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Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.

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Speaker 2: Hey everyone, Molly here. If you're a regular listener to

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Speaker 2: it could happen here another show in the Cool Zone

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Speaker 2: Media family. You may have already heard this interview I

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Speaker 2: did with Michael Edison Hayden when it aired on that

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Speaker 2: feed the other day, but just in case you're not

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Speaker 2: subscribed over there, I wanted to drop it into the

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Speaker 2: Weird Little Guys feed because I think it's something listeners

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Speaker 2: to this show would enjoy. There's even a Weird Little

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Speaker 2: Guys tie in in the interview. I'm talking to Mike

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Speaker 2: about his new book, Strange People on the Hill. It's

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Speaker 2: about a small town in West Virginia where the guy

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Speaker 2: who runs a white nationalist blog bought a castle. And

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Speaker 2: it's a castle we've talked about on this show before.

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Speaker 2: In the final part of the three part series about

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Speaker 2: the American Third Position Party I did last fall in

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Speaker 2: an episode I apparently very elegantly titled American Fart Party,

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Speaker 2: the lightly rebranded American Freedom Party held their first big

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Speaker 2: party convention at the Racism Castle, so I thought you

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Speaker 2: might enjoy hearing a little bit more about the town

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Speaker 2: where occasionally Nazis get together. It was a great chat

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Speaker 2: with Mike, and I hope you enjoyed the episode, and

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Speaker 2: don't forget to ask your local library to add a

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Speaker 2: copy of his book to their shelves. Hello, and welcome

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Speaker 2: back to It could happen here.

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Speaker 3: I'm your occasional host, Molly Conger, and I'm joined today

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Speaker 3: by a very special guest, Michael Edison Hayden.

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Speaker 4: Hi, how's it going, Thanks.

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Speaker 2: For being here.

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Speaker 3: You may know Mike from his work as an investigative

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Speaker 3: journalist and an expert on far right extremism. He currently

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Speaker 3: co hosts Posting Through It, a weekly news podcast with

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Speaker 3: fellow veteran of the far right beat, Jared Holt. But

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Speaker 3: today we're talking about his new book, Strange People on

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Speaker 3: the Hill, How Extremism Tore apart a small American town.

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Speaker 3: It comes out April seventh, twenty twenty six, but you

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Speaker 3: can go ahead and pre order it now anywhere you

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Speaker 3: buy books, and make sure you ask for it at

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Speaker 3: your local library and your local independent bookstore.

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Speaker 2: Mike, thanks so much for coming on. I'm excited to

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Speaker 2: talk about this.

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Speaker 4: Thank you, and I appreciate it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I was worried that I wasn't going to have

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Speaker 3: time to like read the whole book. I mean to

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Speaker 3: talk about this a lot in the book, right, the

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Speaker 3: stresses of covering this beat. But I sat down to

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Speaker 3: read it and I read it in one sitting. It

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Speaker 3: is very compelling. Wow, But it's not the book I

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Speaker 3: thought it was, you know. So when your publicist sent

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Speaker 3: this to me, I thought, oh, phenomenal. This is a

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Speaker 3: book about Peter Brimlow and the Racism Castle in West Virginia.

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Speaker 3: I would love to read a book about Peter Brimlow

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Speaker 3: and the Racism Castle.

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Speaker 2: And it's not really is it?

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Speaker 3: Like the Brimlows are the strange people on the hill,

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Speaker 3: and they sort of stay on the hill.

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Speaker 4: Right.

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Speaker 3: You have a couple of encounters with them in the book,

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Speaker 3: but for the most part, it's a book about the town.

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Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, it's about the town. And I'm glad that

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Speaker 4: you mentioned that. I really didn't want to write a

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Speaker 4: book that was about these villains that are and you know,

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Speaker 4: populating our culture for the last ten plus years that

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Speaker 4: just seem to get unlimited traction on social media. There's

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Speaker 4: nothing wrong with talking about them, and there's nothing over

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Speaker 4: certainly reporting on them, because I did my share of that,

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Speaker 4: you know, day in and day out, when I was

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Speaker 4: with SBOC for instance. I think that all that is important,

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Speaker 4: and there's different ways to do it and do it effectively.

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Speaker 4: But I think for a book, I wanted to focus

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Speaker 4: more on what these people and this culture that is

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Speaker 4: surrounding them is doing to everyday people. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I was just I was so startled by what it

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Speaker 3: wasn't and then so engrossed by what it was. But

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Speaker 3: just quickly for the listeners, tell us what the book

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Speaker 3: is not about. Tell us who Peter Brimlow is and

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Speaker 3: v dare and how they ended up with a castle.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, well it's not totally without him. I mean, we

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Speaker 4: do get a bit of information about it. Yeah, we

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Speaker 4: meet him. Peter kind of came up as a financial reporter,

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Speaker 4: that's the short way of understanding. And you know how

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Speaker 4: he became America's most influential white nationalist. That's what SPOC

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Speaker 4: labeled him, which has covered obviously in the book. And

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Speaker 4: he became obsessed with immigration and in particular Heart Seller,

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Speaker 4: which brought in tons of people from the developing world.

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Speaker 4: My mother came to the country in sixty eight, for example,

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Speaker 4: that was like a you know, three years after Heart Seller,

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Speaker 4: and I wouldn't have been born if not, she married

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Speaker 4: a white guy and etcetera, etcetera. She came from Egypt.

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Speaker 4: So he became obsessed with this and kind of in

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Speaker 4: the way that I know, you know a lot about

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Speaker 4: these the way some of these minds work, Molly, but

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Speaker 4: in the way that some people get obsessed with environmentalism,

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Speaker 4: and then they kind of expand that concern to sort

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Speaker 4: of say, well, there's too many people, right, there's too

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Speaker 4: many people. There's too many people. Well, there's too many

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Speaker 4: brown people. That's what's destroying the environment. And then they

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Speaker 4: become you know, sort of of white nationalists minded or

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Speaker 4: anti grant immigrant minded. In Brimmle's case, I really think

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Speaker 4: it was like a financial thing, just like this is

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Speaker 4: putting all these different strains and whatever. And then it

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Speaker 4: became the financial became less of a concern and the

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Speaker 4: actual anti immigrant thing became bigger and bigger for him.

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Speaker 4: In nineteen ninety five, he publishes Alien Nation, which is

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Speaker 4: a book that was actually praised to buy people like

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Speaker 4: David Frum, you know, the very same guy who's high

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Speaker 4: hatting about Trump every day. It was considered socially acceptable,

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Speaker 4: and then over time I think people realized that the

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Speaker 4: book had a very racist undercurrent, and it became beloved

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Speaker 4: by neo Nazis, white nationalists, et cetera.

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Speaker 3: I think if people like David Frum had been honest

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Speaker 3: with themselves, it was there all along.

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Speaker 2: It was not a subtle undercurrent.

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Speaker 4: Fun A side about David Frum, which is that I

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Speaker 4: did put it in the investigation into Stephen Miller's private emails.

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Speaker 4: Miller shared posts by from on more than one occasion

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Speaker 4: about like sort of anti Islam posts, which I think

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Speaker 4: is interesting. Now.

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Speaker 3: I think what these people disagree most about is how

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Speaker 3: loud you're supposed to say the quiet part.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I really do think that that's true. So,

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Speaker 4: you know, when Peter became more of a contentious figure,

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Speaker 4: he founded Videir, which is a nonprofit that lasted for

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Speaker 4: about a quarter century. Recently died recently double that's covered

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Speaker 4: in the book. It dies over the course of the narrative,

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Speaker 4: and it was hugely influential, usually influential in changing the GOP.

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Speaker 4: And at the time when W. Bush was president, Brimlow

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Speaker 4: was railing against the GOP to change, to move in

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Speaker 4: this nativist direction, and eventually they listened to him.

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Speaker 3: And so the book sort of starts with twenty nineteen, right,

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Speaker 3: and Peter and his wife Lydia Brimlow have purchased this

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Speaker 3: gigantic castle in the small town of Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. Right,

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Speaker 3: because it's not chicks, the medium sized castle. I do

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Speaker 3: this for castles is. And so you become interested in

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Speaker 3: their purchase of this castle, and you go to this

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Speaker 3: town and you meet the people of Berkeley Springs, the

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Speaker 3: people who are indifferent to their presence, the people who

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Speaker 3: are organizing against their presence.

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Speaker 2: And it's this really sort of engrossing.

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Speaker 3: Story of just small town drama, this interpersonal drama of

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Speaker 3: these like small business owners. And the castle is always

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Speaker 3: there in the background, right, the strange people are up

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Speaker 3: on the hill. But it's a story about this small

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Speaker 3: town struggle.

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Speaker 4: Yeah. I think we should just talk about the castle

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Speaker 4: real quick, because it's beautiful, and I think that's a

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Speaker 4: key thing. I hope when you read it you were like, oh,

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Speaker 4: I want to go to Berkeley Springs now, which is

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Speaker 4: I've had more than one person who read the book tell.

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Speaker 2: Me that I'm going to wait till they leave.

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Speaker 4: I've also heard that too, but you know, I know

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Speaker 4: the people who are there who despise the Brimlows and

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Speaker 4: their ideology, and I wanted to make sure that they

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Speaker 4: didn't feel let down by the book that they felt like,

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Speaker 4: at least on or to a degree, because I really

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Speaker 4: want them to be able to recover their business. Their

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Speaker 4: business have suffered since Brimwows took over. But just a

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Speaker 4: quick thing on this castle. It is absolutely beautiful. It

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Speaker 4: should be like a national park or something. It has

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Speaker 4: that feel. It was built in eighteen eighty by a

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Speaker 4: guy named Samuel Taylor Suit who made it for a

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Speaker 4: very very young young girl. I think she's like seventeen

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Speaker 4: or something like that.

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Speaker 2: It's fitting that Brimlow bought it for his much younger wife.

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Speaker 4: Yes, that's true. Yeah, there's a lot of like spiritual

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Speaker 4: kind of woo woo stuff in Berkeley Springs, and there's

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Speaker 4: a lot of you know, superstition, and a lot of

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Speaker 4: people really think that they are carrying on like some

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Speaker 4: sort of ghost like thing would carry over from this relationship.

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Speaker 4: But he made the castle for her, and he died

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Speaker 4: and she took over and went bankrupt. And there was

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Speaker 4: also allegedly a murder or something like that that took

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Speaker 4: place there and then there's like this kind of turnover

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Speaker 4: from people one generation the next trying to keep the

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Speaker 4: castle going. It's always it's more expensive than it's worth.

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Speaker 4: It's beautiful, it overlooks the entire town. The town is tiny, gorgeous,

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Speaker 4: looks like a great place to go on vacation. And

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Speaker 4: if you imagine like four Berkeley Springs, the Empire State Building,

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Speaker 4: Statue of Liberty Times Square rolled into one, that's what

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Speaker 4: the castle is. It's so tiny, and this is the

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Speaker 4: main landmark. This is the thing that everybody goes to

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Speaker 4: and they go hiking around there and all this stuff.

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Speaker 4: So this is a tourist town that attracts a lot

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Speaker 4: of LGBQ people from places like Washington, DC, Baltimore, a

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Speaker 4: lot of liberals, and all of a sudden you have

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Speaker 4: this again SPOC labeled white nationalist, anti immigrant, nativist, whatever

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Speaker 4: you want to call them. Couple buys this castle, right,

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Speaker 4: they decide to buy it. And the way they found

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Speaker 4: it is because Lydia Brimlow, who is thirty seven years

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Speaker 4: younger than Peter herself and started with him and when

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Speaker 4: she was twenty or something like that and he was

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Speaker 4: nearly sixty.

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Speaker 2: Right, she was an intern at the Heritage Foundation.

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Speaker 4: I met intriguing, Yeah, Heritage and it's interesting, weird in

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Speaker 4: any case, she finds it on Zillow. And you remember

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Speaker 4: this period very well, I know. But in twenty eighteen

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Speaker 4: or so, it became very very difficult for these folks

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Speaker 4: to stage events right.

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Speaker 3: For you know, for unknown reasons, not because they kept

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Speaker 3: killing people.

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Speaker 4: I don't want to like derail this podcast by bringing

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Speaker 4: up Jason Kessler, but Jason Kessler, who we both know

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Speaker 4: very well, who is who secured the permit for the

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Speaker 4: Unite the Right event, who has been at different times

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Speaker 4: obsessed with both of us, I think were like in

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Speaker 4: his top in his top app all list, Jason you know,

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Speaker 4: was readily associated with Vidier because of his contributions to

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Speaker 4: the site. And people knew that, and that may put

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Speaker 4: even more pressure because they're like, well this Charlottesville guy, right,

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Speaker 4: they Unite the Right guy is essay. So Vidio couldn't

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Speaker 4: stage any events. They were very worried about counter demonstrators.

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Speaker 4: I think that the counterdemonstrators from that first MAGA era

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Speaker 4: really put the fear of God into some of these people.

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Speaker 4: They didn't. They were scared shitless of anti racist, anti fascists,

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Speaker 4: and all of a sudden, you've got a castle on

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Speaker 4: Zillo a million point four and it's got stone walls

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Speaker 4: all over it, and hey, we can hold our conferences here.

