Why is US political violence on the rise? — Global News Podcast

[0:00] Welcome to the Global News Podcast. I'm Keith Adams and I'm joined by our White House correspondent [0:06] in Washington, Bernd de Boosman. Now, Bernd, there are questions now being asked about the [0:12] security at the event and I know there are reports that the shooter was actually staying there. It's [0:19] not your first time attending a White House correspondent dinner. What are we hearing? [0:24] Well, in retrospect, I think a lot of questions will be asked about how much [0:29] the hotel was secured. When I got to the hotel on Saturday night, I got there quite early to have [0:35] a drink with some friends that I knew were going to be at the dinner. When I walked in, I did think [0:40] it was quite strange that there were hotel guests clearly not going to the dinner. Everyone going [0:46] to the dinner was wearing tuxedos and evening gowns that were just kind of sitting in the lobby mingling [0:53] or walking around the bar area, which is in the lobby, very close to members of Congress or really [1:00] quite prominent journalists that do kind of face at least online threats. And that struck me as a [1:08] little odd, but I didn't think much of it. And then I think most importantly, there are many side parties [1:16] at the hotel ahead of the main reception. None of those seem to have much security at all. And at no [1:22] point was I asked to show any form of ID. I briefly showed my ticket to get in from the street. I know [1:30] of friends who walked into parties to which they were not invited. And there was no metal detector until [1:36] one kind of descended much further into the party just before the reception area where there was kind of [1:43] an hour worth of open bar and drinks. And that's where apparently this incident took place. But [1:50] many questions will be asked about how exactly this this took place and if the perimeter around the [1:57] ballroom was secure, even if the ballroom itself might have been secure. Let's broaden this out a bit [2:02] more and talk about, you know, politically motivated crime and violence in the United States. That's the [2:10] third assassination attempt, I think, on Trump. And and then we've had other violent incidents, [2:15] including the Charlie Charlie Kirk assassination. What's going on burned? Well, that's something that [2:21] there's been growing concern about even over the course of years that there's been more and more acts [2:27] of political violence. I was actually at the the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, as well during the [2:34] Trump campaign. And to me, the the the feeling immediately after and the conversations that were [2:40] had immediately after, I mean, they they were very, very similar in my mind. And I think the the consensus [2:47] among Americans is that as society here is becoming more polarized, these incidents seem to be on the [2:54] rise. At one point several years ago, the FBI kind of warned very specifically that this was on the rise and [2:59] there's more danger of violence or even domestic terrorism than had been the the case in the past. [3:06] And, you know, but even those conversations are themselves quite polarizing. Both sides of the [3:12] political spectrum kind of blame the other for an increase in political violence. Many Democrats say, [3:18] for example, that the rhetoric from the Trump administration is is driving people to violence. [3:23] the Trump administration and President Trump himself very frequently, I should add, blame the left [3:29] for rhetoric used about the administration driving people to act against the administration. So it's [3:35] it's an issue in which no one can really agree what the cause of the problem is, even if people [3:42] broadly are concerned that there is, in fact, a problem. Yeah. And, you know, if we say that the source [3:47] of this is polarization, you know, the political polarization, what why is that burned? Why? Why [3:55] are things being stretched? Why are the two sides so far apart? Over time, I think we saw both sides of [4:02] the political spectrum kind of drift even further apart to the to the right and to the left and really [4:10] can't actually find much to agree on with regards to anything, whether it be, you know, foreign policy, [4:16] domestic policy, how one deals with crime and what's causing it. The center of United States [4:23] politics, at least in my view and in the view of, I think, many Americans has kind of fallen away. [4:29] And now there's two sides that are kind of almost polar opposites on policy issues and often using [4:36] language that is that is really quite aggressive and quite harsh about their their counterpart. There [4:42] seems to be very few people kind of aiming to, like, reach across the the aisle, as they say, [4:47] in Congress and kind of bridge that divide to actually sit down and find something that they [4:53] agree upon or something that they feel that they can work on together. It's kind of become one side [4:58] versus the other. And, you know, the one side thinking it needs to resist the other. And I think [5:05] that's all amplified on X or Instagram, Facebook, all these platforms. I think people, you know, [5:12] consume a lot of content that isn't necessarily representative of the the vast majority of [5:17] Americans who don't want this to happen, but is really quite aggressive in in character and in tone. [5:23] So it seems that you need someone to breach across and find the middle ground here. Is no one trying to [5:29] do that? Well, you know, as as is often the case after these sorts of shootings, we know, [5:34] we immediately saw statements from prominent Americans and prominent [5:38] members of the kind of political establishment calling for the temperature to be lowered. But [5:46] there doesn't actually seem to be anyone working to lower the temperature. I thought it was notable [5:51] that in the press briefing that President Trump did just about two hours after the shooting, [5:57] it didn't become necessarily a huge blame game. And he at the time seemed to be kind of trying to lower [6:03] the temperature himself. But then again, in he gave an interview to 60 Minutes the following day, [6:08] and you know, he was much less so trying to bring down the temperature. I think it's one of those [6:15] situations that many Americans will think is very unfortunate that in a few days time, it's very [6:21] possible we'll be back to a situation in which both sides of the US political divide are kind of blaming [6:27] each other for for what happened. You know, this is I saw the same thing after Butler, you know, [6:34] there was calls to to bring everyone together. And then that didn't last very, very long at all. [6:39] And I suppose with every act of violence, you know, even if it seems outrageous, [6:46] in a sense, that political violence becomes kind of normalized. [6:49] It's interesting. That's a conversation I had with many people the morning after the shooting on [6:56] Saturday, you know, once everything had settled and people had stopped working. [7:02] There was kind of a sense that, you know, this has all become quite normal. You know, [7:06] many of the reporters that were there had also been in Butler, many others had covered school [7:11] shootings or other acts of mass violence that have taken place in this country. And it's almost become [7:17] kind of a routine to a certain extent. I mean, every few weeks, there seems to be some act of [7:23] violence, political or otherwise. I think the only real difference in this incident was that the [7:30] attempted incident was in a outside a room holding the president, cabinet members and, you know, [7:37] hundreds of the most prominent journalists in the country. So the story kind of came to them [7:43] rather than them going to the story. But this happens all the time. [7:47] And I think many Americans will be wondering why this became so normalized. [7:50] Thanks, Bernd. That was Bernd de Boosman, our White House correspondent there in Washington. [7:57] And if you want to hear more from the Global News Podcast, just click the link below. Thanks for joining us.