How extremism affected this small American town

[0:00] Hey everyone, it's Amna. Welcome to another episode of Settle In. My guest today is Michael [0:05] Edison Hayden. He's an investigative reporter and an expert on far-right extremism. He's also the [0:12] author of a new book. It's out now, and it's called Strange People on the Hill, How Extremism [0:18] Tore Apart a Small American Town. So we talked about that town. We talked about what happened [0:24] when a far-right group moved into that small town. We talked about the place that extremism [0:30] now holds in American politics. And we also talked about the personal toll that this work [0:35] takes on him, the threats that he's faced, the mental health challenges he's had to deal [0:40] with, even the friends that he's lost along the way. And we should note, this interview [0:46] was actually recorded before this past weekend's shooting that took place at the White House [0:51] Correspondents' Dinner here in Washington, D.C. That's a story we're going to continue to [0:55] cover on air and online. But for now, settle in and listen to my conversation with Michael [1:01] Edison Hayden. Michael Edison Hayden, welcome to Settle In. Thanks for being here. [1:07] Thank you. [1:08] Before we get into your new book, I want to start with you. And what drew you into this [1:13] work in the first place? Because you spend a lot of time in some of the darkest corners [1:18] of the internet, really deep into stuff that a lot of people don't even know exists. What [1:23] was it that brought you into this in the first place? Well, when I first started doing this, [1:30] I actually started really with ABC News, which was doing a kind of an expansion then around [1:35] the 2016 election. And I ended up picking up a lot of stuff about Trump's followers because [1:41] it was just like, well, give him that. There's going to be something like that. And that turned [1:44] out to be, in many ways, the major story that was happening underneath him. And so the first [1:49] stories I did were were really about, you know, burgeoning white supremacy and that sort [1:55] of thing that was that was happening. And then when Trump won, and it was there was a lot [2:00] of shock around everything. They asked me to, you know, please keep going, because I think [2:05] that people didn't really understand how it was possible. But I think I did at that time, [2:10] because I had been looking at them. And I saw the energy around Trump leading up to that [2:15] election. Then just skip ahead a little bit. During the Unite the Right event in Charlottesville, [2:22] where all those white supremacists came out, and they're fighting over that Confederate statue that [2:26] was in town. I had had, because of the work I've been doing, I had a lot of contacts in the town [2:32] and broke a few stories that went viral there. And then just a series of people asking me to do this [2:38] material just wound up becoming my beat after that. I mean, it's been 10 years now, though. So what [2:43] keeps you in it? Or do you find yourself still learning new things about it or being personally [2:48] fascinated by the way the movement has evolved? Well, it is fascinating. I think everybody should [2:53] be fascinated. I don't know if that's the right word, actually. But everything should be aware [2:58] when there is a fascist movement that is growing in the United States, which there there is and has [3:04] been and about what it can do. I still feel I think a certain, you know, I certainly I, I work, [3:12] I make money as a journalist. So there is, you know, there is that. Right. But I think I'm drawn to [3:18] it more than anything else, because I am I worry about my my children. I have two sons. I worry about [3:25] the future that they will inherit. I worry about the future of my family members. I have immigrants in [3:30] my family. And it's because of that. I mean, I don't want to live in a world where these these [3:38] the type of divisions that they're pushing become even more, you know, built in. I don't want it to [3:45] become so fundamental to American life that this psychological pain that I feel while it will [3:53] having haven't covered this for a while is something that everybody, every kid has to go through. [3:58] So let's for folks unfamiliar who don't follow it as deeply as you do, which is most people [4:03] listening. Let's set some kind of foundations here in terms of definitions when we're talking about [4:08] far right extremism. Right. What does that encompass? Who are we talking about? Sure. I mean, [4:14] this became a really blurred around the time that Trump took power in part because they all kind of [4:19] fell in line around Trump. Well, you're talking about anti-government extremists, right? People like [4:24] the Oath Keepers who were involved in the January 6th insurrection. You're talking about also the [4:31] three percenters and those type of things. There are the kind of there are more shock, sort of shock [4:37] troops of the white nationalism that you see online and things like that. And then there are also these [4:41] kind of academic pseudo intellectual white nationalists who focus on things like, for example, [4:48] race and IQ and that sort of thing. And, you know, we talked about Jared Taylor, I believe, before we [4:53] went on the air. And like, you know, Jared Taylor, we should mention for anyone listening, was sort of [4:59] considered like a grandfather at this point of the white nationalist movement. He's one of them. One of the [5:04] leaders. Peter Brimlow. I mean, yeah, I mean, really focused on this idea that there are these huge [5:11] differences between races and, you know, therefore, you