QAA Podcast - The Skokie Affair (E359)

Episode Date: February 11, 2026

Jake is retiring from neo-nazi research, but before he gets back to giant squids and time travelers, he's leaving us with a parting gift: a deep dive into The Skokie Affair. In 1977 Skokie, Illinois had a population of around 70,000 and it is said that 40,500 of them were Jewish. It is for this reason that a thirty-two year old, half Jewish neo-nazi, named Frank Collin, sent the Park District of Skokie a letter asking for a permit to hold a Nazi Parade. The case that followed (Village of Skokie v. NSPA) went all the way to the US Supreme Court leading to a precedent that still stands today. Subscribe for $5 a month to get all the premium episodes: www.patreon.com/qaa Produced by Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (instagram.com/theyylivve / sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (pedrocorrea.com) qaapodcast.com QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.

Welcome to the QAA podcast, episode 359, the Skokie Affair. As always, we are your host, Jake Rockatansky, Liv Egar, and Travis View. How is everybody doing today? I'm good. I just wanted to mention that in the script, instead of Jake's name, he wrote Jake Rock. I think that would be, like, an awesome, like, porn star name. That's ultimate laziness. I was, like, down to the wire trying to...

I bit off way more than I could chew on this episode. episode and down to the wire, Jake Rock, I'll know what to say. But Jake Rock is cool. I've thought about making that like some kind of like performing name, like music or something, but it's a little too on the nose, I feel like. It's very Logan's strain. It is. It's very Logan strain coded. Yeah. Live Agar, if that is your real name. Makes you think. Rockatansky isn't mine. Obviously, it's Mad Max's last name. If you don't know that by now, get with the program. All right. I guess what, how do we, how do we, how do we, how do we,

we just jump into something as like kind of like unsettling as like neo-Nazis i don't know i don't know well we've been doing it for uh yeah you know going about going on eight years now so uh yeah i'm finding myself really loving this nazi beat lately i don't know it started with like the jaden scott boys who we're gonna by the way we're gonna check up on on them they've been up to no good as predicted but yeah i've been like really sort of curious and and i made a comment on another episode talking about remembering a story about neo-Nazis or the KKK coming to Skokie, Illinois, where my grandparents lived. But I got like the reference all wrong. And so to make it up to myself, I guess, I decided to properly research the Skokie affair that took place in 1977

and do a little like sort of like a retro history kind of thing. Like how do we deal with Nazis back then? Because today it seems like, you know, they can kind of do. whatever they want. Like, make t-shirts, hats, you know. The legacy of World War II in the 20th century is a bit more looming over people's consciousness in relation to Nazis. Now people are like, oh, is that like a Hearts of Iron Four reference you're talking about? Like, I don't. Yeah, this was not quite as far removed. You know, I have many good memories of Skokie, Illinois from when I was a child. My grandparents lived there, and I remember it being very Jewish. just like them.

You know, my grandpa, they had, you know, Tevia statues and stuff in the basement. They were, you know, there was a Henny Youngman giant book of Jewish jokes. My grandmother played Majong.

Uh, she smoked Palmol unfilters. They drank Canfield's 50-50. These were Jewish people. Jewish ASMR. Just like mentioning all the old memories, the stimuli. Matzabal.

Zedaka. Hamintoshin. For all my Jews. For all my Jews. out there. We'll know those. The homantosh and are really good little cookies. They're like triangle cookies that have a jelly center. And they're shaped in, uh, they're supposed to be shaped after a porum character's hat.

Everybody thinks like Jews are so, they're like, oh, they rule the world. But like, meanwhile, we're having, we like baked cookies that are supposed to look like hats. I don't know. I don't know how you can be so scared of these people. Anyways, my brother and I were very keenly aware when someone was more Jewish than we, were, and we found that incredibly funny. One thing you got to understand about growing up as a Jew is there's a lot to laugh about. You know, as a Christian kid, you know, from my understanding, Sunday school is like mostly a nightmare from beginning to end that leaves people very traumatized.

Can either of you testify to this? Well, yeah, yeah, it certainly introduces you to a very strange metaphysical system that's spoken of in a very strange way. So yeah, honestly, Sunday school is a, I remember being a very odd introduction to Christianity. As a, as an atheist kid who's not raised religious, it's kind of flat, you know, this or that, you know, it's kind of neutral. But you were like, as an atheist kid, like, was there a religion that like you went, you saw your friends have? And you were like, I kind of would rather have that one. Most of my friends growing up also did not believe in God. Vancouver, British Columbia is like a godless place. They believed in weed and good, in good dope, good, look at the red hairs on that.

Weed and drinking in a field way too early because there's nothing to do. Yeah, what about cigarettes? How did you guys feel about those? No, those were, they did a pretty good job at making us not do those. Like when vapes came in, it was just like, just ruined all of the progress made from that. But that was a bit like later. It was, we always noticed like at a lot of international. kids. At our school, like, they loved cigarettes. They smoked. And we were just like, that's kind of strange. Like, you know, those are bad for you? Yeah, you were like, you don't get anything from that. Like, they don't make you high or anything. I don't understand. You're just addicted to it? I don't understand. It smells gross. It's good with coffee and after meals. You know,

the scary sort of traumatization was very much the opposite of my Sunday school experience. Our shit was co-ed. There was snacks allowed. Lots of different holidays with accompanying accessories. and cuisine. I don't remember a whole lot because it was a very long time ago, but I don't have any bad memories from Hebrew school. I remember, like, getting my first crush. I remember, like, saving up money for the vending machine so I could get, like, sodas and treats that I couldn't have at home.

And, like, mostly young kind of camp counselor-type people that would play the guitar and, like, definitely were, you know, were burners. Like, it was pretty good vibes overall. The other thing you got to understand is that part of being just, Jewish is to be anti-Semitic. And I don't mean to offend anybody, but this is just kind of part and parcel for the course. It's you're anti-Semitic to yourself, you're anti-Semitic to people who are more Jewish than you, people who are less Jewish than you. It's kind of part of the fun. And so at a young age, my brother and I were aware that Skokie was a much more Jewish neighborhood

than our own. My grandparents were pretty active in their local synagogue, and one time when I was like six or so. They made me be a part of a shul fashion show. And I think my brother was too. And we had to walk the runway in front of like a handful of bobbies and schmatties. So maybe there is a little bit of trauma. I was wearing a, there are pictures from it at my, my parents' house. I was wearing on a baby blue jumpsuit with like a clear blue plastic visor. It was like baby blue. I was really young. Like I must have been like five or six. And my brother, I don't even know if he was old enough that they trusted him because up on the, there was like a stage that we walked across. Anyways, there are pictures. I hope they never come out. And all this to say, it is no mistake

that in 1977, the National Socialist Party of America, an offshoot of the American Nazi party, chose Skokie, Illinois, as the intended location of their so-called white power demonstration. Bit of like a Charlottesville 2013 moment. Was it 2013? Yes, absolutely. Also, smart bit of branding for the Socialist Party of America. You know, that's like, that doesn't, that isn't, people don't react to that immediately quite as well or quite as strongly as when they hear the words American Nazi party. A little more blunt. Yeah, those people are not trying to win.

That's a larp at some level. It's just. Well, and the guy who started the, the National Socialist Party, Frank Collin, who will get into, he thought that the American Nazi party was too old school. He was like, you know, we're not doing enough. We need to be doing more. We need to be out in the streets. And I'm talking about this today because given my latest anxiety surrounding a very out and proud group of Trump 2.0 neo-Nazi influencers,

I was reminded of hearing about this Goki case, as it's sometimes called, from family and educators. And I was curious, how had the neighborhood responded then? You know, what safeguards were put in place over 50 years ago to keep these losers at bay? I really wanted to know. Turns out there was a book about it, so, you know, I did a clad. to a little bit of a classic, classic book report. But before we get into all that, Q&N Nazis.

Now, it's not an ideal segment title, but this is us, unfortunately. So I've got an update on Jaden Scott here, the guy who was yelling Q&N slogans at anti-ice protesters. The day after Renee Good was murdered, he's already started making undisclosed bunker videos.

