WTW60: The Left Wing Media, in Their Way

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:03 Clip: What's so scary about the woke mob, how often you just don't see them coming, Anywhere you see diversity, equity, and inclusion, you see Marxism, and you see woke principles being pushed, Wokeness is a virus more dangerous than any pandemic, hands down, The woke monster is here, and it's coming for everything, Instead of go-go boots, the seductress green M&M will now wear sneakers.

0:00:41 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Where There's Woke. I'm Thomas. That's Lydia. How you doing?

0:00:46 Lydia: Hello, I am doing all right.

0:00:48 Thomas: Are you ready for some more both-sizing the truth into oblivion?

0:00:51 Lydia: Yes and no. Stupid. Yeah.

0:00:54 Thomas: Good answer. Yeah. Let's, let's have someone from each side on to debate the yes and no. Anyway, uh, this one. Okay. So we're onto episode three, not of us, not our numbering, but of the season two of Things Fell Apart. Part. We skipped the first one because there wasn't much there to object to. It was more or less fine. And then, you know, we did a lot on the second episode and now we're on episode three. This one, huh, okay. This one is both the worst both sides. This might be the worst both sides -ing. I'll be honest.

0:01:28 Thomas: I think it's the worst Both Sides-ing, but I don't think it's like the most consequential. I mean, I think easily both sides in trans people's existence, that's worse by far in terms of the effect and harm and all this. This This one is maybe just the sloppiest, laziest, just in terms of like how shitty it is.

0:01:38 Lydia: Harm. Mm -hmm. Yeah.

0:01:46 Thomas: This one is so lazy that I almost didn't notice it at first. Like it's kind of blended in. But I cannot wait to tell you how bad this one is. Okay, so season two, episode three is called Tonight's the Night, Comrades. And it starts, as a lot of this series does, it starts with a good, compelling portrayal of something that is like, okay, cool. It's almost like credibility building in a way, if I were to be cynical about it. But he tells a story and I'll take it at his word that he's approaching this from the perspective of here's an insane thing that happened. Now, let me try to explain how this is a both sides issue, essentially. But like the thing he does in the beginning is good storytelling. Telling this is the one if you've listened to the series about that insane fucking story about a family that was just trying to like go camping during lockdown and they how they were like surrounded and terrorized by right -wingers thinking that they were antifa yeah you're right I thought that went without saying but you're right yeah yeah, this, this one, so this is a horrifying story I cannot imagine the level of fear that would be involved in this like this is like downright terrifying add to it this was a mixed race family so if it were you and I and we were caught up in something like this we could count on our white privilege

0:02:45 Lydia: Armed right -wingers. Let's call it out. Yeah,

0:03:10 Thomas: To to get us out of that most likely like it would like not 100 but like it is likely that if a bunch it's not even a tool it's like 90 of the outcome like if if a right -wing mob surrounds your van in the woods and has cut down trees, which is what happened. Cut down trees behind them, trap them.

0:03:11 Lydia: It's a tool in our tool belt. Yeah mm

0:03:31 Thomas: That would be so fucking scary and traumatizing. I can't even imagine that would be the worst of the worst. I would be so terrified that would scar you for life. I think no matter what happened, even if nothing, even nothing occurred, an armed group of fucking insane racists. Now imagine that you're anything but white. And then that's a level of fear that truly I think we can only imagine imagine because of the horrific history in this country of mobs of white people doing things to non -white people in in ways that are just too horrifying to even consider I can't imagine how shitty that must be

0:03:32 Lydia: -hmm yeah mm -hm yeah mm

0:04:07 Thomas: For this family so like this is horrible this is this is describing something that is truly truly scarring and terrible and I'm not saying that he did anything wrong in portraying it it's a effective portrayal I think I would have probably made more as I am doing here hear about how scarring this is, but you know, minor, nothing wrong with this as has often been the case with these episodes, as we'll see nothing wrong With the first five minutes of it that talks about, you know this kind of thing and portrays a horrifying event, you know, and gets you emotionally involved and makes you want to hear more.

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0:04:40 Thomas: And so just to make sure I told the story, I'm not going to retell the whole thing, but it is that it's like I said, it is That family is so there's a group of right wing nut jobs and this small town in Washington, you Know, and kind kind of the woods. And these idiots have decided that this is the best. Do you remember why this happened?

0:04:58 Lydia: For whatever reason that detail's not sticking in my

0:05:01 Thomas: Amazing. That's the, I'm so happy because that's what I was hoping for because it's the best, it's fucking, I remember this in real time. Not, not this part. I didn't know that this was happening in real -time, but the coverage and the bullshit that led to this, I do actually remember at the time, because like all these episodes, this is during lockdown after George Floyd. So things are, things are tense, shall we say, of course.

0:05:09 Lydia: Mind okay

0:05:24 Thomas: And there's a fucking tweet that goes around. It is so fucking good. Now you got to remember how much Fox news, they continue to, but how much fox news has demonized and talked about Antifa as this evil thing and blah, blah, they've made this scary as they, as they do as fox news, the entirety of their existence is finding a thing for someone to be scared of and scaring the fuck out of them, Like scaring the fuck out of boomers about a thing. And so in that backdrop, there's a tweet from a newly created account at Antifa underscore US. It's so good. I remember this tweet. Quote, tonight's the night, comrades, with a brown raised

0:05:24 Lydia: Mm -hum oh

0:06:06 Thomas: Fist emoji. And tonight we say fuck the city and we move into the residential areas, the white hoods, and we take what's ours. Okay. It's so fucking good. It's perfect because I saw that and it was the funniest, obviously fake thing that I've ever... To be able to believe that that's real, like what has to go wrong in a human's brain to be ableto believe that Antifa, first of all, they've got an organized main account at Antifa underscore US. Yeah, it's a federalist system, you know, with Antifa. So there's cities, but you know at Antifa underscore US is calling all the shots. So, you know, that's that's how it works. Imagine believing there's any plausibility to that.

0:06:37 Lydia: Yeah headquarters quarters. Yeah.

0:06:51 Thomas: Not only that, that they would like say, all right, now we're going to we're done with the city, you know, where we are, like where the people are, where any of this would even matter. We Antifa are, I guess, everywhere, like everywhere. We're goingto now move to the residential areas. Which residential areas? All of them. I don't fucking know. Yeah. Just like think about the a math of that like any one of the biggest city that had one of these protests how many antifa are you even talking about you know like maybe 100 sometimes and then like okay for every city how many fucking suburbs are there not nonetheless when you get to tiny fucking towns called like Squim or whatever that bullshit Washington town is it's in the woods like just just mathematically systematically how in the world is that going to work like how is that going to word and this fucking tweet was taken serious like like they actually their brains are so broken that this group of you know racists took that seriously to the point where they first go to where there was a Black Lives Matter rally in

0:07:11 Lydia: All of them simultaneously. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah

0:07:59 Thomas: The you know town population for or whatever and some saint of a person out there is putting on a like like supportive rally because George Floyd has been killed and, you know, like wanting to show that solidarity, which is a scary thing to do in a place like that. And I do really like those kinds of people. I'm too fucking scared to do that. I'll be honest. I couldn't imagine putting on that kind of rally in a small town like where I grew up. I don't want to risk getting shot by an angry fucking white person.

0:08:33 Thomas: Like I just not worth it to me. So the people who do that are heroes. I don't, I haven't done that. That's brilliant. And so these assholes go and first confront that rally. So they show up to that rally and there's a big confrontation. The ring leader here is this gun shop owner.

