Velkommen til Sidelinja, podkasten for politisk hjemløse.
Og for de som ikke får nok kulturkrig.
Rundt bor i dag kulturkriger Trond Sørensen, Åstin
Rasmussen fra Republicans Abroad Norge, og meg selv,
Vegard Nattnes.
Velkommen tilbake, Åstin.
Takk.
Vi kjører jo samme greia som vi gjorde
sist, du er mest komfortabel på engelsk, og
vi kjører norsk, fordi vi er litt skråtete
på engelsk, i hvert fall når vi skal
være precise.
Ja, ikke sant?
Og det er noe med det poenget er
å snakke, og få sagt det man ønsker
å si, og så tror jeg at det
er veldig få som hører på dette som
ikke kan begge språk.
Så da får vi være språkforvirret, og så
kommer vi sikkert til å, til og med
å begynne å snakke litt engelsk innimellom.
Det finnes til og med gamle folk over
åtte som har lært seg engelsk, har jeg
funnet ut.
Ja, det er ikke mange av dem, men
de finnes.
Jeg hadde en mor, jeg husker min mor
skulle til USA, jeg var midt på 80
-tallet, og hun er født i 42, og
da var det halvt år før jeg begynte
å kjøpe sånne der selvstudier med engelsk, med
kassetter og sånt, og hun spilte og lærte
seg engelsk før hun skulle på ferie.
Da kunne hun si, I am a boy.
Ja, hun var opptrent på det.
Hun fikk bestille seg mat, og det tror
jeg var bra.
Ok, bakteppet for å snakke med deg, Austin,
er jo selvfølgelig det litt mørke som skjedde
i USA her, drapet på Charlie Kirk, og
det er jo interessant, kjente du ham, eller
kjente til ham?
Jeg har følget ham i mindre enn 10
år.
Jeg har ingen personlig konneksjon til ham, men
jeg har sikkert sett hans forandring i karrieret
og organisasjonen han har bygget i ganske lang
tid.
Jeg skulle si, i de første fem årene
trodde jeg ikke så mye av ham.
Jeg tror ikke jeg var hans target audience.
Men som det er med mange mennesker i
hans profession, jeg delte mye av hans verdier,
og selv om jeg ikke har vært hans
target audience var jeg glad han gjorde hva
han gjorde.
Jeg tror han brukte mye positiv utvikling rundt
kollegiske debatter på universitetskampene.
Da han ble åldre, og da jeg ble
åldre, han var 5 år yngre enn meg,
jeg skulle si i de siste 5 årene
har jeg virkelig fulgt ham.
Jeg så en av hans debatter på telefonen,
da nyheten gikk over notifikasjonen han hadde fått.
Så her ser jeg en debatt som nok
skjedde en år siden, eller 6 måneder siden,
og da jeg ser ham, ser jeg nyheten
gå over telefonen.
Og det var faktisk ganske surrealt.
Det var litt sprøtt, og så var selvfølgelig
reaksjonene sprø også.
Litt absurd å følge med på, for det
er liksom, mennesker er skutt, og det ser
alvorlig ut, og så begynner man å vitse
med det.
Det som har slått meg, og det som
hadde vært interessant å høre fra deg var,
han har jo blitt bokstavlig talt svartmål til
Norge, som en ekstremist, eller en langt ut
på fløyen.
Anders Behring Breivik.
Ja, ikke sant?
Som er helt vanvittig.
Men som deg, så har jeg ikke fulgt
ham tett, men jeg har sett ham i
mange år.
Fått opp noen klipp, og sett en og
annen debatt.
Og min subjektiv opplevelse av det, er at
han har fylt en konstruktiv rolle.
Det kan gå til at han hadde enkeltstå
steder som var ekstreme, eller utenfor, eller hva
du vil.
Men det er liksom helt åpenbart for meg,
at han verken er rasistisk, eller seksistisk, eller
noe annet.
Han har litt konservative synspunkter på en del
ting.
Han er en konstruktiv debattant, han tar debatten
åpent, han møter folk i øyehøyde, som er
litt vanlig å si.
Og jeg er litt opptatt av å få
fram den funksjonen han har spilt i kulturen,
og i deres bevegelser, altså republikanene i USA.
De som diskuterte Charlie Kirk den dagen før,
eller den dagen etter, eller de dagene til
nå, hadde enten aldri hørt om Charlie Kirk
før han ble mordt, eller hadde kanskje hørt
om ham i forhold, men hadde ingen realitet
om hvem han var.
Så da var det litt som å kramme
for eksampen i universitetet et par tider før
du må ta det, og så vise deg
som om du er den eksperten på det
spørsmålet.
Og jeg tror at litmustestet for det er
hvordan han har blitt framt i det norske
medielandskapet.
For faktet er, at hvis du hadde noen
forståelse om republikanene i USA, eller bare konservativer
i generelt, så skulle du også forstå at
Charlie Kirk var faktisk en ganske moderat republikan,
en ganske moderat konservativ, i den måten at
hans verdier hadde blitt delt som en standard
utgangspunkt på hva konservative republikanske verdier er.
Selvfølgelig med tro på kyrken og Gud, kyrke,
men også om familieverdiene, og virkelig bare den
standardbaseringen på hva det er å være en
republikan.
Så å bare malte han i dette livet
at han var en rasist, han har ikke
ennå, over årene, og du kan finne mange
spørsmål og snakker som han har hatt, hvor
han åpenbart sa at han ikke ennå trodde
i konseptet av ras.
Han trodde at ras var en sosial konstrukt
på den måten vi trenger det i dag.
Og det er mange publiske tilfeller hvor han
ble oppført av noen i lgbt-kommunen, og
i hver fall kan du se at han
har velkommen dem med åpne arme a.
til å diskutere ham, eller b.
til bevegelsen selv.
Han hadde veldig mye åpnet døren for noen
som skulle komme og kjempe for tradisjonelle konservative
verdier, og han hadde et åpnet døren for
de som ville diskutere ham på disse temaene.
Det som var mitt subjektive inntrykk var at
hver gang han møtte noen som var en
nominell meningsmotstander, og spesielt hvis du var svart
eller trans eller et eller annet sånt, så
ble du møtt med en ganske sånn betydelig
omsorg.
Han la et par lag med vatt rundt
for å behandle deg ordentlig, og høre deg
ut og hele den greia der.
For meg, de bruker det der sitatet om
svarte piloter og sånt, og det har vi
i og for seg forklart før, men driver
det ut av sin kontekst, og så etterlater
et inntrykk at han var rasistisk.
Det var nøyaktig, 180 grader motsatt, ikke sant?
Hvis noen, selv en annen svart person, i
den situasjonen hvor du vet at strukturen er
der for å glede seg på grunn av
fargens farge, så trenger du å undre instinktivt
om den personen er kvalifisert til å være
der eller om det burde være noen annen
som var mer tilgjengelig.
Det er ikke en rasistisk poeng å gjøre.
Det er en naturlig, tror jeg, respons til
systemene han diskuterte.
Systemene som ble implementert som gav preferensbehandling basert
på rasismen.
Han advokerte for avgjørelse av sånne policy, fordi
han trodde det var bedre at folk ble
behandlet basert på merittet av sin individuelle karakter,
i stedet for immutable karakteristikker som ingen kan
forvandle.
Det er også interessant, man ser jo i
disse viralklippene fra Kirk, og det er jo
gjerne et eller annet lite uttrykk av debatter
med ulike, men du ser jo de som
kommer inn med dette synspunktet for DEI eller
kvotering, eller hva det er for noe, ofte
ikke skjønner implikasjonene av policyen de argumenterer for.
