Tim & JVL: America Used to Know This Was Wrong

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Bulwark Takes – Tim & JVL: America Used to Know This Was Wrong

Host: Tim Miller (Tim O)
Guest: JVL
Date: January 10, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this candid and emotionally charged episode, Tim Miller and JVL dissect America’s changing attitudes toward state-sanctioned violence, police accountability, and the country’s drift from a “culture of life” to a “culture of death.” Reflecting on the killing of Renee Good by government agents and the reactions to it, they explore why such violence is increasingly tolerated, how the standards for deadly force have eroded, and what this means for the future of liberal democracy in the United States. Through passionate debate and thoughtful counterfactuals, they grapple with whether the nation's moral compass has irrevocably shifted.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Personal Rage and the Lowered Bar for State Violence

• [01:40] Tim opens with his sense of “chest constricting rage” about the public and political reaction to the killing of Renee Good by an ICE agent, especially the casualness with which many accept such state violence.
• A recurring theme is the high bar they personally set for when government agents may use deadly force, contrasted sharply with the apparent acceptance by many Americans of much laxer standards.
  • Quote – Tim: “If you’re going to kill one of us, the bar has to be, like, up here at the sky…a very, very explicit...you had no other choice.” [04:47]

2. Double Standards and Right-Wing Excuses for Violence

• [05:41] JVL highlights a disturbing duality in conservative attitudes: extreme suspicion toward most government bureaucrats, yet absolute trust in armed law enforcement officers.
  • Quote – JVL: “We literally have the laxest standards for the people with the most power.” [07:44]
• The conversation references Kyle Rittenhouse, Ashley Babbitt, and “stand your ground” laws. Both hosts note the tendency to excuse or even justify deadly force, so long as the victim is perceived as being on “the other side.”
  • Quote – Tim: “If the victim’s on the other team…All right, we’ll call that one good.” [05:13]

3. American Cultural Acceptance of Violence

• [12:21] The hosts reflect on America’s staggering rate of police killings compared to the UK (~40x higher per capita) and how the public has grown desensitized, tolerating violence from both the state and vigilantes.
  • Quote – Tim: “It doesn’t feel like there’s anybody that’s actually fighting against that right, that everyone is on the right…It’s kind of the opposite, actually.” [13:33]
  • Quote – Tim, on Matt Walsh's comments: “Whether or not she was trying [to hit the officer], this Daily Wire guy, whether or not she was trying [was] immaterial to me…her actions meant she deserved to die.” [13:42]
• Both hosts agree America has shifted from a “culture of life” to a “culture of death.”

4. The Liberal vs. Illiberal Divide

• [14:16] JVL frames the issue in philosophical and political terms:
  • Liberal society: “Only acceptable violence is violence carried out by the state in accordance with strict standards in the rule of law.”
  • Illiberal society: “Violence is just a tool that we use against our enemies…we are strong, they are weak, therefore, we are allowed to do what we want.”
  • Quote – JVL: “That is fascism.” [14:16]

5. Counterfactual: What If January 6th Had Been a Bloodbath?

• [19:10] The central “bad thought” of the episode: If police had responded to January 6th insurrectionists with the same hair-trigger as the ICE officer in Minneapolis, would America have wound up in a “better” place?
  • Tim wonders if mass use of deadly force would have prevented Trump’s comeback and galvanized the defense of liberal democracy, even as he recoils from the implication.
• JVL tries to “square the circle” by arguing that, while wanting de-escalatory professionalism from police is good, a harsher response on Jan. 6 might have forced a moral reckoning that steered America away from its current path.
  • Quote – JVL: “If it had happened, we’d live in a better world today.” [21:25]
  • Quote – JVL: “The national reaction to January 6th does not feel like we dodged a bullet. It feels like Kent State and worse…The revulsion…would have had to have made the Senate convict Trump…” [23:14]

6. The Dilemma of Policing, Professionalism, and Backlash

• Both wrestle with whether increased police violence would have simply created new cycles of violence and backlash, or if more professional policing (as initially seen during Black Lives Matter protests) offers hope for reform.
• Hopeful Note: Tim suggests that, just as outrage over George Floyd’s killing triggered real political shifts in 2020, there remains a potential for events to “boomerang” public sentiment back toward valuing accountability and professionalism in policing.
  • Quote – Tim: “Maybe you kind of need a worse actor to sort of boomerang you back to the…other side.” [31:13]