On January 26th last month, he posted this to his ex-account. Breaking news, Jaden Scott announces a crusade. Wednesday at M-A-Z zone to thrott the rising insurgency and clear the roads for ice. Special guests will be there, semi-colon. UFC fighters, in brackets, maybe. DM me for details. We will be writing at dawn.

I like that he changes the tense he's using. Like, it's the third person initially. Jaden Scott referring to himself. And he's like, hit me up. Yeah, Jaden Scott announces. Yeah, the Mazz Zone. They call Minneapolis. like the...

It's like Chaz. Yeah, yeah. Yes, of course. Yeah, this whole thing is a mess. Mispelling thwart using a semicolon, and seven a colon, and saying the special guest will be UFC fighters question mark.

I mean, this is... I don't know. I also don't know if this qualifies as breaking news with two siren emojis. You know what I mean? Yeah, that'd be what you think that someone else would report

the breaking news of him announcing something and not him. Yeah, well, You announce you yourself. That's not breaking news. That's just a press release. Yeah. Along with the post, he attached this video. We have devolved from fifth generation warfare. As of last night, we have found out that these men are fighting an insurgency.

They've bitten the hands off DHS. They've attacked our Patriot Crusaders, Cam Higbee, and we still have been running counterintel. I'm here, Boots on Ground, in my bunker. I'm proud to announce that we. have infiltrated the deepest levels of these signal chats and signal gate. Shout out to Zero Hour. Shout out to Cam Higby. Guys, we are now fighting an insurgency to the highest levels of Minnesota state government. The lieutenant governor is complicit in this insurrection and in this insurgency.

The crusaders are going boots on ground tomorrow. Into the Mazz zone, Minneapolis Autonomous Zone, to restore law and order. and I promise it will not go down like it went with American hero Jake Lay the Patriots are done this is no longer fifth generation

warfare this is no longer peaceful protest this is a goddamn Marxist insurgency and it will be dealt with like such Crusaders DM me let's go to war I really can't emphasize enough how much of a fucking doofist this guy looks like

for context he just he does not look threatening. Like, he's got the shark eyes and he's got the aggression, but it's like, what are you going to do, buddy? Like, listeners, dearest listeners, I'm so sorry for so many years. We bring you horrible shit. But let me, let me paint a picture for you. This man is wearing a pristine straight off the rack bulletproof vest that is too big.

It's like when they run out of life jackets at the two big rental place. Ariana Grande putting on a hoodie. He's got a beanie with some sort of brand stitching on it, but the only word you can make out is all caps and it says men. Also, he's wearing like purple tinted morphia shades

and is in some sort of apartment complex basement. You can hear the water heater tank behind him throughout the video. Yeah, that's such a fascinating place to choose the recording. I wonder what the thought process was about how to go about doing that. Don't do it outside. People might yell at us.

But also, I love how it begins with, like, him, his back to the camera and he slowly turns around. And I just have to imagine the moment before that when he pressed record, ran into his mark, you know, with his back to the camera, then slowly turned around. Yeah. And there's a video of that that's like an extra 10 seconds long that you need to see. Now, I wasn't the only person who found the video a little overdramatic. Some of the top commenters admitted that even though they agreed with Scott's politics, they found the video a little gay.

The first guy who I believe has like an AI generated, is that a photo of like Tony Soprano maybe? Yeah, I think it's Tony Sopran. He's got a dollar sign as like a Bitcoin guy. He says, I've seen some gay shit before, but this is peak butt plug material. Peak butt plug material is like a jam, I think. I've never heard that before.

Peak butt plug material. As in like this makes this guy, this makes this crypto-soprano want to put a butt plug in. Yeah, it doesn't really make. sense when you think about it other than that like butt plugs are gay. I'm going to shove this video in my ass, man. It's so gay. That has 547 likes. Jaden replies to this, all caps, stand with the homeland. The next commenter, Soflow Rat, says, conservative here, I get the sentiment, but this is low-key gay. Gives me liberal theater boy vibes. And it is very dramatic. It has a

flare. So I get, I get where he's coming from. And Jaden writes, low-tee-take, get in the streets and crusade with us. But he's, the comment that says, gives me liberal theater boy vibes, has 453 likes. Jaden only has 68 on his

low-tie take. So he got ratioed. He is getting you know. It's getting cooked, as I say. Getting cooked in the comments. Yeah, I wonder if this guy is just like in an episode, you know, because the intensity too, like, I can't imagine someone who's just always like this.

And I'm sure there are people like that, but with many of these guys. Many of these guys have with the reaction of like, is this a semantic episode? Yeah. His, um, it's like he wants to make ISIS videos, but like, um, but his language just feels kind of like outdated, like it sort of feels like Mr.

Smith goes to Washington. He's like, we're boots on ground. Yeah. If you're in my bunker, it just feels a little bit dated. Like, I don't know. If you're going to go for this kind of dramatic flare, like make a fucking bunker, man. Like, get some screens going.

Get, like, guys, click clacking. You know, make it look like you're in some sort of data center. I think it's just lazy production. Yeah, maybe that's why he chose that location is that's, like, the most ominous. I'm like, it's like, I'm underground because, you know, the feds are looking for me or whatever. I'm telling you, this is a, this is a parking lot. This is, like, this is like a door that says, like, exit at, like, the bottom level of some parking lot somewhere. And you briefly walk through an area where all of the, like,

like heating machines and air conditioning units are. Yeah. The last commenter says, I agree with him. It is time we take it into our own hands. This is BS and Jaden writes based. But that comment, her comment only got 35 likes. People seem to be way liking more comments criticizing and making fun of Jaden's video. Now it's interesting to me that in Jaden's Twitter bio,

where he still has a pretty modest following, I mean only maybe 10,000 or so, a little bit more than that. He refers to himself as a patriot in control. And to me, this signifies a much more willing, active participant than what the phrase signified earlier on in the world of Q&ON. Yeah, I mean, I guess that's the conclusion of Q&N failing. You can't trust the plan anymore. It's up to you. Yeah, it's you.

You are a patriot in control instead of, don't worry, patriots are in control. Yeah, because if you're not in control, you know, there's clearly no patriots behind the scenes right now. Right. It's up to you. And honestly, I'm still sort of on the fence as to whether these guys are serious Q&ON believers, or if it's just terminally online brain poison intended to kind of

confuse and troll and, you know, they know that that's what the media will be talking about. And I don't know. I still go back to the first video where we discovered this guy, Jaden, and he says, where we come one week? Like, you know, he was basically, it sounded like he was trying to just ramp off as many Q&on phrases as possible and got one wrong. And I don't know if he was just too excited or if he had learned them recently. I don't know.

I don't know. I'm baking, I guess. Yeah, I mean, it makes sense that these sort of guys. Like, are they my age? It's one of those things where it's like, I don't know how if they're aging really poorly and they're my age or they're like maybe mid-30s. I think so. I think they're late 20s or early 30s maybe.

Yeah, it's like zillennial kind of my age. And it's a very ironic age group. And so even when they try to like invoke this really serious intense, like passionate white supremacy, like it has to be kind of ironic. It's like, who are these cultural signifiers? I wasn't even a part of this movement. I'm a poser. I'm jumping on, you know,

four years after it actually died. Because that's like the only way that they know how to articulate seriousness and be noticed on the internet. That's really interesting. Like, remember the videos that we had that Fort Fisher posted from the, like, OG Jake Lang rally where they've got the guy

in the weird Biden mask and was throwing the chocolate coins? It's like, there's a little bit of that irony like in that as well. Like, I think you're on to something there that there's something kind of, that's why I don't really trust fully that these guys are like Q&on pilled. Yeah, it's hard to, it's like a certain point. It's like a, you know, distinction without a difference. Because like if you're doing it as a bit, like, you know, your honor, I was doing a white supremacist Qaeda, you know, insurgency.