Så du ser liksom, han må hver gang
forklare dette er konsekvensene, ikke sant?
Og du må bruke litt tid på å
forklare at jo, du diskriminerer faktisk basert på
hudfargen din.
Sånn er det helt absolutt.
For en kvinne i denne posisjonen er det
ikke nødvendigvis å forstå at hun ikke er
kvalifisert, men det er stadig en spørsmål, er
hun der for å fylle den kvoten, eller
var hun der fordi hun faktisk er kvalifisert
til å sitte i denne posisjonen?
Og det er det disse typer av policyer
gjør, de instillerer disse spørsmålene i menneskene, av
alle om disse situasjonene.
En annen kvote som jeg vil si er
nok den mest abuserte kvote i eftermiddelen, var
hvor han diskuterer at han ikke liker ordet
empati, og han sier at han synes at
empati er et nyårsord som gjør mye smerter,
og de bare bruker den delen av kvoten.
De gir ikke noe mer kontekst.
Hvis du skulle lese det i sin helhet,
går han på til å si at jeg
synes at empati er et mye mer passende
ord.
Empati betyr at du føler hva noen annen
føler, men du kan ikke muligvis føle hva
en annen person føler.
Empati er et mye mer passende ord til
å bruke når du sympatiserer med en annen
person.
Jeg uttaler kvoten selv, men det er poenget,
at han kontrasterte ordet empati til sympati, og
når du har den tilgjengelige konteksten, så lytter
det ikke så hjemmeløst og kjærlig som det
er når du bare gir teksten til den
første delen av denne uttrykken.
Litt til reaksjonene i USA, for en av
de tingene jeg har sett en god del
av de siste døgnene, er at det settes
opp små minnesmerker med noen blomster og et
lys og noen bilder og sånn, og så
kommer det noen fra den tolerante siden og
sparker og ødelegger dette her.
Jeg synes jo det er ille å se
på det i Norge, altså hvordan man håndterer
dette på, men det ser ut som du
har en ganske stor komponent i USA også,
som rett og slett ikke behandler dette med
en særlig verdighet.
Ja, så lenge det gjelder for å se
hvordan individene og memorialene går, men også i
den veien, er det å se denne åpne
masse-feiringen av døgnet.
Det var en nydelig poll som ble løst
av YouGov som møtte republikanske demokrater forløp eller
rasjonalisering eller justifikasjon for politisk violens, og det
var en serie spørsmål som ble spurt.
Og demokrater var 4-6 ganger mer likelige
til å si at politisk violens er akseptabelt,
og at politisk violens kan bli feiret.
4-6 ganger mer likelige enn republikaner.
Republikanerne var i de nære, enkelte digitene, 4
% sa ja til disse spørsmålene, eller 5%,
som fortsatt er 4-5% for høyt
selvfølgelig, men det var oppe i 20-tallet
for demokrater.
Det er ikke en mindre del, men det
hjelper også å fortelle oss at en majoritet
av demokrater ikke støtter dette, og en majoritet
av republikanere ikke heller.
Disse menneskene som har en plattform for å
snakke veldig lydelig, og fordi det er så
utrolig og kontroversielt, får det mye oppmærksomhet.
Vi er...
Jeg lytte til en av dine episoder nødvendigvis
om dette eventet, og jeg tror at det
var deg som brukte opp Konstantin Kissen, og
hvordan han artikulerte det, og jeg så på
det, og jeg tenker at jeg har vært
en nyheter, og politisk aktiv, i hele min
adultliv, og kanskje også i min adolescens.
Så jeg er ganske nødvendig for nødvendige eventer.
Det tar mye å løpe meg rundt inntil.
Men i sammenhengen han gjorde at han ikke
kunne huske den siste gangen han følte denne
måten siden den 11.
september.
Og jeg kan si at jeg gjerne deler
denne artikuleringen, denne interne følelsen.
Dette hadde en effekt på meg selv.
Jeg følte for dager etter at jeg var
virkelig opptatt av dette.
Og jeg kan ikke huske at det har
hatt den samme effekten Jeg må si at
jeg har noe av samme følelsen, og det
er ikke nødvendigvis for drapet i seg selv,
for det er sånn grusomme ting som skjer
hele tiden.
Men det er reaksjonene på det, at det
sakte går opp for deg, hvor mange gærninger
du deler samfunnet med.
Det er det som er problemet nå i
USA.
For det siste året har konservativene vært gassløse,
og den venstre har, til og med presidentielle
kandidater, og presidentene selv, til Joe Biden, tilbake
til Hillary Clinton, og da til og med
mediepersonaliteter og tenkeledere i venstre, har helt normalisert
dehumaniseringen og dæmoniseringen av konservativene sammen med den
generøse bruk av ord som nazi, bygget, utfordringer,
alt dette.
La oss si at her i Norge, hvis
vi ble fortalt fra toppen at Russland infiltrerte
vårt regering og krosset bordet, og at vi
skulle forlore vårt land og vår demokrati, hvis
jeg konsumerte denne typen innhold, nærmest eksklusivt, og
trodde det, det skulle være en følelse av
nødvendighet til å ta opp armene og gjøre
noe om det.
Og jeg tror at det er i slutten
hva denne dehumaniseringen og den kontroversielle språken har
gjort til mange mennesker over de siste 10
årene.
Det er jo et eller annet med at
hvis du overbeviser noen om at dette er
Hitler, så er det jo ikke galt å
skyte Hitler.
Hvis du tar ut Hitler, så slipper vi
2.
verdenskrig.
Dette er en fyr som er du skjønner
at han har Karajan foran seg, selv om
han har gjort det bra i forklant.
Vi har bruket den retorikken over tid, så
ja, du vil overbevise folk.
Han ringte meg noen år siden med en
liste spørsmål og han vil bare kjøpe det
i munnen min.
Han var på vakasjon nederst nydelig, han var
med noen andre norske venner og han sa
der, nødvendigvis, mens de spilte på etter avslutningen,
at hans venner hadde rett til Charlie Kirk
som Hitler.
Det overrasket ham.
Han sa, jeg forstår ikke hvorfor det er
så mange norske venner som bare kan bruke
denne språket til å beskrive noen.
Som om, a.
om de virkelig tror på det, eller b.
om de virkelig ikke vet mye om Hitler.
Og hvis du tenker, dette er Hitler, hva
har noen til hans rett?
Jeg hadde en opplevelse for noen år siden,
vi sto på gata for liberalistene på Karjohan,
ikke sant?
Så kommer folk inn og da får du
en sånn temperaturmåling på folkedypet, om du vil.
Det er kanskje spesielt interesserte som går inn
om valg, både på Karjohan, men like fullt
at du får et ganske greit spektre av
ting.
Hvis du husker tilbake til 2019, så var
det den svære saken med disse Covington kids.
Det var en 16-åring som hadde litt
sånn dra til trynet, og hadde en Trump
-lue.
Og de sto der sånn og mindet their
own business.
Og så ble de egentlig omtrent overfalt av
en sånn der Native American-type, og det
ble en sånn svær mediesakuttale, fullstendig feilfremstilt.
Alle som ville finne ut av det kunne
finne ut av den kvelden.
Ingen gav det, ikke sant?
Så det ble jo presentert i Norge som
om det var noen sånne oppstørnasige, frekke drittunger,
som drev av å plage en gammel indianer,
og det var ukesvis, og ingen som korrigerte
seg selv, ikke sant?
