WEBVTT - Strange People on the Hill: An Interview with Michael Edison Hayden 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:05.000 Cool Zone Media. 0:00:06.480 --> 0:00:08.600 Hello, and welcome back to It Could Happen Here. 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:11.440 I'm your occasional host, Molly Conger, and I'm joined today 0:00:11.440 --> 0:00:13.600 by a very special guest, Michael Edison Hayden. 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:15.960 Hi, how's it going, Thanks for being here. 0:00:16.680 --> 0:00:18.680 You may know Mike from his work as an investigative 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:21.640 journalist and an expert on far right extremism. He currently 0:00:21.640 --> 0:00:24.639 co hosts Posting Through It, a weekly news podcast with 0:00:24.680 --> 0:00:27.240 fellow veteran of the far right beat, Jared Holt. But 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:30.440 today we're talking about his new book, Strange People on 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:33.760 the Hill, How Extremism Tore apart a small American town. 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:37.360 It comes out April seventh, twenty twenty six, but you 0:00:37.400 --> 0:00:39.239 can go ahead and pre order it now anywhere you 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:41.279 buy books, and make sure you ask for it at 0:00:41.280 --> 0:00:44.160 your local library and your local independent bookstore. 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:46.839 Mike, thanks so much for coming on. I'm excited to 0:00:46.880 --> 0:00:47.479 talk about this. 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:49.919 Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah. 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:52.040 I was worried that I wasn't gonna have time to 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:54.080 read the whole book. I mean, you talk about this 0:00:54.120 --> 0:00:56.120 a lot in the book, right, the stresses of covering 0:00:56.160 --> 0:00:56.560 this beat. 0:00:56.640 --> 0:00:58.680 But I sat down to read it, and I read 0:00:58.680 --> 0:00:59.880 it in one sitting. It is very com. 0:01:00.360 --> 0:01:03.000 Wow, but it's not the book I thought it was, 0:01:04.280 --> 0:01:06.000 you know, So when your publicists sent this to me, 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:09.000 I thought, oh, phenomenal. This is a book about Peter 0:01:09.040 --> 0:01:11.480 Brimlow and the Racism Castle in West Virginia. I would 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:13.040 love to read a book about Peter Brimlow and the 0:01:13.120 --> 0:01:13.880 Racism Castle. 0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:16.280 And it's not really is it? 0:01:16.360 --> 0:01:20.640 Like the Brimlows are the strange people on the hill 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:23.040 and they sort of stay on the hill, right. You 0:01:23.040 --> 0:01:25.160 have a couple of encounters with them in the book, 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:27.360 but for the most part, it's a book about the town. 0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:30.800 Yeah. Yeah, it's about the town. And I'm glad that 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:33.560 you mentioned that. I really didn't want to write a 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:40.920 book that was about these villains that have been, you know, 0:01:41.000 --> 0:01:44.000 populating our culture for the last ten plus years that 0:01:44.160 --> 0:01:48.120 just seem to get unlimited traction on social media. There's 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:51.080 nothing wrong with talking about them, and there's nothing on 0:01:51.120 --> 0:01:53.080 over certainly reporting on them, because I did my share 0:01:53.080 --> 0:01:55.440 of that, you know, day in and day out when 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:58.000 I was with SBLC, for instance. I think that all 0:01:58.000 --> 0:01:59.960 that is important, and there's different ways to do it 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:02.960 and do it effectively. But I think for a book. 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:07.720 I wanted to focus more on what these people and 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:12.920 this culture that is surrounding them is doing to everyday people. 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:16.360 Yeah, I was just I was so startled by what 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:18.760 it wasn't and then so engrossed by what it was. 0:02:19.440 --> 0:02:21.680 But just quickly for the listeners, tell us what the 0:02:21.680 --> 0:02:24.280 book is not about. Tell us who Peter Brimlow is 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:26.440 and v Dare and how they ended up with a castle. 0:02:26.919 --> 0:02:30.720 Yeah, well it's not totally without him. I mean we 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:32.960 do get a bit of information about it. Yeah, we 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:37.080 meet him. Peter kind of came up as a financial reporter. 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:41.160 That's the short way of understanding, you know, how he 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:47.560 became America's most influential white nationalist. That's what SPOC labeled him, 0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:51.840 which has covered obviously in the book. And he became 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:56.840 obsessed with immigration and in particular heart Seller, which brought 0:02:56.880 --> 0:03:01.400 in tons of people from the developing the world. My 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:05.560 mother came to the country in sixty eight, for example. 