Program transcript:
Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. Political violence appears to have increased significantly in recent years. What's driving it? And does it say something about not just the perpetrators, but also about us? My guest today is Robert Pape. He's a political science professor at the University of Chicago and the director of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats. He's written a new book, it's titled, "Our Own Worst Enemies: America in the Age of Violent Populism." Professor Pape, welcome to the program.
Robert Pape: Thanks for having me.
GR: Well, we really appreciate you making the time. So, let me just start with this question, it’s sort of the way you start the book. You argue in your book that we have entered a, some kind of a new era of political violence in America. When did that new era start, and was there a turning point or some kind of an inflection point that put us into it?
RP: So, we are in a new era, Grant. I call that era violent populism and it's because of this, the most important thing about our politics today and what will matter as we head into the midterm elections and the counting, not just the voting, is this, there are tens of millions of Americans on both sides of the aisle that support political violence for their political objectives. And that changes everything. It changes who the perpetrators of political violence are, it changes the frequency, it changes our politics. And that is not normal, that is an abnormal situation. In fact, we are normalizing political violence, it's becoming acceptable. It's not exactly unique in our history, we've seen this at various periods of time before, the book covers, but it's been a long time, been a long time. This isn't, oh, we experienced this in the year 1995 or 1985, no, it's been a while. And it's important then to give it a name so that we understand what we are facing. And it's not just political violence, and it's not just the same old, although a lot of the same old hate is with us, I'm not saying that's gone away, but it's tens of millions of Americans support political violence. And that is why I call it the era of violent populism.
GR: And do you think this has a lot to do with political polarization? I mean, that's been something that's been on the rise for the last 40 or 50 years. It seems like it's been on steroids since 2016. Is that part of the story?
RP: It is, and it isn't. So political polarization, as you just said, has been with us for many, many decades. We talk now about gerrymandering, but sometimes we forget that's been going on since the 90s and very aggressive ways. You just said polarization on steroids, well, that is a way to describe violent populism. So, think of it, the era we're in now is blowing way by policy polarization or just the consequences of gerrymandering. We're now in a new era of politics where we see each other on the two sides as existential enemies. The idea of losing to the other side isn't a polarization difference where, gee, we just got to fight harder next time around. No, it's, should the loser even concede to the victor. This is beyond these issues of polarization. It is a new dimension and a far more violent dimension. And that is why we need to understand that this is not just a steady state. There are roots, so absolutely, we'll talk about the roots, we didn't get here out of, simply dropped down out of Mars or something.
GR: (laughter)
RP: So there are roots to how we got here. But it's not simply a magnification, it's a whole new dimension, and that's why it feels so different. That's why the stakes in the midterms feel, oh my goodness gracious, how could we lose and live with the loss? And that includes all kinds of issues, the Iran war, measles now breaking out. So, this is literally felt as life or death or economic life and death. So, we are now in this different realm and that's why we need to understand that this is a far more volatile situation and that's the era of violent populism.
GR: So, I'm still on the hunt, I want to go on this hunt with you, figuring out things that might be contributing to it. And I was thinking about this last night, because I was flipping through my Netflix recommendations, actually kind of put this thought in my head as I was preparing for our interview, that I wonder how much the entertainment media has to do with this, because it just seems like it's filled with political violence and filled with, you know, political conspiracy theories of all sorts. And I was thinking about this and thinking back on my own life, much more than any previous period that I can remember where you would just get this many similar themes. And I thought, okay, is this a partial cause? Is this a reflection of what you're talking about in your book?
RP: It is a factor. It's what I think of as a secondary factor. Or another way to put it, pouring gasoline on a fire.
GR: Okay.