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Speaker 4: And so that's how they got it. They ended up

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Speaker 4: getting it for that reason. And what happens to the

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Speaker 4: town afterwards is, I think, is a minor tragedy in

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Speaker 4: our culture that hasn't been paid attention to enough.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it is this sort of microcosm of what happened

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Speaker 3: to America, right, Like, we don't all have a racism

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Speaker 3: castle in our town, but sort of the way this

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Speaker 3: castle bears down on this little town kind of mirrors

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Speaker 3: the way the influx of these extreme right wing ideas

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Speaker 3: into the GOP, into the administration that governs all of

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Speaker 3: us kind of is bearing down on us.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it's very smart. I think that's true. I think

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Speaker 4: that is one of the reasons that the story spoke

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Speaker 4: to me so much that I wanted to pursue it

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Speaker 4: for so long. Is it really felt like what everybody

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Speaker 4: was going through in the town. And readers will learn this.

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Speaker 4: Imagine business owners who are catering to many liberals. They're

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Speaker 4: stuck in Morgan County, which is seventy five percent Trump

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Speaker 4: and ninety percent white, and they're panicking because they need

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Speaker 4: to keep people going in. The press goes a long

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Speaker 4: way in Berkeley Springs. It's so it's a little place.

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Speaker 4: They don't know how to push back. Someone buys private property.

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Speaker 4: What can you do? But they start to organize and

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Speaker 4: try to figure out a way to urge Brimlow to

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Speaker 4: leave or to make it so difficult for him that

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Speaker 4: he leaves. And yes, it is absolutely a symbolism for

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Speaker 4: what everybody's going through. And there are people all over

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Speaker 4: the country in places Red states where you might find

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Speaker 4: people who you wouldn't expect kind of protesting against TESLA

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Speaker 4: or something like that, and they could be kind of corny,

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Speaker 4: these type of people who like corny online and easily

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Speaker 4: nord They're all over the country feeling that exact dread

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Speaker 4: that you're talking about, where something very like above them

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Speaker 4: is bearing down and pushing values that don't align with theirs.

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Speaker 3: Right, it's such a specific story about Berkeley Springs, but

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Speaker 3: at the same time, this could be almost any town.

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Speaker 4: You know.

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Speaker 3: I'm sure you followed the story of what happened in Enid, Oklahoma,

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Speaker 3: when the identity of Europa. Guy got on their city

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Speaker 3: council and it was this very local, small town struggle

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Speaker 3: with these very specific local personalities butting heads. But this

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Speaker 3: story is playing out in small towns all over America

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Speaker 3: because everyone has, you know, if not a racism castle,

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Speaker 3: everyone has a local racist who's making life hard for everyone.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean they're sending right now. To use Clavicular's phrase,

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Speaker 4: the yeah, I mean think about North Idaho for example.

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Speaker 4: I get a story for them for about from Mother Jones,

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Speaker 4: and you know, they they have a long history with

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Speaker 4: white supremacy and certainly dead red right part of the country.

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Speaker 4: But you have like anti semites like Dave Riley it's right,

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Speaker 4: Rebecca Hargraves and those people encroaching on their everyday politics. Right,

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Speaker 4: they're trying to change the politics. They're trying to integrate themselves,

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Speaker 4: you know, coming from outside basically to take over, right.

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Speaker 2: I mean, it's the same thing is what happened in

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Speaker 2: West Virginia.

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Speaker 3: It is that these white supremacists are moving to these

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Speaker 3: places because they have a perception about what it will

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Speaker 3: be like when they get there, that oh, everyone who's

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Speaker 3: there will agree with me, because they're mostly white that's

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Speaker 3: why Dave Riley moved Idaho.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, when Peter Brimlo first moved to the castle, he

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Speaker 4: would repeatedly I think he would do it when people

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Speaker 4: reach out for comment and be like, you know, Morgan

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Speaker 4: County is seventy five percent voted for Trump. It's ninety

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Speaker 4: percent white. It's you who have the problem, not us.

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Speaker 4: And if you're looking for a more optimistic thing here,

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Speaker 4: I've gotten good reviews for the reviews that I've gotten,

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Speaker 4: but there is they keep using like disturbing, like this

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Speaker 4: is so scary, Like I think for us it's not

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Speaker 4: as much because we've been living in it for in

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Speaker 4: a more intimate way, right.

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Speaker 3: I found it that encouraging, Yes, because because you met

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Speaker 3: these people who were doing their best in this like bizarre,

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Speaker 3: fucked up situation, Like they didn't ask for a weird

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Speaker 3: old British Nazi to buy the castle exactly.

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Speaker 2: They're doing their best, and I think that's beautiful.

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Speaker 4: I think I think if you try to tune out

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Speaker 4: the reality that we're all going through right now and

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Speaker 4: just focus on, you know, your own private world, it

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Speaker 4: can be scary because you're letting in Peter Brimlow and

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Speaker 4: chairhead while you read the book and you're you're you're

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Speaker 4: seeing neighbors kind of turning on one another, and you're

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Speaker 4: seeing me go through a mental health crisis in the book.

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Speaker 4: I mean, these are things that for for a normy

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Speaker 4: that maybe a little bit you know, you may like

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Speaker 4: the book, but you may be a final little disturbing.

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Speaker 4: But for people like us who have kind of really

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Speaker 4: been through stuff in this and seeing it up close

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Speaker 4: on a regular basis. Look, what I like about the

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Speaker 4: book is it's it's rare to like say, I'm going

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Speaker 4: to pray some white people here, but like it's white

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Speaker 4: people saying that they don't want to be represented by

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Speaker 4: these values, right. And I think that for me, as

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Speaker 4: somebody who comes on an outsider, I like, look so

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Speaker 4: normal in New York. I'm just I'm just swarthy. But

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Speaker 4: they are there there, I look like Osama bin Laden And.

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Speaker 3: I was gonna say, a white environment. I don't think

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Speaker 3: you pass as white as you do in New York.

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Speaker 4: It's very different. Yeah, yeah, And I say, like, you know,

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Speaker 4: when you see them there, I mean, they they have

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Speaker 4: a choice to just kind of say like, actually, yeah,

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Speaker 4: we're you know, Peter Brimlow is standing up for my rights.

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Speaker 4: He's standing up for me, he's speaking for me. But

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Speaker 4: there but a lot of people are not saying.

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Speaker 2: A guy who thinks a twenty eight hundred dollars political

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Speaker 2: donation is a small amount, if that's not the average

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Speaker 2: West Virginian's idea of a small amount.

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Speaker 4: Yes, that is a good thing to pull out. Yes,

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Speaker 4: you know. The other thing is the people who ultimately

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Speaker 4: in the book tend to defend Brimlow or align with him,

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Speaker 4: because basically the town has becomes completely divided, maybe irrevocably,

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Speaker 4: so hopefully they'll come together one day. And it's still

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Speaker 4: I think the tensions are still quite bad. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 4: still happening. Even though Fidier dies at the end, the

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Speaker 4: Brimo still live there. The people who do it are

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Speaker 4: not like, yes, we believe full throated in the Great

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Speaker 4: Replacement conspiracy theory. We think that the Great Replacement that like,

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Speaker 4: you know, I'm thinking about more extreme things that Brimlow

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Speaker 4: has said.

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Speaker 3: No, they're just people who see a nice white man

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Speaker 3: and his nice white wife and they were nice to

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Speaker 3: me And I don't understand why you're making life so hard.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, Vidier has published apologia about mass shooters'

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Speaker 4: intentions basically right.

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Speaker 3: But so many of these these brimlow defenders are just

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Speaker 3: they're not saying what he said is okay, or I

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Speaker 3: believe what he said.

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Speaker 2: They're saying he was nice to me. Why are you

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Speaker 2: making such a big deal out of this?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I will clarify that. But they haven't said, yes,

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Speaker 4: mass shootings are good. They have condemned that, but they've

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Speaker 4: also said that, like, this writing makes sense, right, and

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Speaker 4: they're like when during the Tops Supermarket shooting in Buffalo

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Speaker 4: in twenty twenty two, that's something I highlight in the book,

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Speaker 4: Bedier publishes something that's like, actually, like, look, look how

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Speaker 4: the Great Replacement has changed Buffalo. That was their response

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Speaker 4: to ten black people getting shot. Right.

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Speaker 3: So Peter Bridol is very litigious, So we do have

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Speaker 3: to be very specific here and say Peter Briddlo did

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Speaker 3: not say it is good that Peyton Gendron shot up

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Speaker 3: that supermarket.

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Speaker 2: What he did say is if the Great Replacement weren't happening.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean it's look, and I think that

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Speaker 4: going back to the people in the town, I don't

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Speaker 4: think that they at every point be like that is good.

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Speaker 4: That what he's saying here is good, the great replacements.

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Speaker 4: I'm fully on board with it. What they buy into

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Speaker 4: is this profound friend enemy distinction that now hovers over

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Speaker 4: our entire country, right where it's just sort of people

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Speaker 4: who are friends of Maga and Trump are on one side,

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Speaker 4: and then anybody who's at is my enemy.

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Speaker 3: And these more extreme talking points are sort of creeping

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Speaker 3: into that space and they're not stopping it, you know.

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Speaker 4: Of course it's two sided. Of course there's like that

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Speaker 4: that comes from the liberal left or wherever you want

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Speaker 4: to whatever you want to call it. But I think

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Speaker 4: in the case of the Brimlows, it's not the specifics.

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Speaker 4: I remember asking one guy in the book whose name

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Speaker 4: is Charlie Curria, and he owns a you know, a

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Speaker 4: sort of a craft's shop at the corner of Berkeley

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Speaker 4: Springs Park and it is right next to another main

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Speaker 4: character of the book, Trey Johanson, who is you know,

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Speaker 4: kind of almost the most important person. And I asked Charlie.

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Speaker 4: I was like, you know, so you met the Brimlows,

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Speaker 4: you hung out with them, what was that life you

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Speaker 4: can say for Christmas and stuff like that. And I

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Speaker 4: was like, well, how do you feel about the great

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Speaker 4: replacement stuff. How do you feel about like the stuff

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Speaker 4: he writes? And what he said was he's a writer.

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Speaker 4: He's a writer like you. He's a journalist just like you.

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Speaker 4: He's the same as you. There's no difference. And he

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Speaker 4: was very defensively.

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Speaker 2: Yikes.

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Speaker 4: You know, I think that framing is very useful for

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Speaker 4: understanding why we can't seem to snap out of this

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Speaker 4: current condition that we're in. When you're inside that bubble,

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Speaker 4: that's the logic that works. It's like, this is the

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Speaker 4: guy on our side. You know, we're defending the guy

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Speaker 4: on our side. Right, that's a psychosis that kind of

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Speaker 4: overshadows the entire narrative.

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Speaker 3: Right, So this, this story in this town plays out

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Speaker 3: against the backdrop of the wider world. Right, So you know,

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Speaker 3: your first visit to Berkeley Springs was right as COVID

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Speaker 3: is starting, Right, it's the last you left your New

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Speaker 3: York apartment before lockdown. You're in Berkeley Springs. And as

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Speaker 3: the story progresses, we see the twenty twenty uprising and

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Speaker 3: there's like a little BLM rally in this tiny town.

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Speaker 3: And then there's j six, and there's October seventh, there's

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Speaker 3: the twenty twenty four presidential campaign, and there's these big

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Speaker 3: events in the world, and then there's these smaller events

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Speaker 3: in the town, but interwoven with this sort of personal memoir,

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Speaker 3: right that the world is in turmoil and so is

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Speaker 3: your life.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and all these threads sort of weave together.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, that's true regarding the events in the world and

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Speaker 4: in the town. I'm glad that you brought that up.

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Speaker 4: One thing I wanted to do with the book that

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Speaker 4: I don't see done and enough is just to understand that,

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Speaker 4: like everything that we see, all these like viral trends

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Speaker 4: and all this stuff filters down into everyday life. And

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Speaker 4: I think when news is breaking or trends are happening,

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Speaker 4: we only look at the news and the trends like that,

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Speaker 4: and we rarely look at the impacts on our neighborhood.

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Speaker 4: Whereas you know, if you do a movie that's said

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Speaker 4: in the eighties, you will see like the events a

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Speaker 4: little bit more about like at the kitchen table, what

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Speaker 4: the family is going through as something happens nationally, right

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Speaker 4: or so, and so it's it's almost like it we

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Speaker 4: need time to process. But this has a very clear

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Speaker 4: time period, which is the period right before COVID to

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Speaker 4: the twenty twenty four election, and it's enough in the

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Speaker 4: past now that I think we can look at how

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Speaker 4: these things affected regular people in this in this town,

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Speaker 4: because every time you're seeing viral videos about black Lives matter,

432
00:22:30,359 --> 00:22:32,359
Speaker 4: that's impacting the way people act there. So you may

433
00:22:32,480 --> 00:22:34,480
Speaker 4: have like five white people go stand on a street

434
00:22:34,480 --> 00:22:37,639
Speaker 4: corner there with some signs after George Floyd's death, and

435
00:22:37,640 --> 00:22:39,800
Speaker 4: that's like a huge deal in that town because it's

436
00:22:39,800 --> 00:22:41,840
Speaker 4: like people are shocked by it or they want to

437
00:22:42,200 --> 00:22:44,320
Speaker 4: they want to they want to harass those people after that.

