Speaker 1: If you let this fear sort of like spin out
Speaker 1: of control and let them become these like larger than
Speaker 1: life figures in your mind, then you do feel disempowered
Speaker 1: to do anything about it. Like if these are these
Speaker 1: aren't just some fucking guy, right, It's just some fucking guy,
Speaker 1: and some guy can be defeated.
Speaker 2: There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative, I'm Bridgid Todd, and this
Speaker 2: is There Are No Girls on the Internet. Molly. Thank
Speaker 2: you so much for being here, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me, Bridgid.
Speaker 2: It's been pretty tough to know just how to respond
Speaker 2: in this moment. I've been personally spending a ton of
Speaker 2: my time really trying to zero in on what it
Speaker 2: is I want to be doing and why and how
Speaker 2: I can use my specific skills to create the change
Speaker 2: I want to see in the world. It's the kind
Speaker 2: of thing that Molly Conger has built an entire career of.
Speaker 2: She's a researcher and journal who focuses on the far right,
Speaker 2: so she's been pretty busy lately. Mollie's hit new podcast
Speaker 2: is called Weird Little Guys. And on it she explores
Speaker 2: who she calls quote the worst people you've never heard of,
Speaker 2: and how the hate mongers standing in the way of
Speaker 2: progress and equality are well, in a lot of ways,
Speaker 2: just weird little guys. But before all this, Molly was
Speaker 2: working in an office job at an early childhood ed tech company,
Speaker 2: and then the Unite the Right rally that left thirty
Speaker 2: two year old Heather Higher dead happened in her town.
Speaker 1: I've lost my job unexpectedly in the summer of twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1: It was, you know, it's a huge bummer. I'd been
Speaker 1: working there for a long time. It was my first,
Speaker 1: like big girl job, and I guess maybe my last
Speaker 1: one because I have another job since. And so I
Speaker 1: was just adrift, right, I was just at home trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what to do next when Unite the
Speaker 1: Right happened here in Charlottesville. And I was not someone
Speaker 1: who was politically engaged at that time. It was not
Speaker 1: I didn't know anything about that world, and I was
Speaker 1: bewildered by what happened here, like why did Nazis come
Speaker 1: to where I live and kill a woman who was,
Speaker 1: you know, around my age. Right, This Streles' is not
Speaker 1: a big towns to college towns, but fifty thousand people.
Speaker 1: It just didn't seem like something that could happen here.
Speaker 1: And I didn't. I just didn't understand, and I had
Speaker 1: the time to waste trying to understand.
Speaker 2: And I never stopped when this was happening where you like, Oh,
Speaker 2: I am carving out a lane of work for myself.
Speaker 1: No, And I didn't ever intend for it to become
Speaker 1: a career or you know, become a subject matter expert
Speaker 1: in anything. I just I guess I don't have asked anything.
Speaker 1: My whole asked it.
Speaker 2: I know your work has been instrumental and identifying extremists
Speaker 2: to sometimes have committed actual crimes in the name of
Speaker 2: their ideologies. How did this come to be something you
Speaker 2: realized that you had a knack for.
Speaker 1: I've talked about this, I think, you know, like I
Speaker 1: did a workshop last year in a local bookstore about, like,
Speaker 1: you know, internet safety and sort of reverse engineering how
Speaker 1: to keep yourself safe by talking about the ways that
Speaker 1: I make other people less safe online, you know, less
Speaker 1: safe being you know, a hater in secret. And I
Speaker 1: think I think all women have this ability. It is
Speaker 1: a laden ability that all women of our generation have
Speaker 1: right that, Like you've stayed up all night trying to
Speaker 1: find your ex's pictures on social media? Like what is
Speaker 1: what are they up to? Did they get married? You know,
Speaker 1: we all have that skill set, and I think in
Speaker 1: another universe, I'm just a fucking menace on nextdoor. But
Speaker 1: I found a way to channel that like aggressive nosiness
Speaker 1: into something that's good for society.
Speaker 2: I love that. I love that being your superpower. I
Speaker 2: have said that on the show. Nobody is like smarter
Speaker 2: than like a group of girls with Instagram. They will
Speaker 2: find anything anyone you cannot hide from them.
Speaker 1: Like a scorned woman is more powerful than the FBI.
Speaker 2: Absolutely correct. By now, I'm sure you've seen that horrifying video,
Speaker 2: a woman later identified as doctor Teresa Bornpole is forcibly
Speaker 2: dragged out of a public town hall meeting and zip
Speaker 2: Tide for speaking up. There was a time where town
Speaker 2: hall meetings were just the boring process driven Greece that
Speaker 2: kept the wheels of local government turning, not necessarily the
Speaker 2: hot beds of discontent we know them ass today. But
Speaker 2: Molly was someone who identified that town hall meetings were
Speaker 2: going to play an important role early on in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 2: she started live tweeting government meetings in Charlottesville after the
Speaker 2: deadly Unite the Right rally. You know something else that
Speaker 2: I really have to lift up about your work is
Speaker 2: that I feel like you're one of the early people
Speaker 2: who recognized the power of things like public town halls,
Speaker 2: public meetings, especially happening in Charlottesville. Today, we know that like,
Speaker 2: those are big flash points where you know, you might
Speaker 2: get dragged out by hired goons for saying the wrong thing.
Speaker 2: But I feel like there was a time where you
Speaker 2: thought of public town halls or town meetings as the
Speaker 2: like boring things that they were, not the flashpoints that
Speaker 2: they are today. What was it about those spaces that
Speaker 2: made you feel like I need to start tracking what's
Speaker 2: happening in these spaces.
Speaker 1: They should be boring. First of all, they should be boring,
Speaker 1: but no, so that when my sort of early quest
Speaker 1: for personal understanding, one of the first places I went
Speaker 1: was I went to the first city council meeting that
Speaker 1: happened after Unite the Right. So it was, you know,
Speaker 1: the week after this happened here, I didn't know where
Speaker 1: to start looking for answers, So I went to city
Speaker 1: Hall and it was this very explosive meeting because there
Speaker 1: was a lot of anger here. There's a lot of hurt.
