Adam Watson (00:01)

Welcome back to Simplifying the State, the podcast where we break down politics so you don’t have to try to figure out why Nepal’s future government is being decided on Discord. As always, I’m Adam Watson,

 

Nicholas Perrin (00:12)

I’m Nicholas Perrin,

 

Drew Garfinkel (00:13)

and I’m Drew Garfinkel 

 

Adam Watson (00:15)

All right, now before we start, if you would be so kind as to rate us and follow the podcast wherever you are listening, as well as share with anyone you think would enjoy the podcast, friends, family, or just a random person you see in the park. Okay, so today’s topic is going to be sort of about the epidemic of political violence that is going on in this country. I’m sure most of you know the recent news that came out of Utah, the assassination of prominent conservative figure Charlie Kirk. That’s sort of what has spurred this episode. Although this whole series of political violence has been going on and has happened long before the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Just to list a few major instances of political violence in the last decade, you had the attempted assassination of Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, the shooting at a congressional baseball game, which seriously wounded -Republican Rep. Steve Scalise, the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally, a white supremacist rally, which turned violent, which included a counter protest, the El Paso Walmart shooting in August 2019, where a gunman killed 23 people in an attack targeting Hispanic shoppers, motivated by anti-immigrant ideology. January 6, when supporters of then-President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol. The attack on Paul Pelosi, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s husband, was assaulted in his San Francisco home. The attempted assassination of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. The shootings of the Minnesota state reps, including the Minnesota Speaker of the House.

And then, of course, the most recent one, the killing of Charlie Kirk. So I kind of want to get your guys’ opinions on how you think we got to this place? Like, how do you think this has all come about? Like, how has it escalated and gotten to this point?

 

Nicholas Perrin (02:15)

Well, I think a good part of it is that not only have political violence and shootings around that increased in recent years, but also just gun violence in general and gun homicides have increased in the past 20 years. Technically, they’ve declined in the past, such as a year or so ago, to where they were four or so years ago, but the data still matches up the two events. And, you know, another attribution to the increased political violence is increased political polarization, which is increasingly becoming a problem, not only in the United States, but worldwide. And so it’s, you know, if that continues to rise, then more political violence and potentially more gun violence as well.

 

Adam Watson (03:03)

Right, yeah, definitely.

 

Drew Garfinkel (03:05)

Yes, I think it’s definitely the political divide. We’re very polarized right now, especially with the MAGA movement and this big divide between left and right, blue and red. And because of that, people can become violent because of their beliefs. We live in a world where people can get killed for thinking specific things.

 

Adam Watson (03:28)

Right? Yeah. And I mean, that’s kind of what, like you talked about it, Nicholas, the comparison between, not just the comparison, but the direct correlation between political polarization and political violence. I mean, in today’s society, there is such an entrenchment of people on both sides of the political spectrum, on the right and on the left, that, you know, even when something like the assassination of Charlie Kirk happened. There were some people who, you know, said they were happy that he died. Some people were cheering the assassination. Same with the assassination of the Minnesota lawmakers. There were some people who joked, including a Republican Senator, Mike Lee of Utah. posted something on X shortly after it happened. Nightmare on Walz Street.

For those of you who don’t really get the reference, Nightmare on Walz Street is a play on words between the movie Nightmare on Elm Street and the governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz. So kind of a play on words there. But I feel like there’s such a divide in this country now with our politics that not only are we unable to hear the other side out, but that we’re actively, not everyone, this is a very small percent of the population, but that some people are happy when political violence happens to the other side.  I think that, you know, we as a nation and as a society, if we want political violence to stop, which I think 99.9 % of people in this country do, we want it to stop. It has to be a universal condemnation of political violence, not just when it happens to us, but also when it happens to our opponents.

 

Nicholas Perrin (05:10)

And I feel like that’s kind of what’s been happening. I mean, from a lot of people you will hear, condemn– especially like moderates and politicians, you’ll hear condemnation towards the other side. Among common people like that I’ve seen and talked to, I mean, like, it’s kind of the same, but I feel like there’s more expression, at least since, you know, St. Louis is a very liberal area. Like there’s less sadness and

like objection to political violence when it comes to Republican candidates and activists. So yeah, it’s interesting to see and kind of frightening.

