Knowledge Fight - #829: Chatting with Talia Lavin

Episode Date: July 15, 2023

Today, Jordan sits down with Talia Lavin, author of Culture Warlords, to talk about infiltrating extremist spaces and all the things that come along with it.

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Andy and Andy and Andy and Andy and Andy and Andy and Andy and Andy and Andy and Andy and Welcome back to Knowledge Fight. I am Jordan without my co-host again. However, I today I am joined by Taliya Lavin. Taliya, thank you so much for joining me. Hi, it's awesome to be on ready to fight about some knowledge. That's yeah, that's something like what we do. You're the author of Culture Warlords. You have a sub-stack called The Sword and the Sandwich.

Are there any other credits that I could get? I believe you're a full bright scholar. God, I mean, yeah, if you really want to get fancy with it, I went to Harvard, it was a full bright scholar, I worked with the New Yorker, but now I'm a bum with the newsletter. Gotcha. I'm working on my second book, but the place that I really put a lot of time and energy

is this substack, the sword and the sandwich. I sent you like 10 million links before we recorded, so my apologies. No, no, no, I like it. It's not unlike if Buddy Glass had a food blog. Yeah. Uh, if that, if that makes sense to you, that, that's for very few people. I don't know who Buddy Glass is.

So I'm assuming he's Ira Glass's younger brother. No, no, Buddy Glass is the, uh, Salinger character who writes the Zoe Friani stories that those kind of the glass family story. See, that's what I'm saying. It's not even for you. That is for zero people, basically. That was nice.

No, I think a lot of people have read Friani and Zoe. I'm unfortunately, my Salinger was limited to catch her the right. Oh, yes. Hey, you know, if you don't make it past that, you are fine. Yeah, is buddy class notably anyway, moving on. It's it's yeah, it's it's it's a it's like a food blog and then I read about the far right and the Christian right and then whatever else crosses my path. That seems worth writing about.

Yeah, well, I mean, today I wanted to get into culture warlords. I hadn't read it before, so I got a copy and I tore through it and I've got plenty of notes for you that we can go over. The first thing to start with, though, is fairly simple. Could you kind of give an overview of the timeline of Culture War, lords? Yeah, so I wrote my first feature about the far right in 2017. I wrote about the Daily Stormers quest

for a new domain and how they kept getting kicked off that whole saga. And then over the next two years, I kept writing about it intermittenly. It was something I was really fascinated by. Also if you're a Jewish woman who writes about the far right, they pay attention. And then I found their harassment of me, kind of got me more in mesh, didn't whatever. And I wound up selling a book proposal around, I don't know, late 2018.

And then I spent 2019 writing the book. And then in 2020, there was this, I don't know if you know, but there was this sort of world-shaking event. So I want to finishing the book and in COVID lockdown. I was going to say which one in 2020? Yeah, all of them. No, I finished the book in COVID lockdown. And then, you know, we published it and then January 6th happened, like, a couple of months after it was released, I think it was, it came out in November 2020. So it's a little a little dated, but not like horribly. I think, I think what's aged well is like, I talked about some

of the dynamics of radicalization and the, I don't know what emotional truths behind it and what these communities are like. Like, I tried to give it legs. You know what I mean? Oh, no, absolutely. I think you do a great job. When you say you were writing the book, that encompasses a whole lot of stuff. Like you were going undercover in all of these far right spaces, concocting over what? How many false identities

over the course of the book? I think at least six. Yeah, and there were a lot that like didn't really pan out so they didn't make it on the page. Like I had a whole tradwife persona that like, but like the tradwys, they're just a lot better at info security than their male counterparts. And they're like, who are you? Like no one's seen you before. You know, like, we need someone to vouch for you before you can join our page on Facebook, that kind of thing.

So I didn't make a ton of headway in the TradWife community, but I did have several identities I can cocked it to try and get in. But, you know, and there were a couple of other things that didn't pin it. I mean, I was playing like 10 different people over the course of a year and sometimes different people in a day.

I mean, it was a real head trip overall. That is the start of the question that I wanted though, is which and what of those characters did you kind of take with you, I think. I don't think you can play a character without bringing something away from it that kind of maybe you don't necessarily even want. So did you have a favorite character that you were playing? Oh God. I mean, well, I like to think I haven't become like a neo-nazi in any sense from the any of the characters. I mean,

obviously my favorite sort of the splashiest and funniest was was playing Ashlandism. This character was playing Ashlandism, this character who I used to infiltrate. Like I used, I was a little sloppy. I reused the identity a couple of different things. Sorry. I was so strange because you've been trained in undercover work. So well by the FBI, by Harvard, right? That's, it's definitely not something that you just started doing, right? Oh, yeah, no, my comparative literature degree

also featured like heavy undercover infiltration. Of course. Whatever. So Ashlyn was this character I created initially, and this actually was before I even sold the book. I just like encountered this site site whitedate.net, which is a still-extend dating site for white supremacists. And they were so short on women that they had a page called the miniflire, where they

had this flier that they suggested you hand out to women. We're random white women you meet, even if you don't think they're hot. And it's a- Even if you don't think they're hot? Yeah, it might be one of your white brethren, my mother, who joined her. Literally, it was like an attack of the choir was. Our existence is as important as the existence

of the Siberian tiger or survival as the the Siberian tiger joined us on whitedate.net and you were supposed to give her the flyer and then take it back like it's just very weird like I don't you know and the site is run by a woman or someone I believe to be a woman like she's's been on podcasts, her name is Lue Phaida, she's German, and she has a lot of content, like she doesn't show her face, but she has a feminine sounding voice, I don't know, but maybe not so familiar with how humans interact. Anyway, I saw that they were so short on women, they had this bizarre scheme. So I was like, well, this seems like a very ripe cat fishing opportunity.

Yeah, yeah. It's their desperate urine. Yeah, so I chose the name Ashlyn, because it just sounded really white. And I said I was from Iowa, because that's the way to state. And from like a small rural community. And I just started like getting messages from all these men and like browsing their

profiles and just being like, I mean it felt a little like some sort of anti-fi anthropology thing. Like I don't even know. I just kind of started doing it on my own and then folded it into the book. It was just, I mean, for me, I think what wound up making it into the book was some stuff about basically the banality of evil. Like, you see all the time in mainstream coverage, this like, oh my God, like a white supremacist

set a, you know, complete sentence, or like, doesn't live in a compound, in an organization's compound, like, and is able to cook dinner, like... Richard Spencer wore a tie! Right. And that's all you need for a New Yorker article, apparently. Right, I mean, the, I think the Tony Hoviter profile in the New York Times is sort of the like archetype of this or maybe it was the Atlantic. It's the one where it's like oh like we went like to dinner with him and his girlfriend. He has a girlfriend. They food and it's like like you know Nazis they're just like us. I mean it's A Nazis they're just like

us and it's like what were you expecting? Of course they're human beings with like the same, I don't know what, like, humanity as anyone else, they've just like made really, really bad choices and continue to make really, really bad choices and like the fact that, I say this in the introduction, like the people we're talking about are human. Obviously with everything that comes along with that, their humanity does not absolve them. And in my mind, it indemnifies them further. Because they have chosen out of the beautiful, complex tapestry of human life

to spend theirs propagating hate. So, you know, how is that in any way? An absolute. Sure, sure. No, there was one thing about white date, not that I really, really didn't enjoy. Enjoy is the wrong word for it, but you had to send a little like, here's why I should be allowed

into, or no, this was with one of your male characters and it wasn't a dating website, it was an in-sale community, right? Yeah, it was in-sale.js, the sort of the big in-sell message board that like served, I mean, it's sort of was is the biggest in-sell hub on the net after Reddit like shut down the in-sell communities? Sure. Well, the reason that I wanted to ask about that specifically is because you had to write a little,

here's why you should invite me into the in-sell community. You had to write a little, here's why you should invite me into the in-sale community. You had to write a cover letter, essentially, explaining why it is that you're, you hate women. And one of the lines that I thought was so fucking funny is I feel like you almost could have shortened it down to just, I feel very alone. And I read that and I was like, oh, that's, that's speak friend and enter.