0:08:33 Lydia: Not worth it it sucks yeah yeah

0:08:53 Thomas: Cause of course it is a gun shopowner and he's kind of the ring leader here. And there's, there's been a video of confrontation here. We can listen to some of this, the Intel already hilarious. Hey, the intel that we had is that Antifa was in our fucking town of Squim.

0:09:00 Clip: Say, the intel that we had was that Antifa was here, not peaceful protesters.

0:09:16 Thomas: What is the population? I forget if I've already searched that. Let's see. Squim, it's spelled Sequim, but they just say Squim.

0:09:16 Lydia: Eight

0:09:24 Thomas: 8 ,000. So to me, that's a big city, but compared to where I grew up, you know, that is like three times the size of where I grew up. But that is still nothing. Like three times one is three. So there is three citizens there. No, it is tiny. You know, it was a tiny place. And the idea that Antifa was going to show Like, what do you think Antifa is? Like, is it a paratrooper army that can, like, you know, skydive places? Like, how are they showing up? Yeah, like to your stupid town of Squim. No offense, but like, what? Yeah, anyway, so that's his intel. I already was funny. I'm going to restart that two seconds just to hear.

0:09:24 Lydia: Thousand mission impossible yeah I'm sure it's lovely all

0:10:06 Clip: So I would just like to say the intel that we had was that Antifa was here, not peaceful protesters. Hours was only on Facebook. My personal Facebook was a swim event that I was at. So where did you hear that from, all the chat? No, get it straight, Sequim at noon. It said that people were being bussed in at noon, and most of them were Antifa, and they were going to burn and break windows and loot. And you felt that your response to that was to use more of a business as a network to fizzle and get down there and fuck people up? So my response was to that, we were not going to allow that to happen in our town. By fucking people up. So we will fuck anybody up who breaks our windows and burns our city.

0:10:17 Lydia: Over the internet

0:11:03 Clip: We are not for that you guys we are for what they're doing right here this woman is doing peaceful protest they're not breaking our windows they're not burning our city down we stand toe to toe and side by side with these people but we do not stand side by with people that want to break slaughter

0:11:04 Thomas: City? It's two different things, but.

0:11:22 Clip: And kill cops we're not for and when we saw what Antifa posted two nights ago about coming to the rural areas and burning down our houses and killing our white babies we are not for that that's why you got that response from us this

0:11:32 Thomas: Wow I I don't remember that

0:11:36 Clip: Young lady right here what if they would have said black babies I would have done just the same I was in sierra leone from 1996 we already heard about that we already hurt about that you did a lot of

0:11:46 Thomas: But so all right that that goes on and like and there is some interesting humanity to this obviously effectively racist gun shop owner there's some interesting stuff to tell about that like he in his mind he thinks he's righteous and he thinks that like oh hey I support these protests that are peaceful it's just all though this to him this is like the anomaly it's all those non -peaceful protests that I've been scared shitless about by fox news and other right wing outlets those are the ones I'm here to stop and he comes to an actual protest and finds weight that isn't real there's nothing to do and so they have this weird discussion where he's not like it's it's funny because like it's this antagonistic conversation these two are having but he's also like trying to like signal like you're fine I agree with you you're great this woman's great We're here for the, you know, but they've already clearly caused quite a bit of stress to the people because this was a protest where kids were at it.

0:12:41 Lydia: Was gonna say there's kids

0:12:41 Thomas: And this person, yeah, like this guy, Larson brought people with huge assault rifles and people with German shepherds, like, you Know, just stuff that is clearly going to be scary to see, like it's going to Be scary to see when you see angry group of white people with guns and dogs like that has obviously racial weight to it so she included her five -year -old son you know and they were just having a little demonstration which was impressive it said it had 500 people which for a town of 8 000 is you know that's crazy but that goes to show just how you know these george floyd protests were huge it was it was amazing that

0:12:49 Lydia: Yeah oh my god yeah Yeah.

0:13:22 Thomas: That happened in retrospect respect you know and again I'm someone who is often focused on the negative because when you're trying to do anything you can to point the country in a better direction it's easy to focus on where it's going wrong but the fact that there's so many people willing to do demonstrations like that even in the town of fucking squim is a really cool thing about our country and it's the bright side it's more hopeful side of things that I often can lose sight of so that's really moving but then When these assholes come, as I've already said, and they have guns, they have dogs. They also start like, I don't know if it's them, but one way or another, like rumors through the crowd start happening. Oh, there's people in black block breaking wind. Like someone anonymously said, oh, I had to leave because that was happening. And there's no proof of that. But like, that's what was kind of happening. And so after that, then sometime after that is when the family thing happens.

0:14:13 Clip: Speaking about yourself I am not 9-1-1 where's your emergency as this is happening a guy calls 9-11 and says he sees a bus at a gas station between scrim and forks with everybody inside side all in black. And then on social media, you start seeing people post about it, specifically in a local group for Forks citizens on Facebook, about Forks could be next. You could not imagine a lower value target for a political act of domestic terrorism than this extremely small, generally poorer forest town in the middle of nowhere. But for whatever reason, and the town whips itself into a fury.

0:14:31 Thomas: Anonymous. So fucking dumb.

0:14:57 Clip: And then Big Bertha trundles into town and it was just this terrible coincidence. Part of them must have been thinking like, at last, at last Antifa are coming here so we can be on the cliff face of the culture war. I spoke to folks who were very open to show folks what they're made of to the point that by the time this completely innocent, sweet family comes into town, dozens of men, who are all gun owners,

0:15:31 Thomas: Jesus Christ. So this family who has no idea about any of this, again, a mixed race family who just went to go camping to get out because of COVID and being stuck, you know, they just go to go camping and they get stopped by these people. And I won't go through it again, but just to be followed. And then they start like

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0:15:51 Thomas: Building their camp. They're like, all right, we're going to camp here. And they hear chainsaws in the distance. And they're like what is happening? And they get spooked. And they are like, alright, we got to get the fuck out of here. So they pack up and then they find they can't get out because the one road has been blocked by trees that they cut down.

0:16:06 Lydia: That's so crazy. Yeah.

0:16:07 Thomas: This group of insane racists has cut down to trap them there, which again, I cannot imagine going through that. That is just horrible and I can't imagine it. Now, not that it matters that much, but here's a really funny thing. And I'm amazed we even know this. Remember that fake tweet? Written by white supremacists. It could have been just like leftists making fun of the right. Like that often happens, you know? And like, honestly, I would have thought it was that. Like I would've thought it Was like people who are leftist making fun of how gullible people on the right are by doing the stupid anti fake Antifa tweet about how they're coming. They're coming to square. They're coming to the, you know, the white hoods. So goddamn funny. But not only was it not the real Antifa headquarters, that wasn't that it was fucking white supremacists who did it. Twitter did an investigation because they blocked and they banned the account.

0:16:33 Lydia: Yeah, man. Yeah right man.

