Power, Bodies, and Blood: When Politicians Kill

We tend to talk about violence in politics as something abstract. Policy violence. Structural violence. Metaphorical violence. But today, Jen & Carolyn are talking about literal violence. As in: people who ran for office, held office, advised presidents, or built political movements-and also murdered people. And what’s disturbing isn’t just that it happened—but how often power delayed consequences, softened accountability, or made people look the other way. This episode is about what happens when political entitlement meets the belief that some lives simply don’t matter. And spoiler: it’s not rare, it’s not partisan, and it’s not ancient history.

Bandura, A. (1999). Moral disengagement in the perpetration of inhumanities. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 3(3), 193–209. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr0303_3

Blee, K. M. (2002). Inside organized racism: Women in the hate movement. University of California Press.

Freyd, J. J. (1996). Betrayal trauma: The logic of forgetting childhood abuse. Harvard University Press.

Freyd, J. J., & Birrell, P. J. (2013). Blind to betrayal: Why we fool ourselves we aren't being fooled. Wiley.

Fromm, E. (1964). The heart of man: Its genius for good and evil. Harper & Row.

Horgan, J. (2008). From profiles to pathways and roots to routes: Perspectives from psychology on radicalization into terrorism. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 618(1), 80–94. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716208317539

Jost, J. T., Banaji, M. R., & Nosek, B. A. (2004). A decade of system justification theory: Accumulated evidence of conscious and unconscious bolstering of the status quo. Political Psychology, 25(6), 881–919. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9221.2004.00402.x

Kernberg, O. F. (1984). Severe personality disorders: Psychotherapeutic strategies. Yale University Press.

McCann, I. L., & Pearlman, L. A. (1990). Vicarious traumatization: A framework for understanding the psychological effects of working with victims. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 3(1), 131–149. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00975140

Müller, K., & Schwarz, C. (2021). Fanning the flames of hate: Social media and hate crime. Journal of the European Economic Association, 19(4), 2131–2167. https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvaa045

Porges, S. W. (2011). The polyvagal theory: Neurophysiological foundations of emotions, attachment, communication, and self-regulation. W. W. Norton.

Ridgeway, C. L. (2001). Gender, status, and leadership. Journal of Social Issues, 57(4), 637–655. https://doi.org/10.1111/0022-4537.00233

Watts, A. L., Lilienfeld, S. O., Smith, S. F., Miller, J. D., Campbell, W. K., Waldman, I. D., Rubenzer, S. J., & Fabian, T. J. (2013). The double-edged sword of grandiose narcissism: Implications for successful and unsuccessful leadership among U.S. presidents. Psychological Science, 24(12), 2379–2389. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797613491970

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:03

You're listening to the world according to Jen and Carolyn, your clinical analysis for political paralysis. Happy Friday. There's a woman in my office whom I love. So I let her get away with it. But every day of the week is happy, fill in the blank. Like happy Monday. And I'm like, there's just that thing. And then she's like, you got up today. You're alive. You have your health. And I'm like, well, she put it that way, lady. And I love her. So I'm like, fine, girl, fine. You're right. I'm I'm happy to be alive. It's a happy Monday. Fine.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Variety. I love I was telling a friend of mine. I was like, remember how fun Friday when you like get done with school? And it's so fun. And she had like, I don't remember that. I'm like, that's so sad. Like, I you get you kind of left school earlier, either be like kickballed games.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Or it when you're in your 20s and I always I've always worked full time. So I'm like, Friday, I'll go out and get tired. Right. You know, or coming in in the morning on like a random Wednesday after being out until two in the morning on a Tuesday with like the stamp still on my hand, possibly still drunk. We're a long ways from that. Yes. But that's how we roll. That's how we generation. They're so soft. They're like, oh, I'm so tired. I'm like, bitch, you ain't tired. You don't know what tired is. You didn't just roll in from the club three hours ago, stinking like booze and still getting your job done. You don't know. That was Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Well, Thursday was the new Friday. Yes. And so you always had to go out on Thursday when we were in our 20s. Yeah. So that's like shit, that was fun.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Now it's like Friday. Let's have dinner and record a podcast. Yes. Pop a gummy and watch a movie. Sleep by nine or twelve.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

All I can handle, though we did go up to the side. Oh, it's a free. We did. And we covered that extensively in the intro to our last episode, which we highly encourage you to check out, which was about is AI going to take your job? We're going in a very different direction now. Now, at night, I like to take my five milligrams of THC. Yes. It relaxes me. I don't drink during the week, but that is my relaxation. Yes. And sometimes I get inspired. Yes. You do? Oh, I have this idea. Like, how many people who are politicians, either in an elected capacity or involved in politics, were also murderers. So I was like, hey, AI. And AI is like, and we got a lot. And I was like, I love it. We can make a whole podcast. I love it. So today the title of our episode is Power, Bodies, and Blood When Politicians Kill.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

Which is this weird that to me this feels like a lighter episode than what we've been doing lately.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