0:03:05.680 --> 0:03:07.480 That was like a you know, three years after a 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:11.800 heart Seller, and I wouldn't have been born if not. 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:15.320 She married a white guy and etcetera, etcetera. She came 0:03:15.320 --> 0:03:19.240 from Egypt. So he became obsessed with this and kind 0:03:19.240 --> 0:03:21.200 of in the way that I know, you know a 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:24.359 lot about these the way some of these minds work, Molly, 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:27.200 but in the way that some people get obsessed with 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:31.640 environmentalism and then they kind of expand that concern to 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:33.639 sort of say, well, there's too many people, right, there's 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:35.600 too many people. There's too many people. Well there's too 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:38.600 many brown people. That's what's destroying the environment. And then 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:41.160 they become you know, sort of white nationalists minded, or 0:03:41.160 --> 0:03:44.280 anti grand immigrant minded. In Brimlo's case, I really think 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:46.560 it was like a financial thing, just like this is 0:03:46.600 --> 0:03:48.680 putting all these different strains or whatever. And then it 0:03:48.720 --> 0:03:52.400 became the financial became less of a concern and the 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:55.680 actual anti immigrant thing became bigger and bigger for him. 0:03:56.040 --> 0:04:00.760 In nineteen ninety five, he publishes Alien Nation, which is 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:03.920 a book that was actually praised to by people like 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:07.000 David Frum, you know, the very same guy who's high 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:10.400 hatting about Trump every day. It was considered socially acceptable, 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:12.800 and then over time, I think people realized that the 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:16.560 book had a very racist undercurrent, and it became beloved 0:04:16.560 --> 0:04:19.039 by Nazis, white nationalists, et cetera. 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:21.960 I think if people like David Frum had been honest 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:24.600 with themselves. It was there all along. It was not 0:04:24.640 --> 0:04:26.320 a subtle undercurrent. 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:29.200 Fun A side about David Frum, which is that I 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:33.240 did put it in the investigation into Stephen Miller's private emails. 0:04:33.880 --> 0:04:37.640 Miller shared posts by from on more than one occasion 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:40.320 about like sort of anti Islam posts, which I think 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:40.880 is interesting. 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:43.479 And I think what these people disagree most about is 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:45.599 how loud you're supposed to say the quiet part. 0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:49.320 Yeah, no, I really do think that that's true. So, 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:53.320 you know, when Peter became more of a contentious figure, 0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:57.800 he founded Videir, which is a nonprofit that lasted for 0:04:57.839 --> 0:05:02.560 about quarter century. Recently died recently double that's covered in 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:05.120 the book. It dies over the course of the narrative, 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:11.040 and it was hugely influential, usually influential in changing the GOP. 0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:16.240 And at the time when W. Bush was president, Brimlow 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:19.000 was railing against the GOP to change, to move in 0:05:19.040 --> 0:05:22.760 this nativist direction, and eventually they listened to him. 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:26.159 And so the book sort of starts with you know, 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:30.159 twenty nineteen, right, and Peter and his wife, Lydia Brimlow 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:33.680 have purchased this gigantic castle in the small town of 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:36.800 Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. Right. I guess it's not shakes, 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:39.960 the medium sized castle. I don't know what the scale 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:43.200 for castles is. And so you become interested in their 0:05:43.240 --> 0:05:45.159 purchase of this castle, and you go to this town 0:05:45.240 --> 0:05:47.520 and you meet the people of Berkeley Springs, the people 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:50.360 who are indifferent to their presence, the people who are 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:54.080 organizing against their presence, and it's this really sort of 0:05:54.160 --> 0:05:58.800 engrossing story of just small town drama, this interpersonal drama 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:02.440 of these like small business owners. And the castle is 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:05.520 always there in the background, right, the strange people are 0:06:05.600 --> 0:06:08.320 up on the hill. But it's a story about this 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:09.799 small town struggle. 