0:17:04 Thomas: And they actually, somehow they found out, I didn't look into it that much, but it's, it's widely agreed and not at all controversial that that was a white supremacist group that did that. Fucking amazing. So one might, now I've presented to you pretty much all of the things that happened and how things went. And so you might ask yourself in a story of how on one side, you've got, in my opinion, saintly people who are putting on a demonstration to show solidarity, for black people who are being killed by cops. And then you have, on the other hand, I don't know anything about this family really, but innocent, completely uninvolved family of people who are now terrified and probably scarred for life by this, I would be anyway, who are just trying to go camping, who are terrorized by scary racist group of white people with guns and dogs. And then on the Other Side, you have the group of racists with guns and dogs, and you have The Fake Twitter Account, which was run by white supremacists. So one might ask how are you going to both sides this one how are we where what is yeah how are you gonna do it well I I am even now even though I know the answer I'm still I'm actually doubting how John's gonna pull this off I'm like I've I've seen I've heard I have it in my notes but I still it's that silly where is the book well that family you know they shouldn't have uh no that doesn't work. Ah, the demonstration. No, there's nothing wrong with the demonstration who, I don't know, man, how are we going to do this? Well, now's a good time maybe to read the description of the episode description is how an American media polarized over Antifa. Okay. Polarized over Antifa interesting led to an innocent family on a twilight theme, lockdown, escaping camping trip, getting barricaded in the woods by armed hostile

0:18:02 Lydia: What's the other side. Right okay. Mm

0:18:50 Thomas: Townspeople. So the American media media polarized over antifa led to that well right away polarized two sides so this description now am I being unfair by reading too much into this description because this description really makes it sound like what led to the innocent family being terrorized was the american media that was polarized over Antifa yeah especially because it's just what the words were so but maybe oh that's just a quick description I know my podcast descriptions are very quick and not good so So, but I feel like these are a little more thought out than mine because this is a scripted BBC fucking

0:19:13 Lydia: I think that's a fair interpretation of those words. Yeah.

0:19:30 Thomas: Show where they put some thought into these, but that'll at least give you a hint as to where we're going here. So the episode goes on to say, here's the real thing that went wrong. And this is what this series likes to do. John likes to find connections to things. And sometimes they are interesting connections. Sometimes, you know, they're just not, they'RE just kind of like things that are technically related in ways that don't matter but whatever that's the least of my complaints about this it's a way to frame things it's the way to make a podcast interesting no big deal but he goes to someone who says hey roger ailes leaving fox news was the problem or not the problem that's the start that's like how did we get to here well it started with roger ailes leaving fox news because even though roger ailes you know was an evil piece of shit well they don't say that because that would be not both sides you know even though he was a not great he at least kept Fox News from being like fully batshit is the theory. Like he, he kept the news side of Fox News closer to reality and fine. That might be true. But again, I'm still wondering how we're getting to the both

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0:20:33 Thomas: Sides here. And you might be wondering yourself too. Personally, I don't really care enough to evaluate this Fox News, Roger Ailes theory. It doesn't matter to me. It's, it's worthless. I don'T care about that, but that's where he starts a

0:20:42 Lydia: And I mean, sorry, if like your news network hinges on keeping a sexual predator at the top of your company, then you have bigger problems and you probably need to figure those out as a news network

0:20:51 Thomas: Sexual. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So on one hand, he gives mouth service or lip, lip service, mouth service. That was a good, yeah, that was a Good You thing. Yeah, he gave lip service to, to how bad Fox News' coverage of Antifa was. He gives a little bit, and Trump's demonizing it. Lipservice to that. I could do a lot more on that. I was trying to find a good compilation, but I actually, I can't find one. It's weird now how this is already like four years ago. I know I've seen some good compilations. But anyway, if I just search Fox News Antifa, it's endless, endless headlines. Antifa returns with a vengeance and college mobs. Journalist speaks out after Antifa attack. Antifa professional agitators. And these are actually recent. They're still doing it. I didn't even bother to put the filter on. Antifa is the armed instrument of blah, blah, like it's just looking at the headlines. It's cut off there. There, but it's like Antifa rioters committed acts of domestic terrorism. This is pages of Google results, pages. So that's the one side that he spent a little time on. And you could, I could read these for, we could fill out the next several months of WTW, just me reading these headlines. Mom speaks out after Antifa targets school board meeting.

0:21:02 Lydia: Lip service. Maybe he's giving mouth service? I don't know. Yeah. Returns with a vengeance. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

0:22:17 Thomas: And it's just, it's nonstop. It's nonstop, it was such a convenient weapon for them. And I actually, I found someone who did a study. I didn't look too into it, but this is just to give you an idea. This is a Washington Post article by, uh-oh, I don't know how to pronounce this, Knupfer. Sorry, Kurt, if I pronounce that incorrectly. They did a study, it says, how I did my research. I collected material from 29 U .S. right -wing or far -right websites ranging from Fox News and Breitbart to lesser known outfits like Liberty Nation or the Western Journal that present themselves as alternative news sources, I collected a total of 437 articles posted between May 25th and June 4th featuring the term Antifa.

0:22:58 Thomas: And then they, you know, blah, blah. He basically found a way to code them, you know like as they were. So this Professor Kurt Knupfer is, yeah, he's a professor of political science so that makes sense. Here under the headline of how does the right wing describe Antifa, the right -wing websites use a variety of terms to characterize Antifa even some we might consider mutually exclusive using organization or movement interchangeably and using the vague term group most often. Yeah, it's so convenient that it's either like this organization or it's just like this nebulous thing. Out of 437 articles, I found only 18 mentions of an actual person or institution and almost no direct quotes by anyone identifying identifying themselves as Antifa. Yep, 20 % identified Antifa as a terrorist entity, et cetera. So it's basically, this is the way to keep people really scared. Just to kind of skip down to the end, there was something here that I thought was interesting. Right -wing websites are creating a quote, floating signifier around Antifa, which might serve as a convenient catch -all scapegoat for those intent on criminalizing dissent. So that's what's going on here. That's That's what the right is doing. And you're still wondering, okay, well, what is the left doing? What's the other side? Well, let's see.

0:24:15 Lydia: Milkshakes.

0:24:15 Thomas: Let's play from the podcast a little bit. And he first even acknowledges what's actually the real truth here for a minute.

0:24:21 Clip: The truth is, Antifa weren't anywhere near as violent It's true that in the days after George Floyd's murder, people identifying as Antifa were arrested for looting and for instigating violence in New Jersey and Austin and Minneapolis and Portland. But according to the FBI, the vast majority of that lawlessness was committed by criminals who weren't motivated by ideology.

0:24:49 Thomas: I would like to remind everyone that this is Donald Trump's FBI. Donald Trump. Trump's own administration. The FBI says not even we can find a fake fucking Antifa terrorism.

0:25:01 Lydia: It actually is worse than that. They were actively trying to put resources on looking for Antifa stuff like they were they were moving resources from investigating white supremacist terrorism and opportunities there. Yeah, a thing that's real that they had been spending time on, and they were told to redirect those resources and start looking into Antifa to the point where even on January 5th, 2021, the president, Donald Trump at the time, issued a memo asking the secretary of state to declare Antifa a terrorist organization so they could start saying immigrants coming over that might be affiliated with Antifa, whatever that means. Could be denied entry because they're part of a terrorist organization january 5th what happened the next day antifa didn't storm the capitol yeah

0:25:17 Thomas: A thing that's real. Wow. Wow. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, as a way, as a floating signifier to be the catch -all for things that they

0:25:58 Lydia: Isn't that crazy just obsession with antifa yeah

0:26:07 Thomas: Should be scared of. It's perfect. It's textbook fascism, obviously. And even John Ronson acknowledges that. He even acknowledges, hey, yeah, not really a problem here. So, gosh, still really wondering how we're going to get to the both sides here. Well, it's coming up.

0:26:23 Clip: The right-wing media was presenting a very one-sided view of Antifa.

0:26:25 Thomas: Ready for this sentence? Drumroll.

0:26:28 Clip: But, then again, so were parts of the left-wing in their way.

0:26:32 Lydia: Yeah in their

0:26:35 Thomas: But then again, so were were parts of the left -wing media in their way. Already, we're just, so we've described, I know, like, that's why both -sizing is such a bad fucking idea. It just skews the truth so, like, you have to bend your perception of the universe to a breaking point to try to make any sort of both sides here. We're not even close to done. That's just how he introduces it. And already I was like, what the fuck are you talking? You've already had to qualify it with parts of of the left -wing media in their own way. So let's see what he means by that.

