Is political violence the norm or the exception

Talking a hard look at disturbing instances of political violence recently and what may still be ahead 

Transcript

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Welcome in to another edition of The Truth. Behind the truth. I'm Jonathan Pearl, your host, and we have a topic today that is getting more and more traction. And I think it's something that we're going to really need to talk about in the future because it only seems to be getting worse. At least in some cases, it seems to be getting worse. I happen to believe it is getting worse and needs to be addressed, but not so fast. I mean, I'm not saying that this is definitely the way it is. And with political violence, and that's what this is going to be about, political violence. And again, that ties in with our title, The Truth Behind the Truth, which is just that, which means we're going to deal with every single issue that we're all faced with that is even remotely controversial. And we're going to talk about it and we're going to see where we go with it, what needs to be done. Does anything need to be done? But the political violence in this country is ramping up right now. And it's ramping up at an alarming rate. And it's culminating in the murder of a Trump supporter in his own front yard in Escondido, California, which is a suburb of San Diego, and it baits the question with that assault and ultimate murder. Are we going too far? And as a country, are we in trouble? Well, the short answer is probably yes, but there are reasons to be concerned, but it's also important that we don't jump conclusions here. We don't want to jump to conclusions and come to any because we have to look at the facts of this case. Now, this particular gentleman in Escondido, his name was Carrie Sharon. He's an Army veteran, and obviously he is a diehard Trump supporter. He is known for his highly visible Trump displays, the signage, the American flags that are literally all over his yard. Now, as a result of that, at least on the surface, somebody attacked him in his front yard and basically beat him to death. And they won't go as far as to say it was because he was a Trump supporter. We're going to have to look at it and see. But the two definitely are going to tie together. Why target this guy then? I mean, was there some kind of an exchange between them? Did Kerry Sharon actually start the altercation? Now, it really doesn't matter who started it because it should never end in murder. But this one has. And they have arrested a suspect. But what they're trying to figure out is was this attack provoked or was it unprovoked? That is going to be the big question here. On the surface, this story is absolutely disturbing to the umpteenth degree. But the distinction between was it politically motivated or was it random, it's fair to say, I mean, you can actually make the point he was a Trump supporter and he was killed after an attack outside his home. His political views were very, very obvious. There was no question what his political views are. And his family believes that the displays may have played a role. But authorities are stopping short on that because they have not yet established a political motive. In fact, they haven't established a motive at all right now because the thing is still under investigation. But as for the broader question, are we in trouble as a country? The trend is concerning. And every single American should be concerned about this trend. Over the last several years, Americans have witnessed all kinds of assassination attempts against political figures on both sides of the aisle, right and left, attacks on elected officials and candidates. We've seen violence at protests and political events. We've even seen threats against judges, election workers, journalists, activists, increasing public acceptance in some polls of the idea that violence might be justified to achieve any political goals. That is what the experts are looking at. And if it goes in that direction, how frightening is that? But what worries many historians and political scientists is not necessarily the raw number of incidents, it's the normalization of hostility. Let me say that again. Now that's a perception right now. I don't think you could actually prove that beyond a reasonable doubt, but it is becoming more clear, and people are asking, is this normalization of hostility a problem? Well, it absolutely is. When you can't disagree with somebody, when you can't disagree with somebody, regardless of what side of the aisle you're on, and you fail to see that person as a fellow citizen who just happens to have a different view than yours, instead, they're viewed as enemies, traitors, or worse yet, existential threats. And when you get all those things combined, you potentially are looking at some kind of a big, big powder keg that is about ready to go. And it's going to be very interesting to watch this case and to see exactly what this suspect is convicted of. If he's convicted at all. I mean, if it turns out that the attack was provoked by the homeowner, I mean, that might change the narrative a little bit, and it could definitely change the court case. But the real danger here is a gradual cycle. One side experiences an attack, okay, whether it's the left or the right. People conclude then