAKER_02: right?
12:18
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, he wouldn't have.
12:21
SPEAKER_03: This is really...
12:24
SPEAKER_03: maybe an unprecedented isn't right to say,
12:26
but this is truly terrifying for the precedent it's setting
12:31
right now in context
12:34
SPEAKER_03: of,
12:35
SPEAKER_03: you know,
12:35
these messages from Hegseth and from Trump and this warrior
12:40
ethos that they seem so
12:43
SPEAKER_03: captivated by.
12:44
I think,
12:46
you know,
12:46
the appearance thing is this really interesting component.
12:49
SPEAKER_03: And I'm really glad you brought in the
12:53
the conversation about race and blackness and what this means
12:59
for the American military.
13:00
And also I think this is probably going to be utilized in
13:06
attacking women's service members.
13:09
SPEAKER_03: But as you've said, and as we've talked about a lot on here,
13:12
SPEAKER_03: you know,
13:12
SPEAKER_03: much of the military is desk work,
13:16
SPEAKER_03: you know,
13:16
SPEAKER_03: it's intelligence,
13:17
SPEAKER_03: it's,
13:17
SPEAKER_03: it's,
13:18
SPEAKER_03: um,
13:19
SPEAKER_03: you know,
13:19
SPEAKER_03: technology work,
13:20
SPEAKER_03: um,
13:21
SPEAKER_03: that doesn't sort of necessarily require,
13:24
SPEAKER_03: you know,
13:24
SPEAKER_03: fighting readiness,
13:25
SPEAKER_03: but like,
13:25
SPEAKER_03: that's the only notion that Hegseth seems to have of like what,
13:31
SPEAKER_03: and that seems so tied up in his bizarre psychology.
13:34
SPEAKER_03: Um, but yeah, I mean, uh, this, this is really, really troubling.
13:39
SPEAKER_03: Again, I'm,
13:41
SPEAKER_03: If anything,
13:41
just drawing some hope from a military that at this point has
13:47
shown they're not
13:49
collapsing into Trumpism in the way that so many other groups
13:54
and organizations and
13:56
SPEAKER_03: an entire party has.
13:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
13:59
And,
13:59
you know,
14:00
I've never spent my life really worrying about the military.
14:04
SPEAKER_02: At this point,
14:05
SPEAKER_02: I do wonder what effect it is going to have on military readiness,
14:11
SPEAKER_02: on morale and so on,
14:14
that thousands and thousands of soldiers don't know whether
14:18
they're going to have a
14:18
SPEAKER_02: job tomorrow.
14:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
14:21
Okay,
14:22
so final piece of news that we're going to focus on this week
14:25
is not military.
14:27
SPEAKER_02: It's not about violence.
14:28
SPEAKER_02: It's about primate scientist Jane Goodall, who has died at 91.
14:35
SPEAKER_02: Goodall was in her 20s, recruited by Lewis Leakey.
14:40
She was one of several women recruited by Leakey who believed
14:43
that women had a
14:46
SPEAKER_02: particular capacity to connect
14:50
SPEAKER_02: to primates.
14:51
Horribly sexist,
14:52
but actually a great opportunity in science that opened up for
14:56
women.
14:58
SPEAKER_02: Goodall went to do research in Gombe National Park,
15:01
SPEAKER_02: Tanzania,
15:02
SPEAKER_02: in which she was basically living with chimpanzees.
15:06
She later earned a PhD from Cambridge University and became a
15:09
leading advocate for
15:11
SPEAKER_02: land conservation and the ethical treatment of wildlife.
15:15
SPEAKER_02: I just wanna play a brief clip
15:18
SPEAKER_02: of Jane Goodall saying hello to a group of people at a conference.
15:24
SPEAKER_01: Some of us could say bonjour,
15:26
SPEAKER_01: some of us could say good morgan,
15:29
SPEAKER_01: and so on,
15:29
SPEAKER_01: but I can say...
15:30
SPEAKER_01: That's good morning in chimpanzee.
15:41
SPEAKER_03: I mean, she's just so amazing.
15:43
SPEAKER_03: I'm so sad about this news.
15:45
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
15:46
SPEAKER_03: I'm sad about really all the news these days,
15:48
SPEAKER_03: but most of it is a sadness that,
15:50
SPEAKER_03: you know,
15:50
SPEAKER_03: a country is being torched,
15:53
SPEAKER_03: a constitution's being ripped apart.
15:55
SPEAKER_03: But then there's also sad news, like, when a bright light, like, this...
15:59
SPEAKER_03: person, Jane Goodall, when they're no longer in the world with us.
16:04
SPEAKER_03: I loved looking at pictures of her this week and videos.
16:08
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
16:09
her life has been very photo documented in part because her
16:13
first husband was a
16:15
SPEAKER_03: photographer.
16:15
SPEAKER_03: And the images are just so beautiful and so beautiful.
16:20
SPEAKER_03: really wonderful to look at again in this bleak moment,
16:23
SPEAKER_03: but what a life,
16:24
SPEAKER_03: what a legacy,
16:25
SPEAKER_03: what a gift to the world of knowledge,
16:28
SPEAKER_03: of empathy,
16:29
SPEAKER_03: of connection.
16:30
SPEAKER_03: I also really loved this video where she was asked by,
16:34
SPEAKER_03: I can't remember who was asking her,
16:35
SPEAKER_03: I think it was Colbert,
16:37
SPEAKER_03: what her favorite animal was,
16:39
SPEAKER_03: and she said dogs.
16:40
SPEAKER_03: And there's amazing,
16:41
SPEAKER_03: amazing pictures of her with dogs throughout her life that I really,
16:44
SPEAKER_03: really loved as a huge dog lover myself.
16:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
16:48
SPEAKER_02: You know,
16:48
SPEAKER_02: I thought of you when I saw that clip,
16:50
SPEAKER_02: Neil,
16:51
SPEAKER_02: and I also did not know until I read some of the stuff about her.
16:57
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
16:57
I had been familiar with her because she was very much a
17:00
presence at Bryn Mawr
17:01
SPEAKER_02: College,
17:01
SPEAKER_02: which is near where I grew up.
17:03
SPEAKER_02: I had friends who took classes from her,
17:07
SPEAKER_02: but I had not known that before Goodall's work was published,
17:11
SPEAKER_02: that people had not understood that animals had personalities.
17:16
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
17:17
SPEAKER_02: And of course, as a dog lover, well, both you and I are dog lovers.
17:21
SPEAKER_02: We just take for granted that our dogs have personalities.
17:24
SPEAKER_02: Cats, of course, are beloved for their personalities.
17:27
SPEAKER_02: But scientists had not really understood this.
17:31
SPEAKER_02: And Goodall was able to observe things like a...
17:35
SPEAKER_02: chimpanzee using a straw to pick out a piece of food for itself.
17:43
SPEAKER_02: People didn't know that chimpanzee learned to use tools.
17:46
SPEAKER_02: And so,
17:47
SPEAKER_02: you know,
17:48
really she shifted the relationship between the human and the
17:53
non-human to,
17:56
SPEAKER_02: as you're saying,
17:57
SPEAKER_02: create that empathetic bridge.
17:59
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
18:00
SPEAKER_03: One other thing that I don't think I knew about her,
18:03
but when I really immersed myself in all the stuff about her
18:07
this week that I just
18:08
sort of loved is she had gone to secretarial college and was
18:12
working at a pub and
18:14
sort of a friend invited her to come to Kenya and then one
18:17
thing led to another.
18:18
SPEAKER_03: And then she was doing this
18:21
SPEAKER_03: literally life-changing work, disciplinary shifting work.
18:31
SPEAKER_03: that led to her going to graduate school and doing a PhD at Cambridge.
18:35
SPEAKER_03: And Cambridge accepted her for their doctoral program,
18:38
even though she didn't have an undergraduate degree because of
18:40
the significance of
18:41
SPEAKER_03: the scientific research she had done over those five,
18:45
SPEAKER_03: six years when she began in this field in her 20s,
18:50
SPEAKER_03: which is just so remarkable.
