The COMMENTARY podcast debates the downstream political relevance of what increasingly looks to be a summer of urban unrest fueled by protests against the conduct of police toward racial minorities. Will Donald Trump’s efforts to frame himself as the champion of law and order reactivate his 2016 coalition? Or will these events simply compound a general sense of dissatisfaction with the status quo and, thus, the incumbent president?
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Welcome to the Commentary Magazine Daily podcast today is Friday. May twenty nine twenty twenty, I'm John Pub Words the editor of commentary, the seventy five year old, monthly of intellectual analysis, political probity and cultural, gruesome from a conservative perspective as
ways to invite you to join us at commentary magazine dot com, where we give you a few free, reeds and ask you to
subscribe. Our June issue is up with all kinds of wonderful stuff with the articles by
associate editor door Rossman High Noah, I got
and see a writer Christine rose and high Christine again, all shepherded into
rent by senior editor, a green waldheim hygiene.
Ah, so we have the in edifying sickening horrifying spectacle of Minneapolis on fire or the second or third straight married and read
like the movie real, Bravo or something like that: a a police station overrun and that the cops forced to flee the
lay station. Where rumor has it the four cops who were involved in the horrible killing of George Floyd were stationed.
So my there are various things talk about, including the larger political ramifications of this, but maybe we shouldn't go to the political ramifications. First,
Ah, so where shall we go first? Political ramifications? Ok, so here are the political ramifications, as I see them
Donald Trump already started last night.
Balding himself in this matter actually two days ago, tweeted his condolences.
So the Floyd family and talked about horrible. The
The video was which I think we can all agree on. But then last
I said the far left, Dub liberal mayor of many
where is weak?
We are
you know we're ready to involve the military
when, if there's looting, we start shooting, which, as it turns out, is a phrase.
Used in nineteen sixty eight by George Wallace, the governor of Alabama, who ran.
As the most successful third party candidate in
the terms, at least in terms of the electoral colleges in american history in nineteen sixty eight or I have already seen this applied this too, like a Florida official. No, apparently it was a in nineteen. Sixty seven
a mayor in Florida. Cellular looting starts, we start shooting and then Wallace
dead, some version of it in nineteen sixty eight sore are supposed to be intuitively aware of that's like this
that that phrase should obviously have a vote to this, and we should all be aware of the historical remedy Eurostar cometh someone mentioned. It is a little like America first in that sense, which is that I think that you know Trump when Trump started talking about America first, I doubt that he understood the historical ramifications of the phrase: America First and Charles Lindbergh,
isolationism out that that would have kept us out of world WAR two and kept us from you know to feeding the defeat
Hitler in the Nazis and all of that.
But it is interesting when these freight, when the provenance of these phrases emerges
I know a lot about nineteen sixty eight. This was something I did not really. No,
about any case. The whole point of trying to make is that the political issue that
we're arises rises from this and whites. Interesting to evoke Wallis is that Wallace and Nixon in nineteen sixty eight represented the body of opinion. That
came to be known in some as the silent majority Wallace, obviously, segregationist Nixon somewhat liberal Republican, but the idea
is that the Democratic Party sided
was seen to side or some aspect of their. What was seen to side with the
disorder and the decay and the rioting and the looting and stuff that was the hallmark of nineteen sixty eight the summer of night after the assassination of my
was a king Jr and the assassination Bobby Kennedy, and then the riots in Grand park at the democratic convention in September of nineteen sixty eight and that there is
reason to believe that Nixon was pushed over the top in nineteen sixty eight by his, not
being a wind in any way shape or form with the disorder represented by the rioting and the looting
Clearly one of the things
but election years is that there are x factor events and how the political parties and the players respond to them
They have an enormous effect on the election
that no one could ever foresee like if this is only the beginning and not all of us,
of a summer of confrontations,
the notion that we can extrapolate from the virus in the pandemic and the economic decay and trumps
I'm popularity and all that to see where this election is going a.
