Behind the Bastards - Does Punching Nazis Work? A Conversation From Unite The Right 2.0

Episode Date: August 23, 2018

This Bonus Episode is Robert's discussion after protesting at Unite The Right 2.0. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Alphabet Boys is a new podcast series that goes inside undercover investigations. In the first season, we're diving into an FBI investigation of the 2020 protests. It involves a cigar-smoking mystery man who drives a silver hearse. And inside his hearse look like a lot of guns. But are federal agents catching bad guys or creating them? He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to happen. Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science,

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Now, normally at least, that's what the show is about. But this week we're talking about, you know, the Nazis, the modern Nazis, the Nazis who are marching in the streets of America right now, and who in fact were marching in the streets of Washington DC just a few minutes before this podcast was recorded. In part one of this episode we dissected the new Nazi movement and how it's changed since Charlottesville, and in this episode we're going to be talking about what we saw at the United Right 2.0 rally, and more to the point we're going to be trying to answer the question, is it a good idea to punch Nazis? Now, first I should say nobody that we're going to be talking with today punched a Nazi today's rally. It went pretty much as well as these sort of things can go, but it's still a question I think is worth debating.

If you spend any amount of time online in anti-fascist activist circles, you will come across this Hitler quote, probably next to a picture of Richard Spencer getting punched in the face. The quote as it is usually displayed reads, only one thing could have stopped our movement if our adversaries had understood its principle and from the first day smashed with the utmost brutality the nucleus of our new movement. And that's an Adolf Hitler quote. And Hitler did say those words, but he did not say exactly those quotes in that order, as is usually the case with online quotes attributed to any sort of famous person, it's a little bit wrong.

So I'm going to read the actual Hitler quote, which was given during a speech in 1933. Only one danger could have jeopardized this development if our adversaries had understood its principle, established a clear understanding of our ideas and not offered any resistance, or alternatively if they had from the first day annihilated with the utmost brutality the nucleus of our new movement. So you see the difference there in the quote that's usually spread around online. It says, Hitler was basically saying the only thing that could have stopped us was if people had beat us up in the streets during our rise to power. The actual quote is, Hitler was saying two things, we could have been stopped if we'd have been beaten up in the streets, or if people had very clearly and very cogently elucidated what we were about, what we wanted,

and made it clear to everyone what our goals were and what our plans were. That could have stopped us too, especially if the people doing it had been nonviolent. So Hitler's opinion on the matter is a little bit more multifaceted than is usually presented. And so the question of whether or not it's a good idea to punch Nazis is a little bit more complicated than anti-Nazi activists like to feel. And I say this as someone who has just done some anti-Nazi activism. So I'm not inherently against the idea of hitting these people either. It's a complicated issue. I think there's a couple of things we need to keep in mind before we get into our discussion.

One of them is that in the 1920s and 30s in Germany during the rise of the Nazi party, there were constant riots and running street battles all across Weimar Germany. And in the mid-1920s, when this was all going on, Berlin was known as the reddest city in Europe. As we talked about on our non-Nazi bastards episode, Berlin was if you were gay, if you were trans, if you were progressive, maybe the best city in the world to live in. And it was very much not a friendly place for Nazis. The rally we were just at had 50 or so Nazi activists or less and several thousand anti-Nazi activists. And it wouldn't have been very different in Berlin when the Nazis first arrived.

Now, the guy that Hitler put in charge of Berlin when the Nazis first started trying to make inroads into the reddest city in Europe was Joseph Goebbels. Goebbels was put in charge of the Berlin's Nazi branch, and his whole strategy when he gained that position was to send his very few Berlin Nazis directly into leftist-controlled chunks of the city. Now, Goebbels' Nazis would fight with anti-fascist activists, with communist activists, with leftist activists, and there would be street battles. And the Nazis lost a lot of these street battles.

They lost a lot of people, some of them were killed. But the violence that this incurred helped inspire conservatives within the German government to be afraid of the anti-Nazi activists. So it's not clear that fighting Nazis in Berlin helped stop them. Political moderates were alienated by the violence, and since they were closer to the far-right Nazis than the far-left anti-fascists, well, the conservatives wound up making cause with Hitler. And that's more or less what happened.

That was the Nazis' plan from the beginning, and it worked out. So the question of what's to be done about these Nazis is complicated. Can violence make racists afraid again, or does it only help them? In the lead-up to the first Charlottesville rally, the fascists went in looking for conflict. In today's rally, it was a different matter. And today I'm going to be talking with a round table of people that I attended this protest with, and we're going to try to get to the bottom of whether or not it's a good idea to hit Nazis, and we'll also be talking about what we saw and how we feel about the day.

So that's my thing. There's a little bit of time dilation between what the users or listeners listening are going to hear and what has happened in the conversation. So from y'all's perspective, I just finished reading a speech about whether or not it's a good idea to hit Nazis. And from our perspective, we've been drinking for 90 minutes or more after getting done yelling at Nazis all day. So the listener should be aware that nobody is sober in this situation, and that now we're going to talk about whether or not it's a good idea to hit Nazis, and also what happened at this Nazi protest in D.C.

So let's go around the room and introduce our talkers about their Nazi yelling at experiences. That was good. That was a good line. I feel good about that. Well, one of the things that we saw early on... Give me your name. My name is Hannah Ettinger. I was on the last episode over and my podcast is Kitchen Table Cult. I host that with Kieran Darkwater. So one of the things that happened early on this morning was at the Foggy Bottom metro station right after the Nazis got off the train.

There were about 30 or so of them, maybe less. There was this really fantastically angry old white guy with a British accent. He was like an aging punk or something. He was like an aging punk or something, yeah. And he was calling them Ewankers over and over. He left over the cops to try to, like, I don't know, express his rage. And he had a bike and he, like, fell into the... He wanted to hit some Nazis.

He fell into the bike and they were shoving him and the cops hit him and he got kicked. It was rough. I tried to get on video and I missed it, but whoever you are, you're our hero of the day and this podcast is dedicated to you. Yeah, a random British guy who did one of the best leaps over a line of cops I've ever seen to try to punch a Nazi in the face. Regardless of what we land on, vis-a-vis hitting Nazis is a good idea, you're a hero and I want that to be clear to everybody that I think that man is a hero. Should I ever run into you again? I'm not sure if I would recognize you because things were pretty nuts, but if I should ever run into you again, I will buy you a beer. Perhaps several beers.

Please. Give us a shout out. We'd like to buy you a beer. Alright, Nick. You should use yourself. I am Nick Wood. I am a former Marine. I'm currently an apprentice farmer and also a science fiction writer and I'm kind of on team punch Nazis until they can't see.

My name is Laurent Morel. It's my first protest ever in life. So I'm overwearing with different feelings and emotions right now of what I saw and how I felt, but punching Nazis is definitely something I did not. I felt at one point, but then it gradually went away as the protest went. What are you feeling right now? Man, I don't know. I can't believe that people are still out here doing things that my grandmother told me about. I'm still fighting the fight that my grandmother and grandfather was fighting many years ago.

I felt like we settled this twice. At least. How many fucking times do we have to keep kicking the shit out of the fucking Nazis? Well, kind of the way I feel, you know, you're talking about how the Hitler was saying that either people being very intellectual about it and very cogent, understanding that these guys are evil fuckers and then just not fighting them or them getting the absolute, ever-loving shit kicked out of them. I'm kind of on team kick the shit out of the Nazis because they want to eradicate me and everyone that looks like me from existence. But the thing is, I think that the only way for that to be effective is for... It's more effective when the town kicks the shit out of the Nazis and not a team of anti-fascists kicks the shit out of the Nazis.