 

Drew Garfinkel (05:49)

So I spend a lot of time on social media, and I’ve seen a lot of videos about people actively celebrating that he’s dead. I guess, like those kinds of videos, they get pushed more by the algorithms because they’re engaging, but also, like, we shouldn’t be celebrating this. No matter what side, yeah obviously, but it’s kind of crazy to me that people like to see a guy who dies and they’re like yes this is so good.

Adam Watson (06:06)

Right now, absolutely.

 

Drew Garfinkel (06:16)

It’s unbelievable

 

Adam Watson (06:19)

Yeah. Here’s the thing. I can’t speak for both of you. I mean, I would assume, but I did not support like 99 % of what Charlie Kirk said. But at the end of the day, he was still a human being. He was still a father. He was still a husband. And no one should die for their political beliefs or for expressing those political beliefs. That should not be something that happens in a developed democracy and a society where we want legitimate debate and conversation to occur around political topics. That’s just not possible in a functioning democracy. And I feel like that is a sign of a democracy, or quite frankly, even a society in decline, when we are so entrenched in our ideas that we would also, not we specifically, but the people would kill someone for having [an] opposing ideology to them. Rather than, you know, debating that ideology with the other person.

 

Drew Garfinkel (07:21)

Yeah, one of the things he did well was like he would debate people, which was like his whole thing, so he initiated discourse between the sides to get killed for it.

 

Adam Watson (07:33)

Yeah, that’s one of the things that, you know, like I said, I did not agree with his beliefs at all. But I think that that’s one of the things that Charlie Kirk did that, you know, ended up benefiting at least the political culture was this willingness to debate, like to go into places where most people would probably have opposing ideology in debate. I didn’t agree with the stuff he was debating, but I think that the idea behind that, going into wherever and debating people about a topic, is important to our democracy.

 

Nicholas Perrin (08:09)

I mean yeah, First Amendment rights, freedom of speech, that’s very important. People should not be dying over doing that.

 

Adam Watson (08:14)

Yeah, it’s foundational to who we are as Americans.

 

Drew Garfinkel (08:18)

Yeah, like we live in a place where political violence can happen like this. That goes against the core concepts of America and of freedom of expression.

 

Adam Watson (08:30)

Yeah. Also, Drew, you were discussing something that I thought was pretty interesting, which is that you mentioned the algorithm pushing different videos. I also think that another thing that has kind of helped speed this massive polarization is social media. The fact that when something happens like this.

 

Drew Garfinkel (08:35)

Yeah.

 

Adam Watson (08:50)

I mean, most people have phones, most people have some kind of social media application that they are then able to open and immediately share their opinion or what they’re feeling. I mean, that’s not good for something like that, which is an event that is, I mean, fairly traumatic for a lot of people, to be able to just immediately share what you’re thinking at that exact moment while you’re still processing, like what has happened. I think that is definitely something that is not good for our democracy and for our society.

 

Drew Garfinkel (09:24)

I’d like to add that it’s anonymous too, like, it’s easy to say something extreme and no one knows who’s saying it. It’s just text on a screen, and it’s easy to cognitively disassociate. You know?

 

Adam Watson (09:39)

Yeah.absolutely.

 

Nicholas Perrin (09:41)

And extreme content on social media is usually pushed more by the algorithm because it makes people angrier or more shocked by it. And anger is the best form of engagement, like studies have shown. So it might show a disproportionate amount of people who share these radical opinions. And if that happens, then more people might agree with them or think that’s the norm. And because of human behavior,more people become radical, and it’s kind of an endless cycle, although it’s still exaggerated, like that line of thinking has not really been proven, but it’s something to keep an eye out for.