Yeah. That's what that is. And then, and then I was going, and then I went right back to white date. Do you know what I mean? Like those communities, how many women could possibly be on white date. You know, it's not that there aren't racist women.

They're just not on that side. No, no, no, no, that's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. Women, well, again, the tradwife community that you had trouble infiltrating, right? I can't imagine that any women but undercover anti-fa people are on white date. It's just me and Feds. It's right.

Doesn't that seem right? Yeah. I mean, I think it was started by a woman at least purportedly, I don't know. But yeah, I mean, there's gotta be some. But I think now they charge a subscription fee for joining, but I don't think the gender imbalance has resolved. Let's put it that way.

Like, I think that maybe just like the men part of this community are just like, we're open with security risk or whatever, but like, I don't know. I mean, I think there are a lot of women with a lot of hate in their hearts, or whatever, like who are, but like also it's such a misogynist community that there are just very few women figureheads because, you know, they hate women too. I mean, if you're a female white nationalist, it doesn't seem like it would be hard to find other white nationalists through like,

okay, Cupid, they're available. Yeah. Or just like, or like your DMs. Like, yeah, absolutely. You have an army of the worst simps in the entire world. Yeah, I mean, oh god, it's also been a while and now I'm like trying to access the self that was like doing all this shit.

Like that was a really crazy year of my life. Like I was just really, I was on these chats and forums, posing as different people for like 10 plus hours a day, like, you know, and then editing and then rewriting and writing and writing and writing, but the in something was very fun. So you were writing concurrently while you were, so you weren't just like taking notes as this was going on,

you were trying to come up with complete chapter-based storytelling through this as you're doing it. Yeah. God, I don't really remember. So the writing process was such a blur and lockdown happened. But yeah, I mean, I had basically, like, I had nine months to produce a complete manuscript. And like, so yeah, I was concurrent research and writing, as I'm currently attempting to do.

And it was just, God, I was either like writing about hate, like, in these hate chats, or like reading, like, surfing telegram, like, it was such so weird and like, such a dark place. But occasionally quite funny. The in-self thing was funny, just because I had initially written a cover letter that was very bare bones, like just like, oh, like I'm interested in connecting with people more like me, you know, very boy or play it,

and they were like rejected, not enough information. So I literally had to make a persona. Like I literally had to like get deep into the mindset of an in-sell and like they write so fucking much about their feelings that it's like not hard to copy that but I really was like okay okay tell you like you know now you're a male in-sell Okay, Talia, now you're a male, so. Like, what are you gonna write? What did you, did you go to a mirror and try and do the Travis Bickle thing?

No, I looked into a mirror and like all of a sudden, you know, I was, I watched my face morph into my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, morph into my Bum racist to me. Are you racist to me? Yeah, I like it Yeah, I mean I think it was more like the beauty in the beast mirror scene where like You take the magic mirror and it shows you just like a horrifying tragic scene Well, we're referencing classic mirror scenes in cinema But yeah, I mean, it was just very funny. So then the persona had to become more fleshed out and that went up the bit, like, kind of,

I did a fake out chapter, or was like, maybe she introduced someone else, but I'm like, no, it was me, y'all. All right. Yeah. There is a very good progression of escalation. I feel like throughout the book, you start with a fairly straightforward history of the far right and how those movements go.

And then it kind of goes from the social media people who are just talking shit to the infiltrating the dating, to the infiltrating the in cells, and then you finally wind up with, you know, out and out. Let's go light stuff on fire people. That kind of thing. I'm interested to see, do you feel like there were other people who followed along with the same journey? If that makes sense, do you do you think that there was some earnest person who's going on white date? Realizes that there aren't any women there then goes to an in-sell community. Do you know what I mean?

Maybe I mean I guess I could see someone being like I mean, I guess I could see someone being like, well, like I've been radicalized, like now I'm a white supremacist, looking for my perfect woman, goes on white date, no women, this must be a problem with women. No women. This must be a problem with the women. There's something fundamentally wrong with women. They're not based enough.

I'm gonna be coming in, so maybe, I mean, a lot of the guys on White Day were older, were like, like, daaah, like divorced. There was a lot of divorced men, very divorced, just strong, divorced energy on White Day. Yeah, that sounds right. Like, like every night I eat like pork and beans from a can. How are you? Kind of vibes. Um, can't like, I would say the most manipulative thing I did. And like, I mean, there are a lot of things. It's like, I am still proud of culture warlords. And obviously, like, people still want to talk to me

about it on a podcast three years later. And that's tight. But like, some of the things I did were a little outtray. Like, which is sort of, I mean, I think it makes the book a more propulsive read, but like, I got the men on White Day to write me love letters to their ideal white wife, and then I printed them in an anti-fascist book, which is sort of an objectively funny, if manipulative thing to do.

I was gonna say, we were gonna get there. I was gonna say how much of your behavior do you feel like, yeah, I'm gonna tell my kids about that. I'm real proud. I don't say, I would say I feel like ashamed of really anything I did. I think it is like, the one thing is like, there was a lot of push from the

Publisher to make it more of a memoirish feel Include more me and that wasn't necessarily hunter S Thompson going undercover in the right wing kind of thing Yeah, that like I was a character and like I'm trying not to do that in book two like it's something that Hopefully as my writing retures like that obvious the need to like kind of center the self. I think it can be kind of reflexive. I mean and every first book is an autobiography as they say but but in this case it was it was pretty it was pretty extreme. The other undercover bit and the one that was like by far the most emotionally involved. I'm sure you were going to get to this and I'm getting all your questions out of order ruffling your beautiful hair. I was like enmeshed. Again, that's sort of Ashlyn, but like, I think I had a different user name on Telegram,

like Arion Queen, whatever. Oh my God, I swear to you, this is how stupid I am. I swear to you, and I wrote it down in my notes. I saw Ashlyn 1488, and my first thought was, she's 550 years old, and then I was like right right right 1488 the 14 words and then the high I got you now Yeah, no, she's also a time traveler from the Carolinian era No, I'm not very clever. It's it's like As I've moved away like the current book is a lot more about mainstream

figures, mainstream politics. It's still about radicalization and violence, but it's more about like the Christian right and like, it's less, I mean, there's still like specialized knowledge and shit, like you just have to read what they write about like we want to take over the country. We believe there are profits. Like we are explicitly have this goal of theocracy and like here are like all of our representatives on school boards and it's, it's, it's legislatures, like it's a little more straightforward. You don't have to download any encrypted apps.

You can just like, you can just like watch videos of school board meetings. I will see that like I think some people in the like researching the far right community can get a little like enamored of kind of knowing who these obscure people are and like knowing all their codes and like I think I was a little bit in that mindset but like 1488 isn't that obscure? It's it's kind of a oh no no no I'm, our show is thoroughly familiar with 1488. There's no need to go any further into that. Everybody here is more than familiar with Hitler.

Yeah. Just to be clear, he's bad. I just like him. Bad guy. Um, no. Have you ever seen the movie in Pyram? No. Um, no, have you ever seen the movie Imperium? No. Okay, so it's really funny. It's like very cringed and it has a good heart, but it's so weird. It's, it's, it's, um, with Daniel Radcliffe.

And he plays, uh, this real life guy, I think it's Mike Jermon. The name might be familiar to you. This guy, like, an actual fed who, like, went undercover with white supremacists and, like, has been kind of warning about them ever since. But the movie is, like, Daniel Radcliffe plays him, like, going undercover with a bunch of Nazis.

