Speaker 1: Hello the Internet, and welcome to season three, twelve, episode.
Speaker 2: Two of turn Nightly Guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my production by Heart Radio. Myles is currently doing
Speaker 1: the little head tilt that dogs do when they're puzzled
Speaker 1: by your behavior.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well so just look, like we said in the
Speaker 2: trending episode Daylight Savings, it comes for us all in
Speaker 2: some way, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Anyways, Hey ma, this is a podcast where we take
Speaker 1: a deep dive into america share consciousness.
Speaker 2: Do we still want to do that?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I guess it's kind of the premise of the show.
Speaker 2: I guess we keep Yeah, well, this one's specifically American
Speaker 2: and yeah, yeah, yeah, we're going, oh yeah, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: have to open our eyes to some things. Today.
Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, November seventh, twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, this is kind of a bummer day. It's
Speaker 2: International Merlow Day, National Canine Lymphoma Awareness Day, National Bittersweet
Speaker 2: Chocolate with Almonds Day. Like that's it, that doesn't that's
Speaker 2: we don't need that. International Day of Medical Physics. I'm
Speaker 2: sure that's hopefully that's on the pseudoscience. But yeah, love
Speaker 2: it all, love it all. Oh, a National retin all
Speaker 2: Day for all of you skincare people out there.
Speaker 1: I practice medical physics every day.
Speaker 2: Bro. That doesn't it sound like some fucking Aaron Rodgers
Speaker 2: asked ship to say, Yeah, I'm I mean nice, partake,
Speaker 2: partook in some medical physics and things are good. But
Speaker 2: luckily for us it's it's I'm pretty sure it's it's
Speaker 2: all about physics. How physics plain to patient care? There
Speaker 2: you go, so yeah, hope, And from my understanding, physics
Speaker 2: is a pretty nailed on science. It's not like people
Speaker 2: are like, nah, not the way I fuck with it.
Speaker 1: When you drop a rock from a high height on
Speaker 1: a patient.
Speaker 2: It hurts them exactly. Thank you, physics, Thank you're welcome.
Speaker 1: Uh well, my name is Jack O'Brien aka making my
Speaker 1: way round clowns, walking fast faces, passing. I'm sure bound
Speaker 1: no no no no no no no no no no
Speaker 1: no no no no no no swear. I don't need depends,
Speaker 1: just another day, another day, proven it now dinner no
Speaker 1: no no no no no no, I'm gonna keep doing
Speaker 1: no no no no no. And I pissed them dinner
Speaker 1: dent and I peed them do dent and now I
Speaker 1: wantder If I could go back on that ride, do
Speaker 1: you think I could convince my wife, because you know,
Speaker 1: I do a thousand trials if I could just keep
Speaker 1: my pants dry dinner. Uh that is courtesy of res
Speaker 1: on the Discord. Thank you for you know, keeping this
Speaker 1: embarrassing incident from my past top of mind. And I'm
Speaker 1: thrilled to be joined as always by my co host
Speaker 1: mister Miles Gressvile's.
Speaker 2: Break, I am doll bones, mouse bones, bat bones and
Speaker 2: go to the chorus. Yeah is really wod okay, shout
Speaker 2: out Nicole Adrian for that whole rendition. Doll parts. Didn't
Speaker 2: do the whole thing because I couldn't man man hitting
Speaker 2: all them Courtney Love. I was smoking. I don't smoked
Speaker 2: cigarettes anymore, so I can't quite get that rasp out
Speaker 2: a shout out to Nicole agents.
Speaker 1: Plus I had just nailed mine so hard that it
Speaker 1: would have been hard.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, that was like I forget.
Speaker 1: It's like I no, no, no, no, no no no no
Speaker 1: no no no no.
Speaker 2: You know the musicality. Yeah, I did the equivalent of
Speaker 2: pulling up like during a sprint, because I knew I
Speaker 2: was getting beat and I didn't want to have that
Speaker 2: l so I went, ah, my handy, my handy.
Speaker 1: My hand when saw the smoke trail behind my vocals
Speaker 1: that opened this episode. Miles, We're thrilled to be joined
Speaker 1: in our third seat by today's special expert guests. He
Speaker 1: is the senior researcher of US hate and Extremist Movements
Speaker 1: at the Institute for a Strategic Dialogue. To quote Samuel L. Jackson,
Speaker 1: hold onto your butts because it's the return of ultimania.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the show, Jared Hat Jared, Hey, thanks
Speaker 1: for having me.
Speaker 2: Guys.
Speaker 3: I kind of feel like the janitor. I think, like
Speaker 3: when you go see a concert and all the lights
Speaker 3: come up and like after those musical renditions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, all right, guys.
Speaker 2: Hey, hey, oh oh hey, sweeping up around here. I
Speaker 2: don't have to go home, but you really shouldn't stay here.
Speaker 2: Guys left a lot of little plastic bags on the
Speaker 2: ground here. Another one of those shows. I guess.
Speaker 3: How you doing, Jared, Hey, I'm doing all right. Where
Speaker 3: you coming to us from Chicago? Moved here a couple
Speaker 3: of years ago, and it's getting a little cold here,
Speaker 3: but love this city.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the old two one three three one two three
Speaker 1: one two damn it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's so close. Hey, it's Okay, man, it's okay.
Speaker 1: We covered this yesterday.
Speaker 2: Yeah, literally, But so, Jerry, what's like, because you know,
Speaker 2: when we first started the show, we had you on
Speaker 2: when you're working at like right Wing Watch. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 2: and now like you've there's like a whole lane to
Speaker 2: be somebody who is so well versed in like extremist
Speaker 2: semiotics and monitoring extremist movements that like, I just feel
Speaker 2: like you're always moving up and I'm like, this is
Speaker 2: this is fair. I love the glow up, but it's
Speaker 2: always on the back of having to have your head
Speaker 2: in some of the dark shit all the time. But
Speaker 2: you're doing well otherwise despite this career path. I just
Speaker 2: want to make sure because the work you do is fantastic.
Speaker 2: The work that your colleagues do is fantastic. I could
Speaker 2: never imagine being disengaged with it, even at the level
Speaker 2: we do. But but shit, the level that like you
Speaker 2: guys do is completely it's like completely different.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I'm doing well. I appreciate all that.
Speaker 3: It's uh, it's really interesting because I started doing this
Speaker 3: kind of stuff full time something like eight years ago, right,
Speaker 3: and I felt like when I was doing it then,
Speaker 3: I was like the crazy guy on the town square
Speaker 3: being like here, he, here, he please pay attention to
Speaker 3: this shit, right, and now it's just like, I mean,
Speaker 3: I guess I'm glad it's recognized, but it is really
Speaker 3: unfortunate that, you know, in the grand scheme of things,
Speaker 3: that it's necessary.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, but so long as.
Speaker 3: I can help, you know, that's it's like a calling
Speaker 3: of mine, I guess, And I don't know, there's it's
Speaker 3: really dark, but then there's like a little bit of
Speaker 3: gallows humor that keeps me coming back.
Speaker 2: Sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Would you say, like just kind of having taking a
Speaker 1: step back, would January sixth be the thing that like
Speaker 1: made sort of the mainstream world take right wing extremism
Speaker 1: more seriously?
Speaker 2: Was it?
Speaker 1: Was it happening before that? Was it Charlottesville? What was
Speaker 1: the kind of overall pattern?
Speaker 3: I mean, I think Charlottesville was sort of the beginning
Speaker 3: of it. And then in twenty nineteen there were a
Speaker 3: few really really horrible extremist mass killings. That's when you
Speaker 3: had like the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. Christ Church was that year.
Speaker 3: And then I think for you know, the normies of
Speaker 3: the world that still didn't get it somehow, it's kind
Speaker 3: of hard to think of a more powerful image than
Speaker 3: you know, QAnon ants and car dealership uncles radicalized by
Speaker 3: the Internet, you know, smashing through the halls of Congress.
Speaker 3: I think that was pretty hard to you know, look
Speaker 3: away from or right off. It's like, oh, well, it's
Speaker 3: just some weird fringe you know, yes, and it's right
Speaker 3: there in your face.
Speaker 2: That's my fucking uncle. Fuck.
Speaker 1: I remember how recently it was like such a fringe idea,
Speaker 1: Like even after right wing extremism was responsible for the
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City bombing, it was just like there was nobody
Speaker 1: looking into it. Even after Trump got elected, like there
Speaker 1: was still like right just people weren't taking it seriously
Speaker 1: as a threat.