438
00:22:44,960 --> 00:22:47,120
Speaker 4: So that was one factor. And as yeah, and as

439
00:22:47,160 --> 00:22:50,960
Speaker 4: for as for myself, it also overlaps like probably the

440
00:22:51,040 --> 00:22:54,400
Speaker 4: darkest time in my life. And that's not totally unrelated

441
00:22:54,480 --> 00:22:58,800
Speaker 4: to Berkeley Springs in the sense that, like, you know,

442
00:22:59,080 --> 00:23:01,479
Speaker 4: stuff at SPOC he was like really really bad at

443
00:23:01,520 --> 00:23:03,800
Speaker 4: the beginning of the book. Then they're not there in

444
00:23:03,840 --> 00:23:08,679
Speaker 4: the second half, and my mental health was was just

445
00:23:09,200 --> 00:23:11,720
Speaker 4: not in a great place. I had spent, as you know,

446
00:23:12,440 --> 00:23:14,639
Speaker 4: a lot of time with these guys and I know

447
00:23:14,760 --> 00:23:18,159
Speaker 4: you personally have dealt with a lot of threats and really,

448
00:23:18,800 --> 00:23:21,520
Speaker 4: I mean as a woman, I mean you're dealing with

449
00:23:22,119 --> 00:23:24,360
Speaker 4: I imagine it's even scarier because.

450
00:23:24,720 --> 00:23:25,760
Speaker 2: It's a grosser anyway.

451
00:23:26,119 --> 00:23:29,240
Speaker 4: Is Yeah, that's grosser for sure. And I mean you're

452
00:23:29,280 --> 00:23:31,960
Speaker 4: dealing with I mean, I can't even imagine the mentality

453
00:23:32,000 --> 00:23:34,119
Speaker 4: of some of the guys who are messaging you and

454
00:23:34,160 --> 00:23:38,040
Speaker 4: what their their private lives are like. So yeah, so yeah,

455
00:23:38,040 --> 00:23:39,760
Speaker 4: I mean I had gone through it for a while

456
00:23:39,880 --> 00:23:42,840
Speaker 4: on my end. One example that is, in twenty twenty one,

457
00:23:43,640 --> 00:23:48,320
Speaker 4: I took my son to the batting cage and afterwards

458
00:23:48,359 --> 00:23:50,160
Speaker 4: we went to seven eleven and I got a call

459
00:23:50,280 --> 00:23:53,280
Speaker 4: from a number in North Carolina and then it was

460
00:23:53,320 --> 00:23:55,680
Speaker 4: an FBI agent and he's like, hey, I just want

461
00:23:55,720 --> 00:23:57,560
Speaker 4: to you know, as a courtesy, you want to let

462
00:23:57,600 --> 00:24:00,240
Speaker 4: you know that we have somebody who's like talking about

463
00:24:00,440 --> 00:24:07,080
Speaker 4: assassinating you, and you know, do you have any questions? Yeah?

464
00:24:07,200 --> 00:24:09,359
Speaker 4: I was like I do, but like my eight year

465
00:24:09,359 --> 00:24:11,959
Speaker 4: old is like slurping on a you know, a cherry

466
00:24:11,960 --> 00:24:13,359
Speaker 4: slurpee in the back seat.

467
00:24:13,520 --> 00:24:15,400
Speaker 3: That duty to warn thing is kind of a double

468
00:24:15,480 --> 00:24:18,080
Speaker 3: edged sword, right, because they do have this legal obligation

469
00:24:18,200 --> 00:24:20,720
Speaker 3: to inform you that there's a credible threat on your life,

470
00:24:21,119 --> 00:24:23,119
Speaker 3: but like they're not going to give you enough information

471
00:24:23,200 --> 00:24:25,440
Speaker 3: to make you feel empowered by knowing this information.

472
00:24:25,440 --> 00:24:27,000
Speaker 2: So it's like maybe I would rather just not know.

473
00:24:27,480 --> 00:24:29,160
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh it was If there's.

474
00:24:28,960 --> 00:24:30,840
Speaker 2: Something I can do to mitigate this, can I just

475
00:24:31,119 --> 00:24:31,439
Speaker 2: not know?

476
00:24:31,800 --> 00:24:33,560
Speaker 4: Yeah? It was horrible. It was hard. That is I

477
00:24:33,560 --> 00:24:36,080
Speaker 4: think one of the things that the normy person would

478
00:24:36,080 --> 00:24:38,760
Speaker 4: find deeply disturbing in the book. But like, yeah, I

479
00:24:38,800 --> 00:24:40,200
Speaker 4: was dealing with that stuff all the time. I would

480
00:24:40,240 --> 00:24:44,160
Speaker 4: get like, you know, I'd get people sending me photos

481
00:24:44,200 --> 00:24:47,399
Speaker 4: of Alan Berg's shooting in the driveway. I don't know

482
00:24:47,440 --> 00:24:49,159
Speaker 4: if you're familiar with that, but like he was the

483
00:24:49,200 --> 00:24:52,000
Speaker 4: talk radio host who was killed by members of.

484
00:24:51,960 --> 00:24:53,440
Speaker 2: The Order, killed by David Lane.

485
00:24:53,880 --> 00:24:56,919
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I would get that all the time. I'm

486
00:24:56,960 --> 00:24:58,879
Speaker 4: must spent like months of just getting that from like

487
00:24:59,000 --> 00:25:00,720
Speaker 4: random numbers and all this stuff.

488
00:25:00,880 --> 00:25:03,120
Speaker 3: Sometimes, like a group of guys will get very into

489
00:25:03,119 --> 00:25:05,480
Speaker 3: a particular image, and I can imagine the kind of

490
00:25:05,520 --> 00:25:09,000
Speaker 3: guy that is very into the image of Alan Berg's corpse.

491
00:25:09,320 --> 00:25:10,280
Speaker 2: And it's not a nice guy.

492
00:25:10,440 --> 00:25:13,120
Speaker 4: I mean, it's it's taboo. It has like a pornographic

493
00:25:13,359 --> 00:25:14,320
Speaker 4: quality to it.

494
00:25:14,240 --> 00:25:16,679
Speaker 2: But it harkens to a very specific era of the movement.

495
00:25:16,720 --> 00:25:20,000
Speaker 3: Like I can imagine there's a particular man who gravitates

496
00:25:20,040 --> 00:25:21,280
Speaker 3: towards that specifically.

497
00:25:21,760 --> 00:25:25,920
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I mean, like I remember getting threatened by Bowers,

498
00:25:26,359 --> 00:25:28,359
Speaker 4: the guy who shot up, like because I was on

499
00:25:28,400 --> 00:25:30,280
Speaker 4: GAB all the time, as you know, to a fault,

500
00:25:30,560 --> 00:25:33,280
Speaker 4: I think, but like you know, I mean, it got

501
00:25:33,320 --> 00:25:36,240
Speaker 4: a lot of stories out of it and sources. But yeah,

502
00:25:36,280 --> 00:25:37,919
Speaker 4: because I was always dealing with those guys, and I

503
00:25:37,920 --> 00:25:40,560
Speaker 4: was always posting on air and you know, trying to

504
00:25:40,600 --> 00:25:42,600
Speaker 4: stir things up and see what it could shake loose

505
00:25:42,640 --> 00:25:46,080
Speaker 4: for a story. And yeah, Bowers was just some kind

506
00:25:46,080 --> 00:25:49,120
Speaker 4: of idle thing. And so when the Tree of Life

507
00:25:49,119 --> 00:25:51,919
Speaker 4: shooting happened, when he went out and said, you know,

508
00:25:52,440 --> 00:25:53,919
Speaker 4: screw your optics, I'm going in.

509
00:25:54,359 --> 00:25:55,200
Speaker 2: Right, that's right.

510
00:25:55,480 --> 00:25:58,760
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I was like, I know this guy when

511
00:25:58,840 --> 00:26:02,440
Speaker 4: that one dingo. Hell, So this was this was very

512
00:26:02,480 --> 00:26:05,879
Speaker 4: traumatic for me. I've been holding pretty firm on this.

513
00:26:06,800 --> 00:26:08,800
Speaker 4: I had a lot of manic tendencies in the sense

514
00:26:08,800 --> 00:26:11,280
Speaker 4: of like I could just work constantly, and you just

515
00:26:11,320 --> 00:26:13,920
Speaker 4: work around the clock, work late at night, constantly doing

516
00:26:14,040 --> 00:26:17,320
Speaker 4: investigative reporting. And I was on a mission because I

517
00:26:17,400 --> 00:26:20,520
Speaker 4: was so angry about what had happened, and you know,

518
00:26:20,800 --> 00:26:22,920
Speaker 4: unite the right, that's what that really triggered me. I

519
00:26:22,960 --> 00:26:25,160
Speaker 4: had before then, I had been really open to pursuing

520
00:26:25,359 --> 00:26:28,760
Speaker 4: a beat as a crime reporter or on climate change.

521
00:26:28,800 --> 00:26:30,520
Speaker 4: These were the kind of things that were like I

522
00:26:30,560 --> 00:26:34,400
Speaker 4: had I had written features of previously, but it was

523
00:26:34,440 --> 00:26:35,879
Speaker 4: it was after night the right I got folks, and

524
00:26:35,920 --> 00:26:37,840
Speaker 4: I really was like, I'm going to put all all

525
00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:41,280
Speaker 4: my abilities into trying to create trouble for these guys.

526
00:26:41,680 --> 00:26:42,760
Speaker 2: And you did.

527
00:26:43,400 --> 00:26:47,480
Speaker 4: Yeah, I did. And then when they pushed back, I

528
00:26:47,480 --> 00:26:51,680
Speaker 4: guess I wasn't mentally prepared for how scary it could be,

529
00:26:52,280 --> 00:26:53,880
Speaker 4: and it was lots of stuff. Then I went through

530
00:26:53,880 --> 00:26:57,600
Speaker 4: a separation with my wife, which is fine, we're great friends,

531
00:26:58,600 --> 00:27:01,320
Speaker 4: you know, but that was like another factor. And then

532
00:27:01,359 --> 00:27:04,000
Speaker 4: also the SBLC thing, which we can talk about. But

533
00:27:04,600 --> 00:27:07,440
Speaker 4: the main thing is that I reached a breaking point.

534
00:27:07,520 --> 00:27:10,200
Speaker 4: I was I always happened to be in Berkeley Springs

535
00:27:10,840 --> 00:27:14,600
Speaker 4: with some of the sources from the book when I

536
00:27:14,640 --> 00:27:16,600
Speaker 4: had to go home and go to a site ward

537
00:27:16,840 --> 00:27:20,680
Speaker 4: and I went for three weeks and like got diagnosed

538
00:27:20,680 --> 00:27:23,080
Speaker 4: with bipolar there, which was a very useful diagnosis.

539
00:27:23,359 --> 00:27:26,120
Speaker 3: It makes it makes a big difference because especially it's bipolar.

540
00:27:26,160 --> 00:27:28,280
Speaker 3: If you're just taking an I depressants, like you're going

541
00:27:28,359 --> 00:27:29,120
Speaker 3: to be up shit creek.

542
00:27:29,200 --> 00:27:31,080
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, well, the anti's press is really screwed on

543
00:27:31,160 --> 00:27:33,679
Speaker 4: my stomach and also made me like even more manic

544
00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:34,400
Speaker 4: and stuff like that.

545
00:27:34,560 --> 00:27:37,679
Speaker 3: But the book is is a very frank, very very honest,

546
00:27:37,840 --> 00:27:41,280
Speaker 3: very personal and maybe this is why people found the

547
00:27:41,320 --> 00:27:44,040
Speaker 3: book to be, you know, disturbing, because it is a

548
00:27:44,160 --> 00:27:47,800
Speaker 3: very frank discussion of what it means to be the

549
00:27:47,840 --> 00:27:49,960
Speaker 3: person who is for so many years in the thick

550
00:27:49,960 --> 00:27:52,320
Speaker 3: of it, yeah, you know, not doing sort of objective,

551
00:27:52,320 --> 00:27:54,919
Speaker 3: detached reporting, but getting in there and mixing it up

552
00:27:54,920 --> 00:27:57,240
Speaker 3: with these guys like really, you know, skin in the game,

553
00:27:57,560 --> 00:28:01,200
Speaker 3: committed to the cause, doing investigative journal in these spaces,

554
00:28:01,400 --> 00:28:04,679
Speaker 3: and I mean, I think we both are guilty of this.

555
00:28:04,760 --> 00:28:08,080
Speaker 3: Over the years on this beat, there is this tendency

556
00:28:08,119 --> 00:28:10,440
Speaker 3: to sort of you know, exchange war stories like oh,

557
00:28:10,480 --> 00:28:11,960
Speaker 3: you know, I got this terrible threat, I got this

558
00:28:12,040 --> 00:28:12,560
Speaker 3: terrible threat.

559
00:28:12,560 --> 00:28:14,359
Speaker 2: You laugh it off, and it's.

560
00:28:14,240 --> 00:28:17,640
Speaker 3: Like, you know, it's this sort of fact of life

561
00:28:17,760 --> 00:28:20,159
Speaker 3: that you brush off, and you know, everyone says, oh,

562
00:28:20,160 --> 00:28:21,959
Speaker 3: you're so brave, I could never do that, and you say, oh,

563
00:28:21,960 --> 00:28:22,640
Speaker 3: it's not a big deal.