But, you know, I was a bit. I didn't actually think Q&N was real. Yeah, Your Honor, the white supremacy stuff, I do believe it. But the Q&ON stuff was just kind of for fun. Yeah, yeah. I don't actually think that there's a poster out. Chen who's in, you know, in with the president. It's like, well, it's about what it signifies. And I'm sure, like, the politics of what it signifies. He certainly believes.

Yeah. Update on Jake Lang just yesterday, pardon Jay Sixer and proud Nazi Jake Lang, the guy who was throwing the coins in the video that we were just talking about and who was rescued by, you know, a lefty from getting, you know, beat up by a huge group of counter-protesters when he showed up to the Minneapolis City Hall steps to once again threaten to burn a Quran. And so Jake Lang was arrested at the Minnesota Capitol on February 5th last Thursday after he kicked over a newly installed sculpture made out of ICE that read Prosecute Ice, which, if I must say, is a very, very tame statement given what ICE has been doing. That's the very moderate position.

Prosecute ICE? Yeah. prosecute? It's like a fair trial for the street executors. Yeah. Sir, a fair trial. Their stories should be heard. I was wondering, is that less radical than abolish ICE? I guess the point is like we got to do Nuremberg trials. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that would be ideal.

Yeah, maybe that's what they mean. That would be a little bit more ideal, certainly. So the sign was unveiled that day by a veteran's group called Common Defense to call for accountability in the ICE murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretty. It's really how you know, like, the Overton window is shifted, that a veterans group is like, no, we gotta do something about these secret police Gestapo. We got to do something about these fucking guys. Lange had one of his buddies videotape him as he knocked over the letters so that the sign then read pro ice. And Trump, we support you. We support ICE. Our country was made for Americans, not for Somalis. He's such a tour. We'll see you here.

February 7th, Saturday, 12 noon, outside the Minnesota State Capitol. I wish, dear listener, you could see the video because he, like, when he's going up to hit the S and prosecute, he, like, almost trips over it and falls. Yes, he also, he's also doing, like, a little, as people online pointed out, he's doing a little bit of, like, a potaboo-ray type of kick, like, it's a very, he's dancing. He's dancing through these kicks and, like, also in a funny vest, and, like, but wearing a weird shirt underneath. Like it's not a tack shirt underneath.

It's like, it's like, I saw, I saw, it looks like it's like, yeah, it's like sort of a green shirt, but it's got a pattern of these little black skulls all over it. So, yeah, but it also has a nice collar. It's a colored shirt with like, yeah, like the outlines of skull designs all over it. Yeah, it's like Nazi wear a Ben Sherman kind. Yeah. Also, yeah, these jungle camo pants. It's a strange get up.

Yeah, he looks like he got the shirt, like, where I get a lot of my clothes, which is, like, the clearance rack, like, Nordstrom rack. Like, the, whatever the, whatever the, like, the outlet store is, and then the clearance rack within that outlet store. Like, at one time, this was a nice shirt, but now it's, like, no longer in style, or they found that the material, like, causes, like, rashes under your armpits. So, like, there it is for, like, 1475. And you look at the label and you go, Penguin, like, I thought this was kind of nice stuff. And then you get the shirt home and, like, it fits perfectly in the shoulders, but really tugs in that belly area in a way that you'll know you'll never wear it again. But you're so embarrassed that you don't even bother going back to Nordstrom's rack to return it for

the 1475 that you fucking paid for it. So you know what it does? It sits in a bag in the bottom of your closet for years. Sometimes, sometimes, half decades. And then you donate it to Goodwill, like during a closet clean out, you know, one spring. That's the difference between you, Jake Rockatansky and Jake Lang, is that Jake Lang was like, I love this shirt. I wear this every day. Jake Lang bought that shirt full price.

He bought it from the Ben Sherman pop-up shop. I don't know. People are like, Ben Sherman. What is that? I'm just like trying to think of a clothing brand that was cool when I was interested in clothes. Right now I'm wearing a hoodie from the video game Redfall, which is a little. It was like a doomed co-op shooter on Xbox that got panned. It was supposed to be like a first party launch, really exciting.

And it got panned, but I liked the game so much that I got a sweatshirt from it. That's what I'm wearing right now. I see. It's one of the indie, a Kickstarter, things that never camera came to fruition. No, it was like an Xbox first part. It was like supposed to be their big kind of like Series X. Like, who did it? It's some like really famous arcane studios maybe, like did it.

It was like, people were really. really looking forward to it and then it like kind of bombed but i really liked it and i got the sweatshirt for it so now you know something now you know another dumb thing about me hundreds of thousands of listeners i forget sometimes that like the show is like it isn't just kind of like the three of us talking to nobody yeah because so much of podcasting feels like that it's just the three of us on like a zoom call like i've never even met live in person like i don't know Travis i don't know i've hung out with him in real life i don't know probably like less than 50s you times probably in our entire thing.

It's just like I'm looking at a computer script, but yeah, I forget that there's so many. I probably should get on with the content in that case. Shortly after Jake did his dance and he kicked over the ice sculpture, he was pulled over by a state trooper near Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and was arrested on suspicion of criminal damage to property. Unfortunately, for laying suspicion will soon turn to certainty because he videotaped himself doing the crime. posted it to the internet.

So awesome. A lot of people online were bagging on, we talked about this, they were bagging on him for struggling to destroy sections of the sculpture. I sure hope so. I sure hope I wasn't the first one. I noticed that. I would have been surprised if I was. Throughout his arrest, Lang somehow managed to tweet, writing,

I'm currently being arrested outside the Minnesota state capital for turning the quote, prosecute ice sign the Democrats erected into the wonderful pro-ice, ice cube emoji, heart emoji. And then he replied to that tweet and he goes, they are charging me with a felony for $6,000 in damage on being taken to Ramsey County Jail in Minnesota. So he did get booked for that. He is arrested and it is a felony. Since the damage is more than $1,000, it could qualify for first degree destruction of property, which carries a five-year jail sentence and a $10,000 fine. Honestly, in his defense, I would not have expected the prosecute ice, like ice sculpture

to be worth more than $1,000. Yeah, yeah. It's like, what, it's going to melt away. It's just a temporary. He made a horrible error that day. Yeah. Even if he has to spend, and this is after he spent four years in, like,

federal prison for Jans. Yeah, that's true. He's going back. He might go back. What an idiot. Folks, we've got the dumbest Nazis. Yeah. It is fascinating to see these sort of guys.

Because it's like, there are like actual scary fascists who have like, you know, a compound in. Oklahoma. And they're not making these videos. Like, this is like the most pathetic loser, fascist who's like, oh, I'm getting a lot of attention because people are horrified at the existence of Nazism. Like, clearly I am like important and I'm at the forefront. I'm on the vanguard of a white supremacist revolt. But no, it's just you got up, you went off your mood stabilizers. I feel like, yeah, this is one of those, one of those Nazis who are like taking

advantage of the fact that this kind of content doesn't get you banned from social media anymore. So they're like, all right, let's do, let's do the most awesome. showy, performative kind of like pro-Nazi or Nazi-adjacent content that you can on social media. And this is a result. Yeah. I mean, I'm looking at, I'm looking at his tweets. They're getting more likes than any of my tweets ever have. Like just the comment where he's like, I'm getting charged with a felony, have like four and a half thousand likes on it. These guys are posting these videos and getting like, they're doing, you know, Midas touch numbers on these videos.

Yeah, 1.8 million Twitter views are fake, but it's still like a measure of magnitude in some way. 36,000 likes. Yeah, I mean, he's really embarrassing himself. Yeah, it's like, I mean, it's like, of course, it's on Twitter. Like, I don't think there's any other platform where this kind of content is going to do as good. Because even Rumble, like, as popular as it is, like, you know, a good video on Rumble is getting like, I don't know, 10,000 views. There just isn't as big user base as there is on, on,

X. Yeah. Travis and I were talking about this a bit before that, like, there is like a vibe shift happening back to like, quote unquote, woke or whatever. Like, you could definitely see that, especially, I feel like the Super Bowl halftime, for instance, you can see that shift. But, like, the people in charge are still evil, and they're much eviler than they used to be.

