Has politics changed forever as left-wing violence becomes “normalized”?

Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College. All Things hillsdalet Hillsdale dot ed or I encourage you to take advantage of the many free online courses there and of course I listen to the Hillsdale Dialogue all of them at hugh for Hillsdale dot com or just Biogle, Apple iTunes and Hillsdale Jes. Welcome back in America. I've changed Matt Continetti's thump music. Matt is the head of Domestic Studies at AEI. He is also a calumnist for the

No, though I did.

Used to go to the Capitol Building when I played hooky from high school. To show you what a political nerd I am.

You you are so I when you.

Could go and you could sit in the gallery and even take the Capitol Hill subway, you know, without having a pass.

That those were the glory days.

I'm glad you're married. Before that came out on national television and radio, you wouldn't have been able to put that on your dating profile on the app.

What's done is done.

I have no shame, all right, Matt. You remember ten years ago, I'm sure you do, the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria shooter who walked in to feed the freed the kids because he'd been deep into the inner tubes and he'd become persuaded that there was a pedophilia ring that kept children hostage in the basement of Comet Pizza. Do you remember that?

I remember well.

It was on all the news, and Democrats denounced it and offered entreaties for everyone to tone down the rhetoric as a result.

It was ten years ago and three miles away from the White House Correspondence Association dinner. Now the lunatic and President Trump called him crazy and unbalanced and troubled. On Sunday night, that lunatic swam in waters similar to the unbalanced man who shot up comment pizza. Do you think the reaction to the waters of the ten year ago that's four chan and QAnon will be the same as the reaction to the waters in which this guy swam, which is basically blue Sky and Jimmy.

Kimmel, Well, I don't think the response from Democrats is the same, Hugh. I think that plenty of Democrats condemned political violence in the abstract in the aftermath of this attempted assassination of President Trump and his cabinet at the White House Correspondents dinner.

But very few have.

Affirmatively stated that President Trump is not any of the horrible things that the assassin claimed he was, and that Nora O'Donnell repeated to the President's face less than twenty four hours after the assassination attempt on sixty minutes Sunday night.

So that's what I'm looking for.

I would I would ask the Democratic leaders to go out there and say, for starters that Trump is not Hitler, that Trump is not a dictator, He's not a king. He is a populist politician. He has his flaws, he

Now, I began the program with Aaron McLain, who has put out the School of War podcast today with Douglas Murray, and there's two of the leading public intellectuals like you, they're going to be around for decades. And they ended up talking about the meaning crisis, which is too many people of both the far left and the far right lack meaning and so they attach on to this crazy stuff. But also education in America has failed, both in the

Well, these are big issues.

And you know, my hero Charles Kradhammer like to say that politics matters most because if you get the politics right, then everything else will follow. But if you screw up your politics, then all you're going to reap is misery. And I think that beyond these kind of metaphysical questions you discussed in your previous interview, Hugh, we need to think about the politics here. And our political system is kind of off kilter, and the fact that the primaries

Well, it is an extension of the from the River to the Sea rhetoric. It's an extension of the takeover of your Alma Maters campus by radicals and Murray talks about that. They they all those young activists from high schools around the United States arrived at Columbia expecting to be climate activists, and they became hamas activists and they've been they've been bent, and I really think we've got to go back deeper than college. Can't save this. Now,

Oh, I had several great teachers at public schools in northern Virginia, Hugh that I'm forever grateful for my ap US history teacher, in particular, Kevin Kelly, fantastic teacher. He assigned Richard Hofstedder's American political tradition as as a senior in high school, and I'm sorry, in junior in high school, I read that book and it really kind of opened my eyes. And I think there are great teachers out there. But I'll say that one thing that's going wrong with

You know what happened in the twenty twenty primary, Matt is that the Democrats had a series of debates with friendly moderators, none of them ask them, for example, if climate change is really your number one agenda? Why are you concerned about the blockade of Iranian oil? Why do you think the president? I mean, there's easy questions to ask that are not confrontational, not but just generally the logic of the left doesn't add up. But they didn't

I really I'm afraid they won't, Hugh, I really think he will be up to some of the candidates, you know, I mean there's one. There will be something important I think happening if Ram Emmanuel gets on that debate stage for the Democratic primary in twenty twenty eight.

Now, Ram Emmanuel is a liberal Democrat. I don't agree with him.

You're way too polite, Matt. He's way too polite now.

But you know, I don't know, yeah exactly, you say it, and you know the real rom he will he will scratch, he will be scrappy, and he will mix it up, I think, and introduce some sharp, sharp distinctions in the debates.

If he gets on stage.

I think that will be critical because otherwise the voices of dissent in the Democratic Party, the.

Voice is like Emmanuel.

Then Senator John Fetterman, my favorite Democrat who's different from Emmanuel in a lot of ways, but he's courageous in standing up for what he sees is tradition liberal beliefs. In the Democratic Party, they're going to be shut out and it's just going to be a conversation of the left among.

The left and for the left.

And by the way, Hugh, you know all this glorification of the left and the celebration of these I think very toxic voices like pikers that are rising within the Democratic Party.

The media loves it, right, but they don't.

They forget that it was less than two years ago that Donald Trump was re elected right in the opposition.

Yeah, after being in the consigned to the political wilderness. So this is still a country that I think is willing.

To reject the left, and the Democrats are tempting fate if they go down this radical course.