18:52
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so there's a story about education in here too.
18:54
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
18:55
can you imagine somebody making it through to be a major
18:58
research scientist with no
19:00
SPEAKER_02: undergraduate education?
19:01
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's really just astonishing.
19:04
So,
19:04
Neil,
19:05
let's shift to our news focus,
19:07
which is also depressing and sad.
19:11
SPEAKER_02: On Sunday,
19:12
40-year-old former Marine Thomas Jacob Sanford rammed his truck
19:17
into the Jesus
19:18
SPEAKER_02: Christ of Latter-day Saints Chapel in Grand Blanc,
19:21
SPEAKER_02: Michigan,
19:22
SPEAKER_02: set the church on fire,
19:23
SPEAKER_02: and began shooting at congregants as they tried to escape.
19:27
SPEAKER_02: Four people are dead and eight are still critically injured.
19:31
SPEAKER_02: And Sanford was killed in a shootout with police,
19:33
SPEAKER_02: which means he can't tell us why he did what he did.
19:37
Investigators have not discerned a motive,
19:39
but Sanford appears to have been a Trump supporter.
19:43
SPEAKER_02: Some friends say that he believed the Mormons were the Antichrist.
19:47
SPEAKER_02: And I want to talk about that word Mormon for a second.
19:50
Others say that Sanford had struggled with drug abuse and
19:54
financial problems and
19:55
SPEAKER_02: had been behaving erratically,
19:58
SPEAKER_02: but most people were simply shocked that he did this.
20:00
SPEAKER_02: I want to stop for a second.
20:02
I used the word Mormon,
20:03
but Mormons don't really like to be called Mormons anymore,
20:07
right,
20:07
Neal?
20:08
SPEAKER_03: Yes,
20:08
SPEAKER_03: that's a recent shift just within,
20:10
SPEAKER_03: I think,
20:11
SPEAKER_03: the last decade or so,
20:13
brought about by the most recent president and prophet of the
20:17
church who died the
20:18
SPEAKER_03: night before this happened at the age of 101.
20:21
So it was just a sort of terrible series of events for the LDS
20:26
church over the weekend.
20:29
SPEAKER_03: But, you know, Mormons had sort of always had a little bit of a
20:35
SPEAKER_03: complicated relationship with that word and the name.
20:40
And in large part,
20:41
because it had so often been used as a slur in American life
20:45
and culture.
20:46
And I think there was a long period of time where they were
20:49
sort of reappropriating
20:50
SPEAKER_03: it and,
20:51
SPEAKER_03: and,
20:51
SPEAKER_03: um,
20:52
SPEAKER_03: Proudly claiming it.
20:54
There was this moment about 20 years ago or so when I was first
20:58
starting to really
20:59
SPEAKER_03: do Mormon history.
21:01
So my first book,
21:03
the LDS Church and Mormonism is a huge,
21:05
huge part of my first book.
21:08
SPEAKER_03: Right.
21:09
SPEAKER_03: Around that period,
21:10
the church had become really insistent that it shouldn't be
21:13
referred to as the
21:14
SPEAKER_03: Mormon church,
21:15
that it was the LDS church or the Church of Jesus Christ of
21:18
Latter-day Saints.
21:18
SPEAKER_03: So that was the first sort of shift around language.
21:22
SPEAKER_03: But then more recently was the shift to not use the word at all.
21:27
that you're to refer to yourself if you're a Mormon as LDS or
21:30
as a saint or as a
21:31
SPEAKER_03: member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
21:34
SPEAKER_03: And all of that is a bit of a mouthful.
21:37
SPEAKER_03: It's not as easy to say as saying you're a Mormon.
21:40
But one of the things that a lot of pieces have pointed out is
21:43
that especially in...
21:46
SPEAKER_03: in Utah and in like Mormon,
21:48
SPEAKER_03: you know,
21:49
SPEAKER_03: Mormon concentrated areas,
21:51
like you're following the rule here of like not referring to
21:58
yourself as Mormon or
21:59
SPEAKER_03: calling the church,
21:59
the Mormon church anymore is one of those ways that you signal
22:05
your sort of level
22:06
SPEAKER_03: of devotion and your faith.
22:11
SPEAKER_02: Right.
22:12
SPEAKER_02: And a kind of modernity.
22:13
SPEAKER_02: And I want to sort of go back to Russell Nelson,
22:16
SPEAKER_02: which,
22:18
SPEAKER_02: as you pointed out,
22:19
SPEAKER_02: Russell Nelson was the president of the church.
22:21
SPEAKER_02: He became the president of the church when he was like 91 or something.
22:27
SPEAKER_02: And he died at the age of 101.
22:28
SPEAKER_02: He was 93, actually, I believe.
22:32
SPEAKER_02: He really, the church underwent a lot of reforms, didn't it?
22:37
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
22:38
SPEAKER_03: And so those ages are stunning, I'm sure, to listeners to hear.
22:43
SPEAKER_03: But this is par for the course for folks who lead the LDS church.
22:47
And can I say they don't smoke and they don't drink and they
22:51
don't ingest anything
22:52
SPEAKER_02: with caffeine in it and so on.
22:54
So there is a certain level in which the brain does continue to
22:57
work better without
22:59
SPEAKER_02: all the stimulants.
23:00
SPEAKER_02: Sorry to interrupt.
23:01
and so his replacement is 93 years young um and this is again
23:06
continuing a long um
23:08
tradition here because i mean there's a long complicated
23:11
explanation of of how the
23:13
next mormon uh the leader of the lds church is chosen i
23:16
actually wrote an explainer
23:17
SPEAKER_03: piece about this for slate years and years ago um but yeah so
23:24
SPEAKER_03: Nelson was a reformer, I think is the right way to characterize him.
23:30
SPEAKER_03: Some folks were even referring to him as progressive.
23:32
SPEAKER_03: And I think that
23:35
works if you don't think about it in a political lens but
23:40
progressive in terms of
23:42
sort of reform-minded who is open to change for the church and
23:46
some of those
23:47
changes i do think you know were of a little bit more you know
23:51
progressive leanings
23:53
um he sort of softened a couple of things uh church policies
23:57
around lgbtq issues he
23:59
SPEAKER_03: also
24:01
SPEAKER_03: sort of double down on other ones.
24:03
SPEAKER_03: So, you know, there's a complicated mix there.
24:07
SPEAKER_03: The new person,
24:08
SPEAKER_03: the new leader of the LDS church is much more conservative and much more
24:13
SPEAKER_03: traditional.
24:13
And I think a lot of folks think that this is a bit of a step
24:16
back in terms of any sort of
24:19
SPEAKER_03: you know, real reform spirit within the LDS church.
24:23
SPEAKER_03: But Nelson was such an interesting figure for many reasons.
24:26
SPEAKER_03: He was also someone who didn't grow up in an elite Mormon family,
24:30
which has long been essential for leadership in the church at
24:35
the highest level.
24:36
His parents were,
24:37
I mean,
24:37
they were Mormon,
24:38
but they were not devout church going folks at all.
24:40
SPEAKER_03: He himself didn't go on a Mormon mission.
24:42
SPEAKER_03: which is really significant,
24:46
especially when you become a leader of a church that is sort of
24:50
a central part of
24:51
SPEAKER_03: one's membership and really how the church operates around the world.
24:56
SPEAKER_02: So the Church of Latter-day Saints had suffered this terrible loss.
24:59
SPEAKER_02: People are congregated in their temples around the country.
25:04
And this guy Sanford perpetrates a horrendous attack on the
25:12
Grand Blanc temple.
25:14
can i make a correction there can i just jump in so it's not a
25:17
temple it's a chapel
25:19
chapel is the normal what like most folks would call their
25:23
church the local church
25:24
you go to chapels are in every neighborhood all over the
25:28
country temples are the
25:29
big buildings that you see in certain cities um there's i
25:34
believe 270 temples
25:36
SPEAKER_03: around the world and temples are where um
25:39
Temple card-carrying members of the LDS Church go to perform
25:43
sacred rituals.
25:45
So it's a very important distinction,
25:47
at least within the world of Mormonism.
