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unidentified
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C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered. | |
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| We are back. | ||
| Joining us now this morning is the co-founder of Braver Angels and the president of Civic Life here to continue our conversation this morning on the rise of political violence and solutions to it. | ||
| David Blinkenhorn, what was your reaction to the shooting and killing of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk this Wednesday? | ||
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unidentified
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Sorrow and thinking about what's happening to us as a society to make these kinds of things more common. | |
| And what did you think about the reaction from our politicians in this country? | ||
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unidentified
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I thought a lot of people said good things, but you would I was disappointed that some people immediately began to say it was the other side that's at fault. | |
| And, you know, we don't know who did this, who did this. | ||
| And, you know, everything is politicized. | ||
| So you, you know, one prominent person said the left is the party of murder. | ||
| And then plenty of people, you know, wanted to blame the other side. | ||
| So that was disappointing. | ||
| But, you know, plenty of people said good things too, just a sense of regret that this happened and thoughts and prayers with his family and friends. | ||
| And we lost a voice, you know, that was an important voice in the public discussion. | ||
| How did you think, what did you think about the way Charlie Kirk went about trying to put more ideas on conservative campuses? | ||
| Not the ideas themselves, but how he went about it. | ||
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unidentified
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I thought he went about it in pretty much just the right way. | |
| He had very strong views and he said them, but he was a warm guy and he engaged people who didn't agree with him. | ||
| He sought out engagement with people who had different opinions. | ||
| And that's not a very common thing today. | ||
| And he spoke with decency to everyone. | ||
| And, you know, there are plenty of things one could disagree with him about in terms of public policy. | ||
| I have some disagreements with him too. | ||
| But yeah, I thought he was the right kind of guy. | ||
| What are you seeing in the rise of political threats and violence in this country? | ||
| We shared these numbers with our viewers this morning, and I'll repeat them from the Wall Street Journal. | ||
| Last year, 9,500 threats and concerning statements were leveled against Congress members, families, and staff in the Capitol complex. | ||
| That's up from 8,000 in 2023. | ||
| David Blinkenhorn, in 2017, the number was less than 4,000. | ||
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unidentified
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Right. | |
| It's a disturbing trend, isn't it? | ||
| It tells us that there's something really wrong. | ||
| And if you go to the Congress now, you see members of Congress walking around with armed security people. | ||
| And Mr. Kirk, you know, he had security everywhere he went. | ||
| He received death threats every day. | ||
| And so what does it say about us? | ||
| And it's violence, it's threats of violence. | ||
| It's also just the ugly, ugly way that we speak to one another. | ||
| The language that we use is just appalling so often. | ||
| So we, you know, what, I mean, Greta, what's going on with this? | ||
| Why is this happening? | ||
| I don't really think my own view is that you don't want to blame Biden or Trump or the man behind the tree. | ||
| We have to look inward and see what is the society going on that is causing us to go in this direction. | ||
| We want our viewers to join us in this conversation as well, continuing from our first hour this morning and hear more from all of you on the solutions to the rise in political violence. | ||
| And if you're a Democrat, dial in at 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| And you can text if you'd like at 202-748-8003. | ||
| We do have some news on the investigation into the shooter. | ||
| Charlie Kirk, Josh Wingrove, who reports for Bloomberg News, covers the White House, says this. | ||
| New Trump says a suspect is in custody in the killing of Charlie Kirk. | ||
| Here's a quote: I think with a high degree of certainty, we have him in custody, Trump said during an interview with Fox and Friends this morning. | ||
| Essentially, somebody that was very close to him turned him in, and that happens. | ||
| David Blankenhorn, what are some solutions to the rise in political violence and rhetoric? | ||
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unidentified
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We should become joiners again. | |
| I think we should, you know, people could join a civic group that they think is doing something good in the community. | ||
| We used to do a lot more of that. | ||
| We've long been famous as a country for being joiners. | ||
| That's going declining and it's leading to an increase in isolation and violence, or isolation and loneliness, I meant to say. | ||
| So let's become joiners again. | ||
| And also, if you don't know other people, you tend to dislike them. | ||
| And so the idea that we not only disagree with each other, but we don't like each other. | ||
| We think the other side is bad or bad people. | ||
| And so I would say one thing is, it sounds simple, but just get to know people who you don't agree with about politics and try to establish a friendship with them, notwithstanding the fact that you disagree with them. | ||
| The organization that I was involved in, a long time, Braver Angels, that was the whole idea behind it. | ||
| Also, we need both conservatives, liberals, independents, we need to demand better behavior from our politicians in terms of how we talk about each other and how we treat each other, because they don't model what we need. | ||
| So these sound like very simple, basic things, but I think the kind of trouble we're in as a society demands basic thinking about what's gotten us into this. | ||
