Tucker Carlson and Stochastic Terrorism

Tucker Carlson and Stochastic Terrorism

Refuse Fascism EpisSun, May 21, 2023

Wajahat Ali 00:00

Stochastic terrorism is a term you should all know. It means the use of mass media to target certain individuals and institutions that lead to random, but statistically probable acts of violence. White nationalists and white supremacists themselves, openly and repeatedly, said that Tucker Carlson is their guy. If you tweet like a white nationalist, if you support white nationalists and other white nationalists see you as their guy, if you favorite white nationalist talking points, what does that make you? This came from the swamps of the KKK, Nazis, and white supremacists in Europe and America, and that is what is now mainstreamed by Donald Trump, the Republican Party and Elon Musk, who looks like a fascist talks like a fascist goose steps like a fascist. If sober scholars of fascism are warning us maybe just maybe it’s a fascist move.

Sam Goldman 01:03

Welcome to Episode 157 of the Refuse Fascism podcast, a podcast brought to you by volunteers with Refuse Fascism. I’m Sam Goldman, one of those volunteers and host of the show. Refuse Fascism exposes, analyzes, and stands against the very real danger and threat of fascism coming to power in the United States. In today’s episode, we’re sharing two interviews. First, a conversation I had with Wajahat Ali regarding Fox’s recent firing of Tucker Carlson and the current state of fascist propaganda. Then we’ll share Coco Das’ interview with Aric Toler from investigative news site Bellingcat, who first reported on the Texas model shooter’s neo-Nazi beliefs, whose coverage has since been attacked by Elon Musk and their Twitter account shadow banned.

Sam Goldman 01:58

But first, thanks to everyone who goes the extra step and rates and reviews this show on Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen. If you appreciate the show, and want to help us reach more people who want to refuse that fascism, e a gem, and go write a review and drop five stars wherever you listen to your pods. Here’s one from this past week as proof we read everyone one. JJMEnquiring titled her review on Apple podcasts Fake opposition and honeyed words, gave us five stars and wrote: “Why isn’t everyone listening to this podcast? The best guests, amazing interviews and analysis, creative ideas for how to refuse fascism in your local area.” Thanks, JJMEnquiring.

If you want everyone to be listening, please tell the people out there in podcastland why you listen and they should too. Subscribe/follow so you never miss an episode. And of course, keep up all that great commenting and sharing on social media. Thank you to everyone on Patreon for supporting the show for $2 or more a month. Thanks patrons. A production shout out to Scott G. Thanks for helping making this show possible with your support. To those who just became patrons off of last week’s episode we see you and appreciate you. Not one yet? Become one at Patreon.com/RefuseFascism.

I am eager to share the interviews, but we do have to cover some updates on the Christian fascist attacks on abortion rights and trans folks. First off, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals panel of theocrats, all three of who have a very clear anti abortion track record, unsurprisingly and unapologetically, carried water for the anti abortion litigants this past Wednesday, May 17th, during oral arguments in a case where those anti abortion litigants are trying to get an abortion pill, mifepristone, pulled from the market. Remember, this is the case considering whether to uphold federal trial court judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s Handmaid’s Tale ruling that would suspend mifepristone nationwide.

It is the highest stakes legal dispute over abortion since the Supreme Court decimated abortion rights, overturning Roe last June. We’ll continue following this providing coverage, analysis, ways to act, and resources regarding this case that is on track to return to the fascist backed Supreme Court. Meanwhile, right now, abortion care is being demolished throughout the South. The GOP supermajority in North Carolina overrode Governor Cooper’s veto passing their abortion ban. While it has been framed as quote unquote reasonable as a compromise, the 12-week ban also bans abortion medication at 10 weeks, implements obstacles to care, including unnecessary in person appointments/consultations, requires doctors to lie to patients about non existent risks, and forced ultrasounds which only serve to try to shame women.

While the cruelty is clear, it has largely been billed as mainstream — you know, a reasonable compromise. I thought Ed Kilgore for The New Yorker, put this compromise bullshit well: “There is no natural point of compromise between people who believe abortion is a fundamental reproductive right and people who believe the fetus has a right to life that negates all of a pregnant woman’s rights.” Our heart is with the people of North Carolina and it is with the people of Nebraska as well, where a Christian fascists’ Bogo [Board of Governors] bill has passed, banning gender affirming care for youth and a 12 week abortion ban all in one. The governor has pushed for this and pledged to sign. The Capitol was filled with people protesting for abortion rights and trans rights. [Audio recording of crowd chanting: Shame!]

This week, as well, the Texas Legislature passed a ban on gender affirming care for young people, which includes hormone treatments and gender affirming surgeries — though we got to get real, these surgeries are rarely performed on kids. This legislation would require youth to de-transition to “wean” themselves off of the treatments. It’s headed to Governor Abbott’s desk where he’s got the pen ready. We’re sending love to all the families that are impacted in Texas and to all those who are fighting for trans rights in the state of Texas.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law the most ominous anti LGBTQ slate of bills so far, including a ban on transgender people using public restrooms that align with their gender identity, a ban on gender affirming care for children and most adults with criminal penalties for providers who violate the ban, signing into law a mechanism to enable state courts with the power to separate trans children from their families if the support, or are deemed at risk of supporting, transition care. He expanded don’t say gay, erasing LGBTQ people from the curriculum and forcing misgendering/dead naming of staff and students.

Another bill he signed allows the State Board of Governors to give direction to public colleges/universities, on removing majors and minors in subjects like gender studies and prohibiting spending on programs or activities that support such curricula. And last but not least, in this atrocious list, is the license to discriminate in healthcare. He signed into law SB 1580, which allows healthcare providers and insurers the ability to deny patient care on the basis of religious moral or ethical beliefs, creating license to discriminate, allowing healthcare employers to discriminate in hiring and bars medical boards from disciplining doctors for spreading misinformation. For more on the danger posed by this fascist attack on trans rights, especially in Florida, listen to my May 7 interview, episode 155, with Brynn Tannehill.