Oh goodness, I hope you are right. Matt Connetty from the Wall Street Journal of the American Enterprise Institute. Follow him on at Continetti, read him in the Journal Free Expression Vertical, and stay tuned in America. I'm he Hewan on the Salem New channel of the Salem Ready or not Working, and all of our affiliates north, South, East.

And West.

Welcome back to America. I'm joined now by Eli Lake of The Free Press, host of Breaking History. He was at the White House correspondence dinner on Saturday night. I listened to his recounting of it on the Commentary podcast yesterday. Eli, I was not there. I was actually at a school play hours away. I've only gone once because I hate for you, I know, I really really hate those things. Part introversion, part Shina's part. I don't do small talk very well with people, but some people like it, and

I don't think no kings will go away. What I do think, though, is that it is kind of forcing a new conversation among Democrats. And what I mean by that is that if you just look at the sequence of events in the last few weeks, the entire news cycle about Hassan Piker, who you know, your last guest Mike Rogers, kind of went into chapter and verse you know things America deserved nine to eleven, praises the communist regime in China, supports thinks Hamas's morally.

Superior to Israel.

Go through it.

These are fringe opinions, their radical opinions, and their anti American opinions. And there was a column by Ezra Kleine, who's very bright New York Times guy and is something of a gatekeeper for American liberals, and he is the original title of that column was Hassan Piker is not the enemy. They change the headline, and then Hassan Piker goes on a bunch of other kind of liberal podcasts.

This is what I really believe.

He kind of doubles down, and then you know, we see what he does in another New York Times kind of really softball interview extraordinary, where you know, he's he would like to see you know, more crimes like art theft and you know, Mikey, you know, stealing and shoplifting is micro eluding. And you know, he understands why a lot of Americans supported the you know, Luigi Mangione. So these are fringe opinions. And I think something like this

Because before I wish I was as optimistic as you. I look at the Democrats.

I'm not optimistic. I'm just saying that that's the fight. I'm saying.

I don't know what to hope that they hope it actually happens. Yeah, I want. I want there to be a fight too. All of my Democratic friends from the eighties, nineties and forward, they're all normal people. I had a party with them on Friday night before I left town, and they're Clinton administration people and Biden administration people in Obama administrator, but they're my age and they're not crazy.

Well, I mean, this is going to take some work if they're serious about saving their party. But you've got to find young voices that are willing to stand up, that are going to be gen Z in their twenties right now, and they're going to they have to be willing to sort of stand up and saying this is not the direction that we want to go. We don't like you know. I mean, if they're Democrats, they don't

This is we don't want this.

Meanwhile, if I'm the state Democratic Party of South Carolina or New York City or whatever, I would make sure that if you are a DSA person, you don't get to run in my primary, full stop. That's the other thing you gotta you gotta, you gotta end their entry as strategy which has been going on now for a few years.

At this point, now, I got to go back to the generational thing. Uh, you know, Conservative have done a pretty good job, and we have one minute, Elis, I might keep you for I can't keep you. Who is who follows the Mary Katherine Ham, Guy Benson, Seth Mandel's. We got a lot of those, Ben Shapiro, a lot of forty somethings. Do we have any twenty five year old people?

Well, you know, I painted to the Israel Shabas Keston. Bob is a pretty young guy. I think he's pretty good. And you'd have to get I got to I got to think of it in terms of the right. But I think that yeah, you can find those people. In fact,

I hope you are right. Eulila can be followed at Breaking Histories of Correspondent for the Free Press. Follow him on x at Eli Lake. Thank you, Eli, I'll be right back in America station be shooting on Saturday night because it's a big story and we're beginning to get our arms around it. And I begin with Aaron B. McLain. Aaron's the host of the School of War podcast. He's

It makes sense at the time. It made sense at the time.

You know, it was it before or after the Marine Corps.

That was before, that was before, and you know, one of its main consequences was it led me to believe, when I was joining the Marine Corps that I was obviously going to go.

To Iraq because my Arabic was decent.

In those days, seven years in the Marine Corps, never set foot in an Arabic speaking country, not a layover at an airport. Went to Afghanistan instead, which was, you know, very operationally exciting, but no one speaks a look of Arabic there.

Now I've got a retired marine Corps Major General Buddy mel Spies, and he was in charge of all in Marine Corps education, and he said, the sixteen weeks, I don't know if is OCS sixteen weeks or was the basic school sixteen weeks?

The basic school is longer than OCS, so it's it's probably up there in the sixteen weekghborhood.

My OCS class was.

Ten weeks, okay, So he said about the basic school, we cram eight weeks of education in the sixteen weeks because a lot of our young marines arrive without a moral compass.

In other words, they've got to put judgment and values in as well as skills training. You and Douglas Murray, in one of the best hours of podcasting I've heard in a long time, ended up talking about the collapse of American education and allowing people like the would be shooter on Saturday Night to emerge twisted, ill informed, illogical, lost in the diaspora of idiocy. What do we do about that? You guys didn't talk about what do we do about that?

Well, that's because it's an enormous problem and it's hard to even analyze the problem. So you're right, we didn't get to solutions. Just to restate my theory just briefly for your audience. You know, clearly this shooter who appears to be very likely mentally on well seized with conspiratorial theories about pedophilia and sex crimes you know in the White House and things like that.

This is somebody who is.