Fullstendig.
Men det fascinerende for meg, for det var
i 2019, jeg sto på gata til kommunevalget
i 2023, og så var det en dame
som kom innom, og så begynte vi å
snakke om mediekritikk, og så tok jeg opp
denne saken.
Så jeg bare nevnte det, men det er
litt lav sannsynlighet for at en tilfeldig nordmann
på gata skal huske den saken, og hvem
han er, og hvis jeg sier navnet han,
så sier han «Nei, jeg aner ikke hvem
det er».
Hvis du husker han der guttungen med dra
til trynet og Trump-lua, «Åh, han, mini
-Trumpen, hvor faen tar han?».
Og det er liksom fire år etterpå, så
er det tilfeldige mennesker på gata i Norge
som har et aktivt hatforhold til en 16
-åring, som hun har sett på TV.
Og det er noe med ikke bare tar
hun feil på det, ikke sant?
Sånn at det er fullstendig urimelig å hate
han.
Men det er også den virkningen media har
på å forme så mange mennesker og hvilke
holdninger de har til ting.
Og så er det den der konsekvensene og
følelseslivet fra det, som kommer ut av det.
Og den generelle holdningen til ting som skjer
i Amerika, ting som skjer med sånne, Arne
formulerer det som at man ser på sånne
mediepersonheter som tegneseriefigurer.
Så man kan ha litt sånn utrett menings
- og følelsesutbrudd overfor dem.
Men en sånn ting som virkelig...
Man så den der videoen med Kaur som
lo av dette, og mange andre som lo
av dette, og uverdig opptreden, og den der
hele kvalifiseringsmarathon Olympiaden som alle driver med.
Og så blir du litt sånn satt ut
av at dette er uverdig, det er skjevdekning,
men det er vi jo vant til, ikke
sant?
Og så så jeg denne saken fra Oxford
Union, den der lederen av Oxford Union, som
også hadde reagert på den måten og le
av drapet og liksom high-fivede det.
Og så skjønner du etterpå at han, lederen
for Oxford Union, har faktisk debattert Charlie Kirk
med en meters mellomrom, så han har stått
og sett dette mennesket i øynene.
Så det er ikke den der tegneseriefiguren engang.
Det er et menneske du har møtt, hatt
en høflig debatt med, og så jubler du
over drapet hans i dag.
Vi har ikke møtt hverandre.
Jeg finner det, og i alle mine politiske
aktiviteter, jeg har krossført med mange mennesker som
jeg har fundamentalt ideologiske forskjell.
Men når du møter dem, og du forstår
ok, dette er en person, dette er ikke
mer en mediefigur.
Det er mange av dem som du kan
utvikle kjærligheter med, og fortsatt ikke sikre med,
fordi du har en menneskelig forhold nå.
Og jeg tror at det i seg selv
er en menneskelig natur.
Vi har forlort det.
Vi har blitt så polarisert, og så mange
av oss er endelig online.
Vi interagerer ikke så ofte i virkeligheten.
Men i alle fall, dette er hva konservatene
føler.
Jeg vet ikke om du så Bill Mahers
reaksjon til dette.
Jeg tror han hadde en ganske sober reaksjon
til dette.
Han beskrev hans opplevelse, hans personlige opplevelse med
Charlie Kirk.
Og da, hans konklusjon til det var jeg
har møtt så mange av disse menneskene, og
ingen av dem er så galt som de
gjør dem til å være.
Han er en god menneske.
Han var en kjærlig menneske.
Og den måten han karakteriserer det, er at
du kan få en konservativ her, og jeg
kan ikke sikre med hver eneste av dem,
men i alle fall snakker de, og prøver
å snakke, og ha en dialog, og en
diskurs med oss.
Den venstre vil ikke snakke.
Det er morsomt at du sier at han
hadde en drulig tilnærming, fordi jeg så podcastversjonen,
og da sa han at han kom nok
til å drikke mer i dag enn vanlig.
Ja.
Var han ikke på med Charlie Sheen?
Nei.
Ja, ok.
Så i dag må jeg drikke mer enn
...
En ting er at du har andre som
reagerer med å juble og si at det
var fint, men det er litt om i
hvilket samfunnslag de gjør det, og det er
litt forskjell på om bilmekanikeren eller rødleggeren eller
et eller annet gjør det, eller de som
på en måte pusser litt på det og
pynter litt på det, men som jobber i
TV da, eller i New York Times, eller
Washington Post, eller et eller annet.
Det er noe med hvilket nivå de er
på.
Men jeg vet ikke, hvordan deler du, vil
du si, medieavdelingen i USA er da?
Klarer de fleste medier å holde seg i
sjakk og ha en forluftig tilnærming, eller er
det dårlig sult, jubel og glede?
As far as the Norwegian press landscape goes,
it's so diverse.
I mean, there's a spectrum.
So I guess it just depends on how
far, which way on the spectrum you're gonna
go.
As far as the legacy media outlets go,
the mainstream media outlets, there's this kind of,
whether it's center, center-left or left, there's
this insidious kind of impression that's constantly being
left.
They acknowledge that this is an assassination, and
they acknowledge that this is a truly impactful
moment for the nation.
But there's always this equivocating.
Yes, he shouldn't have been assassinated, but.
Let's say the roles were reversed, and it
was some thought leader for the left.
Dean Winters.
And there's never a but.
This is a horrendous thing that's happened.
We all agree that it's a horrendous thing
that's happened.
There's no justifying it.
Yeah, they were assassinated, but look at what
he said.
I mean, are we really surprised?
And that's kind of, I think, what the
media is telling in the United States.
A summarized characterization of the narrative.
Here in Norway, it's a little bit different
because well, first, the Norwegian people tend to
be culturally and innately more trusting of authority
than Americans are.
And more forgiving as well.
And when you have the mainstream media here
in Norway, all of which gets some forms
of subsidies from the state, well then, technically,
they should be viewed, when you're kind of
evaluating the situation, as somewhat of a state
apparatus.
Not only are they authority as far as
delivering the news and giving media analysis to
its audience, but there's a state component to
this that's backing whatever it is they're saying.
And these people are supposed to be the
experts.
And so when you put these two things
together in the equation, you have an audience
that's trusting of authority and forgiving of authority
when mistakes are made, and willing to sweep
things under the rug collectively.
And then you have this media that's obviously
ideologically biased and driven, and not an expert
as far as the United States goes, or
an understanding of the United States.
Then you end up with the result of
that being your average Norwegian casually referring to
the assassinated as, well, you know, he was
like Hitler, though.
And I think that's how you end up
with that result.
And I commend those
for admitting that.
And I saw one article and forgive me
for not remembering exactly who the author was,
but the point of it was, how can
we expect in Norway to maintain any credibility
in our publication if we're writing about a
topic that so many in our audience know
more than us about?
There's so many that are reading what we're
writing and they know that we're wrong.
They know that we don't know what we're
talking about, because they know, as an average
reader, far more about the topic than we
do.
And there you erode your own credibility when
you start down that path.
There's an amnesia, the idea that you browse
through the newspaper and you come across a
topic you know something about, where you have
domain knowledge, and you see that journalism is
all over the place.
The cause and effect are quickly opposed.
And then you think, oh my God, how
can he work in a newspaper that's not
known to hospitals, or businesses, or the US,
better than this, and write about it?
And then you go on to something you
don't know about, and then you start to
trust it again.