25:50
SPEAKER_03: But I think, you know, just to sort of, again, focus on what this was.
25:54
SPEAKER_03: These were like an average church service on a Sunday morning.
25:58
SPEAKER_03: Folks in this community going to their local chapel to have...
26:03
Sunday morning worship services like would happen at almost any
26:06
other Christian
26:07
SPEAKER_03: denomination across the world.
26:10
SPEAKER_02: Well, and it was a relatively small congregation, about 150, 160 people.
26:14
SPEAKER_03: We're talking middle of Michigan here, not like Provo or Utah.
26:19
SPEAKER_02: Right.
26:19
SPEAKER_02: Although Michigan does seem to be a center of a lot of violence.
26:24
SPEAKER_02: And that's something I haven't really seen talked about much in the news.
26:28
SPEAKER_02: But this guy crashes his truck into into the church,
26:33
SPEAKER_02: the chapel,
26:34
SPEAKER_02: excuse me,
26:35
SPEAKER_02: and sets it on fire and starts shooting people as they try to escape.
26:41
SPEAKER_02: Some people were hospitalized with smoke inhalation.
26:44
SPEAKER_02: Other people were killed.
26:45
SPEAKER_02: Other people were wounded.
26:47
SPEAKER_02: It's just a horrifying thing to do.
26:50
SPEAKER_02: But what are the hints we have about why he did it, Neil?
26:56
SPEAKER_03: It's horrifying.
26:56
SPEAKER_03: It's so violent and so vicious.
26:59
SPEAKER_03: And we don't know, we'll never know, right?
27:02
SPEAKER_03: Because he's no longer with us.
27:03
SPEAKER_03: But there are some clues that I think are significant.
27:06
SPEAKER_03: Apparently this man a while ago moved to Utah,
27:09
lived there for a while and had dated a woman who was a member
27:12
of the LDS church.
27:14
And I believe there was some sort of point around Mormonism and
27:18
faith that was part
27:19
SPEAKER_03: of their breakup.
27:22
SPEAKER_03: And that at least he holds
27:24
real resentments towards this woman and apparently talk all the
27:28
time about
27:30
SPEAKER_03: Mormonism with his friends.
27:32
It's sort of in an obsessive focus that they thought was
27:35
connected to this
27:36
SPEAKER_03: relationship and its breakup.
27:38
He also has referred to apparently from his friends and family
27:43
have said that he
27:44
SPEAKER_03: often referred to Mormons as the Antichrist.
27:47
SPEAKER_03: And I want to pick up on that thread.
27:49
because it's really significant here because I think the thread
27:52
that that pulls is
27:54
the long history of anti-Mormonism in this country that is
27:58
particularly led by
28:00
SPEAKER_03: conservative Protestantism,
28:01
SPEAKER_03: especially by evangelicals who over the course,
28:05
SPEAKER_03: since,
28:06
SPEAKER_03: since the birth of the LDS church in the 1830s,
28:10
SPEAKER_03: through the 20th century,
28:11
SPEAKER_03: has characterized Mormonism as a cult,
28:15
SPEAKER_03: as not Christian,
28:17
SPEAKER_03: and oftentimes as part of the work of Satan.
28:21
And so that's what really has brought in throughout history
28:26
this language of the Antichrist,
28:30
of sort of other apocalyptic language that often gets
28:34
associated with Mormonism.
28:35
SPEAKER_03: So there's sort of like,
28:37
it seems to be maybe some mix of like personal vendetta and
28:43
this like theological
28:45
history of sort of anti-Mormonism that might be working
28:50
together in this man.
28:51
SPEAKER_03: Apparently also he was a big meth addict.
28:53
SPEAKER_03: And I think that is,
28:55
SPEAKER_03: may be significant as well.
28:57
And always what's most significant is the easy access to
29:00
firearms in this country.
29:01
SPEAKER_02: Right.
29:02
SPEAKER_03: Period.
29:03
SPEAKER_02: Right.
29:04
SPEAKER_02: Well, and there's sort of two pieces of it that really stand out for me.
29:07
And thank you for mentioning the long history of violence
29:11
against Mormons.
29:12
SPEAKER_02: I mean, for those of our listeners who are unfamiliar with it,
29:17
The Latter-day Saints Church ends up in Utah because it is
29:22
literally chased from
29:24
SPEAKER_02: place to place by people who try to lynch,
29:29
SPEAKER_02: shoot,
29:30
SPEAKER_02: kill,
29:30
SPEAKER_02: tar and feather,
29:31
SPEAKER_02: and drive out.
29:33
SPEAKER_02: the church,
29:34
which is born in the midst of the Second Great Awakening in
29:39
upstate New York,
29:40
SPEAKER_02: right?
29:40
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
29:41
it's a moment of religious ferment that produces a lot of
29:46
different strands,
29:47
SPEAKER_02: one of which is the Church of Latter-day Saints.
29:50
SPEAKER_02: Now, correct any details of that that are wrong, Neil.
29:53
SPEAKER_03: No, that's accurate.
29:54
And this is a moment of religious fervor in upstate New York
29:58
that really spreads
29:58
SPEAKER_03: across the country.
29:59
SPEAKER_03: It gives rise to dozens, if not hundreds of new sects of Christianity.
30:03
SPEAKER_03: Mormonism is pretty much the only one that is with us to this day,
30:07
SPEAKER_03: which is significant in itself.
30:11
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
30:12
SPEAKER_03: How does it get from New York to Utah?
30:14
SPEAKER_03: It's violently driven from every single place that it spends time in.
30:19
They're in Ohio for a long time and they meet great violence
30:24
and,
30:25
you know,
30:26
Joseph Smith is killed there,
30:27
or actually he's killed in Illinois,
30:29
which is where they go next.
30:30
SPEAKER_03: And then on to Missouri.
30:32
SPEAKER_03: In Missouri,
30:33
there's an extermination order that is issued by the governor
30:37
against Mormons that
30:38
SPEAKER_03: empowers Missouri citizens to
30:42
SPEAKER_03: to kill Mormons.
30:43
So they flee there,
30:45
ultimately making their way to what was then the Utah
30:47
Territory.
30:48
SPEAKER_03: Even in Utah,
30:49
at that great distance from most of the population of the
30:55
United States at the
30:56
SPEAKER_03: time,
30:56
they still are under real repression and violence from all
31:03
sorts of folks from the
31:05
SPEAKER_03: federal government in terms of real repression on them.
31:10
SPEAKER_03: It should be said that they as well have their own history of violence.
31:14
SPEAKER_03: They actually create their own militia.
31:16
I mean,
31:17
they are engaged in some really violent acts on their part as
31:22
well.
31:23
SPEAKER_03: But it's a long history that really ties into and
31:28
um creates for them a real sense of persecuted identity that is
31:32
real and and
31:33
understandable and that is historically um created over time
31:37
and i think persists
31:38
to this day um and certainly is animated for mormons in a
31:44
moment like this well and
31:47
our listeners who are historians will rebuke us if we do not
31:50
mention this one of
31:51
SPEAKER_02: the things at stake of course was polygamy
31:53
SPEAKER_02: And that the multiple marriages, what is the correct term for it?
31:59
SPEAKER_02: Plural marriages.
32:00
SPEAKER_02: Plural marriages, yeah.
32:03
And that,
32:04
of course,
32:04
is something that when Utah enters the union,
32:07
they officially give up.
32:10
SPEAKER_02: Polygamy still exists in some fundamentalist sects,
32:13
but it is against the law in Utah as it is against the law
32:16
everywhere else in the
32:17
SPEAKER_02: United States.
32:18
So that is part of the lingering prejudice against the LDS
32:23
church as well,
32:24
is this idea that there are secret things that go on there that
32:28
are morally wrong.
32:29
SPEAKER_02: And that attaches to a sense of
32:34
SPEAKER_02: grievance that someone like Sanford, say, might have.