Country and fire with cities on fire. That is some that has an entirely different. How are you
that's just another matter and AIDS and other it's another thing that no one
I've seen coming like the pandemic. That just makes this more bore unprecedented election. Well, there s just just a little
our recent history mean part of what's been trump
inflammatory rhetoric on twitter, which we all know is he is extremely
Assistant about always making a bad situation worse by by going on twitter late at night in saying I read,
things I do. I think it's important, though, to know
that, certainly not the first president to call rioting people thugs Obama did that in twenty fifteen
during the Baltimore Riots he said dinner. This is thuggish behaviour
its criminal behaviour? He denounced it. In fact, he got some push back for
the party for being that firm stating that firmly. But I do
The context matters right in that same Whitehouse Prescott
Obama was also quite eloquent about police brutality and about some of the issues with law enforcement in and the need for below.
Investigation, better training- and he has a lot of credibility when he says that when Trump says it I think it's it is appropriate to ask. Is there a certain based
his supporters that to which you stirrings of red,
when he says that word
is there. Some you know is the are the racial.
We're tones of his use. That word different than when say, for example, present Obama uses it, but I do think it is important to note that it's not. This is not unprecedented. For a president.
The office to call violent right,
prison looters thugs, this has happened before. But I do I agree. John. I think that the main world
looking now at the different protests and other cities and an how local
tools respond to that end and whether or not they ignore trumps kind of over heated rhetoric and threats.
About the national guard. Will matter it certainly gonna matter to voters, I mean people. People are also really frustrated. Ve been cooped up in
places for many months, and it's not a surprise. These conflagrations are going from zero to sixty rather quickly
What are you said in an arm in arm backstage chat or something like that? The people? You know it it's time for a new subject like we all we can to talk about the the
endemic for three months and that you know we now have a new subject in both the media and the country may be ready aside
from the horror of the killing of George Floyd and the horror of seeing Lutes Elliot, looting at least end and fires, and cops on the run and all that at least we get to talk about something else, I'm in a hurry to put it in the terms that low, but eighty, eight, that is an interesting absorbed,
not absolutely what's occurring here and the press has filtered every event through the prism of the pandemic. For last several weeks,
You have not seen any of that here. We were seeing giant crowds now gather, performing problem, no protests,
and there's been no collective, shaming of their of their gatherings, which a suggest there sympathetic to the protests which they absolutely are as we are, and now that there was this arrest of a scene camera.
Grew last night, which was really kind agreed just been nevertheless has has deputized every member of the present and give them emotional investment. In this thing.
So you're going to see a lot more of that weathered them
cannabis, helps the president the light I'm pretty skeptical towards it's, not one thousand nine hundred and sixty eight comparisons. One thousand nine hundred and sixty eight are deeply flawed
We were there. Five preceding years of urban violence have that election being there that the back door,
the Vietnam WAR in the negotiation, the Vietnam WAR and then there's the incumbent simply dropping out of the race Rep made it a very different election year, and I don't think this is applicable here.
While it is true that the press is much less sympathetic towards the notion that more voters than not will be of little will not look favourably on these demonstrations will will be apprehended about them the prospect of these demonstrations and will want to see them some
it would perhaps even forcefully and more voters I think, are on that site. Then not the notion that this helps the president is is hard for me to believe, because air he will make that case in the worst possible way and
we ve seen over the course of the pandemic, is the reserve of goodwill in this country towards the president is very, very low? Ok
he added. Allow me to make the case. He had a very shallow bounce from the rally round the flight fact during the pandemic. It was not long lived and the fundamental bargain, but the term presidency was that you would have to accept the chaos, the unconventional communication strategies and you would get good results as a result of that of that bargain.
Bargain has been betrayed with. The president now has to do is say, I'm the last thing standing between you and the mob, which could be a compelling argument if he could make the case well, but he cannot, with his opponents, have to do is now just gesture around them.
