Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates
Courageous Leadership with Dr. Travis Yates Podcast examines what it means to be a Courageous Police Leader. Join us weekly as the concepts of Courageous Leadership are detailed along with interviews with influencers that are committed to leading with courage. You can find out more about Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates at: www.TravisYates.org
Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates
Charlie Kirk, Assassination Culture, & Political Supremacists
We have a political supremacist problem in America where certain ideologies believe their viewpoint is so morally correct that violence becomes an acceptable response to their opponents.
• A Rutgers University study found over 50% of left-of-center respondents believed the assassination of political figures was justified
• The FBI Assailant Study revealed 28% of cop killers acted for "social and political reasons"
• Law enforcement needs federal support, resources, and intelligence to address this domestic terrorism threat
• We cannot expect this situation to improve without acknowledging and confronting the reality of domestic terrorism
• Speaking truth professionally and boldly is essential even in the face of intimidation
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Welcome to the show. I know week that, from a law enforcement perspective and from someone that did this job for three decades, that understands the evil and the demonic forces that are out there. You may not believe that, you may not have a spiritual sense to understand that, but I can just tell you, from encountering people for well over 30 years as a law enforcement officer, I've seen up front and close sort of the evil that exists that most society doesn't want to think about. I think in a sense that's part of why so many people are struggling this week is. Your head may have been in the sand and it was. It's pretty clear now, if you didn't already think so, that we have an issue in this country. And before I go any further, I had the pleasure and honor of being on the Elio Roundtable podcast, I think just 24 or 48 hours after this event happened. Actually it was the next day and that's Chip DeBloch does that show. I highly recommend it. You can get it on all your podcast platforms LEO Roundtable Podcast. He does it every single day and I have an open invitation, very honored, to go on there. But I try to get on there at least once a week. But let me just let you hear my thoughts a little bit raw right after this happened.
Travis Yates:Yeah, chip, obviously heavy heart today, but I think we have to acknowledge that we have a political supremacy problem in this country. There's a specific ideology on the left of the political spectrum that believes their viewpoint is so morally correct that their political opponents are so dangerous that assassinations and violence is the answer. I want to be clear. It's not just one random shooter or one insane person. Sometimes the media is going to make you believe that, but you don't have to call for the assassination of someone, although there's many clips out there of people doing that for various political figures. All you have to do is to give insane people a reason to do it. The political supremacists have been calling President Trump, charlie Kirk, white males, maga, their opponents' names for a decade. Hitler, fascist, threat to democracy garbage deplorables. Democracy, garbage, deplorables. You know, chip, it was a little more over a year ago that we were having a very similar conversation when President Trump came just a millimeter from having his head blown off Right and we heard we heard the same thing. Then we heard now, all we need to turn down the rhetoric oh, this can't create a civil war. It's always odd to me that people that all were saying that seems to be where the political side of the bullets are flying. And I want to be clear to your audience Republicans are being taken advantage of because of their decency chip. We're not burning Teslas. We're not riding in the streets. We're not calling to defund the police. We're not chanting death to America.
Travis Yates:There were chants yesterday at Charlie Kirk's event. Death to him from protesters. What was Charlie Kirk's event? Death to him from protesters. What was Charlie Kirk's crime? 31-year-old father of two, what was his crime? He was going on college campuses in a very professional manner and he would talk to anybody about issues. Gentlemen, that's the bedrock of our democracy. That's what this country is founded on. Right. He was kind, he was decent, he was caring, yet they opposed him. You would have to be brain dead to not see that in his videos. Yet they murdered him.
Travis Yates:What do you think this means for you, if these political supremacists are willing to murder a private citizen who openly discusses faith in Jesus Christ, who were educating young men on how to be men, doing this in a very dignified, professional way? What does that mean for everybody else? And my message to everyone is. They need to stand up. Know that evil is there. Know there are demons among us. If you don't believe us, just look online today and stand up. There aren't enough bullets in the guns of insane, crazy psychopaths to stop what is coming. I fully believe in Romans 8, 28. God is going to raise up thousands and thousands of young men to speak up amongst the culture, among young people. If they thought Charlie Kirk was a problem two days ago, they haven't seen anything yet Now.