0:26:40 Lydia: Way he's like really trying there geez yeah yeah Yeah. Yeah.

0:27:06 Clip: My name is Lee Fang. I'm an investigative reporter.

0:27:09 Thomas: Okay, so now we're getting introduced to Lee Fong, who is going to feature in a future episode. One reason this was so fucking confusing was I kept thinking like, well, there's a debunk I need to do on him, but it's because he comes back in like episode, whatever it is, five or something, six. And so a pin in that. But now after having presented that the left wing media is doing this in their way, a portion of them are doing this in their way. Now we have on this person who's going to explain how.

0:27:37 Clip: My name Lee Fang. I am an investigative reporter. Until recently lee fang reported on antifa for the intercept an independent left-wing news site as a teenager he had been a member of anti-racist action they hunted out neo-nazi groups and did battle with them as a young man you know that was very exciting to join something that was that confrontational that had direct action against a very clear enemy

0:28:06 Thomas: Not for nothing. Isn't it weird that they always do the bolstering of the liberal cred of the obviously now going to be some sort of at least, if not right wing, he's goingto at least obviously express an anti -left view? Yeah.

0:28:19 Lydia: Left wing media, The Intercept, et cetera, et cetera.

0:28:24 Thomas: And you never hear it the other way. On Ronson's show, you never here the person on the left giving their reason why, well, you know, I used to be like super racist and I used used to treasure those times that I would you know join a group of white people that would scare families you know like the reason is because ronson knows his audience is on the left and he is conditioning them to accept criticism from someone who's not on the fucking left it's so common how is this even relevant oh I I used to love being part of these anti -racist groups as a kid I don't I didn't check this it doesn't matter it's nothing but it's just one of those cues that But when you're like me and you've listened to so much of this fucking nonsense, right away, I'm primed. Oh, that's them prepping me to hear criticism of the left. That's how they do it. That's How Both Sides -ers or just people anti -left, either or, that'S how they do it."

0:29:14 Clip: Me so that's the world that you grew up in and now cut to 2017

0:29:17 Thomas: Yeah, that''s where he grew up. So naturally, I should trust his insight on this.

0:29:22 Clip: You know and you're working at the intercept and you'll reporting on a kind of modern day version of that antifa I sounded like donald trump what I said you had increasing violent clashes in the streets groups that were either antifa or other far-left protest groups clashing with alt-right or pro-trump groups in the street I saw many documented cases of protesters attacking journalists there's this claim that any journalist who attends one of these protests and documents and does their job as a journalist is somehow doxing protesters who want to stay anonymous, and therefore there's justification to attack reporters. This is audio of the photojournalist Maraini Staib. She's worked for The Washington Post and The Atlantic and Vice. Having just been been attacked by members of Antifa in 2021. They're dressed entirely in black with their faces completely covered. She gets too close to them and they knock her to the ground and spray her in the eyes with pepper spray. They throw full soda cans and paint at other journalists too. I tweeted about cases of really absurd violence and a number of my colleagues were very upset. Eternally. But Lee was never more at odds with his co-workers than during the days after George Floyd's murder. You couldn't say that hundreds of thousands of people who took to the streets were all Antifa. That's far from the truth. Most of the protests were non-violent, but there were huge amounts of urban violence, of protesters, of Antifa, of opportunistic looters who just saw, you know, a moment of crisis that could be exploited. At the time, Fox and the other right-wing media was constantly going on about how terrible antifa were and blaming antifa for everything including the opportunistic looting perpetrated by people who weren't ideological at

0:31:30 Thomas: So this person who I very believe is part of these anti -racist groups when he was young and just totally has that credibility is now saying, actually, the Antifa was very violent kind of thing. I don't even know that I have time to go into how many ways it's wrong, but also doesn't matter and has no bearing on anything.

0:31:53 Thomas: So I did ask you to tackle a little bit of this part of it just to get some information on like, you know, the antifa violence. What do you have for us?

0:32:00 Lydia: If you remember in the wake of George Floyd, the number of demonstrations and protests was phenomenal. It was huge. You know, there's like one day where there was over 500 protests happening. To this day, I mean, protests still kind of continue. And of all of these protests, from the data that I'm looking at, looking into political violence in America, a poll suggested that 42 % of respondents believed that most protesters associated with the Black Lives Matter movement are trying to incite violence or destroy property. And when you look Look at the violence of these protests. It's actually 93 percent of them had no violence at all of, you know, thousands and thousands and thousands of demonstrations. Very, very minor. In California, there was a neo -Nazi rally. I don't know if you remember this at the capital, yeah, where people were stabbed. And what ended up happening with that is California pursued criminal charges against eight activists that were affiliated with Antifa that were either stabbed or beaten. They were the ones that were stabbed or beat.

0:33:00 Thomas: I do. Yeah. Wait, what?

0:33:18 Lydia: And they were charged for a variety of different things, like someone had a skateboard and had a black bandana. So they said, that, oh, that could have been used as, you know, a deadly weapon. And because of the black bandana, that's conspiracy, disturbing the peace. So these individuals had sometimes a dozen charges. I think in total, they investigated 100 Antifa counter protesters from this one event and recommended more than 500 total criminal charges against the Antifa encounter protesters.

0:33:55 Thomas: Jesus.

0:33:55 Lydia: Protesters eight of them went forward move forward for charging and again zero neo -nazis no stabbing

0:34:01 Thomas: What? Wow. Well, hun, they can't charge themselves.

0:34:08 Lydia: Charges no assault chart like nothing nothing yeah exactly

0:34:08 Thomas: That's the problem. Some of those who burn crosses.

0:34:10 Lydia: Exactly and so that raised a lot of questions in california in particular which you know I think is the story nationwide anyway but in califonia you know to kind of see that disparity in something that was like essentially But in reality, when we're looking at violence committed by members of Antifa, whatever that means, people who identify themselves as anti -fascist, there has been one death in the last 20 years. One.

0:34:40 Thomas: Yeah. It's ridiculous. And not only that, what I think is frustrating, too, about this whole thing is we've somehow lost the context of why these protests are even happening in Ronson's episode. Like, nowhere in Ronson's episode is all the police violence that they're protesting against.

0:34:43 Lydia: That's it yeah

0:35:01 Thomas: And it's kind of combining two things, you know, like there's George Floyd protests, but then there's also, and this isn't something I'm an expert in or have looked into, there's a lot of interesting stuff about this, about anti -fascist groups and how they operate. There's also anti -fascist groups are going out to meet these Nazi fucking groups in the streets and not let them take hold. And like, there's a whole philosophy there that I think is really interesting and compelling. And neither of those cases is Antifa going outto try to crime, you know,

0:35:01 Lydia: Right yeah yep yeah

0:35:35 Thomas: Like it is by definition, a responsive show of sometimes force. It's a responsive presence, Antifa, like just definitionally. They don't go, let's do an Antifa rally that is crimes like it does. That doesn't happen. The reason they're at a lot of these cities, especially like Portland, is because there's massive right wing fucking white supremacist Nazi support there and groups. And there's all these stories about how those groups, especially in Portland, by the way, are connected to the police. And, oh, the police give them a heads up when they're going to be like all this coordination and shit. And meanwhile, Antifa, I have no idea if 100 % of everybody who ever tries to identify as Antifa and do Antifa stuff, if they've always been righteous and done a perfectly righteous cause. It doesn't fucking matter. It's nothing. It's not relevant to the key problem here, which is the police violence. I was looking at, there's some databases people have made of just the police brutality just from this time period, like May 25th. And it's like, it's truly, truly disturbing. This was nationwide. So many people shot rubber bullets. People lost eyes. People lost limbs.