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:13.240 Yeah. I think we should just talk about the castle 0:06:13.320 --> 0:06:16.360 real quick, because it's beautiful, and I think that's a 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:18.960 key thing. I hope when you read it you were like, oh, 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:21.159 I want to go to Berkeley Springs now, which is 0:06:21.200 --> 0:06:23.080 I've had more than one person who read the book 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:23.359 tell me. 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:25.080 That I'm going to wait till they leave. 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:29.320 I've also heard that too, But you know, I know 0:06:29.360 --> 0:06:33.200 the people who are there who despise the Brimlows and 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:36.600 their ideology, and I wanted to make sure that they 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:38.919 didn't feel let down by the book that they felt 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:41.080 like at least honored to a degree because I really 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:43.120 want them to be able to recover their business. Their 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:46.040 business have suffered since Brimlos took over. But just a 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:49.359 quick thing on this castle. It is absolutely beautiful. It 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:52.240 should be like a national park or something. It has 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:55.760 that feel. It was built in eighteen eighty by a 0:06:55.800 --> 0:06:59.599 guy named Samuel Taylor Suit who made it for a 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:04.520 very very young young girl. I think she's like seventeen 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:05.360 or something like that. 0:07:05.520 --> 0:07:08.120 It's fitting that Brimlow bought it for his much younger wife. 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:11.160 Yes, that's true. Yeah, there's a lot of like spiritual 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:13.760 kind of woo woo stuff in in Berkeley Springs, and 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:16.440 there's a lot of you know, superstition, and a lot 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:18.640 of people really think that they are carrying on like 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:21.520 some sort of ghost like thing would carry over from 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:24.640 this relationship. But he made the castle for her, and 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:29.080 he died and she took over and went bankrupt, and 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:31.720 there was also allegedly a murder or something like that 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:33.840 that took place there. And then there's like this kind 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:38.240 of turnover from people one generation the next trying to 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:41.200 keep the castle going. It's always more expensive than it's Worth. 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:45.440 It's beautiful. It overlooks the entire town. The town is tiny, gorgeous, 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:47.360 looks like a great place to go on vacation. And 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:51.360 if you imagine like four Berkeley Springs, the Empire State Building, 0:07:52.160 --> 0:07:55.520 Statue of Liberty Times Square rolled into one, that's what 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:57.720 the castle is. It's so tiny, and this is the 0:07:57.720 --> 0:08:00.360 main landmark. This is the thing that everybody goes to 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:02.160 and they go hiking around there and all this stuff. 0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:05.600 So this is a tourist town that attracts a lot 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:10.120 of LGBQ people from places like Washington, DC, Baltimore, a 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:13.520 lot of liberals, and all of a sudden you have 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:18.040 this again SPOC labeled white nationalist, anti immigrant, nativist, whatever 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:21.600 you want to call them. Couple buys this castle, right, 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:23.720 they decide to buy it. And the way they found 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:27.760 it is because Lydia Brimlow, who is thirty seven years 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:31.880 younger than Peter herself and started with him and when 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:34.960 she was twenty or something like that and he was 0:08:35.360 --> 0:08:36.160 nearly sixty. 