Speaker 1: And over time those meetings, you know, fewer and fewer
Speaker 1: people showed up over time. I think Charles Fillson more
Speaker 1: engaged locality than most and we have remade that way
Speaker 1: over the years. But you know, over the over the months,
Speaker 1: people stopped showing up. But I was interested. I was
Speaker 1: interested in the way these decisions are getting made. And
Speaker 1: I guess once I committed to that, I couldn't stop.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't something I started doing for anyone else, right,
Speaker 1: I live have been. I fell off in the last
Speaker 1: couple of months because I'm busy with the show. But
Speaker 1: I spent seven years live tweeting city council meetings. And
Speaker 1: it wasn't something I was doing for people, because like arguably,
Speaker 1: there should be no audience for that. It's not interesting.
Speaker 1: But I learned a lot about about local government, about
Speaker 1: the kinds of people who show up to make themselves heard.
Speaker 1: You know, there are I don't know, I think because
Speaker 1: it is boring because it is time consuming, because it
Speaker 1: is hard to do, you know, six o'clock on a
Speaker 1: weekday evening, you have other stuff to do, you're still
Speaker 1: at work, or you're making dinner for your family. The
Speaker 1: kinds of people who show up are often people who
Speaker 1: have not great motivations, and so we shouldn't seed that
Speaker 1: ground to that one weird lady who wants to ban
Speaker 1: all the books at the library.
Speaker 2: Do you feel like that's a big part of how
Speaker 2: we got to where we are now? Sort of? You know,
Speaker 2: I understand the temptation of focusing on president national politics
Speaker 2: what's happening federally, But while we were doing that and
Speaker 2: sort of not paying attention to the boring city council
Speaker 2: meeting or whatever, the lady who wants to ban all
Speaker 2: the books in the library really amassed a lot of
Speaker 2: power and now has goons, right.
Speaker 1: Because that's been an explicit organizing strategy of like right
Speaker 1: wing interest groups for a long time, is running city
Speaker 1: council candidates, running school board candidates. They've been filling those
Speaker 1: rooms with their goons for a long time, and you know,
Speaker 1: it varies locality to locality. I don't want to say
Speaker 1: there are no people pushing back against that. There are
Speaker 1: a lot of good people pushing back against that. But
Speaker 1: I think on average, we have seeded that ground to
Speaker 1: people who you know, you know at the Federalist Society
Speaker 1: or whatever, who understand that they can build power locally.
Speaker 2: I'm curious, are you from Charlottesville, Like originally I.
Speaker 1: Moved here in two thousand and seven to go to Uba,
Speaker 1: and so I never left.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm from Virginia. I grew up in Richmond. And
Speaker 2: you mentioned how Charlottesville people there are like perhaps a
Speaker 2: little more engaged civically than your average place. I totally agree,
Speaker 2: And I think that Charlottesville. I love Charlottesville. I grew
Speaker 2: up going there, Like I had a lot of friends
Speaker 2: that went to UVA. Like that was like the good
Speaker 2: when I was in high school. That was like the
Speaker 2: good college that you hope that you got into.
Speaker 1: Public.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, in Virginia you might know this. They just
Speaker 2: call it the university. They don't even call it the
Speaker 2: University of Virginia. Like that's how ubiquitous it is. And
Speaker 2: I do think like in a place like Charlottesville, where
Speaker 2: folks are pretty like plugged in, it's like a unique place.
Speaker 2: Do you think that that that that strategy of quietly
Speaker 2: taking things over, does that work in a place like
Speaker 2: Charlottesville where folks are pretty plugged in.
Speaker 1: It doesn't work here. It doesn't work here Antonin Scalia's
Speaker 1: granddaughter did not successfully run for school board here. She
Speaker 1: tried and it didn't work. So I think, yeah, you
Speaker 1: have to be in that space and know what's going on.
Speaker 1: Run your own people, because I think, especially now that
Speaker 1: I guess the law doesn't matter at all at the
Speaker 1: federal level, that our local government is going to be
Speaker 1: our last line of defense. That when you know these
Speaker 1: terrible directives come down from the federal government, or you know,
Speaker 1: in Virginia we have a terrible governor who's going to
Speaker 1: cooperate government, your local government is your last line of defense. Like, like,
Speaker 1: are the regional jail board here makes decisions about whether
Speaker 1: or not the jail cooperates with ice, right, Like these
Speaker 1: local decisions have a very real impact on people's state
Speaker 1: to day lives.
Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting that you say that, because I personally,
Speaker 2: Bridget am going through a little bit of a I
Speaker 2: guess you could call out a tails a despair tailspin.
Speaker 2: Everything going on reasonable, Yeah, And I think I constantly
Speaker 2: finding myself kind of oscillating between just being like I
Speaker 2: need to with my job and dedicate myself to the
Speaker 2: calls full time. I don't have kids, my parents are
Speaker 2: dead like this like this is it is time to
Speaker 2: like lock the fuck in and being like I need
Speaker 2: to check the fuck out, I need to like disengage.
Speaker 2: And it almost and I bet a lot of people
Speaker 2: may be your feeling that way, and it almost sounds
Speaker 2: like what you're saying is that the antidote to the
Speaker 2: feeling right now of feeling like I can't do anything,
Speaker 2: I can't change anything is being like it checked in,
Speaker 2: engaged and formed, like even at the hyper local level,
Speaker 2: because that's where you actually could build up the build
Speaker 2: up the qualities that like make that strategy of taking
Speaker 2: over of extremists taking over your local government less likely.
Speaker 1: Exactly, And it doesn't have to you know, this push
Speaker 1: and pull of like I can't do anything or I
Speaker 1: have to do everything is overwhelming. But you don't have
Speaker 1: to do something big. You don't have to do something big.
Speaker 1: Just join a community group and be part of something
Speaker 1: that could be big. But it doesn't have to be you, right,
Speaker 1: and you don't have to have you know, in character syndrome.
Speaker 1: But stopping fascism, yeah, I don't think it.
Speaker 2: I don't think me personally nobody's gonna cut it.