And say you want more this and that's a much easier case to make ok, but the waivers could help from this. This, I think, is also responds to your. Your last point is that if it depends on the degree to which the Democrats generally embrace
the worst face of the protest if they rather arms, around
ah ballooning or excuse it, and that could be in fact, in the exacerbated by trumps escalation. In other words, Trump can get, can get the other side so crazy that they ve that they find themselves throwing their arms around the worst elements of this thing. In response that will help trump a good deal. Okay, so here's here's the way, I would think to frame it what's crucial from here through the summer or two events or two possible. One is
does this escalate in part because of the boredom that we talked about in part because of the nature of these sorts of things
they roll and on each other and the fact that a lot of people are unemployed, Frank,
I mean I I you know I don't want to you know like
we'll make make light of of that are like a sign silly, but people are
occupied, not only because there is nothing to do because there are no more.
You see in the restaurants and all that, but there also unoccupied cause they're out of work,
I'm nervous about being at work and new serve at all that together? So you,
could see a kind of them. You know, unless
reopening as it is fast and they ve shaped. Recovery is dramatic. The nuts
or of people who have nothing to do and therefore might just wanna go out at night and joined the protests could be very high
so there there's that, and then there is this question of the response not only of the protesters but of the liberal elite, and that represents not only the media and you know, serve conventional opinion is,
suppressed by pundits and all of that, but also the politicians of the liberal left, including Joe Biden and
threading, the needle of expressing sympathy for the.
The feeling that people have that this was such a big, as was an egregious act of
Official misconduct with the
here, that no responsible political figure believes that it's ok,
Lou Target and set housing and an end storm a police station, and that a couple
bad apples in the Minneapolis Police Department does do not give
permission to go and jump on police
Cars in LOS Angeles, that's a hard needle thread, but Biden has the threat it and if you can't threat it well, whatever trump
Does he will also be given material by Biden? And this idea remember what what is the narrative about two thousand and sixteen people don't know if it's real or it's not real
the narrative is Trump got her white, who didn't edge, finish high school,
to vote for him in larger numbers, and they had voted in decades in three opera, midwestern, rust belt states right or right, Pennsylvania, Michigan Wisconsin.
Well, if you have, I had to put it this way, but if you have no african american rioters in central cities,
Then you have these. You know not. You know. High school
not necessarily even having finished high school rural white people. Looking at this
Why wouldn't that say? I made the right choice: voting for trembling twice exactly the turn out in twenty twenty, I mean you in my opinion, the reciprocal thinker, desperate you're you're, discounting the reciprocal affect more than deserves because
Part of that story that you're telling the twenty sixteen at least in Michigan Wisconsin, was that african american voters didn't turn out Jenny. The numbers that were commensurate with the victories that Barack Obama had in two thousand and eight and two thousand and twelve
and I'll trumps behaviour has the capacity to energize as many more and the other side of the ILO, as he has the ability to passively energize his own supporters, because he's not active
doing so right, it is really a mere will Europe we're talking acres in your suggestion, because he can't say what you're saying outright it's to sort it in fact that the racial eight nature of this
actually gonna Ikey everywhere, were ok, so you better capacity to energize african american voters around something like this, when the perception that they are not well seen too by the White House is something that we can't this can't either. No. We can't, but I'm sorry
it it. It represents a cliche to say and not now.
That's your representing cliche, but this notion that there,
a common emotion between those who go out and riot and loot and research
on citizens who go and vote in November. You could have the opposite effect, which is a debate at affected depresses and moralizes. The African America
voting base by living through a summer like this, in which their own neighborhoods or trashed their own businesses are destroyed and eluded.
And the set an end they and they descend into a kind of despair that says there is no escaping
for the terrible conditions that we live under, what noted outing is a I would you say: voting is an optimistic thing to do
I mean people do their angry. There is now, but you have to believe that your vote now
tourism. That change can happen, but more than that voting as a buy into the system itself, and I think you're right that you can see-
a large number of people. I think, in fact this is what the
the more violent aspects of the rioting, not maybe not asserted the looting, but they destroying at the destruction of a police station, for example,
the symptom of a problem of belief that the system actually isn't only not working and failing you but actively hostile to you and your committee, and I think I mean, did it
the thing will be interesting to see with Biden. Isn't he used to be by today's progressive left standards? He was a tough on crime. Democrat right, I mean he's
the crime bill. His his legislative history is not where the Democratic Party is right, now,
so here. You know when you on Omar and Keith Ellison are out there saying you know you can't go for it burnt, burnt everything to the ground abundance. Gonna have to
a more moderate position, but that position isn't where the Democratic Party, the
Mainstreaming anymore so either. I really do think it'll be a huge challenge for him and he doesn't have the kind of credibility.