Because when it's like 25 Antifa fighting 25 Nazis or whatever is going on, there's obviously the odds change. But when it's a small group of Antifa fighting the Nazis, then you can be like, well, there's good or bad people on both sides. Or people can be like, well, violence is never the answer. But when the entire town of Washington, D.C. gets up and kicks the shit out of all of the Nazis, what that says is don't come to Washington, D.C. if you're a fucking Nazi. And I think that's true. One of the things that unsettles me a little bit about demonstrations like this, and I think is a legitimate risk to avoid, is that the police are there.

And I'm sure I know that because one of the police officers who was photographed under D.D. today has Nazi-ish tattoos and has been photographed cosplaying as a Nazi. So I'm sure some of these guys are sympathetic to the Nazis, but most of them aren't. There were a lot of black officers, there were a lot of Latino officers, there were a lot of Filipino and Asian officers. I'm sure they're not Nazis because why would they be? There's nothing in that ideology for them. But the nature of a protest and the nature of the police protecting this tiny number of protesters from a much larger number of counter protesters means that the police become the opposing force.

And I don't know how to fix that, but I don't think that's a healthy development because it shouldn't be the police versus the anti-fascists trying to get at the fascists. It should be, as you say, the community, the nation, everybody being like. And maybe that's a free speech thing. Maybe we need to say that, you know, you have freedom of speech, but you don't have the freedom of speech to yell fire in a crowded theater. Likewise, you have freedom of speech, you don't have freedom of speech to advocate for genocide and racial cleansing. And maybe we don't give these people a platform to speak.

The police aren't put in a situation where they're protecting them so that we don't have anti-fascists yelling at police because they want to get to the Nazis. I don't know what the solution is, but it's clearly it can be done better than it's being done. I think that kind of on that topic, one of the things that would help is basically, so to preface this, we have seen multiple situations where the cops go a little off script and fuck up the counter protesters. We saw that shit in Portland where a cop fired a tear gas grenade at the back of somebody's head, and we've got pictures of the cops after that happened.

And critically, the back of his head. Not a guy charging him. They're grinning. They're like, this is fucking cool. And the thing is, that happens to anti-fascists and Black Lives Matter, and anyone fighting these assholes all the time. The cops will fuck up the people fighting the Nazis or the racists or whoever, whatever fucking assholes out there. But we don't ever, ever see the cops break rank when it comes to dealing with the Nazis,

when it comes to protecting the fucking Nazis. And I understand that they have their orders, and I understand that their job is there to protect the Nazis, but the thing that really needs to happen, if the cops don't want to be the bad guys here, if they don't like hearing those chants at the protest of who do you protect, who do you serve, they got real mad when they heard that one. And I mean, I just, I like that. But they, if they don't want to hear those protests, then they need to be just as willing to occasionally break the rules and fuck up the Nazis,

or let the Nazis get fucked up as they are to fuck up the counter protesters. It's like, it's again, one of those axiomatic things. Either they need to be perfectly disciplined at fully protecting the Nazis, and the anti-fascists. Like, they need to be, either that, either they need to be utterly impartial mediators in this situation, which they are not. Or they need to let the Nazis get fucked up sometimes so the Nazis don't get to think the police are on their side. One of the things that is really telling about that observation is,

you know who is vulnerable and who is not in that situation. The ones that the police are not going to break the rules. Around. Are the people who have the actual power. When the police are willing to break the rules, they know they're not going to have consequences for it. Because the people that they are breaking rank over are the people who are vulnerable in this situation. So, like, with the situation in Portland,

the anti-fascist protesters are the vulnerable people here. And the fact that the Nazis got a metro car of their own today, shows that the system of power ultimately is reinforcing their message. And I think, so this is one of the things that scares me, is I am very sympathetic to the anti-fascists. I'm very sympathetic to activists today. When there are a chance, like, you know, who do you protect? Or when there are a chance to fuck the police.

I understand the motivation, because the police in this country, I think if you're a reasonably well informed person, you understand there's problems with law enforcement in this country. There's issues with how it goes down. The fascist activists, unless these activists than other activists, have been very good at getting the police on their side. And there are, there's evidence of this fact. In March 13th, the Homeland Security Analyst in an email to local law enforcement in Tennessee, noted that the traditional Workers' Party, which is one of the groups that was behind the first United The Right protest,

quote, typically is not the issue, but rather opposing groups. In April, police in Georgia, and this is April of 2017, police in Georgia revealed they planned for mass violence at a local rally, based on rumors that were spread by a far right wing 3%er, which is like a militia group, Facebook account that was claiming that there would be 12,000 anti-fascists at the party, or at the protest, and that they would be looting and rioting and whatnot. The police trust these people more than they trust the anti-fascist activists. And I'm sure some of it has to do with the fact that a lot of police officers, or a number of police officers have biases of their own,

but some of it has to do with the fact that all of the racists at these rallies are nice to the police, and all the anti-fascists are yelling at them. And I'm not trying to be like, feel sorry for the police or whatever, because that is not my concern. But there are some concerns to keep in mind, including the fact that California police in a variety of counties have been recorded working with fascist activists against anti-fascist activists. There was one case of a fascist activist who had been arrested on domestic violence charge, and the police, rather than investigating him on that, started questioning him on trying to get the names and identities of anti-fascist activists based on their pictures,

and then assured him, we're not looking at you as a perpetrator, we're looking at you as a victim. There was a fascist that they were questioning. Yeah, a fascist they were questioning. So it is clear that their charm campaign against the police has not been ineffective. And again, not to defend the police, but if you're just getting yelled at by these people all day long, I can see why the tiny group of folks who are being polite to you, why that might be more compelling. And this is not a right or wrong issue, this is purely a tactical issue of what is more effective. And I do feel like the anti-fascist side of the equation could more effectively dialogue with the police,

to let them know we're not happy with how the situation is going down, but we're not angry at you, we're trying to get to them. I don't know what the right solution is. You're really walking a fine line there with home policing. Sure, for sure. It's a very valid concern, and it's a very real recommendation, because it is effective, but it also is the sort of thing that, yes, this anger is justified. Like, I have a couple of thoughts here that relate to how this stuff interplays with activists and race.

So I think that you're not wrong, and that in a completely sterile environment, you know, in these ideal physics experiments environments, I would say you're probably right that they need to court the police and get them like to see the anti-fascist as like the ones fighting for democracy and all that stuff, because presumably if the police actually believe any of their oaths, then they would go along with that. But I think it kind of ends up being another one of the things that's very different when you are talking with mostly white people and when you're talking with mostly black people. I feel the same way about the argument as to whether or not to employ violence,

because for black people, the police are a threat to our fucking existence most of the time. I grew up with cops, my dad was a cop, I grew up around cops, I used to feel safe around cops, and that was entirely incorrect then. Like, they are not here for us, they are dangerous to us all the time. So the thing is that like, the fact that they're dangerous to us in this context as anti-fascist protesters isn't different to me than like every day. So like, I don't care that they're against me, because they're always against me. I could get shot because they thought my phone looked suspicious.

However, when anti-fascist groups are primarily white or when they're in places like Portland or when they're in places where most anti-fascists are white and the cops are probably white and all this other shit, I kind of have a little more of that idea that maybe the white anti-fascist should like get in good with the police because the thing is their relationship with the police is different and it kind of relates to the way I feel about the argument about whether or not people should employ violence. It is all well and good for white activists to talk to each other about whether or not they should employ violence because the violent rhetoric of the Nazis is by and large not aimed at them. There's a way that mostly white people in this country, that is mostly white people or at least a majority white people

could get together and find a way to fight back against this and push back and change the world without violence then do it. But understand that for the rest of us, this has never not been a fight to the death. It's just a slow fight to the death. And I think that's a basic entry level requirement for understanding to be a good ally is to get that piece of it. And you were talking earlier about what they end up discussing about who's arrestable. Yeah, well that was a standing rock thing. I'm not privy to anti-fascists to catch the listener up. When I was at Standing Rock, there were a number of posters around this saying, are you arrestable, sign up for a variety of events?