It is time to fight for the future. We’re sending all our love to the people of Florida who are impacted who are being attacked right now. It’s time to fight for the future. In Florida, yes, but nationwide — not sitting back and relying on the courts and legislators, but in the streets with defiant, determined, and growing protests to refuse fascism. You can find posters on our website to put up in your neighborhood stores, apartments, schools, community centers. Go to RefuseFascism.org. Thanks to Drexel’s Women’s Empowerment for hosting me last Wednesday for a hands off abortion rights teach-in. Much more of this is needed. Now here’s my interview with Wajahat.

Tucker Carlson was recently fired from Fox News — likely at as part of the deal to settle the Dominion lawsuit against Fox for their role in spreading lies about Biden stealing the 2020 election — and is now working on establishing his own show, probably on Twitter. So I am grateful to welcome back to the show Wajahat Ali, author of Go Back to Where you Came From. He’s a columnist at The Daily Beast, medium, MSNBC daily co host of democracy-ish podcast, recovering attorney and playwright — his words not mine. If you’re listening to this pod, and still on the hell-site known as Twitter, you probably already follow him. Welcome back. Glad to have you with us.

Wajahat Ali 10:40

Well, very little talk about — I mean for a podcast called Refuse Fascism — since the last time we chatted. I mean, we have of course gone towards democracy, and the powers that want to take us back to 1952 have become weakened. So, it’ll be a stretch to see how we can fill in the time with content, but I have faith in you Sam, I have faith. [SG: Oh, yeah.] The sarcasm is dripping from the screen all over the microphone.

Sam Goldman 11:05

Yes. Let’s start with some of this Carlson stuff, because I think that we need to sit with the fact that there was a Tucker Carlson on Fox News that had a platform of unabated lies, spewing the worst of white supremacy, the worst of anti semitism, the worst xenophobia ad nauseam for more than seven years. I think that people forget just how awful Tucker Carlson was. If you could just remind listeners who Tucker Carlson is, what his history in the public eye has been, and what role he’s taken on in the past six, seven years since Trump became the leader of this fascism in the U.S.

Wajahat Ali 11:56

Tucker is the most fragile, sad, soft porcelain tea cup on Earth — born into privilege, born into wealth, went to elite schools, got rejected from the CIA, has the honor of being fired now from both CNN, MSNBC and Fox, the holy trinity, and is landed with his buddy Elon Musk, who somehow just happens to favorite like and repeat white nationalist talking points, and now he’s on Twitter. I think it’s important for people to remember that Tucker Carlson, like you said, who had this primetime slot on Fox News — was the highest rated show on cable news — white nationalists, and white supremacist themselves, openly and repeatedly, said that Tucker Carlson is their guy.

Andrew Anglin, a neo-Nazi, who is the founder of The Daily Stormer website said: We don’t need a TV show, because Tucker Carlson show is Daily Stormer TV. The New York Times did this exhaustive investigative report they didn’t really didn’t have to, but they did, and they concluded that Tucker’s show might be the most racist show in television history. It’s a show which mainstreamed the antisemitic deep state conspiracy, which is part and parcel of the white supremacist replacement theory conspiracy that says that the Jews are the head of an international cabal, in part run by George Soros — the universal ubiquitous boogeyman, he’s more powerful than Thanos — that is using black people, Muslims, immigrants of color and feminists to weaken and replace Western civilization.

It was anti-Black, anti-LGBT, anti-woman, talked smack about immigrants; that they come from dirty countries, poor countries. Literally, there were white nationalist talking points, mainstreamed and laundered every day. It led to, what many people say, and Fox created something called stochastic terrorism. Stochastic terrorism is a term you should all know. It means the use of mass media to target certain individuals and institutions that lead to random but statistically probable acts of violence. We’re seeing it now.

What happens when you call educators and librarians and doctors groomers? Look at the increase in threats and violence — the threats against poll workers. When Donald Trump comes and calls law enforcement, that deep state right there and then an increase in uptick in violence to law enforcement. The use of The Big Lie, which is that Donald Trump won the election has radicalized individuals to commit violence; a lie like you mentioned, that the Dominion lawsuit and discovery process revealed, that Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingram and Rupert Murdoch knew to be a lie, but they nonetheless platformed because they had radicalized their base and their base if they did not get fed, or hit with this injection, this heroin dose, of lies and conspiracies would have gone over to One American [News] Network and Newsmax.

So you’re seeing, literally, a white nationalist propagandist, given an 8pm time slot to mainstream and launder white nationalist talking points, move the Overton Window further and further to the right, under the guise of: I’m just asking questions. This is what some people are saying. These are just both sides. And, now Sam, we’re in a situation as we’re recording that Elon Musk has doubled down on the same anti semitic George Soros. White supremacist conspiracy theory — given multiple opportunities to apologize, hasn’t. He’s echoing and favoriting white nationalists. As of the recording of today, Marjorie Taylor Greene has said that being called white supremacist is the same as being called the ‘N’ word.

And you have Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene, openly mainstreaming Nick Fuentes, the leader of the anti semitic white nationalist group — they call themselves — Groypers, and Donald Trump who is going to be the presidential candidate for the Republican Party unless he is in jail, had dinner with him. This is where we’re at Sam. The stuff that we warned about for seven years has gone mainstream. The last thing I’ll say is that kind of used to joke, but not really — I said: Watch out, by 2024, the GOP would actually be promoting and mainstreaming white nationalist talking points. Everyone said I was crazy; not everyone, but most who get paid a lot of money to be wrong. But I was wrong, Sam, it wasn’t 2024. It’s 2023. So my bad.

Sam Goldman 12:14

It’s sick. And it’s also sick, how willing people were, and I’ll say, continue to be throwing their heads deeper and deeper into the sand, and pretending it isn’t happening even while it’s happening all around. I find that incredibly frustrating. Based on what you were saying with both the Elon Musk and the Marjorie Taylor, Green point, in particular with Musk, the violent anti semitism that we have seen surging across the country; attacks in the real world, real world violence coming from the darkest spots of the internet, if you will, now being completely normal on a platform like Twitter, where Elon has aggressively promoted qn on lunatics.

