S03E20 – RFK Jr., Declining Homicide Rates, and White Christian Nationalists

In this episode of Finding Common Battlegrounds, we start the podcast with a discussion of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and his candidacy for President. We discuss whether he will be more detrimental to Trump’s campaign or Biden’s. We also talk briefly about his anti-vaccination views and his advocacy for free speech. Tom concludes he’ll vote for him over Biden or Trump but Ryan is discounting him because he’s anti-vaccines, so we don’t agree there. We then turn to recent news articles suggesting there has been a decline in homicide rates this year and discuss why this may be happening and what it means. We don’t perfectly find common ground on this as Tom thinks it’s too early to tell if this is a real reversal, but we generally agree about perceptions of violence (and racism) in society. In a bonus topic, Tom raises concerns about the coming persecution of Christians in the US, drawing similarities to how Christians persecuted pagans during the Roman empire. This brings us to a discussion of white Christian nationalism. Ryan strongly disagrees with Tom that Christians in the US are being persecuted for two reasons: (1) they are still a substantial majority and (2) asking for the same privileges as Christians and Christians either having to give up their privileges or share them is not the same things a persecution. Tom agrees with the second item but disagrees with the first. We ultimately bet dinner over whether white Christian nationalists will have to register with the government by April 24, 2029.