And that amnesia comes in, that you forget
how little they knew about the thing you
knew about, and then you think that they're
still trustworthy on other things.
And that's very scary, and that's the trust
you're talking about.
Because in Norway, we have a tendency to
not think of ourselves as very authoritative, right?
We compare ourselves to the Swedes, and they're
much worse than us.
They're huge, they walk in line, and everyone
stands on the right side of the escalator.
We're incredibly conformist here.
And it's like, the corridor of opinion is
really narrow.
And it's evident in this case, among other
things, that those who let it go, or
even those who try to defend the other
side, like Imre Marstall and Andresen from Minerva,
who were there to take the other position,
to talk to Magnus Marstall.
And it's like, it's such a soft defense,
and it's so careful in avoiding it.
I also saw that Gauter Scherwe was talking
to Dan Burchoy.
And it's much of the same.
Dan Burchoy becomes incredibly evasive, and Scherwe gets
to talk freely with quite imprecise turns.
He's good at talking, and he doesn't say
anything completely crazy, but you draw the impression
all the time in one direction, right?
And that's fine, because he's an opinionator, and
has a position in it.
But it's like, what you avoid without meeting
the opponent, that's quite absurd in Norway, I
have to say.
...
er lederen av Republicans Abroad i Norge og
stiller spørsmål om Charlie Kirk?
Og det er en positiv ting.
Og jeg ønsker at, i noen måter, noveligheten
med å snakke med medieren vokste opp for
meg lenge siden.
Så det er ikke som om jeg er
myktet over det, eller fornøyd.
Jeg er stadig en leder av Republicans Abroad,
og du vil tenke deg at jeg er
en av de første som spør om disse
veldig relevante spørsmålene.
Men nei, da det kom til Charlie Kirk
var det bare Ine Heter som kontaktet meg
og lagde en intervjue og skrev en artikkel
om mine første tenkninger i den nære tilfellet.
Men nei, ingen andre.
Og en gang i tiden, alle av dem
hadde ringt meg.
Jeg tror også at de ikke så mye
kjenner for min kritikk om norske medier eller
de ekspertene de vil bruke.
Og under den siste kampanjen i valget, og
snart etter valget, hadde jeg noen spørsmål med
noen som jobbet med medier og jeg tror
at de nok husker det.
Jeg vet ikke, jeg er ikke så mye
av en konspirasiv person men noen ganger får
jeg den følelsen at jeg kanskje har vært
blakklistet i denne kampen.
Men jeg vet ikke om det er sant.
Det er veldig hyggelig å ha deg her
i hvert fall.
Jeg er glad for å være her.
Min fascinasjon for dette i litt sånn metaperspektiv
er altså at du har et politisk attentat
og så klarer man å vri det til
at man problematiserer ofre.
Det er omtrent ikke snakke om gjerningsmannen.
Det er omtrent ikke snakke om problemer med
politisk vold.
Det man klarer å problematisere på basis av
dette, etter at en prominent republikaner er skutt
og drept, og etter at presidenten har forsøkt
skutt to ganger, så er det man problematiserer
er risikoen for en backlash fra Høyre siden
i USA.
Det var en kjærlighet for hvordan Trump kan
eksploere, og det er sånn at de karakteriserer
Trump for å eksploere denne assassinasjonen og Charlie
Kirk.
Faktum er at Charlie Kirk var så god
som familie til Donald Trump.
Donald Trump, jeg tror fullt, og har sett
hans relasjon med Charlie Kirk oppleve over årene,
tror jeg at Donald Trump hadde en kjærlighet
for Charlie Kirk.
Det er ingen følelse av det at det
er eksploerasjon.
Simpelt å karakterisere assassinasjonen som det er, og
effekten det har på landet, er ikke eksploerasjon.
Det er ikke det samme.
Vi er røde.
Konservativer er røde.
Og Donald Trump er også rettvis røde.
Selv om han ikke var presidenten, ville dette
gjort han personlig, på grunn av hans personlige
sammenheng med situasjonen, men også på grunn av
at han selv har vært på den andre
siden av bulleten et par ganger.
Så jeg utstyrer og utstyrer disse karakteriseringene av
eksploerasjon.
Ja, vi navigerer noen slags unnskyldt territori.
Det er noen sammenhenger laget, og jeg tror
rettvis så til assassinasjonen av MLK.
Ikke nødvendigvis i motivasjoner eller ...
Selvfølgelig er hver personens agender annerledes, men med
tanke på pågående på landet, så tror jeg
det er en rett sammenheng.
Jeg er ikke sikker på hvordan vi skal
forandre.
Jeg har noen ideer om hvordan landet kan
forandre, men det er enda tid som viser.
Nei, vi gjorde ikke det.
Det var ingen vild ...
Det var vigils, minneskap og bedrømme.
Det var ingen vilde røyter.
Ingen løp deres lokale bygninger.
Ingen burde bruke deres egen områder.
Det var ingen følelse av vildhet, uansett i
situasjoner, veldig isolerte lokale situasjoner, hvor folk kom
inn for å forsvare og forfølge memorialene mens
folk var omkring for å bedre.
Jeg så et par videoer der et par
mennesker forlokk deres temper.
Det var akkurat det, faktisk.
Vi har ...
Begrepet å be om jording kom til mind.
I Norge har vi et rettsprinsipp for det
som heter rettness i harme.
Det ville falle inn under, og det vil
si at du blir ikke dømt for å
bruke vold mot mennesker i en sånn situasjon,
fordi de har bevisst med vilje provocert så
mye på en person de planlater.
Det er good to go.
En annen ting.
Man har jo demonisert Trump i mange år
som vi er vant til den der tegneseriefiguriseringen
av ham.
Den er ganske fremtredende med J.D. Vance
også.
Når du snakker om å ha en personlig
connection, så var vel J.D. Vance enda
mye nærmere Charlie Kirk.
J.D. Vance hadde vel ikke vært senator
hvis ikke for Charlie Kirk i utgangspunktet, så
hans karriere og hele greia lener seg ved
egentlig på at Charlie Kirk var en av
de første til å omfamne hans kandidatur da
han stilte til senatsvalg.
Når han da hoster podcasten til Charlie Kirk
første episode etter at han er borte.
Så er det også gjenstand for en sånn
lattlegjøring og tegneseriefisering her i Norge.
Det er en sånn vicepresident i USA som
har sagt noe sprøtt om Charlie Kirk.
Det er ingen anerkjennelse av at det var
et menneske du kjente som er revet bort
på en helt urimelig vis.
Vi snakket om empati og sympati.
Det er ingen anerkjennelse av det.
Det er mye som skjer med anerkjennelser på
alle medier, om det er sosiale medier eller
nyheter.
Men det er også mye som er omfattende.
Det er veldig forsiktig informasjon til å maler
et stort bilde eller en karakter i et
stort lys.
Det forlader et stort antal kontekster og ting
som betyr noe.
Til en annen punkt av ironi der, tror
jeg at leftistene og dem som tar medierne
medier, forlader deres egen grunn nå.
Hvis det gjelder støtte for konservativer, støtte for
Turning Point, det er utrolig mye de får
i forhold til dette.
Jeg har sett rapporter om at kyrkene har
stiget mye i USA.
Dette har hatt en effekt.
Det er vanskelig.
Jeg tror at mange som har mikrofon og
har en slags styrke i den industrien, jeg
er ikke sikker på hva du kaller det,
men de opplever som om publikum ikke kan
gå til noe annet for å få mer
informasjon.