Speaker 1: But there's this this feeling like if I don't do
Speaker 1: something enormous, if I don't put my whole life into this,
Speaker 1: then I am not contributing. And that's not true. I
Speaker 1: think you go to a school board meeting, talk to
Speaker 1: your teachers' union.
Speaker 2: I really like that, and I think, especially right now,
Speaker 2: it is I mean, I feel overwhelmed. I think everybody's
Speaker 2: feeling overwhelmed. The idea that like, you don't have to
Speaker 2: do it all. You certainly don't have to do it alone.
Speaker 2: If you, you know, thought somehow that you were gonna
Speaker 2: be the main character of stopping fascism, like disavow yourself
Speaker 2: with that notion. And it actually is like helpful to
Speaker 2: feel that way, to think of it that way, right that.
Speaker 1: Like I don't know, your own insignificance can be a
Speaker 1: comfort to you that you are just one person in
Speaker 1: this this larger operation of people coming together and doing
Speaker 1: a little bit at a time. That's more manageable.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I have to say, like my own show has sort
Speaker 2: of been off the air for a while, like in
Speaker 2: part because of personal reasons and family reasons, but also
Speaker 2: part of it is just like straight up not really
Speaker 2: knowing how to show up in this moment. Like I
Speaker 2: have sort of struggled with my own kind of north
Speaker 2: Star because I want to provide to my listeners, like
Speaker 2: content that is valuable, that is useful, that educates them,
Speaker 2: that helps them understand what's happening, and how to get
Speaker 2: plugged in. But I don't want to be alarmist. I
Speaker 2: don't want to be you know, doom and gloom all
Speaker 2: the time. But what the moment that we're in right
Speaker 2: now is genuinely alarming, right, And so like part of
Speaker 2: me is like, well, if I don't want to be alarmist,
Speaker 2: I guess I can't say anything because like, we're in
Speaker 2: an alarming moment. Is is this something that you have
Speaker 2: dealt with, struggled with and have you managed to find
Speaker 2: a balance there?
Speaker 1: Gosh, So the last couple of weeks, actually, I've been
Speaker 1: really grappling with that exact thought. Right. So when the
Speaker 1: show launched, in the first few months of episodes, I'm
Speaker 1: telling these stories about history, right, I'm looking at sort
Speaker 1: of a specific incident or individual from the past, you know,
Speaker 1: guys from the eighties, crimes from the seventies, like crimes
Speaker 1: that are sort of discreete package stories of like look
Speaker 1: at this, Look at this little fucking guy, look at this,
Speaker 1: Look at fucking weird Nazi who had child porn on
Speaker 1: his computer. Right, it's just these like little vignettes of
Speaker 1: creepy little Nazis. But the last couple of weeks the
Speaker 1: episodes have really focused on tying together, like here's this
Speaker 1: thing that happened in the past, and here is its
Speaker 1: direct correlation that is ruining your life now. And it's
Speaker 1: I feel like there's a responsibility that I have to
Speaker 1: tie these things together. You know, I'm not just talking
Speaker 1: about you know, the American white supremacist movement as this
Speaker 1: interesting anecdote of history. It is something that has led
Speaker 1: us to this moment. So tying like not just like
Speaker 1: this is an echo of this, This is a direct
Speaker 1: consequence of this particular man's actions and words. And here's
Speaker 1: the clear through line that got us to today. It's us,
Speaker 1: It's not Stow.
Speaker 4: I wanted to write, let's take a quick break.
Speaker 3: At our back.
Speaker 2: On her podcast Weird Little Guys, Mollie isn't just rehashing
Speaker 2: old stories of extremists from the past. She's connecting how
Speaker 2: these stories led to our current moment. For instance, when
Speaker 2: Don Logan, Scottsdale, Arizona's former diversity director, opened an office
Speaker 2: of diversity back in nineteen ninety eight, it was bombed.
Speaker 2: Six years later, Don Logan almost died, but the office
Speaker 2: stayed open. But the story didn't in there because even
Speaker 2: after surviving a dangerous bombing decades earlier, just recently the
Speaker 2: city government voted to shut the diversity offices doors. Well,
Speaker 2: in one of your episodes, you're talking about the diversity
Speaker 2: office in Arizona that was like bomb in two thousand
Speaker 2: and four, and you know the person who opened it
Speaker 2: survived that bombing only for earlier this year, a few
Speaker 2: weeks ago, that office to close when you know they
Speaker 2: voted to, as the Phoenix New Times put it, for
Speaker 2: no apparent reason or justification doing so other than for
Speaker 2: the council to align itself with Donald Trump's baseless culture
Speaker 2: war crusade against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Like that
Speaker 2: seems exactly like I read this piece and it broke
Speaker 2: my heart. The person who was like, yes, I had
Speaker 2: opened the package that had a pipe bomb in it,
Speaker 2: a little bit differently, I would be dead today and
Speaker 2: now this office is shuddering in some ways. It does
Speaker 2: kind of feel like when you are threading that needle
Speaker 2: of these stories, that like we're moving in the wrong direction.
Speaker 2: And I guess I wonder, like, how do you, as
Speaker 2: somebody who tells these stories for a living and threads
Speaker 2: that needle for a living, how do you deal with that,
Speaker 2: this feeling that like we are going in the wrong direction,
Speaker 2: like we simply are not moving forward.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that story, in particular, I think really it instilled
Speaker 1: in me this idea that I have a responsibility to
Speaker 1: be clear that these stories aren't over right, Like I
Speaker 1: spent I spent two full months chronicling the life of
Speaker 1: Dennis Mahon, that klansman who built that bomb in two
Speaker 1: thousand and four, Like I followed him for decades. I
Speaker 1: dug through archives and court records and transcripts and old
Speaker 1: clanned newsletters and watched videos of sermons given at the
Speaker 1: Arian Nation's compound. And you know, I spent months writing
Speaker 1: this story, and I thought, Okay, it's over. He's in prison,
Speaker 1: his trial was very interesting, he was convicted, and that
Speaker 1: story is over. And then not a month after I
Speaker 1: finished writing it, the city council shut down the office
Speaker 1: that refused to shudder because of a bombing, right like
Speaker 1: he sent them a bomb. Don Logan almost died, and
Speaker 1: the city said, No, diversity is important to us. Diversity
Speaker 1: is important to us. Klansmen don't get to decide that
Speaker 1: it's not. And then twenty one years later, some Republican
Speaker 1: mayor with too much botox decided that no, actually, diversity
Speaker 1: sucks and we hate it, and so we are moving
Speaker 1: in the wrong direction.