And, like, goading them into, like, or, like, they have a plot to, like, blow up a damn and then he, like, sort of, both goads them and then interrupts it at the last second. And it's, I think it's a partially based on a true story. It's also just like Daniel Radcliffe is a very tiny person and he's like pretending to be this ex-navies seal who like is their security expert. Anyway. He was way more believable as a corpse that could talk and be a boat. Yeah. I really believed in that one. I was like, that's a Harry Potter performance right there.

Yeah, no, I mean, I enjoy that he's spent his post Harry Potter career just taking on the weirdest roles possible. But anyway, at one point, the only point of the anecdote was just like at one point, like the dialogue is so bad. They're just like, he's like, they greet each other, white supremacist, green each other, it's like 1488 brother.

I mean, the problem is that's not far enough off from reality. Like that's not bad writing, that's bad Nazis. I know. I know. They do better close down. They do a lot of dance. It's just it was so funny like We had this great conversation with a Nazi punk of it how like Hector's like labels on food that say that they're kosher or like because Jews are controlling the food supply It was very funny. It was interesting to see it in a movie with Daniel Radcliffe in it, but like Occasionally, I was like find myself with an intrusive thought of just like wanting to be like 14-88 brother, just say hello. Like my brain is poison. I just don't take anything I say seriously. See there we go now we're talking about the things that you took away.

It's true like yeah I mean I I was in a really dark place after I wrote the book. Like, is all a human like this? Like, everyone I've talked to for the last year wants to kill everyone like me. Like it really steeps into your bones. It makes you feel scared. And then I did have when the book got published, like the FBI showed up at my door and they're like um, you know Like they're rape and death threats against you. I'm like, I know

From the FBI No, the FBI wasn't threatening to rape and kill me But it was like I got a visit from like the yeah, the counter-terrorism squad at the FBI. And they were like, people want to rape and kill you. I'm like, I know, I know. And then a year later, I was gonna say, yeah. They met up with me and we were like, one of the people that threatened you the most

is now in jail and the other, like is barred from using the internet in his country. And like, can you give me more details? And they're like, nope. I'm like, okay, cool, good meeting. Where the FBI, what do we help? Come on. Yeah, I mean, oh, but like I've taken security measures

since then, it's so, it's weird. I mean, I think none of it helped with my anxiety disorder. Let's put it in a way. Sure, sure. Well, no, I mean, there was one question that comes up early on in the book and it's not quite a question so much as it is. You see a tweet or something from somebody that's just, would anyone rape Taliya Lavin, right?

I think it was an Telegram chat. It was an Telegram chat of people affiliated with like the Bulpatrol podcast, which was like straight up like Autumn Vofen, like terror, it's like terrorists being like sure anyone rape her, only with a shotgun. I mean, fuck you. See you there. That's the thing that I couldn't stop thinking about. Besides, you know, the visceral nature of it, I assume must have been just beyond fucked

up to not be yourself and to hear people talk about you behind your back. They posted a picture of my feet. Right. In a Nazi chat that I was lurking in, it was so weird. Um, I think at the time I was like, well, I guess I'm doing something right? I will see that as a woman and as a Jew, but as a woman, I think there's an element of covering this stuff that gets very visceral because the misogyny is really at the beating heart of these movements. And that includes the Christian right by the way. But like, when we're talking about these terror movements, we're talking about white

supremacy and white supremacist terror, right, and and and inseal them, obviously, misadventures are being hard of it, and like they really hate women, they really hate feminism, and like they are very violent people, and so their heads go to gendered violence right away. And like, when I talk to men who are in the sort of like weirdos who research the far right kind of community Most of what they get in terms of opposition and I wonder if this is your experience is like I was like okay like I'm Lex Luthor, you are a Batman like you know this sense of we sense of were rivals, but were equal. You know, and I'm gonna fuck with you

and I'm gonna be save island things, but it's not like I am going to like rape your corpse. Like you are sub, like you are subhuman. You are not worthy of my rivalry because you are a woman. Like the constant talk of rape, the constant discussion of my body, like, you know, um, and my face and like, like using a picture of me as evidence that like Jews are non-human and are more closely related to like Australophecus because of their giant hips. Like just weird stuff. Have you had people analyzing your body and face and feet

and threatening rape? Physiognomy in 2023 is just great. But no, I mean for us, no, and we're more than aware that if we were women, it would be completely different for us. Because as it stands, we're just ignored. Nobody talks about us. Nobody really comes after us. No, we just, we just sit in our little corner of the internet and are left alone, essentially. But if we were not to bearded white dudes, if we were to women, especially women of color, we would be exoriated on a fucking daily basis by hundreds of people, if not thousands. So I mean, that's why I asked the question to you because obviously I can't. I can't understand it.

You know, like when I read that somebody would post something like that, like my first instinct is like, well, this needs to be against the law or something. I don't know what to do with this. I don't know what to do with this beyond say, whatever happened needs to stop. You know? But I can't feel the visceral element of it being directed towards me. Yeah, I mean, it was not like a high top 10 moment

of my life that moment, although it did make for very dramatic copy. I will say that I hired my own fact checker because that's what you have to do for books. Like they don't provide one That's why I write fiction. Yeah, yeah But she reviewed all of the screenshot like I took screenshots of every interaction I had including that one and traumatized my fact checker

She's like I read through all this stuff and I like vomited and I'm like, I'm so sorry I paid her extra. I'm like, I'm like, have this. That's a Nazi tip. You have a Nazi tip, eyeless. You're gonna have to pay 50%. Has it? Like, you have to read these fucking disgusting chats. Like, this muck. And it's like, I think the the one thing and you notice how also like many of the people who are reporting on this stuff are white men right and that there's a lot of reason for it like there are you know first of all it's like and it's it's a not as heavy a lift to constant like you're not constantly engaged with people who want to eliminate you off the face of the earth.

Um, as your job. Right. The psychic toll is far less, uh, high. Uh, I mean, there's still psychic toll, like you're looking into the howling void of hell, but like, Oh, yeah, I'm insane. We've listened to Alex Jones, I'm insane. We've listened to Alex Jones nigh every day for seven years.

I've lost my mind completely. Yeah, but like the howling void isn't like looking at you assessing your looks and deciding whether you're worthy of raping. Right. I do think that like, first of all, there's also really fucked up like sense and journalism that like, oh, anyone with a stake in the matter, like can't be objective.

Sure. So like, women can't report about misogyny. Only white men can be objective, right? And that's an unsuddle factor in why the press core in the US looks like, such as it is, looks the way it does. Well, clearly it's an objective opinion. But I think a lot of reporting on extreme is not all of it. looks the way it does. Well, clearly it's an objective opinion. But I think a lot of reporting on extremism, not all of it,

not all of it, but a lot of reporting on extremism is, at the very least, rarely acknowledges how central misogyny is to these movements. Because it is not viscer really directed at the reporters themselves, because it is also so ambiently present in the rest of culture that it's easy to ignore, and perhaps everyone has internalized bias as reporters and non-reporters alike. But I think the biggest thing that I would say is like living through kind of being an avatar, a recipient of this kind of gendered hate is like recognizing how central misogynist. And that's asymmetricism. Like I think I knew they hated Jews,

right? Obviously I'm not stupid and I've been writing about it, but it's like Like, I think I knew they hated Jews. Right? Obviously, I'm not stupid and I've been writing about it, but it's like, then you get into it and you're like, oh my god, no, like they hate Jews, but it's not just that they hate Jews, it's that the hatred of Jews is the scaffolding on which from which every other hate is hung. It's the overarching sort of canon. It's the world explanation that provides a support structure for all the other hate.

So it occupies this very unique niche. So as a Jewish woman reporting on this world, it felt very personal for me. And I think that explains why I went to Gonzogh why I felt so out for revenge. Because I was like, these people want to murder my family, they want to rape me to death. Like, they obsessively fantasize about subjugating all women

and killing all Jews. So yeah, it did feel like a personal fight. And like, on the other hand, everything in the book is factual and fact checked. Of course, of course. I didn't let my emotions blind me to the truth. All right, all right, let's not, let's not... I'm not a cute, I'm more just saying like... I know, I know, I'm just kidding.