Wajahat Ali 16:23

Musk compared Soros to Magneto and said that he hates humanity. There’s not even a dog whistle. This is part and parcel of the replacement theory — because we always say the Soros conspiracy and deep state conspiracy, but we we always should connect the dots, Sam, because what’s common to us isn’t common to other folks. I want to just remind people, this came from the swamps of the KKK, Nazis and white supremacist in Europe and America, and that is what is now mainstreamed by Donald Trump, the Republican Party and Elon Musk, and musk refuses to apologize for it.

Sam Goldman 17:23

Yeah, I mean, he went on what was it? [WA: CNBC] CNBC, and basically said: That’s my opinion. [WA: He said freedom of speech. That’s my opinion.] But to that same point — which is why it has nothing to do with freedom of speech, even though freedom of speech has to do with speaking to truth to power and not amongst the people — but, saying you can’t call somebody a white supremacist unless you have the facts to back it up. Meanwhile, we have facts to back it up. There’s plenty of receipts on Elon promoting anti semitism. Marjorie Taylor Greene, being a white supremacist.

Wajahat Ali 17:55

I’m glad you mentioned that for folks who haven’t followed the news yet, Elon Musk on Twitter, came up, and of course had to support Marjorie Taylor Greene and her statement he goes: I absolutely agree. Unless you have evidence, you can’t say that. But, by the way, let me just promote all these absurd, hateful conspiracy theories. And also, let’s not forget that in that same CNBC interview, which was a train wreck for Musk, that 12 second pause when he was asked this question, he just sat there staring off into space.

He also says that the terrorist — I think we would call him a terrorist — the shooter in Dallas, Texas, who killed eight people recently: Oh, we don’t know if he was a white nationalist. Because, you know, the swastika on his chest that didn’t give it away, or the SS lightning bolts or his social media posts or the fact that you associate with Neo Nazis. But the fact that these people are going out of their way — and this is just this week, Sam, Musk, other Fox hosts, like Jesse waters, people in the Republican Party — to downplay the white supremacist threat that Biden correctly called out, that our law enforcement has called out at his commencement speech at Howard University — it’s the number one domestic terror threat in America.

You would assume back in the day, people are like: Yeah, that’s terrible. But here, they become like the greatest defenders of white supremacist terrorism, and they’re playing it down, and: What do you mean? And so you’re sitting there, like, I think you’re telling yourselves folks. I think you’re telling on yourselves. But we live in the upside down, where even now, Sam, in mainstream media outlets, because it’s not polite, we can’t call Trump racist. He’s racially tinged, he has racial flare ups. And Elon Musk, even an interview: I know, in your heart, you’re not against the Jews. And I’m like: How do you know that? I’m not God, I don’t know what’s in people’s hearts.

And by the way, just to be fair, and balanced, Musk did say he’s pro Semite — which is a totally normal thing for someone to say, right? They’re totally normal for someone to say: By the way, I’m pro semite. And he didn’t even challenged him on what that meant. But if you tweet like a white nationalist, if you support white nationalists have other white nationalists see you as their guy. If you favorite white nationalist talking points. What does that make you, Sam?

Sam Goldman 19:51

Ding, ding, ding. That’s what it makes you. You called out the media, but I also have to say, we need to be calling out the Democratic Party. Because when it comes to Musk, and when it comes to this toxic atmosphere that he’s created, there’s been very little, if any, pushback [WA: That’s right.] and calling it out. It’s one thing at a commencement speech, rightly so to talk about the threat of white supremacy, but we also have to talk about the people that are promoting that white supremacy. [WA: Sure] I think that there does need to be a demand that people use their platform to condemn, not just Musk’s individual statement, but the fostering of a platform that promotes and is — I hate the word radicalizing, because they’re not radicalizing anybody they’re — providing like the organization or well…

Wajahat Ali 20:47

They’re enabling, right? [SG: Yeah, they’re enabling.] Enabling it, normalizing it. People will say: Well, I’m just a cog in the wheel, but the machine only runs due to the cogs doing their job. The machine can only crush individuals. If the cogs all do their part. It reminds me of a scene from Succession — I’m not going to give spoiler alerts from last week, where — at the end, after, you know, some of these cogs essentially help tinker with the election in that show, they had this moment of conscience where like: I’m just one person, right? It’s not me doing it. Another person’s like: Yeah. You could see those two cogs in the show, without me ruining it, kind of coming to grips with the fact that: Oh, we’re part of the machinery.

And so you see, with Donald Trump being mainstreamed on CNN, literally platforming for 70 minutes, the lies that have radicalized individuals to commit violence against Nancy Pelosi’s, husband, against the U.S. Capitol, against our police, right, the January 6th, violent insurrection. And you sit there you go: Well, a lot of people just want to be polite, and they don’t want to rattle the feathers. Republicans buy sneakers and Democrats buy sneakers, and listen, listen, every side needs to be heard. We can’t call people racist because racism doesn’t exist in America, because no one has a racist bone in their body.

And yet, what happens is, because the majority keeps bending the knee to radicalized and weaponized right wing minority, what happens is, instead of us doing a both sides, you make a false equivalence, where these toxic ideas that came from the swamps of white supremacist are given an equal footing under the guise of: Well hey, both sides, this is what Republicans believe. The Overton window of what’s acceptable shifts. Media, and what’s considered at the center shifts to the right, and we, the majority, give twice as much power to about 30% of the country to then pretty much terrorize us; economic terrorism, the debt ceiling crisis, literal stochastic terrorism threatening our school boards or hospital boards, and we just have to take it.

It’s like, almost a situation where like: Hey, great democracy there, be ashamed of anything happened to it. Great CNN headquarters there, it’d be a shame if anything happened to it. And fast forward a couple of years, the same CNN that had to evacuate its headquarters due to threats is now platforming the very same man who called them the enemy of the people. Which is why I think our corporate institutions will fail us. Because this podcast is called Refuse Fascism, as a student of history, you know, the wealthy, the powerful, and corporations helped pave the way for fascist rule. Because, at first, it was business as usual, feed both sides. Hey, hey, hey, stay out of it.

