Hello and welcome to crossfire for all Things Considered im Peter Lavelle its an understatement to say america is a very divided country many have even spoken openly about the possibility of civil war what is tearing the country apart what is keeping it together it cannot only be about donald trump what will it take to start a sustained social and political dialogue before its too late. Crosstalk in the political divide im joined by my guest jen kearns in new york she is a g. O. P. Strategist contributor to the daily caller as well as the founder of women for a Great America also in new york we have britchka style though he is a political strategist and tech c. E. O. And in washington cross to arvind bora he is a Libertarian Party president ial candidate as well as author of the book pull out men modern life and mutiny all right cross talk rules in effect that means you can jump in in the time you want and i always appreciate armin let me go to you 1st i love the title of your book by the way i think its fascinating it makes me want to read it youre kind of the odd person out on this panel so im going to go to you 1st here and reflect upon what i said in my introduction if you could quite in a short way i asked the questions what is tearing the country apart but whats keeping it together and thats the tension here what is keeping it together and what is dividing the country go ahead in washington whats dividing the country right now is a deep level of in my opinion partisan intrenchments and what we have is you have some people who are going to side with no matter what even when he acts against basic conservative principles you know when trump does a gun restriction a gun bad a silencer bad a bomb stop and thats something that enraged conservatives but having dug in on that side theyre just sticking to it no matter what on the other side you have progressive that no matter what somebody on the other side says or does they are reacting just crazy and exaggerated ways so on one side i think we have a high level over level of loyalty on the other side you have people who will not tolerate any view that disagrees with their view with their core value system that theyre not open to discussing it well i think thats whats keeping what you are then what the ok let me go to jenna. This is an age of irrationality because youre against your. Ear against your opponent and you going to take a position irrespective but irrespective of your own values its not about values then its about Something Else jan what is it go ahead. Well i do believe we are already in the midst of a civil war and i think the 1st shot in the civil war was actually was actually fired by the Obama Administration the day they filed that 1st pfizer request to eavesdrop on their political opponent donald trump in trump tower in the 2016 elections and ever since that time we have been in a civil war and the democrats cant believe that the American People actually elected a reality t. V. Star donald trump and they just havent gotten over it and so there you see the their rhetoric being ratcheted up and what aravind just said it is amazing you look at the poll numbers 1015 years ago as a political strategist you had about 10 to 15 percent of n. Dependents to work with now that number is down to around 5 or 6 percent if you look at the impeachment proceedings and the independent views on those 47 percent of republicans feel they should you know he should be impeached and 47 percent of democrats say no yes he should and then theres only really 6 percent in the middle that are open minded and those people according to a poll out this week arent even paying attention so you have the right versus the left and not very many people in between rich same question to you in new york go ahead. Well i happen to agree i think were in a cold civil war i believe whats happening is were seeing that the democrats and the far left theyre just not going to accept the results of the 2016 election and theyre going to use any method they can to try to take President Trump down and the problem that you get into here is that you know when 2 people stop you know people become so radical on that side that you know it doesnt just end with a censure it doesnt just end with impeachment then they want to go right down the line they want to impeach pretty much anyone who disagrees with them and thats a dangerous precedent to set i think its very very dangerous for a country as well i mean lets then stay with that theme because i think thats very very important i mean there was a time when it was before 2016 thats for sure where you could sit down and you could have a pleasant constructive even. A conversation where you would learn something new i dont i dont see any dialogue anymore they look at you they ask you a few questions and because they they dont agree with your values and values translates into youre a good person or a bad person thats not not a political conversation its only been recently now where that is the case where if you dont hold values you know beyond the pale that is ridiculous its nonsense and fox does it all the way to c. N. N. Ok i got its be good to be fair here are our been in washington going it. I think what were seeing is people resorting to non political types of argument i really want to call it are going political methods of pressure and persuasion for political issues listen we are a political country have always been a political controversy supposed to be a place or ideas are debated but instead we have you know for example on the left you have a safe space culture which refuses to tolerate any difference of views you have people banning people from social events entirely nonpolitical events non political areas because of their political views that is not a pole way of having political discourse thats a way of just telling your opponents to shut up a messy way of side trying to silence and bully any kind of opposition and on the right youre seeing the same thing where were people who dont fall in line with with trump even when trump is not saying something conservative are just bullied