July 16, 2024 • 33 mins
Robert, Gare and Sophie report from Milwaukee, Wisconsin at the Red, White, & Brew RNC welcome party.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Al Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome to it could Happen here, a podcast about things
falling apart. And nothing says things falling apart better than
as many Republicans as possible jammed into as small a
place as possible, With half of the cops in the
United States of America there as well. With me is
Sophie Lichterman and Garrison Davis are on the ground reporting
(00:27):
team for the Republican Convention National.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Wow, it's true.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
We're here.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
We are at the Republican National Convention the day after
former President Donald Trump was nearly struck down by an
assassin's bullet. And uh, yeah, it's been a pretty fun.
Speaker 5 (00:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
The vibes are great. Vibes are great. Actually, that's kind
of the thing we should start with. We I mean,
the president for a president was shot yesterday, and the
shit online has been absolutely un hinged. And I was
expecting I was expecting a lot, but certainly a different
vibe at the thing, which was I think basically the
(01:09):
same vibe it would have had if the president hadn't
been shot. People were by and large not acting different.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Okay, so so set the scene. All we went to
this red, White and Brew kickoff at the party.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Shocking amount of free alcohol.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Shocking amount of free alcohol. How many people do you
think we're there?
Speaker 4 (01:31):
I don't know, thousands, That definitely thousands of people.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Yeah, the not crazy crowded, but it was big.
Speaker 6 (01:36):
The flyers said they were estimating ten to fifty thousand
people over the course of like five six hours.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yeah, that sounds about right. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Trace Adkins performed and sang a song with the lyrics
Gearson Well.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
This was actually a spoken word intro to this.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
This was in the middle of the songs.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
Yes, We're we were.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
If you haven't heard. Trace is a country music star,
and not a good one. I'm not sure if it
was him or if it was Toby Keith that Christofferson said,
did the country music what pante Hoose did to finger fucking.
But that is the kind It's a famous line, Sophie.
He's a terrible musician.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
He just died.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
Anyways. The line that was said was Garrison.
Speaker 6 (02:19):
Well, he had this little preamble about how he was
getting really handsy with like.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
With his nurse. He's sick recently. He has a nurse.
She's taken great care of him and she hasn't gotten
angry that he keeps touching her against her.
Speaker 6 (02:32):
Getting really handsy and she would actually press charges if
they weren't married, which is the punchline.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Ha ha ha haa is that is that And that
was kind of the energy of the entire event.
Speaker 6 (02:46):
So just raping your wife not even a joke, just
like just like a celebratory statement. As we are walking
around a crowd of like, yeah, at least five times.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
We walk into this event and there are like balloon
wavy noodle.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Guys inflatable armflaving to use car dealership. Ever seen that
many of them in one place.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Yeah, And then there's there's dozens there's women on platforms.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
So there's a red carpet and all fifty state flags
are lining it, and periodically in between the flags there
are plints where there are what what we used to
call booth babes, which is if you would go to
like E three, which was the video game convention, there
would be scantly clad women. Car conventions do the same thing.
Cees used to do this too, women wearing very little
(03:35):
who are there to like stand next to products or whatever.
In this case, they were just mostly naked women.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Dancing and waving at people. They came in and one
of them winked at me, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
I hope she had a fine night, me too. We
did not.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
I hope she got paid more than we're getting paid.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
There's almost no way not FASSI, because I have asked
a couple of different service industry people, including Uber drivers, tonight,
how are the tips, and everyone said, Doug shit, yeah,
nobody's been happy with the tips.
Speaker 4 (04:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
And it took us quite a while to actually get
to this place because of all the different security checkpoints
and roadblocks and just the absolute chaotic, unhinged amount of
out of town cops.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
And this is not just the R and C. If
you've never been to a political convention, you will be
in whatever city this year. It's the RNC is in Milwaukee,
and the DNC is going to be in Chicago. But
whatever city it's in, you will run into LAPD cops,
Dallas cops, like every cops from every part of the country,
in addition to secret Service, FBI, Homeland security investigations, like all, like,
(04:41):
all of the kinds of cops are here, correct.
Speaker 6 (04:44):
The most interesting kind of cop that I've seen a
great a great number of is US Capitol police cops,
A lot of Capitol police here, which is just a
little bit funny considering what happened, like, uh.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
This crowd assaulted Capitol police officer.
Speaker 6 (05:00):
It's kind of an odd dynamic because you have like
these Capitol police here, you know, priding security essentially and
you know, protecting attendees to some degree. Well, there's you know,
a decent chance that many of them were just engaged
in combat with many of these same people where there
was casualties on both sides, which is just a kind
of an odd dynamic that you don't really see very often.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Yeah, honestly, again, it's the vibes have still been pretty
much chill for an event like this. It has not
been heightened in terms of like levels of anger. We
did see as soon as we arrived at the airport,
literally the second we got to baggage, there was a
guy wearing a shirt with the picture of Trump with
(05:41):
a bloody ear right after he was shot on it.
He clearly made it last night himself.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
Yeah, and it said the iron don.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
The iron down. But that was kind of it in
terms of maybe, you know, it's going to take a
little longer for there to be more shooting merch out there.
But I do. But but more than that, I just
didn't hear a lot of Like we had down, we
got some food and some drinks. When were at this
big party, We sat down with these two ladies who
were delegates from Texas, older women, one was clearly in
(06:09):
her eighties, one looked like she was more in her sixties.
Talked with them for quite a while, and they were
very far right, very strong views on religious conservatism, very
anti trans the older lady that I talked to. None
of them said a single word about Trump getting shot.
It absolutely did not come up, which I was kind
of surprised about.
Speaker 6 (06:28):
And I got here a little bit earlier than Robert
and Sophie, and I was hanging out with some of
the delegates from Idaho and North Dakota, and similarly, no
one was talking about that. Yeah it was, it was
just not mentioned. It was on Fox News in the background. Yeah,
you could see on the TV every building. Yeah, it's
constantly playing. But nobody in person seems to be thinking
(06:48):
about it or like discussing it as like as like
a thing. And possibly it's just because they've assumed that
Trump is just always under this kind of attack, right right,
like the most attacked man. Right, This isn't even like
a big deal for them. This is just like realizing
what they've already built up in their head, right.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Yeah, So I think that that could maybe just be
a factor.
Speaker 6 (07:06):
This isn't like as impactful for them because like you know,
of course, like he's he's he's obviously being treated so unfairly.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
I think there's a lot of speriment in that. The
only other thing I could think of maybe would be
that just it hasn't sunk in yet because it's so
big and so recent and everyone coming to this probably
like us, was just crazy busy packing and like getting
their lives in order for this. Sure, but I think
you're probably onto something with that.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Yeah, I mean it's not a small thing. I mean
the the people that we talked to, one of them
was a delegate for the state of Texas, and they
said they had to travel all the way. They their
hotels in Madison. Oh, so they have to commute back
and forth from Madison to Milwaukee to come to this event.
Speaker 5 (07:47):
You know.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Yeah, that is that is that is a long time.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Yeah, speaking of ugh, you know what doesn't make me
go ugh?
Speaker 1 (07:55):
These products and services, Yes.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
We are sponsored first off by Woodman's, the grocery store
that won't sell you a hard liquor past midnight. Woodman's.
Everyone lied to you about Wisconsin being proper alcoholics.
Speaker 7 (08:19):
And we're back. And I have to say that the today,
the scariest part of our day.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Was going to this Woodman's grocery store, which is opened
twenty four hours, seven days a week.