know, whites should be separated. They need to [5:18] be in a, you know, they're not safe in this particular climate, etc., etc. And central, too, [5:23] is this idea that America should be a white homeland. Is that fair to say? Exactly. Yes. And then there [5:29] are, you know, the lines of this get kind of fuzzy sometimes, but there are also neo-Nazis, people who [5:34] are actually, you know, they revere Hitler to a tremendous degree, and then they want to just, you [5:40] know, you know, just reanimate the Nazi movement in the United States. Yeah, I mean, there are a lot [5:50] of there. And then there's just, you know, some people who are just anti-immigrant extremists. And [5:53] then I would just say that there's just the MAGA movement in general, which is so mainstream that it's [6:00] difficult to talk about as an extremist movement. But there, I think, is a sort of a widespread contagion in [6:05] the United States right now. We saw it during January 6th, right, where you had the Proud Boys, [6:11] who are kind of just a neo-fascist street gang. And they're mixing in with, like, actual grandmothers [6:17] who are there, right, who are just wearing Trump gear, which is a little bit, it's a little bit [6:22] complicated to talk about, because you may know people who are pro-Trump, and they might even [6:29] consider themselves MAGA. And then you may say, this person is not an extremist, and that might be true. [6:32] But I think the core elements of the movement are, to me, fascist in nature, focused on divide and [6:40] conquer, and, you know, and also focused on scapegoating other Americans. [6:47] You said widespread contagion. Do we have any way of capturing how widespread these beliefs are? [6:53] Well, there's one example that I like to bring up, which is at the 2024 Republican National [7:01] Convention, the RNC. You have, there were, there were grandmothers in wheelchairs holding up signs [7:07] that say, mass deportation now, right? There were people who were holding mass deportation now signs [7:13] all over the, I remember being completely shocked. I took all of 2024 off, I didn't, offline, I was [7:21] focused on the book entirely. And I just tuned into that, because I felt it was important, I knew it was [7:27] important for the book. Just things like that. And I couldn't believe it. I was shocked out of my [7:31] mind, because this was the type of material that, you know, in 2016, you would see, and you would only [7:37] see it from fringe corners of the right, right? It was not the type of thing where it was just a [7:43] mainstream thing to say. It's like, oh, yeah, we need a mass deportation force, right? You also see [7:50] that they say things like remigration and stuff like that. There's all these other terms that are coming [7:53] from the right that are now coming out of the mouths of prominent Republican politicians. That's [7:58] what I sort of mean by a widespread contagion. It's going to take a lot of work for the United States [8:03] to get to a place where we kind of dial these things back and put them back where they were [8:08] previously. And maybe I, you know, I leave open the possibility that we may never, and that would be [8:14] like absolutely devastating for the United States. So all of these ideas come together in your book, [8:19] and the lens through which you explore these ideas is not necessarily about the ideas or the groups, [8:25] but it's about this town, right? This one small town in West Virginia called Berkeley Springs. [8:31] Tell us about Berkeley Springs. For someone who's never been there, who will never get a chance to [8:35] visit, what's it like there? Well, it's beautiful. That's the first thing I would say about Berkeley [8:39] Springs, and I would encourage people to visit. It is a tourist town with about, you know, anywhere between [8:48] 700 and 1,000 people. Berkeley Springs is a kind of an anomaly in that area, because you have a lot [8:55] of, you know, everybody is familiar with the kind of tourist town vibe, where you go to a place and [9:01] the coffee shops have, maybe they have pride flags and this sort of, you know, you know what I'm talking [9:06] about, this sort of thing, right? Well, that exists in West Virginia, and it exists at Berkeley Springs. [9:13] So people, so gay couples would be going there. You have people from Baltimore, D.C., Philadelphia. [9:21] Striving to sort of be an inclusive destination. Yeah, just to go, to be in nature and to experience. [9:27] And also they have these beautiful, beautiful, beautiful springs there, warm springs, that were [9:32] George Washington once took a bath and stuff like that, and it comes out of the mountain at like 72 [9:37] degrees or something like that. It's just gorgeous. Yeah. The thing that happened here is that there is a [9:43] group called VDR. The Southern Poverty Law Center designates them a white nationalist group. [9:50] The best way for me to describe them to your audience is that they are narrowly focused on the Great [9:59] Replacement conspiracy. Which is? Yes. Great Replacement. This is important, unfortunately, because it is driving [10:07] a lot of the anxiety in this country. Yeah. Is this idea that there are people, elites, in some cases, [10:17] Jews. I would say that VDR is not as focused on Jews. They're really, you know, narrowly against [10:24] immigration. You know, this idea that they are importing non-white immigrants into the United States [10:31] in order to disrupt white countries or white majority countries and make whites a minority. [10:39] And that's at the core of the kind of work, the articles, the content that VDR pushes out, right? [10:45] Absolutely. And VDR, we should