Speaker 2: It's because we have such you know, white supremacist reflexes
Speaker 2: that were like them, no, no, they're nice kids. They
Speaker 2: have Jacki's on okay, and they're they're not they don't
Speaker 2: look that imposing. Now, this group of people with these
Speaker 2: signs over here, I don't know what's going on. It
Speaker 2: may have to do with their complexion, I don't know,
Speaker 2: but yeah, like I feel like that always has that's
Speaker 2: always benefited especially like right wing extremism, is their whiteness
Speaker 2: or just not whether not being taken seriously or this
Speaker 2: idea of like, oh, it's nothing, it's just don't worry
Speaker 2: about that over there kind of shit.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean it still does, right, I mean I
Speaker 3: think about, like, even in the field I work in,
Speaker 3: which is weird to call it a field now, right,
Speaker 3: It's every once in a while you'll catch, you know,
Speaker 3: after some mass shooting or big event in extremism land,
Speaker 3: a bunch of people trying to offer up all these
Speaker 3: like different competing theories as to why it happened, whether
Speaker 3: it's you know, like economic hardsh or whatever. It's like, right,
Speaker 3: we don't, you know, as a culture, we don't cut
Speaker 3: this slack or like try to you know, do armchair
Speaker 3: psychology over other stuff.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: It's it's always interesting to me, like where that gets applied,
Speaker 3: because that's one of those I think kind of subtle
Speaker 3: ways that you know, living in a culture defined by
Speaker 3: white supremacy like comes out even in the field that
Speaker 3: you know, it is hoping to try to counteract some
Speaker 3: of that.
Speaker 2: Right right, right exactly, But how did they grow up though,
Speaker 2: these skinhead kids.
Speaker 1: It's like, well it doesn't matter because yeah, exactly, let's
Speaker 1: get to the point, here's a skinhead now and that
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: You hate to see it, don't you? You hate to
Speaker 2: see I feel like that's like what people would say,
Speaker 2: like in news rooms, like ah, you hate to see it?
Speaker 2: Just these nice kids going on a foul But yeah,
Speaker 2: talk about today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we got a lot to talk about. We're going
Speaker 1: to get more into this than the rest of the
Speaker 1: show as it applies to this present moment in the
Speaker 1: near future.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but before we.
Speaker 1: Get to that, we do, of course, Jared like to
Speaker 1: ask our guests, what is something from your search history
Speaker 1: that's revealing about who you are or what you're up to.
Speaker 1: So the revealing one is just me typing in random
Speaker 1: celebrity names because I don't follow celebrity news at all,
Speaker 1: So anytime there's like some name I don't recognize that
Speaker 1: people are talking about, I just assume it's some celebrity
Speaker 1: and I have to look them up, and then my
Speaker 1: reaction is usually either like oh, I think I've seen
Speaker 1: that guy before, or like, oh no, I don't I
Speaker 1: don't know who that is. Okay, wow, us with your latest,
Speaker 1: Like who's the biggest person you've had to look up recently?
Speaker 2: It's like Margo.
Speaker 1: Margo Robbie. Yeah, yeah, I didn't know who that was.
Speaker 2: Jared, I.
Speaker 1: Not love it.
Speaker 2: You're like Joey Gibson, I'll tell you when he was
Speaker 2: fucking born started Patriot prayer. Wait, who the fuck is Barbie?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I know, I know, damn yeah, yeah, I know.
Speaker 2: I don't know. No, no, I'm not even saying it
Speaker 2: was just it's just wild though, like how much wow?
Speaker 2: In a way that's also it's a blessing.
Speaker 1: To mvu sir.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, I just like don't watch a lot of movies,
Speaker 3: and I always feel like, you know, I'm missing out
Speaker 3: on this big like cultural thing, but I I don't
Speaker 3: know what it is. Maybe the Internet has just like
Speaker 3: destroyed my attention span or I like or paralysis trying
Speaker 3: to pick something to watch, but I just don't. I'm
Speaker 3: not caught up with movies, so like these big names,
Speaker 3: I just don't recognize that.
Speaker 2: Sure it could be forgiven because you're out here looking
Speaker 2: at the iterations of third wave fucking white nationalism, right,
Speaker 2: they're like, yeah, yeah, I'm seeing that coming in from
Speaker 2: a long distance here right now. But what is what
Speaker 2: is pop patrol?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Is that? Wow?
Speaker 1: And so do you feel what like hell, because I
Speaker 1: think there's probably a lot of people out there who
Speaker 1: are like I envy you. I wish I could be
Speaker 1: unplugged from all the bullshit. Maybe not everybody, but like,
Speaker 1: do you feel lost in a lot of conversations, what
Speaker 1: like not knowing who Margo Elise Robbie is. Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I like to go to like trivia with
Speaker 3: my friends like every every couple of weeks, and whenever
Speaker 3: the questions come around, and it's like who was the
Speaker 3: actor of the year from twenty eighteen?
Speaker 2: Who started?
Speaker 1: And then they'll just like they'll just say.
Speaker 2: Like the movie right, just like I haven't know what right, right? Right?
Speaker 2: What movie is that?
Speaker 3: And they're like, I was Transformers, dude, Yeah, yeah, I remember, yeah,
Speaker 3: actor of the Year, Actor of the Year from Transformers.
Speaker 2: See, I just hope isn't there like ever a moment
Speaker 2: though you can stunt with your like broad sweeping knowledge
Speaker 2: of like historical facts and like context where like yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: being like what did Ross say as his excuse for
Speaker 2: going outside of the relationship when he was cheating? Quote unquote,
Speaker 2: It's like, I don't know what that you know the
Speaker 2: answer to that, Jared, No, Well, we were on a break. Okay,
Speaker 2: just you guys don't need to dunk on me. Just
Speaker 2: let me talk more about it. Apologies.
Speaker 1: That's amazing though.
Speaker 2: No, but where does it? But does it pay out?
Speaker 2: I mean, because dude, I know you are such an
Speaker 2: infinite wealth of like just actual functional knowledge, especially when
Speaker 2: looking at the current hellscape that is like American culture
Speaker 2: and extremism. But like, tell me that you at least
Speaker 2: flip it up on switch it up on him, like
Speaker 2: y'all need to come to one of my trivia nights.
Speaker 3: Oh so I do well with the historical stuff, but
Speaker 3: where I think maybe a lot of people watch movies
Speaker 3: and stuff. I'm really into music, so oh hell yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: so I can do music trivia pretty good.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, good, good check out. I wanted to
Speaker 2: make sure you have some kind of like creative thing
Speaker 2: you could look at other than trying to be like
Speaker 2: what does this Peppi the Frog mean? Which artist? A?
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I that's great, Like I honestly so much
Speaker 1: my brain is just regurgitating like pop culture quotes and
Speaker 1: bullshit and like just at random, like yea, you know,
Speaker 1: someone's like, let's take a quick break while I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, my wife and I are running and she's like,
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, we were on a break. Why why
Speaker 2: did that? What's Yeah, that's help that resonated with me.
Speaker 2: But Jared is like okay, and yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe shut up. My wife response, Yeah, what's What's
Speaker 1: something you think is overrated?
Speaker 2: Jared?
Speaker 1: AI?
Speaker 3: Like what what people call like AI? It's going to
Speaker 3: be the future. It's like a lot of the same
Speaker 3: guys that hawked, you know, the like board ape and
Speaker 3: the n f T s and stuff.
Speaker 1: They're all about AI now and.
Speaker 3: Like a lot of that technology is impressive, but if
Speaker 3: you like it still just screws up all the time.
Speaker 3: I think of all the pictures where it's like we
Speaker 3: used AI to see what what kind of skateboard George
Speaker 3: Washington would have written, and George Washington has like five legs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like, yeah, I don't know about that.
Speaker 2: Or dude, I knew he'd skate alien workshop dude.
Speaker 3: Exactly, yeah, exactly, Or like news outlets that are like, oh,
Speaker 3: we're going to use AI and it's going to like
Speaker 3: generate the shitty clickbait or whatever that actually pays the
Speaker 3: bills on our blog and then the the articles just
Speaker 3: like did you know headphones can help you listen to
Speaker 3: things from your phone? And it's like I'm yeah, thanks man, Uh.
Speaker 2: You're like, what's this article about?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know it's it's just I the technology
Speaker 3: is impressive, but I think the doom sayers and the
Speaker 3: people that are like, this is going to change the world.
Speaker 1: Maybe it will, but.
Speaker 3: We're not, like it's it's not there yet, you know.
Speaker 3: I think the biggest risk is this technology getting forced
Speaker 3: through before it's ready by the people who want to
Speaker 3: get rich on it, you know. And uh, you know,
Speaker 3: but generally speaking, I think a lot of it is
Speaker 3: like razzle dazzle without a whole lot of stuff to
Speaker 3: like back it up.
Speaker 1: It's not like AI is.
Speaker 3: Actually conscious if we're anywhere close to anything like that.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the razzle dazzle sucks. Like when somebody does razzle
Speaker 1: dazzle in sports, it's like, man, that was a cool,
Speaker 1: like little magic trick they did. The razz AI fucking sucks,
Speaker 1: like Yo.
Speaker 2: The wolf is dripped out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's the one that's the is one good
Speaker 1: piece of work.
Speaker 2: I will like, Yo, that just that puffer that he
Speaker 2: was in the fucking ill. Did you wait? Speaking of
Speaker 2: bard Ape, did you see how they had like a
Speaker 2: bord Ape convention in like h and all the people
Speaker 2: got their eyes burned by UV lights. Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, And they put out some statement this morning that's
Speaker 3: like we're away of eye related incidents.