Because a lot of the Native American activists or Indigenous American activists who were active at that event had been arrested a number of times already and if they were arrested anymore, they already had pending court cases, they could not continue to be in the front lines dealing with the police. So they were asking for, there were a lot of at Standing Rock, young, white, mostly early 20s or late teens, activists who had showed up. These were people who could stand and have a couple of arrests on their record. It wouldn't fuck their lives up. And so they were saying, essentially use your privilege as a middle class white kid because it's not going to be bad for you if you get arrested. So stand in the front of the line, be in the front of these actions that we're doing to try to delay the construction of this pipeline. I don't know if that's part of Antifa's strategy.

Yeah, it is actually. Right after the inauguration, I was very interested in things like black block tactics and the groups like that. One of the things when I was looking into black block, one of the things they were saying was people doing black block tactics need to be white and probably men. Because white dudes can get away with fucking anything. And like, if someone's got to run in and punch the Nazis and get in there and push the police around and break windows and set shit on fire because you know, kinetic disturbance is part of what runs revolution. For sure. Like, make it the white people, do it.

And so like, I didn't get involved in black block because I knew that if I, well, A, it would have been bad for my wife and her career. But B, like, if I got involved with black block, yeah, it might be fun for me, but like, you know, it might be satisfying for me. But the very first time I ran into the police, I run the risk of being killed or imprisoned or just like a bunch of real bad shit happening to me. And I don't, I had, my life affects other people's lives. And if it were just about, if I were single and unattached, I'd be doing that shit all day. But I don't get to do that because I have to care about other people. Yeah. Right.

So the consequences for you as a human are low, punch Nazis. But if you're in a place where you do not have the privilege of being able to afford that risk, there are other ways you can be smart and to resist. There is an additional dimension to it, which is that you have to consider, it's not just, okay, is punching Nazis safe for you? Because if punching Nazis were always good and punching Nazis was safe for you, then if it's safe for you to punch a Nazi, punch a Nazi. But there's an optics battle that is being fought. There's a battle larger than the sympathy of the police, the sympathy of the nation where people stand. And that is specifically the sympathy of white people. Well, yeah, I mean, yes, for damn sure.

What I was talking about this morning when we were recording about how campaigning for Northam and Doernocking and hearing moderates talking about, yeah, this Charlottesville was ugly and these people are inciting violence. So we're going to vote against them. We're going to vote for the Dems. Another thing is like, yeah, we have to be aware of the optics of this and like, are we inciting violence? Are we like going low when they go low? Or are we going high? Like, are we meeting them at their level and giving them the terms of the debate? And are we giving the Nazis what they want? Because I do think that's a valid question to ask.

And there are a number of quotes from, and again, in the first part of this, I read through a lot of their conversations. So we do know a lot of things that they've said. We know for one, that they're embarrassed at the idea of being outnumbered and being needed to be protected by the police. I found this conversation, yeah, and again, there were at least a couple of thousand anti-fascist activists. And don't you find it interesting that the cops were not protecting any anti-fascist protesters? That when you saw much larger numbers of anti-fascist protesters marching in the streets, the cops were nowhere to be found. But when it's 12 Nazis, cops all around them securing them. For sure. Who Nazis got a double row of cops protecting them from protesters?

Oh, you guys are in the Pakistan side. Yeah, and then when a crowd of anti-fascist protesters gathered around to yell at them, we got surrounded by three more rows of cops on the backside of our group. They started sneaking up on us. They weren't protecting us. So yeah, I do think the question of that, when people, I think the larger question of how we treat police, folks on the left treat police as fine. But the question of who do you protect? Like, why is that? Why is it that a handful of Nazis get so, like so much taxpayer money in terms of protection by police and that, you know, 10, 20 times the amount of anti-fascist protesters get nothing? Because the system is designed to support them.

I mean, I don't want to say it, but doesn't it seem that way? It does. And again, I want to make it clear. None of what I'm saying is a moral argument in favor of the police, because I'm not, and none of it is a moral argument in favor of the tactics. What I'm asking is, or in favor of the fascists, what I'm asking is, is it an effective tactic to punch Nazis? Does it bring us closer to our goal of there not being Nazis? Well, here's another wrinkle, you know, because we want to make, you know, in a lot of ways, it's good to make historical comparisons between what's happening now and what happened in Weimar Germany, because holy shit, it's very, we're following the playbook. There's a whole episode on that.

There are even instances where people made quotes that, like, if you said, did someone say this in Weimar Germany or 2018? You know, like, America 2018, you're like, I have no idea. Please write that by a tweet article, guys, please. Yeah, yeah. So there's a lot of value to that, but here's one of the ways in which it's different. The Nazis in Weimar Germany were actually tough fuckers. Yeah, they'd all survived the trenches in World War I, which is probably the worst combat human beings have lived through. Yes, yeah.

So when, so when fighting them in the streets, you know, if you're not in a situation where everyone's fighting in the streets, when it's just like anti-fascist and fascist fighting, and both sides are equally dangerous and both sides are equally competent, and they're both, they're, they're all, I mean, to some extent, it's kind of like when the punks fight the skinheads. Like, both of those groups of people are well used to beating the shit out of each other. That might not be very effective, because if you punch a Nazi who's used to getting punched, he's just like, okay, I got punched today, sweet, then like, write that down. But if he's a proud boy, he probably isn't. And, and that's kind of soft-punched while bathing serials, right?

Yeah, yeah. Because like, you obviously can't get your nose broken if you're bathing serials. Because they're all doing body blows. And that's kind of the place where I kind of find a little bit of a wrinkle in that, in when talking about the, because we were like, optics is a definite discussion, but also the morale of, okay, I think of things as like, in tactical sense, the Nazis are my, they are my enemies. So I think of them like, so the enemies morale is important because breaking the enemies morale is how you win. It's not actually about destroying them necessarily.

It's about making them never want to fight you again. And with a lot of these fuckers, they, they don't know how to fight. They don't, they're not, they're not Nazis in the sense that the Nazis in Weimar Germany were. They aren't tough bastards. I didn't see any scary at that rally. Exactly. Yeah. They're Larpers.

And so like, when they're afraid of being outnumbered and terrified, we need to lean into that. Because one of the problems is that like, it wouldn't be great if there was like a women's march style protest where it's like pretty peaceful. Everybody's getting along. It's mostly just a giant rolling party and we're like, You mean a Dyke march? Yeah. And there's, you know, just like everybody's there. Everybody's having a great time.

There's thousands of people. That's great when it happens. There was the queer resistance dance party today. It wasn't thousands, but it was big. Yeah. And those are good and they, they're great for the optics and it's really good, but it's also good. It's good for our morale. And it's great for every, and it's great time.

That's another part of it too, is it's great to see people having a great time, just, you know, peacefully resistance in the Nazis. It's a form of self-care. But it's also effective, you know, like for those of us that are going to be screaming at the Nazis and it's not going to be a peaceful vibe at all. Like even if no one's getting punched, it's like not going to be a peaceful vibe standing in front of a crowd of anti-fascists. No. For those people, like the optics are not going to be on our side anyway because we've got these civility buggers, like being like, well, you're not being nice. Shouldn't be swearing. I don't know.

Like, okay, we've already lost the optics battle in that regard in terms of like the moderates aren't on my side. So what's the next most effective part of my tactic? Well, the next most effective thing that I'm worried about is the morale of my enemy. And when these guys are literally weak little shits, like they're just larpers, they're Nazi larpers. Yeah. And I think at this point with what you're talking about, one of the key things is like endurance. Yes. Like they are really enchanted by the idea of having it be a one and done takeover.