It does. Because most of it's history. So we're like, that was fun. Right? I was a killer. Like, I don't know. It's nothing. I'm so sorry. I shouldn't say that button. But it's nothing compared to like the fucking Epstein files. You know, like the level of fuckery that has come to light. Like we're basically living in the first season of true detective, but on a much larger scale. Yep. This and the fact that very few people are like trying to actually, oh, I don't know, bring these people to justice. It's incredibly disconcerting. Yeah. And so this, by comparison, fails. That's why true crime is an escape for me. I'm like, give me some true crime. Yes. It's all sad, you guys. But you know, we tend to talk about violence in politics as something kind of abstract, right? Like policy violence, structural violence, like the violence associated with war or even metaphorical violence, so not literal violence. But today we're going to talk about literal violence. As in people who ran for office, held office, advised presidents, or built political movements. And also, you know, killed people. Yeah. So we're so sorry. Oh, it's disturbing. Isn't just that it happened, but how often power-delayed consequences, this is where it all connects to what's happening now, softened accountability or made people look the other way. So this episode really is about what happens when political entitlement meets the belief that some lives simply don't matter.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

Which r is very relevant. As you go along this episode, I guess I take that back. It actually is very much sets the tone to kind of where we are today. This intro could have been for an Epstein episode. That's exactly what I was thinking.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

And you know, the spoiler alert here really is that it's not rare, it's not partisan, and it's not ancient history. And if the Epstein files tell us anything in terms of who's in the files, that last sentence makes a lot of sense. Yes. So 100%. You know, Carolyn, can you think of anyone involved in politics who turned out to be a murderer?

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Being from San Francisco, yeah. Dan White. That's a good one. When I remind people what he did. Dan White, also known for the famous Twinkie defense, shot and murdered Harvey Milk in Air Monscone. Yeah. And if you watch the movie Milk, oh God, I thought you were. It's a great movie. It's a great movie.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

I think about it every time I go into City Hall, and I'm in City Hall Hutt. Yeah. I'm like, oh, this is a lot of. It was filmed.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

Yep. There too. But yeah, very good movie. Um, very sad movie, but very kind of uplifting to in its own way. Yes. But yeah, and then it's funny, when I was looking for apartments in North Beach, I I don't know if this is true, and I'll have to look it up, but one of the apartments we looked at, the lady was like, This is where Dan White, like there's some like some connection to the Twinkie defense or something. I was like, what? Because I in the movie they show him just at his house and probably the sunset or something. But that's who I always think of when I think of political killers. That's a good one. Almost to the point where I I don't think of anyone else. Interesting. So I didn't know I that was the first one that came to mind. And then I was actually like, oh, those, oh yeah, those people.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

But I think also, too, uh for most of us, we don't we don't know about these people. I think of John Wayne Gacy because of John Wayne Gacy's involvement in the Democratic Party and running the the JCs or whatever that that group was, which was tied to politics.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

That was newer for me though, because when we first learned about John Wayne Gacy in high school, thank thanks Arthur Gauss with this song John Wayne Gacy that he somehow got away with playing at the prom of a Catholic school.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

I don't know how that happened, but it was we love you. Most people weren't listening to anything you were saying. Had people been listening, especially the administration, I think they probably would have checked into your psychological well-being.

SPEAKER_00 7:10

But the connection between him and all the Chicago stuff, I didn't put together till I watched documentaries later. I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Yeah. No, John Wing Gacy, like there's a famous picture of him with Rosalind Carter. Yes. And he had access, and he had a criminal record by that point for sodomizing uh a minor. And apparently they didn't do as good a job vetting people as they, well, nobody they've clearly with the Trump administration, they know what those people have done. They're like, we don't want to hear because they never Pete Hesge, Hegzeth, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

No one cares. Yeah, he doesn't deserve it. Long story short, no one gives a shit if you have money and power. The end.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

That's right. Actually, unfortunately, a lot of people do, and that's why these folks aren't often brought to justice. So that's what we're seeing right now. But you know, before we get into cases, we need a frame. Let's put a frame around this talk. Yeah, let's contain this. Let's contain this. What's our container look like? So politics selects for three traits that, when unchecked, can be catastrophic: narcissism, moral certainty, access to power with minimal oversight. And this reminds us of when we did our episode about narcissism. And you talked about a certain type of narcissism, which is which is the one associated with politics. Malignant narcissism. Was it malignant? Okay, there was one that was specific to politics, and I that might have been it, but I can't remember. Ooh, now I'm second guessing. We'll have to go back and see. Anyway, also check out our episode on narcissism because we talk about people who either go into politics or s or start cults, and they have a very specific type of narcissism that you know gets them to draw people in and get them to listen, get people to listen to them. Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Narcissism is a spectrum. We all have healthy narcissism. Yes. You and I have a good dose of healthy narcissism. Because we're pretty.

SPEAKER_01 9:10

Can you conflate that with narcissism?

SPEAKER_00 9:12

I would say on the lightest end, it's sort of like how I think of codependency. Like there's healthy codependency in the sense that like, I'm gonna something's going on for you. I'm gonna put my shit down and be a good friend and take care of you. Um narcissism is is a spectrum as well. Everything's a spectrum right down and all around. And so it's when you I think it's when you are so unaware that it starts leveling up and with malignant being, as I might understand, is one of the worst ones. Yeah. And so right. And then you go into sociopathy, but they're all traits. Okay. Right? Interesting personality.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