Speaker 6 (08:32):
It was not walking into a crowd of ten thousand Republicans.
It was, in fact, walking into Woodman's at midnight was
astronomically more frightening on like existential levels.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
It's like one of these like massive, massive, like Walmart style,
but like really big Walmart style stores. They had a
whole isle of Maraschino cherries.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
A Maraschino cherry isle.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
There were a shocking number.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
There was a fried onion isle.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
There were a shocking number of like four to seven
year old children leaving the stores.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Walking freely in and out.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
It was leaving this just so going somewhere, but it
was that there was.
Speaker 6 (09:11):
There was twenty five numerical aisles plus a full like
alphabetical aisle.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
There were so many asles they had to switch from numbers.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
They would not sell us beers.
Speaker 6 (09:21):
And they would not have sid A credit cards either.
Fascinating stuff.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Anyways, you Wisconsinites think you people are alcoholics. I have
gone there's there's nowhere that won't sell me liquor in
fucking Los Angeles. You know that's a drinking city. God
damn it, God damn it.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Garrison what else?
Speaker 6 (09:37):
Well, and there was also a security guy roaming inside
woman's do you know where? There was also security oh
everywhere else, literally the entire city of Milwaukee right.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Now, on roofs, in the street, on bikes, on boats.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
We knew.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
But well, I honestly, this is not abnormal. I know.
I did not notice anything that I didn't recall from
previous convention. It did not seem I think it just
might be because there's so many there can't be more cops,
Like they could not have had more cops. I'm sure
people are more alert. I'm sure, particularly the rooftops sniper
(10:11):
teams are under the gun right now. But I didn't
notice anything more intense than usual.
Speaker 6 (10:17):
Well, and we were talking with some other people from
out of town who we were just getting rides with,
and like the amount of the amount of barricades and
blockades that have been put up over the course of
a Sunday, like.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
It changes constantly.
Speaker 6 (10:32):
It's constantly changing which roads are blockaded. Like like earlier today
people could commute downtown.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
That might feel a little different, fairly easier.
Speaker 6 (10:39):
And progressively throughout the day that became much much harder,
to the point where now downtown is almost like you
just you just can't drive like that are like most
of downtown is just literally blocked off by the type
of fence that was developed in Portland back in twenty twenty,
and that is covering almost all of Milwaukee's downtown right now.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
The fence is familiar from previous conventions. I don't remember
the moving blockades of streets that that actually might be.
If it's not, maybe if it happened the last convention,
I didn't recall it.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Were there any at this party? Were there any booths
or things that you saw that surprised.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Your Well, there was the fifteen giveaway They're sure was
Daniel Defense, that the US Concealed Carry Association.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
A little bit of poor taste, one might say, you know.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
What, in a way, because Daniel Defense is number one,
is the company that made the air fifteen that the
Evaldi shooter used. If you don't know guns, the Daniel
Defense is most famous to people who aren't gun people,
for it was the company that made the gun that
the Uvaldi shooter used. In general, they are like a
middle high end ar company. They're not like the very
(11:46):
nicest on the market, but they're not cheap. They're expensive guns.
They're pretty well made, and they have made direct kind
of buy in and inroads with a lot of right
wing culture war gun figures, like they have outreached more
or two like fascist types than most because most big
gun you go to, like SIGs Hour, sig Hour is
(12:07):
not going to sponsor a Nazi type adjacent person or
a Christian nationalist gun type person because they they do
big contracts, right, like Daniel Defense has has gone out
on a limb with some like real assholes.
Speaker 6 (12:21):
It's weird because they didn't used to be like that
as well. Like even like five years ago, Daniel Defense
was was typically like one of the more apolitical not
a political but like very like less partisan gun companies.
I remember when we were first talking about about like
different gun brands back in like twenty twenty, it was
definitely it was definitely different and they made some small
shifts in the past few years.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Yeah, it may just have been that just everything was
a little bit less politicized than in that space. I
don't I don't know if I don't know enough about
the company in the back end, but it I'm not
surprised that they were sponsoring and it you know, the
thing they were sponsoring was the US Concealed Carry Association
both which offers like insurance for people who have concealed
handgun license and the like. But they were doing a
free AR fifteen giveaway, which is definitely, some would say
(13:06):
in bad taste after what happened to the president. To
be honest, no one would have thought about it at all.
I kind of think it's like you are the people
that you are.
Speaker 6 (13:16):
No, you know, I don't think anyone thought twice about
that note whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
And by God, I signed up to win the guns,
so me too, I did not, Ah, Sophie, we could
have had an extra attempt.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
Sorry not sorry.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Was there anything today that you know, surprised you, or
like a feeling you had that was like unexpected or
anything like that.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Not.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
I had a long conversation with the older lady who
was a delegate from Texas. We talked about because she
she first kind of wanted to know is press. She
asked like, basically, are you liars? And in a nice
old lady way, right.
Speaker 4 (13:54):
Yes, Yes, that's that's the we basically had that.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
We had the same conversation.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
You know where I come from. You know, there's truth
and there's lies, and like one is real and one isn't.
I was like, well, you know, I've been in a
lot of situations where different people have different recollections of
the same event, and like, I don't know because I
wasn't there, like who's telling the truth? So you just
kind of try to gather as So we got onto
the subject of religion, and her attitude was that people
(14:22):
should be free to do whatever they want to do,
more or less, but they should have to admit it's bad,
which was interesting as a take. I hadn't really heard
that one before, where she was like, well, you know,
my husband likes to do stuff that's not godly, but
he just says it's bad. And I don't think that
gay people should be punished by the law, but I
think that people should have to say that it's bad.
(14:45):
And that was a peculiar stance to run into. You know,
her attitude on Trump was that he was a fundamentally
honest and good man. She didn't think he was perfect.
You know, she knows she's done some shady things because
he's a businessman, right, but she thinks he's basically really good.
It was interesting like hearing her kind of lay some
things out that way her. We talked about trans issues,
(15:09):
and she is fully convinced that little kids are getting
mutilated all the time with transgender surgeris. But I asked, like,
what if a twenty two year old or a twenty
four year old wants to get on hormones and she
or a gender you know, transition surgery. And she was like, well,
an adult should be able to do whatever they want, which
is interesting. That is interesting, but yeah, you know, from
(15:29):
a lady in her eighties or whatnot. Like, we had
a relatively pleasant conversation even though she is clearly someone
who thinks that Christianity should be the law of the
land and the official religion of the state, and everybody
should have to acknowledge that Christians are right. That was interesting.
I'm always fascinated by actually like trying to drill down
(15:50):
with people at these events, what they believe in, how
much of the rhetoric that, like we see online is
specifically transferred over to them, And when you get right
down to it, they often believe in a lot of
like the heart like you know, believe that there are
kids being mutilated or whatever. But also a lot of
the rhetoric you get around, like well we need to
(16:11):
make it I legal to believe other things isn't as
widely shared. Although I don't think that lady would actually
fight against or have any real issue with people so
people people being criminalized for not being Christian, it's just
clearly not her primary focus either.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Besides the mistrust of media and press. The conversation that
Gary and I had with the other woman, she was
giving her version of, you know, her opinion on Rob
Wade in abortion and things like that, and one of
the things she said to us was when she found
(16:49):
out that we lived in Portland at a time, she
was like, what was like living in a city with liberals?
And I think that's funny and yeah, but.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
It's like a different species to them.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Yeah. I played around with saying when people would ask
where I'm from, either Texas or Portland, because both of
those are technically accurate. And every time I said Portland,
you got it like you can got a look. Every
single time you bring up Portland you get a look.