| And just lastly, Greta, this is not going to, our solutions will not come from some, you know, somebody in Washington. | ||
| In America, solutions ultimately come from we the people. | ||
| So this has to be something that the citizens do. | ||
| And if we can begin to go in a better direction, the politicians will follow. | ||
| What's your reaction to hearing some members of Congress, some politicians saying they will actually curb their public engagement? | ||
| They are fearful and are contemplating engaging with the public less, not holding town halls, for example. | ||
| Your reaction. | ||
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unidentified
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I can understand that. | |
| Town halls have become terrible in many places, just shouting matches and a way to shout at people. | ||
| So I understand. | ||
| I also understand the personal safety issues involved. | ||
| I do think it's a time for some courage in the country and to not succumb to fearfulness. | ||
| Although, of course, at the human level, you have to understand people's concerns. | ||
| We're going to go to Chuck, who's in Smithfield, North Carolina. | ||
| Democratic caller. | ||
| Good morning to you, Chuck. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| What are your solutions, Chuck, to the rise of political violence? | ||
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unidentified
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Well, I'm so alarmed of how we give all the hate speech such soft connotation. | |
| It's like we just let it go on and on and we let them say what they want and we take up form. | ||
| Yes, we all have freedom of speech. | ||
| But do you not think that your hate speech can bring on more problems like somebody shooting at you, whatever you bring? | ||
| You can't just say anything out your mouth and don't expect it could bring some problems. | ||
| So he wasn't the best guy in the world when it came to talking against people. | ||
| I mean, he was very, very, very crucial against black people. | ||
| I mean, I listened to his tapes and I'm saying to myself, this ain't the same guy that they're speaking about, talking about how he shouldn't have been this or shouldn't have been that. | ||
| Of course, you never kill anybody. | ||
| But don't think you can't bring stuff among yourself. | ||
| You can bring a danger against yourself by your mouth. | ||
| It's in the scriptures. | ||
| It says your mouth is your, it can cause your death by running your mouth. | ||
| Chuck, we'll take that point. | ||
| David Blankenhorn. | ||
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unidentified
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Could not agree more, just could not agree more. | |
| I remember Margaret Thatcher said once that your thoughts lead to words, your words lead to action, your actions lead to character. | ||
| And yeah, that caller's absolutely right. | ||
| Here's another viewer this time in a text. | ||
| If we could all agree on objective facts, it would reduce the political violence. | ||
| Algorithms have fragmented reality into subjective echo chambers that thrive on discourse. | ||
| Your reaction? | ||
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unidentified
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There's a lot of truth to that. | |
| I do think that the reason we don't agree on facts is not that we become stupid or that we've become delusional or that we've lost interest in what the facts are or that the other side is too stupid to know what the facts are. | ||
| I don't think any of those things are true. | ||
| I think we don't agree about the facts because we don't have any shared trusted sources of information. | ||
| We sort of individually have to find in this very fragmented environment who we're going to trust. | ||
| And so it's not that we're stupid people. | ||
| It's that we have a stupid system that doesn't help us Find the proper way to figure out what is true. | ||
| I really recommend to your viewers a book by Jonathan Rausch called It'll come to me. | ||
| All right. | ||
| David Blinkenhorn is. | ||
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unidentified
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He's a friend of mine. | |
| He wrote a great book called The Constitution of Knowledge, and he talks the whole books about this, about why we can't agree on what the truth is. | ||
| And so, yeah, I think the call, I think your viewer has, your person who wrote in has a good point, but it has to do with the social breakdown, not individuals becoming unwilling to think about what the truth is. | ||
| Related to that, listen to what Virginia Democratic Senator Tim Kaine had to say this week about politically motivated violence in the United States. | ||
| This was during a foreign affairs hearing. | ||
| Here he is. | ||
| One thing that's a little bit sad, and I suspect all of us have this experience, we travel as members of this committee or the Armed Services Committee, and we meet with people overseas, and they just think this is who we are. | ||
| You know, I don't think this is who we are, but when we meet with people abroad and they sort of think this is who we are, it's sort of hard to mount the evidence and make the counter argument. | ||
| David Blinkenhorn, you're shaking your head. | ||
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unidentified
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I think he's making a great point. | |
| And people historically have looked to the United States as a beacon, you know, a beacon. | ||
| And as we become weaker as a democratic republic, as we seem to be increasingly unable to work together for the common good, our friends in other countries are sad and they're disappointed in us. | ||
| And I don't blame them. | ||
| We'll go to Mike in Salinas, California, Independent. | ||
| Mike, good morning to you. | ||
| We're talking with David Blankenhorn this morning. | ||
| He's our guest about solutions to political violence. | ||
| Go ahead, Mike. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| And I appreciate you guys continuing this dialogue on solutions with your guest after the open forums. | ||
| First, C-STAN is doing its part in the upcoming ceasefire. | ||
| And that's just so perfect right now, even the name of that. | ||