Getting his infraformation from a fractured media landscape, from an educational system that fails young people in particular, fails young men in terms of directing sort of the natural male desire to be heroic, to do something brave, to do something bold. There are healthy ways that a society can channel that. They can channel young men into the military, They can encourage young men to build families, to do things that are.

Productive for society.

But if young people and I keep lingering on the men, because of the men and most of the shooters, they do the very best things and the very worst things in society typically if those desires aren't properly channeled. And furthermore, these young people are seized with a sense that society is somehow corrupt, either because they're seized by left wing revolutionary conceptions or right wing conceptions of a fall in radical progressive society.

Come to hate the society.

Don't be surprised when they try to do their acts of zany heroism in ways that are deeply, deeply antisocial.

Aaron, I don't know how long you've been in the Beltway ten years ago. You might have been in Afghanistan ten years ago. In December of twenty sixteen, a lunatic from the right walked into the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria three miles from the Washington Hilton, fired a weapon into the ceiling. It was ar fifteen, I think, and was there to free the children who had been kidnapped by

I wish I could give you a happier answer, Hugh, but I think the answer is obviously not Epsteinism.

Just to give it a name, I'm not.

Sure what we should call it, But this this sense that the terrible, you know, crimes and miserable record of of Jeffrey Epstein and some of his associates actually is more than what it seems. It is in fact a kind of all explanatory story about American elites, global elites.

This is widespread to.

Include amongst you know, respectable people that you and I know and can talk about and who are not I think, particularly looney, but they embrace it enough that I think it's here to stay on the left, and it's a useful cudgel against the president. So there's there's a there's a reason for it, and you know you asked me for solutions earlier.

I do.

I do worry about education in this country. I do worry about whether education gives young people to write moral compass. But you know, especially with the with the advances or such as they are, the digital revolution, kids constantly on screens, kids constantly on social media, the introduction of AI into educational processes, which really frightens me, like all of that counts as education, Like the culture.

Really is education.

You're educated by your parents, you're educated by your school, but you're a educated by the culture, and that landscape is just so fragmented at best and often toxic, and we don't have the school. We don't take schooling seriously in a class. I'm a fan of classical schooling. I went to Saint John's, So classical schools is probably the shorthand answer, but a little hard to impose that as a matter of national policy.

There is a new book out on Tolkien and Lewis during the nineteen thirty three to nineteen forty five period, and they diagnosed early the malevolence growing in Germany, and they put a name on it. And C. S. Lewis suggested the only answer to evil ideology is the fresh, clean sea breeze of old books. And I think that's still true. I don't think they're very popular. Even Wilford mcclay's Land of Hope, that's the alternative to ours, in

It's certainly possible on a school by school basis, So then it's incumbent upon you know, I mean, and look there are plenty of private schools in particular across the land that do this, and it's it's not just about it is about old books, but it's the old books do a few different things for students, don't they.

They expose you to excellence.

You know, there should be some language learning, some serious mathematics along that to make your mind agile. But the way in which you construct the curriculum should build a coromon identity, an identity of obviously patriotism and commitment to your community, and commitment to what's needed to make that

Right now, A very serendipitous thing to come out of the near tragedy of Saturday night. You and Douglas Murray were both at the dinner. People can listen to your experiences on the School of War podcasts today. Then you sat down and did a podcast. I said, you want to do this a lot. You and he are a very good team. You both work for the Free Press, he worked for the Post, you worked for CBS. Did that thought cross your mind that there was a lot of chemistry there.

Well, I love talking to Douglas.

You know, he's one of the smartest people I know, and he always has something interesting to say. But you know, it came about very organically. As you say, we were both at the dinner. I think I had greeted him briefly. We were sitting at different tables on the way in, and then of course the incident happened.

It was very chaotic. People were taking cover.

I was sitting with the Secretary of warpete Hegseth, also with Dana White, whom you know, the head of the UFC.

Who my master composure the Buddha.

Yeah, not just composure, his whole body language here. He was just straining to be in the fight. He clearly none of us really knew what was going on. He didn't know what was going on, But if there had been action nearby, you could bet he would one hundred percent have been have been and I probably would have too, but more out of a sense of responsibility. He seemed genuinely frustrated that the action was not happening right in

So quick. Good question. Do you think the days of dinners like the White House correspond Association, when so many targets are gathered together in an age of drones and attack on gatherings of leaders is something we invented with Iran and Israel invented with his balla. Do you think those are over?

You can secure a dinner like that? Just this dinner wasn't particularly well secured. There are facilities, there are ways to build perimeters, there are ways to be more serious about securities. So no, I don't think the days of it are over, but this was not a well secured event in my opinion.

I could not agree with you. I've only been once and I was struck at the time. It was kind of chaotic. Aaron B. McLain. Follow him on x go and listen to the School of War Today where he and Douglas Murray talk about the meaning crisis education young men and the response at the dinner during the chaos. It's really kind of a must listen to podcasts. Aaron, thank you for joining me. Follow him on exit Aaron A R O N. B McLain m ac l E A N. I'll be right back on the hu US

No, we didn't, Hugh, thanks for having me.

No.

I texted my wife, who wasn't in attendance, and I got out of there as soon as they lifted lockdown because I didn't want to hear about lingering with the journals and drinking all night.

I got home as soon as I can. In fact, I ate a lin.

Cuisine at my kitchen table in my full tuxedo in regalia. I felt like the monopoly man after he was down on his luck.

