March 14, 2025 • 43 mins
Molly Conger of the podcast Weird Little Guys joins us to break down how the terrible figures in our world are...ultimately strange and just human. We chat about unearthing these backstories and why talking about them is important.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to stuff
I've never told your production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
And today we are excited to have a journalist, writer, creator,
fellow podcaster dog mom because I've seen.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
This Molly Conger on the show. Hello, Molly, Hey, thanks
for having me. Can you introduce yourself to our listeners?
Oh gosh, who am I question?
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Question?
Speaker 4 (00:39):
Yes, my name is Molly Conger. I live here in
Charlottesville in Virginia. I have a new podcast on iHeart
I guess it's not new anymore. We're six months in
called Weird Little Guys. It is terrible stories of terrible
men that you've probably never heard of.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Yay, it's true.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Just jumping into your podcast, I was like, this is
how did I describe it before? As like a kindly
told tale about really horrible people and fact that you
really didn't want to know but need to know, Like
it's just so much to it, and like your storytelling
is phenomenal.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
But before we jump into all of that.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Because you have a long and deep history in the
middle of the most intense events, I feel like, especially
in our generation, you were kind of in the middle
of the aftermath. I guess both in the Unite the
Right rally which happened in Charlottesville. Right, you also kind
of were in the middle of the did you go
(01:38):
actually investigate the January sixth.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
As well? There? Yes?
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Okay, so both of these things blew my mind. I'm like,
what is she doing to herself? And why is she
doing this? Ay, that's the big question. Is she that
dedicated or is she a massacres? Like what is this question?
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Answer is yes.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
But with all of that, because I realized even though yes,
you are a coworker and now friend, I have been
following you for a while on Blue Sky, I think
I followed you. I did follow you on Twitter as well,
because you are in the middle of all of this
intense labor in letting us know what was happening in
these types of aviz Can you talk to us about
how you got started in this intense work.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
So I don't have a background in journalism, Like I
didn't go to journalism school. I have not had, you know,
a professional journalism job. But in like you said in
the aftermath of Unite the Right, you know, living here
in Charlesville, I'm kind of looking around at this town
where I've lived for a long time, but had never
been really politically engaged with you know, I was living
my own life, and all of a sudden in twenty seventeen,
(02:42):
I was unemployed suddenly for unrelated reasons, and I'm just
looking around being like, what happened here? What?
Speaker 3 (02:50):
What just happened?
Speaker 4 (02:51):
To us as a city, to us as a nation
as a people, like what what just happened? And I
had the spare time to commit to sort of it
was a personal journey, right, Like I wanted to know
for myself, and as I sort of dug deeper into
trying to figure out what happened here, you just never stopped.
And it started to become obvious that, like, other people
(03:13):
wanted to know too, and I was in a position
to help tell them.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yeah, I mean, even without the background in journalism, you
are an incredible investigative journalist. Like it's interesting to see
how things have been uncovered as you do your good research.
And by the way, we'll talk about this in a minute, Sophie,
that's the first thing she told me outside about you're
an amazing person, but that you are an amazing researcher.
You know, that's a huge compliment coming from Sophie as
(03:40):
I was say, yeah, as for our listeners, she's like
a producer over at coal Zone Media and a friend
of the show and co worker as well. But all
of that to say, you also do unexpected things. I
feel like you really are a detective, maybe a private eye,
but you do is like being on a collective called
(04:02):
deeplatform hate, which I found interesting.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Can you kind of tell us what.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
That It was sort of a project from ages ago, right,
But it's stilling to know. So the idea of deplatforming, right,
I think it's it's less in the conversation now that
our mainstream platforms are run behind fascists.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
But there was a period of time where there.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
Was an idea that fascists and Nazis and misogynists and
anti semits did not belong on mainstream social media platforms, right,
They did not belong in our collective Internet town square,
and you could apply pressure to have them removed from
these spaces. Again, that dream has died. They run the show.