 

Adam Watson (10:19)

Right. Yeah, I also think it’s not just about the algorithm. I think there are also actors who are intentionally, oftentimes trying to cause or stir up controversy or divide and stuff like that. Like I’ve seen a lot of influencers, prominent influencers in the political space talking about shortly after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, like someone commented, this is America’s right stock fire. The left needs to be arrested and disbanded and all that stuff. And then you also often see stuff like that from accounts who are on the left when it happens, when there’s political violence towards the left too. I mean, it’s not just a right or left issue, it’s an issue with our political society and political culture as a whole. Like this is something that is happening on both sides.

 

Drew Garfinkel (11:17)

Something interesting you said is like, you said the left needs to be held responsible, Like someone on the right said that. And I think it’s interesting that that’s immediately what they went to. They went, ‘Okay, we’re going to blame the left.’ And I’m not saying the left doesn’t do this too, but I’m saying that each side blames the other for bad things. So, this is like increasing the divide. This is like saying they’re not helping. This is just gonna cause more political violence.

 

Nicholas Perrin (11:48)

And they only do that because it’s politically beneficial for them. If, like, in a magic world where there were no, like, political parties or whatever, like, as George Washington wanted, then, I mean, yeah, like, there might be less political violence and less blaming of other people. However, this blaming of the other party is a recent phenomenon. Like, if you look back even 50 years, maybe even less than that, it was a lot more civil in debates, and yeah, I think it was mostly like globalization alongside just like quicker communications that have caused this divide and polarization that we see today.

 

Adam Watson (12:35)

Yeah, no, and Drew Garfinkel, you kind of touched on this, and I thought that it was really good, which is that whenever something like this happens, it’s always blaming the other side. I also think that there’s, you know, kind of this feeling that, I hope the person who did this thing is on the other side or is of their political persuasion and not mine. And, you know, I think it goes back to the fact that you were talking about how all that further deepens the divide to where it’s less so of,  wow, that’s horrible. I can’t believe that this person was shot or that this person was attacked for their political beliefs. It’s a boy. I wonder if the other party is the one who did that. I wonder if it’s the party whose ideology I disagree with that did this act of political violence. Cause that would really prove a lot of my political theories, right? And I feel like that is not what’s needed in that situation. It’s a time for universal bipartisan condemnation of political violence and not focusing on which side did it, or what the affiliation of the person who did it is. And because when stuff like this happens, it wasn’t the right wing who attacked the Minnesota lawmakers, and it wasn’t the left wing who killed Charlie Kirk. It was a crazed person who did a very evil thing by murdering a person. That is what needs to be said in moments like that, not about their political persuasion.

 

Drew Garfinkel (14:01)

Yeah, definitely. They caught the guy who did it, right? Today?

 

Adam Watson (14:05)

Yeah, I think they caught him last night. They didn’t really catch him. He was turned in by his dad when he confessed.

 

Drew Garfinkel (14:13)

Yeah, I haven’t seen anything like that. I saw it on social media during school. I didn’t have time looking through it. So I’ll do that after this. Like, it doesn’t matter who did it. I’m just wondering if they caught him.

 

Nicholas Perrin (14:30)

It really is pretty unknown. I mean, they have a suspect, and that’s all I’ve really seen, and I mean, I don’t know Drew Garfinkel. Have you seen the engravings that are on the bullets that were and weren’t used?

 

Drew Garfinkel (14:45)

Yeah, I did. It was like… Like, if you’re reading this, you’re gay. Something like that.

 

Nicholas Perrin (14:47)

Yeah, it was very provocative messages and definitely from like they were sending a message when they made those engravings, like it was clear to see, I mean, if they are real, at least you know the ones that weren’t fired.

 

Adam Watson (15:06)

Right. Drew Garfinkel, you mentioned something that I found interesting, which is that I got this from social media, and that has become part of how we get our news. Many of us get our news from social media, which can sometimes be helpful, such as finding out about something. But then, sometimes people also just stop there.

Like they don’t do further research into the story that they read on social media. They just take whatever social media says as what happened, and they don’t do any additional research into what happened.