Yeah, go back and listen to our episode because we'll break it all down. And we we smoke too much weed to be able to remember like a year and a half, two years ago. Okay. Yes, we'll connect it to this episode. So go back and listen to that episode for more. So Yeah. What that's I you know, you talked you talked about malignant narcissism and and in relation to my question. And so the clinical piece that matters is you said is that these individuals don't experience other people as fully real. That's what you said in our episode about narcissism. And psychologists, psycho psychologists, I can't talk, call this object dehumanization, which is interesting. Others exist as instruments or obstacles, not full human beings. That is a measurable deficit in empathy processing. And when you add power and impunity to that deficit, violence becomes logical, not abhorrent. So that that makes a lot of sense. So you add in gender, race, class, institutional protection, and suddenly violence isn't a disqualifier. It's just an inconvenience. You know, people are just mere impediments to your goal, which in this case is usually the acquisition of power.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

Right. And it's it incur politics encourages this and rewards it. Yeah. So the more the more you are that way, the more you know, it's it power back gets power. So yeah. But you're a go-getter. You're a go-getter. And oh, people like it, yeah, and you're getting all that accolades. Unless you're a woman, then you're just a bitch.

SPEAKER_01 11:19

So maybe that keeps us checked and from delving into the narcissism, dipping our toes into the narcissism pool. It's like, what's you know, you're always second guessing yourself because the same attributes that for men are associated with like, ooh, confidence and power and intelligence. All of a sudden it's like, ooh, she's a bitch.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

Yeah. Well, we're women are more socially conditioned, that that's being bossy or that's being bitchy, or you're not, yeah. So it's it's a different, it it looks different when it's gendered, which is why I love the idea of they're not people are just pan and we're all gendered spectrum too, because then you throw that shit away. Yeah. You don't know who what I am or what I like, then you can't say that shit to me. That's true. That's true.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

You can't say fucking shit. Yes. And at the same time, give me even if that is how you identify. You are still, we are all still creatures developed by however we were raised, right? So it's it's so fascinating. That's not what this episode's about, but there might be a future episode dedicated exclusively to that. So let's start with someone whose entire political identity was built on law and order. It sounds like our current president. So I never heard of Ed Buck, have you? No. So Ed Buck was a good one. Sounds like a killer, though. Yeah, that's a total killer name. But where's this where's the middle name? Uh, you always have to have a middle name. Well, if you're a serial killer, maybe not just a killer. So Ed Buck was a democratic donor and political power broker. He wasn't an elected official. He was something arguably more powerful, though, especially in today's context, which is a donor. He's a major Democratic fundraiser, a bundler. He was connected to governors, mayors, national figures. He also killed two men, a dude named Gemil Moore and Timothy Dean, another dude named Timothy Dean, by injecting them with lethal doses of drugs in his West Hollywood apartment. That's fucking dark. Here's the key point. Everyone knew. Police were called multiple times, warnings were issued, survivors spoke up, but Buck was wealthy, white, politically connected, and his victims were black, queer, poor, and disposable in the eyes of the system. Sounds like Jeffrey Dahmer. Yes. It took years and federal intervention for charges to stick. This wasn't a failure of information. It was a fucking failure of will. Yes. And privilege, right? Yep. And it exposes a core truth. Political proximity can act like a shield even when the bodies pile up. Now, Carolyn, I think you want to say more on this same.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

Yeah, well, you talk about the failure, and clinically, it failure of will almost sounds too passive to me. It does. Yeah. So what pass? Right. We're actually looking at systemic, what you're talking about, systemic dehumanization operating in real time. So um Bandora uh is a very famous, you know, if you're studying psychology, you're gonna definitely be reading about this guy. But he talked about the concept of moral disengagement to explain how ordinary people and institutions justify inaction in the face of harm. So one of the primary mechanisms in dehumanization of victims, and I think dehumanization of any population, which when you think about fascism and authoritarianism. Yes, exactly. Um, so when people are being harmed, if they're already seen socially constructed as less valuable, yeah, the threshold for intervention decreases or increases dramatically. Yeah. So um Moore and Dean were black, queer, poor, unhoused. So Ed Buck was white, wealthy, politically useful. So the system didn't fail to see the danger. It calculated that some lives weren't worth, which is fucked up the political cost of accountability. Yeah. And we see this all the time. Like tons of black people or tons of black kids are are uh, you know, American Indians, but one of the white persons, right, especially a white woman, big news story.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

So yeah, that's why so many serial killers historically have gone after sex workers. They're like, nobody's gonna miss these people. Exactly. That's why fucking uh the Green River killer was able to do what he did for so fucking long. What what do they call them in the police world?

unknown 15:22

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

Oh, persona non grata?

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Or it's like not a real person or something like that, or it's a really terrible. It's an interesting thing too because I've now listened to a lot of police. I can't remember what documentary it was specifically, but there are police who were on the Green River case and they're like, they're crying. They're like, we were invested. They're like, I get this, like sure, there were people within the department who didn't care, but they're like, We were invested, like these were this was somebody's baby. Yeah, and and I that moved me because so often, and I I do believe the narrative because it's reinforced constantly that these people don't matter or perceived as not mattering. But there are people within the system who are supposed to not care because a lot of people around them don't care, right? But they actually do give a fuck.