Speaker 2: It's incredible. People were like tweeting, I don't did you
Speaker 2: see this?
Speaker 1: Jack people the dance party and people being like this
Speaker 1: is not how I would want to be blinded. And
Speaker 1: I did not know what they were saying, so I
Speaker 1: thought they were just like I don't know. I was like, man,
Speaker 1: I got to invest in this so I can get
Speaker 1: all the inside jokes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, everyone's like, yeah, you actually have what's called welder's eyes,
Speaker 2: like from not wearing a fucking mask? Fan? Is that real? Yeah?
Speaker 2: That's like it's like, Yo, this ship is called Welder's eye. Dude,
Speaker 2: can you believe?
Speaker 3: Can you believe they only paid one hundred grand to
Speaker 3: get Welder's eye?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I know, Wow, what a deal. It's just it does
Speaker 1: like I don't take that much joy in it because
Speaker 1: they're just like they getting dunked on while multiple much
Speaker 1: money and just tripling down to get Welder's eye.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like, yeah, because you feel bad like you've
Speaker 2: been you got got like multiple times. Now it's like
Speaker 2: you got got by buying these born apes and then
Speaker 2: you go to the thing that's supposed to be with
Speaker 2: you and the crew, and then you're getting Welder's I
Speaker 2: at the fucking dance. Yeah.
Speaker 3: The best reaction I saw to it is this writer
Speaker 3: that I really enjoy, Molly White. She like pull you know,
Speaker 3: posted a picture of the like avatars of the the
Speaker 3: apes with like laser beam eyes, and she was like,
Speaker 3: you know, I totally misinterpreted this. I thought the coming out.
Speaker 1: Like, you know, you were getting freelance lasic, you know,
Speaker 1: ambient lasik happening all around us.
Speaker 2: The most imprecise lasick you could have it. It's really
Speaker 2: just called photokeratosis or carotitis or something like that. Welder's eye.
Speaker 2: Oh that sucks.
Speaker 1: What. There's also like I've seen ads for things that
Speaker 1: are like I stand with, like Crypto and various things
Speaker 1: like that, like trying to turn the failure of that
Speaker 1: product into like a movement where people are I feel like.
Speaker 2: I saw that right after the the attacks on like
Speaker 2: October seventh. Oh really, I don't know, it felt like
Speaker 2: you were co opting that language for some really fucking
Speaker 2: sad way to be. Like, I stand with Crypto, ok
Speaker 2: what anyways, I stand with the bag holders. It sucks
Speaker 2: for y'all, honestly, truly.
Speaker 1: Me, I stand with JP Morgan Chase.
Speaker 2: You know, there you go, that's a hutu fun. They've
Speaker 2: been around, guys, they've been around so long they were
Speaker 2: handling slave money. Okay, so I think they know they
Speaker 2: they know what they're doing if they've lasted this long.
Speaker 1: Jared, what's something you think is underrated?
Speaker 3: I'll say Chicago is a city I feel like it
Speaker 3: is underloved. But to me, it's like it has a
Speaker 3: lot of stuff that New York promises, but you can
Speaker 3: afford to live there if you, you know, have a
Speaker 3: normal job, and and there's also just kind of like
Speaker 3: the I don't know, I mean, maybe it's how I
Speaker 3: grew up or whatever, but I just really vibe with
Speaker 3: the Midwest spirit of like just being kind of down
Speaker 3: to earth and like there's just not a lot of
Speaker 3: bullshit flies here and people are pretty straight up and
Speaker 3: generally nice, passive aggressive, like any good Midwestern town. But yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, I feel like it's you know, people can
Speaker 3: kind of see how it is here and city has
Speaker 3: a lot to offer. I moved here a couple of
Speaker 3: years ago with my wife and love it. So I
Speaker 3: gotta rap Chicago. I've lived here just long enough to
Speaker 3: be able to, you know, call it home.
Speaker 2: So yeah, there you go, gotta wrap it. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: love Chicago. My dad's family moved to LA from Chicago,
Speaker 2: so like we I have those roots there too. But
Speaker 2: I really the last time I went was like in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty, like like like right before the pandemic started,
Speaker 2: and I remember having the same thing or like, man,
Speaker 2: I've been like I would go as a kid, but
Speaker 2: I hadn't gone as like an adult really who could
Speaker 2: like go out and like you know, like like oh
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go check out this restaurant or do other things.
Speaker 2: And I was really really realizing, like man, I was
Speaker 2: fucking sleeping so hard on this ship because I was
Speaker 2: like I came back and be like, yeah, so we
Speaker 2: should just move to Chicago. Also, I can where everyone's
Speaker 2: like you're gonna hate the winter. I'm like I want
Speaker 2: my legs to fucking snap off from the wind, okay,
Speaker 2: And I know people are like, yeah, wait, till it happens,
Speaker 2: but allow me that ignorance so I may experience and
Speaker 2: then come back and say, yeah, yeah, that was a
Speaker 2: little too much.
Speaker 1: But we went there like during it wasn't it wasn't
Speaker 1: the summer, Like summer Chicago make you fall in love immediately?
Speaker 1: Yeah we went there.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I think we're there in January. Yeah it was.
Speaker 2: I was, and then I went back for Also when
Speaker 2: the NBA Al Star Game was it that was February.
Speaker 1: So you've seen what Chicago has to offer in terms
Speaker 1: of making your legs snap up. I guess I was
Speaker 1: like on some like uh like episode two of Lord
Speaker 1: of the Rings, Like I was like, is.
Speaker 2: This all you can conjure? Saraman like, because it wasn't
Speaker 2: that bad. But at the end of the day, maybe
Speaker 2: that was a blessing.
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a quick break and we'll come
Speaker 1: back and get into it.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back.
Speaker 1: And we're back.
Speaker 2: Oh we're back.
Speaker 1: Oh we're back. So, Jared, something that your institute has
Speaker 1: been talking about is sort of some of the opportunism
Speaker 1: happening from the extreme right. It feels like there are
Speaker 1: like avowed anti Semites that are using the current situation
Speaker 1: in Gaza to like kind of get their message in
Speaker 1: under the radar to people that are merely trying to
Speaker 1: learn more about what is happening on the ground. Are
Speaker 1: you Are you seeing a lot of this kind of
Speaker 1: opportunit tunistic rhetoric happening both on the side of anti
Speaker 1: Semitism and then kind of in other ways on the
Speaker 1: side of Islamophobia. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3: I mean any kind of like major cultural flashpoint like
Speaker 3: this is going to be a big like source of
Speaker 3: opportunism from extremist groups and on the extreme right, we've
Speaker 3: seen you know, neo Nazis, white supremacists, you know, all
Speaker 3: kinds of folks that have these really sort of ingrained
Speaker 3: anti Semitic beliefs trying to insert themselves into the conversation,
Speaker 3: and you know, they sort of rehearse these talking points
Speaker 3: for so long they are absolutely obsessed with Israel and
Speaker 3: that sort of stuff. So now that that is in
Speaker 3: the news, you know, I think some of them have
Speaker 3: been able to, you know, get on platforms like Twitter
Speaker 3: or I guess it's x N and you know, kind
Speaker 3: of convey this false sense of authority, right, you know,
Speaker 3: and maybe they get people in by you know, just
Speaker 3: kind of sharing news about what's going on or speculation
Speaker 3: or whatever. And then you know, if they get people
Speaker 3: along for the ride, then you know, that's when the
Speaker 3: real shit comes out. You know, this is and these
Speaker 3: kind of opportunities. You know, I think back to when
Speaker 3: I started, and you know, I was hanging out on
Speaker 3: four Chan during the Trump movement and whatever, and you know,
Speaker 3: to this day, there's this obsession with like red pilling.
Speaker 3: Not a lot of people like call it that explicitly anymore,
Speaker 3: but just seeking these little opportunities to like plant these
Speaker 3: little seeds and try to take these social movements that
Speaker 3: have a lot of emotion, you know, that are maybe
Speaker 3: debated or less clear on facts in some cases, like
Speaker 3: in this one, where there's like both the time zone
Speaker 3: gap and also just a disparity between like the amount
Speaker 3: of reporters on the ground that are able to get
Speaker 3: good information and like have it bounced through and then
Speaker 3: wind up in a US audience. You know, in that gap,
Speaker 3: that's where they're trying to leverage things and get people,
Speaker 3: even if you know they're not going to go to
Speaker 3: like a pro Palestine protest and walk away with a
Speaker 3: crowd of two thousand neo Nazis, you know, they want
Speaker 3: to at least get some of the some of their ideas,
Speaker 3: even just slightly more popularized, because that has the effect
Speaker 3: of sanitizing them right when they come out and maybe
Speaker 3: they're a more extreme version of it. But if people
Speaker 3: are acclimated at the very least, even if they don't
Speaker 3: totally believe it, it still gives them an advantage in
Speaker 3: the discourse. And like being viewed as legitimate or being
Speaker 3: viewed as you know, being reflective of how people secretly
Speaker 3: really feel, right is like the greatest gift in the
Speaker 3: world to extremists.