So, like, these guys are allowed to do stuff that, like, even if the culture kind of returns to where it used to be before, you know, like, have a decade ago. You still get the Nazis for able to post and not get taken down. I wish we could just, I wish there could be like a Twitter, or something where like all those guys could just go live the way that they wanted to. Yeah, it used to be too social, I guess. But I guess they don't get enough attention though. Yeah, it's not good enough.

They need people to fight. And then you have idiots who are like, I'm staying on X. Like, this is the front line of the battleground of the information war. And I, and in fact, I'm going to pay $8 a month. I'm actually going to pay the Nazis so that my post can reach more views because it's the only way. It's the only way to fight. Yeah, they should, they should just be put in a place.

Like, X is already. All the numbers are basically fake. Like, you get way more likes than you used to. Like, they should just be put in one that's extra fake. And they just have bot replies. And they're like, I'm famous. Everyone in America knows me. Was the Q-Anon theory, but, like, Joe Biden thinks that he's the president.

But he's actually in, like, a studio. And they're, like, actors around him. Yeah. Yeah. But it's way easier. It's, I think it's, like, probably more difficult to convince Biden that he's president than to convince, like, your average sort of, like, pill. social media user that like all the engagement they're getting like isn't real.

Yeah. Like that's an easy sell. Yeah. They probably already believe it's real. Can you imagine if like, I don't know, Jaden Scott or Jake Lang posted something like this? And it got like 350,000 likes. And like everybody in the comments was like, Hile Hitler. Like you are so hot.

Like please, please have sex with me now. Like just trap these people. Yeah. And just like in like, yeah, a world where they think they're like the most. famous person in the world. It would work. They gotta do that. Live?

Woke 2 coming back. Whoa. I think we've stumbled on to something truly fantastic, which perfectly transitions to our main segment. Skokie case. Another thing about growing up as a Jewish kid is that Nazis are the boogey man. I read the graphic novel Mouse when I was probably too young and would fall asleep trying to imagine what it would be like trying to hide from the Nazis.

I don't know if either of you have read that particular. comic. Yeah. Travis, have you? No, no, I've missed that one. It's very good. I might reorder it. I haven't read it in a long time, but there's, it's really graphic and basically it

depicts like a, like a Holocaust sort of survival story from the point of view of somebody who, who live through the concentration camps, but all of the, like, characters in it are depicted as animals. So the Jews are the mice, the Nazis or the cats, and then like the various other people are different, different animals. but it's incredibly violent, like, and it's, like, totally graphic. Like, you see nudity, there's violence. There's, like, lots of murdering.

It's, like, really disturbing. And I definitely read it probably, like, a little too young. My reaction to that was definitely more, like, damn, it's fucked up related to you guys. As opposed to, like, oh, it's, you know, envisioning myself as the... Yeah, you would hear about... There's a part in... I can't remember if it was in Mous or it was a different... Or maybe in some other.

And I don't even know if it was, like, a documentary thing or is, like, part of some fictional movie. But there was like a scene where like people were hiding in like piles of shoes. Like they hid in piles of dead people's shoes like basically on their way to escape. It was like one stop. They knew they could hide in there for a certain amount of time. And I always used to envision that like under my covers. Like I'd be under my covers as a little kid and be like, what if it was a pile of shoes? I guess that's like that's my own anxiety that was just manifesting like through the content that I read and the things that me and you know, we were generally.

afraid of, because otherwise the 90s was fairly good, you know, in the suburbs of Chicago for like a white, you know, upper middle class boy, you know, like, things are pretty good. So I guess, you know, dreaming about like the horrors that my ancestors went through, I guess was like, I don't know, a way that my anxiety presented itself. That makes sense. It's hard not to have your anxiety fixate on, especially like cultural memories like that, especially if you're like, life is regularly fine. It's like, oh, but imagine if it wasn't fine, like what happened to people I've interacted with in real life at some point. Yeah, exactly.

Like, I'm not sure about my dad's side, but my mom's parents both had cousins who were killed during the Holocaust. Most Jews that I knew at the very least had distant relatives who had also perished or had been in the camps or their families had fled. It was a pretty common sort of backstory. And in fact, Skokie, Illinois claimed to have one of the highest populations of Holocaust survivors in the country. An estimate found in an old court filing from the case said that out of Skokie's 70,000 residents, they suspected 40,500 were Jewish.

And in 2018, former mayor George Van Dusen said to ABC News that Skokie had, quote, the largest number of Holocaust survivors outside of Israel. I do not know if this is true. Regardless, it was for this reason that a 32-year-old neo-Nazi named Frank Collin sent the Park District of Skokie a letter asking for a permit to hold a Nazi parade. It's so funny to do it above board. Like, please, can I be a Nazi in your Jewish city? Yeah. They're all fucking dorks. They're dorks then, they're dorks now.

They're stupid. Wait, do you see a picture of this guy? He and Jake Lang have a lot in common. So it turns out that Frank Collin was originally Frank Cohen. Oh. And his father, Max, had spent three months in Dachau, the concentration camp. Oh. He had escaped to America, worked hard to build up a small home furnishing dealership, and

moved his family to the suburbs of Olympia Fields. Can you imagine, like, as a Jewish parent, you know, it's one thing if your kid doesn't become a doctor or a lawyer, God forbid, but a Hitler worshipping Nazi. Yeah. I mean, can you imagine the shame? Negative effects of Jewish proximity to whiteness, that your kid is just like, no, I'm white, I'm like white in the white way, extra white. White in the right way. While being interviewed for the PBS documentary, Skokie, invaded but not conquered. Former Chicago leader of the Jewish Defense League, Buzz Alpert, said he knew Frank's father. You know, Frank Allen had a Jewish father, Max Cullen, who I knew. And poor Max Cohn, very, very sad. I talked to him a few times, and he would put his head down

like this when he would talk about his Nazi kid. It's like, yeah, talk about his Nazi kid. Yeah, that's funny. Ultimate, ultimate shame. I mean, I thought that clip was so. funny. By the way, there's footage in the PBS doc of that guy from the clip buzz throwing down against Nazis in the street, and I gotta say, the man was a beast, respect. That's all I have to say about that. So, turns out, Frank had become pilled at a young age after seeing images of Hitler during an anti-Nazi television program. Here's a passage from When Nazis came to Skokie by Felipe Strum, from which I got a lot of my research. He claimed that he became a Nazi when he

saw an anti-Nazi television program called The Twisted Cross, sponsored by the Jewish Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'Abrith. What impressed him most were the close-ups of Hitler's face and the shots of the audience, whom, Columne described as deeply moved as if they had just had an awakening to something very important. I saw a great man deeply committed to something very powerful, Colin would say, later, adding, I've loved Hitler ever since. I mean, this is, I suppose this is why fascists pour so much energy and thought to aesthetics, because it works on some people. Yes.

Because, like, yeah, they see the, you know, careful propaganda of showing Hitler looking commanding in front of an audience and they say, I have been convinced. And it's true. Colin styled his hair like Hitler's, dressed like a Nazi, and spoke like a Nazi. The final solution to the Jewish question is exposing them as the leaders of international communism and race mixing. So, I mean, this is, I think, I think part of why this movement failed. You can't really take fascism. Really, you're stuck in the 1930s, my guy. You need to update your hairstyles a little bit. Colin ended up joining the American Nazi Party in 1963,

but left shortly after its leader, Lincoln Rockwell, was assassinated in 1967. In 1968, he formed the National Socialist Party of America, the NSA, and set up a headquarters he called Rockwell Hall on West 71st Street on the south side of Chicago. So he chose the area of Marquette Park on the south side because the predominantly white neighborhood was racist and did not want minorities moving in. Like Jake Lang, Colin and his neo-Nazis claimed that Jewish landlords were doing this on purpose. To what end, I'm still not sure.

Just mischief causing chaos. I don't know. Like, yeah, what they think is like, they're like, the Jewish people are moving black people into predominantly white areas because... It's like the Q&N neuroses. It's like the bad guys are just evil. They don't actually have like explainable material interests, like human beings.