SPEAKER_00 16:15

Yes. So that it's hard that's hard for me. Anyway, yeah. So, you know, and then we look at two, I think we're seeing this with Epstein too. Like for the survivors who do speak up, they were ignored. And it's institutional betrayal and betrayal, there's uh Freid. Uh I quote this 1996 Freydon Burrell article, but um betrayal trauma theory is a thing. Oh, interesting. I haven't heard about that. It shows when institutions when when the institutions people depend on for safety actively ignore harm. Ugh. The psychological damage is actually worse than the original trauma. Oh, that's been happening to people of color in our country for so long. And yes, and children and anyone. So the the men harmed by Buck and then harmed again by every system that lipped away. And we're seeing that with survivors of sexual trauma. You're you're you're harmed by the rape, but then you're also harmed by people going, Well, what were you wearing? Right. Well, were you drinking? Right. Did you say no?

SPEAKER_01 17:14

I'd like to think we've made some some progress in these processes. But I think that it's yeah. I I think it's it it's not across the system. I think you get people who understand and and conduct these interviews in the the the necessary sensitive manner that they need to be conducted in and have like professionals in the room that can you know be there for the survivor, but there's still far too many places where just harm is reinforced.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

So we have more women and people of color and people who yeah, anyway. Yeah, so yeah. Ugh. Happy time. Cool.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

Let's move on to this guy called Bud Dwyer. See, that seems kind of serially, too. Why do they all sound funny? I know. It's just some white white men names. Yeah, a lot of them sound. Yeah, but it's only one good Bud to me, and that's Bud Bundy. That's right. It's definitely not Bud Weiser because that tastes like ass. So Bud Dwyer was the treasurer of Pennsylvania. You're you're gonna this is you're gonna remember this. Okay. Okay. He was convicted of corruption. He was facing prison in 1987. He called this press conference. He read a statement insisting on his innocence, and then he fucking shot himself on TV. I don't remember this at all. Do you remember the song Hey Man Nice Shot? No. By Filter? No. I wish I would have met you. It's in the cable guy soundtrack, but now it's a little late. And the chorus is Hey Man Nice Shot into this. I was only five. No, but the song came out when we were in high school. And I never really seen all of the cable guy. Oh my god. Okay. But it's on the soundtrack. But it was also a very popular song in the 90s when we were growing up. So okay it's more than RB 90s girl. It's more of a Mariah Carey. I was definitely into the grunge and the hardcore scene, in addition to the stuff you mentioned. So this obviously isn't a murder of another person, but it's political violence nonetheless. Jeez, he shot himself on screen. Yes. It weaponized the public, the media, and the state. And you know, his act traumatized viewers, of course, reporters, staff, and became a cultural artifact passed around without context, like the filter song. We're gonna go upstairs and we will do it as soon as we're done. Okay. But the I've seen the video because of thank thanks, faces of fucking death. I'm pretty sure faces of death. Yes, really? Yes, faces of death. It is I I don't know how I watched that as a kid because I was a kid when I watched this stuff. Yeah, I watched it with my mom. See, this is when I'm like, I'm failing as a parent. I think about the shit my mom did, and that wasn't even the abuse, and I'm like, I'm winning. I'm winning at this parenting thing. It is it is very graphic. Like everybody's heard it. You watch somebody like die by suicide that way in a movie, and it's I can't even look when they do stuff like that. It's even when it's gory, it's not half as fucked up as what you saw in this video. I've never even heard of this. Fucked up. I'll just play the song for you. I won't make you watch the video. So Carolyn, yeah, and this raises the question when politicians self-destruct publicly, who pays the price? And why are we so willing to mythologize them instead of interrogating the harm?

SPEAKER_00 20:41

Yeah, and you know, these both these questions are deeply connected. And I think the answer to both is the same. We mythologize precisely so we don't have to answer to who pays the price. And what Dreyer did produced what researchers call vicarious trauma. We've heard that term before. Um, if you're looking for the source, that's McCann and Pearlman 1990, established what witnesses what witnessing sudden violent death even through a screen activates the same neurological threat response as direct exposure. Um, this has been studied even in in 911 callers or um 911 dispatchers.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

I don't know how they do that. I don't know. I was either just having this conversation with my husband.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

Yeah. They I know some some who are, and they're very interesting people. I bet. Very, very like like nothing phases them.

SPEAKER_01 21:33

At least on the outside. True. There you go. Probably internalizing it and gonna get like fucking stomach cancer because that's what happens. They all drink a lot, I will say, through that I know.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

There you go. Do love their sippies. Um, so reporters in the room, staffers, people who watched on live TV, many experienced acute stress. Well, lasting PTSD symptoms, those people are never mentioned, right? Like the the ripple. Yeah. Um, but when we consider the spectacle of any powerful person. Person's collapse, the drama, the defiance that he stood by his innocence narrative. We redirect grief and attention toward the person with power and away from the harm or the act it caused. US men's hockey. Um there's trauma becomes backdrop to the story. Yeah. So Ridgeway is another researcher's work on status characteristics, describes how social um high social status functions as a kind of shield. And we extend more empathy, more complexity, and yes, but more to people who we've already decided matter versus like to your point, like try or getting a rock song. Yeah. The traumatized reporter gets nothing. So I want to name something uncomfortable. Are you ready? Always. Right? Public self-destruction by powerful people is coercive control. Yeah. And it's it's a final assertion of dominance. That's very true. Yeah. I'm gonna fuck you up for life. Nothing's dominance. You can do this. Is why I was so fucked up after I forced myself to watch the goddamn SCOTUS because I thought I'm being a good American.