And skill of an Obama to help Europe to help him.
That message mean Obama was able to make a pretty reasonable,
Oh,
middle of the road message about both. You know, tough
criminal elements, but also support for the people who protests and look. We mean that if you look at the footage of the protesters
I know it's a mixed race crowd protesting. That's right! If you look at the looters there there are people of other is not just African America deluding, but the way
the media is gonna
it has an incentive to make this a lot more about race is also going to be a challenge both for an American
trying to absorb what all this means end for Joe Biden as it goes forward it can. I tell you a story about nineteen. Sixty eight MA am I'm sorry, but I'm gonna forget it
this is from New York, so when
You get social disorder as a kind of going concern. Weird things happen, weird peculiar consequences. So there was a thing in New York in the summer of nineteen sixty eight, where people would set fires, particularly the neighbourhood, a Bush with Brooklyn and call the fire department, not the police department, Fire Department, the fire department would arrive to put out the fire.
And people would attack them physically. Okay, now this wasn't, there were cellphone cameras HO.
Their word even reporters on the scene when stuff like this happen, you can read about this and then come out commandos Super Book, the ungovernable city,
Now there are cellphone cameras. Now everything is recorded. Now everything will be present. Weird things can happen.
And the mood the national mood about what this is can shift can turn on a dime. It's like Reginald Denny in during the
in the post, Rodney King Riots, the the guy in the truck at
parents in Normandy in was being pulled from his truck and beaten almost to death for the crime of driving being a white guy driving through a black neighbourhood. That stuff has consequences that are in some ways when you were when you get a moment that crystallizes disorder.
An answer, Neil listing violent disorder that could have enormous consequences, larger consequences than even kind of just mass looting. Rioting,
and if this goes on, those are gonna happen right now. What what you see is you know footage of the you know of the target right, but were you know that guy jumping on top of the cop car but other stuff will happen because you engage this kind of public psychosis, psychotic things happen and people start to get scared and Biden or the Democrats look like they are both either coddling this or that they don't know have a risk.
HANS to it. Even if Trump says all those people should be shot, which is a terrible thing for president to say it will none the less maybe respond.
More readily to them.
National mood. Then you know, then the kind of.
Liberal mealy mouthed? Well, you know really everyone should just get together and we should have a national conversation away bombs,
because I will not read their relation to my point- you can see where the lines are. You visit this sort of rough sketches of it now in, for example, trumps tweet with the use of the word funds right. So there are people out there who wore them rather than say and then hear the complaint about.
Say what what are you can call people who are setting fires and breaking
making windows thugs.
What what what? What? What? What are they talking about them? You know businesses are being destroyed,
patients are on fire and and entered, and the president is in trouble for calling the thugs. What we're gonna madness is that and that that kind of sentiment then has its own trajectory.
You know I understand that thug, as became a word. That is either that that that became part of sort of wrapper, popular culture right, bone thugs and harmony and stuff. Like that, the aid
of weapon. Icing of reverse weapon Isaac. The use of the word thug to make it as though it's not ok, to say that people trashing
traffic going a business and stealing tvs and things like that are are not thugs is some. That is exactly where you get this kind of life
anti pc. That's what the silent majority, which I think was the first time that you actually had this notion- that there was a kind of pc culture, a culture that was trying to suppress
or simply didn't understand what the relevant going concerns were of all of a lot of.
People who seem to be voiceless,
so nominally no ones
basis anymore right and we under
damn trompe p yo he got away
working class and use. You know a populist on the right and all that, so we do elite,
who stand this but there's gonna, be a deal theirs
We are conscious and deliberate effort to suppress.
This very line of argument that we are making on this podcast and saying that it is beyond the bounds of proper common, appropriate discussion,
there will be, but the notion that twenty twenty is gonna be a referendum on the definition of the word thugs insane knots heart than a dream of their macro economic. The macro conditions are massive public health crisis, unprecedented economic crisis and chaos in american Urban.