32:40
SPEAKER_02: If, in fact, you are conspiratorial more generally,
32:44
that the lds church is a kind of conspiracy itself might be an
32:49
easy leap to make
32:50
right yeah yeah that's that's that's very well said and i also
32:54
think this ties back
32:55
to sort of the opening question about like why are they not
32:57
called the mormons
32:58
anymore right like this is part of disconnecting yourself from
33:02
that past and also
33:03
SPEAKER_03: of emphasizing themselves as christians right they are the
33:08
SPEAKER_03: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
33:10
And even on their signs and their badges and any sign outside
33:17
of a church,
33:18
you'll notice Jesus Christ is in much bigger font size than
33:23
Latter-day Saints.
33:24
So this is a long project that has really,
33:27
I think,
33:28
covers the 20th century of the LDS Church.
33:33
SPEAKER_03: concertedly sort of making themselves quote unquote,
33:37
SPEAKER_03: everyday quick Christians,
33:38
SPEAKER_03: you know,
33:39
SPEAKER_03: like trying to,
33:40
SPEAKER_03: but like,
33:40
SPEAKER_03: there's a,
33:41
SPEAKER_03: there's a,
33:42
SPEAKER_03: there's a challenge in that because on one hand,
33:45
SPEAKER_03: they also want to speak to their own distinctiveness.
33:48
SPEAKER_03: I mean, their theology makes like, um, distinctive claims.
33:52
SPEAKER_03: Like they are the one true church on earth.
33:55
SPEAKER_03: So there's a bit of a like contradiction within that,
33:58
SPEAKER_03: but it's understandable that like,
33:59
SPEAKER_03: it has been a sort of,
34:02
political and cultural project of theirs to be included in the
34:08
Christian community,
34:12
SPEAKER_03: sort of in the American mind.
34:14
SPEAKER_03: And part of that is like letting go of this,
34:17
SPEAKER_03: you know,
34:18
letting go of the word Mormon and letting go of that history
34:22
that I think they know
34:23
SPEAKER_03: is still very much connected to this polygamous past.
34:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think that's right.
34:29
SPEAKER_02: Now,
34:30
SPEAKER_02: Neil, I want to get back to why this fell out of the news so quickly.
34:34
SPEAKER_02: I feel like on the one hand,
34:37
there's so much violence in this country that it's hard for
34:42
reporters to stick with
34:45
SPEAKER_02: a story as long as they should.
34:48
On the other hand,
34:50
I felt there was a real reluctance of the federal government to
34:54
engage.
34:55
SPEAKER_02: I felt like there was a real reluctance of pundits to engage.
35:00
Is there something that makes people more uncomfortable about
35:05
the LDS church that
35:07
they don't quite know where to put this attack or are they just
35:11
exhausted?
35:13
SPEAKER_03: I think there's a lot of things at work here.
35:17
SPEAKER_03: When you sit around the readings for this week,
35:20
you also mentioned that there was another shooting on the same
35:23
day that this
35:24
SPEAKER_03: happened in North Carolina,
35:25
where apparently someone shot into a restaurant or a bar and
35:29
three people were
35:29
SPEAKER_03: killed.
35:30
SPEAKER_03: And I thought,
35:30
SPEAKER_03: oh my gosh,
35:31
SPEAKER_03: I didn't even know that this happened because honestly,
35:33
SPEAKER_03: how could someone know?
35:35
SPEAKER_03: about every shooting event in this country.
35:37
SPEAKER_03: So there's certainly some of that.
35:39
SPEAKER_03: But when the news of this came on Sunday,
35:42
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
35:42
I was sick to my stomach about it because of just the horrific
35:45
violence of it and
35:46
SPEAKER_03: just the innocent lives that have been ended so terribly and alarmingly.
35:53
SPEAKER_03: And then also I had this sort of sick thought of like,
35:56
SPEAKER_03: what is the Trump administration gonna do with this?
35:58
SPEAKER_03: Like they're going to seize this opportunity
36:01
SPEAKER_03: to make this example,
36:03
exhibit A of how there is a violent leftist attack on
36:08
Christians in America.
36:10
SPEAKER_03: And then that didn't happen.
36:12
And so that's sort of the question,
36:13
like,
36:14
why is the Trump administration and
36:17
SPEAKER_03: you know,
36:19
the right in general not taking this opportunity that seems
36:22
like a softball pitch
36:23
SPEAKER_03: to them.
36:23
But I think this is where the Mormonism part comes in and
36:27
becomes complicated.
36:29
SPEAKER_03: Even on the right,
36:30
SPEAKER_03: right,
36:30
the sort of tricky position that Mormonism has within
36:35
Christianity writ large,
36:37
SPEAKER_03: and even within conservative politics.
36:40
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
36:41
SPEAKER_03: Mormons are reliably conservative.
36:43
SPEAKER_03: They are reliably Republican voters.
36:45
SPEAKER_03: In fact,
36:46
SPEAKER_03: in most elections,
36:47
Utah and Wyoming give the highest percentage of their vote to
36:52
the Republican
36:53
SPEAKER_03: candidate.
36:54
SPEAKER_03: This was not the case in 2016.
36:57
SPEAKER_03: in Utah.
36:58
SPEAKER_03: There was a lot of never Trump sentiment within the state of Utah.
37:03
SPEAKER_03: And so I think now that has changed.
37:06
SPEAKER_03: Utah is firmly in the camp for Trump these days.
37:08
But we know that Trump doesn't remember,
37:10
doesn't think about present day circumstances.
37:12
SPEAKER_03: He only remembers past grievances.
37:14
SPEAKER_03: And so I wonder, and also he cannot stand Mitt Romney.
37:18
SPEAKER_03: So I wonder if all of those sorts of associations and his like
37:24
his mind are part of why this is just not something that
37:29
matters to him and that he
37:30
SPEAKER_03: actually downplayed this within,
37:32
SPEAKER_03: you know,
37:32
SPEAKER_03: inside white house conversations that he doesn't see Mormons as,
37:37
SPEAKER_03: you know,
37:37
SPEAKER_03: that he just sort of remembers those,
37:40
SPEAKER_03: those insults to him or perceived insults to him.
37:44
SPEAKER_03: And so therefore this is not a pressing matter.
37:46
SPEAKER_03: So that just sort of explains the like potentially,
37:49
SPEAKER_03: or that that's a,
37:50
SPEAKER_03: that's a hypothesis about potentially the,
37:53
SPEAKER_03: you know,
37:53
SPEAKER_03: Trump and the Republican party,
37:55
SPEAKER_03: but like,
37:55
what else do you think might be at work here and just sort of
37:58
America at large?
38:00
SPEAKER_02: Well, I, okay.
38:02
SPEAKER_02: So we have two Marines,
38:04
both of whom had been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan who
38:08
commit two shootings in
38:10
the same week that Donald Trump is putting the military front
38:15
and center in his
38:16
SPEAKER_02: policies.
38:18
SPEAKER_02: Marines are,
38:21
SPEAKER_02: if not special forces, the elite of the elite.
38:25
SPEAKER_02: They are the most highly trained.
38:27
SPEAKER_02: They are the most conservative.
38:29
There is a much higher degree of Christianity in the Marines
38:34
than there is in the
38:35
SPEAKER_02: armed forces at large.
38:38
SPEAKER_02: So it's something that doesn't fit.
38:40
SPEAKER_02: And I'm not sure they knew what to do with it.
38:43
And I think it was an embarrassment in a week in which Trump is
38:47
putting all of his
38:48
SPEAKER_02: chips on the military.
38:51
SPEAKER_02: So I think that's one piece of it.
38:53
I think another piece of it is that I think Americans can't
39:03
hold all of these
39:05
SPEAKER_02: pieces that are moving around the board in their head.
39:08
SPEAKER_02: And I think journalists are no exception.
39:10
SPEAKER_02: For example,
39:13
SPEAKER_02: It seems like it was months ago that we were talking about Charlie Kirk.
39:18
SPEAKER_02: In fact, it was about two weeks ago.
39:20
SPEAKER_02: He's no longer in the news at all.
39:23
Like something that Republicans said was the worst thing that
39:27
had ever happened in this country.
39:30
SPEAKER_02: We're not talking about it anymore.
39:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
39:33
But I think this shooting does point up this kind of cause and
39:39
effect question that
39:42
SPEAKER_02: I would say both the left and the right are very facile about,
39:46
SPEAKER_02: which is so-and-so must have been a Trump supporter because X.
39:52
SPEAKER_02: So-and-so must have been a leftist because X.
39:55
SPEAKER_02: I think the Grand Blanc massacre shows something quite different,
40:00
SPEAKER_02: which is not that Trump is causal in all of this violence,
40:06
but that violent and unstable people are drawn to him and feel
40:11
empowered by him.
40:13
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
40:13
SPEAKER_02: And this guy, Sanford, again, we know so little about him.
40:17
I have absolutely no faith that Kash Patel and his Keystone
40:22
coppers are going to
40:23
SPEAKER_02: figure this out.
40:24
But it does seem reasonable to me to shift our perspective and
40:28
say,
40:29
all right.
40:30
To what extent are people who are already unstable and full of
40:36
hate and violent and
40:38
SPEAKER_02: have access to guns,
40:40
to what extent are they activated by the political atmosphere
40:44
as opposed to created
40:45
SPEAKER_02: by it?
40:46
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
40:46
SPEAKER_03: I almost wish that...
40:52
SPEAKER_03: reporters wouldn't tell us who a shooter last voted for at this point.
40:58
SPEAKER_03: Because on one hand, we know the answer.
41:02
SPEAKER_03: On another hand,
41:03
SPEAKER_03: it doesn't really tell us anything useful at this point,
41:05
SPEAKER_03: or at least it's not being communicated in a way that helps to have
41:10
useful insight to it but i think you're really really right
41:13
about the ways in which
41:15
folks who are who are like this are being animated by this
41:20
president and by this
41:21
moment and this goes to like core character criticisms of trump
41:27
um that happen you
41:29
know mostly on the left but i think you know again i just think
41:33
about that
41:34
especially in the first term those never trump conservatives
41:37
who were like this man
41:38
SPEAKER_03: is not
41:39
SPEAKER_03: dispositionally appropriate for the office of the presidency.
41:44
SPEAKER_03: That what a leader does is,
41:47
SPEAKER_03: you know,
41:48
SPEAKER_03: creates peace and calm in moments of crisis and chaos,
41:52
SPEAKER_03: right?
41:52
SPEAKER_03: That they lower the temperature, that they turn the volume down.
41:57
SPEAKER_03: That is the mark of a leader.
41:59
SPEAKER_03: And instead, what does this person do?
42:02
SPEAKER_03: He takes, you know, moments of peace or just even difficult conditions
42:08
SPEAKER_03: crisis moments, and he amplifies them.
42:11
SPEAKER_03: He pours gasoline on them.
42:13
SPEAKER_03: He emboldens the worst actors around those moments.
42:20
And so in such a context,
42:23
folks like this are,
42:26
I think,
42:26
all the more encouraged to act.
42:28
SPEAKER_03: People are going to do terrible things in every moment of time.
42:32
But are there conditions that make that more likely to happen
42:38
and that increase the
42:39
SPEAKER_03: likelihood of those things happening?
42:42
SPEAKER_03: And yes, when a person like this is the leader.
42:47
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think that's right.
42:48
And,
42:48
you know,
42:49
I think the Republican Party is in quite a bind at this point.
42:52
It seems patently obvious that the reason all of these things
42:56
are happening is the
42:58
SPEAKER_02: access to powerful weapons.
43:01
SPEAKER_02: It seems patently obvious that,
43:03
SPEAKER_02: you know,
43:04
SPEAKER_02: they don't even talk about,
43:05
SPEAKER_02: quote unquote,
43:06
SPEAKER_02: hardening schools and churches anymore.
43:09
SPEAKER_02: Um,
43:09
which they shouldn't because actually probably the doors to
43:13
that chapel were locked
43:15
SPEAKER_02: and the guy drove right through them.
43:18
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
43:18
I remember being in a synagogue a couple of years ago for a
43:22
memorial service and I
43:24
SPEAKER_02: saw a sign outside the door saying that as soon as services began,
43:28
SPEAKER_02: the door would be locked.
43:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
43:30
And it made me so sad about how churches and synagogues and
43:36
chapels have become
43:38
SPEAKER_02: places where crazy,
43:41
violent people full of hate know that there is a critical mass
43:46
of people that they
43:48
SPEAKER_02: can harm.
43:49
SPEAKER_02: People who have gathered together out of love and to worship God
43:56
SPEAKER_02: It's just, it's heartbreaking.
43:58
SPEAKER_02: And I also want to say,
44:00
SPEAKER_02: and I,
44:00
SPEAKER_02: you know,
44:01
SPEAKER_02: making allowances for a long history of racism,
44:04
SPEAKER_02: misogyny,
44:05
SPEAKER_02: and homophobia,
44:07
SPEAKER_02: there is a flip side to the Church of Latter-day Saints,
44:10
SPEAKER_02: which is,
44:12
SPEAKER_02: in my experience,
44:13
SPEAKER_02: and I partly grew up in Southern Idaho around a lot of Mormons,
44:18
SPEAKER_02: they're very kind.
44:20
And there is a kind of engagement with others and engagement
44:24
with the world.
44:26
SPEAKER_02: that is distinctive about at least mainstream LDS faith.
44:33
SPEAKER_02: I wanna point to one wonderful thing that I have never seen before.
44:39
which is that as neighbors move to comfort each other and
44:42
collect money for the
44:43
SPEAKER_02: injured and the killed,
44:46
SPEAKER_02: one LDS member based in Utah set up a GoFundMe for Sanford's family.
44:52
SPEAKER_02: And he's collected over $200,000.
44:54
SPEAKER_02: And he said, you know, they are victims too.
44:57
SPEAKER_02: They didn't want this.
44:58
SPEAKER_02: And the urge to incorporate rather than shun is very moving to me.
45:05
SPEAKER_03: I found it moving as well,
45:07
SPEAKER_03: especially in a moment like this,
45:09
SPEAKER_03: when I think it feels like so many people are looking to do the opposite,
45:15
SPEAKER_03: to draw more distinctions between themselves and others,
45:19
SPEAKER_03: to build bigger walls.
45:22
SPEAKER_03: And this person said, this is what my faith teaches me.
45:25
SPEAKER_03: The scriptures say, take care of the widows and the orphans.
45:29
SPEAKER_03: And this woman has been widowed
45:32
SPEAKER_03: because of something that her husband did.
45:34
And I thought that is such a beautiful expression of faith and
45:41
also of humanity and community.
45:44
SPEAKER_03: And we need so many more stories of that in our nation right now.
45:48
I will also say that just to speak to your Mormons are really
45:51
nice people comment.
45:54
SPEAKER_03: I think that that is a reputation that they have concertedly
46:01
built for themselves over the last hundred years um and not to
46:06
say that that isn't
46:07
earned and deserved but that the church especially in the 20th
46:11
century became of so
46:15
SPEAKER_03: service-oriented in its faith i would say it's among maybe the most
46:18
SPEAKER_03: service-oriented faith and that that is sort of believed to be core
46:23
to one's belief and one's expression of faith is to be involved
46:27
in service service
46:28
to others and a lot of that grew out of like an internal sort
46:31
of communal spirit
46:33
that was the case for the 19th century when like they were
46:36
being run out of
46:37
everywhere and they had to exist on their own on the frontier
46:39
like they took care
46:40
of themselves and they developed this internal welfare system
46:44
but that was a
46:45
foundation and a history upon which they built in the 20th
46:48
century a very outwardly
46:50
SPEAKER_03: focused
46:51
SPEAKER_03: service culture.
46:52
SPEAKER_03: And so I think that that's really, really relevant to this moment.
46:55
SPEAKER_03: And we can hold that in this conversation,
46:59
even as we also acknowledge that the church was at the
47:02
forefront of fighting
47:04
SPEAKER_03: against same-sex marriage in the 20th century,
47:07
SPEAKER_03: of opposing racial integration,
47:10
SPEAKER_03: of all sorts of other things that I think really align it with
47:15
SPEAKER_03: terrible politics and terrible political consequences.