Oh, oh, oh, calm down. No, no, I think... I see one of them. Yes, there we go. It's okay, baby. Don't worry. So it was, it. Don't worry. So it was it to feel very personal and it's not and it may be like an objective journalistic

Chronicle in that sense, but like I do feel like there was stuff I learned while I was writing it I really learned more about the history of antisemitism in America the rule and I saw much as in plays and How people get radicalized. That is the next step, because that is a really interesting part of this book from my reading of it is you were radicalized. Like the element of your book is you were radicalized. You know, like the element of your book is you are going through a journey of somebody's radicalization, you know, through these different groups.

And then at the end of it, you are thoroughly radicalized. Just not in the way that they would have appreciated you be. And that leads me to the question of like, you know, you said, I don't necessarily appreciate that I took, made these guys write letters to their perfect white wife, right? In the face of what you deal with, I don't know what's unjustified and what's unjustified.

Do you know what I mean? And I mean that in a very serious way, because when you say radicalized, it's fascinating to me. And you know what I mean? And I mean that in a very serious way, because when you say radicalized, it's fascinating to me. And you say it in the book. I'm not putting words into your mouth, correct? No, no, yeah. I just want to clarify, I became radicalized

as an anti-fascist. Yes, but I mean, yes, you were. Yeah, oh my god. Like, I think so much of adiculation is just like being in a bubble where you get exposed to like the same, so like reinforcing material every day, every hour where you're, you know, in this bubble of like minded people. And I would say that like being in those bubbles as someone who this bubble of like, kind of people. And I would say that like, being in those bubbles as someone whose identity is like,

diametrically opposed to everything they stand for, and like knowing that they wanted to, they, not only personally, but also just like, on an identity category basis, like as a feminist, as a woman, as a Jew, like they want me dead. Was, yeah. Yeah, you're Jew, like they want me dead. Was, yeah. Yeah, you're a triple threat, literally. Yeah, it was a tremendously radicalizing experience.

It was, like I was like, fuck you. You know, I went from like, fuck you to fuck you. Like just, like totally. It's final test, really. And I never knew just a deservedly so. Deservedly so. I don't know how a question like would anyone rape Tali elavin not radicalize you

How how could it not right for the crime of like having like written a couple of articles like about I know the far right like it's just Yeah well, I mean, and it's just a confusing and disgusting question that means so much. It is an expression of, again, they're like loneliness and they're hatred for women that is, you know, like they can't even say,

like, oh, does anybody find Taliya Lavin attractive? They can't do that. And that's not the question they're asking. But the question they're asking also isn't the question they're asking. You know, they're expressing some feeling that is violent and hate-filled and lonely and just horrendously awful. You know, it's also what's interesting. It's like, it is a gendered performance.

Like, totally, 100%. And when you're in these all-male, majority male spaces, especially because I'm a honey potting half the time, you just realize how much of it is like, guys showing off to each other. Like, and I think the dynamic of sexually humiliating and degrading women to other men is very much a performance of masculinity.

Yes, yes, that was the... Yes, yes. And they're obsessed with hypermasculinity. Sorry, I'm excited. No, they're obsessed with hypermasculinity. There was a other episode where I adopted another identity to talk with white supremacists who wanted to do a Christians versus pagans like fight in the woods. Oh yeah, that one would be fun. Oh just hilarious. What's the name of it? Oh god, I don't remember. It's been a while, but it was like, they, it was like the rumbling, whatever they were gonna do like a fight like good nature like Christians versus pagans.

You know, not we're all white nationalists here, but we have different religious beliefs. Let's settle this through violence like we always do. Yeah, and it was to raise money for Augustus Invictus' presidential campaign. That's a like white nationalist, wife-beating piece of shit. Started off his career drinking goat blood and challenging Marco Rubio for his senate seat in Florida. I think now he's a trad-calf, but he just beats women. That's his other thing.

I mean, so misogynny, hypermasculinity, misogynny, as part of hypermasculinity and performance for other men. This like, am I tough enough? Tough, tough, tough, tough, tough, kind of. Sure, sure, sure, sure. Five, I think the degradation, humiliation, and specific targeting of women is part of that performance, which isn't to say it doesn't come from a place of like of that performance, which isn't to say it doesn't come from a place of like all kinds of fucked up in a rage, but I think part of it is is also showing off for other guys.

How much that's what I was thinking about. Yeah, well, that's what I was thinking about with white date.net. Sorry for interrupting you. But what I was thinking about was how much of the messages that they sent you are them with this mistaken impression or you know, in your case mistaken, but perhaps a reasonable impression that any woman who would go on white date is looking for the most white, white nationalist man she can find, right? Yeah. And so a lot of those messages to you are tinged with a certain amount of like I

Got I got a really up my white nationalism for this lady. I got a really I mean when I go to the store I'm like I don't like black people, but this lady I need to be really white nationalist for yeah It's like I want you it was so fun. It was just like the Yeah, it's like, I want you, it was so fun. It was just like the messages were just like, you seem like the good submissive mother of my babies. And like, let me prove to you how much I hate you. I know already this in shoes. I can't believe there aren't a ton of women

on whitedate.net. I know. I know. I think it's like, like, the whole white nationalist terrorist movement, which is like, at this point, one of the things that's shifted in my thinking is like, it is a fascinating and destructive subculture.

It's also like, since I wrote that book in 2020, like the Overton window has shifted so far that like, to focus on like, like the violence is coming from inside the capital H house. Like there has been a seismic shift in like where the centers of violence are. Like, you know, who sort of makes sense to study

as like a primary target. I'm also not really doing undercover work anymore. Um, just because I was like, I'm also not really doing undercover work anymore. Smart. Just because I was like, I can't do that again. Like I'll go crazy. Crazyer. And there's more than enough stuff.

I mean, I am planning to attend at least one conference, either about like prophecy, homeschooling. I do leave both. In chronically the Christian right, but like I will not be undercover at that point. Like I will be a, a me, person attending. Hopefully I won't get chased out again.

Like I said, where did you get chased out of? A conference organized by Andy Neau and Tim Poole. I met two Titanic intellectuals. I met them both at that event. Neau was like very awkward and like not confrontational. He wanted, I met Tim Poole, I asked him if his beanies smell bad. That's a good question. He was like, no, I have, I have a few and I washed them.

I think one or both of them wanted to take a selfie with me and I was like, no. Nope. Why not? Fuck you. I'm not. What are they gonna do with it? Are they gonna prove that they're gonna use it to be like, look, this is our enemy and she loves us. Like, no, I'm just here to cover the fucked up things you say. It was very weird. It was like, and also in a casino and like Philadelphia. Um, it was kind of cool because there were like some antifa, I was like, I, I was outside smoking for a lot of it. I went to some of the panels, but like, I also just wanted to talk to people who like showed up to like see Sargon of a cod in person and like Philadelphia.

Can't miss it. When Sargon gonna be back in Philadelphia! Come on! I know, like I'm like like so you know what are you up to? Like I wanted to talk to them and there was this one lady who was like I just think the races should be separate and I was like cool can I like take your photo let's talk what's your name she's totally cool with all of it and she's like yeah like I just don't think people of different races should marry. And I posted that to my Twitter. I was like live tweeting in retrospect if I was done my idea. I wasn't really like such an expert.

I'm reporting from adversarial situations, but it was like she got this other guy that like gang up on me, someone else is following me around. I had a friend who had like driven me there there. He was playing Blackjack because this was all in a casino. And at a certain point, I had three different people following me around yelling at me and I was like, it's time to cut me. And so I, I was like, let's get out of here. And so, I kind of And so, I kind of made a dash for his vehicle. And that person is currently my boyfriend. I'm not saying this is the test for dating me, but can you safely extract me from a conference

full of white nationalists? Isn't like a bad litmus test? It's a good quality. It's a good quality to have. One that most people won't need, but you never want to be without it. So I would say that I was like leaving and I was running. Like I wasn't running.