(04:43):
Now we're not getting them. You're not getting a nazi
kicked off Twitter because that's their playground.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Now. It's one of those moments that you wish we were
could go back.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
To there was momentum for a while behind this idea
that like, you know, if a Nazi is running a
T shirt store, you could contact the payment processor and say, hey, like,
is it your business practice to process payments that are
funding a hate group? And the answer is usually silence.
But sometimes they would say that was not our intention.
(05:13):
We did not know that, right.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
I've really miss when it was there was accountability, like
this could have a whole conversation about cancel culture and
how that doesn't exist and that's not a thing.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
We need to stop talking about this as a thing.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
But it was interesting because I was like, when I
was looking all the stuff up about you, as you
know we do for our guess, she's got her own
Wikipedia page.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Congratulations, humiliating, humiliate. When I saw that, I was like,
I'm not telling anyone about this. I don't want anyone
to know about this. Don't look at it to know
I don't look at it.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
I wouldn't either, honestly, I wouldn't either try.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
To say it. I'm honestly like I had a nightmare
ahead a Wikipedia.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
Page probably not correct, and I just like I can't
I can't engage that like, I think my birth year
is wrong, and it's like that's just.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
They haven they didn't notice that. I was like, okay,
that's interesting.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
But every year on my birthday, I make a joke
about how I get two birthdays because the year I
was born, my birthday was Labor Day, and so it's
not always on Labor Day.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
So I feel like I get both days.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
And it's like, if you know approximately how old I am,
you know what year that was labor Day?
Speaker 3 (06:26):
They did not do they do not.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
But it's really good because it is glowing, like it
is like complimentary of what you have done. So I
will give you that as someone who just recently looked
at it. Okay, like this, it made me want to
be your friend for sure.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
For sure.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
I was like, okay, we're definitely friends. Wow.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
So we are interested in your podcast because all all
of this, all the things that you've done and the
investigative work that you've done, has led to this podcast
weird Little Guys. Can you tell us a bit about it?
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Yeah? So then Sophie actually came up with a name.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
I love Sophie because I guess, you know, work related
and casual friend friend conversations with Sophie like, I'm always
sort of like bursting into the room like the kool
Aid man, with like, look at this weird guy I found, right,
because I'm always sort of digging around looking for I
don't even know what I'm looking for until I find it,
just sort of digging around. And sometimes you find a
guy and you're like, what is going on with this guy?
(07:23):
This guy's got a weird situation. So I'm always saying, like,
look at this weird guy I found.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
And eventually she was like.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
You know, You've got a lot of weird guys. You
can make a whole show about these weird guys. And
so every episode is theoretically centered around an individual man.
You know, women women can be weird little guys too.
I'm actually working on a woman right now. But these
are sort of figures in the white power movement, in
(07:50):
white supremacist movements, neo Nazi movements, and they're sort of
biographical sketches, but it uses each man as sort of
an entry point into the world he was operating in. Right,
So these the way these figures intersect with each other
and with events in history, the way these movements are shaped,
the way they interact with mainstream politics. You know, I
(08:11):
think marketing tagged its true crime, which I think is
a very interesting conversation to have, but sort of the
nature of true crime as a genre, because I don't
think that's incorrect, right, Like from a marketing perspective, these
are stories of crime and they are true, right, But
I know, no shade to the true crime girlies, like
(08:33):
it's my one of my guilty pleasures. I do listen
to a lot of true crime shows, but I find
that genre typically sort of sensationalistic or exploitative, or sort
of focused on finding the worst aspects and focusing on
that without exploring what it means. So my weird little
guys there are they're monsters, right, they are true monsters.
(08:57):
They are beating their wives, their molesting children, they're making
they're trying to overthrow the government. They're doing the worst
things you can think of, and they are what you
would describe as monsters. But the goal of the show
is to show you that they're also just men. They
are human men with strange personal lives and massive personal
(09:18):
failings and the weaknesses of men. Because it is hard
to think of facing a monster, but it's easy to laugh.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
At a man, which is the title is fantastic.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
I will say so between you and Sophie creating that
is a beautiful title. Weird little guys because it does
kind of take away some of that power that they
are desperately trying to get over people in general. But
as I was listening to it, you also in each
of your episodes, it's like a big tangled web of
people and organizations that have like you really lay out
(09:50):
how these people came about, Like how these creations of
these monsters or these men doing these awful acts came about.