You can definitely tell that it's a shibboleth to these people. No,
its something.
Speaker 6 (17:24):
It's like it's the city of the enemy, like it
is like the representation of ego.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Yeah, and that was really interesting. The other thing I
noticed was just saying you were media, people's attitude changed
a bit. But when we mentioned that we worked for
the radio station that we worked for, I think most
of them have heard, because there's a lot of right
wing talk radio that are technically coworkers of ours. That
changed their attitudes back. And I think like radio, weirdly enough,
(17:50):
it is registered. It's actually it makes total sense.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
It's like a nostalgia thing, right, Yeah, it's.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Not just said it's like radio is right wing media. Sure,
the right owns, particularly talk right. And I think that
when we set when you say radio, when you say media,
they start to think one thing. But when you say radio,
that's not something that people have a negative attitude.
Speaker 6 (18:10):
Not tied like the coastal eleitism of like newspapers, TV, channels. Yes,
speaking of coastal elitism, here's these ads brought to you
by companies probably based on one of the coasts, maybe not,
maybe a Midwest company.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
God, I hope not, because the Midwest. Again, it doesn't
sell liquor at Woodsman's after after midnight.
Speaker 4 (18:30):
Or twenty for our grocery store. Let us have some alcoholic?
Speaker 2 (18:32):
What is wrong with you people?
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Okay, we are back.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
We're back. So at the end of this we are
going to talk about the assassination attempt on former President Trump.
More has happened since Monday, so we're going to catch
you up on what we're thinking about that and kind
of the conclusions that we've droven. We wanted to talk
a little bit about. One last thing are the convention,
which is kind of what we're expecting for the coming days. Tomorrow.
(19:08):
There's an AI panel there is there is is.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
Women in AI, Women and Democracy.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
God Microsoft sponsored by Microsoft, so that's going to be great.
Speaker 6 (19:20):
There's there's a number of other interesting panels. Unfortunately, all
of the Turning Point USA panels are closed to press.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Real bummer. Another another event that.
Speaker 6 (19:28):
Is closer press is about two or three times every
day there is a film screening of a new Ronald
Reagan movie. Start Reagan the Movie, Reagan the Movie starring
Join Voyd, which we've received some free merch for.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
We have these wonderful hats made in totally totally fine military, totally.
Speaker 6 (19:46):
Fine, totally chill. That's going to be showing every single day,
multiple times. Also closed depress. So that's unfortunate. Yeah, there's
rumors and talk that Trump might make an early appearance,
that he might. They might try to secure the nomination
a little bit early, just so he gets extra secrets
detailed because of weird laws.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
Interesting.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Some of the speakers that are supposed to come are
Nikki Hayley, Jadie Vance, Ricky Rubio for me, Ricky.
Speaker 7 (20:17):
That's an NBA player from Spain, Marco Rubio suicide.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
I wish the Ricky Rubio from Spain was the Vice President.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
Spain was coming.
Speaker 7 (20:27):
He's so sorry.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
I guess he doesn't know much about our laws. That said,
neither is jd Vance putting.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Ron's gonna make an appearance.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Good old Pudding Ron.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Interesting to me, but to neither of you had any
name recognition. But Ember Rose is going to speak.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
I don't know that who used to I'm at the
Republican Convention. I got to blend in.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
Yeah, she used to.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
I don't know if she curly does, but she used
to run a thing called slut Walk in l A
and dated Kanye West. Anyways, I guess it makes a
little more sense when you add the Kanye Wes to it.
Speaker 4 (21:01):
But she's speaking.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Kanye y if we were like nothing, nothing about what
she's doing could surprise me now.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
And like all the Trump relatives are speaking besides Ivanka anyways,
because she's not participating this time around for her kids.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Good for her.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Yeah, well that's good, although I don't know if she
doesn't participate enough, she might wind up on a golf
course too.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Dark Anyways, I'm just saying he did it speaking of that,
speaking of death. Oh no, no, sorry, bad transition. Anyways,
It's gonna be great. Guys, super super super optimistic about
everyone's worried about it.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
It's it's it's it's pretty chill. There were some protests,
but the only protests were people that.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Were complaining that the that the GOP was not pro
life enough.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
I talked about this when talking about kind of like
fracture points that are already starting to appear in the GOP.
One of the big ones is Trump removed mandatory national
abortion ban from the Republican platform and there were a
group of people protesting out in front of the R
and say very angry about that.
Speaker 7 (22:13):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Most of the people who I heard a couple of
people talking about them, seem to think they were idiots,
which is interesting. Yeah, had that experience.
Speaker 6 (22:22):
Yeah, only protests we've seen so far as people from
as people farther farther to the right on certain issues.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
People lose, sucked even worse than the people there.
Speaker 6 (22:31):
I guess it won last time, but I will share
that kind of segues into our next discussion involving firearm.
So I had I had a little room mix up
with the with the with another with some like North
Dakota delegate because we have the same last name. So
we got our rooms switched. So I was just sitting
on my laptop working and this this guy you know,
(22:51):
scans in and starts opening the door.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
It's like, oh, sorry, I didn't realize, you know. Blah
blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 6 (22:55):
We figured it out we were both So then we
got in the elevator, both to go down to the
front desk, like get this sorted. And he remarks to
me saying, well, I'm I'm sure glad you weren't packing
when I when I busted in the hotel room, and
I'm like, yeah, yeah, I guess. And it's just it
was just a fascinating little glimpse that like that was
the first thing that came into his mind. Is that
if someone opens your hotel room door, is that.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
You're gonna You're just gonna start blast. You're just gonna
start blasted.
Speaker 6 (23:20):
Like that was that was that was like It's like
immediate thought, is that the good thing, good thing you
didn't have your gun on you, And like there was
just such like an assumption of that's like of like
that it is like the correct thing to do. Yeah,
is if you if you see your door you start
to get opened, you just start firing away. And I
found that to be a really really interesting moment. Speaking
of firearms.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Speaking of firearms, let's talk about that dude who shot
the president and then got barely and also killed that
guy whose Twitter presence wasn't great. Yeah, So I want
to talk about the shooting a little bit because we're
we're now at the point where some stuff has started
to settle out, and we we have. It's at the
point where I think it's very unlikely we are going
(24:01):
to find much more on his social media. It would
have been found by now based on the way these
things work. Could be a manifesto somewhere, could be a
treasure show of info somewhere, but I think something would
have come out about it. So my guess is this
is like the Vegas shooting, if you think back Stephen
Paddock shooting where he killed like seventy something people at
that country music show. Something that's going to be an
(24:23):
enigma to people for a while. And it makes a
lot of sense to me. I know it makes a
lot of sense to you too, Garrison, and I kind
of want to talk about why, because what we do
know about them that is confirmed is some of their
former classmates have talked depressed. Some of those classmates have said,
I don't recall the shooter being particularly political. There are
(24:44):
some people who said, no, he was really conservative. You know,
when we would have like class debates, he would sometimes
be the only guy on like the right wing side
of it, you know, arguing a point or whatever. But
no one seemed to say that he was like weirdly right,
like he was conservative the way that like right wing
ca in a school are, but not in a way
that people are like, oh, that kid's a fucking.
Speaker 6 (25:03):
Notze in a way that makes you just kind of
like antisocial, alienated, because.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Yes, and he was not a very social kid. Some
people say he was bullied. Most kids are. I was,
you know, bullied, So I don't know that he was
exceptionally bullied. He tried out once for the school rifle team,
was not very good. Was so bad they didn't let
him try out again, which is interesting.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
You were hunting geared a class gear.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
It's like it's like real tree camo.
