You say you want a revolution. Well, you know we all want to change the world.

We all want to change the world.

The Beatles wrote that song in 1968 and Revolution was not a metaphor.

Baby Boomers were actively using that word to talk about the political change

they wanted to see. And this generation, it has dominated American political culture ever

since. Our politics have revolved around or maybe even been mired in their debates over their values and norms and rights and identities since they were teenagers.

That was arguably even the story of 2016.

After all, Steve Bannon once made a whole documentary

about how he thinks his fellow boomers ruined the world.

The main characteristic of the 60s generation was moral self-righteousness

and they believed that they had spotted endemic and almost ineradicable flaws

in American society. So the Boomer's culture wars have in a

so the Boomer's culture wars have had staying power and we've spent a lot of time in this series thinking about that fact.

But in this episode, we want to look at those culture clashes from another vantage point.

I'm Kywright this is the United States of Anxiety Culture Wars and today we consider the

distinction between radical politics and political violence. So I'm here with our producer Paige Cowlett. Hey Paige. Hey Paige.

Hey, Kai.

You've been looking at how the culture wars can become deadly when people decide to make a political point through violence.

And obviously this is part of our reality, really ever since 9-11, but I think it's kind of hard

to talk about it constructively because terrorism seems so obviously wrong and

honestly is just scary.

But here's the thing.

...