564
00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:23,560
Speaker 2: I deal with it all the time.

565
00:28:23,720 --> 00:28:25,920
Speaker 4: Yeah, they say that for sure, But then you.

566
00:28:25,880 --> 00:28:28,320
Speaker 3: Go home and it is a big deal and people

567
00:28:28,400 --> 00:28:31,760
Speaker 3: are not it is honest about that as they could be.

568
00:28:31,840 --> 00:28:33,719
Speaker 3: I mean, in part because admitting that it hurts you

569
00:28:34,440 --> 00:28:36,399
Speaker 3: makes them double down. If they know they got you,

570
00:28:36,440 --> 00:28:38,200
Speaker 3: they're going to keep digging in that spot. But like,

571
00:28:39,040 --> 00:28:41,440
Speaker 3: we don't talk enough about the fact that this destroys us.

572
00:28:41,720 --> 00:28:44,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, it's a very honest. Look at what

573
00:28:44,360 --> 00:28:46,840
Speaker 2: happens when you bought them out on that, and.

574
00:28:46,760 --> 00:28:49,480
Speaker 4: It's so much worse than just threats. I mean, you're

575
00:28:49,720 --> 00:28:53,480
Speaker 4: constantly concerned that somebody is going to use law fair

576
00:28:53,560 --> 00:28:54,840
Speaker 4: against you and try.

577
00:28:54,600 --> 00:28:56,880
Speaker 2: To hurt your family and you have children.

578
00:28:56,960 --> 00:29:01,160
Speaker 4: Yeah, of course, you know. And I am extremely anal

579
00:29:01,320 --> 00:29:06,120
Speaker 4: about legal stuff, Like I'm just like hyper like I

580
00:29:06,120 --> 00:29:08,560
Speaker 4: don't you know, I don't play games I like And

581
00:29:08,600 --> 00:29:12,640
Speaker 4: so that's just an example. It's like we published when

582
00:29:12,680 --> 00:29:15,000
Speaker 4: I was with the BOC, we published the identity of

583
00:29:15,000 --> 00:29:17,400
Speaker 4: Matt Gebert, who was the state Department official. I remember

584
00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:17,640
Speaker 4: that guy.

585
00:29:18,000 --> 00:29:19,320
Speaker 2: I was actually going to bring him up.

586
00:29:19,360 --> 00:29:21,480
Speaker 3: I was going to bring up Matt Gibert in terms

587
00:29:21,480 --> 00:29:24,200
Speaker 3: of the number of guys who've moved to West Virginia

588
00:29:24,240 --> 00:29:25,480
Speaker 3: because they think it's only white.

589
00:29:25,600 --> 00:29:27,080
Speaker 4: Yeah, we'll get there in a second. But I just

590
00:29:27,160 --> 00:29:30,200
Speaker 4: say it, like before I published that story, even though

591
00:29:30,200 --> 00:29:32,720
Speaker 4: I'd been through a million lawyers and like every I mean,

592
00:29:32,720 --> 00:29:34,400
Speaker 4: we just went through everything and stuff like that. I

593
00:29:34,400 --> 00:29:36,840
Speaker 4: bought a pack of cigarettes, which I never do, you know,

594
00:29:36,880 --> 00:29:38,680
Speaker 4: I don't want to get into my stomach thing too deeply.

595
00:29:38,720 --> 00:29:41,160
Speaker 4: But it was not working. It was not working at

596
00:29:41,200 --> 00:29:44,120
Speaker 4: all that day. It was August seventh, twenty nineteen, and

597
00:29:44,240 --> 00:29:49,480
Speaker 4: I was literally I was I was clammy, I was sweating.

598
00:29:50,200 --> 00:29:52,280
Speaker 4: I had never seen his face. He kept all of

599
00:29:52,280 --> 00:29:54,800
Speaker 4: his pictures offline. But I had the goods. I knew

600
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:56,480
Speaker 4: I had everything. But yet at the same this is

601
00:29:56,800 --> 00:29:58,840
Speaker 4: one doubt. It's like what if it's not him because

602
00:29:58,840 --> 00:30:02,840
Speaker 4: I don't have the face match forget threats. That level

603
00:30:03,120 --> 00:30:07,080
Speaker 4: of stress of just you know, it's like I checked everything, right.

604
00:30:07,120 --> 00:30:09,360
Speaker 4: I Like you think, think about the you're trying to

605
00:30:09,440 --> 00:30:11,520
Speaker 4: leave the house for a long trip or something like that,

606
00:30:11,600 --> 00:30:13,360
Speaker 4: and it's like, you know that thought, Oh, I know,

607
00:30:13,480 --> 00:30:15,720
Speaker 4: like did I leave the gas stove on when I

608
00:30:15,840 --> 00:30:18,000
Speaker 4: was you know, when I was boiling something for my

609
00:30:18,080 --> 00:30:20,560
Speaker 4: kids or whatever. Like that's the way it feels, right,

610
00:30:20,600 --> 00:30:22,880
Speaker 4: it's like sort of you like you memorize the entire

611
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:26,000
Speaker 4: investigative feature and you're like going through it and there's like, oh,

612
00:30:26,360 --> 00:30:28,120
Speaker 4: oh you know, is that was that right? Did I

613
00:30:28,200 --> 00:30:29,320
Speaker 4: check that? And I'm like, yes, I did.

614
00:30:29,800 --> 00:30:31,200
Speaker 2: Oh, I know, I know that. I know that.

615
00:30:31,240 --> 00:30:33,640
Speaker 3: Feeling exacty drives my husband crazy when I say things

616
00:30:33,680 --> 00:30:35,960
Speaker 3: like I'd rather get shot than be wrong in public.

617
00:30:36,320 --> 00:30:38,920
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, it's true. It's it's true. Like I don't

618
00:30:39,120 --> 00:30:41,400
Speaker 4: I don't want to. Yeah, you don't want to be wrong.

619
00:30:41,600 --> 00:30:43,240
Speaker 4: And also you don't want to give these people a

620
00:30:43,320 --> 00:30:47,280
Speaker 4: chance for anything. And you mentioned Brimlow is very litigious.

621
00:30:47,040 --> 00:30:48,280
Speaker 2: Not usually very successful.

622
00:30:48,480 --> 00:30:51,960
Speaker 4: No, no, ease. But that doesn't matter, No, it doesn't matter. Yeah,

623
00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:53,840
Speaker 4: but it's stressful to report on him because of that,

624
00:30:53,880 --> 00:30:55,960
Speaker 4: because he just he will use it as a tactic

625
00:30:56,040 --> 00:30:58,440
Speaker 4: and stuff like that. And I gave I also gave

626
00:30:58,440 --> 00:31:01,440
Speaker 4: the Brimlos point out many opportunities to talk to me

627
00:31:01,560 --> 00:31:05,280
Speaker 4: and more detail about everything, and they didn't want to.

628
00:31:05,600 --> 00:31:07,680
Speaker 2: But you do speak to him several times in the book.

629
00:31:07,720 --> 00:31:10,760
Speaker 4: Yeah, I do, I do, much to his displeasure. Well,

630
00:31:10,760 --> 00:31:12,560
Speaker 4: I was just to say like, yeah, I mean all

631
00:31:12,640 --> 00:31:15,960
Speaker 4: that really led up to me going to the psych

632
00:31:15,960 --> 00:31:20,400
Speaker 4: word and that and the SBLC thing, which is basically

633
00:31:20,440 --> 00:31:23,080
Speaker 4: my relationship with SBLC is like I was probably the

634
00:31:23,080 --> 00:31:26,040
Speaker 4: most well known person there apology because I've had a

635
00:31:26,080 --> 00:31:28,720
Speaker 4: social media presence and I was doing a lot of

636
00:31:28,760 --> 00:31:30,760
Speaker 4: spokesperson work, so I was like on TV a bunch

637
00:31:30,800 --> 00:31:31,440
Speaker 4: and stuff like that.

638
00:31:31,640 --> 00:31:34,000
Speaker 3: So whenever someone's mad at the organization, they're going to

639
00:31:34,040 --> 00:31:34,640
Speaker 3: take it out on you.

640
00:31:35,080 --> 00:31:37,840
Speaker 4: Yeah, And really, for a good part of the early

641
00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:40,640
Speaker 4: years there after Heidi left, we didn't even have a

642
00:31:40,760 --> 00:31:44,640
Speaker 4: director of the intelligence project, so you know, I would

643
00:31:44,680 --> 00:31:47,920
Speaker 4: just get thrown into a lot of TV radio stuff

644
00:31:47,960 --> 00:31:51,000
Speaker 4: like that. And you know, they treated me great. I

645
00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:54,160
Speaker 4: mean they got my pay raise multiple times and promoted

646
00:31:54,320 --> 00:31:57,440
Speaker 4: and stuff like that. And I kept breaking investigative stories.

647
00:31:57,440 --> 00:32:00,960
Speaker 4: And then when we started to have problems where we were,

648
00:32:01,000 --> 00:32:03,880
Speaker 4: they start to limit our ability to publish stories. They

649
00:32:03,920 --> 00:32:07,080
Speaker 4: really became very risk averse.

650
00:32:07,280 --> 00:32:09,640
Speaker 3: Which is so contrary to my image of what this

651
00:32:09,760 --> 00:32:14,880
Speaker 3: institution is for. Yeah, both like functionally and morally. Yeah,

652
00:32:15,280 --> 00:32:18,040
Speaker 3: as a senior investigative reporter at the Southern Poverty Lossoner,

653
00:32:18,320 --> 00:32:20,440
Speaker 3: you didn't have mental health coverage. You couldn't see a

654
00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:25,240
Speaker 3: real therapist. Yeah, that's horrific. That's a human rights abuse

655
00:32:25,560 --> 00:32:27,280
Speaker 3: to make you look at gabble. They had not get

656
00:32:27,320 --> 00:32:28,040
Speaker 3: you a therapists.

657
00:32:28,640 --> 00:32:31,360
Speaker 4: They were giving us like the app stuff which is

658
00:32:31,360 --> 00:32:32,160
Speaker 4: not going to cut it.

659
00:32:32,280 --> 00:32:34,720
Speaker 2: No, but you need like a five hundred dollars an hour. Yeah,

660
00:32:34,880 --> 00:32:36,080
Speaker 2: New York analyst was a.

661
00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:38,720
Speaker 4: Psychiatrist, you know. And it's okay, like you know, somebody good.

662
00:32:38,760 --> 00:32:39,880
Speaker 2: But they should be covering that.

663
00:32:40,240 --> 00:32:42,840
Speaker 4: Yeah, no they were not. And there's just a whole

664
00:32:42,880 --> 00:32:45,000
Speaker 4: bunch of stuff. There were a bunch of safety issues,

665
00:32:45,200 --> 00:32:48,320
Speaker 4: no doubt, and a case my dear colleagues still my

666
00:32:48,320 --> 00:32:50,240
Speaker 4: colleague even through I'm not there anymore. You know, she

667
00:32:50,760 --> 00:32:53,680
Speaker 4: went to go cover Ameran and Tennessee and like a

668
00:32:53,680 --> 00:32:56,920
Speaker 4: bunch of proud boys like basically chased her down right.

669
00:32:57,200 --> 00:32:59,560
Speaker 4: There was no security plan. There was a woman named

670
00:32:59,560 --> 00:33:02,640
Speaker 4: Susan Work was the intelligence project director at that time,

671
00:33:02,680 --> 00:33:04,720
Speaker 4: and she was just you know, how to launch. She

672
00:33:04,880 --> 00:33:07,040
Speaker 4: just didn't do anything. As far as I could tell.

673
00:33:06,920 --> 00:33:08,640
Speaker 3: Things like what happened to Hannah, Like stuff like that

674
00:33:08,640 --> 00:33:10,680
Speaker 3: happens to me. I expect that I'm out there by myself.

675
00:33:10,800 --> 00:33:11,520
Speaker 3: I have no plan.

676
00:33:11,680 --> 00:33:12,920
Speaker 2: It's just me. I have no plan.

677
00:33:13,720 --> 00:33:16,320
Speaker 3: It was so startling to me to hear that, like

678
00:33:16,760 --> 00:33:19,880
Speaker 3: Hannah is out there operating without a net too, there

679
00:33:19,920 --> 00:33:21,160
Speaker 3: was no plan for her safety.

680
00:33:21,440 --> 00:33:23,880
Speaker 4: Yeah, there was nothing. And so one of the first

681
00:33:23,920 --> 00:33:27,840
Speaker 4: things I did was I helped Shepherd a grievance about this,

682
00:33:28,400 --> 00:33:32,080
Speaker 4: and it was effective because I think that got Cork

683
00:33:32,120 --> 00:33:36,440
Speaker 4: put on like a performance improvement plan. And then after

684
00:33:36,480 --> 00:33:39,360
Speaker 4: that everything changed at work. I went from being the

685
00:33:39,400 --> 00:33:44,440
Speaker 4: favorite person to being repeatedly at target of what did

686
00:33:44,480 --> 00:33:47,400
Speaker 4: you do? Why did you do this? Like it was really,

687
00:33:47,480 --> 00:33:50,440
Speaker 4: I mean to add on the already stressful situation that

688
00:33:50,840 --> 00:33:53,720
Speaker 4: I was in. It was just like your tone in

689
00:33:53,760 --> 00:33:56,240
Speaker 4: a meeting. And then there was the thing about that

690
00:33:56,400 --> 00:33:58,640
Speaker 4: was there was like a verbal warning or something that

691
00:33:58,760 --> 00:34:01,360
Speaker 4: was they actually bothered to write out, which was quite stupid.

