Speaker 1: The amount of people who were willing to come to
Speaker 1: d C, to fly into DC, to come out to
Speaker 1: engage in violent action. That was a small number when
Speaker 1: we look at the entire country, but it's a mass
Speaker 1: number of people, and we've got tens of thousands of
Speaker 1: people around the country doing it. When you go on
Speaker 1: these chat rooms and stuff, you're seeing people say things
Speaker 1: like I'm willing to die for this. I'm willing to
Speaker 1: kill for this. They're talking about bringing weapons places, they're
Speaker 1: talking about modifying weapons. That's something about Donald Trump's just
Speaker 1: whipping them up into a frenzy that's been able to
Speaker 1: really be an organizing agent. That's what's so scary about
Speaker 1: him personally. We're talking about a level of violence that's
Speaker 1: being committed to here that we haven't seen from a
Speaker 1: mass public like this before. With just days left in
Speaker 1: a presidential term that has been defined by chaos, bluster,
Speaker 1: and disregard to the American people. I watched in horror,
Speaker 1: as did the rest of the country, as enraged Trump
Speaker 1: supporters reached the US capital in an attempt to demonstrate
Speaker 1: their capacity for violence. Rioters broke windows, they ransacked offices,
Speaker 1: Confederate and pro Trump flags were carried throughout the building.
Speaker 1: There was an armed standoff in the house chamber, and
Speaker 1: when all was said and done, a woman was fatally shot.
Speaker 1: Four others died, multiple injured. And just think about the
Speaker 1: fact that a US Capitol Police officer died due to
Speaker 1: injuries he was beaten over the head with a fire
Speaker 1: extinguisher is not something any of us imagined we would
Speaker 1: ever see in our lifetime. If we need any sort
Speaker 1: of confirmation that right wing radicalization is threatening our democracy,
Speaker 1: we got that confirmation on that day. I'm Stephanie Rule,
Speaker 1: MSNBC Anchor, NBC News Senior correspondent, and this is Modern Rules,
Speaker 1: a podcast from NBC Think and I Heart Radio. On
Speaker 1: this podcast, our goal is to get straight to the
Speaker 1: point because in he's really complicated times, there's a lot
Speaker 1: we need to understand and the only way we can
Speaker 1: move forward is to get smarter on these things. On
Speaker 1: this episode of Modern Rules, we're asking a pretty simple question,
Speaker 1: how did this mob form? And should we have seen
Speaker 1: it coming? My guest today says absolutely yes. Shane Burley
Speaker 1: is a journalist and a filmmaker. He's reported on and
Speaker 1: studied extremism in the United States for several years. He's
Speaker 1: also the author of Fascism Today, What is it and
Speaker 1: how to end it? Shane, I am so lucky you
Speaker 1: are here today. So let's please start with this rally.
Speaker 1: Where do these people come from? Who are they? These
Speaker 1: are not just formal organizations. This is not just the
Speaker 1: organs of the GOP, for example. It's not just like
Speaker 1: far right organizations of the past. It's a diverse social
Speaker 1: movement that's coming across all around the country based on
Speaker 1: this weird allegiance. They have to Trump as an individual,
Speaker 1: but what they're doing is coalescing around this almost messianic
Speaker 1: figure of Donald from someone who promises so much, is
Speaker 1: expecting to deliver things far beyond what a politician delivered.
Speaker 1: He's promising to change their lives as individuals, and so
Speaker 1: the promise that Donald Trump has built with these people
Speaker 1: goes far beyond what he can do in the government,
Speaker 1: which is why there's no reason to believe that they're
Speaker 1: disappearing when Trump leaves office. That rally turned into this
Speaker 1: mob of people storming the US capital, one of the
Speaker 1: most sacred and important and theoretically secure buildings in our country.