and shamed and pressured to conform and this this idea that what you that your political views are somehow now part of your identity yet rather than your considered and analyzed opinion that is a huge problem when you start to turn that into your personal identity theres no room for discussion anymore now its a religion to you know janet the thing is i can i jump in go ahead please do i support of the program go ahead in new york you know i happen to agree when you come to the left you know but we see a ton of dissidents from from president i mean we see people all day on the right oh you know socalled republicans going after him attacking him you know siding with democrats against him and you know i speak with democrats republicans all the time and democrats are not even happy with with their own party at this point you know moderates and b. People in between are saying whats going on here this is not the party of j. F. K. This is not the party of even bill clinton or barack obama anymore its going really far left and the problem is is that people on the left dont call out their own you know aleck to officials when they start saying really radical things that people on the right do it i see it all the time and date they dont. They dont hesitate to tell when it comes to president ial you know you know 10 you know it because they want to well taken ok but let me go to get here before we go to the break i know you have all taken its whats really important here it gets down to it seems to me is not politics it gets down to power you know when i hear about Court Packing getting rid of. The Electoral College things like that i mean they want to structurally change things they dont they dont like how the rules have been set out that weve all were all used to agree to and now they want to change the rules and it to them to me that means they dont have a political argument they just want power what do you think jed in new york. Well its not just about power peter its really about what barack obama said which is that they were out to fundamentally change america and i think they started to do that and theres a whole generation coming up 60 percent of millennial now dont believe that the 1st amendment should actually be a constitutional right and thats because they believe you shouldnt have the right to free speech because it might say and somebody that speaking this speech and how how did it get to this point i think it goes back to barack obama i think it was in 2012 they sent out talking points of how to talk to your family have a debate politics at the thanksgiving table well were at thanksgiving week here in america and i look back at that and i think that was the time that politics and filtrated into the personal realm and you cant even now sit down to a family dinner without having to worry about being confronted by these nasty politics and look it has gotten that it is a civil war and its to the point now where you cant just be right or wrong if you disagree with a person then you must be evil and i think you know we go to that level were sinking to a devilishly new low in this country you know rich. Its very well i mean did it happen under obama it seems to me this is going to mean i used to be in academia ok in the 1990 s. And i know whats whats happening in mainstream now was in academia in the 1990 s. It just went into the mainstream right now you have hollywood you have big. Capitalism theyre all channeling the same thing ok the same kind of ideology its really an ideology of antipolitics go ahead in new york. Well i agree with you you know we see a constant attack on on conservatives within within College Campuses and ive been saying for a long time and you know i dont blame one particular party i believe that a lot of the weight does fall solely on the left but i believe that both all the elected politicians dis falls on their shoulders that we need to upgrade our Education System and we need to stop having an indoctrination system you know right now our Education System does not prepare people for the future of what it is its a lot of these radical professors who go into teaching and they want to indoctrinate they want to revise history and its spilling over so its not its no longer just on a College Campuses were seeing a spillover like you said at the dinner table its spilling over into the workplace people are scared to post something you know on their social media which did to a certain extent they should be able to but you know at this point you know theres no theres no more argument its all about the fact that if you support someone they go out for personal destruction its no longer about battling ideas its about labeling someone something so you can demean and you can make sure that their opinion is looked at like it means a lot less so thats their tactic they used to in academia for many years and now they using it just its spilling over into society at a rate that weve never seen before. 30 seconds before we go to the break were going to reflect upon that you were nodding your head go ahead in washington that is absolutely true i mean what youre seeing him in academia both at the College Level youre seeing that if you if you believe that that biology determines gender you are disagreed with you are hated and shut down you are shrieked into silence at the High School Level ive had students whove who for political papers of said that they wanted to write about ending the department of education they were shut down by their teachers and that is a valid political position is a political held position held by most republicans all the returns and its held by me personally i think the and when you see people being silenced because they disagree with the status quo at that place youre no longer doing education you are just doing a dock. You know its gone so far away and i want to review that we are all right so im going to jump in here were going to go to a short break and after that short break well continue our discussion on the political divide state with r. C. Young elephants have come to us. Especially brutal budging incidence