 

Drew Garfinkel (15:44)

Yeah, they just “see video, get mad about it”, and then like to take that. They don’t actually, like, anyone can say anything on social media. You don’t know if any of it is factually correct. So like, and that I see this problem I have, like I find most of my information on social media, and I’m… conscious about this,

 

Adam Watson (15:56)

Yeah.

 

Drew Garfinkel (16:05)

I try to see who it’s coming from, seeing if it’s a reputable source and all that. But like a lot of people, like some random guy can make a TikTok video or a podcast and talk about it.

 

Adam Watson (16:19)

Yeah, and I think that kind of stuff is a real danger to our society when anyone can say anything with just this extreme degree of anonymity without any kind of real-life repercussions or anything like that. And that has a lot of dangerous implications, not only for our politics, but for our society in general.

 

Nicholas Perrin (16:43)

Don’t forget, it doesn’t even have to be a person making it anymore. Like, AI can easily do it now.

 

Adam Watson (16:46)

Yeah.

 

Drew Garfinkel (16:48)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, that’s a whole other thing. Yeah.

 

Adam Watson (16:48)

Yeah, AI, that’s another thing. Like it can be some, yeah, an AI like bot from Siberia or something like that can post something to try to stir up controversy within our country to try to sow more divide than there already is. I mean, that has extremely dangerous implications for how we conduct our politics.

 

Drew Garfinkel (17:14)

Yeah, AI is like this whole other thing we could get into and talk about for an hour. But like, it’s such an intriguing topic that these videos are starting to trick me now. Like before, it was like, my mom sent me a video or photo that she thought [was real] that was actually AI. Now, I’m falling for it.

 

Adam Watson (17:34)

Yeah, like I remember I fell for one a little while ago. The premise itself was what tipped me off that it was fake. was like this lady who was trying to bring her supposed emotional support, like a kangaroo, onto a plane. But if the plot itself was not so ridiculous that I wouldn’t have believed it. The voices sounded so realistic. The way it looked [was] so realistic that you actually had to like…like look for very specific things like hands or something like that like to see if it was fake and it’s just becoming so hard to tell what’s real and what’s not real and you know that that’s kind of scary

 

Yeah. And AI is something we could make five other episodes about each hour long talking about the different implications. But yeah, I mean, it’s just a very dynamic media environment that we’re now in that I think has not been the implications of which have not really been fully considered, you know, by people. And another thing is the fact that I feel like we’re becoming way too desensitized to stuff like what happened to Charlie Kirk. I mean, the video of it actually happening was spread across social media within like minutes of it actually happening. You know, we people should not be seeing that kind of stuff. Like people should not be seeing that stuff on their phones. They should not be seeing it in real life anywhere. Like they shouldn’t. The human brain is not built to comprehend all of this.all of the trauma and the violence and stuff that is going on, not just in our political culture, but across the world in war zones and stuff. Like it is not built to handle that.

 

Drew Garfinkel (19:12)

Yeah, I was kind of hoping you’d bring that up, because like the desensitization, bad, on so- Yep, on like social media going back to that, but just like in general, it’s like, It’s crazy, like, because you can just cognitively disassociate and be like, okay, this guy died. It doesn’t mean anything to me, but like someone else is dead. That’s, that’s big. Like you have for his friends, for his family, like not just for Charlie, but for anyone who dies, frankly.

 

Adam Watson (19:48)

Yeah, Nicholas you had something you wanted to add.

 

Nicholas Perrin (19:51)

Yeah, I think, like, I agree that, like, the human brain is not built to process all the trauma and everything, and it can be very unhealthy for someone to see, like, that much suffering every day, But it’s still like the problem of censorship right like not everything should be sugar-coated I think that a lot of people would have different opinions on things i’m not gonna say like specifically what because there are a billion things but I think that if things were more clear and like If people saw what was actually happening rather than like a summary of it, then they would understand it more and maybe they would feel more empathetic. Maybe political violence would be less [frequent] than it normally is. But I don’t know. That’s just a thought.