It's like, oh, you know, the devil or some equivalent. Yeah, because they can't come up with anything other than just they think like, they think black people are, insert, insert whatever piece of racism you want. And because they believe that, they're like, well, well, if they move in. Yeah. That's like the one-two combo in America, at least, of like anti-black racism and anti-Semitism. You sell this with like Black Lives Matter conspiracy theories

Where it's like, oh George Soros, the Jewish billionaire, is like tricking black people into doing violence for his bidding. You know, it's like the Jewish people are the puppet masters of the conspiracy to destroy America. That's interesting. Thanks for clarifying that. Because I'm always like, what do they think it is? And I think you're right, it's just that they're puppet mastering something. They're orchestrating something that we don't like.

Also like Lang, the NSA claimed that they weren't advocating for the murder of anyone on just imprisonment and deportation of anyone black, Jewish, or gay. According to the book, The Party claimed to be against pollution, narcotics peddlers, degenerate arts, the federal income tax, the Federal Reserve System, unemployment, gangsterism, and crime. It supported public execution of all, quote, convicted rioters and looters and convicted narcotics peddlers,

preservation of the, quote, free enterprise system and the rights of private property, reunification of the family as the hub of society, and an authoritarian form of republic government founded on the ideals originally expressed in the United States Constitution. So fucking nothing new. Yeah.

It's like this is exactly. And by the way, Trump is giving them a public execution of just people they think are narcotics peddlers. We've done away with convicted. Yeah. It's crazy. It's crazy to look at that.

It's like, God, in 1977, like you were reading this and be like, public execution. It's like they're working on the rioters and looters. Now. And actually, no, they've got that as well. Public execution. We've lost convicted and we've lost a rider or looter. It was just a woman in her car and a man trying to help a woman up off of the street. So actually, if Frank Collin is still alive, which I think he is, I think he is still alive, he's probably pretty pleased with the way things are going. I'm sure he's ecstatic right now. Yeah. After one particular demonstration turned violent in the summer of 1976, the Park District of

Chicago realized they could successfully keep Frank and his goons from demonstrating in the parks by implementing a statute requiring them to have liability insurance in the $150,000 to $300,000 range. So basically, Collins was pissed off because he didn't have anywhere near the scratch to essentially just wear a Nazi uniform in public. And this is a picture of him. Oh, they do look quite similar. Jake Lang at him.

Doesn't he look a lot like Jake Lang? There's a hard R in this photo of like a poster, and then you got like the white power. So much of the stuff about these guys, I'm not, I just didn't include because it's like, at what point am I just like reading Nazi stuff, which I don't like doing?

Yeah, there is a point of like fill in the blanks of what these guys are saying, what slurs. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Actual out and proud hardcore Nazis and everything that encompasses. So they're like, they would say all those things. I think there's like a, I think there's a, I think there's a quote later that has like a pretty bad Jewish slur, but I'll read that one and that's

okay. You know, nothing I haven't heard before. So anyway, so the park's kind of basically sort of figured out a little bit of a loophole to like keep these guys out of the, of Marquette Park, which is good because there were starting to be people showing up who, you know, naturally, like wanted to knock these guys out, you know, naturally. That's, you know, part of the, that's kind of like part of the thing. It's like if you're like a big famous actor, you know, going out and like seeing paparazzi, people asking for photographs, it's kind of part of the job. If you're

a Nazi, like people are going to want to knock you out. It's just kind of part of a, you know, risk you have to take on. And so, Collins had another idea. He was going to send super aggressive Nazi flyers to a bunch of Chicago suburbs where he knew lots of Jewish people

lived. The top of the flyers read, we are coming in all capital letters. And in case it wasn't clear, the pamphil it contained a giant swastika at the top. Yeah, I feel like a part of this is just like someone who like needs to, in order to feel real, they have to affect other people. Negatively, it's like, oh, I'm so scary. That means like I'm important in some way.

It's like the equivalent of like when like teenage boys will just like push, you know, boulders down cliffs or something, just do reckless stuff. And it's like, I'm having an effect in the world. They just like haven't gotten over that. Yeah. These are, you know, these are like very scary to see, especially 77. And it's like, you basically think like most of these people have kind of been like, you know, shamed into darkness at the very least.

Yeah, had not been that long since the Holocaust. Rabbi Neil Brief, a local religious leader and Howard Reich, who was growing up in Skokie at the time, remember the first time they discovered one of the NSP's leaflets. I remember a Friday night's service. I think it was October of 1976 where someone came back from the parking lot with a saying that the Nazis are coming. All I know is that after that incident, the matter seemed to catch fire amongst people

who were Holocaust survivors. My dad was going nuts about this. When it would become on TV and it was a media phenomenon at the time, my dad would turn pale, ashen pale, and the relatives would be calling each on the phone, calling each other on the phone. The Nazis are coming back, they're coming again. Yeah, this is not an abstract,

abstract the issue for these people. Yeah. Like there was like, oh, like we did, we happened once, right? And we know what it looks like when it starts happening again. Yeah, naturally, this prompted a lot of worry from residents. And they began to call the ADL to complain. And this caused Frank Collins to be interviewed in the Chicago Sun Times where he was more than happy to explain to the largest audience he'd ever had that the pamphlets were intended to scare people. He was quoted as saying, I hope they're terrified. I hope they're shocked because we're coming to get them again. I don't care if someone's mother or father

or brother died in the gas chambers. The unfortunate thing is not that there were six million Jews who died. The unfortunate thing is that there were so many Jewish survivors. Jesus Christ. You allowed, I guess American free speech laws. Well, that's like what this is all about. So that's like what this whole

case is about is free speech and like what constitutes this. Which is why I thought it was kind of interesting. So much shit like when in motion when this happened that It's like, it makes you think today that's like somebody like Jake Lane is just like showing up outside, like throwing coins, like, you know. Now, I don't know if they're wearing swastikas because the wearing and the visual of the swastika is actually became a crucial sort of like center point of this legal case. Colin somehow even got himself on Donahue, the Phil Donahue talk show, where he said a whole bunch of Nazi shit that I figured at this point would just be gratuitous.

So I chose not to clip it. I did, however, find a clip of Abbott Rosen, the Midwest director of the ADL, telling Donahue that he was fucked up for that. A man who heads a so-called National Socialist Party of America, which has as his ultimate purpose the incinerating of blacks and Jews. Now, I would argue that persons such as that should not be scheduled. What is your point? I have a right to put him on, but I shouldn't? Yes, I thought it was poor judgment. Which is fair, you know, this is like really, yeah, this is where you'd get your right.

real trashy content, daytime television at the time. Donna, he looks genuinely distra- What was I supposed to do? Not let him talk about Nazi shit for, you know, an hour? Oddly enough, out of all the towns that Collins had peppered with pamphlets, Skokie was the only one to respond. And this wasn't the first time that Nazis had marched in Skokie. The village was home to many German immigrants and a handful of Nazi supporters

up until the end of the Second World War. Apparently, there was a group of guys who called themselves the Chicago-Jurgy American Volkspund, and they would march down one of Skokie's main streets in the late 30s, like 1937 or so. And they always ended up at this local Nazi bar that had a huge portrait of Adolf Hitler on the wall. But as they began to see what horrible things Hitler was doing overseas on the news, he like slowly took down the portrait, they stopped wearing the uniforms and basically just disappeared. This median Trump voter right now, his reaction compared to voting for him two years ago.