Speaker 1: This mob of people wearing Nazi t shirts and horns
Speaker 1: and homemade for pelts. They basically shoved themselves into the building,
Speaker 1: sent all of Congress and our Vice President into hiding,
Speaker 1: and they vandalized the building. Who is this mob made
Speaker 1: up of young old? Obviously movement in general exkews older,
Speaker 1: but there is a large number of young people that
Speaker 1: are sort of of a few intersecting constituencies. On the
Speaker 1: one hand, you have a lot of rural folks who
Speaker 1: are facing the kind of economic effects of what Rule
Speaker 1: America is going through right now. Um, you're seeing a
Speaker 1: lot of organizations that have sprouted up in the Trump years,
Speaker 1: Proud Boys, militia organizations, and quote unquote patriot organizations that
Speaker 1: have gotten much much bigger. The reality is that that
Speaker 1: they're far right. Coalition is broad enough that it includes
Speaker 1: a strong new age culture. This is not what we
Speaker 1: normally associate with Republican Party. But there is a sort
Speaker 1: of crossover in the world of alternative medicine, crystal healing,
Speaker 1: things like that with Q and on, because there's a
Speaker 1: common kind of conspiracy worldview. So it's not actually uncommon
Speaker 1: to go on these far right websites and see kins
Speaker 1: of alternative healing stuff. Acupuncture, chiropractic, all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 1: It's a large collection of people whose real only association
Speaker 1: is a belief in Donald Trump and a belief that
Speaker 1: some kind of revolutionary answer needs to happen. And they're
Speaker 1: also bound together by deep nativists for beliefs. There's a
Speaker 1: profound sense of mythology that drives them together, a sense
Speaker 1: of heroism, a sense that they are the main character
Speaker 1: of this story, right um. And I think that is
Speaker 1: also part of the mentality that gets people to break
Speaker 1: through those barricades, to attack one of the most heavily
Speaker 1: fortified buildings in the country, and to try and disrupt
Speaker 1: an electric certification. But when you look at the images
Speaker 1: of the capital, it is very upsetting to see people
Speaker 1: defacing that property. I have now looked at these photos,
Speaker 1: these videos for hours and hours. Can you please explain
Speaker 1: the aesthetic to me? The fur pelts, the horns. I
Speaker 1: think somebody referred to it as hill billy burning man
Speaker 1: meets Jamiroquois, Like I don't even understand, Like, how do
Speaker 1: you think I'm gonna put this get up on with
Speaker 1: no shirt and paint my face and put horns on
Speaker 1: to go to a rally. I mean in the same
Speaker 1: way that you think that storm in the capitol somehow
Speaker 1: stops an election. I mean, this isn't people that are
Speaker 1: based on like real political conscious which I think people
Speaker 1: have been calling him the que shaman, the q and
Speaker 1: he's covered in Nordic pagan tattoos. They are generally commonly
Speaker 1: associated with far right movements that have take and up
Speaker 1: Nordic pagan imagery and that's sort of a call back
Speaker 1: to some kind of Northern European racial nationalisms. The rhetoric
Speaker 1: has increased so dramatically in the last year and most
Speaker 1: specifically in the last two months, all motivated by the
Speaker 1: belief that something profound is taking place in the country,
Speaker 1: like all of people are taking democracy away from them um,
Speaker 1: that their kind of action has become openly revolutionary. They
Speaker 1: see the utility and speaking a common nativist grievance based
Speaker 1: anger um, and so that is useful to them. That
Speaker 1: gets people out into the streets, and when it comes
Speaker 1: to where they go now it's going to shift from
Speaker 1: the electoral realm to the street um. And we're starting
Speaker 1: to see that in the post election period. For the
Speaker 1: primary function of these groups and these rallies is essentially
Speaker 1: to show violent force. So, as someone who tracks this
Speaker 1: closely and follows the chat rooms and their pages and
Speaker 1: their extreme groups, when this happened on Wednesday, were you surprised? Oh? No,
Speaker 1: absolutely not. There is no reason to be surprised. I
Speaker 1: have been to since and dozens of these rallies over
Speaker 1: the years. UM, I've seen reporters and activists attacked with
Speaker 1: real serious immunity, like seeing Trump called them out, seeing
Speaker 1: the mass response, seeing the chatter on places like telegram
Speaker 1: and parlor and other social media platforms. We should have
Speaker 1: known this was going to happen. Those people who participated
Speaker 1: on Wednesday, they shut down the Capitol Building, They messed
Speaker 1: up Nancy Pelosi's office. Her office has been cleaned up
Speaker 1: since then. And on that very same day, Joe Biden
Speaker 1: was certified. Do they consider Wednesday a win? Some do,
Speaker 1: because their goal was never getting something done. Their goal
Speaker 1: was showing power. Their goal was their ability to actually
Speaker 1: affect space. They can take over a government building, they
Speaker 1: can actually push things back, they can disrupt the entire
Speaker 1: organs of the federal government. They were able to shut
Speaker 1: down the Capitol Building. I can't say a lot of
Speaker 1: movements have done that in any recent years. That's a
Speaker 1: big deal. Is the common thread in all these groups.