Travis Yates:I want to sort of lean into that somewhat. I think people need to understand one thing what we saw on Wednesday should not have shocked anybody. It just shouldn't have. I know maybe it did and you can't believe this has happened in this country. But anyone involved in law enforcement understands that this has not only occurred already, but it's been on the surface for quite some time. Do not fall for the lie that this is just some crazy person and that's it. It's isolated. That would be wrong. We very much have what I would deem an assassination culture and combine that with what I would call a political supremacy problem. Political supremacy is a specific ideology and it's predominantly on the left. I will prove that to you in a minute that its view of the world is so morally correct and that its political opponents are so dangerous that assassination is the answer.
Travis Yates:You've seen officials not crazy people online like top officials in this country, politicians and journalists for at least the last decade call from President Trump to MAGA, to white people, to their political enemies these names, you've heard them fascists and Nazi and Hitler, deplorables and garbage threats to democracy, an existential threat. You're going to lock up black people. You're going to make internment camps. I mean it is so crazy and I think we got here this week because we didn't take that seriously. Now, this is unique. I want the young people listening to this.
Travis Yates:This did not happen. Ok, when I was a kid, just one generation ago, you had politics and you had good banter, but you had one side would speak about an issue and the other side would speak about an issue, and were there a few names here and there? Probably, but to this level, it's pretty insane. I think what really irritates me is this nonsense of well, both sides need to ratchet it down, both sides need to calm down. Well, how did that work after they almost blew President Trump's head off People? We've already forgotten about that. I mean, I'll tell you how much that did work. That happened, I think, in July. From August to November it was struck to democracy, nazi Hitler, to try to win an election. That was what it was, and I love how the Nancy Pelosi's of the world, these politicians, get to have deniable plausibility. Well, you can't blame us for the actions of these people. Folks, I'm going to tell you they're not surprised by this. They know. They know that a majority of their political party believes that murder is the answer. And let me just prove that to you.
Travis Yates:There was a survey done about a year ago. It's out of Rutgers University. The survey was called the assassination culture. In fact I was doing some research on this because I sort of heard about the study but I didn't dive into it until a few days ago. I wrote an article on it on my sub stack. You can go to courageous police leader dot com or go to Travis Chase dot org and hit the sub stack button and subscribe. There you get these weekly articles. But I wrote about this yesterday and Charlie Kirk actually pointed to this study and I think it was a little over a year ago. There and you get these weekly articles, but I wrote about this yesterday and tardy kirk actually pointed to this study and I think it was a little over a year ago.
Travis Yates:This is out of rutgers university and you can, and I dove into this study. Listen, I do not recommend a doctorate degree to anybody. I had no idea what I was getting into and I didn't really learn anything. In fact, I think I probably got dumber. But the one thing I did learn, the one thing I did learn was to look at a research study to determine whether it was appropriate or not, because if you know this or not, you can doctor up studies and people do it all the time. So I dove in the details of this study and it's very good, very well done. They surveyed almost 1300 people from across racial, ethnic, political lines, and that's a lot of people for a survey. If you weren't aware of that, very good survey.
Travis Yates:And they sort of play games with the headline in the survey. The headline says, and some of the first statement says, is there's a broader assassination culture that appears to be emerging within segments of the US public on the extreme left. That's not actually true. When you dive into the survey or the study, it's much more sinister than that and that's why I know for a fact that these people that are calling these code names to people Nazi, hitler, you know dangerous threat to democracy, you're going to destroy our fabric of this and that they know that they're sending signals out to these people to do this very thing. They know that because a study indicates that when you dive into the study, it's not the extreme left.
Travis Yates:Here's what the findings of the survey said and I'll quote from the study. Other respondents who identified as left of center that does not sound like extreme left to me. Left of center, left of moderate, that sounds like the democratic party. Okay, over 50 said that there was justification for the murder of President Trump and Elon Musk. In fact, it was like 56 percent for the murder of Elon Musk and like 51 percent for the murder of President Trump, and I was just sort of nice to the article. I said over 50 percent to cover both of them. Can you imagine that that an entire political party in this country, that an entire political party in this country, half of the people inside that party said, yeah, we really should be killing President Trump, a president, and Elon Musk, a private citizen, and we're supposed to act surprised. I think this is outrageous, that anyone would be surprised.