SPEAKER_01 23:12

But the SCOTUS is fucked up too and traumatizing as well.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

But yeah, you're watching this and it's like you're gonna watch this and you don't you don't get to control anything. I get to control it. And you know, yeah, and and and these sports stars, pol political people, musicians, actors, actress, anyone in the public eye has no they're mythical deities in the world. Yeah. So it it's a it's a position of power and privilege, whether you believe that or not. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:44

No, that makes a lot of sense. Um this one fucks me up. So the third case, do you remember when this happened? This guy came here's Brevik. I do. So this is more extremism as political identity. So this guy wasn't an elected official, but he was deeply political, like a lot of people who are out there committing acts of mass atrocity. He was a far-right extremist who framed himself as a political actor. In 2011, he murdered 77 people in Norway, mostly teenagers, at a political youth camp. He wrote a manifesto, he wanted a trial, he wanted a platform, he wanted he wanted that coercive control. Yeah. And here's the uncomfortable part. I mean, it's all uncomfortable. Many of his ideas were already circulating in mainstream political discourse. And he wasn't an anomaly, he was an endpoint. And when politics dehumanize groups long enough, someone eventually decides violence is just policy enforcement. We're literally seeing that right now. Yep. Literally, which is why people who are like, they're just words, it's just rhetoric, you can't constrain it. It's free speech. I'm like, there's so many people, particularly young men, and we're gonna talk about this in our next episode, who are being radicalized, many of whom are lonely and isolated, and are slowly but surely becoming more and more radicalized, many of whom, or at least some of whom are pushed to violence. This yeah, yeah, words and ideologies have consequences. And when you have these hateful ideologies making the rounds on the 24-hour news cycle, someone is bound to be influenced. So, you know, tell tell us more. Tell us about like what's what's going on here.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

No, you're doing good. I mean, this distinction matters, what you're saying matters a lot, especially nowadays with the heightened 24-7 news cycle. Yeah. That we can't even, it's we were just talking about something else where it was like, did you see that? No, that's not real. Oh, was that real? Yeah, yeah. And it's like, I didn't see that. That can't be, you know, so you don't know what we pat we pathologize mass political violence as individual mental illness because it lifts us off the hook. Right. And if brev if Breverick is just a madman, we don't have to inter uh, I'm sorry, yeah, interrogate the ideology he he absorbed from mainstream.

SPEAKER_01 26:06

It's the same thing with guns. Yeah, 100%. I was like, oh, it's just a crazy person who got hold of gun. I'm like, oh, you don't want to talk about gun culture at all.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

You know it's this inability. I'm gonna take this back to fucking nature like a hippie. Like this has everything to do with denying that we're part of an ecological system where there's an there a cause and effect, right? Like you bring a frog into a new country and the deer die. Yeah, right? Like all these things, like this matters. And you know, again, the research doesn't support that narrative. Uh found uh Horgan 2008 found that the pathway into political violence is almost never psychiatric illness. Interesting. It's social identity, yeah, perceived grievance, and ideolog ideological community. So kind of like reminds me of Colts. Yeah. Yeah. Um these are relational and political processes, not clinical ones. Interesting. And more research on radicalization describes the person who takes rhetoric already circulating in the mainstream and decides to act on it literally. And Breverick's Manifesto quoted mainstream conservative European politicians extensively. And he wasn't operating in a vacuum. He was trying to he was following a logic to its conclusion. And when we I think clinically, when you look at right now, we're seeing the same rhetorical conditions Breverick drew from. Yeah. I see that parallel. Dehumanizing of immigrants, trans, queer, um, LGBTQT, like political opponents, yeah, um, normalizing the highest level of government.

SPEAKER_01 27:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:49

And um another researcher, Muller and Schwartz in 2021, found that dehumanizing political rhetoric statistically predicts increases in hate crimes and political violence. And this isn't speculation. We have the data, we have the receipts. Yeah. So we're just watching this happen again and again.

SPEAKER_01 28:07

Yeah. Yeah. And I I 100% fundamentally believe in the First Amendment that people should be able to a pretty far extent be able to say what they want to say, and at the same time knowing that there are consequences associated with hateful rhetoric. I know. There's got to be a balance of some sort. I know. And it's also too, it's like it's not just some weirdo saying this shit in a vacuum, right? There are countless people who agree with these people. And that's the problem. If it were free speech and it was you know, the main mainstream people condemning that speech and saying, that's fucking crazy, that's hateful. The problem is people are going, oh, that makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_00 28:58

You know, and uh well, I find like this conversation comes up a lot when people are comparing a hate crime to just crime. Yeah. They were very different, right? It's one thing to be a random, you know, deranged person is just doing that, right? That's the mental illness part. Yeah. But when you're I was gonna say a regular person, but when you don't believe, when you think you're superior to other people and you can behave like an animal and kill, and even animals don't just kill because they don't like you. Like they're like, I don't like that thing. They kill because we're hungry, right? Or they're trying to protect themselves. Yeah, right. Like we can even admit that's probably the only time. Well, I don't I don't kill because I'm hungry, but like I would kill someone if I was trying to.