Jeg er ikke sikker på om det er
i denne situasjonen at det vil ta oss
tilbake til en mer rådgivende ton og en
mer produktiv og konstruktiv sammenheng med mennesker vi
ikke er sikre på.
Jeg er ikke sikker på hva som kan.
Jeg er ikke sikker på hva som kan
gjøre det for oss.
Jeg er relativt moderat på de fleste ting,
og i hvert fall når det kommer til
omgang og kostyme og den type ting.
Jeg kjenner disse folka skal jeg ikke ha
noe mer.
Jeg har null toleranse for den type oppførsel,
for det er rett og slett bare å
ikke oppføre seg.
Min teori er at det er så mange
vanlige mennesker som ikke har den mikrofonen eller
den talerstolen som mange har, som bare reagerer
intuitivt på dette.
Det er en fyr som har skutt, og
du fokuserer på dette, du vet hva.
Nå er jeg på vei ut, jeg skal
ikke ha noe mer der å gjøre heller.
Og jeg kjenner det selv, ikke sant?
Og jeg kan garantere at jeg har multiplisert
meg ganske mye for mange andre.
Du hadde jobbet i kalisert etter at du
ble anarchist, du.
Ja, det er fint.
I think you're absolutely correct, and I think
one of the more, intuition is absolutely the
right word to use in that.
You do have these kind of, I guess,
normies, people who are not consumed by politics
and current events, and pick it up piece
by piece throughout their day maybe, or throughout
the week.
And there is going to be an intuitive
reaction to this, and the only people, I
would suggest, the only people that this kind
of narrative is actually speaking to, are people
that have, there's something wrong in their head.
There is something wrong.
And I think you have social media and
cultural causes for that, but it's not a
majority of the people.
This is a minority that this is speaking
to, it's a minority of people that identify
with this type of language and almost Orwellian
reporting of the event.
But I do think, you're right, there is
an intuition for most people to say, why
are we talking about this?
In the days after, for example, we're still
trying to find the killer.
Why are we talking about this right now?
And then now that the killer has been
caught, and the evidence has painted a pretty
clear picture, something I was never in doubt
in, I think I knew, and I think
most people knew, exactly what this was when
it happened.
There wasn't a convoluted mystery, it was pretty
straightforward.
And now we know that the suspicions are
true, and you still have, I still am
getting confronted by people, some even in my
own family, who are saying, I don't understand
why you're so angry.
It was obviously a SuperMAGA guy that did
this.
It was a Gruyper that did this.
It was this right-wing guy who wanted
to kill Charlie Kirk because he wasn't right
-wing enough.
And I've said, what are you reading to
come to this conclusion?
I mean, if that were the case, I
would have no problem acknowledging that that's the
case.
But there is no point of evidence that
we have been provided so far by the
authorities and by the FBI, that could point
to anywhere close to that direction.
Well, but
the
irony of that is so many of the
people who are making this false claim about
him, many of them probably know better than
most of us that your politics is not
necessarily in line with the politics of your
family.
A lot of these kind of radical leftists
have broken from their own families, or their
families have broken from them because the state
of polarization in the American political landscape.
So, I find there to be a degree
of irony there because of all people in
American politics that should understand that maybe my
politics aren't quite in line with how I
was raised and what my parents believe in.
There is a break there, and I think
more of a break these days than there's
ever been.
Of course, I think in earlier periods of
American history, whatever your family's politics were, would
be a good predictive indicator of being able
to make a relatively accurate assumption of what
someone else believes.
As it were, they came from this area,
their parents are, you know, Quakers or Mormons
or whatever, and you can probably make a
safe assumption of what's on it.
But that isn't the case today because we
have the internet, and people have all these
other doors and windows to be influenced by
throughout their day.
But yes, they are definitely leaning hard on
the fact that he came from a very
small, rural, bedroom community, conservative Republican community, Mormon
community.
Utah is the Mormon state, and so of
course in the immediate aftermath, to say okay,
this happened in Utah, he's from Utah, I
think they were leaning on that very hard.
It must have been a Republican.
Cognitive dissonance is a very pleasant subject.
That's true.
Over the years, and since you've seen cycles
of insanity go through and disappear again, I've
come to the conclusion that here in Norway
we have a long history with it.
In the 70s, we had the madness of
AKP-ML.
It flew around and terrorized people and was
violent and unilateral.
And then it just dies out, and then
you get to a collective understanding that it
takes too long.
They have to apologize for what they have
been doing.
And it's like a cycle of insanity.
They've been doing that green shift and sea
wind for years.
It looks like a mental illness when you
see it, doesn't it?
You just don't understand how it's possible to
have a public debate that just keeps going
at this level.
But it just keeps going, and suddenly it
just dies out.
And then everyone turns 180 degrees, along with
nuclear power, along with the COVID-19 things
that have eroded so much trust in the
media and political leaders that what they don't
understand now, what we were talking about in
the city, that cultural shift they are now
contributing quite hard to create.
So the consequences of this in the long
run will be so much bigger than they
perceive now, because they think they have hegemony
on this, but there are so many who
don't buy that package anymore, and don't trust
what they are being told anymore, because they
are being lied to, right?
And I don't know what to say.
There are also some signs.
We talked about such memorabilia of Kirk that
were destroyed and trampled, right?
I just saw a video of a surveillance
camera that was filming a vigil that someone
had been kicked and thrown in all directions.
And then there are some boys on kick
scooters driving past early in the morning when
no one else is around, and then you
see that they stop and then they go
up, and then they repair and put everything
back up again, and then they drive on.
And you see the basic decency that lies
there among ordinary people who are not such
fire in the belly activists, right?
But who are just normal, decent people.
You see them reacting to these people who
are so ideologically autistic that I have seen
for a while.
An ex-account, and it is of course
not representative of anything, but it started like
this.
We are Antifa.
We are going to fight against anti-fascists.
We are 180% against anti-fascists.
No, against fascists.
We are 180% anti-fascist, and we
are going to continue the fight.
And it was this thing here, and I
felt that I had started to formulate a
spiteful answer to them, and then I dropped
it.
But it's like this completely without self-consciousness,
impudent, self-absorbed people's pre-existing activism, and
what I wanted to write is what you
don't understand is that anti-fascists live from
you.
Or sorry, fascists live from you, right?
As long as you and your fantasies of
violence exist, fascists, or those you call fascists,
always have the excuse to screw the screws
for a while, and ordinary people will represent
the fascists over you.
Right?
And this is what they don't understand, because
they live in a bubble of their own
media outlets, and their own friends, and this
opinion community that is so safe and sound,
where they can mean completely absurd things, or
praise themselves for being killed.
And they don't understand how significantly fewer they
are.
Anti-fascist, anti-fascist.
That's just the wrapping on what their package
is.
It includes so many other ideological things within
that.
I guess you could say cultural Marxism to
a certain degree, post-modernism, the removal of
value in what we do value as family
values, for example, the nuclear family unit, having
a sense of community that may be based
in faith, for example.
These things are all wrapped into this Antifa,
where they would happily tear all that down.
And if you have these others that you
kind of characterize as being fascist, if you
must, and they're promising security, safety, family, over
anything else, if they're promising that, well, it's
not really a winning message that Antifa has.
It's funny that you're starting to talk about
cultural Marxism, because that was the only point
of reference to the expert that NRK has
brought in twice in the debate, and another
program to attach this to Breivik.
Yes, exactly.
I saw that.
If it's the use of a single word,
then you're on your way there, and you
have a problem.