7. The Path Forward

• JVL calls for serious police reform – more oversight, ending qualified immunity, and professional standards – but expresses doubt that even the proliferation of police videos has yet created mass demand for real change.
  • Quote – JVL: “I figured, well, people are going to want to have professional cops…But, you know, we’re not there yet.” [29:38]

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Tim O: “If you’re going to kill one of us, the bar has to be, like, up here at the sky…it has to be a very, very explicit, you know, example of, like, this was…an acute moment of life saving necessity.” [04:47]
• JVL: “We literally have the laxest standards for the people with the most power.” [07:44]
• Tim O: “In Britain…the police violence is…0.09 (per 10 million), and in America it’s 33. And it’s like 40 times more in America than over there.” [12:23]
• JVL: “The only acceptable violence is violence carried out by the state in accordance with strict standards in the rule of law…Illiberalism says…violence is just a tool we use against our enemies.” [14:16]
• Tim O: “I can’t be there. I cannot be made to be like them. I can’t be on the side that believes that we should just be killing people who are US citizens.” [20:45]
• JVL: “Had the Capitol Police acted like ICE…I think, again, at least dozens of people die, probably more. And…the revulsion…would have had to have made the Senate convict Trump and not allow him to run again…” [23:14]
• Tim O: “That’s really my only hope for this, is that…I think that there will…be a category of people that have already been turning off from [Trump]…they’re like, ‘man, it was a wake-up call, right?’” [26:50]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Tim expresses his rage and struggle with America’s acceptance of violence: [01:40–05:41]
• Double standards for state violence, “Conservative Inc.” contradiction: [05:41–07:44]
• Systemic protection of violent law enforcement and lack of accountability: [08:50–09:50]
• Comparison of US and UK police violence; “culture of death” concept: [12:21–14:16]
• Liberalism vs. illiberalism in state violence, links to fascism: [14:16–16:33]
• Reasonable fear as an expanded legal excuse for violence: [17:08–18:54]
• Counterfactual: What if Capitol Police had mowed down Jan 6 rioters? [19:10–23:14]
• Is policing professionalism still possible? [23:14–26:25]
• Hope for reform and civic backlash: [26:50–31:13]
• Takeaways on professionalization and international examples: [32:49–33:45]

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Memorable Moments & Tone

• Raw Honesty: Tim’s “bad thought” about January 6 (“maybe they should have done that”) and his struggle to reconcile his values with the country’s trajectory is a gut-punch, highlighting the episode’s raw honesty.
• Dark Humor: JVL occasionally uses gallows humor (“A minigun, like they were in a Schwarzenegger movie” [20:11]) to underscore the absurdity and horror of possible alternatives.
• Resigned Frustration: Both express a weary frustration at America’s inability or unwillingness to recalibrate toward justice and life.

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Conclusion

This episode painfully interrogates America’s evolving relationship with violence, state power, and public morality. By dissecting real cases and hypothetical scenarios, Tim and JVL expose just how far the standards – among the public and in government – have fallen, and what’s at stake for the country’s democratic project. While glimpses of hope flicker in memories of “better angels,” both hosts remain soberingly clear-eyed about how far there is to go.

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Transcript

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[Tim O]

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[JVL]

Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska and California. And for delivery.

[Tim O]

Hey everybody, it's Tim O from the Bulwark here with my buddy JVL and I gotta tell you, I don't know about you guys but I'm enraged and I have like chest constricting rage this week, which I haven't had for a while. And I've been mad a lot, but not this level of rage. And I just kind of wanted to talk it over a little bit. And when you're just fully enraged, you want somebody to calm you down. You know, who you turn to as jvl, the voice of reason.

[JVL]

That's what I'm here for, Tim.

[Tim O]

The warm embrace. So there are two things I want to talk about with you. One, I had a bad thought crossed my mind last night in the shower and I want to review that.

[JVL]

You love bad thoughts.

[Tim O]

I know you do. Not that kind of bad thought people don't get your head out of the gutter. I want to review, you know, counterfactual about how things might have been differently related to violence from our government, from government officials. But before that I want to just marinate a little bit on. I think why this upsets me so much. In particular, the reaction to the killing of Renee Goode. I've been thinking about this. I'm like, it just turns out that a big percentage of my neighbors and our fellow Americans, the people that we must share this tenuous liberal democracy with, have just a significantly lower bar for deadly violence than I do, particularly state deadly violence. And just start the convo. One example of this is I kind of just think the whole discussion of whether or not it's technically legal or the frame bedroom analysis of this killing of Renee Good is kind of crazy to me. I just. Because I like my bar for like an eight. A public servant, like an agent of the state. Shooting somebody is just so high to me, it's like, you know, it's like, these are tough jobs. I get it. And, you know, you could definitely sell me on paying them.