Like being able to just like overpower something and that's been part of the whole mission since it was first invented. And being able to get large numbers of people to show up consistently over time and yell them down is going to show them that we cannot last them. And I do think I think over time is critical. So I'm going to read for just a minute here to go over some stuff I found in their own chats. One is from a January 18th, 2018 thread about a rally where Richard Spencer and 30 fascists had to be escorted past a crowd of 2,000 protesters. So this is what the Nazis said about that rally. Quote, first guy in the thread. These are brutal odds with enough discipline and hopefully a halfway decent police force we can survive.

The first response was, dude, it takes rule of law to protect 30 versus 2,000. Discipline means nothing at that point. The only thing keeping us alive is their fear of the police. Now, there was another post that I found in a Facebook thread by Kat Snyder who was marching today, I think in the anti-fascist march. Kat is an activist within Jason Kessler's circle. She is a fascist activist. She posted in May when they were planning the rally that we just all got from that she had attended a Trump impeachment town hall near her home. She called it quote, absolutely frightening and said that quote, the money in that room, the power, the numbers. So she was very scared by the number of people that she saw in opposition to her. And she was also very scared by the number of people that she saw at demonstrations against folks like Richard Spencer.

And my question is, since optics are such an important part of the battle, is it more valuable that we be seen in mass? Resisting than it is that we physically confront these people. Because physical confrontation breeds, if not sympathy, then at least more empathy than we want the Nazis to have. And the person I want to pose that question to first is Laurent over here who's been quite quiet and just finished attending his first protest. So Laurent, sorry to put you on the spot. Oh, wow. You did. I did. I put you really on the spot.

You really did. Boy, let me tell you. You got it. Yeah. Basically, I'm just overwhelmed still. I can't believe it. I really can't believe what I just experienced. From the beginning to the end to the going back and seeing the cops presence and knowing how I already feel about the cops as it is,

especially when it comes to my safety, I never feel like they have for my safety. I don't want to pin on cops for anything as far as my safety goes. I think if you would repeat the question again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You set up your mindset. I'm basically asking, so the Nazis are clearly demoralized by the fact that they're outnumbered, right? Is it better to just outnumber them or do we need to physically confront them? Do we need to be violent with them?

Or is it best to just show up and be consistently a show of our numbers against theirs? Okay, well, yeah, definitely. I felt from my observation today was watching them a lot of them flee as the crowd got bigger. You know, I guess they don't like intimidation. They sure don't. Nobody can't stand to be intimidated, which is what I really noticed the most today was that I saw a lot of them wrapping their flags up, moving the other way. The larger the crowds got, the lighter it got, a lot of them weren't.

It's like, I don't know if they did it completely by hand or if they bought in and didn't realize, couldn't stand the heat. What does that say? The heat got a little hot in the kitchen. They had to get out. That kitchen wasn't even that hot. It was hotter than what they would expect, I guess. It was only about 50 of them at all.

Yeah. They all didn't even show up at the same time from watching the beginning of the march to the end of the march. You only had a small section jump out from the beginning, and then you had others follow later on. There were a lot from just observation, I don't know about actual numbers. There seemed to be a fair number that were undercover, that were wandering around. That's a value. That is kind of telling that they were unwilling to show themselves with the main group. They were unwilling to actually participate, but they were there with sticks and umbrellas in hand

to use as weapons in case they got the chance. And explain when you pointed this out to me, and I mansplained to you that I didn't think it was a problem, because I'm an asshole, and I was completely wrong because they wound up being the secret Nazis that later led to almost a fight with the police. Right, so what I saw was there was a guy with a red rain jacket with the hood pulled up really high and it was zipped up over his face. And he was carrying an umbrella, and he was wearing a backpack. And he was with another guy who was all in black.

Could have looked like an anti-fab, but clearly was not operating with them. And that was what I thought. I just assumed it was an anti-fab. He was all in black. He was all in under armor or whatever. And he had a cane and was walking around. And these are all three white guys. And there was a third who was also wearing a hood and a bandana.

And he had a huge wooden stick stuck into his backpack underneath his backpack, holding it up. And it was like, looking at them, I was like three white dudes, completely independent, no anti-fab paraphernalia on them. No, the anti-fab was really persistent about like, don't take pictures, don't take pictures, if you want to support us, don't take pictures. And they were all in groups. And they were all in groups. And these guys were not saying anything like that. And they were really kind of skittish.

And I was like, oh, we have undercover Nazis here. Look at this. And after I saw that, I started seeing them everywhere. Later, when we got out from dinner, that guy in the red jacket and his friend were the ones that were being surrounded by a crowd of Black Lives Matter protesters. So can you describe the experience that we had going to dinner and then after dinner? Yeah, so we walked out of Old Abic Grill. We figured this shit was over by then. So we did our marching.

We did our yelling. The Nazis left. It started raining. We ate some enchiladas when we got drunk. So we come out and we see that up the street, there's this crowd and it's mostly people of color and they're really angry. And in our morning recording, Matt talked about the flag of Kekistan. Kekistan! So for people who are for whatever reason, turning into the second part of our episode and have not listened to the first, the Kekistan flag is the flag of a bunch of Nazi nerd gamers based on Kek, which is essentially how Koreans say LOL.

And they made this flag for their fake country of people who were putting out memes for the LOLs. And the flag is based off of the Kriegsmarine flag from World War II. It's based off of a Nazi flag, the German Navy flag from World War II. It's a Nazi... It's a naval flag that's inverted in inverted colors, right? Yeah, essentially that. And the Nazis love... This is why they do 1488, which is where the 14 words and 8-8 is like Hitler.

H is the eighth letter of the alphabet, so Heil Hitler is 8-8. I heard it was 8-8 because if you took a swastika and filled in the spaces, it's like a digital 8-8. And they're literally that lame. I'd heard a totally different thing, because it was Heil Hitler and H and H are 8-8. There's probably both right, honestly. Yeah. The Nazis love to hide things. So we saw the Kekistan flag and we walk up and we see that there's a bunch of people who are really agitated

and there's a double line of cops between them and these two guys. And we ask what's going on and these guys are like, oh, there's these two lone Nazis here and they've got this flag and they're just hanging out and all these cops are protecting them and we're angry that the cops are protecting them. They're starting some aggressive chants. Yeah, so there were some aggressive chants that got started. We're not going to name names. Definitely wasn't me.

And by aggressive, it was... We are many there, few. And who do you serve? Who do you protect? And the first one, when you first explained that chant, by the way, Nick, you meant that as sort of aimed at the Nazis. Yes, but then I realized as it took off, I was like, oh, the police think we're talking about them. And it kind of worked for the police. They were less police than angry people.

And they got mad. They got concerned when that one took off. Yeah, which is be careful what you chant, which is if you're chanting. If you're a chanter, if you're chanting, be careful what you chant. And when you chant it, although I support your chant, by the way. So when this group of people started shouting at the cops saying, who do you serve? Who do you protect? We suddenly realized that on the other side of the street, there was a whole bunch of...

There were a whole bunch of cop cars pulling up and there were a whole bunch of cops on bikes showing up. And they blocked us into a crosswalk area. So on one side, you had to double row cops and then you had a bunch of protesters. And then on the other side of the crosswalk, you had a triple row of cops backed up by like multiple police vehicles. And if you haven't been to a protest before, one of the things that police will do that is very intelligent strategy. Bicycle cops will use their bicycles to form a physical barrier and then stand behind or in front of their bicycles. But there will essentially be bicycle wheel to bicycle wheel and make a wall of bicycles and then stand to hold them up. And it's a very effective way of creating a mobile barricade.