also mention just the origin of this. It's named after Virginia Dare. [10:49] Oh, yeah. Who was the first English child born in the Americas. Is that right? [10:54] Okay. Yeah. That's where it traces its name. So it's like to try to like sort of, you know, [11:00] we're defending her honor, defending these whites, these founding whites. Yeah. And so VDR is founded [11:05] and run by a man named Peter Brimelow. Who is himself an immigrant. Yes. He's English. He's English. [11:12] Yeah. He's a very smart guy. But he was a financial journalist and he worked for Forbes and things [11:16] like that. And he kind of stumbled into a like an argument that he he began to make his entire career [11:24] out of, which is just against this flow of non-white immigrants into the United States. He founded this [11:29] nonprofit called VDR in 1999 and from the outside of the Republican Party started to push for changes [11:39] in more than anything else rhetoric to begin to focus on immigration. But policy as well, very much so. [11:46] And, you know, if you look at his old interviews with him during the the George W. Bush years, [11:53] he's really pushing for changes that we see now in the Republican Party today, really focused on [11:58] non-white immigration, focus on demonizing immigrants, that sort of thing. Peter Brimelow, [12:04] around the time of the Charlottesville violence, he became sort of a persona non grata, you know, [12:10] could not could not get his conferences, his VDR conferences going to bring everybody from the [12:15] movement together. His wife, Lydia Brimelow, who's about 37 years younger than he is. [12:20] She was looking at Zillow, according to her, and found a listing for this beautiful castle [12:26] in Berkeley Springs. And it was one point four million dollars with a lot of upkeep [12:33] cost because it's a castle from the from the 19th century. And rather than this being a kind [12:41] of a, you know, the type of thing that should be, you know, belong to the state, potentially be a [12:46] national park or something like that. It was just out there to be purchased that he purchased that [12:50] they purchased it. And, you know, when when they when they purchased it, the idea was not only [12:56] would this be a big coup for VDR to say, like, hey, we have a castle, this our offices are a castle. [13:03] But also you would have an event space where, you know, so-called Antifa, like, you know, [13:09] anti-fascist demonstrators would not interfere with them. Nobody could cancel them. Nobody could [13:14] call up the Marriott and say, like, hey, this group, do you know what this group believes? [13:18] Have you seen what they had to say about Martin Luther King, etc.? [13:23] So it gives them kind of a new operating headquarters, too, right? [13:25] It gives them a place to operate. And also people can with with safety and anonymity, [13:31] which is very important to VDR. They had a lot of writers who they whose names they [13:35] didn't want to give up and things like that. They can go in and out of the castle and they [13:38] can meet and organize without any interference. What they didn't count on is the first part [13:43] of this, which is the town and the spirit of the town. Yes, it is Morgan County, West [13:49] Virginia is predominantly white and the county overwhelmingly voted Republican. But the [13:54] town itself, the spirit of the town is based on the people who come to visit and [13:59] hike. And that is where the conflict of strange people on the hill really develops. [14:04] I mean, you write about how the town is torn apart by the presence of Peter Brimlow and [14:12] VDR in this castle. How did that happen? That also suggests that there are people who support [14:17] them being there and people who don't. But what is the practical impact of this group showing [14:24] up and setting up a headquarters there in this one small town? What happens to the town? [14:28] It's interesting. Remember, as I said, I think the primary thing you can associate with [14:35] VDR more than anything else is selling this idea of the great replacement theory, right? [14:42] And I think that throughout this country, that idea and the way it's caught on has created [14:47] a tremendous amount of anxiety that affects everybody's life. And if you think about it [14:51] this way, right? I mean, if you think that you're being genocided, you're going to lose [14:57] everything. I mean, what wouldn't you do to try to stop that, right? Wouldn't you do to [15:01] like to avoid being, you know, being a victim of a genocide? So it really ratchets up our [15:08] politics to a really unpleasant, scary place. [15:13] Yeah. And I think when they first came, it wasn't so much that people liked them necessarily. It's more [15:25] of like the enemy of my enemy type situation in the sense that in every town now, during the Trump era, [15:32] there are huge divisions that are between neighbors that are related to our absolutely poisonous political [15:43] climate, right? You have somebody who's like outspoken mega, and this person is, I'm going to, [15:49] I'm going to across the street, I'm going to put my Black Lives Matter sign and stuff like that. And [15:52] just the amount of tension that people experience on a day to day basis is strong. Then in a small [15:57] town, it's even worse. So you have people, it's not so much that necessarily everybody's like, I love [16:02] the content on VDR. I think this is the best content ever. It's more the people who are fighting [16:07] against them. And then they say like, well, actually, this guy supports Trump. What, you know, [16:11] what's the problem? They don't like him, and I don't like them. All those divisions