[JVL]

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Are police run on a draft basis?

[Tim O]

What do you mean?

[JVL]

Are police drafted and they have to become police officers?

[Tim O]

They're forced or.

[JVL]

And they have no choice. Is it like the.

[Tim O]

No, it's a volunteer.

[JVL]

Oh, it's a volunteer. Oh, it's a job.

[Tim O]

Yeah. Right.

[JVL]

And so it's a job where if you don't like it and it's too hard, you could quit and get another job in theory, is that what you're saying?

[Tim O]

Yeah, Maybe not in the Donald Trump economy going forward, but yeah, in theory, certainly the last few years.

[JVL]

I'm sorry, I have zero sympathy.

[Tim O]

Okay, great. I have a little bit of sympathy because particularly in our country where there's guns everywhere. And it's like, you know, every time you open a door, you're like, the person behind you might have a gun.

[JVL]

You know, get a different job.

[Tim O]

Okay, sure. But I'm just saying I'm a little more sympathetic in that sense.

[JVL]

Learn to code.

[Tim O]

In the good case, they, as we now know, she clearly didn't. I mean, unless you were worried. The cop that killed her walked right by her and she said, I'm not mad, dude, I'm mad at you. And she had a. She had a beanie on. And the dog in the backseat just didn't seem like somebody had a gap hidden, you know, so. So he had seen her and then killed her 20 seconds later. And she was being friendly. So. Point being, in some of these cases, people are scared.

[JVL]

I get it.

[Tim O]

But, like, if you work for the state, you work for us. You're a public servant, so you Can't. If you're going to kill one of us, like, the bar has to be, like, up here at the sky. It has to be a very, very explicit, you know, example of, like, this was you had no other choice, like, you were going to die if you didn't kill. Like, you had to save your life or someone else's life. Like, you did it in an acute moment of life saving necessity. And a lot of other people don't feel that way, turns out. And it kind of, like, are pretty loosey goosey about life and death, and it's kind of like, well, if it's on a technicality, if it's, like, close to the. If it's close to the line, you know, and the victims on the other team. All right, we'll call that one. Good. And I don't know, man, that's just the thing that's just hard for me. It's been very hard for me to process because. Because I'm just in another world from that.

[JVL]

Well, I mean, is it that they just take a really expansive view of use of deadly force by agents of the state, or is it that they take an expansive view on use of deadly force against people they don't like? This is just a real question. Right. You know, they're looking for ways to excuse Kyle Rittenhouse. They're looking for ways to excuse cops who shoot people they did not like Ashley Babbitt getting shot, though. Right. I mean, it is. And the other thing of this is there is this weird thing.

[Tim O]

I understand. Your ground. There are other stand your ground thing that. Ron DeSantis. What was the law of, like, where.

[JVL]

You can ram people over if you reasonably fear for your life when surrounded by a mob, you are allowed to drive off. And if you hit people, that's okay.

[Tim O]

Yeah, right.

[JVL]

Oh, unless there's people who are threatening your life.

[Tim O]

So if you're in your F150 and you're ramming some hippies, that's okay. That's okay. If the lady is in her Honda Pilot and she's trying to get away from the masked agents and nicks your knee, she can be executed.

[JVL]

Yes.

[Tim O]

Yes.

[JVL]

This is a thing which used to drive me nuts in the good old days. Conservative Inc. Which is conservatives would tell you all the time about how government can't do anything right. And public school teachers, you got to watch them. Like hawks, IRS agents, or a bunch of, you know, demons and bureaucrats everywhere are awful at their jobs, and we have to watch them. And we should try to fire Them, except for people who have guns and the power to. To kill. They are always right.

[Tim O]

Yeah.

[JVL]

Those ones, those government employees, they are, they are as honest as the day is long. And you can trust their judgment in every situation. How dare you ask for accountability.

[Tim O]

Absolute immunity. Vice president said like that was his point of view on this for.

[JVL]

Right.

[Tim O]

So the fraudulent bureaucrats doge has to fire everybody indiscriminately because everybody's committing fraud in every other division of the government.