Yeah, yeah, kind of. Yeah, yeah, very true. Yeah, they basically were seeing on the news and they were like, oh man, like it doesn't feel so dope to wear these, like, Nazi uniforms, like, out in public. The Park District of Skokie responded to Colin that the NSPA would have to post a bond of $350,000 liability insurance if he wanted to obtain a permit to demonstrate in any of the parks. Colin came up with another plan. He would show up in Skokie on May 1, 1977, to protest the city denying his First Amendment right, by making the permit insurance so expensive. He promised public officials and local law enforcement

that he would show up at 3 p.m. with 30 to 50 people at the most, protest only on the sidewalks, not block any traffic, follow all city ordinances, and leave after 30 minutes. The Nazi who loves following the rules. Yeah, so he was like,

look, it's my right to protest you not allowing me to demonstrate here. But look, guys, it's going to be 20 to 30 minutes tops. I'm only going to have 30 to 50 Nazis here. which, by the way, according to the author, was very much an exaggeration, that usually he was unable to draw more than 10 to 15 people. He was very small. He was very small flock.

Nowadays, neo-Nazis out and proud on our streets are somewhat old hat. But in 77, this was a big deal. So I did not know this, but the bad guy in the movie Blues Brothers is actually based on Frank Collin. White men, white women. The swastika is calling you. The Jew is using the black as muscle against you. So that's crazy. There's even a scene from Blues Brothers where Balushi goes,

Illinois Nazis. I hate Illinois Nazis. So these guys were like very, very famous. Director John Landis even admitted to lifting a speech used in the movie directly from the answering. machine recording at the NSPA headquarters. He gives this speech, white men, white women. That speech, I actually took word for word. It was the answer, the machine, the answering message that when you called the American

Nazi party, that was the message you got. And at the end, it said, please leave a message when you hear the beep. What I did, what is kind of amusing or not is I did leave a message. I said, hi, my name is John Landis and I'm doing the most. movie and they never called me back. It's aggressive answering machine message. Yeah, it really is. All right, we are working towards purifying

this nation for white people. Please leave a message. I really admit, I did not know how famous this case was. There were numerous dramatized adaptations, including a CBS made-for-TV movie from 1980, starring

none other than Danny Kay. If you want no violence, keep the Nazis out. Because if they march here, if they bring the swastika here, I swear to you, nothing. There is nothing will keep me from fighting. And this was generally the sentiment in Skokie at the time. You know, the mayor is brought in, a council's convened with local rabbis. Everyone's trying to figure out how they're going to handle this.

And initially, the idea was to try and quarantine the Nazis and have the razzies. and have the rabbis tell people in their synagogue to just avoid the area that giving these guys any kind of attention is exactly what they wanted. But people were furious. The rabbis, they said, be quiet, don't do anything, just sit back and watch and let them go through and it will go over. So we said, no, this is how it started in Germany with a few people only. We're not going to let nobody here.

since we're in the United States and we're not afraid, nobody's going to come to our door and tell me that he's going to kill me. They sent the rabbis back to the council and on April 21st, a larger group convened, this time containing additional Chicago-based Jewish organizations, 18 of which appeared at this meeting, and the decision was made to stage a counter-demonstration a couple of blocks away from Frank and his guys.

New leaflets began appearing around Skokie, with hand-drawn swastikas like before, but also now across, crudely drawn caricature of a Jew decorated the flyers as well. The flyers also promised that a large poster was in the works. They went on to describe what to expect on the poster. And I just think this is so funny that like they made pamphlets essentially. They had pamphlets printed that said, a poster is coming.

A trailer for the poster. Yeah, this is like a trailer for the poster. And then they went on to describe what the poster was going to be. And I'll read that description. It says, quote, the poster is. shows three rabbis involved in the ritual murder of an innocent Gentile boy during the hate fest of Porum. Our propaganda will deal at large with revealing quotes, many never before presented anywhere from loose-lipped heaves. In short, our successful opposition to the black

invasion of Southwest Chicago will now be turned on the culprits who started it all. The Jews! So, yeah, a condouncement, we're going to do some propaganda. When we get around to it, it does some old fashioned medieval blood libel. You guys are going to be so bad about it. You're going to be so angry. Yeah, you'll be pissed off all. It's going to be infuriating. So much of this case like really, really kind of boils down to Frank Colin being like,

yo, look, guys, we're broke. Like, us Nazis, like, we don't have a ton of money. Like, it is unfair. Like, we should be allowed, like, we should be allowed, even though we are a poor movement to be able to protest like everybody else. That is, like, an American Nazi staple. Because, like, remember the Kanye Hale Hitler saw? It was all about like my wife left me.

I'm cucked. I have no money anymore. And I love Hitler. They can't help themselves. Oh, my God. Of course. I should say, the only reason that I, I know, loose-lipped heaps is tough. But the only reason I read this stuff is so we can all laugh and agree how stupid it is and how dumb these people are.

And what a waste of time they've made of their lives. Yeah, it's interesting how similar of a problem it is to the contemporary one, to the contemporary issue. Because I remember, it was maybe Jank Lang when he was doing his, like, Qaeda Nazi stuff. There was a lady beside him who was like, don't give him attention. And there was someone recording. So it's like the same discussion is happening where it's this loser who doesn't actually have that much sway outside of like being controversial, creating a large reaction. And the question is whether, whether do you push against it to make sure that that's their Naziism is allowed or do you ignore it? It's difficult. Yeah, it's difficult.

That's why that's what this is like all about. And funny enough, you know, when I read this, I remembered what Lang is shouting, you know, during that demonstration where he's basically, like, the Israel is, he was the brownification or something. He was like, Israel is responsible for the brownification of the United States. So instead of it being like on a local level where it's like the local Jewish landlords are, you know, bringing black people into the neighborhoods, you know, to cause chaos, it's like on this like sort of like international scale now. But it's still the same, it's still the same accusation, which I found interesting. That's like, this is. all the same shit, except back then, there was like all of this legal motions being put in

place. Like, people sat down, like, really, how do we handle this? Like, whereas nowadays, it's just, now it's just a viral video. Yeah, it's so much less organized. And so, of course, it's just inevitably going to get attention. Like, obviously it's going to default to the giving someone attention thing. Because you see it on X, like, the point is to engage with stuff you don't like on that website. So this is something you really don't like. People are going to engage with it. Yeah, that's very true. So towards the end of April, another meeting was held, where Holocaust survivors living in Skokie told Mayor Albert J. Smith horrific stories of the violence they had witnessed by people in Nazi uniforms, and that they should be protected

from having to see them. And so, on April 27, 1977, city attorney Harvey Schwartz filed the first paperwork in Skokie v. the National Socialist Party of America. As soon as he found out that legal action was being taken against him and his group preventing them from demonstrating, Frank Colin reached out to the director of the ACLU, demanding that they take up the case in an effort to preserve freedom of speech. And they did. David Goldberger, a Jew himself, took up defending Frank Collin, the Nazi. One of the other ACLU lawyers at the time, Barbara O'Toole, said of Colin, he, Colin, needed help. We needed to keep the law clean. It would not have served our interest to let him flounder without counsel and get injunctions against speech that would have

been affirmed and then cited against us. He was very much in our interest to keep the law in order. I mean, that's the interesting reason that, yeah, they didn't want to, a precedent that might have harmed future legal cases in this particular case. Yeah. So the position of the ACLU, despite it not being ideal that they were representing a Nazi, was that the government shouldn't get to decide what type of free speech its citizens are allowed to hear. And Harvey Schwartz, representing the village of Skokie, was making the case that the

government's lack of censorship constituted an endorsement and that the villagers of Skokie had the right to be protected from seeing a symbol that caused them much harm. And so on April 28, 1977, Judge Joseph Wasick would be presented with the first hearing for Skokie v. the NSPA. In his opening statement, Harvey said this. We will bring to this court by way of the testimony of witnesses the present mood that prevails in the village of Skokie, one that has been inflamed and cited only and simply by reason of the prospective march by the defendants, which if it is not enjoined by this court could lead to great violence and to irreparable harm. So Harvey then called six witnesses from the community to testify as to the mood in Skokie upon hearing about the planned march.