692
00:34:01,360 --> 00:34:03,680
Speaker 4: If you're doing a verbal warning, you shouldn't put it

693
00:34:03,720 --> 00:34:06,720
Speaker 4: in print. And sure enough we found in there that,

694
00:34:06,880 --> 00:34:09,880
Speaker 4: like all the dialogue that was in there, was completely

695
00:34:09,880 --> 00:34:11,120
Speaker 4: fabricated and made up.

696
00:34:11,440 --> 00:34:12,360
Speaker 2: And so for the listener.

697
00:34:12,480 --> 00:34:14,360
Speaker 3: So discussed in the book a little bit is the

698
00:34:14,360 --> 00:34:15,920
Speaker 3: fact that at the Southern Poverty Lossoner was.

699
00:34:15,920 --> 00:34:17,040
Speaker 2: Engaging in unionvesting.

700
00:34:17,280 --> 00:34:20,120
Speaker 3: Yes, that's right, so you know you were dealing with

701
00:34:20,239 --> 00:34:22,920
Speaker 3: retaliation for union activity in the workplace.

702
00:34:22,640 --> 00:34:26,400
Speaker 4: Retaliation for union activity. It was really bad. It happened

703
00:34:26,560 --> 00:34:29,799
Speaker 4: a second time after that when I was covering the trial.

704
00:34:29,920 --> 00:34:35,200
Speaker 4: Doug Mackie character we can save for another day.

705
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:37,600
Speaker 2: For another day, And it was really bad.

706
00:34:37,440 --> 00:34:39,480
Speaker 4: And the stress was really getting to me, and I

707
00:34:39,600 --> 00:34:43,200
Speaker 4: had a panic attack which I've never had before while

708
00:34:43,200 --> 00:34:46,440
Speaker 4: I was in the shower. And I told them about that,

709
00:34:46,840 --> 00:34:49,440
Speaker 4: and Susan Cork and the person above her, his name

710
00:34:49,480 --> 00:34:51,200
Speaker 4: is Ann Beeson. I told him about that, and then

711
00:34:51,760 --> 00:34:56,640
Speaker 4: they responded by turning around and disciplining me again, almost

712
00:34:56,760 --> 00:34:59,279
Speaker 4: like to say, like, we've got them on the ropes now,

713
00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:02,560
Speaker 4: let's really like make them quit.

714
00:35:02,520 --> 00:35:03,640
Speaker 2: Say eighty a violation.

715
00:35:04,120 --> 00:35:06,759
Speaker 4: Yeah, And every time we do this, we'd summon the

716
00:35:06,840 --> 00:35:08,520
Speaker 4: union and we'd make it as hairy for them as

717
00:35:08,520 --> 00:35:11,360
Speaker 4: possible to do what they're doing. But there's limits to

718
00:35:11,400 --> 00:35:13,879
Speaker 4: what you can do. Really, when they want to try

719
00:35:13,920 --> 00:35:15,719
Speaker 4: to do these sort of things, they pushed it as

720
00:35:15,719 --> 00:35:18,040
Speaker 4: far as they wanted to go, which is after the

721
00:35:18,080 --> 00:35:20,920
Speaker 4: summer of twenty twenty three, there was a Hamas attack

722
00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:25,200
Speaker 4: on Israel. And you know, I have Arabs in my family.

723
00:35:25,200 --> 00:35:28,920
Speaker 4: I have my on my mother's side, including Palestinians. You know,

724
00:35:29,000 --> 00:35:31,840
Speaker 4: I was distraught about this whole situation was it was

725
00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:35,799
Speaker 4: adding another thing on top of it, and watching the retaliation,

726
00:35:35,920 --> 00:35:41,320
Speaker 4: which became a genocide very quickly, did not improve my mood. Obviously.

727
00:35:41,360 --> 00:35:46,040
Speaker 4: It was very stressful to see that stuff. And Hannah

728
00:35:46,120 --> 00:35:49,680
Speaker 4: invited me to sign a thing about you know, it

729
00:35:49,840 --> 00:35:54,319
Speaker 4: was just sort of like asking writers to sign on

730
00:35:54,560 --> 00:35:57,120
Speaker 4: Israel's and apartheid state calling for a ceasefire.

731
00:35:57,560 --> 00:35:58,560
Speaker 2: Writers for the seasefire.

732
00:35:58,640 --> 00:36:03,000
Speaker 4: Yeah, I remember, and uh, Free Beacon, I'm familiar with

733
00:36:03,000 --> 00:36:04,719
Speaker 4: that wonderful Paulician.

734
00:36:05,200 --> 00:36:07,480
Speaker 2: It still comes up in the first few pages of

735
00:36:07,520 --> 00:36:08,280
Speaker 2: your Google results.

736
00:36:08,320 --> 00:36:09,120
Speaker 4: Thank you for noting.

737
00:36:09,239 --> 00:36:11,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, but this the book should push it back.

738
00:36:11,239 --> 00:36:15,400
Speaker 4: The Free Beacon like came out with this thing, and

739
00:36:15,440 --> 00:36:19,960
Speaker 4: it was like SBLC spokesperson, uh, you know, blames Israel

740
00:36:20,040 --> 00:36:21,680
Speaker 4: for Hamas violence or something like.

741
00:36:21,640 --> 00:36:24,719
Speaker 3: That, and just that the audacity to accuse you of

742
00:36:24,719 --> 00:36:29,200
Speaker 3: anti Semitism for assigning this letter, you know, supporting a ceasefire.

743
00:36:29,320 --> 00:36:31,400
Speaker 3: But I've read that letter. It's it's it's not an

744
00:36:31,400 --> 00:36:34,600
Speaker 3: anti Semitic letters. It is calling it what it is

745
00:36:34,920 --> 00:36:36,960
Speaker 3: and just asking for a ceasefire. Right, And you have

746
00:36:37,080 --> 00:36:40,200
Speaker 3: spent a decade writing about anti Semitic violence.

747
00:36:40,640 --> 00:36:43,080
Speaker 4: Well, there's there's tons of there's there's tons of anti

748
00:36:43,160 --> 00:36:46,319
Speaker 4: Zionist Jews on there. I mean, there's probably more than

749
00:36:46,400 --> 00:36:50,359
Speaker 4: anything else. But you know, when this, when this came out,

750
00:36:50,680 --> 00:36:54,120
Speaker 4: I was really pissed. Obviously it had a racist undertone.

751
00:36:54,160 --> 00:36:56,120
Speaker 4: I mean, Hannah was mentioned, but it was mostly about me.

752
00:36:56,200 --> 00:36:58,440
Speaker 4: And then there instead of a picture of me, they

753
00:36:58,520 --> 00:37:00,799
Speaker 4: used they used like the one of those pictures of

754
00:37:00,880 --> 00:37:03,640
Speaker 4: Moss looking like Cobra from CI Joe and like a

755
00:37:03,719 --> 00:37:04,840
Speaker 4: rocket launcher and.

756
00:37:05,160 --> 00:37:07,680
Speaker 3: Right, implying that you, as a man of Arab descent,

757
00:37:07,920 --> 00:37:09,320
Speaker 3: are an anti Semitic terrorist.

758
00:37:09,400 --> 00:37:11,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, basically and good faith stuff.

759
00:37:11,160 --> 00:37:14,040
Speaker 4: Adding to I would say this is also complex because

760
00:37:14,400 --> 00:37:17,359
Speaker 4: you know, my family basically fled because of threats from

761
00:37:17,440 --> 00:37:20,400
Speaker 4: Islamic terrorism, right, so this is even more like, you know,

762
00:37:20,520 --> 00:37:23,360
Speaker 4: to align me with that necessarily is not my not ideal,

763
00:37:23,400 --> 00:37:25,840
Speaker 4: even though I'm in like, you know, I'm sure I

764
00:37:25,880 --> 00:37:28,279
Speaker 4: have a very more and more nuanced idea of what

765
00:37:28,360 --> 00:37:31,040
Speaker 4: Homas is than that author. The point is it's just,

766
00:37:31,080 --> 00:37:33,200
Speaker 4: i mean, just basically to do that and then rather

767
00:37:33,239 --> 00:37:37,720
Speaker 4: than SBOC like cares so much about social justice and racism.

768
00:37:37,520 --> 00:37:40,360
Speaker 3: Rather than sees the opportunity to differentiate themselves from the

769
00:37:40,400 --> 00:37:43,880
Speaker 3: psychosis that the ADL has descended into. As you know,

770
00:37:44,200 --> 00:37:47,040
Speaker 3: because those two organizations sort of exist in the same space,

771
00:37:47,080 --> 00:37:49,560
Speaker 3: they're often used in the same sentence, and the ADL

772
00:37:49,600 --> 00:37:51,359
Speaker 3: has really lost a lot of credibility in the last

773
00:37:51,360 --> 00:37:51,719
Speaker 3: few years.

774
00:37:51,880 --> 00:37:54,040
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't think they have any credibility because of.

775
00:37:54,040 --> 00:37:58,359
Speaker 2: Those So instead of differentiating themselves from that, they chose

776
00:37:58,400 --> 00:37:59,120
Speaker 2: to discipline you.

777
00:37:59,640 --> 00:38:01,840
Speaker 4: Yeah, they did. And it was that was when I,

778
00:38:02,080 --> 00:38:05,600
Speaker 4: like I said, mental health was like all the factors

779
00:38:05,880 --> 00:38:09,360
Speaker 4: that we've just discussed mentioned and then I was happened

780
00:38:09,360 --> 00:38:12,719
Speaker 4: to be in Berkeley Springs when I reached a point

781
00:38:12,719 --> 00:38:14,719
Speaker 4: where I was like, you know, I was, I was

782
00:38:14,719 --> 00:38:18,919
Speaker 4: suicidal and trigger warning for people. I apologize, but that's

783
00:38:18,920 --> 00:38:21,680
Speaker 4: the truth, and came back and had to spend the

784
00:38:21,760 --> 00:38:26,319
Speaker 4: sort of Christmas break period there where I lost you know,

785
00:38:26,360 --> 00:38:30,080
Speaker 4: they ultimately terminated me. It was a Title seven violation

786
00:38:30,280 --> 00:38:33,840
Speaker 4: in terms of discrimination. Well we'll get into what happened effort.

787
00:38:33,840 --> 00:38:36,640
Speaker 4: But and then when people found out what happened, the

788
00:38:36,760 --> 00:38:40,080
Speaker 4: union started to write things to you know, to management.

789
00:38:40,160 --> 00:38:42,799
Speaker 4: There was all this internal dialogue happening while I was

790
00:38:42,840 --> 00:38:45,080
Speaker 4: in a psych word with like no access to anything,

791
00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:51,480
Speaker 4: and almost everybody in my line of managers was pushed

792
00:38:51,520 --> 00:38:56,000
Speaker 4: out and given buyouts allegedly Quirk this woman and bees

793
00:38:56,080 --> 00:38:57,319
Speaker 4: In and now the CEO is.

794
00:38:57,280 --> 00:38:59,640
Speaker 2: They exposed themselves to some serious liability there.

795
00:39:00,120 --> 00:39:03,280
Speaker 4: They got off easy in many ways. Yeah, they disposed

796
00:39:03,280 --> 00:39:07,800
Speaker 4: of me, but I threatened suit with a lawyer, wonderful

797
00:39:07,880 --> 00:39:11,120
Speaker 4: lawyer who she was, great Jewish woman from New York

798
00:39:11,280 --> 00:39:15,360
Speaker 4: and she's tough as nails. And yeah, I mean I

799
00:39:15,400 --> 00:39:17,640
Speaker 4: got a good settlement out of it, which is you know,

800
00:39:17,719 --> 00:39:19,480
Speaker 4: I would have preferred just to be able to just

801
00:39:19,520 --> 00:39:20,439
Speaker 4: continue doing my job.

802
00:39:20,480 --> 00:39:22,440
Speaker 2: Though it's heartbreaking to remember that.

803
00:39:22,520 --> 00:39:26,480
Speaker 3: You know, even these progressive nonprofits that are fighting for

804
00:39:26,520 --> 00:39:28,280
Speaker 3: what we believe, they're using.

805
00:39:28,040 --> 00:39:29,120
Speaker 2: You up and spitting you out.

806
00:39:28,960 --> 00:39:30,600
Speaker 4: To Yeah, oh sure, they're.

807
00:39:30,280 --> 00:39:32,520
Speaker 3: Doing union busting. They're firing you for having a mental

808
00:39:32,520 --> 00:39:35,840
Speaker 3: health crisis. They're opposed to you exercising your free speech

809
00:39:35,880 --> 00:39:39,000
Speaker 3: off the clock, the kinds of things you just you don't.

810
00:39:38,880 --> 00:39:40,880
Speaker 2: Want to see from an organization like the SPLC.