Studies and the notion that the President, who is now double digit underwater and his job approval rating is gonna benefit from those beggars belief. It doesnt, beggar, belief at all. It may Beggar Billy, it does not bear,
We first of all its an unstable situation. You ok,
were the case. Then Trump loses the election and we should. We don't have to talk about this anymore, but you know it is,
not even June yet right June July August September October, it see no five months. Sweden have months till the election a lot
happen, and we know this was gonna happen last week. That is my
Why are we don't know? What's going to happen next week, those employed in part a response to what happened. Last week, things happened this week,
national national emergency arose over a burger confronting a person with a dog. Now that may not have it
fact on the election specifically but
terms of creating a national atmosphere between now
Remember it's not just the pandemic that is going to create the national atmosphere.
As you say, we also don't know how which of the narratives that are already emerging from this. Then
in Minneapolis
in a play out, I mean hands up. Don't shoot still resonates with a lot of people, even though the Obama Justice Departments investigation found that what happened in Ferguson was justifiable, given the behaviour of the assailant and the response of the police officer that
really matter there's a certain group of people who just will deny the actual facts and were also that the third sort of cod
since bubbling, is you know that
liability of the information and the means by which we obtain it over the next few months, both about the election about these rights,
the little spot that that, due to the Executive board of the trunk, just issued with twitter is a tiny little moment in that broader campaign, but disinformation and how Americans get their news and our distrust of the means
media me one of the things one of the first things I saw after the
send about the CNN reporter being arrested with a whole slew of people going at the seams fake. To me, it's like those hurricane reporters who are you pretending to be standing in waist high water, but are actually just crashing it. I mean there's a lot of distrust of the media as an institution as well, so that will factor
I think enormously in terms of how these, how the writing and looting in particular, are perceived a few months from now look one of the one of the things that happened to make. It
a wonderment that Trump won the election in twenty
Sixteen was that, despite the multiplicity of
places and the new multiplicity of voices and american media and empire populous media, and all of that,
dealing with the sorts of things the Trump was saying doing and an end evoking in relation to Hillary Clinton,
were seen as so difficult to discuss without being condemned, condemnatory am finger wagging
and you know school marmots on the part of the mainstream media that date that that that
it, including in the way that we have and thought about it that that the simple fact of the matter- the Trump at this point in twenty sixteen was tied with Hilary in the polls. No
We really believed right. I mean it with. There was this
like well she's, really had you know she a well. You know she was never ten points ahead. She was never more than two or three points ahead,
and, as I said yesterday, I was I was at a session with a very senior member of the Republican Party at the Republican convention, who believe
trumpet lose by ten. Why? Because, no matter what happens, our perceptions are filtered through conventional opinion, even if we try arm hardest. Even if we are ourselves allergic
to conventional opinion. It's very hard to pull yourself out of it, and I'm just gonna say that that is going to be a story line and twenty twenty. If this of the this crisis event in cities does not a bait over
the course of the next week or the liberal media and the general tenor of serious discussions going to be. We need to talk about the police. We need to talk about.
Have you don't have everything gone too far? Has the racial confrontation of its trump they eat up? Things are happening that really shouldn't be happening and the
Voters who are going to decide the election may be looking at this and sang. Look, I'm not of upholsterer calls me. I'm gonna tell
that you now I'm never voting for Joe Biden, because he's gonna he's gonna let these people loose on the country if he wins, but let let let's go. Let's go, let's
let's take a little further. So Amy Club, which are we talked about this a couple weeks ago, aiming club which are the obvious choice right verb, vice president, could choose if she came forth and should senator from a purple state mesh added she's gone righteous, probably dead. Now, because she was the prosecuting Attorney Hennepin County and did not prosecute Chauvelin lick the the cop who killed, who appears to have killed. George Floyd twenty eighteen
violent charges made against him over the previous eighteen years, and he came before her office time and time again and he was never charged at how she recovers from that. Ok, so let's say, she's gone soap was left so whose left to be the female nominee and what are the? What? How? How deep are the precious gonna be unbiased and, in this circumstance, to pick an african american woman, not just in America JET, not just a woman right. So an african american woman, so who is that that's calmly Harris that Stacy Abraham? That's vowed damning things without it.