Fred Richter of the synagogue consul testified that if Jews in Skokie saw Nazis march, they might not be able to stop themselves from hurting them. He said, quote, the speakers that spoke, I'll start with the survivors, spoke in strong definitive terms, that they cannot under any circumstances take the fact that a Nazi will walk on the streets of Skokie, that this is an outrage and an obscenity to them, that the very thought of seeing their uniforms in Skokie has gotten them beyond their rationality. And these are people who are in positions within business, leadership, very, very responsible people

who have lived here for many, many years and act within Civic and within the other areas of life in the United States today. Another witness, Saul Goldstein, also echoed this sentiment when it was his turn to take the stand. Quote, he did not intend to react violently to the sight of Swazzo. if the Nazi demonstration took place, but he was not certain he would be able to control himself and could not promise to refrain from attacking Colin.

Surprisingly enough, the city of Skokie called Colin himself to the stand, where he proudly admitted that, yes, it was him and his small group that had been spreading the conspiracy that the Jews were, quote, responsible for the black invasion of Southwest Chicago, end quote, and that he and his group would continue to try and tell this to whoever would listen. He also stated that his intended rally would have no anti-Semitic signs, only white supremacist signs, and that no further reading material would be handed out during the demonstration. Like nothing about, nothing about Jews being bad, only white people being good. Only about us being the only people who should be allowed to be in the country. What happens to them? We don't know. So the final witness for the city of Skokie was a man by the name of Ronald Lansky. He testified about counter-demonstration flyers from left-wing groups reading, quote,

smash the Nazis. He told the court that he was absolutely certain that if Nazis did show up to the city hall building that day, they would be smashed. Later on, former Illinois Senator Howard Carroll claimed that once it was known what routes the Nazis were going to march, there were vacant apartments rented for the day along the path, uh, and, and not to just, uh, live in. As they were announcing the routes, there were groups, probably the Jewish Defense League, who were renting apartments for the day on the route and it was not to watch the parade and was to take action and I got some very good information that they had the rifles and they were ready to take them out. Oh my God, isn't that crazy? Yeah, that's intense. When it came time for ACLU Attorney Goldberg

to present Frank Collins side of the case, it was clear that Judge Wasick didn't give half a shit. He let the ACLU lawyers know in no uncertain terms that he, Joe Wasick, had served in the United States Army that he had served in the European theater. He had seen what the Nazis did and the crimes against humanity against Jews and Poles. He had relatives, family, in Poland, Warsaw, other places where

the Nazis were out. Can you imagine the judge being like, I'll have you know I spent a good part of my life killing Nazis. The author of this book about the case said that the judges was constantly like interrupting Goldberger, the ACLU

attorney and getting up to take long phone calls in his office in the middle of the proceedings. He was just like, I don't give a shit what this guy has to say. The ACLU, of course, filed a motion to dismiss the case and stated that the demonstration would only be 20 to 30 minutes, no speeches would be made, and an injunction would violate Collins' First Amendment right. Goldberger reminded the court that the only reason an injunction was brought in Brandenburg versus Ohio, a case involving a KKK leader, was because unlawful activity had been planned. Skokie wasn't even alleging unlawful activity, Goldberger said.

But Judge Wazek wasn't having any of it. He denied the motion to dismiss saying this. I do not have to expound theories of Nazism. This court has the most unusual situation here. I have here a village with a great number of Jewish people. I have here before me a group of citizens of this country who endured, suffered, and God knows what happened to their respective families. I can take into judicial notice the Nuremberg trials and what a court of law found. He further went on to grant the city of Skokie an injunction and prohibited the NSPA from engaging in any of the following acts on May 1, 1977 within the village of Skokie, marching, walking, or parading in the uniform of the National Socialist Party of America,

marching, walking, or parading, or otherwise displaying the swastika on or off their person, distributing pamphlets or displaying any materials which incite to promote hatred against persons of Jewish faith or ancestry or ancestry or ancestry, race or religion. Now, Colin, of course, quickly tried to outsmart the judge. He called up the local newspapers and said that he and the NSA planned a demonstration for April 30th the next day. The judge's order had said May 1st, but nothing about the Nazis gathering on a different day. People were pissed, scared. Holocaust survivors and other villagers gathered preemptively at the city hall, amassing a crowd of hundreds. They carried signs, except their signs had been nailed with, like, loose, like, open nails on the back of the two-by-fours.

So, like, they also potentially could have served as weapons. The signs had stuff like, no free speech for fascists, never again, Daqau, never again, Treblinka, you know, names of concentration camps. The city called a meeting. Could they get the judge to edit the injunction? An emergency hearing was called. but Collins' ACLU lawyer was too busy to attend. Despite his absence, a Judge Sullivan altered the injunction so that date and time were irrelevant,

and the Nazis once again had been defeated. Furthermore, the city of Skokie added three new statutes to their city ordinances on May 2nd, a day after the original Nazi march had been planned. The statutes were drafted by Gilbert Gordon, assistant corporate counsel of Skokie, and Schwartz's second in command. Ordinance 994, quote,

an ordinance related to parades in public assembly, was written as a traffic and safety law designed to protect Skokie's residents from, quote, disruption of essential services such as fire protection, program participation, and the orderly pursuit of their activities, and to safeguard their health, safety, and welfare. It regulated public assemblies that reasonably could be expected to involve over 50 people. Demonstrators now had to obtain a permit from the village at least 30 days in advance, posting public liability insurance of $300,000 and property damage insurance of $50,000. So just, we're no parades anymore, basically.

Yeah, no parades. Because you guys couldn't behave. We'd no parades. Yeah, exactly. Like, we're not going to do any parades, actually, at all. I mean, that does demonstrate, like, the severity of the reaction from the community. Yeah. Of, like, we can't be having this as a threat.

Now, because of this, the ACLU took a massive hit. People believed, even people who worked for the organization, believed that they should have let the Nazis unrepresented. However, Frank Collin had appeals to file, specifically with the Illinois Supreme Court, and it was his ACLU lawyer, David Gold. who was filing all of the paperwork. Senior members of the Illinois ACLU resigned in protest. Quote, the ACLU lost about 30,000 members, 15% of those who had belonged. The income that

disappeared with them amounted to some $500,000 a year. While National Executive Director Arianeer had warned in late 1974 that the organization was in financial trouble, he was unable to rectify this situation. As the Skokie cases worked their way through the courts and case expenses mounted, the National Board ordered the staff to cut $200,000 in expenditures and stop publication of the Civil Liberties Review. The Illinois ACLU estimated that it had lost 30% of its anticipated income for 1977, and it laid off five of its 13 employees. So, interesting. I mean, it is interesting, but it's like you say that, you know, the Nazis, like, loss, but they must have drummed up a lot of publicity, and they're able to try and, like, play the

victim was like, oh, our free speech rights have been trampled. And then, at least in the short term here, because the A.C. Heel defended them. They kneecap this organization, which I have to imagine otherwise, they don't like very much. Yeah. So it seems like they got, it's like through this battle, through the process, they got a few wins on their side. Yeah. Well, and they got a big win, as you'll see, because in June of 1977, a 7th District Appeals Court Justice gave a preliminary order on Frank Collins' appeal. And he said that because the insurance, bond was so high, only private insurance companies would be able to offer that kind of coverage, effectively stifling the speech of lower income groups.

And this is what skyrocketed the case to the United States Supreme Court. Was it unconstitutional to make it too expensive for Nazis or any group to demonstrate? The Supreme Court basically didn't pass judgment on that matter, but instead insisted that the Illinois Supreme Court needed to fast-track Collins' appeal if they planned to preemptively ban his speech. So the Illinois Supreme Court remanded the case back to the appellate courts who ruled that the Nazis could march. They just couldn't wear swastikas. But later on in its full review of the case, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that the swastika was in fact protected under the banner of free speech. The United States Supreme Court basically declined to do any further review. And here is a passage from the book about the Illinois Supreme Court decision.

And it reads, the Illinois Supreme Court handed down its decision in Skokie v. the end. N.SPA on January 27, 1978, lifting what remained of the injunction prohibiting the party from demonstrating in Skokie. Once again, the opinion was per curiam, and it represented the views of six of the seven judges who heard the case. The seventh, Justice William G. Clark, dissented without an opinion. The opinion for the court stated that decisions of the United States Supreme Court, and particularly its holding in Cohen v. California, left the Illinois court with no choice. quote, in our opinion, they compel us to permit the demonstration as proposed, including display of the swastika, implicitly rejecting the appellate court's separation of symbolic speech from verbal speech.