Speaker 2: Because I feel like, who's that was that? One of
Speaker 2: Benny Johnson? Like a clown?
Speaker 3: Clown?
Speaker 2: Yeah, like I felt early on he was like tweeting
Speaker 2: things that seemingly like appeared objective, like about like policies
Speaker 2: of the Israeli government, and then people are like, dude,
Speaker 2: this guy is fucking a trash racist, Like like, hold on,
Speaker 2: the people that just do this is getting a ton
Speaker 2: of retweets right now. Know that this person has like
Speaker 2: does not have their head in this for the right reasons.
Speaker 2: He's purely here to like insert himself to get an
Speaker 2: audience that is eventually going to switch a certain way.
Speaker 2: But like when you when you guys do an analysis,
Speaker 2: you were obviously you're saying like you're seeing like an
Speaker 2: uptick in both Islamophobic posts and anti Semitic posts, but
Speaker 2: you're also very you're careful to do the thing, which
Speaker 2: because right now I feel like we're in this environment
Speaker 2: where people are conflating Israel with the entire religion of Judaism,
Speaker 2: or conflating a call for a ceasefire to be anti semitic.
Speaker 2: But how do you get like, so in that analysis,
Speaker 2: what were you guys even finding from from from like
Speaker 2: what's currently happening.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so doing analysis over like several platforms on social media,
Speaker 3: there's no like totally perfect methodology. Sure, so these are
Speaker 3: like approximations based on like collections of keywords we put
Speaker 3: together and then sort of calling and refining, you know,
Speaker 3: getting the trash out of the data and that sort
Speaker 3: of stuff. But we're seeing increases to the tune of
Speaker 3: something like four hundred percent or like two and a
Speaker 3: half time fold when it comes to anti Semitism. But yeah,
Speaker 3: we try to be really careful in doing exactly what
Speaker 3: you just said. You know, people criticizing the government of
Speaker 3: Israel is not like inherently anti Semitic, right, so that
Speaker 3: should not qualify And again, like you said, calling for
Speaker 3: a ceasefire or you know, that sort of thing is
Speaker 3: not necessarily like pro Hamas, right, right. I think the
Speaker 3: powers that be, like these militaries and stuff, right, would
Speaker 3: like love for us to just be like at each
Speaker 3: other's throats, you know, failing to see this like middle
Speaker 3: humanitarian ground of like what if killing innocent people is bad?
Speaker 2: Right? Right?
Speaker 3: Period that yeah, what if like children didn't have to
Speaker 3: die in discriminately right, Like that's but you know in
Speaker 3: these situations that that sort of headbutt that's happening is
Speaker 3: just like producing these huge rises in online rhetoric that's
Speaker 3: like very specifically islamophobic, very specifically anti Semitic, And those
Speaker 3: trends are also reflected in some of the early like
Speaker 3: offline data overseeing you know, leaders of synagogues getting targeted,
Speaker 3: people showing up to pro Palestine protests with weapons, like
Speaker 3: just north of Chicago and Skoki, someone showed up with
Speaker 3: like a it's like a paintball gun type it's like
Speaker 3: a less than lethal gun type thing, but it still
Speaker 3: managed to like terrorize the crowd and all that. Right,
Speaker 3: So it's you know, that conversation that's happening online is
Speaker 3: also reflecting itself in real life. And you know, if
Speaker 3: you remember or of either one of these communities, maybe
Speaker 3: rightfully so, you would feel a little bit on.
Speaker 2: Edge, right, Yeah, And I'm sure adding to that the
Speaker 2: utter lack of moderation on Twitter, it's just like it's
Speaker 2: just a free for all. And I know you guys
Speaker 2: were pointing out that there's a four hundred and twenty
Speaker 2: two percent rise in the use of anti Muslim language
Speaker 2: on x since the start of this, and yeah, like
Speaker 2: that's why, Like when I first reached out, I was like,
Speaker 2: I'm really curious to get your perspective on this, because
Speaker 2: I can I already was seeing, like at the start
Speaker 2: of this that there were these like people I'm like,
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure I know that handle, but for bad reasons,
Speaker 2: Like I'm pretty sure this person is a scumbag, like
Speaker 2: neo Nazi, and then they'll just like kind of sanitize
Speaker 2: their avatar to be like, no, I'm wearing a suit
Speaker 2: and I have this like I have an Israeli and
Speaker 2: American flag in it, but I'm also doing this like
Speaker 2: really like really opportunistic shit. And I can just see
Speaker 2: how because of how charged the entire situation is, it
Speaker 2: must be like a very like the like extremists must
Speaker 2: be just like rubbing their hands together to be like, oh,
Speaker 2: we can really take advantage of this in either direction.
Speaker 1: Really yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3: It's like if I mean, if you look at the
Speaker 3: you know, explosion of the hospital in Gaza, for example,
Speaker 3: that was that was like a really good example of
Speaker 3: the information gap that they're exploiting in this situation where
Speaker 3: there's reports of this explosion, you know, some initial remarks
Speaker 3: both from you know, government over Gaza and Israel.
Speaker 1: Newsrooms in the.
Speaker 3: US are trying to figure out what the hell is happening.
Speaker 3: A few of them fall like flat on their face.
Speaker 3: A lot of details still aren't clear. But in that gap,
Speaker 3: you know, which can be several hours, if not days,
Speaker 3: and you know, I mean we don't we still don't
Speaker 3: have like the most insane like if you're taking this
Speaker 3: position of being like inherently skeptical of like government claims
Speaker 3: right like as far as hard concrete this is one
Speaker 3: two three what happened, we still don't have that right,
Speaker 3: and that gap is where the opportunity lies for these folks,
Speaker 3: because they can come in and say, you know, you
Speaker 3: should listen to me because X y Z, And while
Speaker 3: you're here, I've got all this extra shit to say, right,
Speaker 3: And then that's when they're getting sort of their They're
Speaker 3: coming in this with ulterior motives, is right, you know?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, the conflating of anti Semitism and criticism of the
Speaker 1: Israeli state is where a lot of these extremists are thriving.
Speaker 1: And then on the side of Islamophobia, as Miles mentioned,
Speaker 1: your your organization found a four hundred and twenty two
Speaker 1: percent rise in the use of anti Muslim language on
Speaker 1: Twitter since the start of the conflict. But it's like
Speaker 1: it feels a little bit different there because so much
Speaker 1: of the US government and like mainstream media's official default position,
Speaker 1: like since two thousand and one, has had a lot
Speaker 1: of Islamophobia baked into it.
Speaker 2: So, like, how are you.
Speaker 1: Guys, It seems like that this is metastasizing, Homophobia is
Speaker 1: metastasizing in real time as this conflict is happening. How
Speaker 1: do you see how do you kind of track that
Speaker 1: and how are you seeing it change currently? Yeah?
Speaker 3: So the numbers are you know, an analysis of data
Speaker 3: that we're pulling off platforms using you know, both third
Speaker 3: party tools tools. We have methodologies we have in house
Speaker 3: to do this kind of stuff. But when it comes
Speaker 3: to I think what you're speaking to Jack is like
Speaker 3: the mainstreaming effect of this stuff, and that's a lot
Speaker 3: harder to track. We are like actively at the drawing
Speaker 3: board on that, like how can you quantify or like
Speaker 3: illustrate in an unobjectable way or undisputable way a mainstreaming effect.
Speaker 3: So that's kind of a work in progress. But I
Speaker 3: will say generally, to see this kind of stuff also
Speaker 3: reflected in institutions and individuals that should know better and
Speaker 3: have a lot of power and sway in society is
Speaker 3: totally disappointing.
Speaker 1: And a lot of.
Speaker 3: Research shows that when people in those positions of authority
Speaker 3: in a society make positive statements, you know, condemning this
Speaker 3: sort of thing, discouraging people from engaging in violence and
Speaker 3: that sort of stuff, it actually does have an effect
Speaker 3: on people. Yeah, so it's to me when I see
Speaker 3: that kind of stuff reflected, I just think it's like
Speaker 3: a forfeiting of a certain moral responsibility than as a
Speaker 3: leader in a society I think you should be compelled to, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we're seeing people resigning from The New York
Speaker 1: Times for expressing opposition to the killing of innocent Palestinian people.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's a crazy time. Your organization recently released
Speaker 1: a report about white supremacy three point zero, which got
Speaker 1: me excited because I thought there might be some crypto
Speaker 1: that I could purchase involved with this because web three
Speaker 1: point oh, you know, you got to strike while the
Speaker 1: iron's hot, these prices are low, you got to buy
Speaker 1: the dip.
Speaker 3: You know, you lost so many you know, you lost
Speaker 3: so much money on the apes. You know, you gotta
Speaker 3: find you got to figure out how to make that bad.
Speaker 2: I told him, I said, there's some racist imagery in
Speaker 2: that ship to Jack, I don't know, I.