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:39.800 Right, she was an intern at the Heritage Foundation when 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:40.240 they met. 0:08:40.440 --> 0:08:45.880 Intriguing, Yeah, heritage and it's interesting, weird in any case, 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:49.800 she finds it on Zillo and you remember this period 0:08:49.920 --> 0:08:54.360 very well, I know, But in twenty eighteen or so, 0:08:54.880 --> 0:08:58.240 it became very very difficult for these folks to stage 0:08:58.280 --> 0:08:59.800 events right. 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:03.880 For you know, for unknown reasons, not because they kept 0:09:03.960 --> 0:09:04.439 killing people. 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:07.720 I don't want to like derail this podcast by bringing 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:12.000 up Jason Kessler, but Jason Kessler, who we both know 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:15.000 very well, who is who secured the permit for the 0:09:15.040 --> 0:09:18.040 Unite the Right event, who has been at different times 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:20.200 obsessed with both of us, I think were like in 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:24.160 his top in his top op all list, Jason you know, 0:09:24.320 --> 0:09:27.839 was readily associated with Vidier because of his contributions to 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:29.640 the site. And people knew that, and that may put 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:32.080 even more pressure because theyre like, well, this Charlottesville guy, right, 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:35.520 they Unite the Right guy is Assai. So Vidio couldn't 0:09:35.520 --> 0:09:39.040 stage any events. They were very worried about counter demonstrators. 0:09:39.120 --> 0:09:42.840 I think that the counter demonstrators from that first MAGA 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:45.240 era really put the fear of God into some of 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:47.520 these people. They didn't, they were they were scared shitless 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:51.160 of anti racist, anti fascists, And all of a sudden, 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:53.560 you got a castle on Zillow, a million point four 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:58.160 and it's got stone walls all over it and hey, 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:00.760 we can hold our conferences here, and so that's how 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:03.640 they got it. They ended up getting it for that reason. 0:10:03.920 --> 0:10:08.280 And what happens to the town afterwards, I think is 0:10:08.760 --> 0:10:11.400 a minor tragedy in our culture that hasn't been paid 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:12.240 attention to enough. 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:14.800 Yeah, it is this sort of microcosm of what happened 0:10:14.840 --> 0:10:17.880 to America. Right, we don't all have a racism castle 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:20.520 in our town, but sort of the way this castle 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:24.840 bears down on this little town kind of mirrors the 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:28.839 way the influx of these extreme right wing ideas into 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:32.040 the GOP, into the administration that governs all of us 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:34.679 kind of is bearing down on us. 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:37.280 Yeah, that's very smart. I think that's true. I think 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:40.959 that is one of the reasons that the story spoke 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:42.480 to me so much that I wanted to pursue it 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:45.200 for so long. Is it really felt like what everybody 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:48.400 was going through in the town. And readers will learn this. 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:52.960 Imagine business owners who are catering to many liberals there 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:57.320 and stuck in Morgan County, which is seventy five percent 0:10:57.400 --> 0:11:02.439 Trump and ninety percent white, and they're panicking because they 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:04.400 need to keep people going. In the press goes a 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:07.120 long way in Berkeley Springs. It's it's a little place. 0:11:07.559 --> 0:11:09.800 They don't know how to push back. Someone buys private property, 0:11:09.800 --> 0:11:12.199 what can you do? But they start to organize and 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:15.280 try to figure out a way to urge Brimlow to 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:17.560 leave or to make it so difficult for him that 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:22.120 he leaves. And yes, it is absolutely a symbolism for 0:11:22.160 --> 0:11:25.079 what everybody's going through. And there are people all over 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:30.120 the country in places Red states where you might find 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:34.880 people who you wouldn't expect kind of protesting against TESLA 0:11:35.080 --> 0:11:37.319 or something like that, and it could be kind of corny, 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:40.160 these type of people who like corny online and easily ignored. 