Speaker 2: And I don't know.
Speaker 1: I was speaking to an undergraduate class at EVA the
Speaker 1: other day about the show. A professor invited me to
Speaker 1: talk to the students about the show, and a lot
Speaker 1: of their questions for me were like, well, what do
Speaker 1: we do? What do we do? What does the future
Speaker 1: look like? And I'm like, I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm not a political organizer, I'm not a prognosticator. I
Speaker 1: don't I'm just trying to tell a story and hopefully
Speaker 1: it can inform the organizing work of people who are
Speaker 1: good at that kind of thing. But all I have
Speaker 1: are these old clan newsletters.
Speaker 2: Well this might sound wild, but like, stay with me here.
Speaker 2: So I love Tony Morrison, I love Angela Davis, and
Speaker 2: they were close friends. And Tony Morrison was working as
Speaker 2: an editor at Random House, right, and she was very
Speaker 2: clear that like her during the you know, black political
Speaker 2: movement of the sixties and seventies. She was like, oh,
Speaker 2: my role is like being an editor writing blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: And Angela Davis, who of course was like this amazing organizer,
Speaker 2: an activist and bet arrested and like, you know, was
Speaker 2: really in the streets and in the struggle. Tony Morrison said,
Speaker 2: you need to write an autobiography, a memoir. You need
Speaker 2: to write the story of your struggle in the streets
Speaker 2: so people can read it. And Angela Davis was like, no,
Speaker 2: I'm too young. I don't I'm too young for a memoir.
Speaker 2: Maybe I'll do it in ten years. And she said
Speaker 2: that Tony Morrison was the kind of person who had
Speaker 2: a way of telling people to do things where they
Speaker 2: understood they really ought to do it. And she wrote
Speaker 2: that memoir and you know it, it went on to
Speaker 2: inform an entire generation of political organizing and social movement
Speaker 2: and theory and practice. And Tony Morrison was very clear
Speaker 2: that she wasn't going to be in the streets, but
Speaker 2: her gifts. The thing that she was good at was
Speaker 2: editing and getting people, like identifying the person whose story
Speaker 2: needed to be told and making for that story got
Speaker 2: out into the world. And I really see that as
Speaker 2: like a similar thing, right of Like you know, you
Speaker 2: were saying, like I'm out an organizer. I can't tell
Speaker 2: people like how you push back, but you know where
Speaker 2: your gifts lie, right, Like you know what you're good at.
Speaker 2: You're good at pouring over research archival. I mean, part
Speaker 2: of me almost wonders if if the thing that we
Speaker 2: should all be thinking about is like, what is the
Speaker 2: skill that we're good at that they can't take away
Speaker 2: from us? And how can I lean into that in
Speaker 2: this moment? And yours is clearly like going over the
Speaker 2: meticulous you know, archives and telling a story, making a story.
Speaker 1: Out of it, right, and like giving people sort of
Speaker 1: the language to assist them in understanding the moments such
Speaker 1: that they may take the action that they're good at. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, people are like, oh, these you know, it's
Speaker 1: a fascist government, it's the you know, we're experiencing fascism,
Speaker 1: and then there's this pushback of well, you can't just
Speaker 1: that's such a big word. You can't say that, but
Speaker 1: if I can give you the information that you need
Speaker 1: to say. No, I know where this idea came from.
Speaker 1: I know whose mouth those words came out of last
Speaker 1: time they were spoken. You know that this isn't just
Speaker 1: normal Republican politics.
Speaker 4: This is.
Speaker 1: This is something you come from an old clan newsletter.
Speaker 2: How much of your work is like digging into old
Speaker 2: clan newsletters or like looking through speeches that are archives
Speaker 2: and things like that, things that like maybe read as boring,
Speaker 2: but help us understand this.
Speaker 1: It's not boring to me. It's not boring. It's like,
Speaker 1: I guess that's you know, we all have our special interest.
Speaker 1: This is the research is my favorite part. I love it.
Speaker 1: Like I spent most of last week trying to translate
Speaker 1: a blurry PDF of a thesis that was written in
Speaker 1: the nineties in Afrikaans, like and ocr does not like
Speaker 1: the AI does not want to read this to me,
Speaker 1: it is I'm like line by line because I know
Speaker 1: there's golden there and I'm gonna get it.
Speaker 2: You know something that I appreciate about Weird Little Guys
Speaker 2: is that is the part of the show that's like
Speaker 2: that you've never heard of, Like that part I think
Speaker 2: is very important. You know, there are so many of
Speaker 2: these names that folks might know, like Richard Spencer, who
Speaker 2: I always you know, I have. I had to give
Speaker 2: him a special shoutout because he was punched in my
Speaker 2: hometown of DC. And it's like a claim to fame
Speaker 2: that I love to mention. But you're talking about people
Speaker 2: that like extremists that people might not know right or
Speaker 2: might not have heard of. And you know, I live
Speaker 2: in d c. Into. Like you've talked about Aaron Hoffman,
Speaker 2: who was a police officer in nearby Prince George County,
Speaker 2: who you identified as a Proud Boys member, you know,
Speaker 2: who was advocating for violence against as a Supreme Court
Speaker 2: chief justice. And I guess I wonder, like, why do
Speaker 2: you think it's so important that people don't just know
Speaker 2: the sort of like big name extremists that get fancy
Speaker 2: write ups in the Times or whatever about their haircut,
Speaker 2: but also the people in your hometown, on your police force,
Speaker 2: on your school board.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess the idea. You know, the name of
Speaker 1: the show is Sophie's actually Sophie's brainchild. Weird little guys, right,
Speaker 1: It's like it's not just the splashy big names that
Speaker 1: you've heard of. It's there's the whole networks of these.