So they had a double row of that plus another row of police behind them plus back up in cars. So it was a very intimidating situation and it seemed like kind of over the top for two Nazis. Given that we were yelling at them because of a kick-a-stand flag. And it was just a very tense situation and these were the guys that I had recognized from before. Yeah, you nailed it. And I figured they were just antifa people who weren't with the main group or whatever because I'm the bastard today. One other thing we saw was when we were winding down after part one of yelling at Nazis. When we were thinking about, you know, hey, there are 5,000 people here.

We've been doing this all day. We're tired. We can take a piece. And so we were gathering. We were grouping up. You wanted to drink. We were gathering up. We were trying to find Loran because we wanted to go get our damn drinks. And a guy came up to us and said, hey, there's two Nazis over there that are like completely unprotected. They've got no one. They're just there and they're like talking and shit.

And the thing is at first, okay, I was a Marine. I was made to be a hammer. All of my problems look like nails. So I'm sitting here like, ooh, cool, where are the Nazis? I'd like to go hit some Nazis. These guys are unprotected Nazis. Punch the Nazis. And that was my initial reaction. And then it was like, and then I don't remember what some one of my compatriots here said something. And then I suddenly realized that guy that told us that was probably an agitator and he probably wanted us to start shit. He was a provocateur. He was this like middle-aged white dude who was alone, not working with anybody. And he gave us that information and disappeared.

And then he like ran. And like he was probably also a Nazi. And it's hard when you go to enough events like this, you get very paranoid because number one, there were a lot of people in the crowd with the journal. So when this all first started, just to explain to the listener, we were standing outside of essentially a metro station in D.C. And the Nazis came out of the metro station and there was a line of police protecting their route of march. And there were anti-fascist activists all around the outside of that yelling at these people. And journalists. And journalists. And among the crowd of journalists, there were undercover police.

And we knew they were because they had badges clipped to their belts. So if some of what we have said in the last little bit here sounds paranoid, it is because if you attend a lot of protests, paranoia occurs. Because things that induce paranoia happen in protests. And sometimes you're wrong with your paranoia, but oftentimes you are not. Hannah was not wrong in her paranoia and I was wrong in my countering her paranoia. Thank you. Thank you. My paranoia is always right. And you know what else is right, is the wonderful, wonderful companies that support this podcast with their products and or services.

What Doritos? Well, not yet. Not yet, Hannah. Although I will say, if there is one anti-fascist food product made out of corn based food like substances, it is the Doritos company and their delightful products. Has it improved that it's actually food? No cheese. Food based. It's kind of like saying cheese products. It's synthetic food.

It's not cheese. But cheese was consulted. For some other products. Cheese endorses Doritos. And more services. Listen to these here ads. During the summer of 2020, some Americans suspected that the FBI had secretly infiltrated the racial justice demonstrations. And you know what?

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And not on the good and bad ass way. And nasty sharks. He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to happen. Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Lance Bass and you may know me from a little band called NSYNC. What you may not know is that when I was 23, I traveled to Moscow to train to become the youngest person to go to space. And when I was there, as you can imagine, I heard some pretty wild stories. But there was this one that really stuck with me about a Soviet astronaut who found himself stuck in space with no country to bring him down.

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Two death sentences and a life without parole. My youngest, I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. I'm Molly Herman. Join me as we put forensic science on trial to discover what happens when a match isn't a match and when there's no science in CSI. How many people have to be wrongly convicted before they realize that this stuff's all bogus. It's all made up. Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. So we're back. So I want to bring us around to... We have a big question and try to answer at the end of this if it's answerable.

But one thing I want to get to now is do we think the Nazis won or lost in this rally? And obviously they were outnumbered. I do want to read a couple of tweets Jason Kessler put up in the immediate aftermath of this because those are pertinent. Were they tweeted from inside a bush he was hiding in? No, the metro car that he was protected in. He was hiding in a bush at some time. Really? Yeah, I was flying around Twitter and someone was like...

That was the last year rally. He was like spicy? He came out of a bush? Yeah, just Homer faded into their foliage. I think the overall, I mean, I'm sure the tweets will shed some light on how they think they did, but I think they lost. And the reason I think they lost is that they were very clearly intimidated. They looked stupid. They looked pathetic. They didn't get to get in any of these altercations. They didn't get to feel like victims, but they very clearly pissed off DC.

And DC showed up in fucking force. Fuck. The Black Lives Matter flag came onto the field at one point and people start chanting Black Lives Matter and then lightning creased the sky. The fucking gods were angry at the Nazis. It was such a charged moment. It was so perfect. I was like, okay, I don't know if everyone here believes-

If I was a Nazi and that happened, I'd be like, alright, I'm going home now and I'm going to hide. Oh, the Black Lives Matter flag was heralded by lightning and thunder. I'm going home. Wakanda forever. Wakanda forever, motherfucker. Here's what Jason Kessler tweeted. Thank you to all the law enforcement officers that protected free speech and public safety today at hashtag UTR2. The whole thing has been a logistical challenge from hell, but we proved we could do it peacefully despite all the naysayers. Now, there are a couple of other posts.

One of them is a thing he retweeted from an activist named Hannah Nattanson, who was, I think, one of the white nationalist protesters here today. A woman. Yeah, a lady. Yeah, people used to be talking about how white women are really doing their part to uphold this nonsense. They sure are. They're not falling down in the racism, fascism supporting department. Can I just take a second here?

As a white woman, two other white women who are listening to this, we're all racist and we have to do the fucking work to overcome that because it has been read into us and into our socialization and we are complicit. It's the exact same thing that I would like to say to men just that you don't get to fucking do this. No, men bullshit. Don't give me that shit. Okay, so I should say here, I was wrong. Hannah Nattanson is apparently a reporter, apparently with the Washington Post.

We just called her a Nazi. Well, here's what she tweeted. I'm going to read out what she tweeted. I'm not responsible, by the way. None of you did anything wrong because I gave you all bad information because we're drinking. That's intelligent. We're drinking and we're coming up. But here's what she said.

What I'm still saying to white women is it matters. It's just so relevant. Whether she's a Nazi or not, it's so relevant. Well, and here's her tweet. So we can comment after I read this tweet. Encircled by reporters, Kessler says he is not a white supremacist but a quote, civil rights advocate for white people. He said white Americans are unfairly discriminated against,

pointing in part to the removal of Alex Jones from social media sites. So wait, so then why doesn't the ACLU hire him? I have a lot of questions. No, no, ask him. Yeah. It's very curious to me that as a white, straight, cisgender, able-bodied male, he feels so oppressed. And that the thing that he points to toward the root of his oppression is,

oh, Alex Jones. First of all, he was not kicked off Twitter, right? Like he was still on Twitter. No, am I crazy? Social media sites. Social media sites. He was from some social media sites. But not Twitter.

It was everybody but Twitter, right? Yeah, yeah. And we took some of the shit down after everybody yelled. And he was sort of, kind of, 100% without any sort of deniability, urging that people harass the family members of children who were murdered during the recent politics. Oh, so that's all? He was just harassing the families of murdered children?

He's been doing that since Sandy Hook. Well, that's exactly it. All that Alex Jones was guilty of was urging, was saying that the family members of small children who were murdered by a mass shooter were part of a false flag operation. And urging his followers to harass them. That's all he was doing. I don't think anyone listening to this podcast about terrible people in history is going to be on the side of Alex Jones.

So we shouldn't belabor the point. No, I know. I do want to talk about this person's report. I guess I just find it curious that, like, that is the evidence. It's like white people are oppressed, made evidence, Alex Jones. Does she give a follow-up tweet? I'm looking for that right now. I would like to read her Washington Post byline piece tomorrow about this.