that the entire opposition, they're the ones behind it, they're responsible for it, they're the bad people, and they start with their retaliatory rhetoric, and that goes up and up and up and up. And a small number of unstable or radicalized individuals will act violently and the cycle will repeat. But if that cycle accelerates, political violence can become self-sustaining even when the overwhelming majority of Americans do not want it. So what do we do? Again, it's what we talked about in the very first episode of The Truth Behind the Truth. What are we doing here? Why are we so angry? And all of this stems from TDS, which is Trump derangement syndrome. And again, and that is a thing, believe it or not, it really is a thing. But we're seeing this on both sides of the aisle. And as we just mentioned, when one group attacks somebody else on the other side, it becomes the rhetoric between the two becomes retaliatory, back and forth, and nothing is ever going to get accomplished if it's nothing but retaliatory. That is for sure. The moment any conversation gets emotional, walk away. If anything gets heated, it's okay to vehemently disagree with somebody. And it's okay to have a fiery debate, and you should do that. But you should be able to continue respecting the person that you're debating with. And it should never escalate beyond just disagreement. It can get vehement and it can get loud as long as the end of the conversation, everybody turns and walks away, and we'll just have to agree to disagree. Maybe even in some cases go to lunch with that person or buy them a beer and see if you can't convince them why you believe what you believe and then have them teach you why they believe what they believe. But that is not going to happen. The country right now, with this topic, is not facing an immediate breakdown. But the rise in political violence and dehumanizing rhetoric is certainly a major, major red flag that deserves to be taken seriously by people across the political spectrum on both sides. The most important question, I guess, is not whether violence is coming from the left or right, it's whether Americans continue to view political disagreement as something to be settled through persuasion and elections rather than intimidation and force. That's what we're dealing with now. Now, this Trump supporter that was killed in his front yard in Escondido, California, he's not a one-off. We have seen multiple attempts on President Trump's life just in the last year and a half. And let's not forget about what happened to Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk when he was giving a talk at that Utah University campus, and he was shot in the neck and killed instantly in front of thousands of people. Ryla Gaines, who spoke out against transgender athletes, was threatened with violence whenever she would go speak on a college campus. She had to have a security team with her. Or if she was just in a restaurant somewhere, having lunch or having dinner, and she went into the ladies' room, people were following her into the restroom specifically to threaten her. Why are we doing that? Why does it come to that? What is it that makes these people so angry that they can't just have a discussion and as I've said on this podcast until I'm blue in the face, try and find some common ground? Instead, it becomes instantaneously confrontational, yelling, screaming, finger pointing, name-calling, not listening to the other person. I mean, actually attempting to maybe even hold their mouth so they can't talk. It is crazy when you watch these things happen. It is absolutely crazy. And we have to figure out a solution here. I don't think our political system as a whole can sustain this for very long. I hope this is not the future. Because if it is, our system is not going to be able to sustain that. Now, let me piggyback something else on this that ties right now indirectly into what we're talking about. There are a couple of political races right now in the country going on that are getting a lot of attention. In fact, it's really only two that are getting this much attention. The first one would have to be in the state of Maine, where longtime Republican Senator Susan Collins is being challenged by a Democrat named Graham Plattner. And Graham Plattner is raising a lot of eyebrows. If you don't know anything about this guy, you need to Google him because it is absolutely frightening. Now, Susan Collins is much more of a moderate in the Republican Party. By no means is she an extremist on the right. She's very middle of the road, and she's not afraid to disagree with President Trump. And she has voted against President Trump on numerous occasions. She's voted with him on some things, but she's voted against him on a lot more. But the thing that's so troubling about Graham Platner, and again, this ties into the potential for political violence, this guy is a self-professed racist. He is a self-professed anti-Semite. He is a self-professed homophobe or any other negative adjective that you want to connect this guy to. And the biggest thing that people are talking about is this tattoo that he had on his chest. That before he had it changed, it was a Nazi tattoo. It was a Nazi prison guard tattoo. And that tattoo is 10 times worse than any other Nazi symbol, like a swastika. This was a