0:11:40.640 --> 0:11:43.400 They're all over the country feeling that exact dread that 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:46.440 you're talking about, where something very like above them is 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:50.520 bearing down and pushing values that don't align with theirs. 0:11:51.280 --> 0:11:54.240 Right, it's such a specific story about Berkeley Springs, but 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:56.920 at the same time, this could be almost any talent. 0:11:57.040 --> 0:11:57.240 You know. 0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:00.240 I'm sure you followed the story of what happened to ed, 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:02.480 Oklahoma when the identity of Europa Guy got on their 0:12:02.480 --> 0:12:06.200 city council and it was this very local, small town 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:10.880 struggle with these very specific local personalities butting heads. But 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:13.679 the story's playing out in small towns all over America 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:16.800 because everyone has, you know, if not a racism castle, 0:12:16.840 --> 0:12:20.120 everyone has a local racist who's making life hard for everyone. 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:23.040 Yeah, I mean they're sending right now. To use claviculars 0:12:23.080 --> 0:12:26.840 phrase the Yeah, I mean think about North Idaho, for example. 0:12:26.880 --> 0:12:30.200 I get a story for them for about from other Jones, 0:12:30.760 --> 0:12:34.200 and you know, they they have a long history with 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:40.840 white supremacy and it's certainly dead red far right part 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:45.760 of the country. But you have like anti semites like 0:12:46.640 --> 0:12:51.480 Dave Riley, it's right, Rebecca Hargraves and those people encroaching 0:12:51.600 --> 0:12:56.200 on their everyday politics. Right, they're trying to change the politics. 0:12:56.240 --> 0:12:59.680 They're trying to integrate themselves, you know, coming from outside 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:02.120 to take over, right. 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:03.920 I mean, it's the same thing, is what happened in 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:04.520 West Virginia. 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:08.280 It's that these white supremacists are moving to these places 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:10.520 because they have a perception about what it will be 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:12.640 like when they get there, that everyone who's there will 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:14.640 agree with me because they're mostly white. 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:16.320 That's why Dave Riley moved Idaho. 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:21.320 Yeah. When Peter Brimlo first moved to the Castle, he 0:13:21.960 --> 0:13:23.800 would repeatedly I think he would do it when people 0:13:23.920 --> 0:13:26.559 reach out for comment and be like, you know, Morgan 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:29.920 County is seventy five percent voted for Trump, It's ninety 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:33.400 percent white. It's you who have the problem, not us. 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:36.240 And if you're looking for a more optimistic thing here, 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:39.000 I've gotten good reviews for the reviews that I've gotten, 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:43.120 but they keep using like disturbing, like this is so scary, 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:45.480 Like I think for us it's not as much because 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:47.720 we've been living in it for in a more intimate way, 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:48.640 right I. 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:53.160 Found it encouraging, yes, because you met these people who 0:13:53.160 --> 0:13:56.600 were doing their best in this like bizarre, fucked up situation, 0:13:56.679 --> 0:13:59.280 Like they didn't ask for a weird old British Nazi 0:13:59.320 --> 0:13:59.760 to buy. 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:00.920 The cat exactly. 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:03.040 They're doing their best, and I think that's beautiful. 