And I find that interesting in itself. Also, with a
lot of your conversations and talking you have a like
unearthed people who may be cops who are obvious supporters of,
you know, the alt right supremacist movement, as well as.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Calling out new people.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
I know, I know people are listening hate listening, trying
to figure out if they're going to be swept up
in to your conversation of an organization. Have you gotten
any reactions from any other people you've talked about or reference.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
The fascinating answer to that question is no, really right,
So I've been doing this work for years now, right,
sort of talking about these men, unearthing them, digging them out,
you know, discussing their legal problems, their personal lives. Have
been digging into these people for a long time, and
for years it was this sort of.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Conversation. It was bidirectional.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
They were aware of me, and I was aware of them,
and I could see them talking about me in their
spaces as I'm talking about them in mind. And you know,
sometimes the communication was direct in ways I do not prefer.
But since I started the show, I don't see that,
and I think it's because they're afraid of being on
this show.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
That's amazing. I think they are amazing.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
Hear the you know, these narratives where I'm dissecting someone
and just you know, reading them to filth, and they
don't want that smoke because I don't hear from the
you know, the guys I used to hear from.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
That's fascinating because I would have thought someone would have reacted.
I know you've gotten threats previously. I don't know if
it's been around the podcast, but like any of your other.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Stuff, but that is interesting.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
I really thought you would have gotten some type of
reaction by your podcast. Maybe it's because, like I said,
your storytelling is so good that they're like, wait, it
sounds like it's if I do this, she's going to
do it in a way that I can't combat her.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
What are you saying. I don't know.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
I think they are nervous about it. This was before
the show started. I wrote a piece, like I say,
a year or two ago now about about a man
in particular that I did have a bit of a
personal history with. He'd been on a podcast, a Nazi
podcast that often discussed me in ways that were very
violent and disparaging, and then he got into some legal trouble,
(12:14):
and I wrote an article about you know, his legal
trouble at that moment, and sort of in the style
of the show, I guess before the show started, you know,
was talking about his life leading up to that moment.
A friend of mine, another female journalist, had a source
relationship with this man from an unrelated situation, and after
the article came out, he contacted her and said, how
(12:38):
did she know that thing about my grandmother? Like he
was startled that I, you know, I dug up details
about his life that he thought were secret or private
or you know, so far in the past that why
would anyone know that, and it's like, it's because I
built a family tree and I read every issue of
(12:58):
your hometown newspaper for every year of your life. Like
the answer to that is that because I'm good. The
answer to that is because I spent way too much
time on this.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Yes, I love that, but I love you.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
They have that anxiety that like I don't want you
to know my grandmother once killed her neighbor's dog, you know, right,
like don't know the.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Secrets of my past. Please, thank you, thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
And then just at sidebar listening to that of to
your most recent episode, who voiced Donald Trump?
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Who did that? That is my editor, Rory. He's so good,
He's he's so good. I had anxiety. What why? Because
I did? I yelled at my radio listening to because
I'm always like.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
Down to the wire, like I don't have good time
management skills. So like I'm turning the episodes in like
hours before like the last second where he could start
editing it and I couldn't.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
I was like texting the work group chat.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
I was like, does anybody can anybody do these these
Trump line reads for me?
Speaker 3 (13:56):
And like nobody, nobody would do it?
Speaker 4 (13:58):
And Rory was like, as he was editing it, because
I had just read them in as placeholder because I
thought someone would step in and then.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Where he was like, do you twot me to try it?
And it was perfect?
Speaker 1 (14:08):
It was perfect.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Tell him compliments because I got I was like, no,
I don't like I don't like this. Who is doing this?