[JVL]

Except for the icp, except for the people who we give guns to. And it is this weird thing where we. We literally have the laxus standards for the people with the most power. And I think that that is born of a societal. It's avoidance. People, people. I mean it upsets people to think that the law enforcement officers to which we delegate the state sanctioned use of force and the ability to take life, that's a little scary. And so you have to pretend that they must always be true blue. And in the world before cell phone cameras, it was pretty easy to look the other way and to just assume that every story you were always told was right. Imagine what would have happened. Right. So we have two shootings within 48 hours of each other with DHS agents. The one in Minneapolis and the one in Portland. With Portland, there seems to be no video. And so we just have the government's insistence that the driver there turned his truck into a weapon and attempted to kill the agents who were talking to him during this stop and then he fled. And we have the exact same story.

[Tim O]

That and he's a gang member and the other person in the car is a gang prostitution member. And it happens to be the same gang that the people that we sent to El Salvador wrongly were in.

[JVL]

Yes.

[Tim O]

This time we got it right, though. This time you can trust us. Last time we accidentally sent the makeup artist and the guy with the autism awareness tattoo there and they hadn't done anything. Oopsie doopsy. But this time, just trust us.

[JVL]

Same gang, but in the Minneapolis case we have video, but they told the same story basically. Right. They said this domestic terrorist ran over, didn't try to run over, but really ran over a police officer. And I mean, I don't know, it isn't like police just started behaving badly once we had cell phone video.

[Tim O]

Right.

[JVL]

That's not what happened.

[Tim O]

Right.

[JVL]

It isn't like all of a sudden we developed the technology to record police officers acting in the wild and that's when they started behaving badly and lying.

[Tim O]

Yeah.

[JVL]

You know, and I take a very, like, human nature view of this stuff, which is that you have terrible people everywhere. They're terrible doctors, they're terrible teachers, they're terrible priests. They're terrible journalists. They're journalists who, like, lie and make things up and who you cannot trust. The difference is that when it comes to law enforcement, we then have an apparatus which, instead of trying to root those people out and get rid of them, tries to protect them. And that's the real problem. Right? It's like the Catholic Church, priest abuse stuff. Right? It's not. It's. I'm not going to say it's not bad that you have priests who abuse people, but it's not unexpected because you have that in literally every walk of life. The scandal of it was that the Catholic Church, like, hid and then protected these guys. That's what police departments do, and that's what DHS and the FBI are trying to do now.

[Tim O]

So this is what I want to. Before we get to the counterfactual, I want to pull a little related thread about this, which is in your wheelhouse, which is this whole the culture of life question. We all talked about culture of life back in old conservative Inc. Days. And so part of this is the cops, right? But as you mentioned, it's not all. It's not just about the cops. Right. Like, there's Kyle Rittenhouse as a standard ground law, and Tucker this morning, you never have to hand it to Tucker, but he wrote a newsletter that was like kind of. That ends up being kind of insane. But the point that he's making at the start, which is often true of, like, when you're going to be. When you're a demagogue, you take something that's true and then you kind of turn it into something insane. And so the little kernel of truth that he started with was like, maybe a lot of people are okay with this killing because our country's too desensitized to violence, and we just have a cultural violence in this country that we just accept. And then Tucker kind of used that to defend Putin, weirdly. You know what I mean? It was Tucker. But that kernel of truth, I read it and I was just like, it touched on something that is what's really hitting me and bugging me about this. Not to create false coincidence or lump any of these things together, but just across the board, we have these incidents over and over again. The ones that bug me the most is like, whether it be the Luigi thing or the killing of Charlie Kirk or all of these Steve Allens against, against, you know, the George Floyd's and the Trayvon. Like all this stuff, right? In every instance, like, there's a big. There's a shockingly big portion of people that are just kind of like, had it coming, had it coming.

[JVL]

And as long as it's there on.

[Tim O]

The other side, it's long, right? And so then you. And so I guess my point is I was just googling this while I got on and I'm like, in Britain, we're going to do this on a per capita basis because there's many fewer people in Britain. It's like per 10 million Brits, the police violence is like 0.01 or something, 0.09 or something. And in America it's 33. And it's like 40 times more in America than over there. Police killings of people. We just have come to accept it. I noticed Piers Morgan has been pretty Trumpy. He was out there, kept saying to all his Conservative friends when this new video came out and he's like, I thought you guys were gonna tell me this was exculpatory. He's like, this is crazy because he lives in Britain and in Britain the cops carry the fucking billy clubs. And it's like, you can't just go shooting some lady. And so it's not that people don't have dark hearts in other places, but there's something about our culture where it is very ingrained in it. And it's like, it doesn't feel like there's anybody that's actually fighting against that right, that everyone is on the right. In particular on the right, there's literally nobody. It's kind of the opposite, actually, on the right, where it's like, no, this is what we want. You know what I mean? Like, Matt Walsh tweeted basically, like, I don't care whether she was trying to hit him, this Daily Wire guy, whether or not she was trying this, immaterial to me, her actions meant she deserved to die. And like, I don't know, like, how do you. It's hard to have a liberal democracy in a culture where there's a big percentage of people that are like, hey, I'm okay with violence against my neighbors. Whether it's state violence or whether it's vigilante violence or whatever. Like, I just don't value life at all. Like, it's the opposite. It's a culture of death. And that's what I want to come back on to. Culture of life is gone. We've replaced it to a culture of death.