Workshops? Cops, that's right, so they were cop. So then, where do you go to Stacy Abrams, who wasn't a cop who doesn't it won't have a story so
relax I'll American Harrison, buildings are on the right side of this issue. From the liberal perspective, ok, I'm just saying that what
Interesting is so then you have. I mean these decision,
there's something suddenly a decision were there
seem to be a safe harbour for Biden is now very fraught and
This notion that we already know that Trump has the capacity to do himself immense damage, but Biden is now confronted with a with an x factor of problems here,
difficulties orca complications and we're gonna see how able and nimble he is in his campaign. Is
in relation to them and don't think they don't know it, they do know it, they do no it nowhere.
Has a bearing on his brush now I just really getting lost in a new cycle. That is ain't that for now a new cycle when the forest is visible from space, which is
Once in a century pandemic and an unprecedented economic crisis that we will only begin to experience in October when the benefits run out, I don't think this is just a new cycle. I mean from it. It could be
it probably isn't. I think it's a model must already escape that. I think I think this will this war,
at the very least, have residences that go on through the summer,
and then something all actors in the dynamic of an income and election is a referendum on the last four years of that incumbency and if the incumbency is typified
these conditions, even if they dont get even if the president doesn't
serve the blame for them and doesn't even get the blame for them he's not going to benefit from them. That's the story, the pandemic, no one blames the president for the pandemic they nevertheless or rendering a very negative verdict on the conditions around them. Ok, but you
some have said: they're, not rendering a very negative now
where it before now look at the president's job approval rating other up already get, except that his head to head the head to head. He is still at forty to forty three percent. Remember
when Charlottesville was at its depth. Trump fell to thirty three thirty, four percent approval.
Like there was up, take a look: go ahead, got our sepia, take a look you'll see anyway, he fell into the thirties. That doesn't happen anymore.
So this notion that we know that the it's baked in the cake that the public is going to get out, I mean look, I think, that's more likely than not but
I don't take data suggest that all day suggests that it still winnable election for him, the other possibility.
Consider is in, and we should all be aware of this, given how long the past few months have seemed like it seemed like a year, but still have a few months. Is that a few months,
to a recovery and reopening the goes pretty well where people are actually
to resume some semblance of of their pre pandemic life?
will be an enormous distraction that could in fact draw interest away from any particular controversy. I do think the timing of this event it might
not have been as extreme. Had we not all just been locked out for two and a half
I mean that could be wrong, but I think that there, you know if people are able to to get back to work a little bit in some form, if there
to start thinking about getting their kids back to school. If
at the end of the summer. Maybe one or two day camps in there in their local towns are able to open and get their kids outside playing with other
it's for a small amount of time. That's gonna make
enormous difference in people's sensibility and in their optimism in their sense of hopelessness,
Perhaps so I dont mean I agree with no other this. This could just end up being a sort of new cycle. We look back on two November and go well. That was crazy. Didn't seem so long ago, instead of something
that's gonna to people, try to stay away or go to
let's say one last word: gonna tat was gonna, be a real factor in elections, and it you'd make a much easier case of saying that it was that the nineteen sixty parallel was twenty. Sixteen, because that election had been
aided by several years of very similar events along these lines. We haven't seen anything like this in several years. So wits in other was was the backdrop to twenty fourteen. The riots in Bali
The more I mean, definitely mattered in Maryland, but I don't think a matter around the country. Well, there was a tone of national confrontation that Trump clearly caught lightning in a bottle from and that confrontation wasn't necessarily just the right attacking.
Left. I mean if you think that there wasn't some kind of an application of out our rate a racial.