Travis Yates:And if you don't think that study's real, have you been online this week to see the doctors and the lawyers and the nurses and the school teachers and all these people just cheering for the assassination of this 31-year-old father whose crime was? And maybe you weren't familiar for the assassination of this 31-year-old father whose crime was? And maybe you weren't familiar with Charlie Kirk before this week? But I was familiar with him because of my kids. My kids really followed him. My wife followed his wife.
Travis Yates:I watched a few of his things and he was such an impressive young man. I mean the fabric of America is healthy debate. I mean you can go to the locks for yourself. You'll never see him screaming at anybody. You'll never see him calling people names All these things that people are saying. Stephen King, what a horrible way to be near the end of your life and to be like this man, this author, stephen King, who said he advocated the stoning of gays. That's just one of thousands and thousands of comments. Of course, nobody will follow up with a video of him saying it right, because they're all lies. They're all lies. He was so respectful, in fact, the more I looked into it. He employed gays. He employed people that were non-Christian. He just loved on people. When you watch his videos, you're going to see them for the rest of your life.
Travis Yates:Now, thanks to this psychopath and this political ideology that did this, you'll see that. It's amazing. Right Over 50% said murder's okay. Now here's what's insane about the study 40% said it was acceptable to destroy property. More of you want to kill people than destroy property. Now, I know many of you. Maybe you're a Democrat or you're registered as a Democrat, or your friends or family are Democrat. I'm not saying this is you, but how did you ignore this? There is an ideology inside this political party that thinks violence is the answer, and this is not unique to Wednesday. This has been happening in this country for years. Let's just back this up a few months, when they were burning Teslas. Let's go back a few more months when they were cheering for the murder of the United Healthcare CEO, brian Thompson, and he was a folk hero In California. Right now, they're trying to name legislation after Mangino that killed him. There is a death culture in this country that is inside a major political party, and nobody wants to say this.
Travis Yates:Do not tell me this is the hands of a single lone gunman. No, this was a kid from a conservative Mormon family who from all looks to be completely normal family structure, solid and then he is. He was described in high school as a reddit kid, which is where a lot of these kids are indoctrinated reddit and discord. He specifically comes on discord and reddit and then he goes to a university, which probably didn't help matters, and he was indoctrinated with this extreme ideology. Folks, if I change that definition up and said this, there was a kid in Saudi Arabia that was indoctrinated to come kill Americans. We would call them terrorists all day. Why are we not calling this what it is? This is domestic terrorism. I just read you a study that showed half of a political party believes in violence To get their way when it comes to politics or opinions, and we have called people inside the United States domestic terrorists before. What are we scared of and why are we not doing something about it? And before I get there, let me just tell you more why this is not surprising.
Travis Yates:In law enforcement, do you know there have been numerous police officers killed for ideological reasons with these extremists. I mean, do I have to back this up? A few years ago, when they were burning cities and did billions of dollars of damage and killing citizens and killing cops in the name of Black Lives Matter and all this other stuff. By the way, the study said that I'm going to show you another study that says that too. Okay, let me just back this up even more.
Travis Yates:In 2016, the FBI did a study called the FBI Assailant Study. If you go to my sub stack, I linked it. You can go look it up yourself. Just type in FBI Assailant Study. If you can't spell assailant, become a conservative, you'll be smarter. They studied the personality or the makeup of people that killed cops. One thing the FBI has done pretty well throughout the years although they've taken the last few years off, I hope they get back to it is they do a deep dive on cop killers and the victimology of law enforcement and they sort of come out with these safety things, safety tools, on how to try to prevent this. Do you know? This is a quote from the FBI 28% of cop killers said they did so for social and or political reasons. This is another quote.