[JVL]

Well, this is the same culture that thought that January 6th was okay. Right, Right. I mean, it isn't just state violence. It's okay with violence, violence against your. Your enemies, and that is fascism. I mean, I wrote about this this week. Right. This is. This is the difference between liberalism and illiberalism is that liberalism says the only acceptable violence is violence carried out by the state in accordance with strict standards in the rule of law. Right. That is. That is the definition, one of the definitions of liberalism. Right. The state has a monopoly on violence. This violence has to take place under sort of a bunch of highly ritualized and very transparent strictures. And illiberalism says, no. Violence is just a tool that we use against our enemies. We are strong, they are weak. Therefore, we are allowed to do what we want. This is literally how Matt Walsh and Stephen Miller and J.D. vance are talking about Venezuela. It's the same thing.

[Tim O]

Yeah.

[JVL]

Right. We're strong.

[Tim O]

Yeah. They don't even mention, by the way, it's like the set, we killed, like, what, 80 people in Venezuela. I was like, that doesn't even get mentioned. That doesn't even come up. It's like. Yeah, they were totally just. They don't consider. They're not considered as humans. Like, they're just part of our, like, weird mission to steal their oil. We can kill 80 people, whatever. It doesn't matter.

[JVL]

So this. This is a thing that I'm. I'm actually working on to write about next week. It's the same. So you have seen the contempt for international law.

[Tim O]

Right.

[JVL]

Coming out of the.

[Tim O]

Right.

[JVL]

Over the last week or so over Venezuela.

[Tim O]

Right.

[JVL]

And the idea is Matt Walsh said that Venice said that international law is fake and gay and, like, there's no reason anybody should adhere to it, because the only thing that matters is the law of the jungle. The strong can do what they want. Why would that be different for domestic law? Right. If your view is that everything is law of the jungle, Mike makes. Right. That is the natural order of things. Why should that stop being true just because you're in America?

[Tim O]

And he clearly doesn't think it does. Right.

[JVL]

Well, the cops have the guns, so they're allowed to do what they want.

[Tim O]

Yeah. They could execute her.

[JVL]

Yeah.

[Tim O]

And so, you know, it's like, I don't care whether she was, like, doing attempted murder or whether she was, like, misdemeanor jaywalking. Yeah.

[JVL]

Right.

[Tim O]

She committed a violation.

[JVL]

If she is one of the bad people, then we can do what we want to her. And I just want to say One more thing. One of the things we have seen over the last. I don't know how long. So maybe, maybe it's always been true, but I don't think it has been. The expansion of the concept of reasonable fear for your life.

[Tim O]

Yeah.

[JVL]

Has grown so broad.

[Tim O]

This is what I'm talking about.

[JVL]

I mean, like, if you are a armed agent of the state in that dude's position in the video we saw today, and you fear for your life while standing to the side of a car which is accelerating away from you at like two miles an hour, and you're in the wrong line of work because you're too much of a pussy to be a cop, your life isn't in danger.

[Tim O]

Right.

[JVL]

You would be in more danger playing pickup football, playing flag football with your friends than that. That's insane.

[Tim O]

Yeah. I mean, you're more in danger behind the wheel of your own car because you're so jittery, so trigger happy, and you would at least be driving, I assume, at higher speeds. Yeah. You know, the whole thing is crazy. No, see the massive. And then all these people that are defending him on this run are massive pussies. That goes to my. To I think my broader point, which is like, maybe they are, maybe they aren't. Maybe they're both. Maybe they have blood loss and they're. And they're. And their little sissy boys. But like, I think that it's like post facto, Right. It's like as long as I can plausibly say that Golf is in danger.

[JVL]

I need to be able to find a single frame where I can freeze frame and then say, see right here, he was afraid for his life and therefore to legalize it.