811
00:39:41,160 --> 00:39:44,800
Speaker 4: Yeah, they had to retract my termination and assign it

812
00:39:44,840 --> 00:39:47,080
Speaker 4: to a layoff. And then you know, I had to

813
00:39:47,480 --> 00:39:52,239
Speaker 4: retract labor claims I had made, which would have gone

814
00:39:52,239 --> 00:39:54,840
Speaker 4: nowhere as soon as the Trump administration took over. Anyway,

815
00:39:55,040 --> 00:39:59,399
Speaker 4: that's heartbreaking, which I saw coming in twenty twenty four

816
00:39:59,560 --> 00:40:02,600
Speaker 4: to a new to a degree, So yeah, like that happened.

817
00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:05,799
Speaker 4: And then bringing it back to Berkeley Springs, I was

818
00:40:05,800 --> 00:40:07,359
Speaker 4: told not to go anywhere, but I needed to keep

819
00:40:07,400 --> 00:40:09,040
Speaker 4: working on the book. So it was like a week

820
00:40:09,120 --> 00:40:11,919
Speaker 4: after I got out of the hospital, I came back

821
00:40:11,960 --> 00:40:15,319
Speaker 4: down there, and then the folks who I had been

822
00:40:15,320 --> 00:40:18,840
Speaker 4: working with since twenty twenty when the Brimlas first arrived,

823
00:40:18,880 --> 00:40:21,000
Speaker 4: they kind of took me in and nursed me back

824
00:40:21,000 --> 00:40:24,360
Speaker 4: to health. So that's why it's I feel unified in

825
00:40:24,400 --> 00:40:27,360
Speaker 4: the narrative and we're able to explore what happened to

826
00:40:27,360 --> 00:40:29,920
Speaker 4: me psychologically and what happened to and them psychologically as

827
00:40:29,960 --> 00:40:31,160
Speaker 4: this other stuff is happening.

828
00:40:42,320 --> 00:40:44,240
Speaker 3: See, I guess I understand why some of the reviewers

829
00:40:44,280 --> 00:40:46,520
Speaker 3: call it disturbing, But that sort of full circle, that

830
00:40:46,640 --> 00:40:51,200
Speaker 3: sort of personal closure. You know, obviously things weren't ideal, right,

831
00:40:51,239 --> 00:40:53,439
Speaker 3: you lost your job, but I don't know, things came

832
00:40:53,480 --> 00:40:55,400
Speaker 3: full circle and the people that you went there to

833
00:40:55,400 --> 00:40:58,719
Speaker 3: write about took care of you, and you I don't know,

834
00:40:59,000 --> 00:41:01,360
Speaker 3: you all continue a long your way as the world

835
00:41:01,360 --> 00:41:01,920
Speaker 3: falls apart.

836
00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:03,719
Speaker 4: I don't think that they come all cross as like

837
00:41:03,760 --> 00:41:06,960
Speaker 4: perfect either. I mean, like that's what I'm really hopeful for. No.

838
00:41:07,200 --> 00:41:09,080
Speaker 2: I mean they're all complicated people.

839
00:41:09,360 --> 00:41:11,360
Speaker 4: You know. I wanted to avoid like the sort of

840
00:41:11,600 --> 00:41:15,120
Speaker 4: wishy washy utopian like I'm an ally you know, and

841
00:41:15,280 --> 00:41:18,560
Speaker 4: I'm it's like, yeah, actually the people who are allies

842
00:41:18,600 --> 00:41:21,280
Speaker 4: have all kinds of issue that have marital problems. Maybe

843
00:41:21,320 --> 00:41:23,440
Speaker 4: some of them are like behave badly in one thing

844
00:41:23,560 --> 00:41:26,440
Speaker 4: or whatever, all people trying to live. It's really a

845
00:41:26,480 --> 00:41:32,960
Speaker 4: question of what this particular ideology that has been foisted

846
00:41:33,040 --> 00:41:38,480
Speaker 4: upon us very rapidly by the likes of Steve Bannon

847
00:41:38,800 --> 00:41:42,640
Speaker 4: and Brimlow and others right it was a collective push

848
00:41:42,680 --> 00:41:48,000
Speaker 4: to take the existing right wing mom star and set

849
00:41:48,040 --> 00:41:51,120
Speaker 4: it in this direction. What this is doing to us.

850
00:41:51,400 --> 00:41:54,400
Speaker 3: It's a very intimate look at what that is like

851
00:41:54,480 --> 00:41:58,120
Speaker 3: for individual people. You know, we're all experiencing having right

852
00:41:58,160 --> 00:42:00,759
Speaker 3: wing violence foisted upon us from a but this is

853
00:42:01,480 --> 00:42:04,040
Speaker 3: I don't know. There were these like small moments of

854
00:42:04,040 --> 00:42:06,640
Speaker 3: like physical intimacy, like when you're you're at the castle

855
00:42:06,680 --> 00:42:09,480
Speaker 3: for the party and you know you and Peter Brimlow

856
00:42:09,520 --> 00:42:12,279
Speaker 3: are exchanging like this lighthearted moment and you reach out

857
00:42:12,280 --> 00:42:14,799
Speaker 3: and you put your hand on his shoulder. Instinctively, when

858
00:42:14,800 --> 00:42:16,759
Speaker 3: you're sharing laughter with someone, you put out, you put

859
00:42:16,760 --> 00:42:19,200
Speaker 3: your hand on his shoulder and like, you know, recoiled

860
00:42:19,200 --> 00:42:21,000
Speaker 3: immediately and didn't know why you had done that, but

861
00:42:21,080 --> 00:42:23,440
Speaker 3: this like tiny moment of physical intimacy that you know

862
00:42:23,480 --> 00:42:27,760
Speaker 3: this was a person, or the transgender mushroom farmer Lisa

863
00:42:27,800 --> 00:42:31,080
Speaker 3: Marie who sought out Lydia Brimlow at church and shook

864
00:42:31,120 --> 00:42:33,520
Speaker 3: her hand during the Right of Peace, Like I would

865
00:42:33,560 --> 00:42:34,640
Speaker 3: have loved to have seen that.

866
00:42:35,200 --> 00:42:37,640
Speaker 4: She's so cool, by the way, you should have her

867
00:42:37,680 --> 00:42:38,280
Speaker 4: on She's.

868
00:42:38,120 --> 00:42:42,719
Speaker 3: Awesome, she sounds amazing. I would love to meet Lisa Marie.

869
00:42:43,280 --> 00:42:45,839
Speaker 4: Well, I'll tell you about her in a second. But yeah,

870
00:42:45,840 --> 00:42:47,960
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, I mean Brimlow was behaving in a

871
00:42:48,080 --> 00:42:50,640
Speaker 4: very I mean he has like an infuncular kind of

872
00:42:50,840 --> 00:42:53,759
Speaker 4: vibe like in person when he's not angry with you.

873
00:42:54,480 --> 00:42:58,360
Speaker 4: And I'm sure that for people who know him in

874
00:42:58,400 --> 00:43:01,680
Speaker 4: a friendly way in the movement that he's he's fun.

875
00:43:01,760 --> 00:43:04,760
Speaker 2: You know, he likes to drink room temperature vodka.

876
00:43:04,840 --> 00:43:07,799
Speaker 4: He is always talking like this just sounds like he's

877
00:43:07,800 --> 00:43:11,200
Speaker 4: always had a for your drinks. Probably, yes, he has

878
00:43:11,239 --> 00:43:15,080
Speaker 4: that British way of just some kind of dry remark

879
00:43:15,160 --> 00:43:17,879
Speaker 4: about things going to pot. Like, you know, I'm sure

880
00:43:17,880 --> 00:43:20,960
Speaker 4: it's fun for people who know him, and you know

881
00:43:21,000 --> 00:43:24,279
Speaker 4: you're in that space and any kind of party thing

882
00:43:24,440 --> 00:43:26,520
Speaker 4: or whatever you can let go for a second. And

883
00:43:26,560 --> 00:43:29,759
Speaker 4: for a second I felt not that, like I felt like, oh,

884
00:43:29,880 --> 00:43:31,520
Speaker 4: this is my friend or anything. It is more than

885
00:43:31,520 --> 00:43:33,160
Speaker 4: I'm just talking exactly.

886
00:43:33,239 --> 00:43:35,239
Speaker 3: You know, people really bristle at that. You know you're

887
00:43:35,360 --> 00:43:38,359
Speaker 3: humanizing him. Well, yeah, because he's human. Humanizing doesn't mean

888
00:43:38,360 --> 00:43:41,480
Speaker 3: excusing or you know, coming to appreciate it anyway.

889
00:43:41,520 --> 00:43:43,840
Speaker 2: It just means like he's human. So for most of

890
00:43:43,880 --> 00:43:45,320
Speaker 2: the book, the strange people.

891
00:43:45,080 --> 00:43:48,359
Speaker 3: On the hill are removed on the hill, but when

892
00:43:48,400 --> 00:43:52,279
Speaker 3: you encounter them, there is this very human intimacy to

893
00:43:52,320 --> 00:43:53,320
Speaker 3: these encounters.

894
00:43:53,520 --> 00:43:56,880
Speaker 4: And not only that, everybody has a rough go in

895
00:43:56,880 --> 00:43:59,160
Speaker 4: this book, including that getting.

896
00:43:59,000 --> 00:44:01,680
Speaker 2: Raked over the coals by to James Well over the.

897
00:44:01,640 --> 00:44:04,359
Speaker 4: Course of this that there if you follow their their

898
00:44:04,480 --> 00:44:08,319
Speaker 4: arc and their arcs throughout the book, but one particular arc,

899
00:44:08,560 --> 00:44:12,000
Speaker 4: it starts with them really thinking they've got it, like

900
00:44:12,040 --> 00:44:14,840
Speaker 4: this is like this is like high point of vider's existence.

901
00:44:15,360 --> 00:44:18,160
Speaker 4: They have a castle. They have a home base that

902
00:44:18,200 --> 00:44:22,360
Speaker 4: they can use in perpetuity. After Brimla leaves, the movement

903
00:44:22,400 --> 00:44:24,560
Speaker 4: can flourish and grow. This is like, this is it.

904
00:44:24,600 --> 00:44:25,480
Speaker 4: They got a castle.

905
00:44:25,680 --> 00:44:27,439
Speaker 2: I mean, it would be the perfect place for white

906
00:44:27,520 --> 00:44:28,360
Speaker 2: nationalists meetup.

907
00:44:28,520 --> 00:44:30,840
Speaker 3: They haven't really used it that way that much, like

908
00:44:30,880 --> 00:44:32,319
Speaker 3: every now and again, but like.

909
00:44:32,360 --> 00:44:35,359
Speaker 4: This is the best situation they've ever had. Like they're great,

910
00:44:35,360 --> 00:44:38,040
Speaker 4: and they've also just coming off of getting a whole

911
00:44:38,040 --> 00:44:41,040
Speaker 4: bunch of dark money donations from two people we don't

912
00:44:41,080 --> 00:44:42,759
Speaker 4: know who they are, but it's like, you know, four

913
00:44:42,840 --> 00:44:47,560
Speaker 4: point five milli in like one year through donors Trust,

914
00:44:48,080 --> 00:44:51,160
Speaker 4: and they're riding really high. And then by the end

915
00:44:52,080 --> 00:44:55,160
Speaker 4: from the Ltitia James investigation, it had not turned into

916
00:44:55,160 --> 00:44:57,759
Speaker 4: a lawsuit yet. By that point, under the pressure of

917
00:44:57,800 --> 00:45:01,040
Speaker 4: that and just under the pressure of just everybody around them,

918
00:45:01,320 --> 00:45:04,080
Speaker 4: you know, not wanting them to be there, they decided

919
00:45:04,120 --> 00:45:08,480
Speaker 4: to dial down VideA altogether. And it still exists in

920
00:45:08,480 --> 00:45:11,480
Speaker 4: the sense of like the Twitter account still exists and

921
00:45:11,719 --> 00:45:15,719
Speaker 4: Brimlo is still writing on substack. Some of it is

922
00:45:15,760 --> 00:45:18,600
Speaker 4: a legal thing to try to, you know, get them

923
00:45:18,640 --> 00:45:21,799
Speaker 4: out of the way of Letitia James. But you know

924
00:45:22,000 --> 00:45:24,279
Speaker 4: they're really broken down. I mean the videos that they

925
00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:28,160
Speaker 4: published about their closing, I mean it's just a laundry

926
00:45:28,200 --> 00:45:31,560
Speaker 4: list of things that add up to a defeat. I

927
00:45:31,560 --> 00:45:33,560
Speaker 4: don't think they would disagree with that that they felt

928
00:45:33,560 --> 00:45:36,239
Speaker 4: defeated by the end, and the people who were in

929
00:45:36,280 --> 00:45:38,320
Speaker 4: the town, who are so nice and sweet and wonderful

930
00:45:38,360 --> 00:45:41,239
Speaker 4: and all this, they're laughing as you would, right as

931
00:45:41,239 --> 00:45:43,640
Speaker 4: everybody talked about like when Trump dies, and everybody's like, oh,

932
00:45:43,640 --> 00:45:45,279
Speaker 4: I'm going to do this when Trump dies and all

933
00:45:45,280 --> 00:45:48,480
Speaker 4: that stuff. Right, it's just liberation from that thing. But

934
00:45:49,000 --> 00:45:51,440
Speaker 4: ultimately it's a really like if you just look at

935
00:45:51,440 --> 00:45:54,000
Speaker 4: the Brimlows, it is, you know, it is a brutal

936
00:45:54,080 --> 00:45:55,239
Speaker 4: fall by the end of the book.