I was just like, I'm gonna like hit the trail, right? Like let's get out of here. Couple people were yelling after me. We get in the car, we speed away. And I was like, I was just chained, I tweeted, I was just chased out of this conference, especially because they were like, building it as like, we're so reasonable.

Like, you know, we're like, we're really open to other perspectives. And I was like, hey, I was just chased out of your conference. Like so, okay. And they were like, they found the post millennial, and was like, she, they claimed that I wasn't chased out,

I waddled away. That I wasn't like at a full tilt run. And like, then they were like, we talked to the casino security about like, whether anyone was chased out and I was like, people were running, like, we're yelling at me and following me around and I like, left at reasonable speed. Like, you know, maybe casino security

wouldn't have noticed and they're like, we're gonna produce the security footage that proves this is a lie and they never did. But they were like, so if she's lying. And I'm like, no, it reminds me of like 1940s journalism where they'd be, where they'd just go into a paragraph on a woman's appearance,

on a story about like, the building was falling down. And then they've got her shoes were a little bit too high and you're like, Jesus Christ. Well, it's just another example of like how this world of stuff is. And like, Jesus Christ. Well, it's just another example of how visceral this stuff is. And like, okay, so I show my face. And the postman I swear published,

a woman who looks like a pigeon, as a follow up, is actually Antifa, and she's gonna ask you misleading questions and lie about you on her blog. The guy who said that in the session I was in, was someone who had told me like, I'm not a white nationalist, I'm a civic nationalist. I think there's a diversity of opinion here.

And I put a photo of him. Anyway, I don't think I look like a pigeon. I'm not covered with him. Anyway, I don't think I look like a pigeon. I'm not covered with feathers. So But it was just it's I don't I don't even know how to handle the concept of a non-stop barrage of appearance-based insults like it it never ends Yeah I mean it's that's that's the fucked up truth of it is it never ends. No, and for

a while they were obsessed with the idea that in like a few pictures my fingernails appeared dirty and like someone made a collage of like different photos of my fingernails, including several where I was like at the beach and just like had sand in my nails. Sure, but it was like this filthy finger nail, Jew, and I like started getting really self-conscious and like stopped including my hands and photos. Like it's like, it's just, it gets to you. Like you're human. That's fucking unbelievable. So when I've talked to people who've been brigade and swarmed by hate, I'm like,

like a lot of times they feel guilty for letting it get to them. Like I've talked through like specifically a lot of women through the process of like, so like you wound up being like the target of Tucker Carlson's show today or like, forchan found your blog post and suddenly gone from being like a random person to like being the target of an avalanche of hate and it's like very weird it feels like the roof is blown off your life and I've talked them through it and like inevitably it's it's mostly been women and inevitably there's this feeling of guilt of like shouldn't that be stronger like I'm letting this get to you and I'm like no like you're a human being we like evolutionarily respond criticism because we don't want to be

rejected from the drive and like left alone to starve. Like it hurts to hear people say stuff, like you are too ugly to rape or like this disgusting dirty fingernail, too, is like an example of of an example of meanderthalism and not a homo sapiens. It's like weird. It makes you feel weird when you look in the mirror. You're like, God, do I really look like the... You know that caricature of a Jew they always have? It's like the guy with the hook nose bending over sort of rubbing his hands.

I'm like, like, it's true. How would other people see when they look at me? It's like the guy with the hook nose bending over sort of rubbing his hands and like like it's true. How would other people see when they look at me? Like it's just like you know when I've had some time and I've had some therapy but like for a little bit it was just like oh my god like you know when you deal with like very direct comments and attacks on like very direct comments and attacks on like appearance, who you are, like your gender, your esno religion, whatever it is, like and it's all intertwined, it does fuck with your head. So that wasn't, you know, I think that was part of my process of radicalization, just being like, leave me alone. Yeah, of course, no, I mean, it makes me blindly filled with rage to hear that like, I mean, honestly, I'm, you can see my body language, I hope, but I'm fucking shivering with how much I can't,

I can't, I can't conceive of the idea of wanting to say that. Not even, not even saying it, saving it, saying it is beyond my comprehension entirely. I was just like what female researchers of this stuff endure is staggering. And this story is included in the book, but you had Molly Konger on the podcast. I love her.

She's an amazing person. She came to say to her with my family when you're, I adore. She's a delightful human being. Friend of the show. Oh, we love socialist dog, mom. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you know what happened to her over the course of, and this, I included this in the book. I watched this unfold in real time. Drew Paul Nealyn. Does that name sound familiar at all to you? He ran against Paul Ryan for the house. In what is it Wisconsin? Anyway, he's fucking nuts. And like, he kind of wound up like not winning obviously, but he became increasingly more and more anti-Semitic over the course of his campaign. He also works in water treatment, which is insane, because I'm like, this guy's gonna put cyanide in the water,

it was constant, but whatever. Anyway, he had a specific rage hard on against Molly, and this other woman who were both, had both done research on antifascism. Sure, sure. This was right around the Unite the Right area. This was after, this was during the writing of... Charlottesville, yeah.

Yeah, but that's when Molly became more active, but this was a couple of years later, Neelin had already lost. He had a telegram channel. He went deer hunting. He named two deer after these women. He shot the deer, labeling them after he was women.

He lynched the deer, the dead deer. And then he made deer meat sausage and spelled Molly's name out in me. That's psycho. I mean, yeah, I can sense, I can feel why that would be threatening. Absolutely. But to me, that's more confounding.

The number of ideas that you have that lead to that point. So outweigh any kind of rational behavior. The moment you're like, well, I've killed the deer. Now I got to string it up. You should have somebody around being like, this is just, I mean, you shouldn't be allowed to keep beating a dead horse. You shouldn't be allowed to kind of treat horse. You think you love to carry the treat water? Yeah, that's not complicated. But yeah, no, I mean, but like, imagine this happening to you, someone named a deer after you, they murder it,

and they hang it in effigy. That's how visceral the violence against women and the hatred of women is. That's how visceral the violence against women and the hatred of women is. Like, and I interviewed Molly about the whole thing. I mean, after a swim point, like we get this sense of mornin' humor, like I would say, I think the the women who study this stuff have an even darker sense of humor than the dudes. Because we've just, we've been to hell. since if you were then the dudes. Cause we've just, we've been to hell. And back, like, uh, you know,

but, and it rolls off your back, but then also, you know, I, I don't, like, I take very serious precautions. I don't post photos where I am. I like, still, you know, even though it's been years and no one's coming after me, probably, there is a sense where I'm like knowing that like enough people I've wanted to murder and rape you over the course of your life does sort of put a permanent dent in your

feeling of safety. I still think it was worth it writing this book. I still think it's worth it writing book too, just because whatever, like, my emotional distress, like, this is existential for the country, this is existential for so many people. It's worth doing the work, but it does take a toll. And particularly, if you are female, that toll is gendered in very extreme ways. And these...

Oh, for sure. And not in ways that are necessarily readily visible to men interfacing with this world. Yeah, I mean, I talked to Sean Norris, a journalist from Britain not too long ago. And in her book, she wrote, until women have complete reproductive freedoms, they will never be free. If that, you know, and it's like, that is, if that is a true statement, then you're also kind of saying that women will never be free. Because the vast majority of human beings, regardless of gender or anything,

are inherently misogynistic on this fucking planet. Do you know what I mean? Like a, a, a, a, most, most religions at their core are misogynistic or at the very least subjugate women. You know, most institutions, most jobs, most businesses, most everything, the fucking government, like all of these things are arrayed against women. And that's just the people who don't send you messages. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think at the same time fighting for freedom is still worth it. Even if it's really far away, like even if, you know, I think it takes real, it takes power

and courage to imagine Utopia. It takes courage to resist how shitty things are. I recently had a great conversation with a wonderful feminist author, commentator, Moira Donn again, and just said every time a woman um, someone's up the courage to get mad about how unjust things are and speak up about it. It grants other women the courage to do the same. Every single time, and there are real stakes that come with that.