Speaker 2 (14:25):
But with all of that, again, like we were saying,
our coworker and friend Sophie was complimenting about how you
are such an amazing researcher.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Obviously as you were talking about digging up.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
The grandma and all those things, the recent episode about
Scott Still and the overturning of DEI, there's so.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Much that you were getting.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
You were getting minute day stayls about the councilwoman by
the way, I was like, good god, she just went
down that family tree. With all of that, And as podcasters,
as researchers, we know how important that skill is. We
know how big of a deal and how it can
make and break a podcast. Any really good written work
in general mediums like this, can you give advice on
(15:06):
how to navigate in getting good, reliable, correct information like that.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
I'm a primary source girl. I love a primary source.
I like I said, I don't have a background in journalism,
and so like the idea of like talking to a
source makes me nauseous.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
I don't like that. I don't want I don't not
only do I not.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
Necessarily trust the things that come out of the mouths
of the kinds of people I would need to talk to.
I just I don't like the idea of doing it.
But I love a document, so I rely a lot
on court records. The nature of truth I think is slippery,
but at least with the court record, you could say
this is legally true, right, And so I love an
archival newspaper. I love a court record. I do a
(15:49):
lot of open source research, so you know, I construct
an entire family tree, so for you know, for people
who are currently living, you know currently you know, young
enough to have a face Book or have a mom
who has a Facebook. Like, I'm looking at your I'm
building a family tree, and I'm looking at your cousin's Instagram.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Wait, I'm seeing a conspiracy board happening on your wall
when you're.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
Talking about a specific family moving the red lines? Is
that happening? Okay, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
It's gnarly, and I don't always know what I'm looking for, right,
because you know, you build out, when you're building out
a whole world, and these all these sort of details,
they add a lot of texture to the story, They
make it more real. You don't know what you're looking
for until you find it. So I spend most of
the week collecting information I'm not going to use right, right.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
I feel like that happens a lot, a lot or
you just have the pile of like, well, that was
things I could have looked at but I didn't need.
And again what you talk to us about it? And
you actually said it again in that Scottsdale episode where
you talk about sometimes you don't know what your next
episode is going to be about, and sometimes you're in
a moment of like, oh god, what do I do?
Speaker 3 (16:57):
How do you come up with these epitets?
Speaker 2 (16:59):
So it's what what is like a way of trying
to get past that, like.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
Block, I have no control over what the episodes are about.
And I don't mean there's like a producer somewhere telling me.
I just mean like I choose it, but I don't
know it chooses me. You know, from week to week,
you know, I almost always start out with an idea
that isn't what ends up happening. Like, Yeah, the two
(17:25):
episode arc I'm in the middle of writing the second
half of Right Now wasn't what I sat down to write.
I was thinking about a particular guy and I started
sketching out his life story and I found this one
incident from his life that looked interesting to me, and
I was thinking, like, oh, that could be an interesting
focal point for the story of his life. But that
particular rally from twenty twelve, I was looking at the
(17:49):
other people in the picture and like, who printed those banners?
What was the impetus for this moment? And it's not
about him at all anymore. It's not about him. He's
not even in the story because this other story presented
itself to me, this story of actually what I'm in
the middle of writing right now is an international fascist
(18:10):
mercenary network that was trying to prevent the first post
apartheid elections in South Africa.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Right which, by the way, Like I came in to
that episode thinking you were talking about Elon.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Musk, Like that's what we're gonna be talking about.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
I was like, Yeah, this is absolutely ze On par
and then it traveled into this woman in Louisiana who
was like, let me tell you about this person.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
I was like, wait, that took a hard left.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
That was really anticipating that we were just gonna have
a drag down of Elon Musk. But I was like, wow,
this is an intense level of conversation, especially when you
start putting like international levels, how it does affect within
our own government, which in itself is horrifying.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
And led by a woman.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
Oh, she's she's an interesting character, but it is It's
like I'm just following. I'm just following the story where
it takes me. And you know, I thought it was
a story about a guy in Arkansas, but now I'm
trying to track gun smuggling from Bosnia to South Africa,
like it was an accident.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
That is insane, and all of these stories. I sit
here and wonder for you, because when I listen to
these podcasts, this type of research, the people that you're
researching who seem heartless and like, who are monsters a
little monsters in that they are trying to take away
(19:35):
people's rights, people's lives, all of those things, and with
all the substances do research does that not affect you
at all, or does it?