 

Drew Garfinkel (20:49)

Yeah, that’s interesting. So I’d have, yeah, I’d say like in this situation, I don’t know how much it helped because like all these videos of an up close, gruesome shot of him getting shot in the neck, they’re all over social media. But even with that, even with people seeing this, a lot of people are still doing the same thing.

 

Adam Watson (20:50)

You know, that’s a really interesting thought that, you know, I think makes sense.

 

Drew Garfinkel (21:14)

I’m not saying what you’re saying is not valid, like I agree with it. I’m just like, I don’t know what I’m saying.

 

Nicholas Perrin (21:15)

Yeah, and that’s.

 

Yeah, it’s probably because of previous and in a poor context. So it’s probably, they’re, yeah, like, like you said, they’re desensitized to it now and they can’t process it the same as they normally would.

 

Adam Watson (21:41)

and I think it all I think that goes back to the to what we were talking about the hyper fast communication on social media of just thousands and thousands of these of stuff like this getting through the like people who are supposed to filter things that people like that that’s not good for people to see like I agree with you that there’s like some stuff that people should see Like there are things that people have to actually visually see rather than just getting a summary of. But I feel like seeing a video like Charlie Kirk getting shot in the neck, it doesn’t really help. spark a conversation about what is, like, what we should do about it. Like, I feel like the act itself is the thing that would spark the conversation, not the visual of it.

 

Drew Garfinkel (22:36)

Well, at least it’s sparking conversations like what we’re doing.

 

Adam Watson (22:41)

Yeah, it does need to spark conversations. And I think in order for anything to actually happen, there can’t just be conversations from people. I mean, that’s a very important thing that needs to happen. However, for this to improve, there needs to be action from both political and social leadership, such as a universal condemnation of political violence, not just when it affects one side, but when it affects everyone.

 

Drew Garfinkel (23:11)

What would you recommend these political leaders do? What actions could they take to hopefully diminish political violence?

 

Adam Watson (23:20)

I mean, I’ve seen a lot of people doing what they should be doing, in that every time there is an act of political violence, condemning it, talking about how it’s disgusting and how there’s no place [in] this country for that stuff. But then there are also people, and I’m not going to name names, but there are people who say, ⁓ this is radical right rhetoric, or this is radical left rhetoric. Radical left rhetoric is what got us here. Radical right rhetoric is what got us here. It’s always the right, it’s always the left. It is unhelpful and it’s actually counterproductive to what we actually need to happen. There cannot be the blaming of the other side as a whole for stuff like this.

 

Nicholas Perrin (24:04)

I was gonna ask, have you, like, have there been any major, like, political leaders that have not spoken out against political violence and tried to turn the situation, like, into their favor?

 

Adam Watson (24:17)

Well, for this example, I’m only going to use the Oval Office address from President Trump. He did come out and he said that political violence is bad. But in that same statement, he only referenced political violence against the right. He mentioned the shooting of Steve Scalise, I think. He mentioned his own assassination attempt. He mentioned the assassination of Charlie Kirk, but he made no mention of the assassinations of the Minnesota legislators or of the attack on Paul Pelosi or anything like that. And then he said radical left rhetoric is basically why we’re here. That’s basically what he said. And I feel like that is unhelpful and extremely dangerous for the highest political office in the land to be saying, to be cherry picking acts of political violence, and then to say the other side’s rhetoric is why we got here.

 

Drew Garfinkel (25:18)

Yeah, Donald Trump’s address definitely wasn’t helpful. I want to ask both Nicholas and Adam, what would you do if you were in that situation? If you had to make an address, like what would you do to diminish the divide? Because what Trump did was not helpful.

 

Adam Watson (25:37)

Yeah. I mean, I think what I would do is I would simply talk about how the epidemic of political violence has gone too far. There has been too much pain, suffering, and division due to our politics. And there has been too much death as a result of our politics, and we need to basically come together as a nation because it’s only like 1% of the population that is actively cheering this on. None of us remember, but I know my grandparents are old enough to remember the political violence of the 1960s, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., of RFK, of JFK, and the civil rights movement and the counter-protest that came towards that. It was just such a chaotic and dangerous time in this country. And I don’t think enough people realize what that would mean to return to a situation like that, or to return to a situation like we had before the Civil War or following the Civil War. It was just chaos and so very dangerous for so many people. And I feel like that’s something we need our leaders to say.