There are real stakes with poking the status quo in the eye and the status quo, f**king hates women. But like, yes, attacks on reproductive rights, as we've seen in so many states, like it subjects, it makes women second class citizens, Yes, attacks on reproductive rights, as we've seen in so many states. It makes women second-class citizens.

It makes pregnancy very close to a crime. You're also surveilled. As I'm writing about extensively in the book, the curtailment of reproductive freedom is fundamentally about a worldview that wants to see all women, every woman, every woman. Submissive, subjected, oppressed and and fundamentally dependent. Like this is the dream that they want to achieve

and forcing us to get pregnant when we don't want to be is part of that. And some of them are very open about wanting to, about not being sad if someone who tries to get an abortion illegally dies. Like that the deaths of women are just collateral damage that they're not even particularly sad about. Like all the shit about babies is a smoke screen.

They're all about controlling women. It's all about making sure that like I've chosen not to have kids for a variety of reasons. That choice is one that is no longer available to a lot of women. That's really scary. And it's life altering. And it's tragic. And so the stakes are very existential. So as I'm writing book two, it's like, you know,

these aren't people that are going to say, I'm going to come over to your house and rape you. They're in state legislature saying, I am going to curtail your rights. I'm. That's why. Yeah, I know. I go back to.tail your rights. I am honest. That's why. Yeah, I know. I go back to.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I go back to the white date, you know? Like when you enter in a space for these men where they feel like they're okay to say whatever it is they want. Right. They wind up saying shit that they would never say out in the real, in the real world. There are millions upon millions of those guys

who would say the same stuff, who think the same stuff as like, I'm looking for my perfect white submissive wife, but they're not on white date, so you don't hear them say it. They just look for their perfect white submissive wife. Exactly. Or try to beat down anyone that they date into that mold that they have in mind.

Sure. I mean, the other thing is that, how do I put this? I mean, there's a lot to say. I personally also left a religion. Like I grew up Orthodox Jewish. I left, not I'll try out like Orthodox, but modern Orthodox is a subset of Orthodox Judaism

that let me go to college. But I was like, you idiots, you fools. I know. You've only educated me to defeat you. I know, well, I'm not in the business of defeating my past, but I will say it was like I was a smart kid in high school. I peaked. I was a captain of the debate team and I wasn't allowed to leave like prayers because of my gender. You know, like, there's all this stuff that's very misogynistic that's baked into the religion.

You know- Bakes into every religion. Yeah, but like, it manifests very physically in in in orthodox degrees and like we were required to pray in school and there was like a division literally like a like a partition between the sexes division literally like a like a partition between the sexes and in many synagogues like the women's section is much smaller and more uncomfortable because women are not only like can't make a prayer quorum they can't lead prayers they're not obligated to be present they're expected to be home taken care of the kids so it's just like very very physical and I at a very early age, I think I was 19, I was just like,

I don't want to be part of the faith that says that I am inherently inferior because of my religion. And just one funny moment from that was like, so I marry that very young. So I marry that very young. We got divorced and we went through a religious wedding and a religious divorce ceremony. The Orthodox Jewish divorce ceremony is that you're in front of a panel of three rabbis of a religious court. The man hands over the divorce decree, only the man can initiate it. Men who refuse are socially ostracized, but can keep their lives in this state of limbo where they can't re-marry. But what was supposed to happen was that he handed me the divorce decree

and there's this doctrine of like silence as acceptance. I was supposed to take it quietly and back out of the room. And I didn't even remember this but I was recently reminded that apparently during that moment, I was so pissed off at the whole thing, that I moonwalked out. Nice. Nice. I like that. I moonwalked out.

I moonwalked backwards. It was like, take this silence as acceptance, my bitches. Yeah, I mean, I find it hard not to like, shit in my hand and throw it on the walls and say this is all arbitrary. All of this is pretend. You're all making it up as you go along. This is stupid. What are you talking about?

You also left a stringent faith. Am I wrong? Is that not something you want to discuss? Oh, I left the shit out of a stringent faith. Yeah, I think the difference between leaving a form of Christianity, that's oppressive, and leaving a form of a minority faith in this country that's oppressive is that I'm not like gonna tire and feather, like I'm not comfortable being like, I think that, how do I put this? I'm not comfortable being like I think that how do I put this?

Sometimes people who have experienced religious trauma and spiritual abuse in Christian contacts are very eager to say like All religion is shit all religion is a progressive average religion is arbitrary. I don't disagree but like I don't disagree. But, like, some of that anger is more appropriately directed at hegemonic faith that's trying to proselytize an oppress. And like, not all religions are equally harmful to society. And I get a little touch of you when like, ex-Christiantheists who don't really realize that they're still Christian influencers, saying stuff like, kosher laws are stupid, like, oh, like God, God doesn't want you to use a magic microwave and like they're older than like fucking time, like just if people want to keep kosher in their own kitchens

whatever, like that's the least of our problems with religion at this moment in time and like you're not proving how equal you are by like shitting all over Judaism or whatever. So I get protective also because I've like dealt with a lot of anti-Semitism. Anyway, I'm not trying to, to, yeah. No, no, no, you're fine. Go for it.

I just think sometimes, not you, I'm just like experiencing, talking about some of my experiences, which is that sometimes people who grow up Christian, especially evangelical, and then become atheists, have not necessarily unlearned evangelical Christianity, they just like reversed it. They didn't reverse it like you have to believe what I believe everything else is stupid It's just now it's about atheism and I'm like you have a lot of shit on pack Not you like people anyway, that's a very big No, I don't either here or they have a lot of shit to unpack and I unpacked it It was very nice.

It was a pleasant experience to unpack why shit. Like God, I mean, but now I'm writing about evangelical Christianity. And I sent you a series I wrote about child abuse in the evangelical context. It's more in line with like what the current book and current work is. Oh my God.

Ah, like a lot of these parents doing to their kids. Like, it's really fucked up. I mean, what's fun about it is a lot of what you taught, what's fun, what's hilarious about child abuse. The top funny things about, no, it is like all of the stories of abuse that you are describing and telling and retelling from other people are ones that I experienced. And so what's funny about that to me is that it is treated with such emotional reverence. And for people for whom it is, it should be.

You know, the problem is my reaction to that was becoming a comedian. You know, so it's hard for me to like read my story reflected as like this, this, I mean, you know, tragedy whenever I'm walking around being like, all right, so when my parents beat me to shit, when I was five, you know, like whenever I'm walking around being like, all right, so when my parents beat me to shit when I was five, you know, like it's, it's a joke to me to have, have lived through this.

And that's, that's because it's how I'm dealing with it, not because I believe it to be a joke. Does that make sense? Oh, totally. Like, let's just say that there's a reason I was drawn to the topic, and I'm not without a stake in the matter and that's all as far as I'll elaborate in public Um, we all cope in different ways

um, I think for me like a radical empathy is like part of it or just like being like how can the experiences I had Enrich me as a writer and reporter and like someone who can hear a whole pin but like at the same time and also someone who can be like this is wrong. That's fucked up. Sure. But also someone that is objectively like a little bit funny and in horror by and horrifying ways, not not people's stories but like if you read James Thompson's books.

The focus on the family. He opens up thing like I remember the day my mom beat me with her girdle and like I felt every strap. And like that was the day I knew I would be saved or whatever and like that was the day you developed just fetish that you spent the rest of your life. Yeah, absolutely. No, the difference between fetish and the things

that they, that all of these books start with as far as like their origin story are the same as somebody being like, and that's why I go to a dominatrix every week. Like it's the same exact story. And that's how I knew I was really into feet, but like in this case, it's like, that's how I knew Christ wants you to be your children. Like, I knew I needed to annoy women on whitemendate.com to about their feet. That's what I knew. Yeah, no. By the way, there is a wiki-feet man, but it is for game men.