Nazi prison guard tattoo that he has changed. He has even gone as far as to call other, he spent time in the army, and he has said on multiple occasions that he knows of two instances where soldiers were killed in the line of duty and they didn't deserve the Medal of Honor. They didn't deserve any recognition at all because they messed up. Why are we giving them all this attention? He didn't do it right. Guy was not acting according to policy. He wasn't very smart. He wasn't very well liked by everybody else in the unit. Well, be that as it may. Now that's his side of the story. But this guy is absolutely frightening. And of course, this weekend we find out that he has been accused of by tens of women. I mean, we're getting into the dozens now of women that are coming out of the woodwork and say that they have been, via text primarily, they have been sexually assaulted by this guy verbally. And women everywhere. And his wife, in the most bizarre move ever, came out on television this weekend to admit, yeah, this has been going on. And yes, we have marital problems. And I don't deny any of this. But this is going too far with what you're accusing my husband of. What? She starts talking by basically proving what everybody's saying. And then she goes off, but yeah, let's put that aside and let's look at the man that I profess to know and love. I mean, it's it seemed and it's been referred to on other networks as almost this hostage video, where it was almost like she was being made to do this and there was somebody off camera. But the bigger issue here, and I personally don't think if you've heard of this race in Maine, Graham Plattner versus Susan Collins. Now, Plattner is in the lead right now, but his lead is shrinking. And when you take into account uh the margin of error, you could probably make a pretty good argument that they're a dead heat. But is it going to stay that way? Because the the pressure on this guy is increasing exponentially every single day. So much so that some Democrats are completely distancing themselves from him. Now, it's important to note on that that in the state of Maine, and I believe their primary is tomorrow, it's important to note that in Maine, there is a law that states you can win your primary. You can win it outright or you can go to a runoff or whatever. But once you win and you become the candidate, your party, in this case, the Democratic Party, even if he wins and beats Susan Collins tomorrow, the Democratic Party can still replace him with somebody that they're gonna choose as a party. So nothing is guaranteed. So if this guy does, in fact, win the election tomorrow, I wouldn't get all hot and bothered by it. But we'll see. I think that people are gonna come to their senses. And I think when you represent, I mean, if if you live in Maine, regardless of what side of the political aisle you're on, if you live in Maine, is that the kind of person that you want to represent you? I certainly don't. I don't live in Maine, I live in Georgia, but my dad's side of the family is Jewish, so I'm half Jewish. So if I lived in Maine, there is that guy would keep me awake at night until I knew he was out of the race. There's no place for people like that in our political system. But now the bigger question there is: is this just a trend that's going on with these candidates that are coming out of the woodwork that have these extremist views? And it doesn't matter because we've got a couple out there who aren't politicians yet, but are probably going to be running for office at some point in time, guy by the name of Nick Fuentes. We we talked about him, very young guy. He identifies as a Republican. But if you can imagine, the best way to describe him, he says he's a Republican, but his stance on everything, on everything, I mean everything, is the polar opposite of what Charlie Kirk stood for. So it's happening on both sides. But do you want someone like that with those views representing you? Man, that is frightening. And the thing that scares me, if this guy should win the primary, then go to the general election and actually become the elected senator for Maine, oh boy. Is this going to be the start of something? I fear that it's going to be. I hope not. I hope I'm wrong. And if he loses, I will continue to have my faith that everything is fine. They saw this guy for what he is, and people in Maine as a whole, the Maine electorate, decided they did not want him to represent them. Now, there's a very good chance that that's going to happen. But again, there's a law in Maine. If he should win, the Democratic Party can still remove him. So even though he wins the primary, he still may not go any further than this. But we don't need to see this everywhere else. We've already seen this in states like Texas. Jasmine Crockett. Have you heard of her? I don't want to go into a long dissertation about her, but she lost her bid for the Senate in Texas. But boy, you you you talk about somebody who's out there and an extremist, listen to her. Look no further than Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders hates the rich. And that's why he loves Zoran Mamdani so much, the mayor of New York, who is just, you know, it's hard for me to have sympathy for the people in New York because they voted for this guy. Exactly what we talked about. Do you want