Speaker 6 (25:30):
We're in the Midwest, Like that's not that's not uncommon,
not wildly weird. He's in Pennsylvania, but still in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
It was nothing that really set anyone off. But it
is also like all pretty conservative stuff. And just like
the the gun YouTube channel, who's wearing a Demolition Ranch shirt.
Demolition Ranches probably the largest gun YouTube channel. They are
effectively like a media company, like they're a small media empire,
but they're also you know, they're definitely conservative. Some of
(25:59):
the guys who work at that company you can tell
associate with further right guys. But the videos they go, yeah,
they their videos are relatively free of politics because they're
big enough that that's bad for their business, right.
Speaker 6 (26:14):
Really, they don't indulge in like partisan politics or like
political opinion.
Speaker 7 (26:18):
It is.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
It's not like there are guys like there's a guy
like named Lewis Botkin who does a lot of videos
where he will be doing like literally assassination drills or
he's basically planning to like murder people in their cars.
Speaker 6 (26:28):
Or people who you know, pepper their videos with like
anti trans joke rights, which we're seeing lots more of.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
This is this was not that, And I'm not saying that.
Some people on Twitter when I bring this up get
like angry, being like you're trying to protect the concern. No,
I don't care about that. I'm just saying, this isn't
the shirt you wear if you want to signal that
you're like far right. This is the shirt you wear
if you're kind of into guns but maybe not very
good with them, right, Like it's just kind of a
very hobbyist. Yes, yes, it means about as much as
(26:55):
a guy wearing a John Wick t shirt right like
that that is kind of the level of that that
like of what that implies more or less. So I
guess kind of where we're standing is when we think
about why he did this, and that's the question everybody's
kind of asking. I don't get the feeling that this
(27:17):
guy was motivated by what most people call politics. I
think he was a guy who was certainly more on
the conservative end of things. I don't get the hint
that he thought Trump was a dictator he needed to stop.
I don't get the hint he may have been an
accelerationist and that he thought that this would push some
sort of civil war to completion, and you know that
(27:39):
that would go well for the right. That's not impossible,
but I haven't seen any evidence of that.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
The most interesting that you said to me about it, Robert,
and I think Gary, you also said the same thing
as like he was local, this was local, it was convenient.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
I think the feeling I get is that if Biden
had showed up, he would have taken a shot at Biden.
Speaker 6 (27:59):
I think that the model that we can look at
this is the same model people have used for a
lot of school shootings. There is a degree of like apathetic,
a degree of just like suicidal action, and a degree
of wanting to make some kind of impact, wanting to
do some kind of thing that gains a sense of
like infamy, and school shootings simply just don't do that anymore.
(28:20):
Mass shootings don't really do that anymore.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
You could kill five or six people, ten people at
a grocery store, doesn't move the needle.
Speaker 6 (28:25):
I believe there's a decent chance based on kind of
the very like unpolitical online presence this guy has had,
including from his discord account, there's just simply no evidence
he was like he had any kind of real political motivation,
and instead all of what we've heard about his behavior
and his politics seemed just way more similar to the
profiles of mass shooters. And this I think the Trump
(28:48):
thing was was a convenient was a measure of convenience
having this happened in your hometown. I think it possibly
could be justice likely if Joe Biden was doing a rolly,
he might have tried the same thing. I don't think
this was any more politically targeted than that, because we
simply don't have any evidence to suggest that, and the
few evidence we do have matches up with a lot
of the profiles of these older kind of like more
(29:11):
like Columbine style mass shootings.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
This seems like a Columbiner more than anything Columbine. There's
been well over one hundred different mass shootings inspired by
that mass shooting. And the thing overwhelmingly that that occurs
to me just with what we get about this kid
is I would if I had to describe his politics
as relates to this shooting, It's not he's a right
(29:34):
winger or a left winger. His politics are. He's a
mass shooter.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
Yes, right.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
This is a guy who worships the probably did to
some extent, was obsessed with the aesthetics of mass shootings.
This was a guy who wanted, yeah, to be famous,
and he saw an opportunity to do it in a place.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
Where he wanted books, and this was the only way.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
And he did. He'll be in him, you know, And
I'm what that means because we had a way. We've
had a wave for years of people doing mass shootings
in public places because it used to get you into
the history books. Not anymore, not anymore. This kid is
in the history books now. And I kind of wonder
if this is going to lead to a shift in
(30:18):
the people who have previously been shooting up schools and
grocery stores going Well, if I want to get noticed,
shooting up a school won't do it. But if I
take a shot at insert political candidate, please see good service.
This is theoretical.
Speaker 6 (30:33):
I think this action reminds me of a great deal.
Is like this feels more similar to like the John
Lennon shooting. Honestly, like that is that is I think
a much a much closer model. And I think a
lot of people who are viewing this as political violence
have find this to be a very confusing incident, and
I don't think it's useful to view it the way
that we typically view political violence. I think it's much close.
I think it's it's much more understandable as being a
(30:55):
kin to something like Colin Buying, the Las Vegas shooting,
the John Lennon shooting.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
And when you bring that up to people, it makes
them angry because it's a shooting of Donald Trump, the
most politicized man who maybe has ever lived in the
most politicized election of anyone's lifetimes. And people get really
angry when you suggest this might not have been political
in the way that you want to conceive of politics
because they want it to fit into even if it's
(31:22):
a scary box, a box that makes sense. And there's
something so alien about a guy who this was just
the best way for me to be to die and
be remembered. Is so different.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
And and this guy is younger than I am.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Twenty.
Speaker 6 (31:39):
Trump, for him has been a forever character of politics.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
He was twelve. He's just when the campaigns.
Speaker 6 (31:47):
A political character. This is just someone who represents what
politics is. Yeah, He's not like an abnormal, you know,
fascist threat the same way that people who've studied poblics
for a long time can view Trump's storically being like, oh,
this is like a worrying trend. This is just like
what regular politics.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
Are to people younger than me. Mm hm.
Speaker 6 (32:07):
So I think that's also another interesting way to view it,
when it's like this is just like this is just
who you grew up with as being the guy.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
This is just the guy.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
And you know, we started this talking about why it
seemed like, at least from the conversations we were having,
the assassination attempt was such a mild topic or such
a non topic or the people we met, And I
wonder if some of it is confusion about what it means.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
This isn't this clearly isn't like an antifa guy.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Yeah, it wasn't. It was an antifa guy. It wasn't
you know, a trans person with blue hair, Right, it
wasn't something that fit into their.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
Areage, like probably a lot of people's like grandkids.
Speaker 6 (32:44):
Yeah, right, Like, because most people here are considered considered older.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Wearing a gun T shirt that probably a third of
the people in this have or at least they watched the.
Speaker 6 (32:53):
Channel, right, isn't that is an interesting way to view
it is that the mass shooter looks like a lot
of these people's like grandkids. That that is an interesting aspect.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Yeah, well, anyway, folks, I hope this has been enlightening.
This is just the start of our week. So we're
in for five more days that I'm sure each will
be a worse time than the last. We're all going
to go to sleep now.
Speaker 4 (33:15):
And never go to Woodbans ever again.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
No, but we're going to find a place to get
liquor tomorrow. I promise you that. God, gentlemen and garrisons, it.
Speaker 5 (33:30):
Could happen here as a production of Cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from.
Speaker 4 (33:34):
Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 5 (33:35):
Visit our website cool zonemedia dot com, or check us
out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to podcasts, you can find sources for It could
happen here, Updated monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources.