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0:36:29 Lydia: Oh yeah mm -hmm yeah yeah

0:36:44 Thomas: Police were terrorists and fucking terrorized the population. And Antifa was involved in the other side of that sometimes, but also Antifa Was often just, you know, going at it with the white supremacists again. So some same people sometimes, but like, that's the main thing to be talking about here. That's what Antifa is doing. That's why they are there. They're not there to do looting. It's not relevant to anything. Looting happens, obviously.

0:37:11 Lydia: Looting happens after super bowl wins looting happened yeah

0:37:15 Thomas: Yeah, or losses. Famously, what is it, Vancouver? Who's the hockey team that the city just got ruined after they lost? I think it was Vancouver. I can't remember.

0:37:28 Lydia: All I can think about is uh what is it philadelphia and they lost their minds yeah

0:37:28 Thomas: There's Boston. Yeah. That always happens. There could have been some violent happenings at protests. But why are you not also talking about the outbreak of police violence, which is one million times where any act of police violence against protesters is, in my opinion, among the worst constitutional violations that can happen. It's so fundamental to what we allegedly believe in in this country, free speech and to our constitutional rights. These are horrifying. I mean, so many people were killed. People were maimed by police who don't fucking give a shit and find it funny and just want to hurt people. And it's disgusting. And if there are a way to abolish all of police forces and replace them with something effective, I wish we could do that immediately. It's just sickening. And to not talk about that at all is fucking crazy. But even setting that aside and trying to evaluate this claim, he plays audio from something where he said that a journalist was attacked. And I went down a little rabbit hole on this one because I you know fair is fair I wanted to see like well what happened there and Moraney Stabe is the journalist I found that audio and this is just weird it's sort of a little like side adventure here this is the weirdest thing now it doesn't matter that much you know again because it's not really devastating to my theory of the the world if a person in Antifa, in Blackblock, who I don't even know, by the way, who is that person? We know that often the right tries to pose as Antifa as they did on Twitter to start this whole fucking thing. Like, so it's not devastating to my worldview that someone in Blackblock might do a crime or attack someone or be an asshole. That doesn't matter. It's inconsequential. Unless you found that it was happening all over the place and Antifa were We're abducting and killing thousands of people. It's nothing. It's not relevant. It's just when you're looking at a two -sided issue and

0:39:22 Thomas: One side is 1 million percent wrong and the other side, you can find some like tiny detail that might be wrong. It's de minimis. It's actually bad to even focus on that because it just distracts from the actual truth. I always use climate change. I mean, if you want to try to find where like some researcher had a typo in their fucking otherwise scientifically accurate climate change paper, it's not worth it. It doesn't mean the typo didn't happen or that somebody messed up data in one paper somewhere, whatever. It doesn'T mean that didn't HAPPEN, but it's not relevant. It's not, yeah, when you present that as both sides, it's even if you try to present it in the context of minimizing it, just by putting it on a stage in a both -sides -y way, it kind of elevates it. It's just not relevant, so the fact that this could happen doesn't matter, but I still wanted to look into this to see what this was. Was. And first off, she was first sprayed with WD -40 by a right winger. And that's part of it that doesn't get reported at all places. But then after that, there are

0:39:51 Lydia: And you end up legitimizing the insanity yeah mm

0:40:23 Thomas: People that do seem to be Antifa that try to take her camera. And First of all, she goes to them and like gets in their face. It's kind of a back and forth. And it seems as though they're familiar with each other because the person yells at her that she risks spreading COVID. And when she did this reporting in Columbia, which by the way, this is so obscure. So let me play this video and we can kind of hear what happened.

0:40:41 Lydia: Oh interesting

0:40:46 Clip: All smash all your cameras and your phone fuck you get the fuck out get the f**k out get the f*** out kata you f***ing endangered people by flying to f***in Columbia and endangering everyone and by opening that mouth to covid

0:41:05 Thomas: So that idiot, whoever that is, used a lot of sexist language that like that, that guy, fuck that guy. I don't care. Like he might be Antifa, whatever. It sounds like he is on the, that side of things. So they have problems with how she's conducting herself around them. There are complaints about reporters like this. And like, this Is what happens with Andy. No, I don't think she's an Andy No, I'm not saying she is, but there are people like Andy No who like to provoke Antifa to get them to do things to them so that then they can be martyrs.

0:41:35 Thomas: That is a thing that happens. And so there's some amount of like, she's provoking them. She's standing up to them a little bit, but this guy also sounds like an asshole and I don't know what the fuck he's talking about. It doesn't even make any sense, but it shows a familiarity. I mean, the fact that he accurately references that this obscure reporter no one's ever heard of, did coverage in Columbia. There's a familiarity there.

0:41:54 Thomas: And the point is often this, we, we find this a lot on where there's woke. People take events that are probably just like personal fucking grievances and personal relationships probably, or, or a little minor interpersonal whatevers that happen all the time. And they try to cast it in a wider, make a giant pattern out of it, political lens.

0:42:15 Thomas: And like, whatever this is, I don't think you can generalize based on this interaction, which by the way, you didn't hear any of that on John Ronson's show. You just heard an attack that happens a little bit later. You can't really generalize that. Like, oh no, first they're, you know, throwing away the camera of a reporter who they clearly have like some interpersonal beef with, you know, on the street, like next they're going to come for white babies and like, it's just that you can't generalize that it's not, this is a specific conflict between a journalist and a group of Antifa people that she kind of knows. I'm not saying that it's right to like, obviously I'm not, but like you can't use this as, yep, see. And so these protests are more violent than it's like, no, it's not really, you know, like it's very specific what's happening here. And then what really gets me about this and why I could, I watched so many, I Zapruder filmed this because there's, you heard a scream in that video that Ronson played. And for the life of me, I, it is the weirdest thing. It's not her that I've watched this so many times.

0:43:17 Thomas: And this isn't even me like getting all yeah.

0:43:17 Lydia: Grassy knoll. Yeah.

0:43:19 Thomas: Conspiracy theory-ish. I don't even think that she would think it's, I don't, I don't think it's important to the story. She does get like shoved a little bit, but a scream happens simultaneously that like everybody talks about as though it's her.

0:43:33 Thomas: So they want, they want her to go away and stop covering them.

0:43:40 Thomas: And so that screen, that blood curdling scream, and there's another angle of it. I know that people aren't seeing this but like it makes no sense like if that is her then it's the fakest bullshit in the world and she's trying to look like she's being murdered when all that happened was like someone was shoving her a little bit but not in a way like imagine getting shoved and screaming like that doesn't doesn't make any sense I actually think it might be an unrelated scream or something like I can't figure that out there's Also when you watch the video they take her camera I think or they might they might smash her phone again not endorsing any of that but also what happens if if you watch it, is someone takes her camera and then she runs around in the most professional wrestling, trying to look like she's getting thrown around way, like does a full like turn, run around and then fall in the most unnecessary way, like it's Remy throwing a fit when we don't give him food. And like, I hate to go down that road, but really, if you watching, I don't know how to interpret it any other way. It still doesn't take away from the fact that these people damaged her property. Yeah, that happened. Don't agree with it. Bad. Don' do that. But the other I think it's important to voice the other side of this, which you heard Ronson and that journalist Lee Fang kind of talk about, which is you got to remember that racist police officers are abducting Antifa and unmarked vans.

0:44:56 Thomas: Like that happened. So Antifa has interest in not being identified. That's why they're doing what they're going. And certain journalists feel like they have a right to try to identify them. I don't know why they feel that way. And I don'T know why THEY feel like they should be allowed to do that?