because sadly the baby elephants often do see their mothers being killed but also be caught up unfortunately. I do believe the elephant smile i see its a nice little once the home facial expression changes. You know one of the things we talk about on the show if you read the Financial Press about the latest scandal its just a new name for a recurring scale like theres only 3 or 4 ways you can rip people off as it changes is the name they call to rip people off. This is a story about what happens auster a stray bullet kills a young girl in the street. What happens to her family and daughters in florida you know the mother daughter is buried in a cemetery it really messes with your head what happens to the community the public was screaming for a scapegoat the Police Needed a scapegoat so why not choose a 19 year old black kid with a criminal record who better to pen this than him and what happens in court be the. Shock shock as far. We dont know just for the. End of the story we. Still dont know childress. Welcome back to cross talk where all things are considered im Peter Lavelle to remind you were discussing the political divide. You said at the opening of the program that you believe that the country already is in a civil war and i actually happen to agree with you its really the intensity and where we go next i dont want to talk about where were going to go next because any country and weve had a civil war in our country is probably the most defining moment in our countrys history was very tragic very difficult and i think we learned a lot of lessons from it though a lot of people on the left dont believe that anymore unfortunately pain can bring people together and i think that was the case how do we avoid going to the next steps how do we do that or is it inevitable because the 1st part of our program was pretty depressing go ahead jim well theres good news and bad news here peter ill start with the bad news since im a political strategist. The bad news is i think were very close to this Tipping Point there was a study done recently in the last week or 2 that said that 52 percent of americans thats a majority of americans said that there would be quote unquote riots in the street if donald trump is removed from office not just impeached by the impeached and removed and i think that that underscores the point that you and i have said here that we are already in the civil war and theres been a lot of people blaming things like russian meddling you name it but i think this is. In boiling for quite some time you know the old quote Eleanor Roosevelt quote i think applies here no one can make you feel inferior without your consent you cant get angry about something and politics if you werent already angry so a guy like donald trump doesnt just come along and get elected for a particular reason or because people supported have are were against him he got elected as a symptom of what was going on is america and that is i believe the elite bureaucratic class in washington d. C. Versus the rust of america and places like i grew up in oklahoma and texas and so i think thats the bad news i think were very close to the Tipping Point i think the good news is though i did and informal poll on my social media yesterday in preparation for coming on today and said are we past the divide or can this nation be saved and i was surprised by the result 100 percent of people 100 percent said it can be saved but we have to go back to what we just discussed in the last segment which is we have to allow free speech and debate and discussion without name calling without calling the other person evil we have to go back to this what the country was founded on which was the 1st amendment and a Civil Exchange of debates and ideas you know a bit rich the problem with that is and its something ive experienced and on social media is shadow banning taking my followers away by deleting my comment comment to me i mean if so patently obvious and then you ask why this is happening and its the orwellian silence here i mean if we if its not a level Playing Field how can we get to the point where jens informal poll thank you for doing it were preparing for this program but if we dont have a a fair level Playing Field how are we going to get to avoiding the next steps that could be tragic go ahead rich new york. Its a great question i know i was a victim of a show. Betting myself i know many people are and it still happens and this is just goes back to the testament that some people can accept the results of the 2016 election they can accept the fact that one side is actually you know doing what they said theyre going to do so they resort to tactics where its like if we cant beat you lets silence you and thats thats a serious problem now to take it back to your point about the civil war i happen to disagree with thinking that will ever end up in another civil war i happen to study the civil war very closely and there are a lot of similarities in the way that there is so so much part partisan divide here d but back in the original civil war it happened in america it was kind of it was much different you had a south that had its own economy you had a north that kind of was operating in its own capacity so i dont think and i hope we never get to that level but i do think again that were in a cold civil war i think one of the tactics that theyre using is to silence people because if they if they believe they can silence of voices that can rally up you know supporters that theyve already won half the battle so what they try to do is make sure that someone who is influential who speaks common sense its not even its not even about something right wing a left wing anymore then theyre eating their own that if someone in their party doesnt fall in line precisely to go as far left as they want theyre going to eat their own so they go for silence as their main weaponized tactic you know. And if i may be going john if im not some kind of Program Going arvinds question. Number one difference between the civil war and the lower case a civil war that were in is one difference today given the 2nd