Speaker 4 (33:47):
Thanks for listening.
Al Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome to it could Happen here, a podcast about things
falling apart. And nothing says things falling apart better than
as many Republicans as possible jammed into as small a
place as possible, With half of the cops in the
United States of America there as well. With me is
Sophie Lichterman and Garrison Davis are on the ground reporting
(00:27):
team for the Republican Convention National.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Wow, it's true.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
We're here.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
We are at the Republican National Convention the day after
former President Donald Trump was nearly struck down by an
assassin's bullet. And uh, yeah, it's been a pretty fun.
Speaker 5 (00:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
The vibes are great. Vibes are great. Actually, that's kind
of the thing we should start with. We I mean,
the president for a president was shot yesterday, and the
shit online has been absolutely un hinged. And I was
expecting I was expecting a lot, but certainly a different
vibe at the thing, which was I think basically the
(01:09):
same vibe it would have had if the president hadn't
been shot. People were by and large not acting different.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Okay, so so set the scene. All we went to
this red, White and Brew kickoff at the party.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Shocking amount of free alcohol.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Shocking amount of free alcohol. How many people do you
think we're there?
Speaker 4 (01:31):
I don't know, thousands, That definitely thousands of people.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Yeah, the not crazy crowded, but it was big.
Speaker 6 (01:36):
The flyers said they were estimating ten to fifty thousand
people over the course of like five six hours.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yeah, that sounds about right. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Trace Adkins performed and sang a song with the lyrics
Gearson Well.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
This was actually a spoken word intro to this.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
This was in the middle of the songs.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
Yes, We're we were.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
If you haven't heard. Trace is a country music star,
and not a good one. I'm not sure if it
was him or if it was Toby Keith that Christofferson said,
did the country music what pante Hoose did to finger fucking.
But that is the kind It's a famous line, Sophie.
He's a terrible musician.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
He just died.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
Anyways. The line that was said was Garrison.
Speaker 6 (02:19):
Well, he had this little preamble about how he was
getting really handsy with like.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
With his nurse. He's sick recently. He has a nurse.
She's taken great care of him and she hasn't gotten
angry that he keeps touching her against her.
Speaker 6 (02:32):
Getting really handsy and she would actually press charges if
they weren't married, which is the punchline.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Ha ha ha haa is that is that And that
was kind of the energy of the entire event.
Speaker 6 (02:46):
So just raping your wife not even a joke, just
like just like a celebratory statement. As we are walking
around a crowd of like, yeah, at least five times.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
We walk into this event and there are like balloon
wavy noodle.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Guys inflatable armflaving to use car dealership. Ever seen that
many of them in one place.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Yeah, And then there's there's dozens there's women on platforms.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
So there's a red carpet and all fifty state flags
are lining it, and periodically in between the flags there
are plints where there are what what we used to
call booth babes, which is if you would go to
like E three, which was the video game convention, there
would be scantly clad women. Car conventions do the same thing.
Cees used to do this too, women wearing very little
(03:35):
who are there to like stand next to products or whatever.
In this case, they were just mostly naked women.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Dancing and waving at people. They came in and one
of them winked at me, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
I hope she had a fine night, me too. We
did not.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
I hope she got paid more than we're getting paid.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
There's almost no way not FASSI, because I have asked
a couple of different service industry people, including Uber drivers, tonight,
how are the tips, and everyone said, Doug shit, yeah,
nobody's been happy with the tips.
Speaker 4 (04:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
And it took us quite a while to actually get
to this place because of all the different security checkpoints
and roadblocks and just the absolute chaotic, unhinged amount of
out of town cops.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
And this is not just the R and C. If
you've never been to a political convention, you will be
in whatever city this year. It's the RNC is in Milwaukee,
and the DNC is going to be in Chicago. But
whatever city it's in, you will run into LAPD cops,
Dallas cops, like every cops from every part of the country,
in addition to secret Service, FBI, Homeland security investigations, like all, like,
(04:41):
all of the kinds of cops are here, correct.
Speaker 6 (04:44):
The most interesting kind of cop that I've seen a
great a great number of is US Capitol police cops,
A lot of Capitol police here, which is just a
little bit funny considering what happened, like, uh.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
This crowd assaulted Capitol police officer.
Speaker 6 (05:00):
It's kind of an odd dynamic because you have like
these Capitol police here, you know, priding security essentially and
you know, protecting attendees to some degree. Well, there's you know,
a decent chance that many of them were just engaged
in combat with many of these same people where there
was casualties on both sides, which is just a kind
of an odd dynamic that you don't really see very often.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Yeah, honestly, again, it's the vibes have still been pretty
much chill for an event like this. It has not
been heightened in terms of like levels of anger. We
did see as soon as we arrived at the airport,
literally the second we got to baggage, there was a
guy wearing a shirt with the picture of Trump with
(05:41):
a bloody ear right after he was shot on it.
He clearly made it last night himself.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
Yeah, and it said the iron don.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
The iron down. But that was kind of it in
terms of maybe, you know, it's going to take a
little longer for there to be more shooting merch out there.
But I do. But but more than that, I just
didn't hear a lot of Like we had down, we
got some food and some drinks. When were at this
big party, We sat down with these two ladies who
were delegates from Texas, older women, one was clearly in
(06:09):
her eighties, one looked like she was more in her sixties.
Talked with them for quite a while, and they were
very far right, very strong views on religious conservatism, very
anti trans the older lady that I talked to. None
of them said a single word about Trump getting shot.
It absolutely did not come up, which I was kind
of surprised about.
Speaker 6 (06:28):
And I got here a little bit earlier than Robert
and Sophie, and I was hanging out with some of
the delegates from Idaho and North Dakota, and similarly, no
one was talking about that. Yeah it was, it was
just not mentioned. It was on Fox News in the background. Yeah,
you could see on the TV every building. Yeah, it's
constantly playing. But nobody in person seems to be thinking
(06:48):
about it or like discussing it as like as like
a thing. And possibly it's just because they've assumed that
Trump is just always under this kind of attack, right right,
like the most attacked man. Right, This isn't even like
a big deal for them. This is just like realizing
what they've already built up in their head, right.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Yeah, So I think that that could maybe just be
a factor.
Speaker 6 (07:06):
This isn't like as impactful for them because like you know,
of course, like he's he's he's obviously being treated so unfairly.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
I think there's a lot of speriment in that. The
only other thing I could think of maybe would be
that just it hasn't sunk in yet because it's so
big and so recent and everyone coming to this probably
like us, was just crazy busy packing and like getting
their lives in order for this. Sure, but I think
you're probably onto something with that.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Yeah, I mean it's not a small thing. I mean
the the people that we talked to, one of them
was a delegate for the state of Texas, and they
said they had to travel all the way. They their
hotels in Madison. Oh, so they have to commute back
and forth from Madison to Milwaukee to come to this event.
Speaker 5 (07:47):
You know.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Yeah, that is that is that is a long time.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Yeah, speaking of ugh, you know what doesn't make me
go ugh?
Speaker 1 (07:55):
These products and services, Yes.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
We are sponsored first off by Woodman's, the grocery store
that won't sell you a hard liquor past midnight. Woodman's.
Everyone lied to you about Wisconsin being proper alcoholics.
Speaker 7 (08:19):
And we're back. And I have to say that the today,
the scariest part of our day.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Was going to this Woodman's grocery store, which is opened
twenty four hours, seven days a week.
Speaker 6 (08:32):
It was not walking into a crowd of ten thousand Republicans.