But now you’re seeing — this is what’s really interesting, as we’re recording this, we just found our breaking news — that Disney, because they were put in a corner by DeSantis, just took away this $1 billion construction that they were going to do in Florida that was gonna give like 2000 jobs. Everyone’s like: Hey, Bob Iger of Disney, good job. I always remind people Disney ain’t woke. Disney got forced into doing the right thing because DeSantis was so extreme defeat the mega base that they’re like: Hey, this is finally hurting our bottom line.

It also goes to show you, Sam, that in the past seven years, if these corporate entities really cared about freedom and democracy and equality and our rights, overnight, they could smother MAGA if they all took a chance and said enough’s enough. Because Disney did it today. Let’s see what’s gonna happen, but that’s big. Florida just got screwed. What happens if Disney and other corporations said: No, we’re not going to support Fox, we’re not going to support Tucker Carlson, we’re not going to support Donald Trump. What would’ve happened? Overnight it would have ended.

So it just goes to show you that this white supremacy is in part enabled by unfettered greed and capitalism. And the last thing I’ll say is that the only color that ultimately matters, or rather, I should say the color that trumps all the other colors in America, even the color white is the color green.

Sam Goldman 21:12

So a lot of buzz was made out of the fact that the Dominion lawsuit exposed all sorts of private texts between Carlson and other Fox staff showing not only explicit white supremacist views, but also comments that indicated as you alluded to earlier that Carlson knew how dangerous Trump was where he said things like he was, quote unquote, demonic, etc. But that buzz has focused on the hypocrisy and I think it alludes to the fact that he supported Trump for years. And regardless of what he might have thought privately was the standard bearer for so many lies, not just around the election, but before that about Trump’s whole agenda and I just wanted to get your thoughts.

Wajahat Ali 25:02

The reason why he got fired, allegedly, is not due to his white nationalism and his lies, it’s because these texts that Fox has seen and Dominion has seen reveal, allegedly, that Tucker Carlson also badmouthed Fox leadership; you know, he called women the ‘c’ word. He’s also been hit with another lawsuit from a former booker of his who alleges sexual harassment, right. So it became too much, apparently, for Fox, and the fact that they lost a $750 million lawsuit, they’re like: Alright, we’ve got to part ways with him. It wasn’t due to his hate. It wasn’t due to his anti immigrant stance. It wasn’t like promoting the lies. It’s because the hypocrisy got revealed.

In a way, the reason why I was saddened that Dominion took the settlement — and they have every right to — is because I think that exposing these texts of Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingram and the producers — how little they think of their own viewers; how they mock them — how little they think of Trump — that would have been more damaging. It would have exposed them to be hypocrites. It would’ve exposed them to be liars. You win over enough independents, it hurts the brand.

We have this Smartmatic case that might do it. It’s one of those situations where we know, Sam, what Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz and all these individuals think of Trump because they said it. But, we also know that they’re now bootlickers, because they want access. Lindsey Graham said, I want to be “relevant.” That’s his exact words. So what’s worse? Being a true believer who sincerely believes all the lies, or being a person who knows better, but goes along with it for sake of power? I think it’s the latter, and the ladder defines all establishment Republicans, and the majority of the Republican Party.

It shows you how cynical and craven they are. It shows you how they only care about money and power, and how to get it by any means necessary. It shows you how weak they are, and how corrupt they are — which it goes back to a point that we were making: If you are a cog in the wheel, then are you not complicit? Eichmann had himself said: I’m just a bureaucrat. And Hannah Arendt said: Well, that’s the banality of evil. Who cares about your intentions? Who cares about your heart? What are you doing? It’s the choices and actions that define us.

You see, people say: I don’t think Tucker Carlson is really a white supremacist or anti Semite, I think he’s just playing the role. To which I say: Who gives a shit? He’s playing the role really well, give him an Academy Award. Elon Musk, I don’t think in your heart you hate Jews. How do you know? If the guy is literally doubling down again and again and again, on anti semitic tropes, when given the opportunity to correct it, maybe just maybe that’s who he is, Sam. Maybe when we call these people, fascists, and a radicalized, weaponized authoritarian group. I don’t just say it willy nilly. I look at the facts. I look at their behavior. I look at their actions. I look at the January 6th, violent insurrection.

Sam Goldman 27:45

Exactly. I think that they are, at this point, screaming who they are. We better listen. Does Carlson’s departure from cable news change things?

Wajahat Ali 27:55

No. As soon as he left I tweeted, and I think I wrote an article about this, that it’s like a hydra; you chop off one head, two more appear. I’m old enough, Sam — I’m an old head and I know some of your listeners might be the Gen Z — that everyone was rejoicing when Bill O’Reilly left. Bill O’Reilly used to be the pre-Trump Tucker on Fox; dominant voice, post 9/11 blowhard — the no spin zone. And apparently, when he wasn’t on air bloviating and lying, he was just sexually harassing everyone. It got to the point where, literally, millions of dollars were paid for him to settle these cases and he got exposed and he was out.

So who comes in his place? A worse version, Tucker Carlson. According to Matt Drudge, as of yesterday, apparently Sean Hannity is taking over the 8:00 pm spot. The 9:00 spot is going to Jesse Waters, like I called it, and Jesse Waters, for those who don’t know, made his mark by doing a thoroughly racist anti-Chinese segment for Bill O’Reilly show. Since then, he’s been trying to like be the new Tucker. And 10:00 pm is Greg Gutfeld, a very unfunny man who nonetheless leads The Five and toes the line. Laura Ingram is not mentioned, and so the news we’re waiting to hear is if Drudge is right and is reporting, and that means Ingram’s out.

But does it matter? That’s the thing. Oh, Ingram’s out — suppose she’s out — suppose Drudge’s reporting is correct — who cares? She got replaced by Gutfeld and Waters will triple down on all the same, because they have radicalized the base to the point where it’s almost like porn; you need, like, more severe forms of porn. A boy kissing a girl isn’t enough. There has to be, like, something hardcore now, right. They need to streamline it, put it directly in the veins. I need Q Anon, and I need friggin like lizard people, and I need to like a sex trafficking conspiracy, and I need Psyops, and this and that, that’s where they are — they live on Earth three.