Speaker 1: It's like you pick up a rock and there's all
Speaker 1: these roly pollies under there, right, there's never just one
Speaker 1: bug under that rock. And they're just these terrible little losers. Right,
Speaker 1: They're not these larger than life incomprehensible figures, these you know,
Speaker 1: great men of history quote unquote, right, it's it's just
Speaker 1: like a bunch of fucking losers who are mean to
Speaker 1: their wives.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I was once behind the bastards and I
Speaker 2: was talking to Robert about this and I forget, I
Speaker 2: forget who we were talking about. But he had a
Speaker 2: very whoever it was, had like a very messy interpersonal
Speaker 2: life and that was his undoing. And I was like, dang,
Speaker 2: imagine being like this like high up figure and extremist
Speaker 2: movement and you're undoing is like your interpersonal messiness with
Speaker 2: your girlfriend. And he was like, bitch, it's all of
Speaker 2: them like that.
Speaker 1: It's like yes, Like there's there's a a white nationalist
Speaker 1: group that does not exist anymore because it fell apart
Speaker 1: after the leader caught his best friends slash father in
Speaker 1: law sleeping with his they were God, okay, so Matt
Speaker 1: heinbuch It's married to brook and Brooks stepfather Matt Parrott
Speaker 1: was having an affair with Oh god, oh the diagram
Speaker 1: is escaping me.
Speaker 2: You need like the like stringboard, like there is no
Speaker 2: Pepe Sylvia, like no, like we call it.
Speaker 1: We call the Night of the Wrong Wives, right, because
Speaker 1: this Nazi group collapsed because they were like they were
Speaker 1: fucking each other's wives.
Speaker 2: Yeah, people with the moral high ground, for sure, these
Speaker 2: are the people that we want architecting.
Speaker 1: Are like traditional values.
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean that is that a strategy here? Like
Speaker 2: really exposing the ways that these are just like small,
Speaker 2: weird losers and that they're not larger than life figures,
Speaker 2: and that like we are smarter than them. There are
Speaker 2: more of us than there are of and that like yeah,
Speaker 2: and like we need to remember that that like we
Speaker 2: can defeat them. They're not like big, smart, savvy people.
Speaker 2: Is that is that a strategy here? Yes?
Speaker 1: So it's like you know, I'm not saying they're not
Speaker 1: scary or they're not dangerous. It's absolutely not the message here.
Speaker 1: But like if you let this fear sort of like
Speaker 1: spin out of control and let them become these like
Speaker 1: larger than life figures in your mind, then you do
Speaker 1: feel disempowered to do anything about it. Like if these
Speaker 1: are these aren't just some fucking guy, right, It's just
Speaker 1: some fucking guy, and some guy can be defeated, right,
Speaker 1: this the idea of the monster is much more frightening
Speaker 1: than the weird guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, after watching I mean that horrifying video of a
Speaker 2: woman being dragged out of a meeting in Idaho, I
Speaker 2: when I saw the video was like this is I mean,
Speaker 2: it is terrifying, right, But then you hear you read
Speaker 2: about the sheriff who you know speaks to her initially,
Speaker 2: and everybody is like, oh, you want to know more
Speaker 2: about this guy. Here's his history of like weird, shitty,
Speaker 2: terrible behavior, And part of me is like wow, like
Speaker 2: he read like, first of all, if somebody with that
Speaker 2: kind of a background, I'm like, you probably should not
Speaker 2: have put yourself out here to be publicly scrutinized on
Speaker 2: a national stage. But also it's like, these are people
Speaker 2: with so many frailties and skeletons in their closet and like,
Speaker 2: I don't know somebody about that story. I found very
Speaker 2: empowering of like yeah, get them, Like I'm glad we're
Speaker 2: all talking about like whether or not he's pulling some
Speaker 2: kind of a disability scam right now? Like do you
Speaker 2: know what I'm saying? Like like who decided that the
Speaker 2: who put these assholes in charge? Like who decided that
Speaker 2: this person knows better about how to run anything than me?
Speaker 1: Exactly? Like they they all have just something terribly humiliating
Speaker 1: in their background, right Like, oh, you may be the
Speaker 1: guy who wrote the book that inspired of you know,
Speaker 1: dozens of mass murderers to commit accid, unspeakable terror. But
Speaker 1: like I've read your bankruptcy filings and I know you
Speaker 1: got fired from Walmart, Like.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, weird little guy. I mean like that really
Speaker 2: that title really does say it all. These are weird
Speaker 2: little guys.
Speaker 1: They're small, They're small in you know, they're mentally small,
Speaker 1: Their minds are small, their hearts are small, and we
Speaker 1: can defeat them.
Speaker 2: You know, there's been a lot of talk about this
Speaker 2: really being a time where folks should be leaning in
Speaker 2: and staying checked in and showing up at town hall
Speaker 2: meetings or meetings in their local communities to demand accountability
Speaker 2: from elected officials. Do you have any advice for folks
Speaker 2: doing that, maybe for the first time meaningfully in their lives.
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, just go, just go to the meeting. And no,
Speaker 1: I don't know, Oh gosh, me think it's been so
Speaker 1: many years. There's this steep learning curve, Like you know,
Speaker 1: when I first intern showing up to these meetings, like
Speaker 1: they seem overwhelming, it's confusing, Like there's a very specific
Speaker 1: language of the wave bureaucracy is conducted. You know. It's
Speaker 1: so don't be afraid to just sit quietly for a
Speaker 1: meeting or two until you figure out the space that
Speaker 1: you're in. You know, read the agenda online. You can
Speaker 1: watch old meetings online if you want to. If there's
Speaker 1: local groups in your area that go to these meetings
Speaker 1: in an organized fashion, talk to them, ask them questions.
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's someone there who will talk to you
Speaker 1: about it. I know you're rights. I think there's a
Speaker 1: lot of intimidation that goes on, right like you, if
Speaker 1: you don't know that you are allowed to be there,
Speaker 1: you might be bullied out of that room. Like when
Speaker 1: I first started going to not just city council meetings,
Speaker 1: I started going to every public meeting I could find
Speaker 1: because I was very unemployed, and there's all these boards
Speaker 1: and commissions in my town. I would go to these meetings,
Speaker 1: and it was obvious in some of these rooms that
Speaker 1: no one had ever come before, that no member of
Speaker 1: the public had ever walked into that room and watched
Speaker 1: them have their meeting. Because they would say things like, oh,
Speaker 1: you can't be in here, and I would have to say, well, no,
Speaker 1: I'm familiar with the law, and yes I can. The
Speaker 1: law says you have to let me be in this room.