0:45:10 Lydia: It's like the same approach that journalists were taking with like the jury for Trump for a bit.

0:45:18 Thomas: I guess. Yeah. I don't know. You don't have an expectation of privacy out and about on the streets when you're protesting. You actually don't, legally speaking, but also I don'T know why you have... It doesn't go the other way that journalists have an expectation of being able to identify everybody on the street. It also doesn't go that way. Now, Lee Fong tries to present this as though, again, he tries to generalize. He tries to say, so actually what happened was they had this theory that any media that took their picture, Sure, you could attack them because it's an act of violence against them. And that's not at all what I see. What I see is I think there are journalists who got really in these people's faces and tried to identify them or tried to take a lot of pictures of them or things that they perceived as threats and right or wrong, probably wrong, like they attack some of them sometimes and they have backstories that we don't know because this is clearly a very personal interaction. The guy knows details that I had a hard time even finding.

0:46:11 Thomas: I tried to find that Columbia coverage and I did find it eventually. But like they are familiar with each other this is an interpersonal thing it is not the case that Antifa attacked every journalist who took a picture of them that's just that's not how it worked like mathematically we know that's not how it worked because they they also want Antifa also want some amount of coverage so it's trying to generalize from a very hyper specific example oh here's the other thing this was again part of this rabbit hole this Marini Stabe this is a photojournalist and she later when I first searched her what came up was weirdly enough she got busted for staging a photo and so she so she staged like this perfect protest photo where she had like a kid throw away a mask so it was like a mask burning covid thing and then the video behind it was kind of revealed somehow and it shows her kind of like instead of it being like oh it's just this picture of a kid burning a mask wow how and again this is what's interesting about about Marini Stabe, she's doing this from like kind of a leftist perspective often. I don't know what her personal views are, but her coverage, you know, again, that staging that photo of a kid burning a mask was for the purpose of selling it to kind of people on the left, like selling it as look at these crazy mask burners. They're even indoctrinating their children. And she also sued Portland police for a bunch of

0:47:33 Thomas: Times that she was roughed up by them. And I believe she settled with them. Another thing that's not mentioned at all in Ronson's podcast was the fact that like this person has been attacked by police far more than she was attacked by Antifa. She sued that she, she, they settled. No, well, we'll see. Maybe. I don't think that she did, but she actually won. Like she, They got a settlement about that. She documented all kinds of violence that police committed. So she's an interesting figure. I Don't really know what her deal is other than I think she wants good coverage. Like I think she wants her journalism to be valuable, I think,

0:47:44 Lydia: She didn't sue the Antifa folks. Maybe. Mm hmm.

0:48:07 Thomas: Which is I'm not, you know, not saying that makes someone evil or anything, but it does seem weird that I think she's coming from mostly a left perspective. But of course, as always happens when someone is attacked by Antifa, then the right wing media, all of them want to interview her and like, you know, kind of make hay out of that. But later on, she was busted for staging this photo to the point where all her stuff on like Getty Images was taken down, like all of her photos. So it says Getty terminated its relationship with Stabe and they put out a statement saying we will not be working with this photographer in the future. She deleted some of her fotos. Reuters, like a year later, is actively taking down photos Reuters had previously published. They tweeted, we are deleting tweets containing photos with the byline Marini Stabe that are associated with Reuters. So like, that's a big deal. Like that's A Fall From Grace.

0:48:53 Thomas: In total fairness, I don't know what what that means about this attack. I mean, she was attacked. It's on video that they did take her camera. By the way, the thing that they were trying to do was take her camera, they weren't trying to physically hurt her. Not that that excuses it, but it's a little different from saying what they're going to do is physically hurt and attack journalists just for being journalists. I think it was related to a specific claim that this person was worried about a photo she took of them, someone who's trying to stay anonymous, and so they wanted to destroy her camera still still not an okay thing to do it's still different than saying like this guy just wanted to like stab her or something you know it's like it's a different thing it's till bad thing but it's like it a different category than antifa are violent kind of thing or whatever so I don't know what to do with all that the fact that like this this attack is clearly really exaggerated by her in the video and she does this run around fucking pro wrestling fall and and if that's her scream I don' even think it is but if it is it's the fakest bullshit I've ever heard in my life because like, it's not, if you look at what's happening when she screams, it doesn't make any sense. And then she talked about it, which fair enough, I guess, like she can talk about being attacked by Antifa. I don't know what her deal is. I really don't know what to think. It was this weird kind of journey. I went down. Point is, this is a very singular event between specific people. How representative is it? I don'T know. Nobody made the case. Nobody in Ronson's podcast made the case that this is representative of anything. They brought up an example. They played some audio from it with a scream that's not actually, I don't think, related to anything happening. And then they said, and so there you go, all kinds of violence happening.

0:50:27 Thomas: And he says, like, I don't think it was fair to say that there's all Antiva, but it's not like there's no hard data in there. There's no facts. That's that. There'S not a satisfying like button to put on that very specific Marini Stabe attack thing. It's just weird. Like, I dont totally know what to think about it. But again, that often comes up on the show where it's like, hey, I looked into this and it was a weird event that happened between two people. Is there any reason that I should know what all that was about and who is exactly right and who's exactly wrong? I donno. Know. Here's what I'll tell you. When I look at hundreds and hundreds and thousands, actually, acts of police violence against protesters, that is not a spat between two people who know each other. That is not, you know, that ist something that is clearly evil and wrong and unconstitutional happening at a systemic level. That ist something you should focus on. That's not looking at, oh, well, it's just an anomaly over here. That police officer actually knew that guy. Like, no. Even if if you found an example of that, that's not what's happening. It's a systemic problem that is far worse than anything else you're talking about here.

0:51:27 Thomas: And so we go on because it gets even worse. Okay.

0:51:27 Clip: At the time fox and the other right-wing media was constantly going on about how terrible antifa were and blaming Antifa for everything, including the opportunistic looting perpetrated by people who weren't ideological at all. How was the intercept covering Antifa? The intercept covered the protest by saying that this was a revolutionary moment. They had on a professor who said that looting is kind of a fake term that's simply a redistribution by another means. The tradition in this country has been to identify looting as criminal behaviour. Lee means Professor Robin D.G. Kelly, who was interviewed by The Intercept in June 2020. What I try to do in the article is kind of flip the question of what is a looter? And what we've seen often is that the very system of racial capitalism has been the looter.

0:51:42 Thomas: So that's the one side. One thing I love in these is when you don't even have to do any research to hear that the way that Lee Fong characterized something is not even consistent with their own clip that they played in the fucking thing.

0:52:27 Lydia: Mm -hmm. Yeah Yeah Yeah.

0:52:32 Thomas: Cause that sounds like somebody putting looting into proper context is what it sounds like to me. And So of course I had to look into this Robin D .G. Kelly interview. I found the one. And it's interesting, of course, and it's very valid. And talks about like, hey, who's the real fucking looter? I'm looking at the transcript right here. He talks about looting being a Hindi term and the origin is like the British looting of India. So that quote we heard that was like, who is doing the looting? What I try to do is flip that question. The system of racial capitalism has been the looter. For one, again, that's not consistent with what they said he was doing it sounds like he's just saying okay sure he's not saying looting doesn't exist or that the looting was right he's saying what's more important people who in a riot or when otherwise there's like a breakdown of law people who go and steal a fucking stereo or whatever the equivalent would be these days god that's an old thing to say now they think about it people go in and steal something from a shop what is more important That one event by random people who, by the way, they're stealing because of the very fucking capitalist system that has probably left them poor. You don't see a bunch of like doctors looting. You know, you see people who don't have anything. What's more important, that or racial capitalism that has looted their entire lives for centuries?