It was, in fact, walking into Woodman's at midnight was
astronomically more frightening on like existential levels.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
It's like one of these like massive, massive, like Walmart style,
but like really big Walmart style stores. They had a
whole isle of Maraschino cherries.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
A Maraschino cherry isle.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
There were a shocking number.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
There was a fried onion isle.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
There were a shocking number of like four to seven
year old children leaving the stores.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Walking freely in and out.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
It was leaving this just so going somewhere, but it
was that there was.
Speaker 6 (09:11):
There was twenty five numerical aisles plus a full like
alphabetical aisle.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
There were so many asles they had to switch from numbers.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
They would not sell us beers.
Speaker 6 (09:21):
And they would not have sid A credit cards either.
Fascinating stuff.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Anyways, you Wisconsinites think you people are alcoholics. I have
gone there's there's nowhere that won't sell me liquor in
fucking Los Angeles. You know that's a drinking city. God
damn it, God damn it.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Garrison what else?
Speaker 6 (09:37):
Well, and there was also a security guy roaming inside
woman's do you know where? There was also security oh
everywhere else, literally the entire city of Milwaukee right.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Now, on roofs, in the street, on bikes, on boats.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
We knew.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
But well, I honestly, this is not abnormal. I know.
I did not notice anything that I didn't recall from
previous convention. It did not seem I think it just
might be because there's so many there can't be more cops,
Like they could not have had more cops. I'm sure
people are more alert. I'm sure, particularly the rooftops sniper
(10:11):
teams are under the gun right now. But I didn't
notice anything more intense than usual.
Speaker 6 (10:17):
Well, and we were talking with some other people from
out of town who we were just getting rides with,
and like the amount of the amount of barricades and
blockades that have been put up over the course of
a Sunday, like.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
It changes constantly.
Speaker 6 (10:32):
It's constantly changing which roads are blockaded. Like like earlier today
people could commute downtown.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
That might feel a little different, fairly easier.
Speaker 6 (10:39):
And progressively throughout the day that became much much harder,
to the point where now downtown is almost like you
just you just can't drive like that are like most
of downtown is just literally blocked off by the type
of fence that was developed in Portland back in twenty twenty,
and that is covering almost all of Milwaukee's downtown right now.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
The fence is familiar from previous conventions. I don't remember
the moving blockades of streets that that actually might be.
If it's not, maybe if it happened the last convention,
I didn't recall it.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Were there any at this party? Were there any booths
or things that you saw that surprised.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Your Well, there was the fifteen giveaway They're sure was
Daniel Defense, that the US Concealed Carry Association.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
A little bit of poor taste, one might say, you know.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
What, in a way, because Daniel Defense is number one,
is the company that made the air fifteen that the
Evaldi shooter used. If you don't know guns, the Daniel
Defense is most famous to people who aren't gun people,
for it was the company that made the gun that
the Uvaldi shooter used. In general, they are like a
middle high end ar company. They're not like the very
(11:46):
nicest on the market, but they're not cheap. They're expensive guns.
They're pretty well made, and they have made direct kind
of buy in and inroads with a lot of right
wing culture war gun figures, like they have outreached more
or two like fascist types than most because most big
gun you go to, like SIGs Hour, sig Hour is
(12:07):
not going to sponsor a Nazi type adjacent person or
a Christian nationalist gun type person because they they do
big contracts, right, like Daniel Defense has has gone out
on a limb with some like real assholes.
Speaker 6 (12:21):
It's weird because they didn't used to be like that
as well. Like even like five years ago, Daniel Defense
was was typically like one of the more apolitical not
a political but like very like less partisan gun companies.
I remember when we were first talking about about like
different gun brands back in like twenty twenty, it was
definitely it was definitely different and they made some small
shifts in the past few years.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Yeah, it may just have been that just everything was
a little bit less politicized than in that space. I
don't I don't know if I don't know enough about
the company in the back end, but it I'm not
surprised that they were sponsoring and it you know, the
thing they were sponsoring was the US Concealed Carry Association
both which offers like insurance for people who have concealed
handgun license and the like. But they were doing a
free AR fifteen giveaway, which is definitely, some would say
(13:06):
in bad taste after what happened to the president. To
be honest, no one would have thought about it at all.
I kind of think it's like you are the people
that you are.
Speaker 6 (13:16):
No, you know, I don't think anyone thought twice about
that note whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
And by God, I signed up to win the guns,
so me too, I did not, Ah, Sophie, we could
have had an extra attempt.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
Sorry not sorry.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Was there anything today that you know, surprised you, or
like a feeling you had that was like unexpected or
anything like that.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Not.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
I had a long conversation with the older lady who
was a delegate from Texas. We talked about because she
she first kind of wanted to know is press. She
asked like, basically, are you liars? And in a nice
old lady way, right.
Speaker 4 (13:54):
Yes, Yes, that's that's the we basically had that.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
We had the same conversation.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
You know where I come from. You know, there's truth
and there's lies, and like one is real and one isn't.
I was like, well, you know, I've been in a
lot of situations where different people have different recollections of
the same event, and like, I don't know because I
wasn't there, like who's telling the truth? So you just
kind of try to gather as So we got onto
the subject of religion, and her attitude was that people
(14:22):
should be free to do whatever they want to do,
more or less, but they should have to admit it's bad,
which was interesting as a take. I hadn't really heard
that one before, where she was like, well, you know,
my husband likes to do stuff that's not godly, but
he just says it's bad. And I don't think that
gay people should be punished by the law, but I
think that people should have to say that it's bad.
(14:45):
And that was a peculiar stance to run into. You know,
her attitude on Trump was that he was a fundamentally
honest and good man. She didn't think he was perfect.
You know, she knows she's done some shady things because
he's a businessman, right, but she thinks he's basically really good.
It was interesting like hearing her kind of lay some
things out that way her. We talked about trans issues,
(15:09):
and she is fully convinced that little kids are getting
mutilated all the time with transgender surgeris. But I asked, like,
what if a twenty two year old or a twenty
four year old wants to get on hormones and she
or a gender you know, transition surgery. And she was like, well,
an adult should be able to do whatever they want, which
is interesting. That is interesting, but yeah, you know, from
(15:29):
a lady in her eighties or whatnot. Like, we had
a relatively pleasant conversation even though she is clearly someone
who thinks that Christianity should be the law of the
land and the official religion of the state, and everybody
should have to acknowledge that Christians are right. That was interesting.
I'm always fascinated by actually like trying to drill down
(15:50):
with people at these events, what they believe in, how
much of the rhetoric that, like we see online is
specifically transferred over to them, And when you get right
down to it, they often believe in a lot of
like the heart like you know, believe that there are
kids being mutilated or whatever. But also a lot of
the rhetoric you get around, like well we need to
(16:11):
make it I legal to believe other things isn't as
widely shared. Although I don't think that lady would actually
fight against or have any real issue with people so
people people being criminalized for not being Christian, it's just
clearly not her primary focus either.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Besides the mistrust of media and press. The conversation that
Gary and I had with the other woman, she was
giving her version of, you know, her opinion on Rob
Wade in abortion and things like that, and one of
the things she said to us was when she found
(16:49):
out that we lived in Portland at a time, she
was like, what was like living in a city with liberals?
And I think that's funny and yeah, but.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
It's like a different species to them.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Yeah. I played around with saying when people would ask
where I'm from, either Texas or Portland, because both of
those are technically accurate. And every time I said Portland,
you got it like you can got a look. Every
single time you bring up Portland you get a look.
You can definitely tell that it's a shibboleth to these people. No,
its something.
