Tom Segura and Bert Kreischer turned the news about a Fort Hood attacker’s live broadcast execution into a conversation about cancel culture, public punishment, and where American society is headed on the latest episode of 2 Bears, 1 Cave.
The conversation started when Segura asked Kreischer if he was going to watch the Pentagon’s planned broadcast. “I just found out about this,” Kreischer said.
Segura filled him in on the background: “Well, my recollection is that it was a army guy and I think he was Muslim, right?… He went back to his base or former base and he killed 13 people, wounded 32 others.”
Segura called the decision to broadcast it unusual.
Segura stated, “I had no idea. I had forgotten about that guy until the Pentagon was like, ‘We’re going to live cast it.’ I think that’s crazy to live cast it.”
He was careful to separate his view of the man from his view of the broadcast itself. “I think he’s a terrible guy. I want to be clear, like, I think he’s a terrible guy and for sure I’m not opposed to his execution, but I think live broadcasting it is sort of indicative of where we’re at and where we’re headed with everything in the world right now. It feels like a weird choice to me to be.”
During the conversation, Kreischer connected the impulse to watch to a wider pattern he sees in how people treat each other publicly.
He said, “It’s very primal, and I think it’s very indicative of cancel culture, and cancel culture permeates itself in so many different ways in society. If you simply don’t agree with someone’s politics, they go after you on every place they can.”
He noted, “Cancel culture is in fact identical to what happened in the reign of terror in France, where they just started beheading people. [ ] CEOs in the back is no different than what they were doing to Marie Antoinette. So I think it’s a very primal feeling for Americans, or for people, to want to see negative things happen to other people to make themselves feel better about who they are.”
Segura agreed there’s a performative, almost ritual quality to modern public backlash.
“There’s a little bit, for sure, trying to galvanize people of like, this is what we do now. Like, you do some [ ] up stuff like this, we’re going to [ ] you and we’re going to show you, which is how some people do public executions still to this day across the world. It’s definitely how it used to be when you would execute in the town square, right? It was to show everybody. There was some sort of perverse joy in seeing that, but it was also a message.”
Kreischer reflected on his own hesitation to watch such content, questioning what consuming it would say about him. “Maybe I don’t want this in my brain, to know that I was part of society that celebrated an execution.”