All right, now a year old enough, maybe old enough to remember ten years ago. I'm going to ask all my guests about this today because it seems to me so parallel. Ten years ago, a lunatic from the right who'd been swimming in QAnon and four chan walked into the Pizza Ping Pong pizzeria three miles away from the Washington Hilton up Kennectut Avenue and fired a ar seventeen or fifteen into the roof and came to rescue the children and held people hostage. He thought a pedothelia ring

No, I don't think so, Hugh.

In fact, most of the mainstream media and Democratic leaders are willing to amplify everything that was in this lunatics manifesto. You look at that interview that Trump did with Nora O'Donnell, and she's reading from the thing. I remember a time when we didn't release manifestos because they would be too dangerous. But now, when they're slandering the president of the United States, she's more than happy to read it to him, like

You were reminding me, I talked about this yesterday. In two thousand and seven, the Virginia Tech killer who murdered thirty seven kids on the campus and wounded a dozen more, he had made a videotape and he had sent it to NBC and they rushed it on the air. I went ballistic on this show, as did many other people, because you don't give them what you want. Nora O'Donnell gave the guy what he wanted. Now, you and I know how they run these things. They have production meetings,

And I have a hard time seeing how, Hugh And it's a real shame because it's been a sort of a flagship program for a long time, but they've clearly.

Lost their way.

I think they were looking for a cheap reaction from the President by reading that manifesto, and they're going to do anything they can to try to get their ratings back, and I think that's what Nora O'Donnell was doing there.

I think it was shame, and.

She stepped on a rake because the President kept his composure completely and said, you're horrible people plural, not just you and Nora. He knows how it's done. Horrible. You shouldn't be reading that. He gave her a lecture and a scolding. You think anyone's going to hear that other than Barry Verry Wise, No.

I would imagine she's probably getting backslaps at the cocktail party in Georgetown next time she shows up because she stuck it to Donald Trump. I mean, I think a lot of these questions are really driven by producers and people like Nora O'Donnell, who run in circles in liberal media where they're really catering to each other rather than the audiences they pretend to care about. Which is the most frustrating thing in all of this is like, I

It's crazy.

Maybe it's a last round. Michael I thought, wow, well presidential, he's going to use the biggest venue available to him to reassure the world that the country is fine, just like after Reagan got shot. Al Haig blew it. But then Reagan showed up on the balcony and waved as soon as he could and George hw got back. But you assure the Iranians that there's not been a coup, and you were sure the Aanians were going to keep this straight closed. And Nora o'donna could have asked about

I think there's a hopelessness that people feel young people in America right now, and I think a lot of it is driven by social media and they see what people are posting on Instagram all day and they're seeing the best aspects of every person's lives and they feel like they're hopeless and they're not going anywhere, and so they're looking to find purpose. And people find purpose in

Unfortunately, that left field question for you. I'd love to hear the Ruth Fellows answer this. Did you have a great teacher or teachers in high school? A great one I had.

I had great teachers in high school, particularly you know, in subjects. I really enjoyed teachers I didn't necessarily agree with on everything, but challenged me in ways that allowed me to think critically for you know, the first time about new subjects, and the teachers were always respectful.

You know.

I think a lot of parents really woke up during COVID and they saw the way that teaching was done in America today. It really opened their eyes that things have changed since when I was a kid, and it's unfortunate.

Yeah, I had a couple of guys Ron Karen Bauer, and Fred Hoover. Ron was a right wing Latin teacher. Fred was a center left English teacher. Did not bring their politics with him, but boy they could teach. It was Catholic school, so they weren't getting paid either. Do you think those people still exist who want to teach not for ten but for the joy of teaching.

Yeah, I think absolutely they definitely exist. I mean, shout out to doctor Kivella, shout out to Margot Maclear. I had some great teachers, particularly in history, when I was in.

High school and in college.

You know, I found that the best teachers in college were, you know, the professors who came in after getting some real life experience working in the field in which they were teaching, and they could give you fantastic stories and anecdotes that applied to the field you hope to one day be working in. But I find in college, especially those are few and far between.

I would love to reverse engineer this shooter's educational experience and find out where he went off the rails. It's not he just didn't dive into into blue sky and become crazy. Something happened along the way. Good to talk to you, my friend, Michael Duncan, the old man from the Purplesse podcast. Thank you, Michael. Make sure you listen to Ruthless today because they were talking about this dinner and it was fascinating. Stay tuned, America. I'll be right

I've been before for Hugh multiple times, haven't been in a couple of years, did not go this year. Did hit an after party, but was not at the dinner.

Yeah, they're not my They're not my idea of a good time. And I've only done it once in that time. It was Sarah Hockaby Sanders getting chewed up by a comedian and I just decided this is ridiculous. All right. The key question is does it change anything? The would be statement Assassin is you know he's a lefty? Okay, tell me why not?

Well, look, I mean I should caveat that. I always like to wait a few weeks for the dust to settle and look at fresh polling.

But I just think this country.

Right now is very sort of divided in an entrenched way. We're very polarized. After a decade, everybody has very fixed, defined opinions about President Trump, and he you know, for better or worse, and.

Some people love it and some people don't.

But he never changes his postures, his behavior, his rhetoric never changes. And so especially judging by the aftermath of the attempted assassination in Butler and in other events, I just don't see this changing the atmosphere politically in this country.

All right now, David, I want to take you back ten years. I'm asking every guest this today who might remember it ten years ago. Comet Ping Pong Pizzeria, three miles up Kennekat Avenue from the Washington Hilton. A guy walks in with an AR seventeen or fifteen and shoots up the ceiling and wants to free the children who he knows are in the basement in a pedophilia ring.