somebody like that representing you? Well, apparently, New Yorkers overwhelmingly said, yeah, this is who we want to represent us. And look what's happening in New York now. The rich are leaving there in droves. Big corporations are leaving New York in droves. So much so that it could cost them potentially political seats later in the Senate, the House, and certainly at the state level, in the state house as well and in the state senate. So there is a lot riding on this. And the second race that is getting almost as much attention, but it's not quite the extreme that Maine is, is this Los Angeles mayoral race between reality star Spencer Pratt, who had that show back in the 90s with his wife, Heidi Montag, and the current Los Angeles mayor, Karen Bass, who, by all accounts, I mean, she was in another country attending a wedding when the Pacific Palisades fire was happening. She was nowhere to be found. And remember, things that we've already learned about that while she was gone, there were reservoirs that were empty. Fire crews were plugging into the fire hydrants and any place else that had water, they'd turn it on, nothing. No water. And that happened time and time again during those fires where whatever resources the firefighters needed, they weren't able to get. And people are looking for Karen Bass saying, What are you doing? Well, I'm in Guam or wherever she was. She was out of town and didn't feel like, you know, I better get on a plane and go back to my city because it's burning down. So she's taken a lot of heat for that. And also the homeless problem that they have in Los Angeles right now. If if you live there or if you've been there, I was born and raised in Southern California before I started my radio career, and then it wound up moving me all over the country. And once I left California in 1994, I never went back because the politics in that state, even then, literally drove me out of there, as much as the traffic. But that's that is a whole different story. Right there. But it is amazing to me that you have a current mayor with this huge homeless crisis. Remember, the World Cup is coming to the United States. And one of the places they're going to be playing is Los Angeles at SoFi Stadium. That is not going to be a good look for the rest of the world, you know, to come in and see. But she does not call them homeless. She calls them the unhoused. I mean, okay, I understand what you mean, but that is I mean, that is trying to soften the problem. To try and make, oh, we just have some people who are a little unhoused right now, but we're working. No, it it's a major problem. And an awful lot of these people who are homeless in Los Angeles have severe mental illness. Severe. They need help. They need treatment. They need facilities. They may or may not need medication. Some of them are criminals. And when they commit a crime, they need to be arrested, cuffed, and taken off the streets. But a lot of what's going on in Los Angeles right now, which has got the highest homeless population in the country, it's getting worse and worse and worse. And Karen Bass is just ignoring, ignoring, ignoring. She keeps turning a blind eye and said, we're working on our problem with the unhoused. Well, Spencer Pratt, on the other side, is calling attention to this. And by the way, he is not running as a Republican. People say that he is a Republican. Maybe he is, but he's not running as a Republican. He's running as an independent. And if you've heard him interviewed, this guy is brilliant in interviews. And I think politicians all over the country should be taking heed to what this guy says and paying attention to how he delivers his message. Because that's something that a lot of people running for office, or even people who are running for re-election, could really learn from. This guy knows the issues. And he is saying, no, this is not an unhoused problem. This is a homeless problem. My whole neighborhood, my house, my parents' house, friends of ours lost their houses in those fires. And a lot of them can't rebuild because the cost of rebuilding, there were hundreds, if not thousands, of homes that were wiped out in Pacific Palisades. And as of last week, the number of homes that have actually been rebuilt, I think was somewhere in the neighborhood of 37. 37. And that's because the rest of the people, even though they make great money, they have plenty of assets, but they just can't afford to rebuild in the same place. But what Spencer Pratt is, he is talking about that. But he's not just talking about the problem. He's offering up solutions to those problems. He wants to help the homeless. He wants to separate the criminal from the mentally ill, get the mentally ill people in a position where they can get the resources that they need to get better. And the criminal side, get them off the streets. But he's offering solutions to all of these problems. He has identified a litany of problems in LA that he has challenged Karen Bass on. And she just kind of gives a very bizarre answer and then clams up. He, on the other hand, he will go through these problems point by point and he will offer a solution to every one of them. Are they perfect solutions? Not necessarily. Some of them are pretty good. Will they work? I don't know. Even if he wins, remember, California is a blue