47:20
I think all of that can be held together as we talk about the
47:23
history of the LDS
47:24
SPEAKER_03: Church in a moment like this.
47:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
47:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
47:29
And I also want to say not to make excuses for any of the harms
47:32
the LDS Church has
47:33
SPEAKER_02: done,
47:34
SPEAKER_02: but most Christian faiths have done terrible things.
47:40
SPEAKER_02: I mean, historically, if we
47:42
SPEAKER_02: you know,
47:43
SPEAKER_02: look back to the conquest of Mexico,
47:46
the terrible devastation that occurred in the name of the
47:52
Catholic Church there.
47:54
If we look at the Protestants in New England who decimated and
47:59
enslaved the Pequots and so on.
48:01
SPEAKER_02: So there's a bigger question about religion here and what it can be.
48:07
SPEAKER_02: mobilize and what it can fuel.
48:10
SPEAKER_02: But to some extent,
48:12
I still have kind of a soft place in my heart for the LDS
48:17
church because in some
48:19
ways it has proven itself willing to engage self-reflection in
48:27
a very open and
48:28
SPEAKER_02: public way.
48:29
SPEAKER_02: Am I misguided in this regard?
48:31
SPEAKER_03: No, I think that's right.
48:33
SPEAKER_03: I think it has a ton of blind spots for sure.
48:37
But I also think it has wrestled with itself in a way that you
48:42
don't see a lot of
48:43
SPEAKER_03: other,
48:44
SPEAKER_03: you don't see the Catholic Church,
48:45
SPEAKER_03: you don't see like major evangelical denominations wrestling.
48:49
SPEAKER_03: with their own history,
48:51
SPEAKER_03: with their own identity,
48:53
SPEAKER_03: with their own work in the world,
48:56
SPEAKER_03: I think,
48:56
SPEAKER_03: to the extent that the LDS Church does.
48:58
SPEAKER_03: And I think a lot of that is predicated on its highly marginal status.
49:02
SPEAKER_02: Right.
49:03
SPEAKER_03: that may be something really hard for listeners to imagine that looks at,
49:08
SPEAKER_03: you know,
49:08
SPEAKER_03: the LDS church as like this powerful religious organization that,
49:12
SPEAKER_03: you know,
49:13
SPEAKER_03: almost made sure that same-sex marriage didn't happen,
49:16
SPEAKER_03: that like is incredibly wealthy,
49:18
SPEAKER_03: wealthy and on and on that,
49:20
SPEAKER_03: you know,
49:20
SPEAKER_03: gave us more Mitt Romney and other huge political figures.
49:25
SPEAKER_03: That is not the LDS church's conception of itself.
49:29
SPEAKER_03: It has that perspective.
49:31
sense of marginality of persecution of even victimization and
49:38
as we've said a lot
49:40
of that all of it I think is understandable when you look at
49:44
the long history there
49:45
it's more complicated than that there's a bigger story than
49:47
that but it's it's
49:49
It makes sense that a church and a faith that it's gone through
49:53
the history it has
49:53
SPEAKER_03: would have that sense of itself.
49:55
And I think that that has led it to really wrestle with itself
49:59
and its place in the
50:01
country and the world in a way that a lot of other major faiths
50:06
don't and don't
50:07
SPEAKER_03: have to necessarily reckon with.
50:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
50:10
So I want to close by thinking about why watching a church
50:17
attacked is so traumatic.
50:19
SPEAKER_02: We call this episode, No Place of Safety.
50:22
And it caused me to think about the civil rights movement in
50:26
which activists met in
50:28
churches because it was the only place that they could even
50:34
imagine they would not
50:36
SPEAKER_02: be murdered.
50:37
SPEAKER_02: Right.
50:37
by white supremacists of the four little girls who were killed
50:42
in the bombing in
50:43
SPEAKER_02: Birmingham in the church basement.
50:46
And that that becomes a kind of moral turning point for white
50:51
people to finally pay
50:54
SPEAKER_02: attention to what what is being done in their name.
51:00
SPEAKER_02: But actually attacks on houses of worship are relatively rare.
51:05
SPEAKER_02: That being said,
51:06
SPEAKER_02: this year so far,
51:08
SPEAKER_02: there have been six targeted religious attacks,
51:11
SPEAKER_02: three on places of worship or on religious schools.
51:15
There have been 16 such attacks since Donald Trump first became
51:19
president in 2017.
51:21
SPEAKER_02: Now, here are the funny numbers, Neil.
51:23
By comparison,
51:24
there were only 25 attacks on religious centers between 2000
51:29
and 2017.
51:29
There were only five such attacks in the 1990s and there were
51:32
only two in the 1980s.
51:33
SPEAKER_02: Why are these attacks accelerating, Neil?
51:42
SPEAKER_03: I think because attacks are accelerating period.
51:45
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
51:46
I would love to have other statistics in general of just gun
51:49
violence and mass
51:51
SPEAKER_03: attacks in those same periods.
51:53
SPEAKER_03: And I think all of it would track consistently across that time.
51:57
So attacks at churches are up because attacks at public spaces
52:03
are up and they
52:03
SPEAKER_03: happen anywhere people gather together.
52:06
SPEAKER_03: I think to see it happen on a school and on a house of worship,
52:12
is to break the heart even more so than I think when it happens
52:18
at a mall or a
52:20
SPEAKER_03: movie theater or we could go on and on and on.
52:24
SPEAKER_03: But I think most of us feel like schools,
52:28
SPEAKER_03: places of worship,
52:29
these are places where folks should be able to go and never
52:32
even imagine that
52:34
SPEAKER_03: something horrific like this would happen to them.
52:36
SPEAKER_03: And it is a true assault on freedom for these places to be so vulnerable.
52:41
SPEAKER_03: Now, the politics of this will be, go ahead.
52:44
No,
52:45
I was going to say there are churches now where people are
52:47
armed in church.
52:49
And there have been several of these attacks in which somebody
52:51
who was carrying in
52:53
SPEAKER_02: the church actually managed to take down the shooter.
52:56
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
52:57
the idea that there are these sort of wild firefights happening
53:01
in churches is just
53:03
SPEAKER_02: so horrifying.
53:05
SPEAKER_03: It's horrifying.
53:06
SPEAKER_03: And,
53:06
SPEAKER_03: you know,
53:06
SPEAKER_03: you were talking about seeing synagogue,
53:08
SPEAKER_03: I think going to a synagogue service and it being particularly defended.
53:13
SPEAKER_03: And I think, you know, it happened there first.
53:16
They've had to deal with this for a lot longer and they've put,
53:19
you know,
53:20
most every synagogue.
53:23
SPEAKER_03: Yeshiva has been.
53:25
really put security measures in place that date back several
53:30
decades at this point.
53:32
SPEAKER_03: But the Christian houses of worship are also doing this,
53:35
SPEAKER_03: and I imagine mosque as well were doing this
53:38
SPEAKER_03: many, many years ago.
53:41
SPEAKER_03: But the sort of Christian houses of worship are also doing this.
53:46
And yet none of it seems to be leading to a reckoning with the
53:49
political choices
53:50
SPEAKER_03: that make this more possible is really,
53:54
SPEAKER_03: really upsetting.
53:55
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I think about the church I grew up.
53:58
SPEAKER_03: you know, that left its doors open during service, right?
54:01
SPEAKER_03: I mean, partly it's because I was from Florida.
54:03
So like,
54:03
you know,
54:04
the weather sort of permitted that,
54:05
but it was also symbolic,
54:07
right?
54:07
SPEAKER_03: That's like, come in, anyone is welcome, right?
54:10
SPEAKER_03: Like everyone in here.
54:12
SPEAKER_03: And that these places might become more and more,
54:16
SPEAKER_03: set apart and also armed up for these.
54:22
I don't know what that does to the psychology and also to the
54:26
experience of one in
54:28
SPEAKER_03: those places,
54:29
but it doesn't seem at all what we would hope for a Sunday
54:36
morning service to be
54:38
SPEAKER_03: about.
