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Speaker 1: The amount of people who were willing to come to

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Speaker 1: d C, to fly into DC, to come out to

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Speaker 1: engage in violent action. That was a small number when

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Speaker 1: we look at the entire country, but it's a mass

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Speaker 1: number of people, and we've got tens of thousands of

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Speaker 1: people around the country doing it. When you go on

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Speaker 1: these chat rooms and stuff, you're seeing people say things

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Speaker 1: like I'm willing to die for this. I'm willing to

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Speaker 1: kill for this. They're talking about bringing weapons places, they're

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Speaker 1: talking about modifying weapons. That's something about Donald Trump's just

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Speaker 1: whipping them up into a frenzy that's been able to

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Speaker 1: really be an organizing agent. That's what's so scary about

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Speaker 1: him personally. We're talking about a level of violence that's

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Speaker 1: being committed to here that we haven't seen from a

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Speaker 1: mass public like this before. With just days left in

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Speaker 1: a presidential term that has been defined by chaos, bluster,

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Speaker 1: and disregard to the American people. I watched in horror,

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Speaker 1: as did the rest of the country, as enraged Trump

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Speaker 1: supporters reached the US capital in an attempt to demonstrate

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Speaker 1: their capacity for violence. Rioters broke windows, they ransacked offices,

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Speaker 1: Confederate and pro Trump flags were carried throughout the building.

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Speaker 1: There was an armed standoff in the house chamber, and

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Speaker 1: when all was said and done, a woman was fatally shot.

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Speaker 1: Four others died, multiple injured. And just think about the

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Speaker 1: fact that a US Capitol Police officer died due to

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Speaker 1: injuries he was beaten over the head with a fire

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Speaker 1: extinguisher is not something any of us imagined we would

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Speaker 1: ever see in our lifetime. If we need any sort

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Speaker 1: of confirmation that right wing radicalization is threatening our democracy,

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Speaker 1: we got that confirmation on that day. I'm Stephanie Rule,

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Speaker 1: MSNBC Anchor, NBC News Senior correspondent, and this is Modern Rules,

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Speaker 1: a podcast from NBC Think and I Heart Radio. On

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Speaker 1: this podcast, our goal is to get straight to the

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Speaker 1: point because in he's really complicated times, there's a lot

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Speaker 1: we need to understand and the only way we can

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Speaker 1: move forward is to get smarter on these things. On

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Speaker 1: this episode of Modern Rules, we're asking a pretty simple question,

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Speaker 1: how did this mob form? And should we have seen

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Speaker 1: it coming? My guest today says absolutely yes. Shane Burley

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Speaker 1: is a journalist and a filmmaker. He's reported on and

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Speaker 1: studied extremism in the United States for several years. He's

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Speaker 1: also the author of Fascism Today, What is it and

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Speaker 1: how to end it? Shane, I am so lucky you

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Speaker 1: are here today. So let's please start with this rally.

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Speaker 1: Where do these people come from? Who are they? These

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Speaker 1: are not just formal organizations. This is not just the

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Speaker 1: organs of the GOP, for example. It's not just like

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Speaker 1: far right organizations of the past. It's a diverse social

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Speaker 1: movement that's coming across all around the country based on

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Speaker 1: this weird allegiance. They have to Trump as an individual,

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Speaker 1: but what they're doing is coalescing around this almost messianic

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Speaker 1: figure of Donald from someone who promises so much, is

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Speaker 1: expecting to deliver things far beyond what a politician delivered.

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Speaker 1: He's promising to change their lives as individuals, and so

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Speaker 1: the promise that Donald Trump has built with these people

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Speaker 1: goes far beyond what he can do in the government,

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Speaker 1: which is why there's no reason to believe that they're

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Speaker 1: disappearing when Trump leaves office. That rally turned into this

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Speaker 1: mob of people storming the US capital, one of the

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Speaker 1: most sacred and important and theoretically secure buildings in our country.