And it's intentional, I think, for someone like
her to tie that to Anders Breivik and
the assassination of Charlie Kirk, because it's a
further effort to make that a taboo characterization.
But it doesn't frighten me.
It is what it is, and I'll call
it the absurdity in being an academic and
an expert on TV, and what you're doing
is tying the murder victim to Breivik.
It's so brain-dead that it's impossible.
But this Antifa-fascist, not-fascist thing, the
absurdity in it is that Antifa is an
authoritarian movement that criticizes the authoritarian with a
marginally different flag or blames people almost in
the center for being fascists.
As you say, the conclusion about left-wing
authoritarian is so small, because what you know
is that you get authoritarian anyway, but with
the fascists, you at least get some order
and order.
The names don't matter.
The full name in North Korea is something
like...
The Democratic Republic of North Korea.
People's Democratic Republic, so it's all the way.
But it's not definitionally progressive.
For example, one of my favorite Milton Friedman
quotes was when he was being asked why
is he a Republican?
Maybe he wasn't asked, but he was explaining
I am a Republican with a capital R
and a Libertarian with a lowercase L.
And I'm only a Republican with a capital
R basically for expediency.
I might be butchering that quote a little
bit, but that was the point.
Being a part of the Republican Party was
where he saw the channel through which he
could propagate Libertarian values most effectively.
And so there is grammatically a degree of
importance of defining these terms.
What do these terms mean and how are
they applied and how are they used?
To say somebody is progressive with a capital
P is different than saying somebody is progressive
with a lowercase P.
Of course, this is English grammar as well,
but it is important that we understand the
terms we're using.
So to say those that the anti-fascists
are against are fascists, I think it's very
important to use quotations around fascist because we're
letting Antifa then define, to define the political
landscape which is wildly inaccurate.
And strikingly, they have a power of definition
that is significantly greater than they deserve.
But we have to we have to point
out one thing as well because let's be
a little imprecise and say the leftists, they
have been angry at Trump for years, right?
Then we get to Dr. Kirk, and then
of course there are a lot of correct
reactions from the official USA, whether it is
Pelosi or AOC or whatever it is, then
you react formally at least.
You make the right moves, right?
But yes, the genuineness in grief is probably
not always on a very high level.
But they are very concerned about freedom of
speech on the left, because Jimmy Kimmel has
been kicked out of his talk show, or
at least suspended.
And there I have to admit that even
though even though the cognitive dissonance and double
morality on the left is to take and
feel all the time, and it's a big
lump that you can't avoid you can't look
past it.
So Trump managed to mix in the head
of FCC who started to throw his authority
around to get Jimmy Kimmel kicked out, and
that is well beyond what I think is
acceptable.
I would have celebrated that decision because I
do think what he did what he said
and how he said it was reprehensible.
But I do have a problem with the
chair of the FCC brandishing his authority in
the way that he did to say we
can do this the easy way or the
hard way, and basically saying ABC needs to
do something or else.
Which is almost quite literally what he said.
If ABC doesn't do something, then the FCC
has a lot more work in the coming
days, or whatever it is he said.
There you have a problem.
But I think this situation is actually one
of the best of the current events that
are happening.
This is a great isolated incident to use
to convert people to libertarianism.
I don't care if it was Biden Biden
was using his authority the same way against
conservatives.
In fact, it just came out a couple
days ago that the Biden administration was investigating
and pressuring Turning Point USA and Charlie Kirk
and using their agencies and authorities to put
them in a corner basically.
So Biden was doing the same.
Trump, in this situation, well it's not him
but it's his guy did certainly overstep, but
I think this is one of the best
arguments that why should the government have this
level of authority to begin with?
Why is there an FCC chair that can
tell a private corporation how they're supposed to
handle a situation within their own company?
I find it problematic, one because the authority
was used in this way, but I also
find it problematic that the authority exists at
all What they're afraid of losing is their
affiliate license, basically.
The affiliate license that these networks have, ABC,
NBC, Fox, CBS, they have these licenses that
are granted by the FCC which gives them
a range of benefits and elevates their status
basically in the broadcasting industry.
a part of that having that license states
that you have to operate in a way
that's serving the public interest, and so then
that would become the basis of the threat.
It says, oh, you're allowing a man who's
blatantly lying, but not only blatantly lying, doing
it to anger half the nation at least
there you're no longer serving the public interest.
So at least in the criteria and the
standard of the license, there is a point
to be made, I guess, if that is
the criteria, but the more appropriate way for
the FCC to handle that would have been
having an internal review and going through whatever
process they need to do, and then either
make the decision to revoke the license or
not but then to come out immediately after
the monologue that Kimmel gave, and use the
pressure that way, that I do believe is
problematic and I don't agree with that decision
from the Trump administration, and I think it
could have been handled a lot better Now,
the other side of this is that late
night talk show industry in the United States
is a dying industry.
The fact is, Jimmy Kimmel was not speaking
to tens of millions of people when he
gave that monologue He was speaking to a
very, I mean there are countless YouTubers and
podcasters that garner a much larger audience than
he does on his program, for a fraction
of the budget.
These late night talk shows have massive departments
and teams of people producing them They are
a money pit for these networks They are
not a profitable program anymore.
So I do think that these networks are
looking for the earliest and most convincing excuse
possible to terminate these hosts, and I do
think within the next, say, five years, all
of them will be gone, or at least
their contract won't be.
What we saw with Stephen Colbert, for example,
he wasn't fired, he wasn't there wasn't an
ultimatum given by the Trump administration as has
been characterized since the announcement His employer decided
not to renew the contract, and it wasn't
anything personal against him, it was to end
the program in its entirety.
It wasn't to get rid of him and
bring on someone else.
And I think all of these networks, because
they all have their own version of this
will be following suit within the next five
years.
I'm thinking that we've seen the Trump administration
use unnecessary pressure and use tools they shouldn't
use and now we see that the Trump
administration does the same, and the question is
is it necessary for both sides to realize
that this might not be the way to
go, that this might not be that smart?
Most famous quotes, at least amongst Republicans from
Obama was, listen, I have a pen and
I have a phone.
And the implication there was I'm just going
to write these executive orders to circumvent your
authority as the legislature.
And Republicans, prominent Republicans warned not only Obama,
but the Democrats that were just celebrating this
strongman authority that Obama was embodying, were warned
listen, you can Obama didn't even, by the
end of his second term, he didn't, in
the aggregate he didn't have the most executive
orders I believe Bush even had more, and
Bill Clinton had more than him but what
he did do was he expanded the scope
of what the executive orders were used for.
And prominent Republicans and leaders within the party
were warning Democrats, we don't like this we
don't like this use of presidential authority, we
don't like this use of executive orders, and
we should warn you that just because Obama's
president now doesn't mean the next guy that
comes is going to be a guy you
like.
And this is long before Trump was on
the stage or anything.
And sure enough, that's what happened.
Now the precedent has been set and to
your point in question is, will one of
them realize that this isn't the way to
handle things?
I think it's a burgeoning machine that once
it gets moving in that direction I'm not
sure how you stop it.
Unless it's the will of the people and
who they vote for and say this is
really what's important to us rather than whatever
subsidies and projects and other things that they're
earmarking in their budget.
So I'm not sure how to reverse course
on that.
And now we see Republicans doing what the
Democrats have been doing to Republicans for the
last 10 years with cancel culture and using
the FCC to pressure and all this.