So you can’t go back to the pre Trump RINO [Republican in name only] days; that’s done. In a way they’re stuck because sober Republicans who are cowards, who know Trump is disruptive but go along with it, knew that DeSantis his fight with Disney was a terrible fight, and now, though, if DeSantis caves he’ll be seen as a cuck, woke, soy boy who bent the knee to the left. So, this is ultimately the self destructive death spiral that we all kind of anticipated, but the problem is, is it is so violent, what will they destroy before they’re snuffed out? What will this fire take out with their self immolation? That’s the fear. And that answer could be democracy.

Sam Goldman 30:19

What now is the landscape of fascist propaganda?

Wajahat Ali 30:23

The landscape of fascist propaganda, according to where we’re at right now is that it will be mainstreamed by corporate media and corporate institutions for the sake of ratings, money, and access to power. I hate saying that, but according to the reports, since Trump is going to be the presumptive nominee, ABC, NBC, CBS have said that they will welcome him. CNN has doubled down in its support for the disastrous townhall that got blasted yesterday by Christiane Amanpour and internally has caused so much dissension at CNN.

Let’s go back to 2015 or 2016, when Les Moonves, who was the head of CBS, openly said — and you can Google this, look at his exact quote — Trump might not be good for America, but he’s great for business; he’s fantastic for CBS. I always appreciated that quote, because it’s so pure, so open so naked. Jeff Zucker, when he was confronted two years ago by Ben Smith when he was in The New York Times about the Frankenstein that he created because he helped create Donald Trump with The Apprentice — they were all buddy, buddy, pal, pal — he was consulting Trump, while he was running for president initially, and Zucker was the head of CNN — and he said: No, I don’t regret it.

Great TV, great ratings. CBS last year, when that memo got leaked, the co-president of CBS News said: Hey, we think that Republicans might win the 2022 midterms, so we need access. That’s why they hired Mick Mulvaney. Chris Christie has a job at ABC. Alyssa Farah has a job on friggin The View, right. They all fail up, Sam. They all fail up. That’s why, to bring it back full circle, corporate America in particular, can really deliver a haymaker to MAGA if they say enough is enough, but they’ll mainstream it and they’ll normalize it. Fascism is coming to a TV screen and a voting booth near you in 2024. I call it a fascist movement, I have for the past few years. A lot of people don’t call it that, but if it looks like a fascist, talks like a fascist, goose steps like a fascist, and if sober scholars of fascism are warning us, maybe, just maybe, it’s a fascist movement.

Sam Goldman 32:17

I want to thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us, to share your expertise, your insight, your perspective, and of course, your time. I just wanted to give you an opportunity, if there’s anything that you think we, the show, or our listeners, need to be paying more attention to that we aren’t right now that we need to be looking at talking about getting into, we want to hear it.

Wajahat Ali 32:45

You guys are doing a fantastic job, but they’re coming after our schools and our educators. That has been the premier battleground ever since the end of segregation and Brown versus Board of Education; this is nothing new. What we’ve seen is that when the majority, even in some red states and rural places, band up and fight back, we win. I understand you might be exhausted and overwhelmed, you might tap out, I get it. But at the end of the day, we’re only in control of our own intentions and our own actions.

I always say: The most powerful footprint you can make is the local footprint. Specifically in your home, if you’re a parent or guardian — I have three kids — the way you model your behavior will ripple and echo for generations. Also in your synagogues, your churches, your mosques, in your workplaces, in your schools. So I would say: Find out what’s happening in your school, in your city council and the hospital boards. We know, because they’ve openly told us, that they’re coming after the hospital boards, school boards and the city councils. We have the numbers. You can literally stop the empire from advancing, because we have the numbers. Look at these victories in Wisconsin with the judge, in Kansas, in Jacksonville, in Colorado Springs.

Don’t underestimate the fact that standing up for a message on freedom and women’s rights — women’s rights and abortion rights is a kitchen table issue. I’ve been saying it for a year, and the 2022 midterms proved me right. And I was saying that defensive democracy is the kitchen table issue and people like no one cares. Guess what, top five issue. Sometimes you have to connect the dots for people and you have to be the one who invites people to fight. In your local community, have faith that there are enough people. Sometimes, you just need one mom, or a dad to step up and rally the troops.

Wajahat Ali 32:48

Thanks so much. [WA: Thank you.] You can follow Wajahat on Twitter @WajahatAli, if you don’t already. I thought it was prescient, that Waj compared the increasing violence of white supremacist rhetoric to the increasing violence in pornography, but I’ve gotta disagree with one thing, because he made it seem like this has been driven by the fascist base, and the audience meaning a bigger and bigger hit.

But in reality, in my opinion, both of these things have been driven not by individual compulsions, but by the dynamics of this system; the system of capitalism/imperialism in crisis — aiming to wield mass violence against women, and anyone who isn’t white, as part of reshaping society to their cruel vision. Anyway, I’d like to hear your thoughts, so, as always, send them my way. Now, here’s Coco’s conversation with Aric Toler.

Coco Das 34:23

Today, I am so pleased to be talking to Aric Toler, who is the training and research director at Bellingcat, an online publication that uses open source digital research techniques to investigate topics around the world. Welcome, Aric. Thank you for being with us.

Aric Toler 35:18

Hi, there. Thanks for having me.

Coco Das 35:21

First, could you tell our listeners a little bit about what you do at Bellingcat and define open source investigation.

Aric Toler 35:48

We’re a Dutch-based organization. We’ve been around since 2014. When we first started, we were kind of a trying to be a hub for people who do open source research. Open source research is investigative work that’s mostly focused on digital materials, that uses a lot of things like social media and satellite maps, and it makes video verification to try to figure out what’s going on in the world. Often, this is focused around conflicts. Like the war in Ukraine is a hub for open source investigation nowadays.

Previously, a lot of people got into this line of work from the Syrian civil war that’s been going on for over a decade now. But this is also applied to all sorts of other areas in the world: corruption, environmental issues, a lot of people were doing open source work with the January 6th, and before that, the Charlottesville protests. So it’s used on a whole bunch of different lines, and, also, you know, outside of the world of nonprofits, there’s a lot of corporate entities and stuff that do this for kind of like safety and security and things like that for, like, employees.