937
00:45:55,920 --> 00:45:58,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean ten years ago they were poised to

938
00:45:58,400 --> 00:46:02,000
Speaker 3: be on top of the world and their ideas remain ascendant.

939
00:46:02,080 --> 00:46:05,719
Speaker 3: But he himself has really fallen. Now he just has

940
00:46:05,760 --> 00:46:08,160
Speaker 3: the flooded basement of his little racism castle.

941
00:46:08,360 --> 00:46:11,040
Speaker 4: Well, there's no there's no solidarity on their side. I

942
00:46:11,160 --> 00:46:12,959
Speaker 4: just oh god, that's what I saying.

943
00:46:13,080 --> 00:46:14,759
Speaker 2: Oh, that's one thing they will never happen.

944
00:46:14,840 --> 00:46:18,719
Speaker 4: I mean, you get somebody who annoys me, who is

945
00:46:19,080 --> 00:46:21,760
Speaker 4: a sort of anti fascist, anti racist who like annoys

946
00:46:21,760 --> 00:46:24,000
Speaker 4: the shit out of me. But they they wind up like,

947
00:46:24,360 --> 00:46:27,880
Speaker 4: you know, being targeted by somebody. I'm like, okay, well.

948
00:46:27,760 --> 00:46:29,279
Speaker 2: You're not going to gloat about their down phone.

949
00:46:29,480 --> 00:46:31,120
Speaker 4: But not only that, but it's like now it's time

950
00:46:31,160 --> 00:46:34,080
Speaker 4: to like, you know, support them. You know, that's the

951
00:46:34,080 --> 00:46:34,760
Speaker 4: way I feel.

952
00:46:34,920 --> 00:46:36,400
Speaker 3: And they just don't do that. They don't do it

953
00:46:36,440 --> 00:46:38,200
Speaker 3: for each other. They hate each other.

954
00:46:38,760 --> 00:46:42,319
Speaker 4: They're always malignant narcissists because it's always about cloying to

955
00:46:42,360 --> 00:46:44,960
Speaker 4: the top, right, it's always trying to get power over

956
00:46:45,000 --> 00:46:45,520
Speaker 4: other people.

957
00:46:45,560 --> 00:46:47,279
Speaker 3: I mean, everybody wants to be the crab at the

958
00:46:47,280 --> 00:46:48,759
Speaker 3: top of the bucket, but you're still a crab and

959
00:46:48,800 --> 00:46:49,760
Speaker 3: a goddamn bucket.

960
00:46:50,200 --> 00:46:53,360
Speaker 4: There's two strains of maga, I know, mega is a

961
00:46:53,440 --> 00:46:56,600
Speaker 4: very broad term, and like one of them is really

962
00:46:56,640 --> 00:47:01,080
Speaker 4: this kind of grift focused kind of crypto web three

963
00:47:01,160 --> 00:47:05,000
Speaker 4: aligned aspect. We're just AI and this, and like a

964
00:47:05,080 --> 00:47:07,359
Speaker 4: small number of people, like fifteen percent will go hoard

965
00:47:07,360 --> 00:47:11,560
Speaker 4: a bunch of like fake coins or whatever things polymarket

966
00:47:11,880 --> 00:47:15,120
Speaker 4: like odds or whatever. They're all hoarding information to kind

967
00:47:15,120 --> 00:47:18,719
Speaker 4: of beat people in polymarket and then the suckers they

968
00:47:18,920 --> 00:47:20,960
Speaker 4: you know whatever, the rest of it, the bigger percentage

969
00:47:21,000 --> 00:47:24,120
Speaker 4: of seventy five percent followers, they're taking their money and

970
00:47:24,200 --> 00:47:26,719
Speaker 4: that's baga. That's a big part of bag. And then

971
00:47:26,760 --> 00:47:30,839
Speaker 4: the other part is less concerned with money, although money

972
00:47:30,880 --> 00:47:34,960
Speaker 4: is a part of it. Is just ascending and pushing

973
00:47:35,040 --> 00:47:37,880
Speaker 4: down from a power space, right, Like you just like

974
00:47:37,920 --> 00:47:40,760
Speaker 4: to be in a place where they can have power

975
00:47:40,800 --> 00:47:44,759
Speaker 4: over other people, and usually other people being designated by

976
00:47:45,200 --> 00:47:47,600
Speaker 4: not looking like them, or not behaving like them, or

977
00:47:47,640 --> 00:47:52,520
Speaker 4: not having the same kind of boyfriend's girlfriends whatever than them.

978
00:47:52,800 --> 00:47:54,520
Speaker 3: It's like, I mean, I couldn't be happier that Peter

979
00:47:54,560 --> 00:47:57,320
Speaker 3: Brimlow is going to end his career on the bottom

980
00:47:57,400 --> 00:47:58,760
Speaker 3: of the heap he was trying to climb.

981
00:47:58,800 --> 00:48:01,120
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, yeah, and they'll be I guarantee you

982
00:48:01,160 --> 00:48:05,040
Speaker 4: there'll be more of an effort from us to define

983
00:48:05,080 --> 00:48:08,480
Speaker 4: his legacy than from them, because they don't care. They

984
00:48:08,480 --> 00:48:08,960
Speaker 4: don't care.

985
00:48:09,239 --> 00:48:11,400
Speaker 2: No, they they will, they'll use you up and forget you.

986
00:48:11,480 --> 00:48:13,640
Speaker 4: Yeah, they don't care. We will. We will spend more

987
00:48:13,680 --> 00:48:16,239
Speaker 4: time on him than so I mean, we're talking about

988
00:48:16,280 --> 00:48:18,080
Speaker 4: him right now. I mean we have I have I

989
00:48:18,120 --> 00:48:20,120
Speaker 4: host a podcast where we talk about these guys all

990
00:48:20,120 --> 00:48:22,120
Speaker 4: the time, right, so it's a grow he's bringing up

991
00:48:22,239 --> 00:48:24,560
Speaker 4: new guys. I think we're doing we're doing a full

992
00:48:24,600 --> 00:48:27,960
Speaker 4: BIOEP on Steven Miller soon. You know, they don't do that.

993
00:48:28,000 --> 00:48:30,479
Speaker 4: They don't care, They're not like, here's the reason Steven's great.

994
00:48:30,640 --> 00:48:33,440
Speaker 3: Like no, I mean, Jason Kesslo disappeared from the Internet

995
00:48:33,480 --> 00:48:35,240
Speaker 3: a year ago, and they don't talk about him anymore.

996
00:48:35,400 --> 00:48:37,480
Speaker 2: Oh, It's it's like he never existed.

997
00:48:37,880 --> 00:48:40,000
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, but you know what, I hope he

998
00:48:40,080 --> 00:48:42,960
Speaker 4: stays off that, you know what I mean. I try

999
00:48:43,000 --> 00:48:46,960
Speaker 4: to find some forgiveness in my heart. You know, maybe

1000
00:48:46,960 --> 00:48:49,640
Speaker 4: it's the Catholic upbringing, whatever, but I try to find

1001
00:48:49,880 --> 00:48:52,799
Speaker 4: some even though he literally who knows what he did

1002
00:48:52,800 --> 00:48:55,000
Speaker 4: that was related to the threats I received because he

1003
00:48:55,040 --> 00:48:55,960
Speaker 4: wrote stuff about me.

1004
00:48:56,239 --> 00:48:58,200
Speaker 3: I mean, I think that that series he put on

1005
00:48:58,320 --> 00:49:00,560
Speaker 3: v Dare that included information about you and your family

1006
00:49:00,560 --> 00:49:01,239
Speaker 3: certainly didn't help.

1007
00:49:01,320 --> 00:49:05,520
Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure. But you know, if he stays offline

1008
00:49:05,520 --> 00:49:08,320
Speaker 4: and he stays like this, like, I hope that he's

1009
00:49:08,640 --> 00:49:09,480
Speaker 4: getting some help.

1010
00:49:09,719 --> 00:49:12,000
Speaker 3: That's all anyone ever asked. I mean, that's all I

1011
00:49:12,080 --> 00:49:15,359
Speaker 3: was ever asking for from these guys. I'm not even

1012
00:49:15,400 --> 00:49:17,000
Speaker 3: holding out hope that you change your heart.

1013
00:49:17,080 --> 00:49:19,360
Speaker 2: I just want you to stop doing.

1014
00:49:19,080 --> 00:49:21,920
Speaker 3: Stuff about it, Yeah, I mean, just stop trying to

1015
00:49:21,960 --> 00:49:22,880
Speaker 3: make everything worse.

1016
00:49:23,000 --> 00:49:26,440
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, really, like I mean, but if he's out

1017
00:49:26,480 --> 00:49:28,759
Speaker 4: there and he's like, no, I'm just gonna, like, you know,

1018
00:49:29,360 --> 00:49:31,600
Speaker 4: keep it quiet. And I have a hard time imagining

1019
00:49:31,640 --> 00:49:35,160
Speaker 4: that guy like finding any kind of change of heart.

1020
00:49:35,280 --> 00:49:38,719
Speaker 4: But it would be great if he just stayed, just

1021
00:49:38,800 --> 00:49:43,200
Speaker 4: stayed at everything and just lived his life. And you know, privately,

1022
00:49:43,400 --> 00:49:47,440
Speaker 4: I would I would feel some tiny crumb of respect for.

1023
00:49:47,480 --> 00:49:51,640
Speaker 3: That God willing, God willing, and maybe, uh maybe Peter

1024
00:49:51,680 --> 00:49:55,080
Speaker 3: Brimo will log off forever eventually too.

1025
00:49:55,200 --> 00:49:59,640
Speaker 4: Well yeah, I mean based upon the age that's.

1026
00:49:59,760 --> 00:50:01,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, well he's going to He's going to do a

1027
00:50:01,680 --> 00:50:03,360
Speaker 2: permanent log off eventually.

1028
00:50:03,680 --> 00:50:07,799
Speaker 4: Permanent logoff eventually. I've heard all kinds of gossip about

1029
00:50:08,200 --> 00:50:13,279
Speaker 4: from people in Berkeley Springs that Lydia really doesn't want

1030
00:50:13,320 --> 00:50:16,480
Speaker 4: to be associated with the white nationalist movement and really

1031
00:50:16,520 --> 00:50:19,960
Speaker 4: doesn't want us to be associated with the movement in general.

1032
00:50:20,160 --> 00:50:21,719
Speaker 4: Just if you want to give it another term that

1033
00:50:21,719 --> 00:50:23,920
Speaker 4: they might use, like dissit and write or whatever. She's

1034
00:50:24,680 --> 00:50:26,759
Speaker 4: I think, I don't know this for a fact that

1035
00:50:26,800 --> 00:50:29,720
Speaker 4: she would never tell me directly. Think about Lydia Bremlo.

1036
00:50:30,200 --> 00:50:34,480
Speaker 4: You're twenty years old. This very rich white husband comes

1037
00:50:34,480 --> 00:50:38,919
Speaker 4: by his old for you. He's like fifty seven, and

1038
00:50:39,840 --> 00:50:43,080
Speaker 4: he's recently lost his wife Bremola lost his first wife

1039
00:50:43,360 --> 00:50:47,720
Speaker 4: to cancer. And you're in the kind of heritage seeing

1040
00:50:47,719 --> 00:50:51,480
Speaker 4: your kind of conservative yourself, and this guy's pretty conservative.

1041
00:50:51,760 --> 00:50:54,960
Speaker 4: This is this is happening around a time in which

1042
00:50:55,080 --> 00:50:58,239
Speaker 4: alien nation is still kind of acceptable.

1043
00:50:58,360 --> 00:50:59,879
Speaker 2: I mean, at least in the heritage front set.

1044
00:51:00,400 --> 00:51:02,719
Speaker 4: Yeah, on the right it was a kind of acceptable.

1045
00:51:03,040 --> 00:51:05,640
Speaker 4: But you know, even if it's acceptable, the worst you

1046
00:51:05,640 --> 00:51:07,239
Speaker 4: could say about it. He's kind of a bad boy,

1047
00:51:07,400 --> 00:51:09,239
Speaker 4: like a bad you know, he's got right so it's

1048
00:51:09,239 --> 00:51:11,759
Speaker 4: sort of like, ooh, edgy. He's like an edgy bad boy,

1049
00:51:12,400 --> 00:51:16,560
Speaker 4: and you kind of get indoctrinated into the movement that way.