Well, I mean, first, let's see what happens. I mean, second of all, you know, I'm the first person to say that the lunatic fringe exists on the left as well as you know on the right. Right, I mean, Steve Splie was shot practicing from the congressional baseball game. Him and other Republicans were targeted by a supporter of Bernie Sanders what ten years ago. Now President Trump was targeted. Then on the other side, Governor Shapiro is targeted, some

There is some rhetorica I've got friends, I've.

Seen I've got friends. But should you go to and should you go to rallies with Trump? Is Hitler signs? Should you just associate you?

Well, I don't think they.

I don't think there should ever be Trump as Hitler signs because nobody's Hitler but Hitler.

And I think that.

And I think this, although you know, as my boss Jonah Goldberg likes to say it's not necessarily symmetrical, but I think this is a both sides problem, and I think I think both sides should be policing themselves. I think that Democrats on the left could do a lot more to police their side in this regard. I think the same can be said of Republicans in their side.

I have seen some fringe elements of that, but it hasn't been dominating. And on the right. I have said this for years.

You see a few fringe actors, and most of these people are doing you know, it's the American way to go protest for government.

Yeah.

Well, you know the Tea Party, of which I would give a few speeches, they were usually old people, and they were reading the Constitution and the Declaration of Independent They're not the anti ice people with sex toys beating up on reporters, and they certainly aren't.

Well such a ga. So, Hugh, that is very true.

I'm just trying to get my time in here because I usually we have a heart out. You know, I could show you some of the email I get from people who describe themselves as support as a president Trump and Republicans with very violent, offensive, sometimes anti Semitic rhetoric.

These are people on the fringe.

I don't consider them a part of the right broadly speaking. My point is you can find this sort of thing on both sides at different times, in different places.

David, you ought to try and screen the calls to this show sometimes when we get the Builderberger people, and you know, we're very aware of the lunatic fringe in America. However, we do police ourselves and we don't let them on the air, or we dump them. This is what the lie.

You've always been very good about about that.

Yeah, I don't know that. Joan is right. It's very asymmetrical. Right now, the legislator in Minnesota was murdered in cold blood by a lunatic. That lunatic had been an evangelical pastor in Africa. I understand. I read the backstory. What I am looking for, and maybe you've seen it is an in depth study into every violent actor of the last since Columbine to find what the crossover, you know, like, what are they doing at Quantico at the FBI Academy. Have you ever seen a study on that?

No, I have not, and I think that that would be very valuable.

You know, I've read some people.

That speculate that usually whether these people are are you know, right leaning or left leaning, that a lot of times these people are people that are alone.

Right.

You know, college Vin Williams was saying in our recent Dispatch podcast, you never you never find out that the shooter was a guy who's been married for twenty years, you know, just celebrated his twenty anniversary in Hawaii and has four beautiful children.

Right, is taken at the church and teaching Sunday school.

Absolutely not correct?

Right?

And I wonder if that's the through line. I mean, we've seen that with school shooters. These are people that commit evil accent in some cases are evil people, no doubt, but these are people that you know, felt alone, were alone, felt marginalized. I don't think it was anybody's fault that they felt that way, but this seems.

To be the through line.

Give a listen to the Aaron McClain Douglas Murray podcast. Day. I want to listen to you and Jonah talk about this, but give a listen to Aaron McLain and Douglas Murray on the School of War podcast today, because they talk about American education and its failings, and I think that is a patient Q or whatever we've call it up this problem. David M. Drucker on Accident to dissetch. Thank you, Thank you for listening to highly concentrated Hugh, and don't forget.

I don't remember those, But I do remember the seventies. I remember Patty Hurst, of course, Tanya the revolutionary fervor standing in front of an SLA flag, and all the madness of that stuff, of the move in Philadelphia and the rest of it. So I remember that. I don't remember the bombing. But I don't think we are necessarily going to go to a wave of bombing next like we had in the sixties, or like they had, you know,

You know, Okay, I got a question for you. You remember ten years ago I brought this up to a lot of guests today in Washington, d C. Three miles away from the White House correspondence dinner. There was ten years ago a lunatic who walked into the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria, shot up the roof and was there to free the kids who were trapped in the basement for

Condemned only by the sources that are implying to say that the incitement to the co meant to laughter are wrong. I remember the comic pizza thing. Actually comment was the liquor store in my neighborhood in Adams, Morgan. The guys bought the sign moved it over there. And what was interesting about that was that Q, on the face of it was Q was crazy. Q was deep in conspiratorial and had all these timetables and revelations, and there was

It is it is.

Not conspiratorial in the Q sense some dark forces. It's just more I don't know how else to put it. It's not the sort of scriptural, textual stuff that they had. It's just guys on Reddit saying Trump is a fascist. It's just guys on Reddit and Blue Sky and the rest of it saying it goes without saying that Trump is the fascist and a pedophile and a rapist and the rest of it. And then they get they get hit up, They get head up, I think, not by additional information like in Q, but.

Just by repetition of this thing.

It becomes you know, it rewires, the brain wags until that that's all they can think about. So the condemnation, no, because a lot of what they are saying is not out of the mainstream. About what of a lot of people on the left of the progressive side, And say, take for example, the number of people today who lost their jobs because they went on TikTok and said, oh, isn't that too bad? I thought today was going to be the morning where we got that news. And these

Just didn't come up.