Travis Yates:They believe that attacking police officers is their way to get justice for those who had been, in their view, unjustly killed by law enforcement. That is political ideology, that is political supremacism, that is terrorism. That is terrorism. You are convinced in your mind that doing this violence is justice or will fix a certain problem. Of course, we saw that Wednesday, everybody saw that Wednesday, but people are forgetting this has been going on for years. Let me just back off of murder. Do you know that there has been violence on college campuses, with conservatives speaking for well over a decade? Ben Shapiro had to, I think, lock himself in a room for almost several hours before he could leave. They've had to have all these security measures. Some schools don't let them come on campus because they're scared of the violence. We have accepted this as a country and it has to stop.
Travis Yates:I broke into law enforcement in 1993. And I would say from there For the next 10 years, there was a hyper focus in this country of white supremacists, typically people that felt like the government was not legitimate and they were their own government, and most people remember this sort of error. You remember Timothy McVeigh, you remember Waco. Although that guy was just, that was a disaster. Yeah, the guy had a cult, but it wasn't like he was. They went in and obviously created that disaster? The FBI. They could have waited for the guy to leave, because he left his house almost every day, but they didn't. Anyway, I digress. Anyway, there was a danger around these individuals, and I'm not saying they weren't dangerous. I can remember they put me undercover at a gun show back in the mid 90s to see who was selling the Turner Diaries, which is this stupid fictional book that these white supremacists would do. I think you can buy the thing on Amazon today.
Travis Yates:I mean, so there was this hyper focus from law enforcement coming down from the federal government, that we must identify and follow and track and make sure this violence is not committed, and it was needed Because of these extremist views that they were facilitating. How much violence do you think has actually happened in that era? There was some. There was a handful of high-profile police killings from these individuals I mean, off the top of my head I can think of less than a dozen. There were some and there was no doubt some that committed violence. Do you think If they pulled the Republican Party back then that 50 percent would say murder was OK? You've lost your ever loving mind? So it was truly, truly extremist and we, law enforcement, did what we did.
Travis Yates:They still exist, but for the most part I can just say from experience they're very quiet, they don't want to really encounter law enforcement, they don't want to bring attention to themselves. They're out there, right, they are. So my point is we're in a very similar place now and we've let it go on, but it's much worse. Folks I just told you the I mean almost one third of all copulants are coming from this ideology. We see this almost every week about this ideology. When I say ideology, I know I'm saying in general terms, right, I mean this kid was some weird ball bunny thing and he allegedly had made some trans things. And of course, look at the school shootings lately with this ideology. I know I'm busting it all in, but there's a pretty quick leap from Antifa to the trans issue, to furry this or furry that. I mean it's just weird, right? It's weird. This kid was actually indoctrinated by Antifa, right? And that is another reason why I think it's much more serious today.
Travis Yates:When you look at the white supremacist issue. I mean everybody knows about the KKK, but they're not nobody even really. I mean they're not even. I don't even know if they're even. Maybe people identify as that, but it's not some well-funded Organization that's created this chaos in all of our cities today. You ever notice that they can just clip their fingers and all of a sudden, riots and protests just happen on a dime. You think that's just organic? And all of a sudden, riots and protests just happen on a dime. You think that's just organic? We have groups in this country, ngos and even a group that called themselves Antifa that say that orchestrate this ideology.
Travis Yates:The study I just mentioned talked about two specific things that created almost one third of the cop killers. They said the media and Black Lives Matter. This is the FBI that said this, but we blow all this off. Why are we not treating this ideology today that's just as violent, if not more, than other ideologies, the way we should? That they are domestic terrorists Right. Why aren't we? I don't understand that and, by the way, you know they've been conducting swatting incidents around the country for years. Most of these high-profile people on the conservative side will tell you about this. I think Alex Jones has been swatted 50-plus times. Stephen Crowder's been swatted.
Travis Yates:You may not agree with these guys. That's your choice, but you have to agree that violence is not cool for anybody. The violence is not the answer for anybody. So if you don't believe that, you need to quit listening to this, in fact, email me so I can report you to the officials, or I can come visit you and and make sure you're not doing any harm, or I can come visit you and make sure you're not doing any harm. I mean, I hope some of these psychopaths aren't listening to this, but maybe you are.
Travis Yates:So I mean, we're not talking about politics here, where I believe in this or I believe you can believe in whatever you want, but what you can't believe in is that violence is the answer, and we have. It's more than you think. I know that for various reasons. First off, I was in law enforcement. I've actually experienced it firsthand, what these people are and what they act like. I've seen the studies and you go online this week and see the responses.