state. Los Angeles is certainly a blue city. But at least he is offering solutions. And politicians, especially on the left right now, you listen to these people. They don't have any policies. They have no solutions to the problem because they say the problem is simple. The problem is one person, President Trump. It's his fault that we're in this. No, it really isn't. Not at all. What he's dealing with now with regard to the domestic side of things, he inherited. Now, you may not like him, and I certainly don't like his rhetoric sometimes. But my gosh, to blame as part of your political strategy, blame the guy in the White House instead of telling your constituents and people who may potentially vote for you, this is what I think I might be able to do to make this less of a problem, if not make the problem go away. So that's why I think other politicians should really, really be paying attention to what Spencer Pratt is doing, how he's presenting himself, and more importantly, how he's presenting the issues, because that's not getting done anywhere right now. And I'm going to make a prediction. And if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. But I'm going to make a prediction that at the end of the day, with the ineffectiveness of Karen Bass in Los Angeles, people who would never want to say to anybody that they voted for Pratt or that they voted for Trump, I think a lot of those people will probably come out and vote for Spencer Pratt because Angelinos are absolutely 100% fed up with their current leadership in the city. And they all recognize it's getting worse and worse and worse, and something absolutely has to be done. And there's only one guy who's talking about getting that done because Karen Bass, she is not doing that. But I think the Spencer Pratt, I think he's going to win this thing. And that is going to change the dynamic across the country. And I hope the Democrats are paying attention to this because if he does win, that is going to be a huge whoa moment for the Democrats in all of the upcoming primaries that are still yet to come. And with somebody like Karen Bass and with as much as people are fed up in Los Angeles, what can that lead to? Well, in Los Angeles, we've seen it over the years, that can lead to some pretty heavy violence. As, you know, Karen Bass, I'll say this, you know, she has the endorsement of just about every celebrity in Hollywood and every athlete. So the potential there, you know, we we could be looking at some kind of a racial problem again in Los Angeles, like we did after the Rodney King incident and subsequent trial where all the officers were acquitted. I hope we don't have to go through that again because that I was living there at the time doing radio, doing radio in Los Angeles. And we had to be escorted from our cars to the studio with armed police officers on either side of us getting us in and out of the elevator and getting us to our cars. That was one of the scariest things I've ever been a part of in my life. And I don't want to see it happen again. I don't want to see it happen in Los Angeles. I don't want to see it happen in New York. I don't want to see it happen in Maine. I don't want to see it in Boston, Minnesota, Arizona, you name it. We've got to start paying attention here. And we have to stop listening to our emotions. We have to stop letting our emotions get the better of us, be able to have a conversation, be able to have dialogue. And if you want to protest something, if you want to take to the streets and protest something, God love you. That is your right as long as you do it peacefully. And if you're doing it peacefully with a sign, you're not bothering anybody, you're just holding up a sign, and I happen to walk by, I'll stand behind you, not because I agree with you, but because I'll be there to defend your right to do that as long as it stays peaceful. And then when authorities start getting involved, it better be respectful. And, you know, quite honestly, it should be respectful on both sides. Law enforcement, you know, I, you know, they have to be just as respectful with in how they deal with these people. And these people need to understand that they are the ultimate authority. I don't care if Karen Bass and Mikey Sherrill, who's the governor of New Jersey, say ICE is not allowed in RC. Well, they don't get to make that decision. Because that's law enforcement. And these people that they're going after are breaking laws. They're typically not going after, and this is one of the biggest lies out there right now, that they're targeting every illegal and their families. People that have been here for years working hard, paying taxes. No, they're not. They're going after the criminal element. And we've had six million people cross into this country over the last four years. In that six million, don't you think that there's going to be a few problem children there? Undoubtedly. Anyway, it's just, you know, the whole theme is, and that is the truth behind the truth. We are headed down the wrong road. And I hope that some of the things that we're seeing right now is just a one-off and is not going to become the norm because we don't need that in our normal life. Thanks for tuning in. My name is John Prell. We'll have another edition of The Truth Behind the Truth in a few days. Thanks for listening.