You might have thought about it, but it just wasn't part of the sort of elementary school curriculum. But now they go on TikTok before they go to class and teach the ABC's and talk about how disappointed they are that this guy didn't shoot the president.

So it's not that far.

It's not as far out of the mainstream and weird and convoluted as the Q stuff was.

It's just what simply a lot of people believe.

Well now at the Aaron McClain and god Wis Murray podcast This Morning School of War podcasts, I recommend it to I talked to Eron at the start of the show. They talk about extremism in America and they end up squarely on public education. The end up on the education of young America. What went wrong? James? There many things have gone wrong, but what what's number one?

I would say, Well, I mean, you can point to any number of theories of learning that came through that decreased the ability to read. You can talk about the you know the lawnmarks through the institutions and which people who were just sort of generally granola and the rest of it went into teaching and therefore decided that Howard

And the whole the.

Howard Zin narrative of the West in America being uniquely evil just sort of becomes the default position for these people when they teach. So it's that, it's the lessening of standards. It's the number of kids who can't read very well. It's the kids who in the later years have had their attention span completely rotted because they infinitely scroll and doom scroll and can't even get their brain to focus on an idea except for a TikTok sized bite about what's wrong with the country and why Trump

The middle, to the junior and to the elementaries. We see. So my one answer is tenure. That when and it became a public education teacher union objective to get tenure and then to add benefits and early retirement. But tenure is the root of all evil and elementary education I agree or disagree. I don't think so.

I mean it's important.

It is be great to be able to fire teachers who are bad teachers, But you can fire a teacher for being a bad teacher simply because they present a view of history with which you do not agree. There are many competing schools. I think that the answer is to eliminate public education as the default. Give every parent vouchers that they can use to go to the school

I think you are right and we will close on that note. LILYX as in James ilycs do substat dot com for humor. He's actually a humorous He can be very funny as well very insightful. Or follow him on as Lilac's with the little electric man like bulb, which is also kind of amusing. Don't go anywhere, America, Stay tuned Morning Glory and evening Grace America. Byron New York

The last one I went to was twenty seventeen, which is the first one that Trump wasn't there, and I thought that would be newsworthy and it was. And I kind of kicked myself for not going to this one because it was newsworthy too.

I believe the first one I went to was the same one, but that was when the so called comedian was so awful to Sarah Huckaby Sanders that I said, I don't need to ever do this again, and it's not my kind of an event any I kind of hate those events.

But well, you know, Trump had a chance to. I wouldn't say, just put an end to the dinner. It was pretty close, because you know, you could see in twenty seventeen when Trump was there, you could see how dependent the entire dinner is on the presence of the President of the United States, even if it's one they all hate, but having a president there just makes the event. And when the president is not there, they might as well be having a First Amendment brunch somewhere. And that

Well, the good thing about the twenty seventeen dinner is that they invited Hall of famers from the Baseball Hall of Fame. And I walked in and a guy jumps up and says, Hugh Hewett, I love what you do. And it's Dennis Eckersley, who is a childhood hero of mine through for the Indian and I went Abba David Davia, dab Daba Daba daba daba because I you know, Dennis Eckersley. So I was stunned for the first half of the dinner, and then the comedian came on and was just so slanderous.

The guy on Saturday Night has a lot more people who agree with him in his crazy ideas. Yes, if you read the Cole Allen's manifesto, the key part of it, I mean, first of all, it's an oddly kind of good natured manifesto. He expected to be killed in this and it was almost kind of cheerful. If you look at the key allegation here, he calls Trump a pedophile,

Right now. I want to go back to my parallel event, the comed ping punk Pizza re issued out. In the immediate aftermath of that, even people like me who had never heard of pizza Gate immediately realized, oh, that's a four chan QAnon crazy person. And although four chan and QAnon were already sort of diseased and radioactive, they became completely unacceptable. The parallels to four Chan and QAnon from

The answer is going to be no. I don't think they will, especially just because there's so much, so much, And I do remember feeling almost sorry for this guy who went and he fired his rifle one time inside comment pizza.

Into the room.

He was going to rescue the children who were allegedly being abused by like Hillary Clinton and John Podesta or some of the things that it was just it was it was completely detached from reality. But what you say, what you say about about Blue Sky and Kimmel and other platforms, is absolutely true. This kind of stuff gets said all the time.

Now, I'm going to say a controversial thing. If you went to a No King's rally, that does not make you complicit in this statement would be Assassin's manifesto. But if you went to a No King's rally, you sold a lot of signs, and if you went to a No King's rally, some of those signs encouraged violence. Almost certainly, what's your obligation if you go to an event where there's violence being called for? Byron?

You mean just as a participant.

I don't think you're the moral test if you're if you're at a yeah, should you leave? No?

I actually I actually covered the No King's rally in Boston this year. It was pretty big and there were lots of signs like that. I don't think one had a moral obligation to leave. But so, no, I don't think so we.