Okay. Yeah, let's keep it on those munchies. Because I'm sure they'll be real interesting. I heard you say munchies, and then I realized you meant mentions. Yeah, she had some other stuff that was fair-ish, like where she said, like, the United Right marches of all left towns was earlier in the day. They're always supposed to begin at 5.30 while in D.C. 20 marchers listened to a brief Kessler speech and talked to reporters. One man told me the Washington Post is Jewish-owned

and he doesn't speak to Jews before he walked away. What? So she did note that. I don't know. Part of this may be the fact that Twitter is a good way to spread links to news stories, but not a good way to do journalism. And so her quote out of context isn't great. It's really, really hard to do reporting on the ground

and keep track of everything and tweet about it at the same time. So I'm sure there's a lot missing. I guess I can give her a little bit of the benefit of the doubt. I don't want to be mean to Hannah, because I don't know this lady, and maybe she's a fair-mining reporter. And they did kind of insinuate she was a Nazi. I did. I did. That was unfair. This is why I said I want to see her piece tomorrow

and see what she actually says in her reporting piece. Not see it in insinuation withdrawn. Yeah. But Kessler retweeted that, and then later he retweeted another post from UTR, Hurricane, hashtag white civilization, something or other. White civil rights. Do they resemble a hurricane in any way? It looks like a picture of a young lady.

The hurricanes are dark and fearsome. So this is your young lady who seems to be supporting Jason Kessler, who was marching with him today, one of the women who was marching with him days, who shed. We just destroyed three large pizzas in the motor home, but before I pass out, I want to say this, I feel vindicated. I was called every nasty name in the book for believing in the hashtag white civil rights rally and the DC police department and Jason Kessler and peaceful free speech.

Good night. Okay. I want to say something on that point. The idea that if you are opposed by people, then you are doing the right thing is really pervasive in particular in conservative evangelical circles. And I can't speak for the Albright, but I feel like there's a lot of overlap where there's this idea of, well, like Jesus was killed. In the world, you will have trouble. And so in the world, you will have trouble.

So if you are following Jesus correctly, you will be opposed and you will meet a lot of conflict. And so that kind of mentality reinforces the sense of moral rightness for these people. It's sort of like how I firmly believe that we should replace cows with horses and vice versa. And that's something I believe religiously. And the fact that everyone disagrees with me, I take as proof that my ideas are righteous and right. But may just be proof that I'm a crazy person. Have you ever heard of a non sequitur?

It's not a non sequitur, it's a horse and it should be what we make hamburgers out of. Wait, can I ask a question? Absolutely. What do you guys feel in case people are listening and they're like, what's the makeup of the room? You have two black men, one black woman, a white woman and a white man. What do you guys feel that these are your fellow white people? How does that feel for you guys? Knowing that, and they are doing this because they are trying to assert their superiority

on your behalf. What does that experience like for you as white people? I mean, Han, if you want to answer first, you're welcome to. I have a thing. Okay, so that's an interesting question and I appreciate you asking that. I'm just very curious. Yeah, so on one hand it's like you don't represent me. Shut up.

And there were signs that we saw that said that too. Right. And on the other hand, I do not believe that guilt is a useful emotion. I have been on the receiving end of a lot of apologies from people who treated me shittily when I got divorced or when I was in the process of leaving the cult I grew up in who have now come around and they're like, I'm so sorry, I was horrible to you. And my perspective on that is like, that doesn't mean no good. Do better.

And so for me as a white person, if I feel guilty, I need to relate that experience to how guilt has felt when I have received it from people who are apologetic and feel guilty. And my job is not to sit and feel guilty. It's to do better. So I am going to work on educating myself. It is an ongoing lifelong task. Every society and every community I have ever been a part of was created in some form or another on racist beliefs, homeschooling, Christian evangelicalism, white churches, the college I went to.

All these places were had very, very few people of color on purpose. And so I feel like the burden is on me to correct that. And I've got a long journey ahead of me, but showing up for these kinds of things is part of that journey. And I don't want brownie points because I'm just now doing the bare minimum that I should have been doing all along. But it's a long process. But the whole thing is like, these guys don't represent me and I'm here to tell them that and to do my moral duty. And I mean, I'm just like, so I'm a big white guy, very tall, very broad, and I'm very white. And I have for a long time, one of my hobbies was just lying to my friends about things,

because when I talk about stuff in an authoritative manner, people believe me because I'm a big white guy. And that's just the way our society is set up, that if as a big white guy you sit and you start telling facts or whatever, people will listen to you, even if it's lies, which is why most of our, I don't know, we can get into the political end of this at some other point. But the idea that white people would need a civil rights rally as a white dude is inconceivable to me, because I have had a lot of difficulties in my life, and I know a lot of other white men who have had a lot of difficulties in life, very tough lives, very painful lives, none of it has to do with the fact that we're white guys. And the fact that these people are saying that that's a problem that we have is very frustrating to me. And it's more frustrating than you talk to men's rights activists, and I don't agree with those people either,

but there are injustices for men based on women, like the fact that men who have children, if they go to court with their female child-bearing partner or whatever term you choose to use, they'll have more difficulty winning custody or whatever. There are legitimate legal issues there that can be addressed or whatever. But a few of them have points. Some of the points... There's a reason that that system privileges the child-bearing partners, but yes. But there's a debate to be had there.

There's no rational debate by which you can believe white people, and particularly white men, are disadvantaged in the United States of America. Because look at this country, like walk outside, go on a walk, like it's very clear. In my experience as a human, when the white people are like, yeah, but this isn't a problem, there are more important things to focus on, I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna ignore you because you've always been wrong in my experience. Because unless you have suffered loss of privilege, you don't have any idea what the other side is experiencing at all.

Well, and I'm a child of Hollywood, like most of the planet. Are you a starlet? No, I'm like... You were a black kid? No, I was a kid who was raised by movies. Movies and television, like I'm a child who was raised by films. And one thing American Cinema has done is a great job of convincing me that the underdogs are usually the people that you should root for.

And the underdogs in this society wherein are not white guys, like that's for sure not who is being fucked over in this society. That goes back to my point. Yeah. With like, who are the cops behaving for? Who do you protect? Who do you protect? Who do you serve?

They're protecting the white supremacists. And they're not protecting the people who are against white supremacy. So, the system is stacked. It's clear. Well, and that brings us back to my initial question, which is, not is it right or wrong to punch Nazis? But does it bring us closer to our goal of a society where Nazis have no political power? Which is I think most people listening can agree Nazis shouldn't have any political power.

White supremacists should not have any kind of political power. The KKK should not have political power. Does violence to them bring us closer to that goal than peaceful resistance at this point in the debate? And that is the question I want to go around as a round table and get people's thoughts on. So why don't we start with you Bridget, the person holding the mic. Yeah, I'm holding the mic.

Yeah, my name is Bridget. I don't know. I mean, it's hard for me. You guys saw me out there. I get emotional and I think that for me, it's I may intellectually know that punching Nazis and like screaming in their face is not getting us closer to being free. But there's something cathartic about it and my like primate brain that's a part of my brain that's just like, yes, hit them, punch them.

Like, I'm not concerned about whether or not it gets us closer to our goal. You know, I'm an organizer, so I think about things in terms of what is our, you know, our shared goal. But there is something of there's something of this role that happens that almost makes me turn that part of my logical brain off. And I'm just like, I won't him get hit. Like I just like I become a I become like punch bad man punch bad man. It's like when you were out there, I mean, like you and I got into that argument, like

with a guy and set that up a little bit. These people the people y'all listening right now. And we actually have the audio of you like destroying him. And we were at this protest and we were we were watching these people with a kekistan flag get surrounded. And while that was happening, there was an elderly guy who was clearly not from the United States and did not speak English as a first language. And was like, it's like, to be clear, I'm familiar with him.