RP: So, you have with our echo chambers, you mentioned Netflix, you could pick any platforms, social media platforms, or increasingly, the legacy media platforms and they have formed echo chambers over time that are really quite hard in silos. And that then directs their messages, makes it harder for them to evolve messages and makes it so that extremism and literally being angry at each other, is the number one way to get clicks. And you notice, let me just pick, you mentioned Netflix, let me just pick somebody else. So, you notice on both Fox and CNN, they often lead by showing clips of the other. That is, CNN will lead with a clip of Fox, or Fox will lead with a clip of CNN literally trying to anger their audiences to keep them emotionally attached. And so, you could also feel like, well, gee, I know what CNN and Fox think because I'm seeing them both all the time. And so yes, it is, it's a factor. But what we what we would have expected is that if this really was a function of, say, cable, that we would have seen this in the violent populism in the 90s. Now, we saw the culture wars in the 90s, but not, again, polarization, but not this extreme form. Or some people will say, well, no, it's really a function of the cell phone. So, it's now you've gone from cable to cell phone. Well, those cell phones now, 20 years ago, did this thing called the smartphone come into existence, you see. And so, we need to recognize that they play a powerful role. So, I don't really mean to marginalize them, but there are bigger social causes that we are seeing connected with political violence. Not just simply entertainment, not just simply what you might call extremism. And so, my work and what I was, really set out to do in the book was figure out, well, why are we in such a violent period in our country? And it really is true. The book will go to great lengths to cover FBI data, and it really doesn't matter which data you choose. Even, by the way, the studies that purport on their headlines to say it's only rising on the left or only rising on the right. Once you lift the hood, as the book will do, you'll be perhaps not surprised to discover there's a lot less difference under the hood once you actually see what the numbers actually look like year by year. And so, the book will show you, yes, we really are in this elevated period. You have to go back to the 1960s before you find a similar, comparable, elevated period like this. And then the question is why? Well, it's because the 60s, that's over 60 years ago here, so why, what's happened here now and why wasn't it, 30 years ago or 30 years from now? And this is important because we're living the here and now. So we want to know, why now? And that was my big question going into the book.
GR: I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with Robert Pape, a political science professor at the University of Chicago and the author of "Our Own Worst Enemies: America in the Age of Violent Populism." So, it's not a novel, I'm not going to worry about spoiling it. What is the root, then? What did you end up finding, the kernel?
RP: So the root is really social changes, Grant. And I've been studying political violence around the world for over 30 years. For a scholar like me, understanding Lebanon, other countries, political violence as a product of social change is actually just a common experience. There are many, many academic articles about all those other countries. That said, that has not been applied to the United States. So, this book is doing something different. And so, what I discovered was, social changes, although not the exact same social changes, but social changes are really driving this support for political violence, which then leads to more political violence. So, what are the social changes? There's two big ones. Social change, number one, is for the first time in our country's 250 year history, we're transitioning from a white majority democracy to a white minority democracy, again, first time in 250 years. Give a couple of data points, in 1990, America was 76% non-Hispanic white as a people. Today we're 57% non-Hispanic white. It'll be another 10, 15, 20 years depending on deportations, now you start to see the lightning rod, before we become a white minority democracy. And as a democracy, and we normally think of democracies as inoculating against political violence. Well, as a democracy, once you change those demographics, you change a lot about power in the country. You change, the parties are changing as a result of this, you change the, literally the people governing our country as a result of this. And it's happening now in the tipping point generation, Grant. So this isn't where we started this, and we've got, oh, another 50 years before we see the end or it's already happened, no, we're it's happening here and now. And that helps to explain Trump's meteoric rise. It's not just Trump is a reality, there's a lot of reality TV stars, it's his issue of immigration because a lot of people on the right want to slow down or actually reverse, that's where deportation comes from, this demographic shift and then that's produced a boomerang, intense boomerang on the left, because a lot of people on the left want that change to continue and want to accelerate it for fear that the right will stop it, will shut it down. So literally that spiral is occurring and that's already a giant social change. And we actually have a second change, if that wasn't bad enough.
GR: Well, let me do this, let me ask you to hold the second change till after our break, because I want to give you plenty of time to develop it. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with Robert Pape, the University of Chicago political scientist is the director of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats. And he's the author of a new book titled, "Our Own Worst Enemies: America in the Age of Violent Populism" and we've been discussing the issues that he raises in that book. So, where we left off, you had two big root causes. You had explained the first one, what's the other one?