Cultural war in which trumpet, if you think that Trump benefited from whiteness, but then the question is: why did he benefit from whiteness win,
the when the Republican Party, after twenty twelve started, getting all nervous about how it was too monochromatic and needed to get oh go after immigrants do better with Latinos and
Listen do that do the other thing and trump, of course,
an entirely in the other direction? Well, it's not just that well world
right now everyone in the right, despite what the media believe me, it's not everyone on the right is just a
assistance all from ninety. It's all did. This is all based on the southern strategy back to nineteen sixty eight and it's just as
forming back. There was trump built on a sense of crisis in the Republican Party that did have something to do with Ferguson and did have some
to do with Baltimore and the notion that the liberal establishment, coddled and and and accepted this notion that it was ok.
Tat cops and it was ok allude, knows ok to burn and it was an end. There would never be any way out of this again, like.
It's hard to write about it's hard to talk about it's hard to cover, because,
All you can do, then, given that way that people seem to be insist
I'm thinking about this is that that any any belief of that sort is inherently racist, as opposed to I really
I think that you should trash a neighborhood, because there was an incident between a cop and it ended and citizen.
And I'm sorry that you feel that way? You know, I'm sorry that you feel like Michael Browns. Death is your death, but I dont
feel that way and I dont want to live in a country where people are, you know, are barred, setting a target on fire or storming a police station. I'll say one one. Last thing: one of the things that the approach,
The head of the organizers, these wasn't so
rights activists who were like fanning the flames of the fire
it was, the terms of rights activists cause that's what NPR did last night when they were interviewing some people who
thing, some incredibly incendiary things. What are they?
it being said, was we're gonna. Do you know what we're not
stay here. We're gonna go into the suburbs
meaning they're going to let you know so. They're going to go to Edina Minnesota, like where my, where my first cousins live or they're going to go
into a White Bear Lake outside of Saint Paul, or something like that in order to you know, set some stuff on fire. Now I don't know if that's gonna happen, but if that does happen, that's what I mean when I say it's not or with aid means when he says it's not necessarily a new cycle, and then you could have things happen that suddenly get
where will will start frightening people who will then go out and vote defensively for trouble
you don't like- and if you think this isn't what it that way,
bourbon, women are armed, aren't gonna eg. You now vote for Biden if he has seen to side with people
whom they find terrifying, I don't agree
and I also don't think that we ve seen area any evidence right now to suggest the Joe Biden has taken or will take that track. It sort of
soon, that he must, because of his left flank, for which he has steadily and steadfastly over the course of the entire campaign ignored to great effect.
I agree and has said rather astutely. I think that Joe Biden record, which was a detriment in the primary, is certainly a benefit in the general, and he doesn't have to say anything.
He doesn't have to get on one side or the other of this issue is simply has to exist as a hypothetical, that's his whole prosper.
It is to be a hypothetical alternative, very little substance attached to it.
I don't know what I'm gonna do. It doesn't have to say anything. I think if you like
as has already spoken about it in the most general terms than those thirty thousand foot softest. Fellow terms
capacity like eyes all term paper answer the question of justice and you run out and that's exactly what he has to do with doesnt really have to address the situation. All to address it with specificity would be a mistake. Right now would be a mistake. Talk to me next Wednesday
I don't know where it was gonna go. Not just say we don't know where it's gonna go.
So can I positive there's another interesting speaking to the people who might tell pollster
one thing and vote another way and in the privacy of the ballot box
indeed see locally. We have a couple of neighborhoods that have been sort of partially gentrified mixed
It's really you know vibrant neighborhoods, but there's been a lot of
some of their elected representatives on the on the city council, have been very soft and crime. You know someone shot they like. Let's get a violence interrupt her in there. They really see if they can put a lot of pressure on the police to back off these neighborhoods, etc, etc. So
the other thing was. Last week a guy was its one thousand one hundred and thirty in the morning was leaving one of the metro stations and someone came up stuck a gun in his face to Robin he's at four.
Military guy with a concealed, carry permanent. He pulled out his gun and shot the guy. Not not you know. Indeed it was a wound that was recoverable
I went to my local lesser breaches wildly go liberal on everything and I was shocked,
by how many people who live in that neighbourhood would like to know what I really dont condone violence. I don't really like guns, but you know
Obviously the police are doing what they need to do so this guy just defended himself, and he did. This is what you want on ownership responsible, gunners, look like it was astonishing was like I felt like I was reading. I was reading a list urban in Texas,
it was so. Nobody was quite pro second
but that it was as couple people than set. I'm gonna go purchase again. There was a long threat about how you can get a licence to own a handgun. Indeed it
I've, never seen anything like this before, and there was a
example of that in Minneapolis. We had two guys who were armed standing outside upon shop and they were videotaped use put online and they
We totally support the protesters, but we're standing here, because we don't believe in writing and looting, and there is a segment.