1050
00:51:17,040 --> 00:51:20,000
Speaker 4: And you're in a marriage you like, I don't know,

1051
00:51:20,040 --> 00:51:22,520
Speaker 4: Like when I was like twenty something, I don't know,

1052
00:51:22,560 --> 00:51:24,520
Speaker 4: I didn't know what the hell was going on. So

1053
00:51:24,560 --> 00:51:27,680
Speaker 4: you're in this marriage with this dude, and you have

1054
00:51:27,800 --> 00:51:31,759
Speaker 4: kids now and you've seen the other side of it,

1055
00:51:31,840 --> 00:51:34,840
Speaker 4: the hell of it up close. All the time. People

1056
00:51:35,080 --> 00:51:37,840
Speaker 4: shutting down the website. People there were hackers. There's all

1057
00:51:37,920 --> 00:51:40,200
Speaker 4: kinds of things that they're dealing with constantly. Everyone is

1058
00:51:40,239 --> 00:51:43,400
Speaker 4: telling you, everyone other than people in the movement are

1059
00:51:43,640 --> 00:51:45,920
Speaker 4: finding ways. Whenever they get a chance to speak to you,

1060
00:51:45,960 --> 00:51:50,000
Speaker 4: they're telling you, you know, go fuck yourself. We hate this, right,

1061
00:51:50,239 --> 00:51:52,160
Speaker 4: we hate you. We don't like this stuff.

1062
00:51:52,200 --> 00:51:53,200
Speaker 2: It's got to be discouraging.

1063
00:51:53,480 --> 00:51:55,440
Speaker 4: I mean for years and then now all of a sudden,

1064
00:51:55,480 --> 00:51:57,919
Speaker 4: you're turning forty and you've got kids and you're looking

1065
00:51:57,960 --> 00:52:01,480
Speaker 4: at this. I mean, I personally would want to like

1066
00:52:01,640 --> 00:52:03,600
Speaker 4: just get as far away from it as possible. I mean,

1067
00:52:03,600 --> 00:52:06,400
Speaker 4: it just seems like it's just a depressing just you know.

1068
00:52:07,200 --> 00:52:09,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like I said, that's all I want for these

1069
00:52:09,719 --> 00:52:11,840
Speaker 3: people is that they stop doing harm in the world.

1070
00:52:12,040 --> 00:52:13,799
Speaker 3: And you know, if they have a change of heart,

1071
00:52:13,840 --> 00:52:17,440
Speaker 3: that's wonderful. Don't tell us about it. Yeah, just just

1072
00:52:17,520 --> 00:52:19,960
Speaker 3: log off, Just go be normal, go get a real job,

1073
00:52:20,520 --> 00:52:23,799
Speaker 3: stop being a Nazi. Just just go just go be

1074
00:52:23,840 --> 00:52:24,560
Speaker 3: a guy in the world.

1075
00:52:24,680 --> 00:52:27,520
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would really like that. I think they're kind

1076
00:52:27,560 --> 00:52:31,680
Speaker 4: of entering now a sort of post Nazi phase.

1077
00:52:32,239 --> 00:52:34,360
Speaker 3: M I mean, because they don't they don't have to

1078
00:52:34,360 --> 00:52:37,000
Speaker 3: be edgy anymore. They're the mainstream Republican politics.

1079
00:52:37,040 --> 00:52:38,920
Speaker 4: Now you can be just you can just be a

1080
00:52:38,960 --> 00:52:40,799
Speaker 4: gracist nazi at all the time. And that's why starting

1081
00:52:40,800 --> 00:52:43,400
Speaker 4: to mutate into like these like whole looks maxing and

1082
00:52:43,480 --> 00:52:46,200
Speaker 4: like you know, which is like in cel but like

1083
00:52:47,120 --> 00:52:50,759
Speaker 4: we're not insuls anymore, we hammer our face whatever, you know.

1084
00:52:50,840 --> 00:52:54,680
Speaker 4: I just think that they're now so they think they're

1085
00:52:54,680 --> 00:52:56,600
Speaker 4: such part of the culture, and it would be it'll

1086
00:52:56,640 --> 00:52:59,719
Speaker 4: be very interesting for me to see if there is

1087
00:52:59,760 --> 00:53:02,680
Speaker 4: a huge change after this, if we see sort of

1088
00:53:02,680 --> 00:53:05,600
Speaker 4: the Trump regime kind of fall, have a really hard fall,

1089
00:53:05,760 --> 00:53:09,080
Speaker 4: and some of this really starts to break up. What

1090
00:53:09,239 --> 00:53:11,160
Speaker 4: will happen and when people like look back at some

1091
00:53:11,239 --> 00:53:13,320
Speaker 4: of the stuff that's happening over the past like a

1092
00:53:13,440 --> 00:53:17,759
Speaker 4: few years, even as there's been this tremendous explosion. If

1093
00:53:17,760 --> 00:53:19,560
Speaker 4: you look at the time from when the book ended,

1094
00:53:19,840 --> 00:53:22,120
Speaker 4: which is again on the election day, the day after

1095
00:53:22,160 --> 00:53:23,720
Speaker 4: the election, I'm twenty twenty four.

1096
00:53:24,160 --> 00:53:25,520
Speaker 2: I mean, what a moment to end things.

1097
00:53:25,640 --> 00:53:27,880
Speaker 4: Yeah, but if you look at that from there to now,

1098
00:53:28,440 --> 00:53:30,880
Speaker 4: you see like that was almost like an endpoint before

1099
00:53:30,920 --> 00:53:33,560
Speaker 4: this new culture that we're in now where you have

1100
00:53:33,640 --> 00:53:38,480
Speaker 4: the shootings in Minneapolis, and it's just the outright violence,

1101
00:53:38,520 --> 00:53:42,160
Speaker 4: the blown up boats, to all this stuff. I'm very

1102
00:53:42,200 --> 00:53:45,839
Speaker 4: curious to see our culture, if our culture can heal

1103
00:53:45,880 --> 00:53:48,640
Speaker 4: a little bit, how this stuff will be viewed.

1104
00:53:49,239 --> 00:53:51,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it is, like you said, it ends

1105
00:53:51,560 --> 00:53:54,120
Speaker 3: before the story is over. But I think you know,

1106
00:53:54,280 --> 00:53:57,239
Speaker 3: as as a portrait of that four year period in

1107
00:53:57,280 --> 00:53:57,880
Speaker 3: that town.

1108
00:53:59,200 --> 00:54:00,120
Speaker 2: I mean, it's fascinating.

1109
00:54:00,160 --> 00:54:03,000
Speaker 3: It is i think, applicable to the world outside of

1110
00:54:03,000 --> 00:54:06,279
Speaker 3: Berkeley Springs, but it is a very intimate look at

1111
00:54:06,640 --> 00:54:09,800
Speaker 3: what it means for a weird old racist blogger to

1112
00:54:09,840 --> 00:54:11,800
Speaker 3: move into the castle that looms above.

1113
00:54:11,600 --> 00:54:12,400
Speaker 2: Your coffee shop.

1114
00:54:13,960 --> 00:54:16,600
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I don't want to keep you forever, but I

1115
00:54:16,640 --> 00:54:18,959
Speaker 3: just want to remind the listener Strange people on the Hill,

1116
00:54:19,000 --> 00:54:21,600
Speaker 3: how extremism tore a part of small American town by

1117
00:54:21,600 --> 00:54:24,200
Speaker 3: Michael Edison Hayden comes out April.

1118
00:54:24,360 --> 00:54:26,080
Speaker 4: Seventh, Yeah, April seventh.

1119
00:54:26,120 --> 00:54:26,800
Speaker 2: April seventh.

1120
00:54:26,840 --> 00:54:29,160
Speaker 3: You can pre order it now wherever books are sold,

1121
00:54:29,239 --> 00:54:30,880
Speaker 3: or you could just go to a bookstore on April

1122
00:54:30,920 --> 00:54:32,960
Speaker 3: seventh and pick a copy up. I'm going to go

1123
00:54:33,000 --> 00:54:35,480
Speaker 3: ahead and contact my local anarchist bookstore to make sure

1124
00:54:35,480 --> 00:54:37,160
Speaker 3: they have an order in for it, and I recommend

1125
00:54:37,200 --> 00:54:37,560
Speaker 3: you do the.

1126
00:54:37,520 --> 00:54:39,040
Speaker 4: Same anarchist bookstore.

1127
00:54:39,040 --> 00:54:42,759
Speaker 3: Better don't buy it on Amazon. I mean you can,

1128
00:54:42,840 --> 00:54:46,200
Speaker 3: but don't. Yeah, and tell your local library that you

1129
00:54:46,239 --> 00:54:48,279
Speaker 3: want them to buy a copy, because that matters too,

1130
00:54:48,320 --> 00:54:50,640
Speaker 3: And that gets this book into more people's hands, because

1131
00:54:50,640 --> 00:54:52,799
Speaker 3: not everybody can afford to buy a book. So yeah,

1132
00:54:52,960 --> 00:54:55,960
Speaker 3: request it at your local independent bookstore and your library.

1133
00:54:55,640 --> 00:54:56,040
Speaker 2: If you can.

1134
00:54:56,440 --> 00:54:59,320
Speaker 4: Yeah. I heard from friends that like at random places

1135
00:54:59,360 --> 00:55:01,840
Speaker 4: in Illinois and whatever that they can find the book

1136
00:55:02,480 --> 00:55:04,279
Speaker 4: at their local library. They we'll be able to get it.

1137
00:55:04,320 --> 00:55:07,560
Speaker 4: So that's great. Please ask for it and uh yeah,

1138
00:55:07,640 --> 00:55:10,200
Speaker 4: and enjoy it. I think it'll have. My hope is

1139
00:55:10,239 --> 00:55:12,440
Speaker 4: it has long tail. There's some word of mouth about

1140
00:55:12,440 --> 00:55:16,040
Speaker 4: the era. So something to read, something to read not

1141
00:55:16,200 --> 00:55:18,359
Speaker 4: just now but also in the future. Yeah.

1142
00:55:18,360 --> 00:55:21,400
Speaker 3: It is a fascinating picture of a particular moment in

1143
00:55:21,480 --> 00:55:25,640
Speaker 3: time that has broader lessons I think. But Mike, thanks

1144
00:55:25,640 --> 00:55:28,120
Speaker 3: so much for coming on. Where can people find you online?

1145
00:55:28,239 --> 00:55:31,040
Speaker 4: Thank you? You're so you're even cooler in person.

1146
00:55:31,280 --> 00:55:32,440
Speaker 2: I just want to thank you.

1147
00:55:32,480 --> 00:55:34,880
Speaker 4: Where can find me online? I'm in blue Sky? What

1148
00:55:35,239 --> 00:55:37,360
Speaker 4: the hell is? What? I hate? The Blue Sky handles.

1149
00:55:37,680 --> 00:55:39,480
Speaker 4: That was the one thing that you know, people complain

1150
00:55:39,520 --> 00:55:41,200
Speaker 4: about Blue Sky, and it's like for me, it's like,

1151
00:55:41,239 --> 00:55:43,319
Speaker 4: what do you even want? Dude, Like, you know, all

1152
00:55:43,360 --> 00:55:46,440
Speaker 4: this stuff is so bad, right, like, what do you

1153
00:55:46,440 --> 00:55:49,600
Speaker 4: even want? It's Michael E. Hayden dot b s K

1154
00:55:49,920 --> 00:55:54,160
Speaker 4: Y dot social s O C I A L. I'm

1155
00:55:54,200 --> 00:55:57,560
Speaker 4: still technically on Twitter at Michael E. Hayden, where I've

1156
00:55:57,600 --> 00:55:59,960
Speaker 4: always been. You know, when I was writing the book

1157
00:56:00,080 --> 00:56:01,880
Speaker 4: and I was recovering from the mental health thing, I

1158
00:56:01,960 --> 00:56:04,520
Speaker 4: wasn't online at all for all twenty twenty four and

1159
00:56:04,600 --> 00:56:09,719
Speaker 4: so my nice that greatered my ex engagement. In any case,

1160
00:56:09,760 --> 00:56:11,480
Speaker 4: I don't like being on there too much, just for

1161
00:56:11,920 --> 00:56:13,040
Speaker 4: anything other than research.

1162
00:56:13,320 --> 00:56:15,480
Speaker 2: And people can find you every week on posting through it.

1163
00:56:15,600 --> 00:56:19,840
Speaker 4: Jared Hall, Oh, that's true. Yeah, just yeah, just do that.

1164
00:56:20,000 --> 00:56:22,200
Speaker 4: You can listen to us talk about all kinds of things.

1165
00:56:22,200 --> 00:56:26,120
Speaker 4: We're talking about cashpital, we're talking about the ai fruits

1166
00:56:26,400 --> 00:56:31,560
Speaker 4: that we keep finding on our feeds now, all kinds.

1167
00:56:31,360 --> 00:56:36,000
Speaker 3: Of topics, the fruits. Oh my, thank you so much.

1168
00:56:36,200 --> 00:56:38,879
Speaker 3: And again by the book, You're gonna love it.

1169
00:56:39,160 --> 00:56:41,000
Speaker 4: Thanks Mollia, thanks so much.

1170
00:56:41,080 --> 00:56:41,920
Speaker 2: Byte but.

1171
00:56:45,800 --> 00:56:48,280
Speaker 1: It could happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.

1172
00:56:48,480 --> 00:56:51,480
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media. Visit our website

1173
00:56:51,600 --> 00:56:55,160
Speaker 1: Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

1174
00:56:55,239 --> 00:56:58,799
Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can

1175
00:56:58,840 --> 00:57:01,200
Speaker 1: now find sources for it to happen here, listed directly

1176
00:57:01,200 --> 00:57:03,520
Speaker 1: in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.