SPEAKER_01 29:43

I can kill myself when I'm hungry. I'm damn near ready to kill a motherfucker. But yeah, angry is a thing. I mean, shit, depending on the circumstances, I might, I might cannibalize you. Christine Knox. Yeah, she doesn't look good. You want to eat her. Well, no, that's what I made that TikTok where she was promoting this fake story about an immigrant being deported on the plane who, oh, there was a cannibal. He started biting his own arms off. It's like, first of all, not true. Second of all, people bite themselves for a number of reasons. I have known people with autism who bite themselves. There's a girl I went to high school with who chewed on her hands. It was a nervous tick. Yeah. Doesn't mean you're a cannibal.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

It's a big deal. She was really sweet.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

I know. Or things. What happened to her? Very curious. I don't know. I bet I can find her on Facebook. Something happened. No, I mean like what happened to her to where she needed to wear the gloves because she was chewing her hands. Like that's just not something that appears out of the ether. No. But that's associated with some fucked up trauma. God only knows. Anyway, the show isn't about that. Uh, I mean, it kind of is. So let's talk about our fourth case, which is John Wayne Gacy, whom we've touched on briefly. So these last two are the worst of the fucking worst, y'all. So Gacy killed at least 33 young men and boys in the 70s. He cultivated this pristine public image as the civic-minded, politically engaged community member. That image included real documented involvement with the Democratic Party in Illinois, though it did not ultimately shield him from prosecution, thank God. But his whiteness, his privilege, his He's a nice guy. He's a business owner. Oh, I'm just giving these kids jobs. And also, too, similar to Dahmer, it was like, oh, there might be some gay shit going on, but whatever, that's gay shit. Like the police were like, We're not, we're not getting involved in that, we're not dipping our toe into that shit. You know, and that's why Dahmer and Gacy were able to commit so many crimes, kill so many boys and young men. So, you know, his his role as a Democratic precinct captain in suburban Chicago involved organizing voters, supporting Democratic candidates, acting as a local party liaison. As I mentioned, he was photographed with Rosalind Carter. Like, you know, he was a business wrong. Right? He was a business owner. He was a civic volunteer. He was active in local organizations at JC's that I mentioned. So what did go wrong with him? Like what I don't remember. I uh it's been a while since I've watched that documentary. Like, what's his deal? Like what happened to his kid? Yeah. I think he had some shitty upbringing. I don't know how bad it was necessarily, but I think a lot of his shit came from his repressed homosexuality and self-hate. Okay. And and turning that, and I'm this is your field, not mine. But like turning that that self-hatred hatred externally. Read the Velvet Rage if you're more curious about this topic. That sounds very, yeah, yeah, very, very um familiar. But yeah, I think that's what motivated a lot of his behavior. So, but there are a lot of people who don't feel comfortable with their sexual identity who don't do this. So it again, what what's going on in their minds? And he's dressed up as a clown. That is another fucked up factor here. Like the dressing up is and he did everything wrong too. Like clowns are not supposed to have like sharp arched clown makeup. And he's like, I'm gonna do my own thing. Yeah, he's like, I'm gonna scare the fuck out of kids. Yeah, young man. Come here, let me put these handcuffs on you.

SPEAKER_00 33:28

Clown like photos everywhere in his house, too. He was an artist, and he painted clowns, he painted them himself.

SPEAKER_01 33:34

That's fucking he was actually a decent artist. Fucking crazy. But cloud and and there's also a law. I can't remember what the name of the law is, but he was enriching himself from prison. He was selling his art, he was signing things for people, and the families of the victims were like, oh hell no. That's why when dumbass fucking OJ Simpson wrote that book, if I did it, he was not permitted to keep any of the proceeds from the sale. Because there's now a law, thanks to John Wayne Gacy, which I can't remember right now, that prohibits people like that from being able to financially benefit from anything. So fuck you, John Wayne Gacy. Fascinating case. And great documentary. It it was it is fascinating. And fuck Ted Bundy, he's number five. So I think there's nobody I didn't know he had political ties. He was okay. So his deal was if you don't know because you've been living under a rock or something, this motherfucker killed at least 30 women in the 70s. He had documented the limited involvement with Republican political organizations, and they're primarily in Washington state in the late 60s and early 70s. So he volunteered for and worked for, worked on Republican political campaigns, most notably Nelson Rockefeller's 1968 presidential campaign, local state and state Republican uh causes in Washington. His work included campaign organizing, administrative, and volunteer coordinating tasks. So he had access to a lot of serial killers. They just can do so much. They're so they can't keep track of it. They're just so busy. If only they would turn their powers to good. They're so productive. They really are in the worst way. I know. I'm tired. Like 10 o'clock at night, it's I need to go to sleep. That's when Ted Bundy was active. He's like, I did my political organizing for the day. I went to law school. Now I got the energy to go out and murder some women. What the fuck? I know. God damn it. Envious of the energy, not of the intention. And the ambition.

SPEAKER_00 35:46

Oh yeah. It's so it's so part of the narcissism. Well, exactly. I was just gonna say, like, that's the grandiosity and like the the intense, like, way that they're just fucking liar.