So there’s a lot of uses, and you know, like a lot of law firms use it as well. It’s a very, very broad field, with kind of very, let’s say altruistic public facing stuff — human rights research, stuff like that, but also kind of like boring stuff behind the scenes too, with very similar work with commodity tradings, and people trying to figure out fluctuations with their hedge funds, and fluctuation in commodity prices and stuff like that. They do a lot of open source work as well, too. So it’s a very, very broad field, and Bellingcat, we’ve been doing this stuff for almost 10 years now. We started in 2014. We do a lot of work, especially, with human rights, conflict investigation, some environmental stuff, corruption, things like that.

Coco Das 37:12

Let’s talk a little bit about Texas. About eight days ago, I think, at this point, there was a mass shooting at a mall in Allen Texas. Eight people were murdered, seven people were injured, including children. There’s been a wave of violence in Texas in recent weeks, most notably, just a few days ago, a man who murdered his girlfriend for getting an abortion. There was an SUV driver who rammed into a crowd outside of a migrant shelter, killing eight migrants. I think the facts of that case are still being unearthed; there’s still some mystery around that. But you discovered, and then wrote for Bellingcat, about the Allen Mall shooters fascist views. Can you tell us a little bit about what motivated you to look for him online? unearth, this digital information? and what was your approach to doing that?

Aric Toler 38:03

The only reason why I did this is because there was a New York Times article that was published a week or so ago, that detailed how investigators — I’m guessing this is, like, I don’t know if the state or federal investigators — found an account belonging to the shooter, a guy named Mauricio Garcia, and that he had an account on a site called Odnoklassniki, which is a site I’ve used a lot before because I study Russia a lot.

Back in a former life, I was in grad school for Russian lit, and most of the work I do for research is focused on Russia and Ukraine. And I know Odnoklasniki is the second largest Russian language social platform. ‘Odnoklassniki’ means classmates in Russian, so it’s like classmates.com, basically, but in Russian. It’s kind of an obscure site — kind of a dying site too; like not a lot of people signing up for it. Like, the average age of users there is people collecting the equivalent of Social Security. It’s definitely an older platform, not a lot of young people are signing up for it.

So, very strange, this caught my eye that a 33 year old Texan signed up for this, which is very, very strange. This guy has no interest in Russia, Russian culture, Russia anything — not even Russian far right movements. I was thinking, why on earth does this guy have an account on this dying Russian social media site? I found his account, which wasn’t too terribly hard. I have an account on the site. I’ve been navigating for years and years and years. I figured out his birthdate, which is pretty simple. I just had his name and I had where he lived, and I searched for it online, and his birthday popped up. I searched the site — unlike Facebook and other platforms, it lets you search by birthdate — so I searched by all people, all males living in America, who had this birthdate, and there were 70, 80 options to choose from. The third one that popped up was his profile.

So I saw this and then I had all the crazy ramblings and all that stuff on his site. It turns out, again, we don’t know exactly why he had an account on this site of all sites, but I’m 94, maybe 95 percent sure that he had an account on this site because it has basically zero content moderation. He had had accounts on Facebook and YouTube and other places that had been suspended before. This is a site that is fairly intuitive and easy to use. It looks kind of like Facebook or MySpace — if you’re old enough to know, to have used that back in the day — but there’s zero content moderation; you can post as many swastikas and neo-Nazi stuff as you want and nothing will happen. Unlike other sites like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, so on which will have detection algorithms. So it seems to me that he used this site, this obscure site, because there’s no content moderation and he can post to his heart’s content without being suspended or moderated against.

Coco Das 40:22

So your research uncovered the fact that Garcia admired Hitler and had multiple Nazi tattoos. He had a large swastika on his chest an SS symbol on his arm. What really struck me is he had the state of Texas tattooed on his arm. [AT: Yeah, yeah] Can you give us an overall impression of what you uncovered about his ideology and what shaped his views? How he was, what shaped his worldview that actually made him then take violent action?

Aric Toler 40:52

It’s hard to say exactly what motivated him to take the actions. There’s a lot going on with this guy. He was a mess. He definitely had far right inclinations; Nazi, neo-Nazi whatever you want to say, white supremacist. He was Latino guy, he was Mexican, his family’s Mexican, but there’s a meme he posted about two paths for like a Latino male, and one of them was: embrace white supremacy, and he was like: I guess I’m gonna take this path. He did have a giant swastika, which is kind of a dead giveaway, right, [CD: mmhmm] that he was a Nazi or a neo-Nazi. You don’t get a giant swastika on you unless you believe something.

In a lot of his posts, he would he would talk about, he was a big fan of — at least judging based off of what he was sharing — he posted a lot of videos of — Tim Poole, Nick Fuentes, that ilk, right, that kind of group of people. If you go through his old YouTube account — it’s been suspended now, but if you look at his accounts — his watchlist, you saw a lot of that kind of cesspool of people among who he was following. He also had a lot of other things. He clearly was mentally ill. I mean, this is very obvious when you look through his through his posts. It was very… just not the posts and writing — not just because of the far right, neo Nazi stuff, but, just the way he wrote in the way he — because he filmed a lot of videos too — just clearly not all there.

But he was clearly very lonely had a very, let’s say, bad relationship with women in general, and, you know, a lot of like, incel [involuntary celibate] stuff around access to sex and all that stuff — that was really gross to read. But, he also didn’t have a whole lot of original thoughts in his head. A lot of times when you look at these guys who go on these mass shootings, it’s its own genre now, like the manifesto, or the writings of the mass shooter — which is kind of sad, that it’s a thing.

You have the guy from, I think Norway, who had the shooting, who had a, like, thousand page manifesto. You have the guy who did the Christchurch shooting, the El Paso shooting. All these people have manifestos, right, with their original thoughts — they aren’t good thoughts, but they’re, you know, they’re writing them. This guy, he was just copy pasting quotes from, like movies and TV shows and music and video games, and other forum posts that he had found. He was a very unoriginal thinker, and in, kind of, his final message, he quoted the Goofy Movie from, like, 1995 and South Park and things like that. That was his “suicide message,” which was copy pasted quotes from, like, IMDB, and it was really bizarre. [CD: mmhmm] So, he was a strange guy, obviously.