RP: The first root cause of this, of social change is demographic shift, becoming a white minority democracy for the first time in our country's 250 year history. Already an unbelievably volatile issue. Well, in addition to identity, there's a wealth shift that's occurring, and many people very familiar with the wealth shift, because it also bleeds into the affordability crisis. What I mean is, over the last 30, just as we're going through this tipping point generation with our identity, we're also shifting massive wealth to the top 1%. Well, when you do that, that means the bottom 90% are getting relatively less off, poorer, I call it a negative sum society for 90% of us, Grant. And it's not just poor, it's not just working class, it's middle and even upper middle class. And it's happening, by the way, on both the right and the left, because the affordability crisis doesn't pick by party. So, what you're seeing is this wealth shift is creating enormous strain. You see it, we did focus groups and it was front and center in the focus groups in ways that I actually wasn't quite expecting because I knew about the student loan problem, I didn't know that people who were 50 years old still, I knew they were still paying on the loans, I didn't know they felt their future had been stolen from them. Literally, the anger was so deep that they took out these loans, they were supposed to get ahead, they're 50 years old, they're going to, you can't declare bankruptcy, maybe a lot of people don't know that, there's no get out of jail card here. So, you've got to keep going, which means there's no money for a down payment for a house. And by the time you're 50-52 paying these things off, there's, when are you supposed to get a house, when you're 65? So what you see is deep anger here. And you put these two together, Grant, you, it's not that people don't know, we talk about identity, it's not that people don't know we have an affordability issue, they don't know the red tails of these issues and how they're the driving forces that's leading to this mass support for political violence on the right and the left, willingness, literally, for people to be ambivalent in addition to supporting violence. Like, sure, why am I defending this establishment which has wrecked my financial future? So, we're in a world, Grant, where we have a combustible combination, I call it the pernicious cocktail. And that social set of social changes is hitting together right now.
GR: And you have an entire chapter of your book that revolves around ICE. And I can see as you're talking that, you know, the reason it's there I'm gathering is because of this first reason, root cause, because, as you pointed out with the deportation, this is kind of one of the ways this has, I don't know if this is the right word, but blossomed or erupted in real policy terms.
RP: It’s a volcano around, yeah, it's not just a disagreement, this is why the word polarization doesn't capture it. So, I live in Chicago, we had operation Midway Blitz. I've studied that, the book goes through that. Then Minneapolis, that's Metro blitz. These are highly combustible situations where the identity politics isn't just a disagreement or the culture wars over merit or teachers’ pay. This is literally about whether militarized ICE agents can show up and with surprise knocks on the door and right in neighborhoods, just ordinary neighborhoods, and if the ICE people get it wrong, they bang down the door, there’s a shootout, oh, sorry, made a mistake. And we're supposed to understand that? No, as I'm explaining these, this social change, the other side is not accepting this. I mean, this is intrusion, like, we don't have a history of this intrusion in our lives. And so, what you end up with is protests. And these protests are really, it's not so much they're immediately violent as much as they are there to protect their kids. So literally, you've got a situation where, with, if you have these militarized operations by federal agents, are we really supposed to let our 10, 11 and 12 year old kids walk to the elementary school that's only three blocks away and say, oh yeah, no, they'll be okay. Really? I mean, and so that's where this becomes far more combustible, Grant, than we're used to. And that's only one dimension, but it's a major dimension, which is why I devoted a whole chapter to the book on this.
GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. And my guest is Robert Pape, the author of "Our Own Worst Enemies America: in the Age of Violent Populism." So, how do we get out of this, what do we do?
RP: So, we're heading to a tinderbox election. And what I mean by that is, most people think the issues with violence around an election have to do with voter intimidation. And there is a bit of that, but the truth is, Grant, the threat of voter intimidation usually causes more turnout. And that's been, that's true. So, people just don't get intimidated. The problems with political violence escalate the moment the polling stops, the poll booths close, and the counting begins.
GR: Yeah, that's what I'm worried about, too.