0:53:50 Lydia: Versus the way that Fong characterizes it in the episode that looting is a a fake term simply a redistribution by another means which has nothing to do at

0:54:02 Thomas: I searched the document. And again, this is the very interview he's talking about. That's not at all what he says. It's not. He uses the word redistribution once, but it's in a totally different context. That has nothing to do with that. It's saying what is essentially the truth, which is don't fucking focus on this and acknowledging and pointing out that this is a tactic. It is a tactic of fascists, it's a tactic of the status quo warriors, it is a tactic of white America to focus on incidents of looting during protests by likely people of color and demonize those people and focus on that rather than on the underlying problem the entire reason we're here which was police violence and a million other things. Forever.

0:54:36 Lydia: All yeah yeah I mean that's just been the case forever rodney king right everyone focuses on the riots yeah yeah

0:54:48 Thomas: Vietnam protests everything, literally every single protest ever has this. It's not interesting. It is not worthwhile. It is getting you further from the truth to point out. So, this scholar is doing a truthful thing. You know, maybe some of the rhetoric is like a little far left for some people or whatever, but like, yeah, yeah.

0:55:10 Lydia: But also it could be academic in that way too right like it's supposed to spark conversation and discussion and not necessarily be like policy it's just a way of thinking about

0:55:18 Thomas: And the article he's referencing, by the way, was an opinion piece that the New York Times published that says, what kind of society values property over black lives. The hackneyed emphasis on why loot obscures the question which black people have asked for centuries. Does that sound like he's saying like looting is good? Yeah.

0:55:37 Lydia: It no no saying it's a distraction and you're all falling for

0:55:40 Thomas: This is not a close call. Like the whole article is talking about just the ways that the right and white America uses looter to talk about black people and to distract from the issues. And it's just a form of racism that it says nothing about like, therefore it's great that they're looting. That's redistribution that's nowhere in this at all at all and so I like to do this the tally of the both sides here

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0:56:08 Thomas: Because Ronson by the way and this is as much as I can't help it I like John Ronsom like I just have always found him enjoyable and I think he's a good person trying to do the right thing in his mind I think this is where I get most annoyed at him just in terms of this this little like chuckle he gives because he sounds like he's identified. Wow, he'sidentified this real contradiction, this real like both sidesy thing. Ready?

0:56:33 Clip: So in the right-wing media, these looters were being kind of subsumed into Antifa. It's Antifa doing all of this and the left-wing media it's the same thing in a way people were saying oh these looters they aren't looters, they're redistributing wealth. Yeah they're

0:56:50 Thomas: On the left wing, this is the same thing. Yep.

0:56:52 Lydia: Yeah it's really confusing why he again this is scripted and edited they presented this still knowing that the clip from the video would precede it and so he had the opportunity to cut this and say hey that doesn't actually match with what I just heard with my own ears

0:57:11 Thomas: It's almost like he is looking at it with the same biased lens that his interviewee is looking it. Yeah. It's the same. He even says the same, like it's just, you couldn't both sides this harder if you tried. And I just want to keep in mind, what fucking relevance is any of this to the family getting terrorized by racists in the woods?

0:57:15 Lydia: Yeah yeah it'S really disappointing

0:57:28 Clip: All Robin Hood. For doing all this and in the left wing media it is the same thing in the way people are saying all these loot is they aren t looters their redistributed wealth.

0:57:30 Thomas: Listen to this. Same thing, in a way. Not what they said. Not at all. I'm going to keep going and then we can do the scorekeeping. We can sum. I love doing it. We can tally the both sides.

0:57:48 Clip: I mean, there was a lot of spin going on where the actual reality was just muddled. You know, it was all kinds of violence.

0:57:54 Thomas: Yeah, muddled. It was something in the middle, wasn't it?

0:57:56 Clip: This was a crisis that everyone attempted to exploit in some way, whether you were a looter or a broadcast journalist.

0:58:00 Thomas: Everyone attempted to explain. What?

0:58:05 Clip: There was not a lot to nuance or care for your community. If you want evidence of how there's two Americas, each with their own completely distinct media, Look at how Antifa was reported on in 2020. During the week the family set off on their twilight camping trip, Americans were getting wildly different impressions of Antifa, depending on which media they consumed.

0:58:11 Thomas: Here we go. Two Americas. Ah, there's the...

0:58:31 Thomas: Okay. What, how in American media polarized over Antifa led to an innocent family, family, blah, blah. Yeah. So we went from Antifa is this insanely demonized thing by the right. And I won't go through it all again, but that is like a billion. If we're trying to score it, that's like 11 ,000 million on the fake, completely wrong, ideologically motivated lies. And then on the other side, we have, we set up a fake claim of, well, the other sides reporting that it's all great. And there's no such thing as violence that's ever happened ever, which is not not a real standard to judge anything by they set that up and then they bring on Lee Fong to like contrary to pierce that bubble that fake position to say there is there is violence there are journalists attacked and the looting does happen which is somehow contradictory to the thing they played that doesn't contradict it so like what is that what is the both fucking sides to say nothing of the fact that the best they can do is an obscure interview of an academic in the intercept how

0:58:33 Lydia: Insane being terrorized yeah yeah

0:59:42 Thomas: Popular do you think the intercept is it's a tie it's leftist at the time very niche publication that interviewed an academic who didn't even say the thing you're saying he said he just said like yeah stop focusing on the fucking looters is the distraction what relevance does Does that have, what you're trying to set up with your both sides bullshit with this family is that it, see, it was the polarized coverage that led to Antifa, of Antifa that led, what is the left part of that that contributed to this? In what way? Did the family only go camping because they firmly believed there was no such thing as Antifa violence?

1:00:21 Thomas: Was that the reason they went camping? Well, of course they wouldn't have gone camping had they known the truth about Antifa violence and how looting happens. What the fuck are you talking about? Out what is the both sides it's amazing why are you both sizing this it's incredible it's incredible what what part of the other side contributed to anything you're talking about here you have people doing a peaceful protest were they doing that badly or wrongly or in a way that only happened because they had bad media about antifa because they heard an academic say say that stop focusing on the looters like did that did that contribute to the left being wrong in some way that is it all of both sides to the right which was the group of racial terrorists that chopped down trees and trapped a

1:00:21 Lydia: What is this episode I think that's kind of what I'm coming to stalk

1:01:12 Thomas: Family what are you talking about both sides this is the worst both sides it's absolutely this is insane why are you even doing this episode in this way so I mean the last like sort of 10 minutes of this is about how the family is too fucking terrified even they They don't even want to talk to anybody. And the town tries to reach out and be like, hey, they're not representative of anything. And then they're like, okay, cool. In fact, I found a quote. It turns out someone in the family did do one interview. And they're, like, yeah, okay. So, like. I don't know. The Chamber of Commerce or some shit reached out to us. But, like nobody who, you know, trapped us and accused us of being Antifa. They didn't reach out. Like, what is, you now?

1:01:30 Lydia: Them yeah yeah it's

1:01:56 Clip: Matthew's screen captured comments like wonder if they feel like they just drove into a horror movie and it's like the purge and let them starve. He tweeted the screenshots and they went viral. Which led to an unexpectedly happy outcome. More than 200 Clallam County residents paid for an ad in the family's local paper. We are saddened and disgusted by the threats and violence that your family encountered while trying to enjoy the beauty of our home. We apologise for the frightening experience you had. We acknowledge that you may never come back here again and we understand that feeling. However, if you did return one day, we would be honoured to make amends. Did the family ever go back? No. To my knowledge, they refused to.