And so as I said, I don't support
this decision by the FCC chair and the
Trump administration and I put it this way,
I said I am principally against how this
unfolded but I know that principally speaking, Jimmy
Kimmel supports what happened to Jimmy Kimmel.
He hasn't been a passive participant in cancel
culture the last few years.
No, and of all people he'd like everyone
to forget but he came from a program
called The Man Show in the early 2000's
and there was a program that was entirely
based on the comedic degradation of women he
proudly wore blackface on that program these were
all things that which, whatever, I'm not making
any character judgments there, it's his program, he
had an audience but I find it interesting
that it's only now that he's being quote
unquote cancelled how is it that the left
let him get away with his history for
so long and so this all kind of
pieces together that Republicans not only have endured
the violation of speech from Democrats through various
methodologies but also saw that it was selective
and arbitrary in that if you're with us
then we can let you get away with
it, and if you're not, we're going to
dig up 20 years of sins and then
you could hope that, let's say, the broader
left has come up with better ideas now,
because now they're very focused on freedom of
speech around this Jimmy Kimmel case, but I
notice that there are very few on the
left who are particularly concerned about freedom of
speech in Great Britain.
I don't think they were concerned when Tucker
Carlson got fired from Fox, or?
I think Jimmy Kimmel actually celebrated it quite
clearly on stage Yes, absolutely, and now it's
just the shoe is on the other foot
What I will say is there's a lot
of concern about how will Trump use this,
how is the right going to react moving
forward you did see some prominent figures on
the right such as Matt Walsh and some
others from the Daily Wire Candace Owens is
another one, but she's pushing herself more and
more into the fringe of conservatism She's basically
crazy I was trying to say that politely,
but yes I can just mention that she
has been all the way because she had
a libertarian phase as well, and that was
so untrustworthy, so she's a definition by Grifter
Yes, I think that's a good characterization and
it's actually interesting to watch how a lot
of these media personalities go through phases and
still maintain an audience throughout but my point
is, you had a lot of them give
visceral reactions to this in the aftermath and
with maybe not so subtle overtones of implications
of violence and things like that, but personally,
I'm coming away from this.
I think this is devastating for the nation
and this has truly impacted me and I
do think that there is this is changing
the timeline somehow, and I'm not exactly sure
how that's going to look moving forward, but
strangely, this has if my mind wasn't already
at ease before, I have never felt any
sense of fear that the United States is
going to devolve into a civil war.
That has never been a concern of mine.
It's a question I get asked often, either
on air or off air and I am
always very firm in my response there, that
it's not going to happen.
I don't think that this is going to
happen.
I don't have any reason to be concerned
for the potential of another civil war in
the United States and strangely enough, this event
has only confirmed that further for me.
I don't think Americans at all have the
stomach for the idea of shooting their neighbors
I don't think that that is on the
horizon at all.
What I do think may happen is we've
been watching Republican states do this for I
don't know, probably close to 15 or 20
years, gradually, and now we're starting to see
Democrat states do the same and is what
is called a soft secession where states are
starting to realize the sovereignty they actually have
as a state and that there are legal
remedies for them to circumvent the directives from
the federal government so that they can be
more autonomous as a state and in that
you have more or less what is a
soft secession and that I think is more
realistic expectation going forward.
I think we're going to start seeing more
and more of that from both sides it
will be Democrat states and Republican states whatever
their values are and whatever their priorities are,
we'll be moving in the direction of those
priorities as a sovereign state as distanced as
they can be from the federal government and
one thing that they will sorry, one thing
that they will have to grapple with and
stomach in doing that, and left wing states
will have a harder time doing this than
Republican states is that in doing so, you
will you will have to voluntarily deprive yourself
of federal funding.
That's the only way it can happen.
You have to be able to swallow that
pill and say ok, we do not value
what the federal government is trying to make
us do they're paying us a lot of
money to follow their instructions so we either
do what we don't want to do what
violates our morals and principles whatever they are,
left wing or right wing or we cut
off the money flow and go our separate
ways In Norway there's a culture to celebrate
a little that politicians on all sides have
a personal relationship between each other after the
election that was just up, a group picture
was taken of all the party leaders where
everyone smiled, whether they were election winners or
election losers, and it was very clear that
these are people who accept each other appreciate
each other, it's always like that and that
is celebrated in Norway and it's very visible
now that if you fall out of this
very narrow spectrum that is the parties then
there is no space left but the ideal
is there that we have to be able
to talk to each other across ideological lines
and what it has to be, and it
occurred to me that if we manage to
turn this around to a kind of we
actually have to talk to each other we
have to distance ourselves from those who go
too far whether it's when the FCC chair
begins to censor put the tongue on the
scale in matters of freedom of speech or
leftists who celebrate a political attack and that
if it takes two weeks or two months
or two years is not so important but
it is that we sort out what is
right and important and what is not and
I think that will come and that may
be the hope that if those of us
who feel that the world is getting out
of hand now manages to keep focus on
if we ourselves try to focus on doing
and behave properly and do what is right
that would be crossroads, for example in this
case criticize the FCC chair even though I
think the left deserves more criticism for the
time but we just stick to that principle
and maybe ask the left a little more
if they think there are any freedom of
speech problems in Great Britain for the time
when you have 10 times as many per
inhabitant imprisoned for speech on social media than
Russia I
think most people on the left they respond
and the only thing that's driving them is
expediency, what is it right now that's going
to benefit me in the moment there isn't
a basic fundamental principle that's guiding them anymore
I think maybe once upon a time they
did have that I think that's lost now
what I do think is interesting in comparing
the United States and Norway, the United States
has obviously been polarizing as a nation for
some time and the difference in Norway it's
not happening at the same pace or at
the same rate, but there is a polarization
happening in Norway too but I think the
difference is, other than the pace that it's
happening in the United States the polarization is
happening but we know it's happening, we can
see it happening it's not hidden it's unavoidable
we've been watching the progression or digression, however
you want to phrase that, we've been watching
this polarization happen in real time, all the
time contrast that to Norway, where there is
a polarization effect happening, but we can't see
it it's not acknowledged it's not addressed in
any way and there you do have a
form of censorship as well, when you have
the state funded media apparatus that not only
puts someone in a chair behind a microphone
and on the camera regardless of whether or
not they're an expert in what they're fixing
to discuss, but they also decide who doesn't
get to sit in the chair and what
will be it will be interesting to see
how this polarization develops in Norway I think
there will, who knows how long it will
take, but there will come a day where
it's going to be a kind of rude
awakening for a lot of average Norwegians it
will come as a shock, where did this
come from how did we get here, but
it has been happening all along it's just,
it isn't visible I can also add because
we are what should I say part of
an environment that attracts people who experience that
they don't have anything to do in the
mainstream and it's from many it's all from
conspiracy theorists to vaccine skeptics to people who
are angry about the children's world to a
lot of things and it's like in Fjøslyk
that everyone who doesn't feel at home will
go somewhere else but after the corona period
and the shutdown I think it's a bit
underestimated in the mainstream how much, how many
people who have scaled off the trust society
we have had and when they continue as
you mentioned there are so many, especially in
the growing generation the Gen Z-ers who
have their own relationship to Charlie Kirk and
have seen the clips with him and know
that he's a guy who behaves and debates
constructively, he's good at it he doesn't say
anything very crazy, and he's not racist I
look at all the interactions he has with
blacks, with questions about quotations or racial questions,
or what it is and you see that
it's fundamentally not a racist approach, it's a
constructive fact-based approach you can disagree with
his conclusions but it's still political political opinions
and policies that are different than many others
and if you're 19 years old or 22
years old, and you've seen this on the
internet for 5 or 10 years then you
see mainstream media coming up with completely ridiculous
quotes, leaving the impression that Charlie Kirk is
a complete racist and it just erodes complete
confidence, complete faith in these people who are
now talking after knowing Charlie Kirk for half
an hour it's difficult to...