Travis Yates:It's more people than you think that believe that murder is the answer and I don't think we're taking it that serious. They are inside our country and they want violence to move a political agenda. This is, and law enforcement is going to feel like their hands are tied until the federal government does what they did in the 90s about white supremacists, resources, intel, right? I mean, if you can say something, if you can threaten the president online and the Secret Service visits your house, why are we letting other people threaten people online? And, of course, you go down this road? Oh, we don't want to be censorship, we don't want to be like France. What are you going to do about this? Listen, I'm going to close this up. I know I'm rambling. I appreciate you for still listening. Of course, do not fall for the lie that, oh, the pendulum will just swing back and we're all going to calm down and come back and kumbaya. What are you talking about? A majority of a major political party in this country believes in murder. They think murder is the answer.
Travis Yates:Do you think that all these people that are saying this stuff online and these sick people are just going to wake up tomorrow and go? I think I'll be a normal person now. This is over with ladies and gentlemen and you police leaders out there. What are you doing about this? Have you prepared your officers with the training and resources and survival skills the same way we did with groups in the 90s, because we did a lot of training and there was a lot of intel? I don't remember hardly a day going by without seeing a bullet. And that needed, don't get me wrong. That was needed. But guess what? It's pretty much been handled.
Travis Yates:You're not seeing daily occurrences of white supremacists killing people, even though msmc wants to make you think that you just don't see it. I believe in data here and the data is not there. But when you look at what we just saw this week, it is clear. It is clear what we're enduring and my question to you is where do we go next? Do not buy the lie that everything's just going to get better now. This, now you, a country, cannot come together when a significant portion of the citizenry believes that violence is the answer. The only answer is is for you to prepare yourself in case that violence wants to visit you. It's that simple. So this is not a very uplifting message, but I doubt you saw many of those this week.
Travis Yates:I just want to be real with you, and I doubt many of any other of these so-called leadership gurus are saying any of this, because I've already talked about how that's a scam. I'm here to solve issues, to make you think about issues, to make your job safer, better and throw in, hopefully, some leadership tips to make you better. You can decide what you want to use and not use, but oftentimes it's designed to make you think and ponder that maybe things that other people aren't saying. You may not like it all, but why would you like it all? Let's get that out of our head. There's very few people that I agree with 100% of the time. Why would we? We're all different people. We all have different experiences. We all have different backgrounds. But if there's some things that you can take that you can use, you can throw out the rest. You're not going to offend me Tough week.
Travis Yates:But the other reason I wanted to record this is it's almost an historical marker, because if we go five years down the road and America's, like Disneyland, come back and listen to this and say that Travis Yates doesn't know what he's talking about, you're not going to be able to do that, unfortunately. I wish, but see, I don't live in Disneyland, I'm living in reality, and when I say these people are real and there are a lot of them, it's because I've encountered a lot of them. You, because I've encountered a lot of them. You can't be. I mean it's so. It's first off. It's so ridiculous that they would kill charlie kirk, who's a private citizen who simply was kind, nice and generous but had an opinion and would back it up.
Travis Yates:Well, if you're pretty much anyone that is has a low to medium profile in law enforcement, you probably experienced some very similar things, which is crazy. I'm not some popular person online, but the very little bit I've been online. I've been called Nazi, I've been called a Hitler, I've been called a Russian asset. That's a fun one. It's just silly and crazy and people just accept it's okay, it's just a Monday. In fact, at the time I was on the department, they blamed me for getting called those names. I mean, it's just insane, right? So I've seen this firsthand. And so if I've seen it firsthand, that means anybody out there listening is likely or potentially going to see it firsthand.
Travis Yates:So the one thing you don't want to do is be silent and run away, and that's what terrorists want. Speak professionally, speak boldly, speak the truth. That's all you can do. That's all you can do Tough week, and if you spend a few minutes with me today, after that week, you can do Tough week. And if you spend a few minutes with me today after that week, I'm grateful. Thanks so much. We'll see you next time. Thank you for listening to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates. We invite you to join other courageous leaders at travisyatesorg.