that we see in [16:17] our own life, in our own towns, those things became exacerbated to a profound degree. And you have [16:27] people turning on one another over this VDR castle, largely, you know, playing out the kind of things that [16:35] you see in every town over MAGA. So in the years reporting this book, and all the time you spend [16:41] on the ground, do you get to interact with Peter Brimlow? That's a good question. VDR's site has [16:49] published things about me many different times. I actually met him inside the castle for the first [16:57] time in December 2023. I bought tickets to a Christmas event there with my friend and colleague, [17:04] Hannah Gase. And we had about a seven minute conversation, which is detailed in the book. And [17:10] I think very, I think it's interesting, because we're actually quite friendly with one another [17:14] until all of a sudden, he says, I think this is enough. And, and basically, and tell us about that [17:19] conversation. I mean, you know, we sort of had crawled through the castle to see it. And I thought it [17:26] was just a fascinating place, which is so interesting. And I went up to the the what was then the VDR [17:31] conference room. And so I realized it was actually quite small and, and quaint. And I said to Hannah, [17:38] I said, look, you know, I don't think we're gonna, I don't think we're gonna run into him. [17:42] And then all of a sudden, it was freezing outside of the door open. And there's like, [17:45] almost like a movie is like the air is so cold. And then Peter and his wife came in with their kids. [17:52] And at first, we kind of laid back, he actually looked me directly in the eye, [17:55] told me he was, he says, God, turn the heat up in here, you know, in his way. And just looked [18:02] at me without right, even though they had, they had, you know, they had kind of [18:06] approved everyone who's going to be there, right? He didn't recognize you. [18:10] Didn't recognize me. And then his wife did, as we were coming down the stairs, [18:18] and I went to go have a conversation with them. She knew about the book coming out. [18:23] She thought that the book was making fun of them. The title, I said, look, [18:28] that's a quote from somebody who asked me about the strange people on the hill. [18:32] Right. So that's where the title came from. This came from my journalistic work. [18:35] So he's aware of your work. [18:37] Yeah. [18:37] He knows what you've been doing. [18:38] Oh, yeah. He's been, he's been, you know, they were, they were very, I mean, [18:42] because, because when we were Southern private law center, we were reporting on them all the time. [18:45] Yeah. [18:46] And then, you know, they were, there was a feedback loop between the two of us, which is actually [18:51] very similar to the feedback loop you see playing out between individuals in the town. [18:55] At the end of the conversation, he says, all right, that's enough. And sent us off. [18:59] We were kicked out of the castle. And since then, nothing. They, they, they won't talk to me. [19:06] No reaction to the book since it's been out either? [19:08] He recently posted on Substack when he saw that I was speaking at Politics and Prose in DC. [19:14] He said someone should go and film it, which was quite funny because [19:18] it was being live streamed on YouTube. So you could just watch that. [19:22] I mean, we should note for the record too, you've documented this in your work at the SPLC too. [19:26] And there's a number of his critics who allege that VDARE is, it's an anti-immigration [19:31] publication that's really a hub for white nationalist groups. I think to this day, [19:35] the Rimlow's dispute that characterization. Is that fair? [19:38] Yeah. They call themselves civic nationalists. That's, that's the term that they use. [19:44] The Southern Poverty Law Center calls them white nationalists. [19:49] I prefer, I just refer in the book to the movement because I think it's easier to people [19:54] to understand that there is a politically engaged unified movement. I would at times call this a [19:59] white supremacist movement, but it's certainly a white identity focused movement. The most important [20:04] thing for my own personal beliefs and my most important thing I want to convey to people [20:09] is the degree to which they have helped mainstream the great replacement conspiracy theory. [20:16] Conspiracy theory might not even be the right word. I think a better phrasing would be this [20:21] narrative about the great replacement, right? About what is happening in the way of selling [20:25] demographic change that it is inherently negative, that it is some sort of thing to kind of [20:34] harm white people. [20:35] Mm-hmm. So let me ask you about that mainstreaming because that brings us to where we are now, [20:40] which is that a lot of these ideas, as you say, have made their way into the mass messaging of one [20:47] of our two major political parties, right? In terms of how this, this country operates. So what, what can you [20:54] say about the alignment of all these ideas that are held by what we call far right extremist groups, [21:01] groups as part of the movement, as you say, and this president and this Republican Party and this [21:08] conservative identity right now? What would you say is that alignment? [21:12] Well, in terms of Trump, he is, he is, I don't, I don't know if he even cares about this or what he [21:19] cares about, but I do know that he's very, very savvy in terms of finding things that create anxiety and fear [21:25] and anger and exploiting those things to accrue power for himself, to accrue wealth for himself, [21:32] to dominate. He's, he's