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Speaker 1: This mob of people wearing Nazi t shirts and horns

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Speaker 1: and homemade for pelts. They basically shoved themselves into the building,

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Speaker 1: sent all of Congress and our Vice President into hiding,

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Speaker 1: and they vandalized the building. Who is this mob made

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Speaker 1: up of young old? Obviously movement in general exkews older,

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Speaker 1: but there is a large number of young people that

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Speaker 1: are sort of of a few intersecting constituencies. On the

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Speaker 1: one hand, you have a lot of rural folks who

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Speaker 1: are facing the kind of economic effects of what Rule

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Speaker 1: America is going through right now. Um, you're seeing a

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Speaker 1: lot of organizations that have sprouted up in the Trump years,

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Speaker 1: Proud Boys, militia organizations, and quote unquote patriot organizations that

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Speaker 1: have gotten much much bigger. The reality is that that

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Speaker 1: they're far right. Coalition is broad enough that it includes

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Speaker 1: a strong new age culture. This is not what we

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Speaker 1: normally associate with Republican Party. But there is a sort

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Speaker 1: of crossover in the world of alternative medicine, crystal healing,

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Speaker 1: things like that with Q and on, because there's a

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Speaker 1: common kind of conspiracy worldview. So it's not actually uncommon

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Speaker 1: to go on these far right websites and see kins

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Speaker 1: of alternative healing stuff. Acupuncture, chiropractic, all kinds of stuff.

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Speaker 1: It's a large collection of people whose real only association

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Speaker 1: is a belief in Donald Trump and a belief that

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Speaker 1: some kind of revolutionary answer needs to happen. And they're

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Speaker 1: also bound together by deep nativists for beliefs. There's a

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Speaker 1: profound sense of mythology that drives them together, a sense

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Speaker 1: of heroism, a sense that they are the main character

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Speaker 1: of this story, right um. And I think that is

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Speaker 1: also part of the mentality that gets people to break

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Speaker 1: through those barricades, to attack one of the most heavily

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Speaker 1: fortified buildings in the country, and to try and disrupt

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Speaker 1: an electric certification. But when you look at the images

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Speaker 1: of the capital, it is very upsetting to see people

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Speaker 1: defacing that property. I have now looked at these photos,

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Speaker 1: these videos for hours and hours. Can you please explain

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Speaker 1: the aesthetic to me? The fur pelts, the horns. I

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Speaker 1: think somebody referred to it as hill billy burning man

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Speaker 1: meets Jamiroquois, Like I don't even understand, Like, how do

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Speaker 1: you think I'm gonna put this get up on with

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Speaker 1: no shirt and paint my face and put horns on

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Speaker 1: to go to a rally. I mean in the same

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Speaker 1: way that you think that storm in the capitol somehow

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Speaker 1: stops an election. I mean, this isn't people that are

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Speaker 1: based on like real political conscious which I think people

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Speaker 1: have been calling him the que shaman, the q and

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Speaker 1: he's covered in Nordic pagan tattoos. They are generally commonly

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Speaker 1: associated with far right movements that have take and up

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Speaker 1: Nordic pagan imagery and that's sort of a call back

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Speaker 1: to some kind of Northern European racial nationalisms. The rhetoric

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Speaker 1: has increased so dramatically in the last year and most

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Speaker 1: specifically in the last two months, all motivated by the

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Speaker 1: belief that something profound is taking place in the country,

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Speaker 1: like all of people are taking democracy away from them um,

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Speaker 1: that their kind of action has become openly revolutionary. They

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Speaker 1: see the utility and speaking a common nativist grievance based

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Speaker 1: anger um, and so that is useful to them. That

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Speaker 1: gets people out into the streets, and when it comes

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Speaker 1: to where they go now it's going to shift from

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Speaker 1: the electoral realm to the street um. And we're starting

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Speaker 1: to see that in the post election period. For the

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Speaker 1: primary function of these groups and these rallies is essentially

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Speaker 1: to show violent force. So, as someone who tracks this

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Speaker 1: closely and follows the chat rooms and their pages and

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Speaker 1: their extreme groups, when this happened on Wednesday, were you surprised? Oh? No,

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Speaker 1: absolutely not. There is no reason to be surprised. I

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Speaker 1: have been to since and dozens of these rallies over

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Speaker 1: the years. UM, I've seen reporters and activists attacked with

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Speaker 1: real serious immunity, like seeing Trump called them out, seeing

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Speaker 1: the mass response, seeing the chatter on places like telegram

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Speaker 1: and parlor and other social media platforms. We should have

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Speaker 1: known this was going to happen. Those people who participated

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Speaker 1: on Wednesday, they shut down the Capitol Building, They messed

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Speaker 1: up Nancy Pelosi's office. Her office has been cleaned up

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Speaker 1: since then. And on that very same day, Joe Biden

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Speaker 1: was certified. Do they consider Wednesday a win? Some do,

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Speaker 1: because their goal was never getting something done. Their goal

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Speaker 1: was showing power. Their goal was their ability to actually

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Speaker 1: affect space. They can take over a government building, they

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Speaker 1: can actually push things back, they can disrupt the entire

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Speaker 1: organs of the federal government. They were able to shut

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Speaker 1: down the Capitol Building. I can't say a lot of

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Speaker 1: movements have done that in any recent years. That's a

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Speaker 1: big deal. Is the common thread in all these groups.