because in all the debates and conversations that
I've engaged in about the assassination since it's
happened, in so many of those conversations I
have felt like the person I'm talking to
is moments away from asking me, who are
you going to believe me or your lying
eyes and that is kind of the sense
you get from the mainstream narrative, the acceptable
narrative, is no, no, no I saw an
article recently that said, here's how doing your
own research can radicalize you to the right
and the article and headline were written without
an ounce of satire or parody, it was
a totally serious article and that's kind of
the impression that's left here, especially with the
Gen Z crowd and they too can be
quite passionate despite any degree of ignorance about
whatever politics, I was the same when I
was that age and these, because social media
and this kind of content, regardless of the
app, TikTok, Facebook, X, whatever it's so prevalent,
it's everywhere, these kids, that's all they know
and they are watching this kind of stuff
all the time and I think they're it's
kind of, take the late night show for
example, late night talk shows the audience for
that is people who are 65 and older
basically and so there is going to be
a gradual phasing out of these legacy outlets
because the young people not only don't watch
them, they don't trust them and that doesn't
matter what side of the political spectrum they're
on, it's so sanitized and structured and deceptive
that they can just go directly to the
source on their phone, which they have been
programmed to do through trial and error of
their adolescence that I don't even think a
lot of the people that age even think
about it, they just do it I remember
I'm probably like an old man pushing 50,
I'm probably closer to Gen Z than many
other 50 year olds, because you're on the
internet a lot and I just remember that
Covington case we were on in 2019 where
you watch the media narrative, you watch how
it's told, and then you're in Norway and
you get interested, is it really like that?
and then there's someone who puts on YouTube
this surveillance video for 2 hours where you
can see the whole process, you can do
it yourself and you can do research, and
you're just doing it as a private person
you see that it's not close to the
story that's being told in the media, and
then you see this rolling on for weeks
and it's so devastating for the trust in
either NRK or VG or whatever it is
and you can see, yes, there were some
instances that were unacceptable, but to watch you
could watch hours and hours of that footage,
and if you walked away coming to the
conclusion that was fed to you by mainstream
media that it was a military coup that
it was a violent insurrection that you couldn't
possibly come to that conclusion, I mean, you
had elderly people walking through the halls looking
at the paintings on the wall, you had
younger people that were strolling and just looking
around and there were many of them being
escorted by the security that ran the building
and simply being observed it was inappropriate what
happened I guess you could say, but certainly
the characterization of it as a violent, almost
militant insurrection was wildly off base, but a
lot of people just like the Covington situation
still believe what the initial reporting was, and
how that was framed almost immediately I will
add, for the sake of order Trump's departure
in that situation was in my opinion, very
critical to sit as a president and not
intervene in what, and yet was a large
population that went against the government and could
have gone much worse and in my vocabulary
the word insurrection sounds much more like the
Black Lives Matter thing that burned down entire
cities I
think it was well over 100 I'm
not sure how you do that and I'm
not sure that that's going to make anything
better either but I do think there's absolutely
a reasonable argument to be made that the
tactics and methods that Antifa uses are certainly
terroristic.
They are certainly a violent cohort of society
they certainly have no problem intimidating innocent people
in the town square and absolutely they embody
what you would conventionally call a terrorist movement
And the definition is quite simple it's just
that you use violence or threats to influence
politics and
make sure that everyone involved agrees on that
definition because it is quite complex We can
for example sit here and acknowledge that Antifa
is terrorist but the question is one, how
will the government define them as terrorists and
two, how can that definition be applied to
other organizations later and that's for me where
it gets a little concerning I fully agree
Antifa needs to be dealt with and I
fully agree that the way that they behave
in the town square and how they treat
others is unacceptable my concern is once the
federal government, once Trump starts it's the same
kind of, I feel that same instinctive warning
that I was telling people about Obama under
his tenure my concern here is okay, what
are you doing and how is this going
to be used against me later No, and
it's frustrating to say that what often is
difficult is to ignore the losers, right?
because if they don't get attention they will
be gone they have to be so spectacular
that you don't have a choice the
problem worse than it was when probably the
best way to go about it is just
collectively as a society say it's unacceptable, you
as a person are going to be arrested
for whatever crimes you perpetrate but we're not
going to treat this as a serious political
movement George
Soros and the like I do that I
believe will happen you will see the Trump
administration start to go after these organizations under
a variety of charges I know they mentioned
RICO for one for one criminal type of
investigation, but also going after the NGOs which
needs to be done anyway, and I think
Elon Musk really genuinely tried to do that
with Doge was to, I mean the number
of NGOs that we subsidize and Rand Paul
just off the cuff had a great response
to this when all the Doge controversy was
going on he said, how can you be
an NGO when you're taking our money something
to that effect how can you be classified
as a non-governmental organization when the lion's
share of your funding is coming from the
government, how can that be these are mutually
exclusive things it's a silent N so there
are two N's non-non-governmental organization double
negative it could have been a description of
the Norwegian press yes, absolutely ok I think
we're almost half an hour so we're getting
close to the end it was very nice
to have you here I have one final
question you're the chairman of Republicans Abroad but
we have certain similarities can you explain why
Libertarians
Abroad in
order despite the characterizations of the Republican Party
the Republican Party is a big tent party
there are a diversity of views and opinions
I can say, whenever there is a primary
ballot in front of me for choosing who
will be the presidential candidate for the Republican
Party I have, in every election when I
have the opportunity, always voted for Rand Paul
I have never voted for example for Donald
Trump in a primary election I have voted
for Donald Trump three times in the general
election but I feel that I'm we discussed
earlier which media platforms wanted to hear from
me after the assassination of Charlie Kirk and
this occasion, which was unusual, because usually when
something of this scale happens my phone is
ringing throughout the day trying to get a
comment not this time, and that was a
strange experience, I was expecting it but it
didn't come.
That being said if I were to represent
Libertarians Abroad, if they have such an apparatus,
the phone would never ring and I would
have no platform to convey my values and
principles also, that being said as much as
I'm a Republican in the two party system
of the United States and I wish it
weren't so, I wish the Libertarian Party was
a serious organization, I wish that I had
an opportunity to vote for a truly Libertarian
candidate in the United States I wish that
all of that was true, but that is
not the reality of the situation in the
United States but as we know we do
have our party here in Norway Liberalistene and
that I have always felt is more of
my party, more of my political home than
any other party anywhere but if you have
the values that I have and the political
principles that I advocate, for which I advocate
and I was in America typically speaking, you
would be a member of the Republican Party
we can see that with Thomas Massey we
can see that with Rand Paul we can
see that with the Liberty Caucus within the
United States Congress these are typically people who
are free market capitalists, classical liberal Libertarians with
a small L trying to do what they
can as a Republican with a capital R
Yes, and I have to say that after
I see the reactions on the Charlie Kirk
and what kind of movement that does not
take distance from it and cleans up in
it it is the first time in a
long time that I think that if I
had to choose then we would have been
in the same party already and we would
have been both against it but ok, thank
you so much for a long and nice
talk I hope you will come back sometime
Yes, of course and thank you both for
having me today Just to say, we will
always be around the table Ok, thank you
for today Have a good day Thank you
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