Speaker 2: To gaslight you into making you think that you were
Speaker 2: like trespassing essentially.
Speaker 1: Like that you're oh, you're not supposed to be in here,
Speaker 1: we're having a meeting. It's like, yeah, I know, that's
Speaker 1: why I'm here. I'm here to watch you have this meeting.
Speaker 1: And it changes their behavior, Like even if you say nothing,
Speaker 1: just the act of witnessing them have their government meeting
Speaker 1: changes their behavior. And so I think, even if you
Speaker 1: have no intention of making a public comment, go be
Speaker 1: in the room, make them look at you, make them
Speaker 1: know that their constituents are aware of what they're talking about.
Speaker 2: Do you think that, especially now that it seems like, oh,
Speaker 2: I mean, when I think about what's happening federally. I
Speaker 2: just it's very hard to find anything hopeful to grab
Speaker 2: onto you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not looking there for hope.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean maybe it's local. Maybe, like that's where
Speaker 2: like that's where you can actually like grab on to something.
Speaker 1: Right, Like I have no like, you know, calling my
Speaker 1: congressman's not going to do anything. He was at January sixth,
Speaker 1: like he looks like a haunted Marionette doll and he
Speaker 1: loves fascism. Like I'm not called him, but I know,
Speaker 1: but I know that, you know, when it comes up
Speaker 1: for a vote at my school board. You know, a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago, they voted to take the cops
Speaker 1: out of our local schools, right, because having cops in
Speaker 1: schools is proven. There's academic studies proving that it like
Speaker 1: worsens outcomes, particularly for black students. It increases the level
Speaker 1: of violence in the schools. It does not make anyone safer.
Speaker 1: So they took the cops out. They did the right thing,
Speaker 1: and they took them out. But now they're talking about
Speaker 1: putting them back. Right, So like, I can't make my
Speaker 1: congressmen do anything about fascism at the federal level, but
Speaker 1: I can be in the room to make sure that,
Speaker 1: you know, black kids at my local middle school aren't
Speaker 1: terrorized by a school resource officer. That's something I can do.
Speaker 2: I mean that that actually feels a little like that
Speaker 2: feels real to me, Like that, Like that feels like
Speaker 2: a like a change that like you could see you
Speaker 2: can feel in your commune, like in your town.
Speaker 1: And it's not meaningless, right, these small things they feel insignificant,
Speaker 1: you know, in the face of the horrors that are
Speaker 1: that are inundating us every day. But it's not meaningless
Speaker 1: to the people whose lives it touches, right that, Like
Speaker 1: you know, one fourteen year old black boy gets arrested
Speaker 1: by the school resource officer, that's the rest of his
Speaker 1: life ruined, right, Like that is a life changing act
Speaker 1: of violence for a child. And that's something that you
Speaker 1: can have an impact on.
Speaker 2: More.
Speaker 3: After a quick break, let's get right back into it.
Speaker 2: In all of this work, I mean, I have to ask,
Speaker 2: Like we talk about this on the show kind of
Speaker 2: a lot, like a lot of the sort of dangerous
Speaker 2: work of chronicling extremists, pushing back against extremists is being
Speaker 2: done by marginalized communities. Women. You know that I think
Speaker 2: that that's not a coincidence. And all. So women are
Speaker 2: like uniquely targeted for this work. Like it's usually not
Speaker 2: just us, it's like us in our family, us and
Speaker 2: our partner. How do you, how do you how how
Speaker 2: has that been for you? And how do you keep
Speaker 2: yourself sort of fafe and like okay to show up
Speaker 2: and do this work.
Speaker 1: Dissociation number one Number one, just I don't I don't
Speaker 1: live in this body. I'm not a here. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's laughing, that's not funny. Although I will say I
Speaker 1: haven't gotten a death threat in months, and that's the
Speaker 1: first time in years that I can say that. Like
Speaker 1: it used to be like every week I was getting,
Speaker 1: you know, a message from some guy who's like, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna shoot you in the chest and then fuck the
Speaker 1: whole you know, like weird stuff.
Speaker 2: Lord, Like.
Speaker 1: Okay, Dad, I think they're afraid of being on the show.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, if they were a weird little guy,
Speaker 2: it's like today, I'm weird little guys. Listen to that
Speaker 2: voicemail that Chad left me and then it's played in
Speaker 2: its entirely entirely.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think they're afraid of being on the show.
Speaker 1: But no, I think this is something that especially you know,
Speaker 1: the female colleagues that I have. That is something we've
Speaker 1: been talking about for years, right, is that there are
Speaker 1: you know, white men with well paying staff jobs in
Speaker 1: newsrooms who do similar work and they don't really get
Speaker 1: the same threats I want say they don't get them.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm you know, not stealing valor or you know,
Speaker 1: diminishing the threats that we all face in this work.
Speaker 1: But it is different for women. It is different for
Speaker 1: people of color, It is different for Jewish anti fascists,
Speaker 1: like it is it is different for people who are
Speaker 1: not white men. The level of a triol is much
Speaker 1: more appalling. The amount that people care when it happens
Speaker 1: to you is significantly less. And I think we know
Speaker 1: why both of those things are true. God, I will
Speaker 1: never forget this. Years ago, but a white man who
Speaker 1: makes a living writing about the far right told me
Speaker 1: that he was jealous about how many threats that I
Speaker 1: get because it just seems so interesting to him and
Speaker 1: if that's never happened to him in his work, that
Speaker 1: it was just he was a little bit jealous, Like
Speaker 1: why would you say that to me?
Speaker 2: My god, I mean.
Speaker 1: People are calling the hospital where my mom works to
Speaker 1: like say gross stuff and you you like that? Do
Speaker 1: you think that would be fun?