Speaker 6 (17:24):
It's like it's the city of the enemy, like it
is like the representation of ego.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Yeah, and that was really interesting. The other thing I
noticed was just saying you were media, people's attitude changed
a bit. But when we mentioned that we worked for
the radio station that we worked for, I think most
of them have heard, because there's a lot of right
wing talk radio that are technically coworkers of ours. That
changed their attitudes back. And I think like radio, weirdly enough,
(17:50):
it is registered. It's actually it makes total sense.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
It's like a nostalgia thing, right, Yeah, it's.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Not just said it's like radio is right wing media. Sure,
the right owns, particularly talk right. And I think that
when we set when you say radio, when you say media,
they start to think one thing. But when you say radio,
that's not something that people have a negative attitude.
Speaker 6 (18:10):
Not tied like the coastal eleitism of like newspapers, TV, channels. Yes,
speaking of coastal elitism, here's these ads brought to you
by companies probably based on one of the coasts, maybe not,
maybe a Midwest company.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
God, I hope not, because the Midwest. Again, it doesn't
sell liquor at Woodsman's after after midnight.
Speaker 4 (18:30):
Or twenty for our grocery store. Let us have some alcoholic?
Speaker 2 (18:32):
What is wrong with you people?
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Okay, we are back.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
We're back. So at the end of this we are
going to talk about the assassination attempt on former President Trump.
More has happened since Monday, so we're going to catch
you up on what we're thinking about that and kind
of the conclusions that we've droven. We wanted to talk
a little bit about. One last thing are the convention,
which is kind of what we're expecting for the coming days. Tomorrow.
(19:08):
There's an AI panel there is there is is.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
Women in AI, Women and Democracy.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
God Microsoft sponsored by Microsoft, so that's going to be great.
Speaker 6 (19:20):
There's there's a number of other interesting panels. Unfortunately, all
of the Turning Point USA panels are closed to press.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Real bummer. Another another event that.
Speaker 6 (19:28):
Is closer press is about two or three times every
day there is a film screening of a new Ronald
Reagan movie. Start Reagan the Movie, Reagan the Movie starring
Join Voyd, which we've received some free merch for.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
We have these wonderful hats made in totally totally fine military, totally.
Speaker 6 (19:46):
Fine, totally chill. That's going to be showing every single day,
multiple times. Also closed depress. So that's unfortunate. Yeah, there's
rumors and talk that Trump might make an early appearance,
that he might. They might try to secure the nomination
a little bit early, just so he gets extra secrets
detailed because of weird laws.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
Interesting.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Some of the speakers that are supposed to come are
Nikki Hayley, Jadie Vance, Ricky Rubio for me, Ricky.
Speaker 7 (20:17):
That's an NBA player from Spain, Marco Rubio suicide.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
I wish the Ricky Rubio from Spain was the Vice President.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
Spain was coming.
Speaker 7 (20:27):
He's so sorry.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
I guess he doesn't know much about our laws. That said,
neither is jd Vance putting.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Ron's gonna make an appearance.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Good old Pudding Ron.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Interesting to me, but to neither of you had any
name recognition. But Ember Rose is going to speak.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
I don't know that who used to I'm at the
Republican Convention. I got to blend in.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
Yeah, she used to.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
I don't know if she curly does, but she used
to run a thing called slut Walk in l A
and dated Kanye West. Anyways, I guess it makes a
little more sense when you add the Kanye Wes to it.
Speaker 4 (21:01):
But she's speaking.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Kanye y if we were like nothing, nothing about what
she's doing could surprise me now.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
And like all the Trump relatives are speaking besides Ivanka anyways,
because she's not participating this time around for her kids.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Good for her.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Yeah, well that's good, although I don't know if she
doesn't participate enough, she might wind up on a golf
course too.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Dark Anyways, I'm just saying he did it speaking of that,
speaking of death. Oh no, no, sorry, bad transition. Anyways,
It's gonna be great. Guys, super super super optimistic about
everyone's worried about it.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
It's it's it's it's pretty chill. There were some protests,
but the only protests were people that.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Were complaining that the that the GOP was not pro
life enough.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
I talked about this when talking about kind of like
fracture points that are already starting to appear in the GOP.
One of the big ones is Trump removed mandatory national
abortion ban from the Republican platform and there were a
group of people protesting out in front of the R
and say very angry about that.
Speaker 7 (22:13):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Most of the people who I heard a couple of
people talking about them, seem to think they were idiots,
which is interesting. Yeah, had that experience.
Speaker 6 (22:22):
Yeah, only protests we've seen so far as people from
as people farther farther to the right on certain issues.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
People lose, sucked even worse than the people there.
Speaker 6 (22:31):
I guess it won last time, but I will share
that kind of segues into our next discussion involving firearm.
So I had I had a little room mix up
with the with the with another with some like North
Dakota delegate because we have the same last name. So
we got our rooms switched. So I was just sitting
on my laptop working and this this guy you know,
(22:51):
scans in and starts opening the door.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
It's like, oh, sorry, I didn't realize, you know. Blah
blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 6 (22:55):
We figured it out we were both So then we
got in the elevator, both to go down to the
front desk, like get this sorted. And he remarks to
me saying, well, I'm I'm sure glad you weren't packing
when I when I busted in the hotel room, and
I'm like, yeah, yeah, I guess. And it's just it
was just a fascinating little glimpse that like that was
the first thing that came into his mind. Is that
if someone opens your hotel room door, is that.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
You're gonna You're just gonna start blast. You're just gonna
start blasted.
Speaker 6 (23:20):
Like that was that was that was like It's like
immediate thought, is that the good thing, good thing you
didn't have your gun on you, And like there was
just such like an assumption of that's like of like
that it is like the correct thing to do. Yeah,
is if you if you see your door you start
to get opened, you just start firing away. And I
found that to be a really really interesting moment. Speaking
of firearms.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Speaking of firearms, let's talk about that dude who shot
the president and then got barely and also killed that
guy whose Twitter presence wasn't great. Yeah, So I want
to talk about the shooting a little bit because we're
we're now at the point where some stuff has started
to settle out, and we we have. It's at the
point where I think it's very unlikely we are going
(24:01):
to find much more on his social media. It would
have been found by now based on the way these
things work. Could be a manifesto somewhere, could be a
treasure show of info somewhere, but I think something would
have come out about it. So my guess is this
is like the Vegas shooting, if you think back Stephen
Paddock shooting where he killed like seventy something people at
that country music show. Something that's going to be an
(24:23):
enigma to people for a while. And it makes a
lot of sense to me. I know it makes a
lot of sense to you too, Garrison, and I kind
of want to talk about why, because what we do
know about them that is confirmed is some of their
former classmates have talked depressed. Some of those classmates have said,
I don't recall the shooter being particularly political. There are
(24:44):
some people who said, no, he was really conservative. You know,
when we would have like class debates, he would sometimes
be the only guy on like the right wing side
of it, you know, arguing a point or whatever. But
no one seemed to say that he was like weirdly right,
like he was conservative the way that like right wing
ca in a school are, but not in a way
that people are like, oh, that kid's a fucking.
Speaker 6 (25:03):
Notze in a way that makes you just kind of
like antisocial, alienated, because.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Yes, and he was not a very social kid. Some
people say he was bullied. Most kids are. I was,
you know, bullied, So I don't know that he was
exceptionally bullied. He tried out once for the school rifle team,
was not very good. Was so bad they didn't let
him try out again, which is interesting.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
You were hunting geared a class gear.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
It's like it's like real tree camo.