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Speaker 1: Trump I interviewed an expert on Colts, Sarah high Power,

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Speaker 1: and explain that people are basically traumatizing themselves with untruth

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Speaker 1: They're basically pumping themselves full of these stories that are

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Speaker 1: incredibly traumatic if they were true, Believing them and having

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Speaker 1: it moved them emotionally along this ladder. And so what's

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Speaker 1: happening is all these kind of untruths are compounding on

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Speaker 1: people and creating this deep sense of motivation. How do

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Speaker 1: they organize Wednesday, for example, or any one of these events?

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Speaker 1: How does it work? I mean it might not be

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Speaker 1: super sophisticated, but they all showed up, you know, in

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Speaker 1: a way it is sophisticated a way. It actually speaks

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Speaker 1: to how people organize themselves in the twenty one century

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Speaker 1: through a kind of horizontal social movement with older folks.

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Speaker 1: It's oftentimes the Facebook groups with the more militant folks.

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Speaker 1: It's some of these new social media sites like or Telegram.

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Speaker 1: But basically there there would be a few people who

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Speaker 1: are a little bit more organized calling together a rally.

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Speaker 1: Everyone in these these groups that are very active that

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Speaker 1: they are able to see it, and then they kind

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Speaker 1: of do it through the horizontal networks of calling people,

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Speaker 1: setting up car pools, and doing researchers. This will sit

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Speaker 1: on a lot of these Facebook groups and see how

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Speaker 1: they come together, and sometimes very large rallies will come

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Speaker 1: together in a matter of days simply by someone saying, Hey,

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Speaker 1: we should go out there and quote unquote stop Antifa

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Speaker 1: or we're going to go stop these Black Lives Matter people,

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Speaker 1: and then they will come out really quickly. And there's

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Speaker 1: also these kind of militia or patriot focus forums where

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Speaker 1: people are very explicive about what their intentions are with

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Speaker 1: their plan violence, and they do it very very quickly

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Speaker 1: in the way that's kind of impressive. It speaks to

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Speaker 1: the way that social media can create spontaneous groupings of

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Speaker 1: people very quickly. How reliant are they and how empowering

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Speaker 1: are these social media platforms. Yeah, I mean they're absolutely central.

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Speaker 1: You can't do it without it. Facebook and Twitter have

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Speaker 1: been especially hesitant to act for years um and now

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Speaker 1: I don't think they can put the genie back in

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Speaker 1: the bottle. The autonomous nature of social media, it's very

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Speaker 1: very hard to identify ones that are problematic, particularly Facebook groups,

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Speaker 1: which is really important for older demographics. People like my

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Speaker 1: mother or my sister. I have experienced them falling for

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Speaker 1: conspiracy theories that end up in their feed sort of

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Speaker 1: masked as you know, what starts as information for moms

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Speaker 1: ends up something way more twisted and dark. And if

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Speaker 1: those things were not allowed on Facebook, they actually would

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Speaker 1: never ever see them. The reality is that propagating profound

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Speaker 1: falsehoods that victimize certain populations, that's dangerous no matter who's

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Speaker 1: doing it. The willingness to allow Donald Trump to say

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Speaker 1: what he wants because he's the president, those sorts of

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Speaker 1: things need to end, and they need to be able

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Speaker 1: to make those tade those standards across the platforms period.

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Speaker 1: The reason people use Facebook and Twitter is because other

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Speaker 1: people use Facebook and Twitter, and so I actually think

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Speaker 1: that if Facebook and Twitter, Instagram and the other major

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Speaker 1: social media channels maintain a certain level of standards about

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Speaker 1: these things, they actually will have an effect for the

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Speaker 1: masterminds behind these untruths who then create this. It would

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Speaker 1: be a lot easier if you could say someone is

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Speaker 1: actually lying to these people. They're making up a conspiracy

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Speaker 1: theory and telling it. But It's unfortunately more complicated that

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Speaker 1: because the reality is that people believe these The reality

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Speaker 1: is that that one person learns that from another person

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Speaker 1: escalates it through a game of telephone. That's happening across

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Speaker 1: millions of people. There is no central place here. Conspiracy

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Speaker 1: thinking has become so out of control that there is

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Speaker 1: no way to kind of rein it in on the

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Speaker 1: right anymore. I can tell you. After Wednesday went down,

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Speaker 1: you saw all sorts of Republican voters like my parents,

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Speaker 1: humiliated by it. When my parents saw that was the

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Speaker 1: first time they finally said enough is enough. Yeah, there's

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Speaker 1: a lot of people that are kind of turning on Trump.