[Tim O]

Right, right. See, the car hit him. I'm not saying that's okay. I've never said that. This woman.

[JVL]

Also, it's not clear that the car does make any.

[Tim O]

Yeah, all right, but even if there's.

[JVL]

A difference between a, a car making glancing contact with somebody, and also by the. Again, I'm. Let's just say for sake of argument that the car makes glance in contact with him, he then draws it. Well, the car's already made contact with him and then he draws his weapon, the period of danger is over. By the time he draws his weapon, the period of danger is over.

[Tim O]

So you have our license, but now we have this whole video. You know what I mean? Again, the death penalty should only be for the most extreme circumstances. We can't just be like just how willy nilly people are with these life and death situations. I don't know. We could go on and on.

[JVL]

Which brings us to Ashley Babbitt.

[Tim O]

Yes.

[JVL]

So this is the question, right? This is the question. Do you want to ask it or do you want me to?

[Tim O]

I will. This was the bad thought last night. I was thinking about this. I was after I read in your triad, actually, you'd referenced earlier about Ashley Babbitt and Renee Good and the face of fascism. And I was just kind of thinking about. And I made this point that you make sometimes, just like a point for arguing. I was just trying to think about a point that I was going to make on Twitter or something that I should not be doing. Some argument I was in with some MAGA loser. And I was like, you know, And I ended up posting it, and the post said, basically using the JD Vance standard for violence in this case. Like, if that. If that guy had a reasonable fear for his life, using that standard, the January 6 should have been a bloodbath. And there should have been dozens.

[JVL]

They should have killed thousands of people.

[Tim O]

Yeah, I said dozens. You said thousands. Whatever. At least dozens. Like, dozens of people should have been killed.

[JVL]

A minigun, like they were in a Schwarzenegger movie.

[Tim O]

Yeah. You look at the video, they're getting tased. Michael Fanon's, like, on the ground. He's afraid for his life. He's injured. Brian Sicknick dies. So many people are scared for their lives, many police officers with weapons. And if they acted in the same way that Jonathan Ross acted, there'd be massive bloodshed on the Capitol steps that day. And so then the next thought that I had, the bad thought referenced at the beginning was, well, fuck, maybe that is right. Maybe they should have done that. And maybe we wouldn't be here, because maybe if that had happened, it would have poisoned the well for Trump so much that he couldn't have been able to come back. And it would have sent a signal that, like, the side of liberal democracy is not going to be bullied. And then I came back around and said, that's wrong. That's wrong. I don't. I just. Which takes me back to my original point, which is why I wanted to start there, which is I just. I can't be there. I cannot be made to be like them. I can't be on the side that. That believes that we should just be killing people who are US Citizens. But then I message this to you. My bad thought. And you're kind of like, yeah, I think your bad thought might have been right. So I want to hear the. I want to hear the pitch.

[JVL]

All right, so let me give you the pitch, because I think I can square the circle for you.

[Tim O]

Okay, great.

[JVL]

I think we can say both that we don't want that, but that if it had happened, we'd live in a better world today.

[Tim O]

I don't know how you square that circle then, because then you could. You're going to do it. You're going to try. Because, I mean, if we would have lived in a better world, maybe it would have been. Maybe it's. That's the Machiavellian or not Machiavellian. That's just like a practical.

[JVL]

Well, that is the utilitarian view. Right. My view of policing is that professionalized policing's job is to uphold the rule of law, and that most of the time, that can best be done through de escalation. And what you saw on January 6th was like the highest form of professionalism from cops constantly seeking to de. Escalate violent situations in order to preserve life under the assumption that, like, this will. If we could just get through this moment, everything will be fine later, you know, and we're going to save people's lives by redirecting them. Like that video, the famous video on the stairwell, Harry Dunn, you know, in the stairwell with these mobs coming at him. And he doesn't draw on them. Right. Instead, he redirects them away from, you know, lawmakers around the end of the show. Yeah, right. And I mean, by the logic of the Minneapolis ICE guys, he should have. He should have pulled on them and just emptied his gun. Right. That's what. I mean, what else? What a reasonable fear for his life. But he didn't. And that's right. That is. That is the highest example of what we want from law enforcement. And I wouldn't want it any other way, honestly, because you have to.

[Tim O]

Honestly.