just, he's like a shark. He's like not even, I mean, he's, I don't know if we'll ever [21:38] see anybody quite like Trump in the way he does that. And I think the way these folks who are [21:44] activists who really believe in this narrative and it is their life's work and stuff like that, [21:49] he just views these things as just kind of putting his, you know, seeing what's out there that he can [21:53] exploit and hitting it. And I think that that is the real relationship between the radical right [21:59] and Trump. Are there fractures today where there weren't before? Oh my God. How has the movement [22:05] changed? Tell me about that. Oh my God. Yes. What you're seeing is huge divides, at least within the [22:12] online movement or with the activist side of the movement. I say, I know that polls still show [22:17] generally most Republicans feel the same way they always did about Trump, but I don't know. It's one [22:23] of those things where I don't know if we'll see the full effect of it in polling for years to come. [22:28] I'm actually very scared about what could happen, you know, from here because that anti-Semitic [22:35] side of things, right? I'm worried about people who are angry, who feel frustrated [22:40] legitimately with Israel, who may have like real criticisms aligning themselves with people who [22:46] are, you know, who themselves have very genocidal ambitions. But does that fracture, [22:52] does that weaken the movement at all? I mean, take us back to Vidar, for example, as a subject of your book. [22:57] How are they doing today? Good question. I went to actually [22:59] back to Berkeley Springs yesterday to sign books. Oh, you just went yesterday? Yes, I did. [23:03] Okay. How was that? It was amazing. I was really emotional. I cried and a bunch of people coming [23:08] to me and hugging me and, you know, they've just been through a lot over the last five years. I think [23:12] this is a chance to like look back on it and to realize what they'd been through. While I was there, [23:17] somebody asked who was very, you know, really loved the book, but said, what would you say to [23:23] somebody who said that all this activism in the town against Vidar was unimportant? The New York [23:28] Attorney General's office is what really did something to them. Letitia James, who's the New [23:33] York Attorney General's office, put them under an investigation into the way they use their nonprofit [23:39] that went on for basically 2022 until 2025. And ultimately, there's a, you know, their legal [23:48] maneuvers, and it has forced Vidar to basically disband in so many words. I mean, they don't, [23:56] because of financial pressures, essentially, as a result of the investigation by the New York [24:00] Attorney General. They can still theoretically use the castle space to host people from the movement [24:06] and things like that right now, but they are battling. Financially, they're in a lot of trouble. [24:11] Yeah. So someone asks you if that matters more than the acting on the ground? [24:15] Well, I mean, you know, people from the town were lobbying Letitia James to pay attention to it. [24:22] Letitia James may not have even been aware of this if it were not for the article that I first wrote [24:27] going back to 2020 about this, which came from where? It came from the people in the town trying to get [24:32] somebody's attention to pay attention to this. And I think that really that yes, the New York [24:37] Attorney General's office put the financial pressure on them. But the social pressure came [24:44] from the people in the town who are predominantly white, older, the exact people that Peter Brimelow [24:50] thought he was going to come into town and and dazzle with his money and kind of no worries, [24:56] they're going to have the same beliefs as me, you know, really a remarkable thing that they that they [25:01] were able to take him on with with social pressure and do as much damage to Peter as they ultimately [25:08] did. We're talking a lot about right wing extremism and far right ideologies. Folks will have also heard [25:15] the president, this administration, others talk about left wing extremism. Oh, yeah. Right about [25:20] about the far left, about Antifa. And we know that this administration has even pushed for prosecutions [25:25] of people who are associated with these kinds of ideologies. You study this stuff, you research it all the [25:31] time. What do we know about these groups? Yeah. Well, the we what we know is that there aren't [25:36] really groups. You know, there's this idea that there are groups is is is is quite fatuous. I mean, [25:43] like, they're talking about democratic socialists of America and stuff like that. Those are like the [25:47] groups that they sometimes list. They might point to people who self identify as Antifa, [25:52] who yes, there has been some violence associated with some of course, we're going to find out what [25:56] happens in the trial around Charlie Kirk's murder. Right. We don't know what his motivation was. [26:02] We're going to, you know, we leave open the possibility of anything. But the idea that Antifa [26:08] is typically a form of protest. It's a way it's a way of response. It's a militant form of protest. [26:13] It's not not all anti fascist activism is violent. You know, a lot of it is just sort of bookkeeping. [26:22] It's sort of like, where were they? Where did they go? Just letting, you know, letting people [26:26] in the community know what people do, what they're where they are, you know, they call it doxing, [26:31] but like not always doxing. Some of it is literally just reporting. Just, you know, this person, [26:37] you know, is in your