What motivated him? I mean, he got a swastika tattoo a few weeks before he went on a mass shooting. I don’t want to play psychologist, but you can probably put two and two together, what’s going on. He wrote a whole lot about other mass shootings. He talked about, like, people having high scores. This is a kind of thing and in this kind of world; people having like high scores, which is like a lot of victims in mass shootings. [CD: Wow] He was impressed by somebody having a high score, I think, the Nashville shooter, that trans shooter at the school, he was impressed by their high score, as he said it. So, he [was a] very disturbed guy for sure.

Coco Das 43:32

I really appreciate the detail that you went into and the evidence that you put up. The methodology is also apparent from the way that you put together the piece. This investigation has become yet another target of right wing conspiracy theories with Elon Musk calling investigation a…

Aric Toler 43:52

Psyop. [CD: Psyop, yes.] Psychological operation, yeah. Basically, we faked it is what he’s trying to say,

Coco Das 43:56

This is a term thrown about frequently to cast doubt on the source of terror attacks and mass shootings — against overwhelming evidence in most cases. I just want to get your reaction to this. Not only of what Elon Musk said, the actions of Twitter, but this strategy of inoculating this large base of followers against truth, against facts.

Aric Toler 44:21

Yeah, it’s pretty predictable that it had happened. I mean, this is the kind of response that you see from the far right. Whenever there’s an active shooter, and then 30 minutes later, you find out that they were an active fan of all the influencers, I guess, all the Youtubers and stuff on the right that you hear about. They don’t want to admit what team these people are on, if you want to group people in teams, I guess we could say. I do a lot of investigations and I do a lot of work with, like, Russia, Ukraine and so on. Not just that, but all over, looking at people’s digital footprints and who they are and what they’re doing online and all that stuff.

This is by far, the most obvious case — I’ve been doing this for, like 10 years, and this is by far the most obvious case I’ve ever seen, because this guy wrote everything that he thought. He was scouting is location before he did it. He was posting pictures from the mall two weeks before the shooting happened. The most disturbing thing I saw was the Nazi tattoo and all that stuff, but he was posting — you know, if you go to a restaurant in Google, it says like the peak times, like, it’s very busy right now, or not a lot of people — he was posting that for the mall, so clearly, he was scouting when people would be there for the shooting, which is pretty spooky to see.

This guy was just very obvious about everything. He posted screenshots of everything he watched, he had a literal swastika tattoo put on him. He would sign his post Heil Hitler a few times. He wasn’t hiding this. His avatar was a Hitler — a smiley face of Hitler with little Hitler mustache. This is the most obvious case I’ve ever seen in my life. But still, you know, you have Elon Musk calling this whole thing a psyop, and, their initial denial is: Well, there’s no way this is true, because this guy was Latino, or he was Hispanic, so therefore, it’s impossible that he was a neo-Nazi — as if Pinochet wasn’t a thing [CD: mmhmm]; that fascists can’t exist.

Like as the joke always says: It’s fascism in one sense, but it’s only Nazi if it was — like a sparkling champagne, right — if it was from Germany in 1939 to ’45 [CD: Yeah, right]. Yeah, right. As a fascism doesn’t exist outside of this very, very tiny window of time and location. There’s been plenty and plenty and plenty of fascism in the Global South, but especially in South America over the years — very recently, in fact, too. This guy, I think he even said Pinochet did nothing wrong. It’s not very surprising that these people are denying it, because this guy was just so obvious about everything, and so there’s no evidence they can counter against.

All they do is just say: Oh, it’s fake — because they don’t like us or Bellingcat, or like other news outlets, like NBC or whatever, whoever reported on it, so therefore, it’s all fake, and you just wave it away, and that’s the end of it. Some people just cannot possibly be convinced. My philosophy is for those percentage of people, there’s nothing you can do, really, and just make the logical case for people who actually have any sense of logic in their head and can actually be swayed by things. That’s your audience, for when you kind of write reports on this stuff.

Coco Das 46:46

Well, putting this in the context of other fascist mass shootings in the last few years: the Pittsburgh Tree of Life attack, the Charleston Emanuel AME attack, the Buffalo grocery store, El Paso, the Highland Park 4th of July attack. When you list them out, it’s alarming. I’m going to ask you a really big question — and I know this is really complex, and it’s something that doesn’t have an easy answer and it’s probably a mix of answers , but — is this about gun culture? Is it about the slow Civil War, as Jeff Sharlet calls it? Is it just fascist leadership unleashing this base to violently enforce their program?

In Refuse Fascism’s mission statement, and how we define fascism, one of the things we say is that fascism foments and relies on xenophobic nationalism, racism, misogyny, and that aggressive reinstitution of oppressive traditional values. Truth is obliterated, and fascist mobs and threats of violence are unleashed to build their movement and consolidate power. Or is there also something else going on that we’re not seeing? What are you thinking about where this is all coming from and where it’s going?

Aric Toler 47:58

I don’t really know is the answer. The online radicalization is definitely a thing, right. And the vast, vast, vast, vast 99.9, whatever percent of people who do get radicalized online don’t actually act on it online; they just kind of just alienate their friends and family for the most part, right. It’s how, normally, this goes, but of the people who do actually act on it and go on mass shootings — you see this with the QAnon movement too, right, the exact same, where you have this crazy radicalization. The QAnon stuff is maybe like a cousin, I guess you could say, of stuff you’re talking about, then they often do violent — you know, act out — there’s been countless QAnon inspired or related shootings and deaths from people, you know, attacking their families and having psychoses and all that stuff.

I think a lot of times is people who, they’re getting fed this, they were already not mentally well, they already are not doing great — again, this is just me playing armchair psychologist, I guess you could say, but — a lot of these people may be crazy, but clearly not mentally well, people who maybe are violent first place. Everything is exponentially increase with the combination of them having access to lots and lots and lots of guns. This guy had — he’s a big gun guy. He was [in] lots of videos of him at the shooting range. He kept constantly posting videos of his guns, photos of his guns, his new arrivals and all that stuff.