Speaker 2: I mean this might sound like a silly question, like
Speaker 2: I think I know what you're gonna say, but I'm
Speaker 2: gonna ask it anyway. What like fills your cup? What
Speaker 2: brings you joy? What nourishes you to keep you checked
Speaker 2: in here?
Speaker 1: I mean the show is called Weird Little Guys because
Speaker 1: I genuinely love finding a weird guy, and so like
Speaker 1: Sophie came up with the name because like in the
Speaker 1: in the work chat, like I'm constantly coming, coming, you know,
Speaker 1: coming to everyone and being like, look look at this,
Speaker 1: Look at this fucked up thing I found. Look at
Speaker 1: this weird guy that I found. Right And like you
Speaker 1: know when your dog finds like a really nasty dead
Speaker 1: bug outside and he's like so excited to show it
Speaker 1: to you, Like that's me. I love it, like I
Speaker 1: made I made a little discovery last week that that's
Speaker 1: going in next week's episode, like over the Moon, just
Speaker 1: like out of control, excited. I found something crazy.
Speaker 2: So I thought, what we're gonna say, you're dogs, But
Speaker 2: I was even more.
Speaker 1: Yes, of course, my precious dogs.
Speaker 2: I will tell you one time I was walking down
Speaker 2: the shoe with my partner and there was a guy
Speaker 2: walking to Doccins and my partner looks over and says,
Speaker 2: look at those two double look at those double d's.
Speaker 2: And it was the funniest thing I've ever heard. And
Speaker 2: every time you post a picture of your dogs, I
Speaker 2: think about it, like it's like double d's, so double d's, Oh.
Speaker 1: I mean looking at a Docson, I think is just
Speaker 1: an unparalleled experience. I mean I love to look at
Speaker 1: any dog. I love to look at a dog. I
Speaker 1: love to see a dog, love to pet a dog,
Speaker 1: love dogs. But something about a weeder dog is like,
Speaker 1: I mean, you think I'd be over it. They're like
Speaker 1: eight and a half years old now. But every time
Speaker 1: I look at them, it's like, why do you look
Speaker 1: like that?
Speaker 2: They always look like they're worried about something. It's like
Speaker 2: what should be worried about? Like Buck.
Speaker 1: Buck looks like he works two jobs and can't make rent,
Speaker 1: Like he looks so pressured by the world. Otto does
Speaker 1: not He's never and it had never in his life,
Speaker 1: had a single thought in his head. It's so beautiful,
Speaker 1: like he's he's fine. All he prefaces by saying he's
Speaker 1: fine now, but he was completely paralyzed. In twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: he had a spontaneous rupture of one of his discs
Speaker 1: in his back, which is unfortunately something that kind of
Speaker 1: happened to Dodson's, like he had no existing injury. It
Speaker 1: just happened, and all of a sudden he was completely
Speaker 1: paralyzed and he had to have back surgery and the
Speaker 1: prognosis was bad. And so after the surgery, he was
Speaker 1: home and his back legs didn't work and he was
Speaker 1: wearing a diaper. He was drugged up and like and
Speaker 1: so he couldn't This bladder didn't work. So I had
Speaker 1: to manually express his bladder by like squeezing on it.
Speaker 1: And the that was like, dogs, really don't like this.
Speaker 1: He's probably gonna bite you, And I was like, it's not.
Speaker 1: And for two weeks paralyzed, miserable, having to have his
Speaker 1: bladder manually expressed every three hours around the clock. He
Speaker 1: never he did not care. It didn't even seem to
Speaker 1: register with him that anything was wrong.
Speaker 2: He was just vibing, not a thought in that doggy head.
Speaker 1: And I think we can all learn a lot from Otto.
Speaker 1: Don't think yeah by just.
Speaker 2: By I aspire to be like Auto. I mean, as
Speaker 2: I say, like, the the joy that you get out
Speaker 2: of researching and breaking down these weird little guys is
Speaker 2: palpable when you listen to the show, and I do, like,
Speaker 2: I mean, it sounds weird to say, but like you
Speaker 2: can tell that it is very much a labor of
Speaker 2: love when you listen to the podcast. And is that
Speaker 2: Is that how it's better for you?
Speaker 1: Yes, And I'm glad that that comes through because I
Speaker 1: you know, if it stops being a thrill to you know,
Speaker 1: to hunt and find and seek and dig, and if
Speaker 1: it stops being you know, emotionally crushing to tell the
Speaker 1: stories of harm that was done to people, then I'll stop.
Speaker 1: Then I'll stop if I can go, you know, if
Speaker 1: there's not an episode where Rory has to edit out
Speaker 1: the takes where like I'm audibly crying, then like it's
Speaker 1: time to go, because I think that matters.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I started telling these kinds of stories for my own community,
Speaker 1: right like I had. Don't look it up. It's still
Speaker 1: on the internet somewhere. It's not good. But years ago.
Speaker 1: It was twenty eighteen when the man who murdered Heather
Speaker 1: Hier went on trial. I was able to attend the
Speaker 1: entire trial, and many people were not because it was
Speaker 1: the courtroom was so full of like, you know, fucking
Speaker 1: ghouls from out of town, like you know, CNN reporters
Speaker 1: doing their nightly hits. And so I during that trial,
Speaker 1: I made this like little podcast that my intention was
Speaker 1: it was just for my community, right, So I started
Speaker 1: telling these stories for my own community, and even though
Speaker 1: that's not what I'm doing anymore, right, I'm telling them
Speaker 1: for these broader audiences. I just got an email the
Speaker 1: other day from a listener in Scottsdale who said, you know,
Speaker 1: I heard the way that you talk about Charlottesville, and
Speaker 1: it's obviously very personal for you, but you talked about
Speaker 1: my city the same way, and that meant a lot, right,
Speaker 1: And so just being able to carry that sort of
Speaker 1: care with me that I'm telling these stories that affected
Speaker 1: real people's lives, that are continue to affect real people's lives.
Speaker 1: And if I can't do that with care, then I
Speaker 1: shouldn't do it.