area, they go by this name, here's who they really are. Here's what they do. I [26:41] would say the majority of anti fascist activism is stuff like that. We should say people have accused [26:46] you of being part of Antifa. Oh, yeah. What do you say to that? No, I mean, I mean, well, [26:52] I mean, I'm an anti fascist for sure. I mean, I'm against fascism, you know, so I mean, but [26:57] I've never organized with and I'm a journalist, right? They say that because in part, because if [27:02] you focus on fascism and you focus on defanging fascism, then you can potentially be portrayed in [27:09] this way. I mean, a lot of people were that I know who report on this material and report on the [27:14] radical right. We're very scared after, you know, after Charlie Kirk's assassination, because we [27:21] worried that like they would start some sort of insane crackdown on people who are completely [27:27] innocent, you know, just reporters and things like that. Yeah. Because I mean, it's not like this [27:33] administration has, you know, it's scruples together and is, you know, they do all kinds of unhinged things. [27:39] So Mike, you talk in the book about your split from the SPLC, the Southern Poverty Law Center, [27:43] which has long been known as sort of the preeminent organization documenting and reporting [27:48] on extremism and racism. I just want to put to you because we did, as part of our journalism, [27:52] reach out to them. I'm excited to hear it. Well, we just, this is the response. And this was [27:56] specifically asking them for comment about some of specifically your criticism about [28:01] allegations of union busting and retaliation and backing off, in your words, of a lot of their coverage [28:07] for fear of retaliation from the Trump administration, not letting those reports go out. So they [28:12] deny your allegations. And they say this quote, SPLC does not tolerate discrimination or retaliation in [28:18] the workplace. They say they have a longstanding relationship with the union. They're committed to [28:22] working collaboratively with union leadership. And then they also add that their mission remains [28:27] unchanged to fight hate, to seek justice, to advance civil rights for all. And they say their recent [28:32] organizational efforts have strengthened and not diminished their ability to deliver on that [28:38] mission. They also say we don't shy away from criticizing individuals at every level of the [28:42] government or any other arena. Anything you want to say in response to that? Well, what I would say to [28:48] that is, has anyone seen anything from SPLC since Trump's election other than, you know, other than [28:57] the commercial that runs on MSNOW every night with, that plays We Shall Overcome with footage from the [29:04] civil rights movement, which was of course, which all happened before 1971 when Dees founded the [29:12] organization. We, I haven't seen anything from them. And I have hope that they can get better than they [29:18] are now. And then regarding working with the union, I mean, we don't have time to also ask the union, [29:24] but I would say like, somebody please ask the union how they feel, because I know the people in the union [29:28] are really frustrated with the way the SPLC has behaved and they may not tolerate discrimination. [29:34] Okay. And they settled, but they certainly tolerated it in 2023 when I went through it. [29:42] And I would have been, I would have much preferred in their statement had they said, [29:46] we really screwed up with him and we, but we do commit to discrimination because you should at least [29:51] acknowledge that that happened. They should at least acknowledge that that happened. And everybody who's [29:55] worked there and I'm sure some people will be watching this who were, who were, who were a part [29:59] of that team. They know what happened to you. I mean, there's a reason why they're not addressing [30:03] these specifics. Mike, you talked a little bit about some of the backlash to your work and your [30:11] reporting. The part about people posting pictures of you and your kids really struck me because you [30:19] and I chatted earlier before we began recording about a lot of the threats that I got after I interviewed [30:24] Jared Taylor in which they mentioned my family and started posting things about them. And I will be [30:31] honest in saying that was a really scary time. You have to deal with this in a much more severe, [30:37] much more intense, much more frequent way. It has to take a toll. I mean, how do you, [30:42] how do you look at that? Well, you know, it was, I guess it was June of 2021. I had taken my [30:50] then eight year old son to the batting cage, right? And we were working on hitting mechanics. I remember [30:55] that very specifically. And afterwards I took him to 7-Eleven to get a, to get a Slurpee. And I got a [31:02] phone call from somebody from the North Carolina field office, the FBI. And it was such a surreal [31:08] moment because the guy called me up and he was like, he's like, yeah, I just wanted to tell you, [31:12] this is just a courtesy call. You know, that somebody is, you know, talking about assassinating you [31:20] on a line that we have. Um, I just want you to let you know that we're aware of this person and [31:25] we're trying to take him out of circulation. Do you have any questions? And I was like, [31:30] do I have any questions? My son's in the back seat, right? So I can't be like, oh yeah, like, [31:34] yeah, how about that? Like, um, how does he plan to blow my head off? Exactly. I can't ask that, [31:40] you know, I can't, right. I can't, I can't ask that with the kid in the back