The temperature is not going down

Despite the desperate both siding of the issue it ain't going away

It’s not great, Bob

It’s been an absolutely insane week by any measure. There is just no other way to put it. Since I last wrote there was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump, the dismissal of the classified documents case in Florida, and the wholly crazy Republican National Convention. All of this against the backdrop of the continuing efforts of the very Smart People™ to push Joe Biden out of the race that was only made worse with the announcement that he had tested positive for Covid.

So, yeah….that was nuts.

For me, what it highlighted was the continuing threat of political and extremist violence that we have watched build for years. We don’t actually know the motive of the shooter in Pennsylvania still. It appears more and more he was another lonely kid with access to high powered weapons and a desire to use them. His phone had pictures of Trump as well as a host of Democratic officials. In the end it seems Trump’s rally was the most convenient target.

It was shocking in real time to see it unfold. My first indicator was watching my colleague at MeidasTouch known as (@)acyn simply tweet “Trump has been shot.” Leading me to a desperate search for more information. What I found was a mess. We still don’t know the extent of Trump’s injuries nor the impact on the race.

I did have a moment where I wondered what it would mean and some of my fellow political pundits immediately jumped into surrender mode. I told my campaigns and friends to simply hold their cards and let it play out. The one thing I have learned in the last 8 years of watching the MAGA movement is that they are able to break the laws of physics.

For every action there is a substantially greater overreaction by MAGA.

Always.

This time was no different from threats of ‘Second Amendment solutions’ to calls for open civil war and accusations that the “radical left” had shot him. Federal agencies put out warnings of concerns about increased political violence. Many were worried there would be some sort of reaction and that threat is far from over. I found myself reviewing my personal security and ensuring that my stuff was locked up tight.

What is happening here?

Immediately there were calls to ‘turn down the temperature’ in the country. In classic American style, both sides were blamed for the heightened tensions with their rhetoric. The MAGA movement banned together to blame Democrats for saying that Trump was a threat to democracy. Let’s not let the fact that the shooter appeared to be a registered Republican get in the way of a good propaganda cycle.

Any sane person knows that the heightened rhetoric isn’t coming from the left. The last 16 years have seen a dramatic increase in the threats of violence that only increased under Trump highlighted by the Unite the Right march in Charlottesville where after Trump claimed that there were very fine people on both sides of the issue.

There were not very fine people on the side that carried tiki torches through the University of Virginia campus chanting ‘Jews will not replaces us!’ or fought in the streets and killed Heather Hyer. My own son-in-law was there with the Virginia National Guard. I am certain very fine people did not show up in their ridiculous incel outfits.

One town becomes an example

Nashville, Tennessee has found itself smack in the middle of this unfortunate trend from actual Nazis marching in the streets, conspiracy/Q-Anon believers running for office or serving in positions of power, militias getting involved in politics, and an increasingly heated and divided State House.

There is one constant to this moment. Phil Williams. He is the multi-award winning investigative reporter for News Channel 5 in Nashville and has been covering the city and surrounding region for over 30 years. He knows his town. In the last year, Phil has broken a host of important stories on the increasing extremism and continues to this day to courageously confront those who wish to bring harm and discord and tell the truth on them.

As I write this, Phil posted a story of himself literally asking Nazis in the street why they think they are a “superior race.”

He is….relentless.

I have wanted to get him on my show for ages and this moment seemed like the right time. For the last two months he has been all over the story of Sean Taylor, a conspiracy fan who is now the Assistant Police Chief of Millersville, TN, just north of Nashville. Before that he broke the story of another extremist running for mayor of Franklin, a nice suburb of the Nashville.

We talked about those stories and the larger picture on the new episode. I can’t recommend this one enough. The fact is we face a dangerous moment and we must face it with courage to end it before it catches us all.

The Show

Phil Williams

Phil Williams is chief investigative reporter for NewsChannel 5's nationally award-winning investigative team. For more than three decades, Phil has set the standard for serious investigative journalism on the state and local level, making a difference in his community year after year and earning him the industry’s highest honors and praise from his peers. Phil is the 2023 recipient of the prestigious John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism, which is presented each year to a reporter with courage, character and integrity for cumulative professional accomplishments. Phil is the first local television journalist to ever receive the honor. In addition, Phil is a four-time recipient of the prestigious duPont-Columbia Award and a three-time recipient of the George Foster Peabody Award. He is the only TV journalist to ever receive a coveted Toner Prize for political reporting. Beginning his career as a print reporter, Phil was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.

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I also sat down with Trygve Hammer a Naval Academy graduate and Marine combat veteran who is running for the open North Dakota At Large House seat against the latest MAGA sweetheart who thinks that there is such a thing as “post-birth abortion.” Check it out now too.