Speaker 2: I am so glad that they haven't made us stop caring,
Speaker 2: Like I'm so good, Like they throw shit at us
Speaker 2: every day, but the fact that you still care and
Speaker 2: it still connects, and that you're still moved by these stories,
Speaker 2: I think really says a lot. And I'm just very
Speaker 2: glad that that passion and real empathy is still there,
Speaker 2: because like I wake up every day worried that like
Speaker 2: if today the day we're like I turn it off
Speaker 2: or I'm like I've stopped feeling, I'm numbed out, I
Speaker 2: don't give a fuck, like do what you're gonna do,
Speaker 2: like going down with the ship. I worry about that
Speaker 2: in myself, and it's just very clear that, like you
Speaker 2: have a vast reservoir of that inside, and I'm very
Speaker 2: glad for that.
Speaker 1: But it's an active practice, right, Like it's something I
Speaker 1: cultivate with intention, right that it's something I have been
Speaker 1: saying for years, Right that, like I work very hard
Speaker 1: every day not to become hard. Right that, Like I
Speaker 1: don't wish harm on even even the worst of these monsters, right,
Speaker 1: Like I don't. I don't sit here thinking, oh, I
Speaker 1: hope something really bad happens. I don't. I don't fault
Speaker 1: you if you do. I think that's perfectly fine, it's understandable.
Speaker 1: But like what I want is for them to stop
Speaker 1: hurting people. And I don't know that wishing harm on
Speaker 1: them is good for my heart?
Speaker 2: Do you? Maybe the answer is no, But do you
Speaker 2: have any advice on how we can kind of protect
Speaker 2: our softness and not lose that when things feel so awful?
Speaker 2: Asking for myself?
Speaker 1: Yeah, asking for a friend.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know, And I have found myself in telling
Speaker 1: these stories, trying to make sure to include parts of
Speaker 1: the story that are not about the monster. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: there was an episode months ago about Verry Black, who's
Speaker 1: a clansman from Pennsylvania who challenged Virginia's cross burning law
Speaker 1: and won many years ago, got all the way to
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court, and you know, it's this terrible story
Speaker 1: about a terrible man winning. But within that story there
Speaker 1: was the story of this older, straight couple that ran
Speaker 1: the only gay bar in world western Pennsylvania. And like that,
Speaker 1: they had the courage of their convictions and they stood
Speaker 1: up to the class and fire bombings and people shooting
Speaker 1: at the bar, and like it just it mattered to
Speaker 1: them that gay people had a place to go. Even
Speaker 1: though they were straight. They didn't have gay kids, they
Speaker 1: had no connection to this community. It just wasn't something
Speaker 1: that mattered to them, and just like finding someone in
Speaker 1: these stories who was so good in a way that
Speaker 1: is I don't know, it's just special because in every
Speaker 1: story of a monster, there is there is a Pat Kramer.
Speaker 1: You know, there is someone in all of these stories
Speaker 1: who did the right thing when they didn't have to.
Speaker 2: I usually end these conversations asking like, what keeps you
Speaker 2: hopeful or what are you hopeful in this moment? I
Speaker 2: feel like it might be that like that, like that,
Speaker 2: even in these stories of like monsters, there are regular
Speaker 2: folks who want to do the right thing, regular folks
Speaker 2: who challenge these monsters and win.
Speaker 1: And some times the person in the story who did
Speaker 1: the beautiful thing doesn't win. Sometimes they die. There was
Speaker 1: an episode of few weeks ago about the story of
Speaker 1: the Portland Max train stabbings in twenty seventeen where three
Speaker 1: men were stabbed defending these two teenage girls from a
Speaker 1: Nazi and two of them died. They didn't win, right,
Speaker 1: but like what they did was beautiful and hopeful and tragic,
Speaker 1: And I guess that's you know, in times where we're
Speaker 1: all looking for hope and it's hard to find it,
Speaker 1: the knowledge that maybe you don't win. Maybe I don't win.
Speaker 1: Maybe we in this moment are not winning, but we will,
Speaker 1: Like even if you and I don't get to be
Speaker 1: the ones who do it or see it, we will,
Speaker 1: and there's there's hope for future people like us.
Speaker 2: Sorry, really beautiful, I'm like tearing up. I feel like
Speaker 2: I needed I needed to hear that.
Speaker 1: You know, we don't. We don't do it for ourselves.
Speaker 1: We do it for all of us.
Speaker 2: Mollie, that show is weird, little guys, Where can folks listen? Is?
Speaker 2: It is so needed right now? How can folks check
Speaker 2: it out?
Speaker 1: You can listen to it wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Every podcast app I think Cooler Zone Media subscription is
Speaker 1: not yet available for Android, but you can get it
Speaker 1: on Apple if you want to listen to it ad free,
Speaker 1: but anywhere you get your podcasts, download it on all
Speaker 1: of those apps and listen to it on all of
Speaker 1: them so by get more downloads, so Sophie will be
Speaker 1: proud of me.
Speaker 2: Give Molly all the downloads. Y'all please listen it is.
Speaker 2: It is a fantastic, phenomenal show. Congratulations on it. Anything
Speaker 2: that I did not ask that you want to make
Speaker 2: sure it gets included.
Speaker 1: Gosh, I don't think so, go to your next school
Speaker 1: board meeting and download my podcast and petadoxin.
Speaker 2: Yes, in that order. Mollie, thank you for being here
Speaker 2: and thanks for all you're doing. I'm like, genuinely so
Speaker 2: happy that that there are people like you in the
Speaker 2: world and in this fight and in this thing.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me. I had a
Speaker 1: good time. Sorry I made usppose cry.
Speaker 2: No, this was I need. I needed this. Got a
Speaker 2: story about an interesting thing in tech, or just want
Speaker 2: to say hi. You can reach us at Hello at
Speaker 2: tangody dot com. You can also find transcripts for today's
Speaker 2: episode at tengody dot com. There Are No Girls on
Speaker 2: the Internet was created by me Bridget Todd. It's a
Speaker 2: production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed creative Jonathan Strickland is our
Speaker 2: executive producer. Tarry Harrison is our producer and sound engineer.
Speaker 2: Michael Almado is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd.
Speaker 2: If you want to help us grow, rate and review us.
Speaker 3: On Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 4: Why Wait