Speaker 1: Trump I interviewed an expert on Colts, Sarah high Power,
Speaker 1: and explain that people are basically traumatizing themselves with untruth
Speaker 1: They're basically pumping themselves full of these stories that are
Speaker 1: incredibly traumatic if they were true, Believing them and having
Speaker 1: it moved them emotionally along this ladder. And so what's
Speaker 1: happening is all these kind of untruths are compounding on
Speaker 1: people and creating this deep sense of motivation. How do
Speaker 1: they organize Wednesday, for example, or any one of these events?
Speaker 1: How does it work? I mean it might not be
Speaker 1: super sophisticated, but they all showed up, you know, in
Speaker 1: a way it is sophisticated a way. It actually speaks
Speaker 1: to how people organize themselves in the twenty one century
Speaker 1: through a kind of horizontal social movement with older folks.
Speaker 1: It's oftentimes the Facebook groups with the more militant folks.
Speaker 1: It's some of these new social media sites like or Telegram.
Speaker 1: But basically there there would be a few people who
Speaker 1: are a little bit more organized calling together a rally.
Speaker 1: Everyone in these these groups that are very active that
Speaker 1: they are able to see it, and then they kind
Speaker 1: of do it through the horizontal networks of calling people,
Speaker 1: setting up car pools, and doing researchers. This will sit
Speaker 1: on a lot of these Facebook groups and see how
Speaker 1: they come together, and sometimes very large rallies will come
Speaker 1: together in a matter of days simply by someone saying, Hey,
Speaker 1: we should go out there and quote unquote stop Antifa
Speaker 1: or we're going to go stop these Black Lives Matter people,
Speaker 1: and then they will come out really quickly. And there's
Speaker 1: also these kind of militia or patriot focus forums where
Speaker 1: people are very explicive about what their intentions are with
Speaker 1: their plan violence, and they do it very very quickly
Speaker 1: in the way that's kind of impressive. It speaks to
Speaker 1: the way that social media can create spontaneous groupings of
Speaker 1: people very quickly. How reliant are they and how empowering
Speaker 1: are these social media platforms. Yeah, I mean they're absolutely central.
Speaker 1: You can't do it without it. Facebook and Twitter have
Speaker 1: been especially hesitant to act for years um and now
Speaker 1: I don't think they can put the genie back in
Speaker 1: the bottle. The autonomous nature of social media, it's very
Speaker 1: very hard to identify ones that are problematic, particularly Facebook groups,
Speaker 1: which is really important for older demographics. People like my
Speaker 1: mother or my sister. I have experienced them falling for
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories that end up in their feed sort of
Speaker 1: masked as you know, what starts as information for moms
Speaker 1: ends up something way more twisted and dark. And if
Speaker 1: those things were not allowed on Facebook, they actually would
Speaker 1: never ever see them. The reality is that propagating profound
Speaker 1: falsehoods that victimize certain populations, that's dangerous no matter who's
Speaker 1: doing it. The willingness to allow Donald Trump to say
Speaker 1: what he wants because he's the president, those sorts of
Speaker 1: things need to end, and they need to be able
Speaker 1: to make those tade those standards across the platforms period.
Speaker 1: The reason people use Facebook and Twitter is because other
Speaker 1: people use Facebook and Twitter, and so I actually think
Speaker 1: that if Facebook and Twitter, Instagram and the other major
Speaker 1: social media channels maintain a certain level of standards about
Speaker 1: these things, they actually will have an effect for the
Speaker 1: masterminds behind these untruths who then create this. It would
Speaker 1: be a lot easier if you could say someone is
Speaker 1: actually lying to these people. They're making up a conspiracy
Speaker 1: theory and telling it. But It's unfortunately more complicated that
Speaker 1: because the reality is that people believe these The reality
Speaker 1: is that that one person learns that from another person
Speaker 1: escalates it through a game of telephone. That's happening across
Speaker 1: millions of people. There is no central place here. Conspiracy
Speaker 1: thinking has become so out of control that there is
Speaker 1: no way to kind of rein it in on the
Speaker 1: right anymore. I can tell you. After Wednesday went down,
Speaker 1: you saw all sorts of Republican voters like my parents,
Speaker 1: humiliated by it. When my parents saw that was the
Speaker 1: first time they finally said enough is enough. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of people that are kind of turning on Trump.