54:39
SPEAKER_02: I think that's right.
54:40
And I would also say that what is distressing is that the
54:46
increasing incidence of
54:48
SPEAKER_02: public violence seems to be pushing Americans,
54:52
SPEAKER_02: including Democrats,
54:54
SPEAKER_02: in the direction of saying that actually they don't see how...
54:59
SPEAKER_02: our political divisions are going to be resolved without violence.
55:03
A recent NPR PBS News Marist poll says that 30% of Americans
55:09
now believe that
55:09
SPEAKER_02: violence may be necessary to get the country,
55:12
SPEAKER_02: quote,
55:13
SPEAKER_02: back on track.
55:14
SPEAKER_02: That is up 11 points since April 2024.
55:18
SPEAKER_02: And it's an increase largely driven by Democrats.
55:23
SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
55:23
SPEAKER_03: really,
55:24
SPEAKER_03: really troubling that this becomes,
55:27
SPEAKER_03: to the extent it is,
55:29
SPEAKER_03: some sort of bipartisan consensus,
55:31
SPEAKER_03: right?
55:31
Because then it feels like that only sets the ball in motion
55:34
all the more for this
55:35
SPEAKER_03: to actually become real.
55:37
I don't understand the thought process that imagines violence
55:44
as a pathway towards
55:46
SPEAKER_03: resolution,
55:47
but I clearly am not wired the way that lots and lots of
55:51
Americans seem to be.
55:53
SPEAKER_02: Right.
55:53
SPEAKER_02: Well,
55:54
SPEAKER_02: and,
55:54
SPEAKER_02: you know,
55:54
SPEAKER_02: I sort of look back and think of the turning point that might have been,
56:00
SPEAKER_02: which is Butler,
56:00
SPEAKER_02: Pennsylvania.
56:02
SPEAKER_02: Guy takes a shot at Donald Trump.
56:04
SPEAKER_02: Thank God does not kill him.
56:06
SPEAKER_02: But it happens in front of the entire nation.
56:10
That is the moment instead of making it be all about himself
56:14
and all about his
56:15
money and all about his family becoming unbelievably more
56:18
wealthy and taking
56:20
control of the entire government in which actually a
56:24
presidential candidate could
56:26
SPEAKER_02: have said it needs to stop.
56:29
SPEAKER_02: I didn't understand until now.
56:31
SPEAKER_02: And now that I am one of you,
56:34
SPEAKER_02: It needs to stop.
56:36
SPEAKER_02: And that really was such a huge missed opportunity.
56:42
SPEAKER_03: Yes,
56:42
SPEAKER_03: and we could imagine,
56:43
SPEAKER_03: I think,
56:44
SPEAKER_03: any other president having that exact response,
56:47
SPEAKER_03: no matter really their politics.
56:49
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
56:50
SPEAKER_03: maybe I'm being way too Pollyannish here,
56:52
but the attack on Reagan in 81 led to some significant gun
57:01
reforms in that decade,
57:03
led by folks within the Reagan administration in partnership
57:06
with people from all
57:08
SPEAKER_03: sorts of different political backgrounds.
57:11
SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
57:11
SPEAKER_03: like this was a moment of only his political gain and not,
57:17
SPEAKER_03: you know,
57:17
a sort of somber come to Jesus recognition of what really needs
57:24
to happen in this
57:26
SPEAKER_03: country.
57:26
But again,
57:27
this ties back to what we've been saying about just who he is
57:30
as a leader.
57:31
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
57:33
SPEAKER_02: Well,
57:34
SPEAKER_02: to be continued,
57:35
SPEAKER_02: unfortunately,
57:36
SPEAKER_02: Neil,
57:36
I'm sure we will be coming back to this topic over and over
57:39
again this year.
57:41
SPEAKER_02: But let's shift to what we want to go viral this week.
57:45
SPEAKER_02: Why don't you begin?
57:47
SPEAKER_03: Sure.
57:47
SPEAKER_03: I'm going to share this piece from our friend and colleague,
57:51
SPEAKER_03: Nicole Hemmer,
57:52
SPEAKER_03: as I know,
57:53
SPEAKER_03: or Nikki,
57:53
SPEAKER_03: in the New York Times a few days ago,
57:55
SPEAKER_03: a guest opinion titled,
57:58
SPEAKER_03: We Have Seen the Woke Right Before,
58:01
SPEAKER_03: and It Wasn't Pretty Then Either.
58:03
SPEAKER_03: This piece is a history of
58:07
SPEAKER_03: the politics of free speech on the right,
58:09
and really a history of the politics of repression of free
58:13
speech on the right.
58:17
SPEAKER_03: We talked about this a couple episodes ago.
58:20
SPEAKER_03: the days following the assassination of Charlie Kirk,
58:24
SPEAKER_03: the sort of rallying cry on the right was that A,
58:28
SPEAKER_03: he was,
58:29
SPEAKER_03: you know,
58:30
martyred because of his advocacy for free speech and that
58:35
conservatives were the
58:36
SPEAKER_03: only defenders of free speech in this country.
58:38
SPEAKER_03: And also that because he had been killed,
58:41
then other people's free speech rights needed to be abridged
58:46
because actually the
58:47
SPEAKER_03: left has a long history
58:49
SPEAKER_03: of not defending free speech, and worse.
58:53
SPEAKER_03: And Nikki,
58:55
SPEAKER_03: in a beautiful,
58:56
SPEAKER_03: historically-rooted,
58:59
SPEAKER_03: evidence-driven piece,
59:01
SPEAKER_03: goes through the long history of the right,
59:04
SPEAKER_03: and I'll just read this paragraph.
59:05
That argument rests on a flawed premise that the right had been
59:08
devoted to open
59:09
SPEAKER_03: debate and restrained government power,
59:12
only reluctantly abandoning these principles to counter
59:15
left-wing liberalism.
59:18
SPEAKER_03: But the right did not learn cancel culture from the left.
59:21
SPEAKER_03: The modern right in America emerged as a censorious movement.
59:26
SPEAKER_03: It took decades for its free speech faction to develop.
59:29
SPEAKER_03: And even then, it has only ever been a minority part of the coalition.
59:35
And then Nikki just walks through this long period of history
59:37
from basically the
59:39
1950s and Cold War anti-communism and organizations within the
59:43
Republican Party
59:44
that created lists of Americans for any perceived infraction
59:49
that made them
59:50
communist and ruined their lives and on and on again through
59:54
other examples through
59:55
the years of the ways in which the right has operated through
59:59
real repression of
1:00:00
SPEAKER_03: folks' free expression.
1:00:03
SPEAKER_03: And then she makes this really interesting point,
1:00:04
SPEAKER_03: which is the last thing that I'll say that in the 1990s,
1:00:08
SPEAKER_03: conservatives,
1:00:08
SPEAKER_03: some conservatives discover the discourse of free speech,
1:00:13
because when you have sort of the rise of political correctness
1:00:18
and the PC movement
1:00:20
SPEAKER_03: on the left.
1:00:21
Did they take this as an opportunity to start advocating for
1:00:24
free speech as like
1:00:27
SPEAKER_03: we're the party of free speech?
1:00:28
SPEAKER_03: And those folks over there want to like, you know, cancel.
1:00:30
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
1:00:30
SPEAKER_03: they didn't use cancel at the time,
1:00:32
SPEAKER_03: but they want to,
1:00:32
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:00:33
SPEAKER_03: ruin your lives over,
1:00:34
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:00:34
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:00:35
SPEAKER_03: saying X,
1:00:36
SPEAKER_03: Y and Z words.
1:00:37
SPEAKER_03: And that this sort of emerged in the 90s in this culture wars period as a
1:00:43
SPEAKER_03: politically advantageous.
1:00:46
um strategy of foregrounding free speech and that the right was
1:00:50
the only ones who
1:00:51
were defenders of it so it's a wonderful piece lots of
1:00:54
wonderful history in this
1:00:56
SPEAKER_03: read the whole thing but i really loved that um i loved how nikki sort of
1:01:02
SPEAKER_03: pinpointed the 1990s as this key turning point in this history
1:01:07
SPEAKER_02: I think that's absolutely right.