SPEAKER_01 36:00

I mean, dude, Ted Bundy defended himself and did a shit job because he was he thought he was smarter than he actually was. And then he ran away and like was a mountain man for several days. I think he liked over twice. Yes. Wasn't twice. I think so. Yeah, I didn't know skating just filled a bunch of bitches. Sorry guys, I say ripples, but I don't mean bitches. I'm talking about us. I'm taking it back. It's fucking awful. Fucking awful. And oh, I don't even want to get into it. Um, anyway, so yeah, I mean, he had this proximity to Republican officials. He interacted with Republican figures and political professionals. He was not a major political actor. We know this. He didn't hold elected office, he had no influence over party leadership, but he had friends in high places. He had friends, you know, to an extent, but he was he could have been a rising star in the Republican Party. Had he gone undetected for longer, he could have been like John Wayne Gacy, who was doing like active political organizing and was recognized in his community as like, you know, a a big-time local democratic uh, you know, organizer. So anyway, remember, you know, we've talked about a lot of high-profile stuff here. But maybe some cases are. These are the ones that we don't know. Exactly. That's what I was gonna say. There's so many other cases that don't become documentaries that don't involve serial killers, like city council members who kill their spouses, like sheriffs who murder their mistresses, judges who beat somebody to death. You know, these are often framed as personal tragedy tragedies, but it's political violence. Yes. Violence doesn't stop being political just because it happens at home. If it involves a political figure, there is a connection to political violence. So what's the pattern here? We have entitlement, dehumanization, and immunity. Political identity creates moral exemption, victims are often marginalized, institutions delay action, and the narrative always bends toward protecting the system. Right, not the dead. Right, Carolyn, can you talk more about this pattern from a psycho like social perspective?

SPEAKER_00 38:09

Um, have you heard of uh institutional narcissistic collusion? No, tell me more. Well, all these cases. Ah, lovely frock. This can't happen again. It keeps getting caught in my rain.

SPEAKER_01 38:22

That we're using as a tablecloth on our faucet folding table. I have no idea what I did with the actual tablecloths that we typically use, but I'm tired, y'all. I work today. I have to take my kid to baseball practice, I cook dinner, and I was like, fuck it, I'm gonna throw a scarf on the table.

SPEAKER_00 38:39

Anyway, I'm complaining about it. Squeeze going. Well, speaking of ties, what ties all this together is that institutional narcissistic collusion, what sustains an individual's belief that power exempts them from consequences is a system that keeps confirming that. So every time, and we've seen this in sports, we've seen this in anyone who's high profile, right? Yeah, anytime you know, all of it's another high profile, like the college jock or the high, you know, the the the college, it's always a dude. I'm like the high school cheerleader. No, it's the high school football star ways or basketball star, right? Sorry, sports. I'm mad at sports today.

SPEAKER_01 39:16

You should be mad at sports because sports uh conveys a certain amount of entitlement and a certain amount of like untouchability, if that's a word.

SPEAKER_00 39:25

Well, and it's a place where kids are looking up to people, right?

SPEAKER_01 39:30

Yeah. And it's very important too because kids are typically involved in team sports. My kid is involved in a number of team sports, and we have to we have to set the standards very early about how you behave.

SPEAKER_00 39:48

Which sports can be a wonderful tool in the best way. Yeah, and it's also be a really bad one. Yeah. Um, I'm itchy everywhere, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 39:58

What is going on? I don't know. I'm getting itchy here. I just I don't know. We're about somebody our age who just got uh diagnosed with shingles, so it might be psychosomatic. I think it is like Mike having shingles. Surprisingly, I was hanging out with this person earlier today. I did not touch them, and I don't feel itchy.

SPEAKER_00 40:16

I just heard about and talk about a hypocrite. Anyway, so back to my away from my psychosis or my my weird neurotic, just neuromish, neuroticness. Um, so every time a charge gets dropped, every time political violence gets framed as personal tragedy, the system is helping to prove powerful people to powerful people, and I think to the rest of us. Yeah, the rules don't apply. This is why people don't say anything. Yeah. What's the point? Right. Look who they are. No one's gonna believe me anyway. That's a common thing that that survivors will say. It's learn behavior, reinforce, and it's rewarded by institutions. Yeah. So there was a study in 2004 that found people across the political struct spectrum have motivated tendencies to defend and rationalize existing systems, even when those systems harm them specifically. Wow. Yeah. A cognitive bias- You said that with women a lot. Absolutely. Oh God, absolutely. A cognitive bias rooted in the need for stability, which does make sense why you see that with women, right? Yes. I mean, look at all the women in the Trump administration. Like well, they they're they're drinking the Kool-Aid that proximity to power will help save them when they don't give two shits about you either. Right. And yeah, they're tools. You are paying your tools. Exactly. And they they literally are tools. Yeah. Um, so which means public participates in protecting powerful people, not out of complicity, but because the alternative is the system is fundamentally corrupt and too destabilizing to hold. You see this with children who will not always but align with the more with the abusive parent because they see them as they're more powerful. So they they actually have more protection. Yeah. And the weaker parent is more, it can't keep me safe.

SPEAKER_01 42:01

That's sad.

SPEAKER_00 42:02

It is really sad. And so, um, you know, looking at how most people's nervous system functions, and even in animal systems, uh, mammals, people with in large communities have the living under chronic systems that of threat and being forced to adapt and survive. You see, again, black communities, queer communities, native communities, poor communities. If you're always in that state of chronic immobilization and appeasement, they're not surprised when the system fails. Like, right? Like we're seeing that here constantly where anyone who's been in a vulnerable position, they're the more adaptable because they're like, Yep, we knew that. We're all like, what? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:47

No. We've never, I've never been touched by this before.

SPEAKER_00 42:50

Yes. Yeah. Good for you. Yeah. Um, so that's not anyone being cynical. It's a very accurate threat assessment based on repeated experience. And the surprise outrage tends to come from people whose bodies haven't had to know this yet. Right. So, you know, this is why I don't give a shit if it busts the system. I want it to bust the system.