Speaker 1: Enough enough, but also over Republicans think that there was
Speaker 1: some kind of funny business in election with zero evidence,
Speaker 1: which is the entire core of this narrative. So that's
Speaker 1: a mass. We're talking about tens of millions of people
Speaker 1: that are in agreement about a conspiracy narrative propagated by
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. We'll be back after the break. Let's think
Speaker 1: of other protests that we see. I usually have a
Speaker 1: better idea of what they're protesting for. I know what
Speaker 1: women's marches are for. I know what marches for science
Speaker 1: are for. I know what pro life marches are for.
Speaker 1: I looked at a crowd of people, many of whom
Speaker 1: were wearing Camp Auschwitz T shirts and Nazi garb, cheering
Speaker 1: on Ivanka Trump, who is Jewish. So what exactly is
Speaker 1: binding these people together and following trumpic That's what I
Speaker 1: don't understand. They're they're protesting for, Yeah, to set things
Speaker 1: on fire, that's what they're protesting for. This is something
Speaker 1: that I think the GOP hasn't had a real connection
Speaker 1: to in the last several years, which is what does
Speaker 1: a militant revolutionary movement look like? Well, it's not going
Speaker 1: to look like policy reform, and within that to have
Speaker 1: a movement that large with being revolutionary, they're not all
Speaker 1: actually going to agree on what that new future world
Speaker 1: looks like. And so instead, what there is in Trump
Speaker 1: is a tacit coalition of people who want to set
Speaker 1: fire to things, who want to burn it all down,
Speaker 1: and who want to attack the status quo. What this
Speaker 1: does is actually create a pressure valve. And so the
Speaker 1: power that Trump has now, the power of these people
Speaker 1: have now is in physical space. They can take things over,
Speaker 1: They can foll violent pressure if they want they can
Speaker 1: create large mobs as they did in DC. So I
Speaker 1: think it's debatable whether or not that's going to have
Speaker 1: an effect on policy in the next few years. But
Speaker 1: he is going to basically have the ability to hold
Speaker 1: down people in communities with a real threat of violence
Speaker 1: by mobilizing this huge army, And in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: that actually is what what it has in common with
Speaker 1: revolutionary movements historically does the number of right wing extremists?
Speaker 1: Is the real number smaller than the perceived number? Because
Speaker 1: of social media, because of the president, it sort of
Speaker 1: gets amplified and amplified, especially because the beliefs are so crazy,
Speaker 1: they're very, very popular to talk about. But when you
Speaker 1: get down to it, Republicans lost in the mid terms
Speaker 1: in two thousand eighteen, the president lost the election. In
Speaker 1: two thousand twenty, Republicans lost control of the Senate. So
Speaker 1: is this Trump faction actually that big? You know? Historically,
Speaker 1: if we're talking about neo Nazis and they all right,
Speaker 1: it actually is pretty small. It's bigger than it has
Speaker 1: been in decades, but it's still pretty small. But what
Speaker 1: we've seen happen is where certain ways of thinking that
Speaker 1: would have been only on the extreme right have now
Speaker 1: moved their way into GOP mainstays, and so we're having
Speaker 1: a mass radicalization event because the ideas that are motivating
Speaker 1: the Trump base right now are so out there that
Speaker 1: they would have been on the fringes of the internet before.
Speaker 1: And so I think in that way, extremism has become
Speaker 1: a mass phenomenon and the conservative movement, and it's going
Speaker 1: to drive an even bigger swath of the public as
Speaker 1: they confront social issues from a conspiracy mindset rather than
Speaker 1: a fact based one. Talk to us about Portland. What
Speaker 1: have you seen, especially over the last few months as
Speaker 1: you've watched tensions there rise. Is that city sort of
Speaker 1: the canary in the coal mine for the rest of
Speaker 1: us for what's to come. I think that's a good
Speaker 1: way of phrasing it. So the dynamic of Portland's is
Speaker 1: important because it's considered a deep liberal city that has
Speaker 1: a long history of racist violence around the center of
Speaker 1: the k K and the twenties, a really serious problem
Speaker 1: with neo Nazi skin hits in the eighties and nineties.