He's unwell. He's fine. He's a regular DC. He's a regular and he's mentally unwell. And his his signs were all about circumcision. And there was a young white guy in a three piece suit and a dude filming him interviewing this guy about his sign. He got it on the discount.

Carbon fucking copy of a suit I've seen Richard Spencer in. Yeah, he got it on the discount rack at men's warehouse and probably Manafort wishes he had it. Well, there's no ostrich in that fucking suit. So this this this young dude was like talking to this guy who was a little bit off about his circumcision based sign at a rally that was focused around racial justice. And it seemed like it was very clearly this guy and his friend came out to the protest to try to film the few crazy signs they could find so that they could make fun of the whole

protest by pointing out like I made supposed to be said that. Yeah, they said we're going to have a little fun. Yeah, they said we're here to have a little fun. This guy that smug fucker. Yeah, he had a very smug. Please find video evidence on Twitter. I recorded it. It's there.

It's frustrating. We'll we'll link it. So he both Bridget and I wound up confronting this guy at varying points because he just was clearly up to no good. And she got very heated, which was understandable in the moment. So that's I think what was the lead in. Yeah, so I got I got heated. And I think for me, you know, I was born in DC.

This is I've lived in DC for most of my adult life. People come here for protests and they think it's, you know, a theme park for their cosplay around whatever. This is my home. I live here. I'm going to have a kid here. Like this is where I live. Get your nuts shit out of my house.

Yeah, I for me, the fact that guy was targeting somebody that is obviously marginalized, obviously unwell. There are a million people to talk to who are out and about. It is not. I don't think it's a coincidence that he shows an older guy. I got who didn't really speak English. I got who was clearly like he chose a vulnerable DC resident and this guy said he was from Maryland.

So he came into town, quote, to have a little fun. Yeah. Not not. You'll notice it wasn't with a shirtless black lives matter. Big guy. It wasn't with someone who would have like gotten in his face. I thought it was really interesting that when you, when Matt, when you like talk to him. Matt's what people call me by the way.

Robert is how they know me. We're not going to explain that anymore. Okay. Continue. Oh wait. Do you guys do the beef? No, we don't. Okay.

That's a weird East Coast thing. Okay. We'll include all this, but I will make fun of y'all. Okay. Fine. The beef is a thing. But Robert, when you, when you got in his face and you challenged him, I found it really interesting that when he was talking to like, let's be real, that guy, I know that guy.

I feel comfortable saying this because I've seen that guy at every DC protest. The older guy. Yeah. The older guy. I feel comfortable saying this. I've seen him for years. He is. Can I just say something like I haven't lived in DC in about three years and I've seen

that guy around. He's a fixture. He's around. He's fine, but he is clearly meant. He's like a vulnerable, a vulnerable person. Like he is under housed and he is of all the people to like talk to like, no good journalist would interview that guy. Correct.

I got a crush by journalist three times during this protest. Good. They should be. Not completely sure why me, but okay. But they talk to each other. And you're wearing the shirt. And you're wearing a black life jacket. And you have a look.

Like you have a look that like, I get it. You look like a veteran and you're wearing a black lives matter shirt. So they came and talked to me three separate times and none of that looked at all like what was happening with this fuck. No, that was, that was bullying. Like what we were witnessing was who is someone who is a vulnerable, who is someone that will not have the ability to best me that I can make look foolish. And I talk to journalists all the time and they're always so respectful, so thoughtful,

so informed, so like open to where I'm coming from. And this guy was playing the, I'm going to get you a game. Exactly. As a journalist who has covered a lot of civil unrest in his career, you don't talk to the kooks because they don't, they're not representative. They don't teach you anything. So I mean, this feeds into the point that there's real shit going on here. And some motherfucker from his fucking Maryland college showing up in a goddamn suit to make

a nutty old guy who is harmless, look like a spokesperson for this rally against people who are out and proud members of the Ku Klux Klan is infuriating. It was. So we were, so I completely agree. I think that why I got so upset was that it was someone that was marginalized and vulnerable and that like he was clearly, of all the people to talk to, he didn't talk to any of the like black dudes, Latino dudes without shirt screaming. He was in a way too scared to approach anyone who was not as white as him.

Exactly. As soon as I got in his face of the camera, like you could watch his body language get really uncomfortable. It completely changed. He like, he like would start stuttering. And his friend with the camera put his camera down as soon as we started talking to him. Which is exactly how you know that he's a fucking charlatan. And so I guess for me, you know, it's hard because this is my community.

This is my home. Like this is not a game. This is not a thing for fun. Like this is where I live. The guy that he was, you know, targeting that's sort of like, like I hate to say this. He's like my kook. Like he's like my like, he's your neighbor. Yes.

He's in my community. And I agree with you that in terms of is it okay to punch Nazis? It's probably more effective in terms of a more effective theory of change around how we deal with Nazis to reason with them, not punch them. But in that moment, I was like, I was like, where is the person that's just like, I'm ending this with a fucking fist. Like, I did want to hit him. Yeah.

Here's the other thing that was really interesting about this conversation. He did. He was just like, you know how some people are just begging for a punch to the face? There's a German word for that. What is it? It's backfussschlag. He was backfussschlag. He was hella backfussschlag.

I think backfussschlag is something like that. We've all been doing this. Yo, Homie was hella backfussschlag. The exact translation of the German word is a face in need of a fist. Yes. He was a face in need of a fist. Here's the other thing that's really interesting for this whole experience is when Matt started shaming him for his tactics as like, this is not professional.

No journalist would do this, those kinds of things. He would duck his shoulders and cross his hands over his crotch and look down. And he assumed the physical posture of shame. And so I started in the Peace Corps in Kyrgyzstan, and the Peace Corps volunteers I know would colloquially call this an AJ shame circle where like the older women who would be referred to as AJs would, if a student had been acting out for a long, long time at school and was like just resilient against correction, they would bring him into the school, they'd bring his parents in with him, and then all the teachers would just like shame him in front

of his family to make him realize this constant like the severity of his behavior and how it was affecting the community and how this is reflecting on your parents, this is reflecting on your school, this is reflecting on your classmates. This behavior does not belong here. And because of that like ingrained tactic, as a woman there, if I had a man harassing me, I could go to him and say, hey, where's your shame? Why are you talking to me like that? Do you want me to tell your mother?

I'm a teacher, I'm respected in this community and I'm working for free, and you're talking to me like that, and he would immediately stand down. I don't have that kind of power in America. Coming back to these states, I feel less safe because I have no social power to pull shame on someone who is acting out like that. And so I think with the Nazis in this situation, we need to find that shame trigger. I think that shame is more powerful than punching them. I think we need to find the moment where they like their line is whatever that far out moral

line is, and we need to call them on the spot and make them feel ashamed of themselves. I think you did that when you told him no journalist would do this. I think that he felt shame. I am a white male journalist. Another clearly intelligent white male journalist is telling me, homie, I'm ashamed of you right now. I think that what you said to him cut him deeper than anything that I as a black woman could have ever said.

Something about you, the way that you appealed to him, I feel like cut him so deep. Because he views you as a person whose opinions matter. And so I guess I'm going to roll off of what both of you said because I agree with both of you. And I guess my thesis on should we punch Nazis is, I in my position as someone who sees Nazis as an existential fucking threat and everyone who supports them as an existential threat to me and mine, I will always punch Nazis. I think they must be destroyed.