[JVL]

I mean, we live in a society which needs law enforcement. Like, you can't. You can't not have law enforcement. And so the goal is to wind up with law enforcement that is professionalized. And, like, I just can't give up on that. Because if you give up on the idea that cops can be professionalized, then your society is screwed because you got to have cops. All that said, had the Capitol Police acted like ice, I think, again, at least dozens of people die, probably more. And the national reaction to January 6th does not feel like we dodged a bullet. It feels like Kent State and worse. I mean, the revulsion that would come from that, I think would have to have made the Senate convict Trump and not Allow him to run again, which then frees the party up to try to course correct? God, no. I mean, maybe they can't do it. Maybe he himself can't be president again. And I think that changes a lot of the last five years. So had a bad thing happened, we wind up in a better place. But you still want the bad thing not to have happened.

[Tim O]

Yeah. And you free yourself because it doesn't really matter what you want. Right. What happened, happened in this work, it doesn't really matter. We have no agency here. We're just trying to analyze it. I don't know the other side of that. So I went through all this in my mind. It's a very peaceful shower, you know, kind of thinking about all the different kind of outcomes.

[JVL]

45 minutes later you're like just staring at the drain, your eyes closed in the abyss.

[Tim O]

Yeah. It's like a dystopia choose your own adventure moment for me. And the thing that I came to is that it might have begetted more violence. And so I. And that's the hard thing, which is like where you don't know where the line is, right. Like you do want, you want professionalized police and you do want law and order. Right. Like you don't like that you can reach a moment where there aren't enough police. We've seen this over the last five years. Or police aren't doing their jobs for various reasons. And that encourages people, the bad parts of people's nature. Right. But then you can see the other side where like overly aggressive police violence causes a backlash. Right. Like, and so, and it's like, you know, balance in all things. And so I did think about that as I was like, okay, yeah, maybe the Republicans then convict him. Maybe. Not maybe, though, probably. But maybe Trump doesn't leave possible. You know what I mean? Maybe we get into some other. The choose your own adventure takes us to some other world that we don't even know about. Right. Where he totally possible. You know what I mean? Or eventually he'd have to leave. But there's some other violent clash then. And, and maybe we needed that. I don't know, maybe this muddle is wrong and I, but, but, and we do. Well, maybe the whole thing collapsed, right. Like, I don't know.

[JVL]

The state only uses violence against non Trumpy people. Right. I mean that, that is the, the world you wind up in is a world in which the state becomes very careful and judicious and it's a use of violence against Trump people. And it has, you know, Gloves off with everybody else. I'm not sure that the incentives are great with that.

[Tim O]

I have one positive choose your own adventure. That is where I have hope for. I got a text from a buddy a couple days ago that he is from Minneapolis and was just really down about optimism. And I was like, where can I get it? It didn't end up well. And so we, we don't think about it as a political success anymore. But like, the initial reaction to Black Lives Matter, the initial reaction to George Floyd, like, was a political success. And like, part of the reason Trump lost was because there were a lot of people, some percentage of people who were inclined to vote Republican but are not deeply political that like, saw that and were outraged. Like, you know, or like. And we know that they exist in the real world, right? And I know a lot of. It's almost a cliche, right? Like, the types of people they are, they're like old suburban white people mostly, but like, there are others, you know, who are like, man, it was a wake up call, right? And they're just like, things have gotten too far. Like, I don't want to live in a society like this. That's really my only hope for this is that I think that there will obviously this will harden. I think Trump's support, like, he'd rather be talking about violence in the streets and ice and disobeying police than the economy crashing or tariffs or Epstein. Right. Like, this is a better issue set for him, no doubt. But on the other hand, I don't know. I think it'll be interesting to see next week. I also wonder if the same category of people that have already been turning off for him are just kind of like, this guy's such a jackalope, such a jackass. Like, there's do people. People are instinctively pro comp. A lot of people like neighborhood comp. So like some guy that's a fucking fed that just got hired, that's wearing a mask, it's like calling her a after he kills her. I don't know, man. Do people really. There's some people want that, obviously. What?

[JVL]

Not highly professionalized.

[Tim O]

Not highly professionalized. I think it could hurt. If you're a school librarian backlash again.

[JVL]

If you're a public school librarian called somebody a fucking bitch, they'd lose their job for sure even if they didn't murder someone.

[Tim O]

Correct.

[JVL]

But, you know, again, we have the lowest possible standards for people with the highest possible level of power. And so you're not there, you're not there with any help.

[Tim O]

The Backlash. Hope you don't think this will cause backlash.