Speaker 1: Said, I'm blind right now, So how many wen?
Speaker 2: I don't know what design, bro, But yeah, I mean
Speaker 2: like this is it is wild because yeah, like seeing
Speaker 2: this idea of white supremacy, white nationalism three point oh
Speaker 2: like was like, okay, wait, so we're doing we're talking
Speaker 2: about third wave racism basically, so one point oh being
Speaker 2: what like skinheads like that era, which was that what
Speaker 2: we call one point zero.
Speaker 3: So one is yeah, kind of the old school before
Speaker 3: people started doing point ohs, right, yeah, yeah, beta uh
Speaker 3: you know the one point oh or I guess like
Speaker 3: like all right, one point oh that would be like
Speaker 3: the counter Currents blog Vdair Richard Spencer's of the World,
Speaker 3: because that was like, you know, these kind of like
Speaker 3: older folks, a lot of them were writers and whatnot.
Speaker 3: Two point zero would be you know, sort of like
Speaker 3: Charlottesville and what happened after that, and a lot of
Speaker 3: one point oh types were like part of the two
Speaker 3: point zero. It's not like these are completely distinct groups
Speaker 3: or movements or whatever. And then like a three point
Speaker 3: oh now is you know, kind of its own mess.
Speaker 3: I think it maybe makes sense to think of it
Speaker 3: less in terms of like generations and maybe more in
Speaker 3: terms of tactics, right right, Like the version one was
Speaker 3: all about like propaganda, you know, small groups on local levels.
Speaker 3: Whatever two point oh was, you know, that big attempt
Speaker 3: to go mainstream, really soaking in the Internet using that
Speaker 3: to full advantage. And this three point zero is almost
Speaker 3: like a little bit of return to form, going back
Speaker 3: to that local model, but with like a whole host
Speaker 3: of baggage that came from like the years before.
Speaker 2: Right, because like even the term right is coming from
Speaker 2: their movement. It's not something you guys like, point yeah,
Speaker 2: it's not like we came up. It's like for their
Speaker 2: own internal purposes, like we need a white nationalism three
Speaker 2: point zero for lack of a better word, and like
Speaker 2: for them, the aim is sort of to be able
Speaker 2: to make this their their ideology basically palatable to normal people.
Speaker 2: Is like kind of like a huge part of this
Speaker 2: three point oh push right.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, and you know you would think that, but
Speaker 3: actually it's you know, our it guy called us and
Speaker 3: was like, hey, we've we've got the leadst update for
Speaker 3: white nationalism. We have to refresh your computer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, point h.
Speaker 2: So I need you to sign on to team Viewer
Speaker 2: now or zend us. I'm gonna walk in through. Is
Speaker 2: this a scam? No, But like yeah, like it feels
Speaker 2: like like to your point, like the tactic now is
Speaker 2: like okay, maybe that didn't work. What we really need
Speaker 2: is to be able to just kind of blend in
Speaker 2: and seem normal, so this becomes an acceptable kind of
Speaker 2: ideology to subscribe to. And they have very like their
Speaker 2: tactics are different now too, even for recruiting right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean so the report we're talking about
Speaker 3: is about something called active clubs, which we can talk
Speaker 3: about in a second, but more generally in the white
Speaker 3: supremacist movement and just far right movements overall, they've kind
Speaker 3: of realized something that the evangelical right has known for decades,
Speaker 3: that like any effective organizing in the last few decades,
Speaker 3: has understood very acutely, which is that winning a national
Speaker 3: office is hard. Running a candidate for president is hard.
Speaker 3: You know, even state government positions can be tricky, but
Speaker 3: school boards, city council, you know, like trying to get
Speaker 3: a sheriff him, right, Like a lot of these are
Speaker 3: local elections that are won by you know in a
Speaker 3: lot of places. You know, maybe not a Chicago go
Speaker 3: or in LA or whatever, but like a lot of
Speaker 3: places in the US can be one with like a
Speaker 3: matter of a few hundred votes, right, So there's more
Speaker 3: opportunities to take power there. And then you know, by
Speaker 3: harassing these low level governments and threatening people showing up
Speaker 3: at all these meetings, you know, going nuts, creating a
Speaker 3: hostile environment. A lot of these folks that ran for
Speaker 3: these local offices didn't sign up for that shit. They
Speaker 3: don't have resources to like be safe when that shit's happening, Right,
Speaker 3: So a lot of them resign, Like a lot of
Speaker 3: election officials on the county level have resigned, you know,
Speaker 3: over the last few years.
Speaker 2: I just saw a report about that recently, about how
Speaker 2: there's a lot of election officials that are resigning. People like,
Speaker 2: buckle up for twenty four then, because this is exactly
Speaker 2: the kind of situation like extremists want.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because there's a big opening, right, and if these
Speaker 3: offices are easier to win, if it's easier to get
Speaker 3: their policies through, like their dream vote policies, or at
Speaker 3: the very least smacking on policies they don't like, you
Speaker 3: know that, if that happens at scale, then the idea
Speaker 3: of national candidates of you know, big organizations starts to
Speaker 3: become more feasible.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: It's like the most time tested way to gain political power,
Speaker 3: which is start at the bottom and work your way up.
Speaker 1: Right, All right, let's take a quick break and we'll
Speaker 1: come back. We'll keep talking about this strategy and we'll
Speaker 1: get into active clubs.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back, and we're back.
Speaker 1: And so a lot of what we're talking about is
Speaker 1: like this opportunism to try and like show up at
Speaker 1: these flashpoint media events and where they think cameras will
Speaker 1: be to you know, make themselves a peer. Are more numerous.
Speaker 1: Like we've talked before about what's.
Speaker 4: The mother's group Mothers for Liberty, Yeah, Moms for Liberty
Speaker 4: that like oftentimes you know, they're they're not very numerous,
Speaker 4: but they show up at other people's school board meetings,
Speaker 4: and that that happens at a lot of these like
Speaker 4: people are showing up at protests who don't have kids
Speaker 4: going to that school.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they don't even live in the county.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but they're spreading that ideology around to make it
Speaker 1: to make it seem like it's more common, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean part of the calculation there is that
Speaker 3: they think maybe a'll inspire someone else to do this too,
Speaker 3: right yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then a lot of it is just like bolstering
Speaker 3: influence because it's it's about creating like a certain perception,
Speaker 3: right because if you're maybe less so on like neo
Speaker 3: Nazi groups for example, but like if you're a Mom's
Speaker 3: for Liberty, you can maybe get the ear of a
Speaker 3: politician a little bit easy.
Speaker 2: Here.
Speaker 3: If it's just like Look, we're the ones that actually
Speaker 3: show up and do stuff. Look, everyone's scared of us.
Speaker 3: They've got you know, we got all this media coverage.
Speaker 3: We'll look at all these clips of whatever, like we
Speaker 3: could we we can do that for you, but we
Speaker 3: need some you know, classic political power broken, right. But
Speaker 3: creating sort of this larger than life perception is extremely
Speaker 3: common on the phone, right, because if you look at
Speaker 3: polling on what they actually believe, it's not popular. Like,
Speaker 3: so you have to like create the perception that you
Speaker 3: are more acceptable than you are generally and then use
Speaker 3: that to try to leverage your way to like get
Speaker 3: into more rooms or have more of a lane to
Speaker 3: run in politically.
Speaker 2: Right, which is kind of like bittersweet because on one hand,
Speaker 2: like I remember, like locally right in Glendale, there was
Speaker 2: huge clashes with people who were merely just trying to
Speaker 2: be like, uh, let's not criminalize like curriculum that acknowledges
Speaker 2: like LGBTQ people, And you had all these like extremists
Speaker 2: out there with their like protect our kids nonsense. But
Speaker 2: a lot of people who like locally monitor like the
Speaker 2: extremists right here, like it's the same like seven to
Speaker 2: twelve people who just change shirts, show up at another thing,
Speaker 2: and scare the shit out of people because they're like, damn, like,
Speaker 2: there's a group for this, there's a group for this.
Speaker 2: But a lot of it, to your point, is just
Speaker 2: to sort of project this sort of like idea that
Speaker 2: it's like they're there's they are numerous, and they are legion,
Speaker 2: they're everywhere. Yeah yeah, yeah, that like to the and
Speaker 2: that like which is frightening because you think, like, holy shit,
Speaker 2: even where I live. But on the other side, just
Speaker 2: make it bitter speed. You're like, Okay, this is a
Speaker 2: tactic obviously, because that is it's all about the perception,
Speaker 2: because perception is reality, and if they have they're perceived
Speaker 2: to be this like larger than life group, then maybe
Speaker 2: the reactions that they're going to get from people. I
Speaker 2: was like, I don't know, I don't know if I
Speaker 2: could fucking fuck with this or step to this kind
Speaker 2: of kind of shit.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, And I also just want to like say
Speaker 3: all that with the caveat that like one person can
Speaker 3: be dangerous. Yeah yeah, like even if these people aren't
Speaker 3: actually like under the sewer grades like ready to jump
Speaker 3: up and snatch you off the street or whatever, like
Speaker 3: it's these groups can still cause a lot of harm, right, Like,
Speaker 3: especially violence committed in the name of hate or whatever.
