Heather Ann Thompson

And it turns out all the same folks on the scene today were there in New York City in 1984 when this one kind of crazy traumatic event happens on a subway that will become a trial and it will –

catapult the political careers of people like Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani and Rupert Murdoch.

And so it turned out this was a story that was kind of ground zero for where we are today.

The city-city, northwest side.

You are absolutely right.

And notwithstanding, you know, the phrase rebirth of white rage, you know, I acknowledge in the book and talk a lot about it in my work in general, look,

racism is baked into the DNA of this country and certainly the impulse to, you know, resort to vigilante violence.

We have a long history of that in this country, but there is a period in this country and it really matters, which is sort of between the 19th century when we have lynching and we have the Gilded Age and we have all the robber barons.

And today we

when there was a belief that the rule of law mattered, that lynching still went on, but it was considered outside the bounds of civility, and a period of time when we regulated business.

And we said, you know what, it's not okay to just do whatever you want.

And businesses, too, have to pay into the body public.

And

And the question is, when did we then go back to this renormalization and relegitimization of really some of the worst income inequality we've seen in 100 years?

and some of the worst unleashing of gun violence and rage and vigilantism that we've also not seen in 100 years.

So it's always there.

It's just the question of when do we kind of sanction it and embrace it and celebrate it, you know, in our political sphere?

And when do we censure it?

When do we push back at it as a collective?

Yeah, that's right.