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Speaker 1: Enough enough, but also over Republicans think that there was

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Speaker 1: some kind of funny business in election with zero evidence,

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Speaker 1: which is the entire core of this narrative. So that's

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Speaker 1: a mass. We're talking about tens of millions of people

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Speaker 1: that are in agreement about a conspiracy narrative propagated by

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump. We'll be back after the break. Let's think

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Speaker 1: of other protests that we see. I usually have a

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Speaker 1: better idea of what they're protesting for. I know what

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Speaker 1: women's marches are for. I know what marches for science

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Speaker 1: are for. I know what pro life marches are for.

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Speaker 1: I looked at a crowd of people, many of whom

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Speaker 1: were wearing Camp Auschwitz T shirts and Nazi garb, cheering

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Speaker 1: on Ivanka Trump, who is Jewish. So what exactly is

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Speaker 1: binding these people together and following trumpic That's what I

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Speaker 1: don't understand. They're they're protesting for, Yeah, to set things

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Speaker 1: on fire, that's what they're protesting for. This is something

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Speaker 1: that I think the GOP hasn't had a real connection

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Speaker 1: to in the last several years, which is what does

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Speaker 1: a militant revolutionary movement look like? Well, it's not going

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Speaker 1: to look like policy reform, and within that to have

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Speaker 1: a movement that large with being revolutionary, they're not all

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Speaker 1: actually going to agree on what that new future world

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Speaker 1: looks like. And so instead, what there is in Trump

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Speaker 1: is a tacit coalition of people who want to set

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Speaker 1: fire to things, who want to burn it all down,

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Speaker 1: and who want to attack the status quo. What this

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Speaker 1: does is actually create a pressure valve. And so the

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Speaker 1: power that Trump has now, the power of these people

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Speaker 1: have now is in physical space. They can take things over,

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Speaker 1: They can foll violent pressure if they want they can

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Speaker 1: create large mobs as they did in DC. So I

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Speaker 1: think it's debatable whether or not that's going to have

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Speaker 1: an effect on policy in the next few years. But

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Speaker 1: he is going to basically have the ability to hold

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Speaker 1: down people in communities with a real threat of violence

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Speaker 1: by mobilizing this huge army, And in a lot of ways,

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Speaker 1: that actually is what what it has in common with

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Speaker 1: revolutionary movements historically does the number of right wing extremists?

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Speaker 1: Is the real number smaller than the perceived number? Because

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Speaker 1: of social media, because of the president, it sort of

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Speaker 1: gets amplified and amplified, especially because the beliefs are so crazy,

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Speaker 1: they're very, very popular to talk about. But when you

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Speaker 1: get down to it, Republicans lost in the mid terms

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Speaker 1: in two thousand eighteen, the president lost the election. In

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Speaker 1: two thousand twenty, Republicans lost control of the Senate. So

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Speaker 1: is this Trump faction actually that big? You know? Historically,

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Speaker 1: if we're talking about neo Nazis and they all right,

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Speaker 1: it actually is pretty small. It's bigger than it has

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Speaker 1: been in decades, but it's still pretty small. But what

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Speaker 1: we've seen happen is where certain ways of thinking that

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Speaker 1: would have been only on the extreme right have now

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Speaker 1: moved their way into GOP mainstays, and so we're having

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Speaker 1: a mass radicalization event because the ideas that are motivating

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Speaker 1: the Trump base right now are so out there that

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Speaker 1: they would have been on the fringes of the internet before.

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Speaker 1: And so I think in that way, extremism has become

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Speaker 1: a mass phenomenon and the conservative movement, and it's going

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Speaker 1: to drive an even bigger swath of the public as

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Speaker 1: they confront social issues from a conspiracy mindset rather than

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Speaker 1: a fact based one. Talk to us about Portland. What

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Speaker 1: have you seen, especially over the last few months as

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Speaker 1: you've watched tensions there rise. Is that city sort of

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Speaker 1: the canary in the coal mine for the rest of

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Speaker 1: us for what's to come. I think that's a good

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Speaker 1: way of phrasing it. So the dynamic of Portland's is

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Speaker 1: important because it's considered a deep liberal city that has

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Speaker 1: a long history of racist violence around the center of

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Speaker 1: the k K and the twenties, a really serious problem

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Speaker 1: with neo Nazi skin hits in the eighties and nineties.