Speaker 3: It can really really impact communities and like very profound ways. Right,
Speaker 3: So I don't want to like say any of that
Speaker 3: to minimize the risk or threat here, right, But like
Speaker 3: it also is important if we think about like what
Speaker 3: to do about it, to realize that like the source
Speaker 3: of these problems that might seem really big, Like you said,
Speaker 3: it's the same twelve guys.
Speaker 1: Right, right, So just taking a soft topic for a second, wait,
Speaker 1: like what they believe is not popular. But then when
Speaker 1: you look at the polls for the and obviously we
Speaker 1: don't like put a ton of stock into poles, but
Speaker 1: the polls for the twenty twenty four presidential election would
Speaker 1: have Trump like winning again, I guess partially because Biden.
Speaker 2: Is so unpopular.
Speaker 1: But like, how do you square these small numbers of
Speaker 1: people who are thinking very strategically but like using you know,
Speaker 1: basically smoke and mirrors to make themselves seem more popular,
Speaker 1: more mainstream to people who are willing to vote for
Speaker 1: Trump at this point when he has gone like fully
Speaker 1: down the rabbit hole of being you know, just buying
Speaker 1: into his own conspiracies and steering into the death cults
Speaker 1: that wants him as its sort of messiah figure. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean the way I think about it is, and
Speaker 3: I have to remind myself this all the time, which
Speaker 3: is that like not everybody is like terminally addicted to news,
Speaker 3: like sure right, Like like the same way that I, like, know,
Speaker 3: Jack shit about movies and Hollywood. It's like what a
Speaker 3: lot of people are towards politics where they're just like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: who's Like you can put like Lindsey Graham on the
Speaker 3: screen and people will be like, yeah, he's like a politician.
Speaker 2: Right, John Lithgow, you know, so yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: So I think that, you know, kind of the stories
Speaker 3: that the campaign tells is going to be a lot
Speaker 3: more important sort of the vibe they generate.
Speaker 2: And you know, I heard this like.
Speaker 3: Political polster consultant guy, I forget his name, but he
Speaker 3: said something that sort of stuck with me a while ago,
Speaker 3: which is that like a lot of times, presidential elections
Speaker 3: are just reflections on who's currently in office. If people
Speaker 3: are unhappy with like Biden, that's you know, just as
Speaker 3: likely to push someone to vote for Trump rather than
Speaker 3: you know, versus like a really deep committed thing where
Speaker 3: he's like, oh, you know, Trump said he won all
Speaker 3: fifty states, and you know what, I think that's true,
Speaker 3: and that's why I'm going to vote for Trump. You know,
Speaker 3: I think it's I think a lot of people just
Speaker 3: don't get that deep into it, which is kind of know.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying everybody has to get as deep as meat. God, no,
Speaker 3: please don't, but like, you know, I do wish there
Speaker 3: was maybe like a little bit better political. It's not
Speaker 3: political civics, like just just more engaged civics in the US.
Speaker 1: You know, there's more of us than them.
Speaker 2: Right and yeah, and like to this point, it's people
Speaker 2: are like, oh, I mean, I don't know, I don't
Speaker 2: know what half of these policies are. I just like that,
Speaker 2: I don't know. I just like Trump more like I
Speaker 2: couldn't tell you what systemic oppression looks like. And so
Speaker 2: I'm not necessarily like explicitly signing up for that. I
Speaker 2: just I just don't care. But also I like the
Speaker 2: vibe here I think is yeah, definitely one way people
Speaker 2: are voting, Like I guess in terms of like recruiting now,
Speaker 2: because like obviously, on its face, some of like obviously
Speaker 2: a lot of most, if not all, of their ideologies
Speaker 2: like repugnant to most like normal people. What's like now
Speaker 2: the way they're like, okay, shit, it didn't work when
Speaker 2: we're wearing like Nazi uniforms in public. What is the
Speaker 2: How can we bring more people into this in a
Speaker 2: way that seems more palatable? Like that's is this all
Speaker 2: sort of like this is kind of why this active
Speaker 2: club's movement is like on the rise.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that's part of it. Like the whole
Speaker 3: white supremacist movement isn't doing this, but they all seem
Speaker 3: to be like kind of generally like curious or at
Speaker 3: the very least like kind of indifferent to it. It's
Speaker 3: long been a recruiting tactic of white supremacists to kind
Speaker 3: of pick out like guys when usually men specifically that
Speaker 3: you know or maybe kind of like down if that
Speaker 3: makes sense. You know, they just their life just kind
Speaker 3: of isn't working out and whatever, and they're looking for
Speaker 3: something to fill it, and they say, check it out,
Speaker 3: I got something to fill it.
Speaker 1: It's hate.
Speaker 3: So you know it along comes active clubs, which have
Speaker 3: been around for a little bit but really really seem
Speaker 3: to have taken off in the last year, and active clubs.
Speaker 3: Part of it sounds fine, right, You meet up with
Speaker 3: your bros, you work out your you know, form these
Speaker 3: strong male friendships and bonds. Sounds cool, right, that's so fast,
Speaker 3: you know, And essentially, like all these guys get together,
Speaker 3: they get that sense of camaraderie, they get you know,
Speaker 3: some level of self improvement, and then they are just
Speaker 3: bludgeoned and like indoctrinated and also with very intense white
Speaker 3: supremacists or you know, just outright fascistic philosophy and an outlook.
Speaker 3: And some of these groups have felt emboldened by that,
Speaker 3: you know, gotten to a point where they're feeling kind
Speaker 3: of feeling themselves and they're going out and getting involved
Speaker 3: in you know, there was a may or all election
Speaker 3: in Tennessee where one of the Active clubs got like
Speaker 3: really plugged into it. A lot of them are showing
Speaker 3: up alongside other white supremacist groups for protests and you know,
Speaker 3: dropping banners down the sides of highways and waving signs
Speaker 3: around and whatnot. So you know, it's it's really kind
Speaker 3: of taken off in the last year, and it's it's
Speaker 3: very It's like some of the Nazis are getting buffed now, right, right,
Speaker 3: So I remember a simplistic way to put it, but.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember there was like a group in Orange
Speaker 1: County that were just like these brawler like neo Nazi dudes,
Speaker 1: and that was like, I think the first time I
Speaker 1: had seen it sort of framed as like, no, these
Speaker 1: guys that get together to like box and do like
Speaker 1: jiu jitsu and shit, just so they can go out
Speaker 1: into the streets and just you know, attack people, but
Speaker 1: like using like those skills that they're cultivating as this
Speaker 1: group to explicitly deploy against people like the LGBTQ community
Speaker 1: or like against Jewish people or whatever their their targeted
Speaker 1: group is.
Speaker 2: And yeah, like it's now like it's to the point
Speaker 2: where it seems like from the report that came out
Speaker 2: from ISD, it's like it's really blowing up in the Pacific, Northwest,
Speaker 2: New England, in the southeast now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and they are trying to get it to
Speaker 3: replicate everywhere else too, but it's it's really caught on
Speaker 3: in those areas. A lot of those areas have you know,
Speaker 3: these sort of historical contacts with the far right. I
Speaker 3: think maybe they have a little bit more like social
Speaker 3: space to operate in. And you know, part of it
Speaker 3: is also just like the people doing this, where do
Speaker 3: they live? You know, they all right in this or
Speaker 3: an area, but yeah, there's like a few parts of
Speaker 3: the country where they're sort of concentrated there and then
Speaker 3: just generally recruiting, like the active clubs do this the
Speaker 3: same way other groups do and movements do right like,
Speaker 3: because not everybody in the far right is in some
Speaker 3: like group where they have a membership card and like
Speaker 3: show up to meetings, or most of them aren't. I
Speaker 3: would say, it's just this portrayal, not necessarily initially is
Speaker 3: like you have to come come be a white supremacist
Speaker 3: because white supremacy is awesome, right. A lot of it
Speaker 3: has to do with you know, othering and then projecting
Speaker 3: hate grievances onto out groups, which are often minority groups
Speaker 3: in these cases. So it's you know, essentially the argument
Speaker 3: is like the world is just so fucked up that.
Speaker 1: What are you gonna do.
Speaker 3: If you go along with this, you're gonna get destroyed.
Speaker 3: Come with us, We'll help you out, you know, we'll
Speaker 3: we're gonna fight back against this, and we're gonna do
Speaker 3: you know, counteract this modern grievance that we have. And yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean that that's used in these groups, that's used
Speaker 3: sort of across the extremist spectrum generally to get people
Speaker 3: in the movement. It's like it's all centered on like
Speaker 3: the like what you're opposing, rather than like a very
Speaker 3: clear and coherent like direction forward.
Speaker 2: Do you see this working to the extent of like
Speaker 2: that there?