Disagree on that. I think, if if this is a problem, if there's a current running through the left, and by the way, we have our nuts on the right, uh, and they're lunatics and they have their own conspiracy theory, and Pizzagate's not dead. Yet, by the way, I've been told by people that it still lives in the darkest corners and recesses of the Internet. I do think you have to distance yourself from this stuff or you get mud splatter on you. You're not complicit, just you're really

Well, you're absolutely right about this, and shaming is perfectly it is perfectly acceptable in these situations. However, just like in other political situations, I think a lot of this is, you know, constitution protected speech in the sense of a no King's rally. But I think it's important to say here that when we talk about these crazy beliefs, I do think millions of Americans have them, and at the same time would never think of getting a gun and

Now, Barron, We're pretty comfortable as a nation that no country can do to us what we in Israel did to the Iranian leadership, and what Israel did that has bela leadership which has drop successive bombs on a gathering of the most important people. But do you think the White House Correspondent Association dinner is doomed in the era of drones, that it's just the softest of targets. It

Right, yeah, I was. I was surprised when I saw that virtually the entire US presidential line of succession was in that room. I mean, it's just astonishing. People were looking around and saying, well, it's a good thing. Charles Grassley is not here. Senator Grassley, who is close I guess ninety years old now is the President pro temp of the Senate and thus is in line for the presidency before you start getting the cabinet members. But I mean,

Now bad idea, although Grassley as president, Grassley's President wouldn't be bad. We'd have ethne all and everything, but it wouldn't be bad, right, and the History Channel would come back to being the History Channel Byron York. Always go to Doctor Fallen Mont exits Byron York and stay tuned, my friends. I've got Bethanye Mandel next on the new Here working Back America. I'm Hugh Hewitt, the All time O The Lonely People is back because Lonely People are

It was interesting, certainly interesting. I was not there. I'm glad for it for many reasons. But the drama I've seen from a lot of people that were there is a tad over the top. It's a tad dramatic. But it was a very interesting event. It seems now we have a.

Problem, to my questions, we have a problem that goes way back ten years ago. In December of twenty fifteen, a lunatic from the right who had lived on the far corners of four Chan and QAnon, walked into Comet Ping Pong Pizza in Washington, DC and fired his rifle into the ceiling. He was there to rescue the children who were being held by a PETI filia ring in the basement. There is no pedophilia ring. It was all made up. But he swam in those waters so long

No? I mean you really have to sort of dig back into history to find the right wing equivalent of political violence apologists and those who utilize it. But on the left this has become a chain between the baseball shooting and the previous assassination attempts on President Trump, on the secret on the Supreme Court justices. I was talking to a member of Congress recently, Lee who told me that there was someone on their property like this is

I think they'll pay a price politically, but I would like it to begin with this fellow lived on Blue Sky. This fellow went to No King's rally. If you go to a No King's rally and you see Trump as Hitler signs, should you leave? As a moral question this in the political way, it's a moral question.

Yeah, absolutely. But the problem is, and I sort of hypothesized that maybe this guy could have been autistic, because there's an understanding among most people when they say, you know, Trump is a fascist, Trump is Hitler, they don't actually believe it, because if you believed it, you would do what this guy did.

No one believe.

Very few people actually believe it or they would act on it. But there are some people who actually take all of this rhetoric at face value. And one of those people was Cole Allen, who went to the White House correspondents Toader on Saturday night.

Now there would be the person who shot Trump and killed Corey Competoi had a sixteen hundred sat according to the President in the sixteen minutes interview, and I had a schizophrenic break. I don't know what we'll find out about this guy on Saturday night, but it's a weird resume cal Tech, a master's in computer science, and he's a part time tutor at the SAT place. That's not normal. That's not human development, is it?

No, No, it's not normal. I mean one hester, he was living with his parents. He was obviously failure to launch situation. But the scary thing about a lot of these people is they are just on the line of like weird on the left, but that line is getting blurred so much that it's normal to still live with your parents, it's normal to failure to launch and not date in all these things. He is actually very ordinary on the left, and that's what's scary about it.

So the answer is I listen, and I recommend to you. By the way, Douglas Murray talking today with Aaron McLain on School of War, there are two of the younger public intellectuals in the class with you, and Seth Mandel and Mary Catherine Ham and Matt Continetti and Guy Benson. We got a bunch of them who are forty five and younger that will call out wacky right wingers. I mean, you will. Does the left have a counterpart? Are they all the pod bros and nutters? Because people like Joshua,

Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, the only way to gain traction on the left, and you're showing on Salem TV, you're showing pictures of Hassan Piker. The only way to gain credibility and notoriety and fame and all of these things on the left is to keep on inching farther and farther to the margins. And so you know, if you don't have Hassan Piker on your show, well what's wrong with you? Why are you so closed off? Even the New York Times now you're showing the New York Times

It's also mind blowing. Hassan Piker is not stupid, but he's ignorant. I have not yet hear him say anything that would suggest he's read a book in ten years. I mean, it's cliche after cliche. A lot of the left is just cliche after cliche, as opposed to I'll just take randomly continenty who's coming up next hour? I think the guy reads three books a day and pod Hortz it's at the library, it's it is an.

Live with Seth and I don't know how he reads so much.

Yeah, it's ridiculous. It makes me mad, but I nevertheless, I wonder do you think that the public will really understand the Democrats have lost the way, They've lost the thread. They're not the center left party anymore. They're radical.

I think in some ways yes, But I think that the vast majority of Americans don't pay attention to this day by day sort of football stuff. They tune in when it's nearer to an election and they have to sort of pay attention to figure out what's going on.

Quick exit question. If you're a parent and you want to try and do your best to defense your kid against this, you home school. I believe in Catholic schools are Jewish schools, but what if people can't afford them, what do they do?