1:01:08
SPEAKER_02: And just to swing back to the beginning of the show,
1:01:10
the 1990s is of course the decade in which the Republican Party
1:01:14
figures out that
1:01:15
shutting down the government can be a really good strategy for
1:01:19
getting what you
1:01:19
SPEAKER_02: want and making your opposition look hapless.
1:01:23
SPEAKER_02: No, it was a terrific piece, Neil.
1:01:25
SPEAKER_02: And thanks so much for bringing it to the show today.
1:01:28
I thought Nikki's analysis of what free speech means was very,
1:01:35
very grounding in this moment.
1:01:38
SPEAKER_02: And how free speech is an ethic as much as a thing.
1:01:42
SPEAKER_02: And that when you pervert the ethic, you pervert free speech itself.
1:01:47
So I'm jumping in with a little bit more on the right,
1:01:52
if we can call it the woke right.
1:01:55
SPEAKER_02: I am immersed in a doorstop of a book by Sam Tannenhaus,
1:02:00
SPEAKER_02: Buckley,
1:02:00
SPEAKER_02: The Life and Revolution That Changed America.
1:02:03
SPEAKER_02: It was really in the news a while ago.
1:02:05
SPEAKER_02: Took me a while to get to it because 900 pages.
1:02:09
But it is actually a biography that reveals Donald Trump's
1:02:13
America as McCarthyism's
1:02:15
SPEAKER_02: vengeful return.
1:02:17
SPEAKER_02: And I find this really fascinating because,
1:02:19
SPEAKER_02: of course,
1:02:20
it was written long before Donald Trump became president the
1:02:23
second time around.
1:02:24
And yet you can see the seeds of what he and his allies are
1:02:29
doing in government in
1:02:31
SPEAKER_02: the ideas that William F.
1:02:33
SPEAKER_02: Buckley had for how,
1:02:35
SPEAKER_02: in fact,
1:02:36
SPEAKER_02: conservatives could could take over the nation.
1:02:40
William F.
1:02:40
Buckley,
1:02:40
for those who did not know him,
1:02:43
was the son of a very wealthy oil magnate.
1:02:47
SPEAKER_02: He went to Yale,
1:02:48
SPEAKER_02: he wrote a book called God and Man at Yale,
1:02:50
in which he skewered Yale for being anti-Christian and
1:02:55
professors just sort of
1:02:57
SPEAKER_02: spewing liberal orthodoxy,
1:02:59
SPEAKER_02: very familiar today.
1:03:01
SPEAKER_02: What I didn't know about William F. Buckley
1:03:05
SPEAKER_02: It happens on page 23,
1:03:07
which is they are living on a big estate in Westchester and the
1:03:14
older Buckley
1:03:15
SPEAKER_02: children,
1:03:17
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:03:17
listening to their father's anti-Semitic rants think it will be
1:03:21
just hilarious to
1:03:22
SPEAKER_02: go and burn a cross on the lawn of a Jewish owned hotel.
1:03:26
SPEAKER_02: This is on page 23.
1:03:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:03:29
SPEAKER_02: And it gets better.
1:03:30
SPEAKER_02: Tannenhaus really dug into what Buckley was doing in the 1950s.
1:03:35
SPEAKER_02: He was a big ally of Joe McCarthy,
1:03:38
SPEAKER_02: huge admirer of McCarthy,
1:03:40
SPEAKER_02: and devoted to Whitaker Chambers,
1:03:44
the professional witness who was essential to the case against
1:03:48
Alger Hiss,
1:03:48
SPEAKER_02: a communist who became an anti-communist.
1:03:52
SPEAKER_02: All of these people are very troubled, both McCarthy
1:03:55
SPEAKER_02: and Chambers,
1:03:57
SPEAKER_02: but Buckley sees them as incredibly important instruments to reasserting
1:04:04
SPEAKER_02: conservatism as a political power in the United States.
1:04:09
SPEAKER_02: But now in the 300s where I am,
1:04:13
SPEAKER_02: Buckley and his siblings are establishing a newspaper in Camden,
1:04:19
SPEAKER_02: South Carolina,
1:04:20
where the family has another estate and which is sort of the
1:04:25
epicenter of a school
1:04:26
SPEAKER_02: desegregation drama.
1:04:28
SPEAKER_02: They join with the White Citizens Council,
1:04:31
SPEAKER_02: which is basically like the Ku Klux Klan in suits,
1:04:34
SPEAKER_02: not sheets.
1:04:35
SPEAKER_02: to create this newspaper to try to stop desegregation.
1:04:41
SPEAKER_02: And we knew that Buckley was anti-civil rights,
1:04:45
the depths to which Tannenhaus really is able to uncover his
1:04:52
deep and profound
1:04:53
SPEAKER_02: racism.
1:04:54
SPEAKER_02: And how that really stood in contrast to the people,
1:04:58
SPEAKER_02: the Buckley that most people saw on Firing Line on PBS,
1:05:03
SPEAKER_02: which was this sort of erudite,
1:05:05
SPEAKER_02: polite,
1:05:06
SPEAKER_02: witty man,
1:05:07
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:05:08
SPEAKER_02: with a cigarette.
1:05:09
SPEAKER_02: in his fingers.
1:05:13
SPEAKER_02: Tenenhouse just does a beautiful job,
1:05:14
and everything that Buckley wanted as an attack on the liberal
1:05:20
establishment has
1:05:21
SPEAKER_02: now happened.
1:05:24
SPEAKER_02: So it's a book that's worth reading,
1:05:25
SPEAKER_02: not to be sadder than we ever were,
1:05:28
SPEAKER_02: but to understand that Trumpism didn't come from nowhere.
1:05:31
SPEAKER_02: It has a very long history, and it has a history actually in
1:05:36
SPEAKER_02: upper-class American life,
1:05:38
SPEAKER_02: not parvenues like the Trumps,
1:05:41
but establishment millionaire Republicans who did not just see
1:05:47
their financial
1:05:48
SPEAKER_02: interests tied up in conservatism,
1:05:51
SPEAKER_02: but their spiritual interests and all of their bigotry.
1:05:55
SPEAKER_02: So on that note, Neil, I'll see you next week.
1:06:04
SPEAKER_03: See you next week.
1:06:05
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
1:06:09
SPEAKER_02: That's it for today's Political Junkie podcast.
1:06:12
SPEAKER_02: Thanks for listening.
1:06:13
Share this episode with a friend who loves history,
1:06:15
politics,
1:06:16
and smart conversation.
1:06:18
SPEAKER_02: You can follow Neil and me on threads, Blue Sky, TikTok, and Instagram.
1:06:22
Go to the Political Junkie Substack at
1:06:24
clairepotter.substack.com for show notes,
1:06:27
SPEAKER_02: more episodes,
1:06:28
SPEAKER_02: to leave a comment or question,
1:06:30
SPEAKER_02: to subscribe for free,
1:06:31
SPEAKER_02: or support our work for as little as $5 a month.
1:06:34
SPEAKER_02: You can also subscribe on your favorite podcast platform.
1:06:38
SPEAKER_02: Please leave a rating and a comment so that other listeners can find us.
1:06:42
Political Junkie is supported by the New School for Social
1:06:44
Research and by our
1:06:45
SPEAKER_02: paying subscribers.
1:06:47
This podcast is written,
1:06:48
recorded,
1:06:49
edited,
1:06:49
and produced by me,
1:06:51
Claire Potter.
1:06:52
SPEAKER_02: Today's theme is Hand to God by Clark Adams.
1:06:55
SPEAKER_02: You can find his work on Soundstripe.
1:06:57
SPEAKER_02: That's all for now.
1:06:59
Neil and I will see you next week and God bless our brothers
1:07:02
and sisters in Grand
1:07:03
SPEAKER_02: Blanc,
1:07:03
SPEAKER_02: Michigan.
1:07:06
Let's get started.
1:07:51
you