Why are men so much more prone to foot fetishes than women? It's a mystery. Anyway, that's a tangent. Dobbson also opens one of his books with like an epic description of how he's spent a weekend beating the shit out of a doxan. First, he's being on a fuzzy toilet seat. He's fucked up man and like so many people, millions of people, took him as Goth Bull for how to raise their kids. And he's the reasonable one compared to other folks because he's like, we still,

we're like a toddler to start beating them. Yeah, I mean, when Ted Bundy torches animals as a child, we correctly go, oh, that's disqualifying. Right, yeah. Whereas like, Thompson's like, my, like, you know, I am America's Reverend, like, um, it's just really like, and this idea, and I think it is tied up in some of the, the current political struggles in school boards and libraries, you know, this idea of parental absolute parental rights, um, over your child's concerns this idea of parental rights over your child's

consumes, over the ideologies, your child's is like allowed to encounter. I think it comes from this attitude of my child as my property, and I think that mindset is very intimately related to I can abuse the shit out of my kid. It's my kid, so it's there arm and if I break it, it's nobody's business, but mine. Kind of a deal. I think these mindsets are very interrelated and like, I know it's hard to be a parent, but like it's not that hard to not break your kids arm. It's really not like, you know, and and then believe that like, it's okay because of a verse in Proverbs. Anyway, you wanted to talk about my book. I wanted to talk about something else

and I totally derailed the conversation. I for no, I'm down where we can keep going. I'm happy with this. Yeah, no, I understand completely where you're coming from. It is tragic, not those. The ones where it's a abuse from abuse is sake. It's tragic the believers, the ones who are weeping as they hit their kid. You know, the ones who are going, if it weren't for God telling me to do this in the form

of Dr. James Dobson. If it weren't for that, then I really, I don't want to hit my kid. This is a small human being that can't fight back, you know, which was, which was very interesting to me reading those stories is also one of the biggest differences in misogyny versus, you know, anything really is just there was a mo, you know, I got the shit kicked out of me. But there was a moment everybody knew was coming where I would be big enough that you couldn't do that shit anymore. And everybody kind of, because it happened to my older brothers, you know, my older brothers got the shit kicked out of them. But then there was

a, there was a time when it's like, if you want to start shit, I will fight back. And that was almost like a, a, a, a right of passage moment in a, in a way, you know, the, the first day that he, he comes over to, to hit you with the belt and you say, fucking hit me. Let's go. You know, that was a moment. And that's not a moment that my little sister had. That's not a moment that other that women have had.

I mean, most, most women, I'm assuming haven't had that. But that is a moment. Well, it's a moment where you get to say like, I am now sufficiently masculine that you can no longer abuse me in this way. Exactly. That's a moment that I am afforded that is taken. Yeah, we're about like, because of also specific evangelical social conditioning of women to be submissive submissive submissive submissive never fight back never complain There isn't that moment

You don't prove your femininity by beating the shouldn't of someone Much as I would love that to be the James On why not on occasion Why not God I think I'm I think I'm interested in that question. Why not? God. I think I'm interested in that question. Why not? I mean, you've been radicalized. Do you know what I mean?

Like, whenever we start saying the word radicalized, I say, based on the amount of shit that they put you through, it is entirely fine with me for you to go throw a punch. I'm fine with that. No, and also, I would say that part of it is growing older. Like I'm in my, the amount of shit I went through in my 20s, like just in terms of dating, but in terms of the way like men

would just like interact with me. Like now I'm just like, like the reason why men talk about sell my dates and like women being too old is because I'm 33 and she's like, don't talk to me that way. Sorry, don't fucking talk to me that way. I'm not going to put up with your shit. And the younger woman is, the more pliable the closer she is to a socialization of be nice, be nice, be nice, be nice, be nice.

Oh, shit, that's why the quiver kids get them started at zero, you know? Yeah, yeah. I mean, like the, and again, it comes back to a productive freedom, right? You entrap a woman into childbearing at 18. She never has this process of maturation where she can say, this isn't for me or I can make independent choices It's this very gross like property transfer from like father to husband No, my little sister was married

She was married in a church You know the whole thing Childhood pastor there and he read first Timothy 211 Which is let a woman learn in all submissiveness. I prefer I permit no woman to hold authority over man Because Adam was created before Eve Right he read that out loud in a church And my little sister and her husband just got married to it You know like that is a totally acceptable thing to hear and not be like,

hey, by the way, fuck you, I'm just not gonna do that one. I would be fine if she had just been like, yeah, but we're not gonna do that one. Yeah, but like, you can rarely, like, and this is, this is why I'm a little bit skeptical of all the people who are like, we just do radicalize all the Nazis. And that's a very emotional experience. You'll probably get radicalized in the bargain. How emotionally close do you want to get to some rando who wants to beat up Jews?

Okay. I'm more of them make them social pariahs root and protest every time they show up. But like you cannot pull someone out of an oppressive or hateful belief system, like externally. You can't do it. There has to be a breaking point from within. And in your case, that was the moment, you know, you walked away, right? In my case, I walked away from a faith,

in my case I also experienced like the very extremities of of misogynny and and it strengthened my identity as a feminist like whatever process we go through to attain the beliefs we do or that shape our beliefs like the experience of like getting extracted from an oppressive belief system via someone explaining to you how your beliefs are wrong, I think, is very vanishingly small, which is not to say that these beliefs shouldn't be opposed. It's just that you can't rescue people unless they're willing to be rescued. And I've learned that in a variety of different contexts, you know, whether that's abusive relationships, spiritually abusive faiths,

all sorts of things. And I had like a disastrous, the reason when you were like, I'm kind of kind of intense and like is this a debate podcast Just because I had a fucking disastrous podcast appearance with Brianna Joy Gray Where she was like shouldn't we just like gently talk to Nazis and like to radicalize them and I was like No, like that's not ever gonna work Yeah, see this is why this is why you gotta, like, I'm a bit thin. I am a person who is a soft yes on white genocide famously, you know?

I'm fine. People don't give a shit what I have to say anymore because I'm a little bit too far to the left, which is why my question to you then becomes the word radicalized. I know I keep coming back to it, but I'm interested in the definition of it because I don't think anybody agrees on it quite specifically beyond to say that it is the transformative process, you know, from I was here and now I'm here. Yeah, I mean, I think it contains multitudes, right? It's not a simple word. It doesn't mean the same thing for every person. Right.

So when you use it in the book, when I use in the book, God. Or when you use it now, whichever it is that's more visceral for you to answer, I suppose. Yeah, I think that I wouldn't necessarily use that phrase to describe myself now. Like, I would say my politics are radical. I am also disabled. Uh, I have a condition that makes it hard for me to leave my house. So I'm not on the street. I'm not throwing Molotov cocktails. I'm not doing. I often feel very like horrible and I can't show up for the movements I care about.

And so to use that phrase, like, I'm some radical. I try to be radical in my rating. I try to I try to be radical in my rating. I try to, you know, I think that maybe exercising radical empathy or using a radically outsider framework or whatever, just like not giving like evangelical Christianity a lot of quarter credence in and of itself as a radical act in a hegemonic Christian society blah blah blah blah blah. I would say that like I was more comfortable using that term in 2020 because I was just so like reeling from from the experience. Sure. Um, well that's that's why my my interest in it especially in regards to this is I feel like what you've danced around in that answer is that the immediate assumption that everyone has now is that it's violence. Which like, in my case, literally, I'm just like, no, it's okay to punch a mouthy, like,

do it. And you'd be amazed to see this. Sure. And to say this, and that I'm like, team anti-fileifa all the way like fuck moms for liberty that they're whining that like you know people like protested fuck Andy now like fuck uh Like the gender crits who are like gender critical turf so we're like someone through soup on me

Go through soup. That's part of it. I think radicalism can mean you just like have achieved like a certain, I think when I wrote it in the book, I'm at like, I hate these people. And it is a visceral, bone-deep hate that like is almost equal to the hate they feel for me. And that was an emotional process for me. That's that's what interests me about the the journey of the book as far as the radicalization goes is that I don't know quite I mean, I think the way that the term is used is fairly interchangeable with, I wasn't, and now I am ready to kill somebody.