[JVL]

No, I don't. I mean, I. I tend to think that like the world of cell phones I had hoped would eventually bring about like a broad based desire for police reform. And I mean like police reform at, at the highest levels, like more internal affairs. The end of qualified immunity, the ability to sort of.

[Tim O]

We have an end of qualified immunity. We have absolute immunity now. Yeah, that's a jdb.

[JVL]

You know, like once people were able to actually see what was going on, I figured, well, no, people are going to want to have professional cops. They're not going to want to have a bunch of thugs who feel like they can lie anytime they want in a system above them that's willing to cover things up. But, you know, we're not there yet.

[Tim O]

All right, do you have any other deep thoughts? Do you have anything to warm me up?

[JVL]

I do wonder what city cops make of this stuff with ice.

[Tim O]

Me too. I talked to Mayor Fry. It was interesting. And it's kind of like, I hope he's right. Is that all I can say? Because I don't know, I don't talk to the Minneapolis any cops. And so it's like, is he telling me the truth? Is he spinning? Does he know? Are the bad cops. They're not talking. You know what I mean? Like, it's hard to know. But his view was that there's a lot of anger at the police after George Floyd, obviously in the city. And it's like a lot of work went into stuff you're talking about professionalizing the police, like community engagement, you know, whatever, connecting. And he said that a lot of citizens now in Minneapolis these last couple weeks who have been afraid of the federal officials or have seen stuff they've been doing wrong have called the local cops, which I don't know. Like, that's something that there's like some level of trust that can be built there. And you know, maybe, maybe it's like you kind of need a worse actor to sort of boomerang you back to the, you know, back to the other side. But I don't. Maybe that's Pollyanna. I don't know.

[JVL]

I don't know. I mean, look at the most basic level, city cops don't wear masks, you know, like you saw this all through Chicago, right? When, when the Bovino was in Chicago. All of his people are dressed like ISIS paramilitaries. And the Chicago cops around them are just like, you know, you can see their badge number and their names and their faces and they're just acting like professionals. I can't imagine that if you are a city cop in Portland or Chicago or New York or anywhere else, you could look at these guys coming in who are just, again, they're just bad at their jobs, right. They are tacked out. They. They've got like, the Punisher stuff and they're wearing masks and they. They barely even want to identify themselves as being law enforcement. And you, I find it hard to believe that you could look at that and think, yeah, no, I'm glad to have you here. You know, you're making my life easier. Because they're not. So maybe, maybe there's some of that. And maybe that, as you say, forces communities closer and winds up resulting in better relationships between communities and police and police designed to be more professional to show that they're different. I mean, look, it is not. It's not impossible to have a professionalized police force. There are, you know, you look throughout America, if you talk to Radley Balco about this, right? Like, the FBI has always been pretty professionalized in part because they're recording a bunch. They recruit like lawyers and CPAs. They. You just have a bunch of highly educated people who are more professional and who are used to acting in professional ways.

[Tim O]

Other parts of the world, we have viewers that are watching this for other parts of the world. There are other parts of the world that are pretty. That, you know, were used.

[JVL]

It's not impossible to do this. Yeah, you know, I don't know the whole history of policing. Anybody who is interested in this? Michael Crichton. One of Michael Crichton's early books is the Great Train Robbery. And the first half of the book is actually a potted history of London's Metropolitan Police Department, which was the first police department in the. In the first modern police department in the world. It is worth reading if you have any interest in how the history of police works. Because the London Metropolitan Police Department was originally founded. Basically half the cops were crooks. And literally they would like, rob someone during the day, then go to the night shift and be cops and like, shake people down and, you know, like. Anyway, the people running Metropolitan Police realized pretty quick, oh, okay, so this doesn't work. We gotta. We gotta change some things around here.

[Tim O]

It's interesting. Oh, boy. Okay.

[JVL]

Well, sorry, buddy.

[Tim O]

There you go.

[JVL]

Didn't lift you up.

[Tim O]

I. Sometimes I've been doing these things every once in a while with Sam. We have a weekend potpourri where I throw like three crazy stories at him and we. And we laugh and here I am for our weekend potpourri and I'm like throwing very depressing thoughts about whether our country has a culture of death and counterfactual about mass killing at the Capitol steps. And I apologize for that. So we'll think he's a very different.

[JVL]

Person than Sam is.

[Tim O]

That's true. Yeah. It's meant to be that way. All right, everybody, thanks for hanging out with us this weekend and have a glass of wine or whatever. Go for a walk, smell some flowers, hug a cop. We'll see all soon.

[JVL]

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[Tim O]

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