SPEAKER_01 43:10

Well, that's like Pam Bondi or whom was it Pam Bondi who said, oh, if if we the system would break if we brought all these people associated with the Epstein files to justice, like, burn it down. Dude, why do we have a system that's predicated on like powerful pedophiles in the fucking first place? It's gotta go. Yeah. It's gotta go. Because it's America. That's the problem. Yeah. If if that's our power structure in America, we need a new fucking power structure. It's always been this way, though. Well, I don't know if they've always been petos, but th it's always been people, primarily white people, people in power who are um uh shielded from implications.

SPEAKER_00 43:51

W I I agree. And I think when you look at native history and black history. When those children were seen as as ownership and commodities. As yeah. So the abuse i is inherent, right? And so in the same way, I think that trauma is traded down in generations. I think this fucked up behavior is too.

SPEAKER_01 44:18

Yeah, no, the idea that yes, people of color are are less valuable because they there there might there likely be some belief passed down generationally that this is property. Same thing with women, like, oh women, they shouldn't have any fucking rights. Like I I yeah, I I think these things, these ideologies, philosophies, as fucked up as they are, are kept alive by a certain segment of the population. And I think that these ideologies and philosophies, etc., are concentrated amongst a lot of people who have power.

SPEAKER_00 44:57

But they're very afraid. They don't have power and they know it. Yeah. And they so they use fear and manipulation and violence to create power. Well, like power. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:09

Their power is uh it it it it's not they're they're not infallible. Like it's it's not a a strong edifice of power. Like and that's that's why racism works so well and turning working class people, uh white working class people against black working class people work so well. And unfortunately, the people who should be banding together, yeah, who are stronger together, who have more in common than they don't, are falling victim to the lies of these powerful people whom the lie benefits only those in power. Yes. And that's the fucked up part. Yeah. Anyway, you all know this. You all know this because you listen to the world of Jen, according to Jen and Carolyn, and you, you know, this is this is your life. So we're we're speaking of the choir, but or preaching to the choir. But sometimes the choir needs a good sermon. So this is this is what we fucking do. So, you know, our our final thought here is I I like the way this is framed, the lie of civility. Yes. You know, we're told politics is about debate, compromise, and being civil. Yeah, there are rules to this, which is how the Democrats play, and the Republicans are playing a totally different game. We're like, but the rules, and they're like, there are no fucking rules. We make the rules. I'm like, we need to get on that level. So history tells a much darker truth, and current events are telling a darker truth. Politics is also about who gets hurt and who gets away with imposing that hurt. Yeah. So the danger isn't just violent individuals, it's systems that treat power as innocence. And until that changes, murder in politics won't be an exception. It'll be a feature. So we're gonna keep seeing this. It might not necessarily be in the literal ways that we talked about here tonight.

SPEAKER_00 46:58

Yeah. But we're seeing it. And it's getting quicker and quicker in real time. Yeah. That heat has turned. Do you feel like the heat's turned up?

SPEAKER_01 47:06

I do. And I think this is um this is what societies who have gone through like really hardcore repression feel. And then unfortunately, it's too late. Like what happened in Nazi Germany. Right? People, people, everyday people are going, something is happening. This is fucking crazy. Oh, but don't worry, nothing's gonna undermine the fundamental, like core values of this democracy that we've built. And it's like, surprise, bitches, we're all handmade. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Or you're in a our our family's in the concentration camps. Like, it's just that it happens quick, especially if you're not paying attention and it's already happening, yes, and especially if you have been lulled to sleep and you think this can't happen here. Yeah, like this is the oldest, the oldest democracy, i.e. America. Nothing can we're we're impenetrable. Like nothing is going to really fundamentally Titanic, goddammit. We are. I mean, we could be, any system could be, and it's any system falls victim to this sort of um fast decline when people don't pay attention and not just don't pay attention, don't stand up and say, what the fuck? And so I'm taking, yes, things feel very dire, but also more and more people who whom have never said that they're political, which I think is stupid. They're standing up and they're like, something's fucking wrong. And stand up and say something. Yeah. Please. We're animals. We know when something's off. Yes. And we know when our when our survival is at stake. And that's what's happening right now. So that gut feeling that you feel, that that animalistic like instinct of, oh shit, I gotta fight or die. Like, you gotta pay attention to that. That's that's in there. Evolution gave us that. And if you ignore it, the consequences could be irreversible. So pay attention, y'all. Chunk and make it bitches. That was a lovely Friday. T G I S. Happy Friday. We're all gonna die. This is why I dream, by the way. All right, everybody.

SPEAKER_00 49:26

We're brought to you by Kirkland vodka Soda.

SPEAKER_01 49:29

Yes, and uh some and and Kettle One, which is made in uh Holland, which I love. I love Holland. Okay, Holland rocks. Uh so anyway, you guys continue to follow us, join our community on TikTok or TWATJC Tub T W A T J C. I've been talking way too much today. I uh lost it. Um yes, and we're on Facebook, uh, Instagram, YouTube. Just just fucking follow us. Yay! Send us a text, which you can do through our platform on Apple and Spotify's. We want to hear from you. Right now it's just Jen and I texting each other and name shit. Testing, testing, ho bag. We need more. We need to hear from you. We appreciate you. We love you, and we're so happy that you're listening. Stay safe, everybody. We'll see you in like two weeks, dog. Yeah. Bye.