I think that perhaps getting rid of them in a way that doesn't involve me punching and then later if things go real bad, doing further than punching Nazis would be better for the world. I think that a war with Nazis is going to result in a lot of people getting hurt and I don't want people to get hurt. But I have no power to make that happen because they don't see me as a person. I can talk at them all day and nothing I do will change anything. They believe it won't make them be any less dangerous to me.

So if I'm in a situation where I am face to face with a Nazi, I cannot guarantee that he will walk away with an intact face. It's your moral right. But if we don't, but if we don't want to punch Nazis, if as a society we want the Nazis to not get punched, we want them to disappear. It's not on black people. White people need to shame Nazis. And the thing is, it's starting.

It's kind of starting. I think they're starting. Part of the reason there weren't a thousand Nazis here is that for the last year, anytime one of these dumb fuckers stands up and it starts yelling racial slurs at someone, we've all got real good cameras in our pockets and people are like, Hey, I'm going to videotape this guy screaming at someone because they're wearing a Puerto Rico shirt and their life gets dismantled. So keep doing that.

Well, it's like it's like when one of your siblings acts out and everybody kind of looks at you at the party and they're like, like, go get your kid, go get your own deal with your own. Go get your boy. White people deal with your own. And that's, I think that's a really good point. Those are all really good points. And I think that that's as the whitest man who's ever lived, I'm not some real white

people here. You're not the whitest. You're up there. You're white. As a very white man, it is incumbent upon, one of the reasons my hero of this protest is that British guy who just tried to leap over the cops to punch a Nazi. Because he was the whitest there. Because there's nothing whiter than the British.

No, they're translucent. They are clear. They are a window. It is incumbent upon us to stand up and confront these people because it shouldn't get to punching. They should be, and that's part of the problem. These people existed. None of these people were not Nazis before Donald Trump won the election. But the 2016 election made them think that they could get away with being open about

what they were. And nobody in their community has called them on it. No one in their families has pulled them aside and said, honey, we're going to take you to the hospital because this is a fucking problem. We're cutting off your trust fund because you're bringing shame upon them. Which is how Richard Spencer does this shit, but like it's make racist afraid again is a great slogan, but it doesn't mean beating up racists. I mean, that might be what it gets to if shit descends enough, but it starts with just making

them scared to be racist. You can't cure them. It is not, it's no one's job, no matter how white you are. It is no one's job to cure racist. You can't. You can't cure anyone of anything, but it is your job to make them feel bad about it. And I do think we have not gotten to Laurent yet. So I do want to ask Laurent a simple question.

Is it better to hit Nazis or to shame? Is it more effective as a tactic to hit Nazis or to shame them? Okay. Well, Ben, this is my first march in protest. I went through, as I said, I went through a variety of emotions. So when I first started at the train station, by the time we got to the site, I wanted to probably harm every last one of them. But as I sat there and I watched and actually started to observe what was going on from

the complete full circle, I came to a realization by the end of it, that as a feedback of whatever I was saying, it's really not my fight. It's my fight when I'm confronted with them. Then it's my fight when it's me and a Nazi in an allele, in a store, anywhere else, anywhere on the streets, in a uniform, it's my fighting. Then I will punch a Nazi. But as far as a worldwide, maybe not cure, but remedy for now is that you have to wipe people out to make other white people feel guilty about it.

That's the only way. There's nothing we can do. We can support and give you examples of how we feel so you can go forward with how we feel about it. But it's really, I think that was the biggest takeaway I've taken from this today. I was seeing everybody else kind of take the stand and say, well, we got this. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.

And I was able to sit back. Right now, it's to survive. Yeah. And just as it's going to take men starving the roots of the patriarchy to destroy it because it grows from us, you know, it's the thing that I... Thank you, Queer Eye, for all the work that you've done for that this year. There's a phrase that I may have heard it. I don't know if it may be something that I popped into my head or maybe it's something

said. It's probably something someone said was it's when I'm talking to other men about this, about male bullshit. And when I'm talking to white people about white people, bullshit, the thing that I try to say, because you know, like people always want to respond with the... And I heard it at the protest, like, because we said something about cops never being on our side. And this one was like, well, I'm a cop.

And I'm here. I'm like, I don't give a shit. The cops aren't on my side. All right. And at some point she even said, not all white people, I was like, I'm not here to deal with you, but the thing that I want to say to those people is, listen, I'm aware that like the patriarchy isn't my fault or your fault or your fault. I didn't make the patriarchy was born into it.

And I am aware that white supremacy isn't your fault or your fault. You didn't make white supremacy. You were born into it, but it's your fucking responsibility. And it's my fucking responsibility. The patriarchy won't disappear without men being like, hey, we're in a, we're in our fucking, you know, locker room and some guy talks about, starts talking about the shit that people call locker room talk and we're like, shut the fuck up. Like they won't go away until men are like, you don't get to be among us unless you stop

this shit. And it's the same thing with white people. That's a really good analogy racism gets killed by white supremacy will die when white people stop feeding it. And I think that's the point we want to end on, because I can't think of a better line to end on. And I thank everyone for joining. And I will now selfishly note that our website is behind the bastards.com and our Instagram

and Twitter is at bastards pod. I can't think of anything else to end this on. So I will just say, buy a bag of Doritos and watch downfall. The movie where Hitler dies in a bunker. Just do that. And also read some books, whatever go and educate yourself by material by black authors. Go read so you want to talk about race. Go read.

Read the invention of the white race. It's a long dense read, but give it a give it one and like read some bell hooks and like yeah, like don't like also like, I'm gonna put this is Bridget I'm just gonna put a little plug in like, don't put that shit on black women like go on the internet, read books. You know, don't expect like white people have to dismantle this shit and figure this shit out. Talk to your cousins, whatever, whatever it takes. It isn't our job and like, don't put shit on people of color who already are just like

trying to fucking survive, as you said, it's exhausting or at the very minimum, pay them. Yes. Yes. Pay them. What's your paypal? This is me snapping because Hannah just said something very real. What's your paypal? Well, I'm actually fine.

Paypal, paypal somebody who like, pay, paypal somebody who needs the fucking money because I guarantee you there is a woman, probably a woman of color out there who is teaching learning like shepherding people into the, you know, the, the righteous, the righteous path and she could probably use a little bit of a paypal blessing. And I'll just say if you, if you're a white woman and you're curious about this coming from the evangelical conservative perspective of unlearning your internalized racism, I'd like to recommend the work of Carissa Dell, who is a student at UVA right now and she's on Twitter under that name and she tweets a lot about the, the stuff that she's read

and the experiences that she's gone through and educating herself on this and this has been really quality stuff. So read up, do some reading, get out in the streets when you can, do some activism, support the things that you can support and, and stay at a reasonable level of anger to be productive and when you're too tired for all of that and when it's just time to take a break, buy a bag of cool ranch Doritos and just, just have a nice, a nice little chill session. And this has been behind the bastards and I've been Robert Evans and I love about 40% of you.

Alphabet Boys is a new podcast series that goes inside undercover investigations. In the first season, we're diving into an FBI investigation of the 2020 protests. It involves a cigar-smoking mystery man who drives a silver hearse. And inside his hearse was like a lot of goods. But are federal agents catching bad guys or creating them? He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to happen. Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your

podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science and the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price? Two death sentences and a life without parole. My youngest, I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Did you know Lance Bass is a Russian-trained astronaut?

That he went through training in a secret facility outside Moscow, hoping to become the youngest person to go to space? Well, I ought to know because I'm Lance Bass. And I'm hosting a new podcast that tells my crazy story and an even crazier story about a Russian astronaut who found himself stuck in space, with no country to bring him down. With the Soviet Union collapsing around him, he orbited the Earth for 313 days that changed the world. Listen to the last Soviet on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get

your podcasts.