I mean, in that generally, how we use it, explain to me how it's not. No, I think you're right. I just don't, like, I have, a war for me. So for me, I'm a strategist order, and I don't leave my house in hot. I'm like, am I ready to kill someone?

I will say this. Guess what? During this radicalization process, I started collecting swords. I have like 12 swords in my house. Was it because, like, when I hold a blade I feel safer? Yeah, if someone like came into my house to kill me, like I probably grabbed one off the wall.

Probably I'd get murdered in the process, but like, yeah, I was like, I was like, I'm just gonna say. As you were not a great swordsman yet. No. You must train with Muramasa obviously before you can defeat her. Yeah, like I need to go to some sort of mountain fastness and learn, like, whooshia moves.

Sure. That would be cool. Like, ideally, Michelle Yo would like teach me how to sort dance in like some sort of isolated buttressed place. But no, I, yeah. So what can I say? Yeah, I started thinking a lot about like, is someone going to come murder me? And like, what am I going to do about it?

And the answer was like to collect an increasing number of medieval swords. All right. So I don't have a problem with that. I think that answer does that answer your question? Maybe it does. Listen, I didn't pull around fantasizing about murder, but like I did say that's, I think that maybe the radicalization point was me saying, am I willing to die for this work? Yes. All right. That's a good definition. I appreciate that much better because I'm finding it through

my conversations with so many people who profess a lot of the words associated with all of this stuff. the words associated with all of this stuff, generally have a definition of their own that they are not sharing and are instead kind of allowing the the the parlance of the day to carry a lot more weight. And to me, I don't necessarily think that radicalization means now it's time to fucking kill people. I think that your definition is far better as a way of describing something that does radicalize you. And that's what I find so interesting about that is that in this case, I, I don't think that the white nationalists on in-cell places or white date or whatever are radicalized.

I don't think these people are willing to die for whiteness. I think they're willing to talk a lot of shit about it. What's some of them? They're the heroes of the day. I think some of them are willing to kill. And that's the way that you play this stochastic terror, right? Is that you're hoping, as you produce this propaganda, and this perpetual motion propaganda machine, is that you are hoping to instill in someone the willingness to kill. And like in America, the way massacres work is you usually die. Or go to jail for life. So am I willing to die? Am I willing to kill?

Like, these are the central questions of radicalization. For me, I'm not, like, particularly a violent person. In the times in my life, I've been an extreme physical danger. I have wound up reacting by screamy, extremely loudly, which weirdly, weirdly like works. I have a pretty eardrum piercing scream and that's just like my go-to.

It's got me out. It's got very sticky situations. Like I kind of freeze up, but I am very strong. Like I probably could punch someone out. I don't fantasize about it. I don't wanna kill someone. I am willing to die. If someone kills me,

because I spent my life writing about people who want to subjugate, murder, and destroy the lives of others. That will to me have meant I died a good death. That was more salient when I was writing about like, terrorists who were personally threatening to murder me. But like, at the time, that was what I felt. I still feel that way.

Like, if, you know, I am writing right now, but people who murdered George Tiller, who, bomb abortion clinics. You know, like, I'm always skating close to the edge. When you write about people who are willing to move heaven and earth, who are willing to, who want to move earth closer to heaven and are willing to bulldoze a lot of people to get out of the way.

I mean, you're talking to people who've already committed violence. It doesn't seem like a big stretch for them to take another swing at it, you know? Exactly. That being said, after this book, I am going to rate a book about sandwiches. I already have that planned.

I'm like, I think it might be time for me to move on if I'm staring into the void. Cause like, it would be nice to do work at least for a while, maybe not forever. That doesn't make me wanna like jump in a volcano. But anyway, yes, I think my definition of M I radicalized is like, I have internalized the idea that this work is so existentially necessary that I'm willing

to give my life for it. That's where we settle after I've been dancing around the dancer for a while. Excellent. I love that answer. I like it a lot. Are you willing to die to talk shit about Alex Jones? Me?

Come on, I'm bipolar type one. I spend every day waiting to die. Yeah. I know, I feel like- Dying is the least of my concerns. I'm dreaming of the day where it's not my fault. Because then I won't have to worry about it. I know, right?

I mean, this is like mental illness, like 101, but it's like, yeah, you have days where you were just like, give me a reason not to die. Hey, and so I'm like, yeah, like some Nazi, like shoots me in the head, because he didn't like like, my book, like awesome. I get to be a martyr. Oh, hell yeah. Yeah, that's great.

I didn't really, I didn't, I mean, first off, I didn't particularly ask to be here. I don't particularly like being here. The people around me are all fucking Nazis. What am I doing? You know, like my father with this. Why? I'm not sure it's not emotionally healthy perspective,

but at the same time, you can't really be emotionally healthy while doing this work, which is another reason why I would like to write book three about sandwiches. If you revise newsletter, I have 67 essays following Wikipedia's list of notable sandwiches in alphabetical order, and a lot of them go into history and culture, and generally it's been like a breath of non-fetted air in like my life. Wow, the one about the Belgian sandwich, the deep dive into who invented the sandwich. Was it this guy in 1946? Or was this something other as whole across the street?

I know. I said, the sandwich called the Bosnac, and I went on like a sandwich investigation, and it was like reading like very long excerpts from media and Salzburg. I mean, I do address some heavy shit, like the history of barbecue, the barbecue sandwich one was like all about slavery.

Yeah, that's usually how it goes. So like that's what was all about Dutch colonialism of like Indonesia, like it's like not like, like you can tackle heavy topics with a little scrim. Or you're not like, you're like, you're like personally, like I'm writing about people that personally want to like, subjugate slash murder slash, destroy like me and my family. Like that's very immediate. And like that's where I've been for the last like five years. And I'm just like, um, after this, like this is my last adventure.

This is my last ice. We're two and one last job. You're fucked. Oh god. Yeah, no, I'm like, I'm gonna show you. You don't say that out loud. I'm gonna show you a picture of my beautiful family. No. Oh my God. Oh, McBain. Here's my beautiful. McBain, here's my beautiful family. You're about to become Ashlyn 1488. I did. I did. Ah!

Ah! Ah! Well, I think that's an excellent spot to end. I appreciate the interview. This was absolutely fantastic to do in the delight. Could you please go ahead. It's Culture War warlords of course. Yeah, culture warlords, my journey into the dark web of white supremacy. If you like the silky, smooth, the tones of my voice, it's also available on audiobook and ebook. I do accents in audiobook.

Oh no! Which is... Oh, no! Like, you know, which is not like, cringy southern ones, but whatever, I do accents. If you like that sort of thing, please, please, please subscribe to my substack, the sword and the sandwich. It's... I guarantee there are not a lot of newsletters that are similar. Like every week, I'm taking a break this month for, for, because I have a big book deadline, but every week you will get like an essay about some aspect of American politics and like a very bizarre essay about food that will probably make you hungry or angry or both. So that would be

fun. And what a joy, what a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much. Yeah, of absolute delight. And I hope people pick up your book. Thank you. And I suppose we'll be back for another episode of Knowledge Fight. Yeah. All right. Take care everybody. Andy and Kansas, you're on the Earth. Thanks for holding. So, Alex, I'm the first time I've called him a huge fan. I love your work. I love you.