| But the thing I specifically wanted to mention was I think at this time, changing the Department of Defense to the word Department of War is the wrong message. | ||
| And lastly, I do know, you know, Donald Trump and probably Pete Hegseth, they're probably big fans of, you know, combat sports, mixed martial arts, that type of thing. | ||
| And defense is not a weak word. | ||
| That's why all these different artists are, you know, it's called self-defense. | ||
| So I think this Department of War right now, it's just the wrong message. | ||
| All right, Mike. | ||
| David Blankenhorn, your thoughts. | ||
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unidentified
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I think your caller is making a really good point. | |
| I'll also say that if you go back and look at the most common words that we hear today from politicians and people in public life, probably the most important or the most common word is fight. | ||
| I'm fighting for you. | ||
| We're engaged in a fight. | ||
| And who is it exactly that we're fighting all the time? | ||
| And we're fighting each other. | ||
| And so the language of this aggressive, you know, We're fighting each other. | ||
| I think it's related to the point the caller's making, which I think is a very good one. | ||
| We'll go to Harrisburg. | ||
| Elijah, Republican, welcome to the conversation. | ||
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unidentified
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Hello. | |
| I think somewhere along the way, the ministers stopped talking and they started using words like the left this and the left that with like hatred and bitterness, like Pat Robertson and Rod Parsley and these types of things got into the consciousness of America. | ||
| Maybe the pastors should come together and have a conference and kind of try to bring us together publicly. | ||
| David Blankenhorn, what do you think of that idea? | ||
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unidentified
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I think it's a terrific idea. | |
| The religious communities should be leading us in a better direction. | ||
| And I think, as your caller suggested, they're more just reflecting and in some cases contributing to the divisiveness. | ||
| And so I just could think rare. | ||
| I wish I'd thought of that idea to say earlier. | ||
| It's terrific. | ||
| And I wish that some of the leaders of some of the denominations would do exactly what this caller is saying. | ||
| David Blankenhorn, Braver Angels, which you co-founded, you're now the president of Civic Life. | ||
| What are these two groups doing to lower the political rhetoric? | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, Braver Angels, I'm no longer the president, but I really urge your viewers to check it out. | |
| We bring people together at the grassroots and also at the national level to really engage with one another rather than shout at one another. | ||
| So we bring together conservatives and progressives and independents on equal terms to clarify disagreements in a good way, look for common ground, which there's more of it than we would think, and then try to take action in the community. | ||
| And it's, you know, there are many, many local Braver Angels groups all over the country. | ||
| There will be some of them meeting tonight to focus on this kind of issue. | ||
| So there are many wonderful groups, but I would suggest if your callers want to do something to help, a step you can take to, yeah, reach out to Braver Angels or another group, but take an action, get involved. | ||
| Don't just, you know, we can't be passive about this. | ||
| Civic life is an effort to strengthen citizenship, to strengthen some of the fundamental, fundamental things that we seem to be not, we're kind of losing our way on to live out the principles of citizenship that the founders bequeathed us that are really necessary for our form of self-government. | ||
| And we seem to not be doing a good job. | ||
| So it's an educational and action program to strengthen citizenship and civic life. | ||
| And yeah, it's new and it's civic.life.org. | ||
| And I'm happy to have people visit there too. | ||
| But the active thing to do today would be to reach out to Braver Angels, I think, or a similar organization. | ||
| All right. | ||
| We'll go to Thomas Fresno, California, an Independent. | ||
| Thomas, welcome to the conversation this morning. | ||
| What are your thoughts on solutions to the rise of political violence? | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, I'm listening to like Charlie Kirk about debate. | |
| I've always wondered, how do you defeat evil without becoming evil itself? | ||
| If you can't have a conversation with another without marking someone as Black Lives Matter, Nazis, whatever form of vitriol that people use with one another, how do you defeat evil when you're espousing to harm someone that you don't know? | ||
| Transphobia, African Americans, Hispanics, calling whites Nazis or saying white men are a danger to society. | ||
| Aren't we running down a path that is divisive for American citizens? | ||
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unidentified
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I mean, as an African-American male 71 years of age, I consider myself an American. | |
| I don't consider myself an other or someone that is a threat to my neighbors or to society. | ||
| But what I hear is people get on television or people chat with one another and they pick out these evil things to say about people they don't know. | ||
| So my thing is, how do you defeat evil without becoming evil itself? | ||
| All right. | ||
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unidentified
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I would like to. | |
| Understood. | ||
| Thomas, David Blankenhorn. | ||
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unidentified
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Well, my friend, you're making great points. | |
| I met a guy once at Braver Angels and he said, it's hard to hate somebody you know. | ||
| And I think that's worth thinking about. | ||
| These people you're talking about who go on television and so forth. | ||
| And of course, C-SPAN is a rare exception. | ||
| I mean, what a wonderful thing that we can have this kind of conversation. |