0:14:03.160 --> 0:14:05.800 I think I think if you try to tune out 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:08.920 the reality that we're all going through right now and 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:13.480 just focus on, you know, your own private world, it 0:14:13.520 --> 0:14:16.640 can be scary because you're letting in Peter Brimlow and 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:18.440 your chair head while you read the book, and you're 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:21.160 you're you're seeing neighbors kind of turning on one another, 0:14:22.000 --> 0:14:24.760 and you're seeing me go through a mental health crisis 0:14:24.800 --> 0:14:26.720 in the book. I mean, there's these are things that 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:30.640 for for a normy that maybe a little bit you know, 0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:32.440 you may like the book, but you may be a 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:34.480 final little disturbing. But for people like us who have 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:38.000 kind of really been through stuff in this and seeing 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:41.280 it up close on a regular basis, Look, what I 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:43.600 like about the book is it's it's rare to like say, 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:45.840 I'm going to praise some white people here, but like 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:49.800 it's white people saying that they don't want to be 0:14:49.960 --> 0:14:54.600 represented by these values, right. And I think that for me, 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:57.600 as somebody who comes on outsider, I like, look so 0:14:57.720 --> 0:15:00.520 normal in New York. I'm just I'm just swarthy. But 0:15:00.560 --> 0:15:04.000 they are there there, I look like Osama bin Laden 0:15:04.040 --> 0:15:05.160 And I was gonna. 0:15:05.000 --> 0:15:08.640 Say, environment, I don't think you pass as why as 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:09.360 you do in New York. 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:12.040 It's very different. Yeah. Yeah, And I say, like, you know, 0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:14.800 when you see them, I mean, they they have a 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:17.720 choice to just kind of say like, actually, yeah, we're 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:21.720 you know, Peter Brimlow is standing up for my rights. 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:24.400 He's standing up for me, he's speaking for me there. 0:15:24.400 --> 0:15:26.400 But a lot of people are not saying. 0:15:26.400 --> 0:15:28.760 A guy who thinks a twenty eight hundred dollars political 0:15:28.800 --> 0:15:32.120 donation is a small amount. That's not the average West 0:15:32.160 --> 0:15:33.760 Virginian's idea of a small amount. 0:15:33.840 --> 0:15:36.440 Yes, that is a good thing to pull out. Yes, 0:15:37.040 --> 0:15:40.560 you know. The other thing is the people who ultimately 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:45.200 in the book tend to defend Brimlow or align with him, 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:52.160 because basically the town is becomes completely divided, maybe irrevocably, 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:54.720 so hopefully they'll come together one day. And it's still 0:15:54.800 --> 0:15:57.480 I think the tensions are still quite bad. Yeah, it's 0:15:57.480 --> 0:16:00.160 still happening. Even though Fidier dies at the end, the 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:03.480 Brimo still live there. The people who do are not like, yes, 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:07.920 we believe full throated in the Great Replacement conspiracy theory. 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:11.680 We think that the Great Replacement that like, you know, 0:16:12.120 --> 0:16:15.400 I'm thinking about more extreme things that Brimlow has said. 0:16:15.840 --> 0:16:19.280 No, they're just people who see a nice white man 0:16:19.320 --> 0:16:21.640 and his nice white wife and they were nice to me. 0:16:21.840 --> 0:16:24.080 And I don't understand why you're making life so hard. 0:16:24.400 --> 0:16:28.960 Yeah, I mean Vvidier has published apologia about mass shooters' 0:16:29.000 --> 0:16:30.760 intentions basically right. 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:33.720 But so many of these these Brimlow defenders are just 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:36.120 they're not saying what he said is okay, or I 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:38.600 believe what he said. They're saying he was nice to me. 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:40.440 Why are you making such a big deal out of this? 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:43.200 Yeah, I will clarify that. But they haven't said yes, 0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:46.480 mass shootings are good. They have condemned that, but they've 0:16:46.520 --> 0:16:49.160 also said that like this writing makes sense, right, and 0:16:49.200 --> 0:16:54.000 they're like when during the Tops Supermarket shooting in Buffalo 0:16:54.080 --> 0:16:56.120 in twenty twenty two, that's something I highlight in the book, 0:16:56.360 --> 0:17:00.400 Vder publishes something that's like, actually, like look what, look, 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:03.600 how the Great Replacement has changed Buffalo. That was their 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:08.159 response to ten black people getting shot. 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:10.600 Right. So Peter Briddole is very litigious, so we do 0:17:10.680 --> 0:17:13.280 have to be very specific here and say Peter Briddlo 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:15.480 did not say it is good that Peyton Dendron shot 0:17:15.520 --> 0:17:19.119 up that supermarket. What he did say is if the 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:20.440 Great Replacement weren't happening. 