Speaker 1: Organ itself has a racist history of being sort of
Speaker 1: an intended white ethno state um having a divide between
Speaker 1: the rural areas and the urban areas and has a
Speaker 1: deep problem with things like gentrification and racial politics in
Speaker 1: the city. Any time you're having this sort of blue
Speaker 1: oasis inside of a red kind of container, like we
Speaker 1: have an organ you're seeing people kind of surround from
Speaker 1: the outside communities and so this seeing far right groups
Speaker 1: in that area is not uncommon, but the clashes have
Speaker 1: only escalated over the several years. So groups like Patriot Prayer,
Speaker 1: which is another far right organization based generally out here,
Speaker 1: and the probably have been coming to Portland once a month,
Speaker 1: once over two months for these violent classes for last
Speaker 1: several years. And so we're seeing literally blood flowing in
Speaker 1: the streets, people being very seriously hurt, hospitalized, some people
Speaker 1: end up killed. And this is being going on for
Speaker 1: quite a long time. The entire function of which these
Speaker 1: groups coming out is to sort of declare their autonomy.
Speaker 1: So they're bound together by grievance and a leader who's
Speaker 1: amplifying their grievances. But where do they go from here?
Speaker 1: These people just basically shoved their way in. In general,
Speaker 1: is law enforcement underestimating the will or the capabilities? Absolutely,
Speaker 1: this is true in Portland, but it's really true in
Speaker 1: places around the country. Leftinly counter downstairs are always more numerous,
Speaker 1: usually because we're talking about nonprofits and unions and other groups.
Speaker 1: The part of them. The police take an incredibly light
Speaker 1: hand with the far right protesters and an incredibly heavy
Speaker 1: hand with the left wing protesters. Um. And this is
Speaker 1: a pattern that has repeated itself. There's a number things
Speaker 1: that that the lie that that the police generally see
Speaker 1: the far right protesters as less radical, that there's a
Speaker 1: historic connection between police and far right movements, both locally
Speaker 1: and around the country. Then let's talk about that willful ignorance.
Speaker 1: Because there were lots of videos from people from the
Speaker 1: riots who said, oh, the police were cool to me,
Speaker 1: and you know, they directed me to Chuck Schumer's office,
Speaker 1: or they walked me out. I mean they walked out
Speaker 1: like they were, you know, going on a tour of
Speaker 1: the Capitol. When you actually looked at those police officers,
Speaker 1: they were not equipped to handle this mob. There's tons
Speaker 1: we could have done, and we chose not to. Why
Speaker 1: is that there has been generally this belief that these
Speaker 1: right wing groups are just normal Americans trying to I
Speaker 1: don't protect the country. Um And, so I think what
Speaker 1: we see in DC is just the belief that these
Speaker 1: are Trump supporters. They're just conservatives. They're here sharing their
Speaker 1: voice like anyone does, and doesn't see the potential for violence.
Speaker 1: And because of that, they have been given allowances that
Speaker 1: left wing groups never would or groups led by community
Speaker 1: of color never would. Part of it, I think it's
Speaker 1: the structural racism and law enforcement where community of color
Speaker 1: are seen as more threatening when they're in mass groups
Speaker 1: protesting than largely white movements are. And to not say
Speaker 1: the potential for violence when we're able to see armed
Speaker 1: rallies happening around the country is willful ignorance. The fact
Speaker 1: the law enforcement hasn't taken these groups seriously is leading
Speaker 1: us to a situation when they were able to grow
Speaker 1: without any pushback and now are at a position when
Speaker 1: it would be actually hard to reverse time on this.
Speaker 1: There are now Q and On members or sympathizers actually
Speaker 1: in Congress. Based on your reporting and what you study,
Speaker 1: do you see this as something that's going to be growing.