Speaker 6 (25:30):
We're in the Midwest, Like that's not that's not uncommon,
not wildly weird. He's in Pennsylvania, but still in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
It was nothing that really set anyone off. But it
is also like all pretty conservative stuff. And just like
the the gun YouTube channel, who's wearing a Demolition Ranch shirt.
Demolition Ranches probably the largest gun YouTube channel. They are
effectively like a media company, like they're a small media empire,
but they're also you know, they're definitely conservative. Some of
(25:59):
the guys who work at that company you can tell
associate with further right guys. But the videos they go, yeah,
they their videos are relatively free of politics because they're
big enough that that's bad for their business, right.
Speaker 6 (26:14):
Really, they don't indulge in like partisan politics or like
political opinion.
Speaker 7 (26:18):
It is.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
It's not like there are guys like there's a guy
like named Lewis Botkin who does a lot of videos
where he will be doing like literally assassination drills or
he's basically planning to like murder people in their cars.
Speaker 6 (26:28):
Or people who you know, pepper their videos with like
anti trans joke rights, which we're seeing lots more of.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
This is this was not that, And I'm not saying that.
Some people on Twitter when I bring this up get
like angry, being like you're trying to protect the concern. No,
I don't care about that. I'm just saying, this isn't
the shirt you wear if you want to signal that
you're like far right. This is the shirt you wear
if you're kind of into guns but maybe not very
good with them, right, Like it's just kind of a
very hobbyist. Yes, yes, it means about as much as
(26:55):
a guy wearing a John Wick t shirt right like
that that is kind of the level of that that
like of what that implies more or less. So I
guess kind of where we're standing is when we think
about why he did this, and that's the question everybody's
kind of asking. I don't get the feeling that this
(27:17):
guy was motivated by what most people call politics. I
think he was a guy who was certainly more on
the conservative end of things. I don't get the hint
that he thought Trump was a dictator he needed to stop.
I don't get the hint he may have been an
accelerationist and that he thought that this would push some
sort of civil war to completion, and you know that
(27:39):
that would go well for the right. That's not impossible,
but I haven't seen any evidence of that.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
The most interesting that you said to me about it, Robert,
and I think Gary, you also said the same thing
as like he was local, this was local, it was convenient.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
I think the feeling I get is that if Biden
had showed up, he would have taken a shot at Biden.
Speaker 6 (27:59):
I think that the model that we can look at
this is the same model people have used for a
lot of school shootings. There is a degree of like apathetic,
a degree of just like suicidal action, and a degree
of wanting to make some kind of impact, wanting to
do some kind of thing that gains a sense of
like infamy, and school shootings simply just don't do that anymore.
(28:20):
Mass shootings don't really do that anymore.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
You could kill five or six people, ten people at
a grocery store, doesn't move the needle.
Speaker 6 (28:25):
I believe there's a decent chance based on kind of
the very like unpolitical online presence this guy has had,
including from his discord account, there's just simply no evidence
he was like he had any kind of real political motivation,
and instead all of what we've heard about his behavior
and his politics seemed just way more similar to the
profiles of mass shooters. And this I think the Trump
(28:48):
thing was was a convenient was a measure of convenience
having this happened in your hometown. I think it possibly
could be justice likely if Joe Biden was doing a rolly,
he might have tried the same thing. I don't think
this was any more politically targeted than that, because we
simply don't have any evidence to suggest that, and the
few evidence we do have matches up with a lot
of the profiles of these older kind of like more
(29:11):
like Columbine style mass shootings.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
This seems like a Columbiner more than anything Columbine. There's
been well over one hundred different mass shootings inspired by
that mass shooting. And the thing overwhelmingly that that occurs
to me just with what we get about this kid
is I would if I had to describe his politics
as relates to this shooting, It's not he's a right
(29:34):
winger or a left winger. His politics are. He's a
mass shooter.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
Yes, right.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
This is a guy who worships the probably did to
some extent, was obsessed with the aesthetics of mass shootings.
This was a guy who wanted, yeah, to be famous,
and he saw an opportunity to do it in a place.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
Where he wanted books, and this was the only way.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
And he did. He'll be in him, you know, And
I'm what that means because we had a way. We've
had a wave for years of people doing mass shootings
in public places because it used to get you into
the history books. Not anymore, not anymore. This kid is
in the history books now. And I kind of wonder
if this is going to lead to a shift in
(30:18):
the people who have previously been shooting up schools and
grocery stores going Well, if I want to get noticed,
shooting up a school won't do it. But if I
take a shot at insert political candidate, please see good service.
This is theoretical.
Speaker 6 (30:33):
I think this action reminds me of a great deal.
Is like this feels more similar to like the John
Lennon shooting. Honestly, like that is that is I think
a much a much closer model. And I think a
lot of people who are viewing this as political violence
have find this to be a very confusing incident, and
I don't think it's useful to view it the way
that we typically view political violence. I think it's much close.
I think it's it's much more understandable as being a
(30:55):
kin to something like Colin Buying, the Las Vegas shooting,
the John Lennon shooting.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
And when you bring that up to people, it makes
them angry because it's a shooting of Donald Trump, the
most politicized man who maybe has ever lived in the
most politicized election of anyone's lifetimes. And people get really
angry when you suggest this might not have been political
in the way that you want to conceive of politics
because they want it to fit into even if it's
(31:22):
a scary box, a box that makes sense. And there's
something so alien about a guy who this was just
the best way for me to be to die and
be remembered. Is so different.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
And and this guy is younger than I am.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Twenty.
Speaker 6 (31:39):
Trump, for him has been a forever character of politics.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
He was twelve. He's just when the campaigns.
Speaker 6 (31:47):
A political character. This is just someone who represents what
politics is. Yeah, He's not like an abnormal, you know,
fascist threat the same way that people who've studied poblics
for a long time can view Trump's storically being like, oh,
this is like a worrying trend. This is just like
what regular politics.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
Are to people younger than me. Mm hm.
Speaker 6 (32:07):
So I think that's also another interesting way to view it,
when it's like this is just like this is just
who you grew up with as being the guy.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
This is just the guy.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
And you know, we started this talking about why it
seemed like, at least from the conversations we were having,
the assassination attempt was such a mild topic or such
a non topic or the people we met, And I
wonder if some of it is confusion about what it means.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
This isn't this clearly isn't like an antifa guy.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Yeah, it wasn't. It was an antifa guy. It wasn't
you know, a trans person with blue hair, Right, it
wasn't something that fit into their.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
Areage, like probably a lot of people's like grandkids.
Speaker 6 (32:44):
Yeah, right, Like, because most people here are considered considered older.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Wearing a gun T shirt that probably a third of
the people in this have or at least they watched the.
Speaker 6 (32:53):
Channel, right, isn't that is an interesting way to view
it is that the mass shooter looks like a lot
of these people's like grandkids. That that is an interesting aspect.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Yeah, well, anyway, folks, I hope this has been enlightening.
This is just the start of our week. So we're
in for five more days that I'm sure each will
be a worse time than the last. We're all going
to go to sleep now.
Speaker 4 (33:15):
And never go to Woodbans ever again.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
No, but we're going to find a place to get
liquor tomorrow. I promise you that. God, gentlemen and garrisons, it.
Speaker 5 (33:30):
Could happen here as a production of Cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from.
Speaker 4 (33:34):
Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 5 (33:35):
Visit our website cool zonemedia dot com, or check us
out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to podcasts, you can find sources for It could
happen here, Updated monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources.
Speaker 4 (33:47):
Thanks for listening.
It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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