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Speaker 1: Organ itself has a racist history of being sort of

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Speaker 1: an intended white ethno state um having a divide between

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Speaker 1: the rural areas and the urban areas and has a

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Speaker 1: deep problem with things like gentrification and racial politics in

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Speaker 1: the city. Any time you're having this sort of blue

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Speaker 1: oasis inside of a red kind of container, like we

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Speaker 1: have an organ you're seeing people kind of surround from

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Speaker 1: the outside communities and so this seeing far right groups

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Speaker 1: in that area is not uncommon, but the clashes have

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Speaker 1: only escalated over the several years. So groups like Patriot Prayer,

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Speaker 1: which is another far right organization based generally out here,

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Speaker 1: and the probably have been coming to Portland once a month,

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Speaker 1: once over two months for these violent classes for last

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Speaker 1: several years. And so we're seeing literally blood flowing in

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Speaker 1: the streets, people being very seriously hurt, hospitalized, some people

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Speaker 1: end up killed. And this is being going on for

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Speaker 1: quite a long time. The entire function of which these

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Speaker 1: groups coming out is to sort of declare their autonomy.

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Speaker 1: So they're bound together by grievance and a leader who's

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Speaker 1: amplifying their grievances. But where do they go from here?

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Speaker 1: These people just basically shoved their way in. In general,

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Speaker 1: is law enforcement underestimating the will or the capabilities? Absolutely,

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Speaker 1: this is true in Portland, but it's really true in

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Speaker 1: places around the country. Leftinly counter downstairs are always more numerous,

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Speaker 1: usually because we're talking about nonprofits and unions and other groups.

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Speaker 1: The part of them. The police take an incredibly light

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Speaker 1: hand with the far right protesters and an incredibly heavy

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Speaker 1: hand with the left wing protesters. Um. And this is

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Speaker 1: a pattern that has repeated itself. There's a number things

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Speaker 1: that that the lie that that the police generally see

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Speaker 1: the far right protesters as less radical, that there's a

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Speaker 1: historic connection between police and far right movements, both locally

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Speaker 1: and around the country. Then let's talk about that willful ignorance.

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Speaker 1: Because there were lots of videos from people from the

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Speaker 1: riots who said, oh, the police were cool to me,

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Speaker 1: and you know, they directed me to Chuck Schumer's office,

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Speaker 1: or they walked me out. I mean they walked out

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Speaker 1: like they were, you know, going on a tour of

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Speaker 1: the Capitol. When you actually looked at those police officers,

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Speaker 1: they were not equipped to handle this mob. There's tons

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Speaker 1: we could have done, and we chose not to. Why

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Speaker 1: is that there has been generally this belief that these

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Speaker 1: right wing groups are just normal Americans trying to I

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Speaker 1: don't protect the country. Um And, so I think what

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Speaker 1: we see in DC is just the belief that these

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Speaker 1: are Trump supporters. They're just conservatives. They're here sharing their

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Speaker 1: voice like anyone does, and doesn't see the potential for violence.

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Speaker 1: And because of that, they have been given allowances that

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Speaker 1: left wing groups never would or groups led by community

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Speaker 1: of color never would. Part of it, I think it's

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Speaker 1: the structural racism and law enforcement where community of color

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Speaker 1: are seen as more threatening when they're in mass groups

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Speaker 1: protesting than largely white movements are. And to not say

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Speaker 1: the potential for violence when we're able to see armed

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Speaker 1: rallies happening around the country is willful ignorance. The fact

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Speaker 1: the law enforcement hasn't taken these groups seriously is leading

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Speaker 1: us to a situation when they were able to grow

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Speaker 1: without any pushback and now are at a position when

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Speaker 1: it would be actually hard to reverse time on this.

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Speaker 1: There are now Q and On members or sympathizers actually

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Speaker 1: in Congress. Based on your reporting and what you study,

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Speaker 1: do you see this as something that's going to be growing.