Speaker 1: Q and On believes that they are freedom fighters, that
Speaker 1: the entire model of Q and ON is to take
Speaker 1: a bizarre story and put you right at the center
Speaker 1: of it. This world would fall apart if it wasn't
Speaker 1: for you intervening on it. There is a narrative history
Speaker 1: that requires messiahs to come in and change things as
Speaker 1: a day a sex machina, and that's the entire function
Speaker 1: of Q and on. So, of course they're not streamists.
Speaker 1: The extremists or the pedophile cabal that are taking over
Speaker 1: the comment those are the real extremists. You're just a
Speaker 1: regular American. But what happens right when they say, you know,
Speaker 1: the day is coming on April one? What happens when
Speaker 1: these days, these times passed and none of the things
Speaker 1: they predict come to fruition? The same thing when the
Speaker 1: apocalypse never came after the preacher predicted it, you know
Speaker 1: it's you. You look back and say, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's because of this reason. It was because actually he's
Speaker 1: doing a longer game. There's all kinds of ways to
Speaker 1: explaining it. The failure of a prophecy has never stopped
Speaker 1: the most pious from continuing their work. Other countries watched
Speaker 1: what happened at the Capitol in horror. But extremism is
Speaker 1: not unique to the United States. What is it like
Speaker 1: around the world. Yeah, this is not just happening in
Speaker 1: the US, This is happening with the a f D
Speaker 1: in Germany, this is happening with you, Kip. This is
Speaker 1: a serious ideological change or response to the crisis that
Speaker 1: we're entering in the twenty one century. And so there
Speaker 1: is a lot of ideology that's driving this, and then
Speaker 1: there's also a lot of grifters that will help to
Speaker 1: take the ideology and shoot it through the stratosy. So
Speaker 1: what happens when they don't have a sponsor in the
Speaker 1: White House. Anytime you see these far right movements escalate,
Speaker 1: they have a point when they start to contract, either
Speaker 1: from their own failures, and at that point, when they
Speaker 1: see that their movement has been unsuccessful in meeting at goals,
Speaker 1: that's when you start to see seemingly impulsive active violence.
Speaker 1: And it's a positive thing when their movements shrink. But
Speaker 1: there's also a flip side to that, which is that
Speaker 1: these are the point in which you start to see
Speaker 1: desperate acts. And that's what actually worries me about. We
Speaker 1: have every reason to be hopeful, though, I mean, we
Speaker 1: saw much larger protests against police finance, we saw larger
Speaker 1: social movements of young people coming out. We have all
Speaker 1: the tools, they are all here, we just have to
Speaker 1: do them. And so knowing that as that's what keeps
Speaker 1: me hopeful through dark times like watching the Capital be
Speaker 1: overrun by the far right. I have to admit I
Speaker 1: was surprised that Shane ended on a hopeful note. The
Speaker 1: demonstration of violence that we saw at the Capitol is
Speaker 1: a reminder that the disastrous elements of Trump's presidency will
Speaker 1: likely have very destructive consequences. On this podcast, we want
Speaker 1: to leave you with some time to think. Something Shane
Speaker 1: left me thinking about is this, Maybe we do have
Speaker 1: a reason to be hopeful. No doubt the president has
Speaker 1: pushed the boundaries of many of our most precious institutions
Speaker 1: to the brink, but maybe they've held Wednesday was a
Speaker 1: terrible day, but you know what happened that night. Joe
Speaker 1: Biden was certified as the next president of the United States.
Speaker 1: And while right wing extremism is on the rise, maybe
Speaker 1: it's in response to another growing movement, one that gets
Speaker 1: less attention, but one that's built around equality, compassion, and progress.
Speaker 1: I'm Stephanie Rule, and you're listening to Modern Rules upon
Speaker 1: cast from NBC THINK, MSNBC and I Heart Radio. This
Speaker 1: podcast is hosted by me Stephanie Rule. Mike Batt and
Speaker 1: Katrina Norvell are executive producers. Meredith Bennett Smith is Senior
Speaker 1: editor for NBC Think and our editorial lead. The podcast
Speaker 1: is engineered and edited by Josh Fisher. Additional production support
Speaker 1: provided by Charles Herman, Rachel Rosenbaum and Lauren Wynn, and
Speaker 1: special thanks to Katherine Kim are Global head of Digital
Speaker 1: News right here at NBC News and MSNBC. For more
Speaker 1: thought provoking analysis, visit NBC news dot com slash thing