1:02:02 Lydia: Horrible

1:02:52 Clip: It was a traumatic experience in their life, and they just want to move on.

1:02:52 Lydia: Yeah I don't blame him at

1:02:57 Clip: And what about Seth, the man who started it all?

1:02:59 Thomas: Okay. So, this asshole.

1:03:00 Clip: He apologised too, on his Facebook Live. So I just wanted to come on, make this short video, just let everybody know, I'm not racist, I didn't say ice, ice, ace. I said heist heist ice and that was a command to my dog Rambo. I totally miffed up I jumped the gun. I knee jerked this there was this squim organizer girl She actually owns a business here and she was pretty pissed at me and I can understand why she said I ruined her event So thank you everybody again for watching. I'm sorry for what went down today

1:03:08 Thomas: Hmm ah now what sucks is I can't that video is no longer up and I can I can t find it I tried the archive I tried but it's like it's a facebook live video so it's not I don't you know so I am really curious I don t know how they have it actually there must it must be somewhere but I wanted to hear what he said but I just ran out of time trying to find it it's n t super important but this fucking guy you know like there's a part of him that does try to not be a piece of shit but But it doesn't matter. Like, overwhelmingly, his actions are being a piece of shit. And he tries to play this little puppy dog like, oh, I'm just blah, blah, dah.

1:04:08 Thomas: But like, I am not buying it. And I wanted to find the full video to see where he inevitably probably said some racist shit. Who knows? And now we're going to hear the terrible consequences of this piece of s**t. Let's see.

1:04:08 Lydia: His instincts are shitty

1:04:20 Clip: Thank you everybody. Again for watching I'm. Sorry for what one down today But the apology wasn't enough to save his business. People started boycotting his gun store. Eventually he did go out of business and now he sells tiny homes across the street.

1:04:36 Thomas: So, that's weird. So, he went out of business, but he also is doing a business right across the street. Literally across the street from where he was so it sounds like could there be something else involved exactly his customers are yeah it made no sense to me I tried to research this I found the business it does seem to have gone out of business but then actually weirdly he just revived it like it with the secretary of state or whatever it had gone yeah it had like lapsed and then he just recently revived it I don't know if they're moving or if he's just you

1:04:42 Lydia: He also has a different business yeah I don't know and it's also weird too because it's a gun store so the clientele yeah oh Oh, interesting. Yeah.

1:05:13 Thomas: Know bringing the entity back for some reason but the point is I have no faith at all that this is accurately reported I just have no fate who knows maybe it is but also it doesn't make any sense to me and also who gives a shit even if so it really is trying to bolster up the other side of this story so oh yeah our polarized media boy look at the look atthe consequences of this on one hand we have a family who is terrorized beyond fucking belief and another guy he lost his business and And it's like, I don't know, man, I hear no proof of this at all. And it doesn't make sense to me. Gun store customers, I feel like are not going to care that that happened.

1:05:19 Lydia: I don't think so. Yeah, yeah. Hmm.

1:05:53 Thomas: You know, like it just doesn't, I dunno.

1:05:54 Clip: The story may have ended for the family with apologies from a shamed townspeople, but at its heart is something troubling and ongoing. It's the story of a media that cares less than it used to about evidence-based values and has instead become overly influenced on both sides by culture war activists with agendas.

1:06:07 Thomas: Here we go on both. Ooh, wow. I'm sorry.

1:06:18 Lydia: Agendas.

1:06:20 Thomas: On a media on both sides. Now, what examples did we hear in that entire episode? We heard Fox News and we heard one interview from The Intercept, an obscure leftist publication that in an accurate way, that's actually a professor making incredibly reasonable points. But nevertheless, it's being hijacked by culture warriors. But what what is the other? What is it?

1:06:36 Lydia: That was summarized in an inaccurate way. Yeah yeah this is very confusing.

1:06:50 Thomas: It doesn't make any fucking sense.

1:06:52 Clip: This kind of journalism can be powerful and important, but it can also lead to all sorts

1:07:00 Lydia: Yeah I think it's really remarkable the way that he ends this episode is about media that doesn't care about evidence -based values when the deep research I've done that I can't wait for folks to hear, it's just really honestly hilarious to me that that's a sentiment that he's sharing here.

1:07:20 Thomas: So hypocritical. It's not even supported by his own fucking podcast at all. At all. Why? Okay, here's what I want to go out on. When you hear John Ronson's very tidy, scripted, produced with annoying music the whole time, podcast, BBC trappings, all that, it sounds effective. And I think a lot of people probably don't think too critically about what's happening. But I want it for a second, encourage everyone to think if you were making this episode, I want you to think about that. Because I think when you look at it like that, taking on perspectives like that I think is revealing.

1:07:55 Thomas: You have a story about a family who was terrorized by right wingers who were misled by right wingers, who were saying they were Antifa. You have example after example of Fox News demonizing Antifa, and you have a history of a peaceful protest that was ruined by these same people who are far right wingERS who were mislead by right winger, like all the way down. If you were just like looking at, okay, what story should I tell? How should I structure this? What should I do?

1:08:21 Lydia: Mm hm.

1:08:22 Thomas: Why in the fuck would you get anywhere near both sides on this at all like there are some issues where I could see it like oh okay that might lead me into a both sides framing in a certain way and but like wouldn't you just see all this and be like holy shit I need to tell the story of how a group of people are so fucking deranged by their own media diet that they terrorized a poor family over a fake tweet that is so obviously fake anyone with half a brain could tell you it it was fake. How did those people get so misled? How could their brains be fucking rotten by hatred so much that they wouldn't see that this was obviously fake? That's the story there. That's the story to tell. That was the story I would tell. I'm not saying it's the only valid story. There may be other valid stories. How would you get to a both sides point? Where would you even get that? At what point in that story? What interview did it? What part of the process of reporting did you say ah this is a chance to tell the other side of it

1:09:22 Thomas: I don't what seriously and I'm making this point for an important reason because it comes up a lot in this series I think it's because the guys he goes and talks to first the people who goes and talk to first are right -wing culture warriors and then like I think he often accepts their bullshit framing and then reports from that direction and that that's what you have to do to both sides this because no rational person would both sides this this is not a both sides issue it's not even close this is so weird

1:09:48 Lydia: And the only way that he comes about answering that question about like, how did this happen to warp their brain so badly that they would believe this is that Roger Ailes should have stayed with Fox News. That's the closest we got. Yeah.

1:09:58 Thomas: Yeah I unreal so but this so that's why I think this was the worst both sides it is the worst in that is the most logically incoherent and or lazy and like it's just nonsense fucking nonsense yeah

1:10:15 Lydia: Like how to stick with the format of the show and try to figure out a way. Yeah.

1:10:22 Thomas: Yeah if someone put a gun to my head and said you have to both both sides of the story, I'd be like, oh God. All right. I guess the left said that looting was fun. I don't know. I Don't know how you would do it. It's impressive that he found a way anyway that this, so that's this one. And, uh, it sucked and there's plenty more suckage where that came from.

1:10:40 Lydia: Boy there certainly is next time on where there's book

1:10:48 Thomas: Yeah, maybe. No, no, not doing that music. I like our preview music better. Thanks so much for listening. There's plenty of more where this came from. You're the best patreon .com Please support the show. Do you remember why this happened? Yeah, as much as we can blame Twilight for, I don't think we can blame it for this. How are you? Where?

1:10:59 Lydia: Thank you uh twilight oh why why they why the right -wingers came out what's the other side

1:11:32 Thomas: What is? Yeah. Where? What? How are you going to do it?