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:24.639 Yeah, yeah, I mean it's look, and I think that 0:17:24.960 --> 0:17:27.080 going back to the people in the town, I don't 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:30.160 think that they at every point be like that is good, 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:33.280 that what he's saying here is good the Great Replacements. 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:38.000 I'm fully on board with it. What they buy into 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:43.920 is this profound friend enemy distinction that now hovers over 0:17:44.000 --> 0:17:48.320 our entire country, right where it's just sort of people 0:17:48.359 --> 0:17:52.639 who are friends of Maga and Trump are on one side, 0:17:53.080 --> 0:17:54.879 and then anybody who's at is my enemy. 0:17:56.200 --> 0:17:59.280 And these more extreme talking points are sort of creeping 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:02.159 into that space and they're not stopping it, you know. 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:04.640 Of course it's two sided. Of course there's like that 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:08.440 that comes from the liberal left or wherever you want 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:10.640 to whatever you want to call it. But I think 0:18:11.200 --> 0:18:13.400 in the case of the Brimlows, it's not the specifics. 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:16.360 I remember asking one guy in the book whose name 0:18:16.400 --> 0:18:19.560 is Charlie Currier, and he owns a you know, a 0:18:19.600 --> 0:18:24.440 sort of a craft's shop at the corner of Berkeley 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:26.919 Springs Park and it's right next to another main character 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:29.479 of the book, Trey Johansson, who is you know, kind 0:18:29.520 --> 0:18:34.159 of almost the most important person. And I asked Charlie. 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:37.919 I was like, you know, so you met the Brimlows, 0:18:38.160 --> 0:18:40.320 you hung out with them. What was that like for 0:18:40.400 --> 0:18:42.080 Christmas and stuff like that? And I was like, well, 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:44.600 how do you feel about the great replacement stuff? How 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:46.919 do you feel about like the stuff he writes? And 0:18:46.920 --> 0:18:49.040 what he said was he's a writer. He's a writer 0:18:49.440 --> 0:18:51.879 like you. He's a journalist just like you. He's the 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:55.639 same as you there's no difference, and he was very defensive. 0:18:55.840 --> 0:18:56.359 Yikes. 0:18:56.720 --> 0:18:59.040 You know, I think that framing is very useful for 0:18:59.160 --> 0:19:02.320 understanding why we can't seem to snap out of this 0:19:02.400 --> 0:19:06.200 current condition that we're in. When you're inside that bubble, 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:08.919 that's the logic that works. It's like, this is the 0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:11.680 guy on our side. You know, we're defending the guy 0:19:11.720 --> 0:19:14.879 on our side. Right, that's a psychosis that kind of 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:17.240 overshadows the entire narrative. 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:31.600 Right, So this story in this town plays out against 0:19:31.640 --> 0:19:34.919 the backdrop of the wider world. Right, So you know, 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:38.639 your first visit to Berkeley Springs was right as COVID 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:40.360 is starting, Right, it's the last time you left your 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:41.880 New York apartment before lockdown. 0:19:42.200 --> 0:19:43.280 You're in Berkeley Springs. 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:46.280 And as the story progresses, we see the twenty twenty uprising, 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:48.800 and there's like a little blm rally in this tiny town. 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:51.680 And then there's j six, and there's October seventh, there's 0:19:51.720 --> 0:19:55.119 the twenty twenty four presidential campaign and these big events 0:19:55.119 --> 0:19:57.720 in the world, and then there's these smaller events in 0:19:57.760 --> 0:20:01.520 the town, but interwoven with this sort of personal memoir, 0:20:01.600 --> 0:20:03.720 right that the world is in turmoil and so is 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:04.280 your life. 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:07.159 Yeah, and all these threads sort of weave together. 0:20:08.200 --> 0:20:11.400 Yeah, that's true regarding the events in the world and 0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:13.200 in the town. I'm glad that you brought that up. 0:20:13.440 --> 0:20:14.760 One thing I wanted to do with the book that 0:20:14.800 --> 0:20:18.639 I don't see done and enough, is just to understand that, 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:21.880 like everything that we see, all these like viral trends 0:20:21.920 --> 0:20:27.400 and all this stuff filters down into everyday life. And 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:32.080 I think when news is breaking or trends are happening, 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:34.919 we only look at the news and the trends like that, 0:20:34.960 --> 0:20:37.560 and we rarely look at the impacts on our neighborhood. 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:40.680