seat. Um, [31:46] I eventually got that worked out. It was, uh, it was, it was, it was totally crazy. [31:50] Um, but I mean, it got over, I mean, the kind of threats that I got him, it's funny because, [31:54] you know, I was always interacting with people from the movement and things like that. And I don't [31:58] think they even knew. I mean, I think I'm sure some of them in a stochastic terrorism kind of way [32:04] were trying to trigger these type of threats, but I don't think they realized like how, not only how [32:08] many threats I got, but how, how badly it was starting to get to me. Uh, because I was in really, [32:14] I mean, there are a lot of factors you see in the book. I mean, I spent three weeks in a psychiatric [32:18] facility. Um, there were other, um, factors involved there. Uh, but I think what, what created [32:26] the foundation for that, we're just like, just always, I, I had one point had this, I, I felt [32:34] like I had like, uh, a rain cloud following me everywhere I went, which is kind of like straight [32:39] up like a peanuts cartoon, like you would have, but it actually did feel that way. I mean, [32:43] Charles M Schultz probably understood depression pretty well. I had, um, no, it felt like everywhere [32:49] I went, there was like this, like really, really like heavy thing just like raining on me. Yeah. [32:53] Um, and I had, I had a police report at one point in my, my family's, uh, my parents' place in Long [33:00] Island where I lived in, in Jackson Heights at that time. And, uh, and then one in lower Manhattan, [33:07] where my office was. So there's like three different police reports were opened, um, around [33:14] threats to my safety. I mean, I had, I would have, when I worked at Newsweek, I had somebody, [33:19] uh, say to me like, Hey, if you come, you should tell your colleagues, if you come tomorrow, you [33:23] know, you're going to get, you know, you just tell them you should be careful because on your way out [33:28] from the subway, you're going to kill you. Right. You know, I mean, it was, it was crazy. [33:31] I mean, Mike, if, if you stopped doing this work tomorrow, those people would probably stop [33:38] threatening you. Right. Yes. Do you ever think about that? Yes, I do. Uh, I do. But you know [33:47] what? The threats have gone down a little bit and they go, they, they may come back again, [33:51] but it doesn't, the threats don't alarm you to the point where you think, okay, I can no longer do [33:56] this work. Yeah. I don't want the attention of these people anymore. Well, I think, I think like, [34:01] you know, one of the things about strange people on the hill is to, you know, is the, [34:06] the threats are at their most scary when you're not talking about it, you know, when you're just [34:11] like, Oh, I'm not, you know, I'm like, we're just going to pretend this is not happening or whatever. [34:16] I get really offended sometimes when people get like a little threat or whatever, and then they [34:19] try to make content off of it on social media. I never did. I just, you know, I, I, first of all, [34:23] it's bad, uh, you know, hygiene, right. You, you know, someone show you where somebody is and it [34:28] also can make lead to more threats, you know, but there's a different thing of, of, of never [34:33] talking about it and just, you know, pretending it's going to go away. And I'm just hoping that, [34:37] you know, this book, um, is more of a dialogue, not only with, uh, other people who have been [34:45] through this, uh, but also with the people who are threatening me too, you know, because I think [34:51] like it's, it's important for me to see the humanity in them and them to see the humanity in [34:57] me if we're ever going to get out of, uh, this moment that we're in. [35:02] How are people in Berkeley Springs doing today? [35:06] It was, um, uh, they're, they're okay. They're okay. Um, a lot of the stuff I mentioned around [35:13] the mental health stuff, uh, some of them were there for that. And I think when they read that [35:18] about me and they, you know, they, they knew that stuff was happening because I told them about it, [35:22] but they didn't know about the details. They don't know about like what, what it was actually like. [35:27] Um, and I think that some of them were really emotional. A lot of people were crying [35:29] when I went to the, to the, when I went to the cafe and, um, you know, and for them also, [35:37] it's like stuff. I mean, I don't think everybody, I, it's not like it's, I don't think it's written [35:42] in such a way that you would look and say like, oh, the Brimlos are the antagonists. You know, [35:48] the Brimlos didn't give me enough access to, to see all the pain in their life. But I mean, by the end [35:54] of the, at the end of that book, it's very apparent that they've lost a lot, right? They've lost a lot [36:01] and they faced, they become, you know, pariahs to many. They may have supporters, but they have a lot [36:07] of people who will not talk to them. I've heard stories about people in town, for instance, where [36:11] it's like Lydia Brimlo comes with her kids somewhere and everybody clears out, you know, [36:15] know, it's like, whoa, it's like, you know, I, you know, I don't experience that. I don't [36:19] experience like that. That must be horrible for them, you know, but that's remarkable. [36:23] You feel empathy for them. I do. I do. I do. I do. Although I, I want to make very clear [36:31] that I, you know, I disagree with the actions they've taken with their lives. And I think that [36:37] they've brought a lot of pain on a lot of people. A lot of people are going to come to these issues for [36:42] the first