Speaker 1: We're in danger of seeing this thing just like take
Speaker 1: off in a second Trump presidency because I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people are coming to terms with the fact that,
Speaker 1: like a second Trump presidency is a real possibility. We
Speaker 1: feel like there's going to be more shamelessness, like more
Speaker 1: just open aggression on his behalf and on behalf of
Speaker 1: his administration. But do you do you like, how do
Speaker 1: you see like these these things interacting with you know
Speaker 1: that that possibility.
Speaker 3: I mean, we saw extremist groups get really bold during
Speaker 3: the first Trump administration, and I think a lot of
Speaker 3: that had to do with things that Trump was saying
Speaker 3: and had to do with stuff that was happening behind
Speaker 3: the scenes, like you know, defunding task forces, looking at
Speaker 3: domestic extremism and that sort of thing that essentially gave
Speaker 3: like a longer leash to these folks. They were kind
Speaker 3: of feeling themselves thinking, you know, okay, we're really getting somewhere.
Speaker 3: We you know, have a popular political movement on our side.
Speaker 3: Here we go some extremists, like some of the more
Speaker 3: like really really hardcore ones are not huge on Trump
Speaker 3: but kind of still dig a little bit what he represents.
Speaker 3: I definitely think it's possible that, you know, a lot
Speaker 3: of these movements just kind of go buck wild, you know,
Speaker 3: if it's like a gloves or off the moment, right,
Speaker 3: because if you look at the Trump campaign how it
Speaker 3: exists now and sort of like how it looks like
Speaker 3: it's about to manifest ahead of next year, the whole
Speaker 3: theme is like you're mad at the stay of the world,
Speaker 3: Well I'm your retribution, right, Like come with me, come
Speaker 3: on the journey that I'm on, and then this is
Speaker 3: how we're gonna get.
Speaker 2: Those motherfuckers, right, and that's I'm going up for you
Speaker 2: like for me, right.
Speaker 3: That is the same message these groups send to people
Speaker 3: they're trying to recruit. So I think even if it does,
Speaker 3: you know, will there be an active club on every block?
Speaker 1: Probably not?
Speaker 3: Right, Like things are trending away from like really tightly
Speaker 3: like hierarchical groups and the extremist movement at the moment,
Speaker 3: but the general like energy of them and the general
Speaker 3: like tactics and to some extent like vision or shared
Speaker 3: enemy that they perceive like that, I could see that
Speaker 3: getting really energized. So I think, you know, while active
Speaker 3: clubs are like an important piece of this equation, and
Speaker 3: they're getting bolder and showing up at you know, city
Speaker 3: councils and kind of getting out in the wild a
Speaker 3: little bit more and posing you know, specific you know,
Speaker 3: really immediate threats to people in the broader schemes of things.
Speaker 3: I think that you know, in a second Trump presidency,
Speaker 3: unless things just radically change overnight, we could see a
Speaker 3: lot of sort of the animating forces behind this stuff
Speaker 3: really just like scream out and burn bright, yeah, happy stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And that's so horrifying. And I think as we
Speaker 2: all look towards next year and being like, oh, fuck, man, like,
Speaker 2: what what are we in for this time? You know,
Speaker 2: I know you talked about Dinesh Desuza's latest quote unquote
Speaker 2: whatever film you want to whatever you want to call it,
Speaker 2: cinematic Masterpieces, whatever. Yeah, sorry, yeah, the Criterion collection. But
Speaker 2: like you were saying, like about how much is like
Speaker 2: about vibes you know that are being put out there?
Speaker 2: And I feel like there's a there's probably something we
Speaker 2: can learn right from this Dinish to SUSA piece of
Speaker 2: trash work of media that's come out that is maybe
Speaker 2: a little bit instructive or at least can indicate sort
Speaker 2: of where rhetorically this like movement is headed at least
Speaker 2: into next year. Can you like just sort of talk
Speaker 2: about that. I mean, I know broadly what this thing
Speaker 2: was about, but unlike you, I did not actually do
Speaker 2: the work to subject myself to watch the whole two
Speaker 2: hours of it.
Speaker 3: This is a police state, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, to
Speaker 3: be clear, the work was spending twenty dollars and giving
Speaker 3: up two hours of yeah, precious time that the and.
Speaker 2: You won't get those two hours back. And I apologized,
Speaker 2: but yeah, yeah, yeah, but I'll make it. We're worth
Speaker 2: something for us.
Speaker 3: I'll have to explain that to my grandkids one day. Yeah, right,
Speaker 3: your grandpa, you spent two hours watching this book.
Speaker 2: I saw your credit card statements. Are you sure you
Speaker 2: run into like right wing stuff? No? I was monitored. Ah,
Speaker 2: I can't keep telling you kids this shit. But yeah,
Speaker 2: what is police state kind of showing us? Like, what
Speaker 2: what kind of glimpse is it giving us?
Speaker 3: So police State was put out by Zanesh This, who's
Speaker 3: a damn bond Gino, biggest head in the right wing
Speaker 3: commentary game. Literally in a literal sense. Yeah, And it's
Speaker 3: like the name suggests it seeks to answer the question
Speaker 3: is the US becoming a police state? It it answers
Speaker 3: the question for itself, like the first like five minutes
Speaker 3: of the movie where they're just like, is it becoming
Speaker 3: the police state? And dam Bongino is like, hell, yeah, brother,
Speaker 3: it sure is. And it's like okay, cool, sorry, and
Speaker 3: then there's another hour and fifty minutes ago. But so
Speaker 3: it kind of goes around talking to all these different cranks.
Speaker 3: Some are just like weird and personalities. Some are like
Speaker 3: one of them is a guy who got fired from
Speaker 3: the Trump White House for speaking out a conference with
Speaker 3: white nationalists, which like, you know, I had to be
Speaker 3: bad to get fired out of that Trump administration for that.
Speaker 3: You've got people like Julie Kelly in there who have
Speaker 3: made a shit ton of money and fame doing like
Speaker 3: January six, revisionism, and it's all kind of trying to
Speaker 3: put together this argument through different stories of conservative activists
Speaker 3: getting you know, punished by law enforcement, Trump getting investigated
Speaker 3: by federal law enforcement and charged with crimes, you know,
Speaker 3: the way that some January sixth defendants, you know, experienced
Speaker 3: arrests and stuff, to all say that the United States, yes,
Speaker 3: is becoming a police state and it's you know, Democrats
Speaker 3: that are doing it and Republicans are actually opposed to it,
Speaker 3: and Trump, oh he is, he's the biggest victim of it,
Speaker 3: all right, know, And it's a very American thing to
Speaker 3: be like scared of your government and to like, I think,
Speaker 3: just in your heart a little bit hate it. And
Speaker 3: I do think that, you know, it's the stuff that
Speaker 3: was said in the movie, like is stuff that's been
Speaker 3: said in the pro Trump movement, like ad Nausim for
Speaker 3: the last year and a half, at least probably the
Speaker 3: last two years. So it's not that like there's a
Speaker 3: whole lot of new stuff in this movie.
Speaker 2: But for the people that.
Speaker 3: Aren't like terminally online, I'm thinking of the people that
Speaker 3: actually like show up to shit in your local Republican
Speaker 3: party office or your like local you know remnant of
Speaker 3: a tea party, conservative group that has a lot of
Speaker 3: sway in the state elections or whatever. They watch this stuff, right,
Speaker 3: They're getting their talking points from this stuff. And Dinesh
Speaker 3: Desusa is like very close to Trump world. Dan Bongino
Speaker 3: is very close to Trump world. So when I was
Speaker 3: watching this, it wasn't necessarily that I was just like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, where are they getting this from?
Speaker 2: Right? Right, right?
Speaker 3: I've heard all this stuff like forever, but or it feels.
Speaker 2: Like forever anyway.
Speaker 3: But the way that it was packaged, right, I thought was,
Speaker 3: I hate to say it, but it was like one
Speaker 3: of Disus's better movies in terms of just sheer production value.
Speaker 3: And I do wonder, like, what if you're like a
Speaker 3: Republican that hasn't fully drank the kool aid, will this
Speaker 3: resonate with you at all? Or is this like a
Speaker 3: movie by cranks for cranks right.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, Because it seems like at the end it's
Speaker 2: sort of like these people are getting in trouble with
Speaker 2: law enforcement for breaking laws. It's a police state. It's
Speaker 2: kind of like the distillation of it. But I can
Speaker 2: see how some people who are clearly like sort of
Speaker 2: on the like rhetorically, they're like, no, whatever Trump does
Speaker 2: is in a crime. This is actually, this is just
Speaker 2: they're coming for us. Because I'm in that, I have
Speaker 2: that worldview is that they're coming for us, and I
Speaker 2: feel like that probably very neatly overlaps with that, especially
Speaker 2: to have people who are there like no, I'm like,
Speaker 2: it happened to me. And that's why you the viewer
Speaker 2: should also be tuned into this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the world is changing in ways you don't like,
Speaker 3: but if you do something about it, the police are
Speaker 3: going to come for you. And the only way to
Speaker 3: fix this is electing Republicans. It's kind of like the
Speaker 3: message of this movie. And yeah, like you pointed out,
Speaker 3: like a lot of the retellings in this movie of
Speaker 3: people that were like supposedly targeted by the deep state
Speaker 3: really don't explain why. It's just they came after me
Speaker 3: and attacked me because I was a mom who's vocal
Speaker 3: in my community.