People have to talk to their kids. You have to have these conversations. When I wrote my book Stolen Youth with Carol Markowitz, we've all talked to a lot of parents, and a lot of the parents that we spoke to had regrets because they felt like they lost their kids, not just to the left. They didn't just become progressive, but they really lost their minds. And these parents were evaluating what did I do wrong? And they didn't They didn't affirmatively tell their kids this is what we believe.

Way to go. Bethany Mandel can be followed at Bethany seandark on x the mom Warris dot substact dot com. Mandatory reading for these times. So you're right back in America, stay tuned to be he here at showing the Salem New Channel, Salem Radio Network and are great radio fields, Welcome back in America on here and after the incident

You know what worries me most, Hugh, is just the level of rhetoric and hate, you know, trying to identify the president with Hitler and fascism.

Remember, there's a reason they do that, and it's because we went to war over Hitler. We went to war over fascism, and they want that level of angst. And when you add in their social media and interactions, and then you add in there this higher level of mental instability when it comes around the fringes.

Boy, that is just a recipe for disaster. And you're encouraging people.

Like you just saw for three times in less than two years, try to assassinate the president of the United States.

That really needs to end.

And we certainly have seen it with my opponents who really haven't come out and talked about this at all.

They didn't even feel it was important enough to condemn it. And that's worrisome.

Are you had one of your opponents, I'll say, add leads in some polls on their polls. I mean, there's not much difference between the three blind mice on the Democratic side. But I'll say I hosted Hassan Piker, who is mister social murder. Now that infinitous clip from last week. I'm curious, what do you expect them to say when they've thrown in with the hard lefts wild rhetoric.

Well, they just keep finding excuses why it's kind of okay. Matter of fact, their own rhetoric has been pretty awful. I mean Lsayed talked about putting people in the mud and choking them out, and Mick Morrow talked about throwing beers at judges and Stevens, you know, talked about after the Charlie Kirk assassination went into viral this you know, here's all the.

Terrible things he has said.

You know, give an.

Excuse or pause at least to the folks who have done you know, horrific crime.

So they're all part of this new Democrat Party.

Bernie Sanders is coming to Michigan on Sunday with Abdul. That is the energy of the party. It is the left now that's running the Democrat Party. This is not your grandmother's Democrat Party anymore. They are more radical, they are more a leftist, they are more extremist, and that rhetoric that they are using in places like No Kings. As matter of fact, they even had at the convention, that Democrat convention that was an absolute dumpster fire for Democrats,

We are not a left this country. We are not a country that believes.

That Mandami is going to save all of us by having more government involvement in your life and running your grocery store and telling people what home they can buy if they can buy one, or car they can drive. All of that is on the agenda for the left right now, and the way that they get there is by this in I would argue more violent rhetoric that we've seen not only here in Michigan but around the country.

You know, I don't know if you remember. Ten years ago Lunatic walked into the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria on Kennecut Avenue and shot the place up, claiming he was there to save the kids from a pedophile ring. And that was Lunacy. I was unaware of the whole Lunatic conspiracy, but pretty quickly thereafter everyone just distanced themselves from q Andon and from pizzagate and from four Chan. They wanted nothing to do with the nutters. Now we've got four

I hope, I hope that they do that.

I don't believe that they will look at the pattern over time here and look at the really the aggressive behavior we've seen, you know, attacking police officers, talking, defunding the police, all of those things just a few short years ago would have been absolute dismissal to run for office. Now it's it's part of their platform. Open borders, kind of part of their platform. Let people in and don't require them to drive show a driver's license to vote.

Not worse by the way, and you see the rhetoric you see at these No.

Kings protests paid for by the way, according to online reports by the George Soros organization.

These are by design they're working toward this kind.

Of chaos in American streets and in American politics, and Democrats today, in order to make it through their primaries, are becoming more radical and more leftists, and I argue a little more dangerous that has san Piker is the guy who came to Michigan, went to two universities, literally thousands of young students showed up. And you know regular Democrats, even elected Democrats supporting all of this, who said America deserved nine to eleven.

Yeah, I mean he's so Now. I got to ask you, over the course of a decade, first Missouri went from blue to purple to red. Then Ohio went from blue to purple to rad is Michigan doing the same thing, so that Mike Rodgers and give us your campaign website might have a little win that it's back as sort of common since Midwesterners say we don't want any part of the hard left.

So true, and people forget Michigan is in a change election cycle. This is not, you know, like the rest of the country where they're defending a midterm. Democrats have been in charge in Lancing for ten years, and you know they gave us the highest auto insurance rates in the country. They gave us highest energy rates in the Midwest. We went from top ten in education to forty four. We lost thirty thousand manufacturing jobs. And at the national level,

So people are ready for a change.

And when they see this nuttiness, remember these are folks that get up every day and they go to work. They got benefit three million families from that no tax on overtime that all of them opposed for their big government agenda.

I do believe that there's some wind at our back.

And in the last election, three hundred thousand more Republican votes than any other statewide Republican in the history of the state that I got tells me that we're moving in the right direction. And people understand when you go to work every day, you get it. We're working on all the problems that they face, and they're ready for a change here and we're going to be that change that we need in Michigan. And you can go to Rogers for Senate dot com, find.

Rogers p Senate dot com, Rogers for Senate dot Com, or follow Mike on At At, Mike Rogers for Michigan, Mike Rodgers for m I pack you, Mike, I'll be right back in America. Thank you,