time and reading your book. What do you want them to take away from this particular story [36:48] in the way that you tell it? Well, I mean, I think the, the first most important thing, [36:52] and it's like the, the, you know, the, the, the part of me that said he was a writer when he was [36:58] five years old. This is a work of literature and I want it to be enjoyed as a work of, you know, [37:03] I want you to feel things. I want you to laugh when it's, when it's, when it's funny. And I want you to [37:08] enjoy the prose and all that. But I mean, this is real life, as you mentioned, and there is a story, [37:12] and there's a reason why we choose it. And I think that the most important thing is, is like, [37:16] you know, as a, I mean, do we really, do we really want to live like this? You know, I think it's [37:28] hard for you to talk about. Yeah. Um, unexpected. Yeah. It's like, do we really want to live like [37:36] this? I don't know. My friend, um, my friend growing up, he, uh, he's a Republican and like, [37:48] he's my Mets jets type friend and stuff like that. I spent an entire year not talking to him [37:52] because he was, you know, he supported Trump in the, in the first election. And I was going [37:57] through all those threats and I was like, I can't even talk to you, man. I don't want to talk to you. [38:03] Um, and he said it was, sorry, that's okay. Take a minute. I said it was like the toughest year of [38:14] his life that you weren't talking. Yeah. I wouldn't talk to him. And, um, he also said another thing [38:21] to me, which I thought was really interesting. Cause he's really like, I mean, he's just a, [38:25] you know, he got into Republican. He's a business guy. You know what I mean? He's not like, [38:29] he's not thinking about this stuff like that. Um, so I, I forced him to think about it in a [38:33] totally different way. And he's like, when I was a kid, when we were kids, basically, [38:38] so we used to, we used to put a little league together and stuff like the president was just [38:40] a guy on TV, you know? And, um, that was true. You know, we didn't care. We didn't have to care. [38:49] I didn't, I just, I knew there were two parties and that was it. And I just like, [38:52] so the question is like, do we really want to live like this? Do we want, [38:55] we want to have every day, like we wake up and there's like a new thing that we have to go to [38:59] war over? I just feel like what, what has happened to our country since, um, extremism became the, [39:08] the dominant strain of politics has been so painful and it's taking years off of people's lives. [39:16] And I, I just, I can't imagine that people really want to live like this. [39:19] What you share about your friend though, is I think something a lot of people can relate to. [39:25] More and more Americans in particular will have folks in their lives who they disagreed with over [39:30] politics 20 years ago. It might've meant you just don't talk politics anymore. And now it means [39:36] broken friendships, broken families in some cases. Are you and your friend reconnected? [39:42] Oh yeah, we're, we're, we're cool. You know, really cool. Um, he actually like, [39:47] he has to subscribe to a podcast. I cohost, uh, we're, I think he's, I think he's, I think he's [39:54] about fed up with, with, with the Trump stuff. I think he's, he's done with it. And like, [39:59] you know, I mean, this is not, it's not him, you know what I mean? He like, you know, [40:02] he likes rap music. He likes stuff. He doesn't want to get involved in this kind of like, [40:06] you know, this, this weird racial politics. Um, but, uh, but yeah, we're, we're reconnected, [40:14] but, but I do have, you know, people in my own family where it's, where it's difficult where [40:17] there's certain things that we can't talk about, or they, they can't, uh, show the same, like, you [40:22] know, if, like everybody in my family shares some article that I wrote and stuff like that, [40:25] they can't chime in on it because they were worried that it's gonna, you know, this, this might go [40:30] against president Trump and, and, and, you know, and that, so while I've got, you know, I'm on this team [40:35] and so forth. I think the central question you asked there is, do we really want to live like [40:39] this? Yes. Is something you address so well in the book too. And the other part of it in our [40:45] conversation and in the book is this idea that all politics, as we all talk about it, [40:49] all politics is personal, right? It shows up in our personal lives. Yes. And I think one thing that is [40:55] very, um, important to consider when you think about this great replacement narrative, [41:02] some of these other things are there is, is how much of this is really about improving the material [41:09] conditions of the people who support it and how much of this is really about, um, you know, stigmatizing [41:16] or destroying, um, imagined enemies or, you know, maybe people think real enemies, but I would say [41:24] imagined. Um, and that's, and that's a, you know, that we've gone very far off track from what this [41:31] political system is technically supposed to be. We're supposed to be trying to figure out how to [41:35] improve our material conditions. How are you going to get people, uh, health care, how they're going [41:40] to get fed, how the kids going to get educated, how they're going to get jobs when they get out of [41:44] school. You know, so much of it is talking about sticking it to somebody else. The book is Strange [41:52] People on the Hill. The author is Michael Edison Hayden. Mike, thanks so much for being here. [41:58] Thank you so much. I appreciate it.