Speaker 1: Now because hard cut, I was a mom who I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: Actually, you were involved in a like you were implicated
Speaker 3: indirectly in a plot to like steal voting machines. That's
Speaker 3: why the FBI.
Speaker 2: Showed rut you right, like it came with someone who
Speaker 2: like presented themselves as law enforcement to gain access to machines.
Speaker 2: And now you're like, I didn't know well, and now
Speaker 2: I guess it's my turn. But yeah, how could they
Speaker 2: do that? Yeah? Yeah for real, it's uh yeah, all
Speaker 2: of it adds up, you know, for a very very
Speaker 2: you know, I feel we're just we just got to
Speaker 2: buckle up again. It's like I thought twenty twenty just happened,
Speaker 2: and I was like, this is gonna be a fucking nightmare.
Speaker 2: But we're we're fully stepping into another one now between
Speaker 2: just everything that is happening online in physical space, and
Speaker 2: like even with Trump's trial, you can see how much
Speaker 2: it's energizing people too, because he fully now gets to
Speaker 2: be like, here it is, folks. They're trying to do
Speaker 2: everything to me while most of us are like, is
Speaker 2: anything going to happen? Really? Who knows?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and when it does, they feel like this sort
Speaker 1: of propaganda seems like it has him positioned to actually
Speaker 1: benefit from when he actually faces consequences, because then they'll
Speaker 1: just be like, see, we told you it's all.
Speaker 3: If they can put a president in jail for doing crimes,
Speaker 3: think of what they can do to you when you
Speaker 3: did crimes.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I always thought that people got in trouble for
Speaker 1: doing crimes. It is kind of a brilliant strategy because
Speaker 1: they get to star in a spy movie that isn't
Speaker 1: really happening, so they just like get the fun and
Speaker 1: none of the consequences. Like they're like, there's this anecdote
Speaker 1: from Mother Jones article like who somebody who went to
Speaker 1: see the film in theaters because it was out for
Speaker 1: like two days and the author, Yeah, police state the
Speaker 1: to sue the film. The author says, perhaps the most
Speaker 1: unsettling part of the film occurs at the end, when
Speaker 1: Desusa calls on the audience. They sing a national anthem
Speaker 1: in solidarity with the January sixth political prisoners, one of
Speaker 1: whom was portrayed by an actor wearing an orange jump
Speaker 1: soit all around me. So this is in the theater,
Speaker 1: all around me. People jumped and chanted Usa Usa, and
Speaker 1: then they sang along. As we exited the theater. I
Speaker 1: overheard a guy urging his friends to cover their faces
Speaker 1: on the way out because obviously the deep State would
Speaker 1: be there watching. They'll be taking pictures, he warrant, to
Speaker 1: which his friend replied, I'm surprised I haven't gotten a
Speaker 1: knock on the door already.
Speaker 2: Oh boy.
Speaker 1: But it's like, yeah, so this allows them to like
Speaker 1: cause play as like a scot Yeah, victims, victims victims. Yeah,
Speaker 1: cool spy Simon in True Lies.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, Jared, it's I wish I could say it's
Speaker 1: been fun, but it's been very enlightening. And we really
Speaker 1: appreciate you doing the work of kind of monitoring this
Speaker 1: stuff and letting us know what what's happening, because it
Speaker 1: feels like we're we're on the precipice of some other
Speaker 1: bullshit this time. So so thank you for helping fill
Speaker 1: us in. Where can people find you? Follow you all
Speaker 1: that good stuff. I'm on Twitter and Blue Sky at
Speaker 1: Jared L. Holt.
Speaker 3: But what's way more important is that you go to
Speaker 3: Instagram and follow my dog at Pierre Turbo. He's a
Speaker 3: nine point eight pound Pomeranian. He's way cooler than me.
Speaker 3: And if you've listened to this point in the show,
Speaker 3: you've heard enough of this shit, So like, definitely go
Speaker 3: check out my dog for a little bit, check out
Speaker 3: Pierre Pierre, and then you can catch up with me
Speaker 3: later somewhere else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought you're gonna be like, it's more important
Speaker 1: that you go follow the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. Oh,
Speaker 1: that's that's probably That's probably what I should have said, Nah,
Speaker 1: that I'm following your dog.
Speaker 2: That's helpful.
Speaker 1: Is there a work of media that you've been enjoying.
Speaker 3: One of the shows that I did watch was on
Speaker 3: Netflix they like get John Gottie docuseries. That was really
Speaker 3: good and that was really entertaining, and that's like classic
Speaker 3: you know, New York mob history and I have like
Speaker 3: a I'm always like fascinated.
Speaker 2: By that stuff.
Speaker 3: So it's yeah, yeah, I recommend that that was good.
Speaker 1: Awesome, Miles. Where can people find you as their work
Speaker 1: media you've been enjoying?
Speaker 2: Find me on the at base platforms at Miles of Gray,
Speaker 2: and also find Jack and I on our very not
Speaker 2: news politics or news and politics podcast Miles and Jacket,
Speaker 2: where we talk about the game of basketball. And also
Speaker 2: you can find me on what is It four fiance?
Speaker 2: Check that out. Let's see a tweet I like this
Speaker 2: is from Lucas Fabraro at Lucas Ferbraro was like replying
Speaker 2: to just like a like someone was showing how a
Speaker 2: new York Times headlines is how like the passive voice
Speaker 2: is just so wild because like it' said New York
Speaker 2: Times explosion Gossin say was airstrike leaves many casualties in
Speaker 2: dense neighborhood. Like, I'm sorry, what explosions they call airsta
Speaker 2: And then Lucas did a photoshop looks like a New
Speaker 2: York Times cover on September twelfth, two in one with
Speaker 2: the Twin Towers. It says, explosion happens twin towers damaged,
Speaker 2: witnesses report planes flying overhead. That's what that looks like.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it feels like a very It's kind of
Speaker 2: what we're dealing with now. We look at how cold?
Speaker 1: How could the planes do that?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Right? How could the explosion? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Like just the lack of clarity, it's just so insidious, man.
Speaker 3: And when you learn journalism in school, like they teach
Speaker 3: you not to do this.
Speaker 2: There's really no good excuse for this. Truly tweet I've
Speaker 2: been enjoying.
Speaker 1: Marianna Zi tweeted, did you know if you lose a
Speaker 1: sock in the dryer, it comes back as a tougher
Speaker 1: wear lid that doesn't fit any of your containments that
Speaker 1: explains fucking everything.
Speaker 2: Wow, do you keep them? You keep those lids? Oh,
Speaker 2: I know you're talking about I rage quit them.
Speaker 1: I got a shed full of those motherfuckers.
Speaker 2: That storage unit filled with the didn't even open the door. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I also like this tweet from Dave It'scoff. He retweeted
Speaker 1: a still image from the New York Marathon and it
Speaker 1: had Helen o'biery, who's one of the runners, and it
Speaker 1: says born on December thirteenth, nineteen eighty nine parentheses, same
Speaker 1: day as Taylor Swift and David Coff was like, work
Speaker 1: your angle NYC Marathon, which it's just like all the
Speaker 1: sports are like, how do we relate sport to Taylor Swift? Right,
Speaker 1: find a runner who has the same birthday. Anyways, You
Speaker 1: can find me on Twitter at Jack Underscore O'Brien. You
Speaker 1: can find us on Twitter at Daily Zeitgeist. We're at
Speaker 1: the Daily Zeikeist on Instagram. We have a Facebook fanpage
Speaker 1: and a website Daily zeikeist dot com where we post
Speaker 1: our episodes and our footnote where we link off to
Speaker 1: the information that we talked about in today's episode. Well,
Speaker 1: is this song we think you might enjoy myles, What
Speaker 1: song do we think people might enjoy?
Speaker 2: I was listening, so you know, Tame and Paula is
Speaker 2: obviously Kevin Harker, but everybody in that band, they're also
Speaker 2: in like a ton of other bands. So if you
Speaker 2: like Tame and Paula, there's a chance that one of
Speaker 2: these offshoot bands you would also like. Case in point
Speaker 2: is Gum, which is led by I believe he's the
Speaker 2: guitar like one of the le guitar players in Tam
Speaker 2: and Paula. And this track is called Glamorous Damage. And
Speaker 2: if you like the Tam and Paula vibes, you're definitely
Speaker 2: gonna fuck with this track. So this is Glamorous Damage
Speaker 2: by Gum g U M dam.
Speaker 1: All right, well, the Daily Zeik is the production of
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio. For more podcast from my Heart Radio is
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows, that is gonna do it for us
Speaker 1: this morning. We are back this afternoon to tell you
Speaker 1: what is trending and we will talk to you all
Speaker 1: then Bye bye,