 

Nicholas Perrin (26:52)

Yeah, I agree with you, Adam, in connecting it to the past. Although I think I would say that political violence has never been a good thing, rather than it has gone too far. That’s about the only critique I would make of your statement. 

 

Adam Watson (27:08)

Well, yeah, not gone too far, but reached a point where any point of political violence is unacceptable. That was a poor choice of words, but yeah, it cannot continue, and it cannot exist in a developed democracy such as ours.

 

Nicholas Perrin (27:15)

Yeah, and I think I would, if I were to do that, would probably try to offer some solutions like, I don’t know, better education as to why it’s like this is a bad idea, like make more public statements or I don’t know, look really deep into why political violence is upticking and what we can do to stop it. Like the federal government, if I were in that position.

 

Adam Watson (27:54)

Right. What do you think you would say, Drew Garfinkel?

 

Drew Garfinkel (27:58)

about exactly what you did, like, I would, I wouldn’t condemn a specific side, I just, like, what we’ve been talking about this whole time, I’d say that no matter what side it was, even if it was just Charlie Kirk who died, that is too much death, that’s completely needless. What would you like the takeaway from this to be like anyone who watches this?

 

Adam Watson (28:22)

I feel like the takeaway should be that as a country, we need to come together because the polarization in this country, the divide as a result of our politics, has just reached a point of just lunacy. Because, I mean, there are Americans who are calling for civil war as a result of the political divide. There are Americans who are calling for the other party to be locked up. There are people calling for violence against the other party. That is not what America is. In America, if you have a political disagreement with somebody, you debate with them. You do not solve your political disagreements with violence. You do not solve it with bullets or with swords or with any kind of weapons. You solve it with debate, and you solve it with policy, and you solve it with elections. And the place we have reached is. At some point, we’re going to reach a point where I worry about no return. Like, at some point, there’s going to be just so much polarization and divide that it takes us decades to get back from.

 

Drew Garfinkel (29:28)

Yeah, I agree. Do you think we’re approaching that point you talked about? Like, if nothing changes, do you think, like, that’s in the future for us?

 

Adam Watson (29:36)

I mean, if we stay on the trajectory we are, I have to assume so. I mean, it’s just this constant escalation. Every single time there’s an act of political violence, it’s just constant escalation.

 

Nicholas Perrin (29:48)

What could you think the aftermath of that would be?

 

Adam Watson (29:50)

You know, it’s hard to say. I mean, I don’t want to say civil war because I don’t think, like that’s just not helpful to say, but it wouldn’t be off the, I don’t think it would be off the table, unfortunately. I mean, I think it would just be more of a period of just unprecedented political violence, like where it’s happening so frequently. Like, as opposed to where we are now, where there are a couple of incidents a year, tops, it could be a point where there are a couple of incidents a month, you know? Like, and that would be, I think, a really scary time to live in.

 

Drew Garfinkel Garfinkel (30:32)

Yeah, because like people would be afraid to say stuff, like if they think I might get killed for this, like people wouldn’t stand up and fight. Well, people still would, but it’d be more difficult for them to keep in the back of their mind. They’re thinking I could get killed for this.

 

Nicholas Perrin (30:51)

Yeah, like what Drew Garfinkel said, it’s like a de facto loss of freedom of speech. That is a really scary concept.

 

Adam Watson (31:01)

All right. Thank you for listening to this episode of Simplifying the State. We’ll be back next time with our next episode. Please be sure to follow the podcast so you get notified whenever a new episode is dropped. Make sure to follow us on Instagram at Simplifying the State. We also post stuff there whenever a new episode is dropped. Make sure to rate the podcast if you like it, and we will see you guys next time.