RP: Because that's, the counting is what determines the winners. And then will the winners be certified and properly seated? So, we have real experience with this six years ago, and we saw what happened when a loser, who was also the party that lost in the president, had the president, and the loser did not go quietly into the night. So that's, and it wasn't just over, like a day, and it didn't end with the election day. It actually almost, there's a little bit of precursor here, but it really gets serious after Election Day. And that is what I'm worried about now. Now, the book will also cover, by the way, longer term issues. And there are things to say about policies that we can adopt that wouldn't be far more helpful to get through this era of social change. And the book lays those out, but it's important to understand in the next few months, the idea of getting a real policy change through Congress, that's not really what we have to worry about. So that's why I'm focusing on some very specific things we should be thinking about. And I'm sorry to say, when I finish the final galleys of this book, Grant, it was in the spring, and you can tell from the last chapter I'm worried about certain sequences. They're already happening. They're literally, we're in October in the early part of October, and we're literally seeing unfold these sequences, and that's what's important to know. So, if you feel, people will want to know when they're upset, are they alone? Because so many people in our country, Grant, abhor political violence, and they understand innately it goes and makes things worse. And what's important for the people with this book is, it does have specific ideas what to do, but also is telling them that 70% of the American public, to this day in our national surveys, abhors political violence. If you're feeling upset, uneasy, you're not alone. And that's a very important thing, Grant, because we feel when, and I’ve studied, again, I've studied political violence in a lot of countries, so many people feel alone in these situations, and it's just important to say, yes, we can actually understand what's happening. And yes, there are things that can make it better, worse, but you know what? We're going to get through this journey together. It's going to be rocky, but we're going to get through this. And that's a big message that's in the book over and above like the specific policy things we should do next week, next month, etc..
GR: I just want to put a separate plug in for the back of your book, because you've mentioned other countries. You have some very handy appendixes in the back where you look at different countries and their experiences and I thought that was a nice addition.
RP: And I did that Grant, because so many people think that we would sleepwalk into authoritarianism, that's become a term.
GR: Right.
RP: But the history shows for a mature democracy like ours, I don't mean if you're not really a real democracy, you're fledgling, I mean if you're a mature democracy like ours, the way you lose ground as a democracy, the way you die, is through political violence first. And that's because the more political violence occurs, the more the executive feels entitled to declare insurrection acts. That's our specific American form, but that's happened in other countries.
GR: And people look to those leaders to handle that situation, right?
RP: That's right, and it becomes more acceptable. So how do you have a democracy that's actually a working, real democracy? Descend and die? It's not through sleepwalking, it's through political violence and the normalization of it, and that's what I'm warning about. I'm trying to help people understand that, that we're, it's the political violence that's causing us to lose ground as a democracy. It's not, first you lose ground as a democracy, then you fight about it. No, it actually goes the other way around in history.
GR: Well, we've only got about a minute and a half left and I wanted to ask you about this. I understand the argument about it's important that we know what's happening, that we know we're not alone if we're worried about it and we can put it in a bigger context and that is the contribution of the book. But how much responsibility is there on our leaders in the next few years and what they say?
RP: Yeah. So, we definitely want to hold our leaders accountable. And I just want to end with a clear example of how to do that in a positive way, which was with the No Kings protest that has happened since Trump took office. So, those leaders of that protest movement, they put front and center on every website, everything, not just come out and demonstrate, but peaceful, demonstrate peaceful, and that was controversial. And I know because I talked to some of those leaders. See, those issues, first of all, having just two messages is controversial, Grant. And they decided to go this way, and my argument was you'll get even bigger turnout because people, the 70%, they abhor political violence and they don't want it to be violent, you'll get more and you'll actually get further along. And I believe one of the reasons that there may be a blue wave coming is not just the Iran war and affordability, but because this pattern has been established. So, this is an important lesson going forward, and also for our leaders, because our leaders are too willing to just get a vote and not realize they might be able to get more votes if they were leading peaceful change.
GR: Well, we'll leave it on that hopeful note. That was Robert Pape. And again, his new book is titled, "Our Own Worst Enemies: America in the Age of Violent Populism." It's a very insightful book, a very important book, and it's also a very good read. Professor Pape, thanks so much for talking with me, really learned a lot.
RP: Thank you, Grant.
GR: You've been listening to the "Campbell Conversations" on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.