So access to do mass shootings, right, so the physical ability to do it with the guns, along with kind of the ideological justification for it, then you get insane right wing influencer types. Because, it’s almost every time you get one of these shootings, it turns out: Oh, they were a big fan of Andy Ngo, right. Or: Oh, it turns out they were a huge fan of Tucker Carlson. Oh, it turns out they were a huge fan of this that and the other thing. It’s a force multiplier. These people who were doing these shootings, they’re not mentally well, and they they may act out kind of in their personal life, domestic violence, that sort of thing on their own, but it’s kind of a force multiplier.

You take the violence and awful things that we’re doing probably at home or kind of in a small environment, and then the danger exponentially increases when you have access to all these firearms plus the ideological influence, I guess you could say, of lashing out against, as you said, xenophobic, this, that nationalist, and the other thing. So, it goes from a minor tragedy, right, of maybe someone committing domestic violence or attacking a family member or friend or whatever, or workplace shooting — you get these happening all the time — and then it’s increased to — not to like categorize tragedies, but — from a relatively localized tragedy to a very large one with eight people that in in a mall and Texas, right. That’s kind of the pattern I’ve noticed with a lot of times these kind of online radicalized shootings, which now, it’s a genre, because you have these 4chan and 8kun shootings that were popping up before the pandemic and during the pandemic. Now you’re getting this one too.

Coco Das 50:30

I think that’s really helpful. It just seems like a perfect storm of factors. [AT: mmhmm] With this swirl of varying factors in American life, it seems so absurd to me to still hear at this point that fascism can’t happen here. What do you want people to take from your investigation and from the work of Bellingcat in general? What do you want people to take away with it? Are you hoping to have an influence over institutions and or how we deal with this kind of violence in this country?

Aric Toler 51:02

I don’t know if we can make any influence on the violence in the country, It’s a little bit outside of our pay grade. At least, for people to understand this stuff — the modus operandi that we have, and kind of our principle when we publish is trying to have as much transparency as possible. For example, The New York Times reports — The New York Times is great and they did great reporting on this, but they were, by design, a little opaque about this. When they said that there’s a profile on Odnoklassniki, and it had content X content, Y content Z, right, which is fine, that’s kind of the typical news report.

But our approach, and how we do things is we show as much digital evidence as possible, and try to make things as transparent as we can. Which leads to this is a whole different discussion, but you also have the discussion of: Should you highlight the online ravings of a mass shooter and give them more attention? Often, the answer is no, right, because you don’t wanna give more attention than you have to. But I think in this case, it played an important role because there was so much misinformation around this guy’s ideology and motivation, and all this stuff, like the stuff about him being a cartel member, and all that, which was just completely insane.

So I think in that sense, this was important. I think he did it for ideological reasons. I mean, he wore a patch that said RWDS, right wing death squad, on his vest as he was doing the shooting, with the Punisher, logo and all that stuff. We try to be as transparent as we can, and we showed screenshots of: This is the guy’s tattoos, and here you can see in the background, his moles that match up, and you know it’s the same guy because of things X, Y, and Z, and just kind of like CSI forensic things. We try to link to everything we can and the photos, again, trying to make it as transparent as we can.

If you don’t believe us, that’s okay, that’s fine. If you think we’re a psyop, okay, but we try to keep things as open as we can, so if you disagree with us, then well, it’s peer review, right — everything we do is theoretically peer reviewed, and that you can check our work and show where we made mistakes. Usually people don’t do that, because they don’t care so much about the actual evidence as much as, like, very broad strokes. So you know, you’re a psyop, whatever. We have made mistakes before. They’re not because we’re a psyop, right. It’s because, maybe we missed something or whatever. It’s, a two way peer review process of, you know, if we’re wrong, you can correct us, and if you don’t believe us, you can check our work. So theoretically, we kind of build trust in research and investigative work — doesn’t always work that way, with that utopian vision, but that’s that’s our goal, at least.

Coco Das 53:08

I also appreciate it when there was something that you chose not to share that you stated why, and were open about that. I really appreciated just being able to call together all the different evidence, and know that there’s even more evidence out there for various reasons that need to be out in the public. I want to really thank you for coming on, giving us your important knowledge about this case, and how it fits into this swirl of slow Civil War, fascism, mental illness, gun culture. I wanted to give you a chance to add anything else that you think our listeners need to know, and how can they continue to follow your work?

Aric Toler 53:47

See our articles on the front page of our site; it’s just Bellingcat.com, You can check us out, and there’s been additional reporting on this from the air time. I think the Washington Post has done a bit more as well too, if you want to follow up more in this case. Since this has come out, the police have also confirmed — we didn’t include us in the article, but — they’ve confirmed that he did have Nazi tattoos as well.

So, a lot of discussion and denial around this from various right wing figures has been around like: Oh, how do we know this guy actually have a swastika tattoo? It could be anyone. You know, blah, blah, blah. But it’s it’s been confirmed by the police — who, police in Texas aren’t exactly the most progressive folks [CD chuckles], so we can trust that if they’re saying the guy had a Nazi tattoo, there’s a very good chance he had it, right. That’s not the kind of thing would lie about it. Usually the lie would go the other way. That’s pretty good confirmation.

Coco Das 54:33

Well, thank you so much, Aric, and I hope that we can talk again soon.

Aric Toler 54:37

Sure. Thanks for having me.

Sam Goldman 54:39

Thanks for listening to Refuse Fascism. We want to hear from you. Share your thoughts, questions, ideas for topics or guests or lend a skill. Tweet me @SamBGoldmann, drop me a line at [email protected]. Find us over at the Mastodon, linked in the show notes. Leave us a voicemail — we want to hear your beautiful voice. You can hit the message button, also in the show notes.

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Thanks to Coco Das, Richie Marini, Lina Thorne and Mark Tinkleman for helping to produce this episode. Thanks to incredible volunteers, we have transcripts available for each show, so be sure to visit RefuseFascism.org and sign up to get them in your inbox. I’ll be off next Sunday, but Coco Das is going to be guest hosting so you don’t want to miss it. Until then, in the name of humanity, we refuse to accept a fascist America!