The court wrote that as, quote, it is entirely clear that the wearing of distinctive clothing can be symbolic expression of a thought or philosophy. The quote, symbolic expression of thought falls within the free speech clause of the First Amendment. The village of Skokie makes one final appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, but they are denounced. denied. Even though, you know, they eventually won. Essentially, Frank Colin and his Nazis did not end up marching in Skokie, but instead later in downtown Chicago, where it was easier to obtain permits. You see. It is just trolling. They were trolling, basically. The whole point of this is, like, how do you get a blood of attention through pissing people off? It's a good example of, like, the ideology of the Pepe's, too, because, like, those people also believe in fascist ideology, but they

they do it specifically because they know they're going to get a rise from people. Yeah. I guess a big difference here is some kind of faith in like the institute, like that the institution would sort of like, I can't imagine that Jake Lang is like, I'm going to reach out to the ACL, you know? I can't imagine that he's going to do that because there's just no, I feel like people that Pilled have zero trust in any kind of organized institution.

That essentially the only thing that they trust is like boots on ground, posts from the Trump social media, I don't know, like. Also, I feel like Colin was able to like consider a long-term publicity strategy in the way that Jake Lang does not. You know, I feel like he was a little bit more strategic in like how he handle his things.

So like, yeah, like reaching out to the ACLU to the man that they defend his free speech and have like a Jewish lawyer helm this. I mean, I have to confess, clever judo moved by the Nazi. But that is not necessarily. something that I think Jake Lang is capable of. No. I mean, Colin also didn't have the internet as an outlet. Like, who knows what he would have done if he could have been posting? Like, this seems like

the obvious way of getting the most attention in his period, his historical context. He's probably sitting on oxygen right now, going, I wish I could have posted. Born in the wrong generation guy. He's definitely a born of the wrong generation guy, either like too early or too late. You know, because he's like, no, if I was a Zoom right now, can't imagine what we're doing. Oh, I would have been so effective. But he, you know, Colin's life is sort of, after this, things didn't go so well for him. There was tension in the NSPA between him and other, like, top members because they found out that he was half Jewish. So they didn't like that.

And also, former members found pictures in Frank Collins' desk showing that he was abusing young boys and doing it, like, in like NSPA headquarters and stuff. I'm sorry to think this guy is not a good dude. They turned over the pictures to the police, and Collins was convicted in 1979 for child molestation. He was sentenced to seven years but served three. Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. That tracks.

After his release from prison, Frank Collin resurfaced under the name Frank Joseph, recasting himself as a new age writer and worshipping pagan. While incarcerated at Illinois' Pontiac Correctional Center, He had overlapped with prison guard Russell Burroughs, who later claimed to have discovered Burroughs Cave, a supposed cache of ancient artifacts and treasure in southern Illinois. Joseph became one of the site's most vocal supporters, publishing books and articles arguing it proved ancient old-world civilizations existed in North America.

Beginning with his book, The Destruction of Atlantis in 1987, he built a whole second career writing for Fate Magazine and the Ancient American, a publication that made extremely problematic claims about, America's indigenous people originating from other parts of the world, like basically saying that we're like, they were like a mix of like Norse and mythology and stuff, just, you know, total nonsense. So, so he ended up kind of like becoming an Atlantis guy. Don't like the Mormons believe something crazy about the native people of American continent too?

Yeah, something like that. Yeah. They're like, oh, we're actually a super, a super American that has every piece of culture embedded in our whiteness. So the end of the story is he was a pedophile and he went to jail for it. Yeah, I mean, it does make sense to a certain extent that as the Republican Party gets more Nazi, they also get more pedophile. Yeah, I feel like, yeah, they're looking for people who are like who really trying to transgress all boundaries who just hate any limits on their behavior at all. And, you know, there's a point where that stops big, you know, sort of like finger to the man, sort of rebellious. and starts being like justifying child abuse.

Imagine a lot of that is the connection to is just sadism, just like hurting people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a tricky situation with freedom of speech. Because there are plenty of benefits to the American free speech system, one of which is that I actually left out fun fact for science and transition. There's some stuff I left out about a certain doctor because I did not want to be sued.

And so the Canadian system is a lot less protecting a free speech than the American one. You can see the benefits of that. But then we can also clearly here see some of the downsides of the American system. Right. This was a time when people heard about Nazis showing up and they went, what can be done legally? Because we got to protect these Nazis from these fists. If we show up, I see the swastika, I might become enraged. There were all these court proceedings, so many people in motion to try to figure out what's to be done about that.

And like the Overton window has just shifted so much that it's kind of just assumed that when you have these extreme right wing sort of demonstrations, that there will be out and proud, you know, fascists there. Dressing like them, sometimes coming armed, you know, I mean. Especially after Charlottesville, that was really the moment, I think. I mean, I'm sure, I'm sure like even 2010's, like, slightly before that, it's a bit more controversial Nazism than in this context. but that really did seem like the band-aid, especially the fallout. It's like, nope, yeah, this is a growing, increasingly large problem,

and cultural backlash isn't doing as much to stop it as it used to when there was, you know, with Colin where it's literally just like 10 fucking idiots who are threatening to march somewhere. It's a lot more than that now. Yeah, I wonder what Collins would have thought of American Reich, the clothing style brand. I wonder if he would have been a customer.

But, you know, I can only hope that our current Nazis will also be found to be pedophiles and arrested. I mean, you know, I can only hope that they continue to

I don't know. Yeah, basically. I think it's a good note. That's right, Nazis. That's right, Nazis. Fuck you. Thank you for listening to another episode of the QAA podcast. You can go to patreon.com slash QAA and subscribe for $5 a month to get a whole second premium episode for every main one.

We've also got a website, QAAApodcast.com. Liv, where can people find more of your work? I stream on Twitch, twitch.tvich. As well as I have a newsletter, Levegar.com. Folks, go check it out. Listener, I'm going to take a break

from doing some Nazi coverage for a while. I've done a couple now and I'm going to get back on my bullshit. I'm going to do some fun stuff hopefully. Thank you for your service check. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's it. That's it. I can dip my toe in only for a little bit and now I'm back out again. I will not

be playing hearts of iron anymore and I will be exclusively playing for the Soviets in armor, reforger and until next week may the Deep Dish bless you and keep you. We have auto-cued content based on your preferences.

Patriots, it's Mr. Scott 1776. The past coming days I've been attacked. I've resigned from my position. Forbes has reported on it at Harmony Investment Group as the search fund manager. I've lost my home for my landlord. I've lost my attorney, Marcus Garski, from Garski and Hewitt,

who has dropped me due to the political motivations. My bank accounts had Chase and J.P. Morgan Bake. just for frozen. I'm here in my bunker here in Minnesota. Me and my team are gearing up. We've been doing some live studying. We've been doing some live drills. We will be boots on ground tomorrow. We will be holding a press conference with the infamous Zach X. Patriots, I know you guys are sick of being pushed around. You call me fucks. You guys keep saying you're going to blow my hat off. You're going to kill me. I'm going to tell you one thing. And I want you guys to hear me clear. The more you kill men like me, just like you did Charlie Kirk, the more of us rise up.

You guys are pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing and there's going to be problems. My generation is going boots on ground with air support from gentlemen like Nick Fuentas, people like Tucker Carlson. America is sick of being pushed around. The Americans are sick of looking weak, of feeling defenseless and being attacked. I resigned from my position at Harmony Investment Group to fight you. Comey, sons of bitches, full time. And I will not surrender, and I will not back down. I pray the full armor of God on me

every time I walk into this battlefield, and I pray you guys do too. There is no surrender. There's no backing down. We're going full steam ahead. I'll see you guys tomorrow at the Whipple Federal Building at noon with me and Zach Iax. God bless you guys. And the rest of the Crusaders.

God bless you guys. Have a great day. Cheers.