A voter problem.
Largely way, but not always who
who very law and order deep down if you present and if their fearful in the
hey that we ve been describing. They might go to the ballot box and pick someone who they think he's gonna. U know sway,
it's their fear. Not. I actually think no is right that that's more likely to be Biden at this point, given all the other negatives that tramples. But it's
Aren't you know? It's not,
entirely implausible that if things are much much worse in a few months,
terms of urban violence that that could be Trump so she'll be. If this is put down forcibly.
In the next couple of days. It will be put down by democratic officials this, as they get loose covering entirely by Democrats. Democrats will have to own the response to this. These events
in Minnesota. The president is making.
George large amount nor argument will resonate, but Democrats are going to have it.
The time running against the response of their own public officials. To this thing,
That's a weird disconnect! Isn't it there so many! You know that the did decrying
gun, violence and people saying you know the problem is that too many guns and then they pointers
like Chicago, which have been under democratic control effort for decades. There is the public has there's a weird disconnect among democratic voters between
looking at who's in charge when everything's caught off the rails and they sit and blue and then actually than looking at the two political parties and and pointing to
one- that's you know responsible. Well, it's like it's like build. The plaza right now build the plaza wants to make Hey about this event in Euro will.
Talk about, did the terrible injustices that until the plaza was mayor, whenever a gardener who said, I can't breathe you out at all
I'd on a street in Staten Island in the circumcision.
These are very different, very, very different cause. There wasn't this the the he he had a respiratory conditions that was exacerbated by by by the restraint of was. That was
applied to him. But he did say I can't breathe just like George Floyd. So there is a world in which the that's a pencil,
That's another thing. You know. Democrats me great hey of sentencing reformed in justice reform beyond the federal level, which was champion and shepherded through Congress and pass by republican president, but the only public official in the democratic side at the local level who actually pursued sentencing reform was the blocks.
He has governor, were mere meriting and at what he was ultimately undone by it. It was a tragedy of travesty rather his whole is he had nothing. It was as if such a controversy that he was unable to defer to work to run on it. We have to defend, run sewing nor the Democrats talk a great deal about this thing, but there, the wreck,
There are much more mixed them when they actually lean into their own rhetoric as a disaster. What's a very complicated to work, so I think where we can say that we could. We have some kind of a consensus
Does that? No, I will be right if this, if the, if the airport doesnt boil over.
If somehow, pull back from the brink, there's been enough remark and have more days
living and violence and an you know, things calm down.
I think we have a real disagreement if things don't come down if in fact, some of the spreads to other cities- and if
There are other incidents that are created by the looting and the violence. Right I mean that's one of the other things that happens is that the cops are now in a confrontational frame against protesters,
and looters and all of that and then stuff can happen because they're out and about and the cops are scared. The cops are frightened by what's going on. They were
Advancing on them and who knows what happens then you know I mean, and at then
whatever they do can be true.
I'm going to let you know I another set of incidents that then just kids just throwing Kindley on the fire or more logs on the fire. So we'll just have to see. You know how it how it goes.
So as an all journalism, we conclude with the phrase only time will tell
So that is so. The crushing
cascio. I should say that if you listen to yesterday- and you heard that we got off rather hurt her lie, as my son was screaming downstairs, apparently in pain. It was that his elder sister, I picked him up and then he tickled her and she drew
when he fell to the floor, the old story that is that is, that is what happened. Then everybody is everybody is fine, so I think inside it did need, I think, to bring closure to this petition
disastrous moment ranging- I guess my my in in enduringly lockdown,
so help everybody has a great weekend if you can. If there is a weekend for you and for aid Noah and Christine, I'm John put words, kids camel burn.
Transcript generated on 2020-08-03.