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Speaker 1: Q and On believes that they are freedom fighters, that

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Speaker 1: the entire model of Q and ON is to take

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Speaker 1: a bizarre story and put you right at the center

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Speaker 1: of it. This world would fall apart if it wasn't

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Speaker 1: for you intervening on it. There is a narrative history

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Speaker 1: that requires messiahs to come in and change things as

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Speaker 1: a day a sex machina, and that's the entire function

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Speaker 1: of Q and on. So, of course they're not streamists.

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Speaker 1: The extremists or the pedophile cabal that are taking over

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Speaker 1: the comment those are the real extremists. You're just a

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Speaker 1: regular American. But what happens right when they say, you know,

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Speaker 1: the day is coming on April one? What happens when

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Speaker 1: these days, these times passed and none of the things

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Speaker 1: they predict come to fruition? The same thing when the

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Speaker 1: apocalypse never came after the preacher predicted it, you know

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Speaker 1: it's you. You look back and say, oh, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's because of this reason. It was because actually he's

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Speaker 1: doing a longer game. There's all kinds of ways to

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Speaker 1: explaining it. The failure of a prophecy has never stopped

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Speaker 1: the most pious from continuing their work. Other countries watched

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Speaker 1: what happened at the Capitol in horror. But extremism is

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Speaker 1: not unique to the United States. What is it like

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Speaker 1: around the world. Yeah, this is not just happening in

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Speaker 1: the US, This is happening with the a f D

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Speaker 1: in Germany, this is happening with you, Kip. This is

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Speaker 1: a serious ideological change or response to the crisis that

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Speaker 1: we're entering in the twenty one century. And so there

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Speaker 1: is a lot of ideology that's driving this, and then

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Speaker 1: there's also a lot of grifters that will help to

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Speaker 1: take the ideology and shoot it through the stratosy. So

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Speaker 1: what happens when they don't have a sponsor in the

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Speaker 1: White House. Anytime you see these far right movements escalate,

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Speaker 1: they have a point when they start to contract, either

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Speaker 1: from their own failures, and at that point, when they

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Speaker 1: see that their movement has been unsuccessful in meeting at goals,

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Speaker 1: that's when you start to see seemingly impulsive active violence.

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Speaker 1: And it's a positive thing when their movements shrink. But

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Speaker 1: there's also a flip side to that, which is that

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Speaker 1: these are the point in which you start to see

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Speaker 1: desperate acts. And that's what actually worries me about. We

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Speaker 1: have every reason to be hopeful, though, I mean, we

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Speaker 1: saw much larger protests against police finance, we saw larger

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Speaker 1: social movements of young people coming out. We have all

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Speaker 1: the tools, they are all here, we just have to

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Speaker 1: do them. And so knowing that as that's what keeps

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Speaker 1: me hopeful through dark times like watching the Capital be

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Speaker 1: overrun by the far right. I have to admit I

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Speaker 1: was surprised that Shane ended on a hopeful note. The

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Speaker 1: demonstration of violence that we saw at the Capitol is

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Speaker 1: a reminder that the disastrous elements of Trump's presidency will

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Speaker 1: likely have very destructive consequences. On this podcast, we want

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Speaker 1: to leave you with some time to think. Something Shane

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Speaker 1: left me thinking about is this, Maybe we do have

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Speaker 1: a reason to be hopeful. No doubt the president has

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Speaker 1: pushed the boundaries of many of our most precious institutions

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Speaker 1: to the brink, but maybe they've held Wednesday was a

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Speaker 1: terrible day, but you know what happened that night. Joe

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Speaker 1: Biden was certified as the next president of the United States.

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Speaker 1: And while right wing extremism is on the rise, maybe

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Speaker 1: it's in response to another growing movement, one that gets

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Speaker 1: less attention, but one that's built around equality, compassion, and progress.

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Speaker 1: I'm Stephanie Rule, and you're listening to Modern Rules upon

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Speaker 1: cast from NBC THINK, MSNBC and I Heart Radio. This

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Speaker 1: podcast is hosted by me Stephanie Rule. Mike Batt and

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Speaker 1: Katrina Norvell are executive producers. Meredith Bennett Smith is Senior

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Speaker 1: editor for NBC Think and our editorial lead. The podcast

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Speaker 1: is engineered and edited by Josh Fisher. Additional production support

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Speaker 1: provided by Charles Herman, Rachel Rosenbaum and Lauren Wynn, and

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Speaker 1: special thanks to Katherine Kim are Global head of Digital

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Speaker 1: News right here at NBC News and MSNBC. For more

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Speaker 1: thought provoking analysis, visit NBC news dot com slash thing