Speaker 4 (19:45):
I mean sometimes I think if you listen carefully, you
can tell that I'm crying. No, you know, you do
as many takes as you can, and you edit out
the parts where you can really hear the sniffling, But like,
sometimes there's just no getting around it. Like you could
hear in the episode that like I've been crying because
it does. I think it has to. And if it doesn't,
(20:08):
you have to stop. You have to walk away, right, Like,
if you can immerse yourself in this story of truly
the most the most evil things that human beings can
do to one another and not feel it, you're not
doing it right.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
You're not doing it justice.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
You're you've hardened your heart to the point that you're
not okay anymore.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
But you're not telling the story right.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
You know.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
There's this this idea of this you know this, I know,
this holy grail of this journalistic objectivity. And I don't
think that's healthy. I don't think that's how you should
be telling these stories. I think it's a disservice. I
think it is actively harmful to seek that, right.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yeah, I can't imagine hearing some of these stories again
talking about going back to the Scottsdale because I know
you had really invested in this conversation and it really
dug up a lot of the details. And just for
the listeners, they were talking about the fact that the
local council had overturned the DEI initiative. That am I
(21:10):
saying that right? Right?
Speaker 4 (21:11):
So, the city of Scottsdale, Arizona, had one of the
first in the nation a full time city employee position
dedicated to a diversity initiative. So in the late nineties
they were one of the first cities in the country
to do this. And in two thousand and four, a
klansman sent a mail bomb to try and murder the
director of that office, Don Logan. He was injured pretty badly,
(21:31):
but he survived and he kept doing the job and
the office did not close. Like he kept doing the job,
you know, Helmos had his hands blown off, and then
in February of this year, the city council voted to
close the office.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
And like you're telling of the story, it was it
was gut wrenching because not only did you add the
audio of that council meeting where they were making this vote,
but you also had interview with the director had almost
died for this center is literally saying I have shed blood,
I've given my blood to this, and talking about why
(22:07):
it was important, and even talking about the original intent
of having that was because of the corruption, not because
they were being quote unquote woke, but because it.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Was so bad because of wokeness.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
It was because there cops couldn't stop doing discrimination, not
like violating everyone at the violations of people's civil rights, right,
So it really wasn't unresponsibil like, let us be extra
in this, No, let's just make sure we stop before
everybody dies and we have a riot essentially, But in
this level of like storytelling, you do an amazing job
(22:38):
of bringing that empathy and care to these stories.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
How how are you doing this? That's a good question.
I mean part of it is that I love it.
I think it is.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
It is the only thing I can imagine doing, you know,
because I I think I've talked about this before on
the show and elsewhere, But I started telling these stories
from my own community, right, Like I sort of became
sort of an accidental community audience surrogate for trying to
figure out what happened to us as a community. And
so my approach to telling these stories was, as you know,
(23:15):
it was personal, right, and because it was for people
in my immediate community, it was about us. It was
about what we experienced. And I haven't changed the approach.
So even though I'm telling stories for a broader audience,
an audience of people that have no connection to me,
about places I have no connection to. Right, I'm not
a part of these stories anymore, but bringing that same
(23:38):
approach to it, I think makes it more accessible and
more real.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Accessible and real, and like it does feel again like
caring you literally, I feel like allow for the listeners
to care about these individuals who have been victims to
these monsters and making it a more reality of like
this could happen and anywhere it has happened so many places.
(24:03):
You just haven't uncovered that story yet. Which, Yeah, you
should come to Georgia and.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
Oh you've got you've got some weird little guys down there.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Oh you need to down here, a guy on my
list that I am very interested in.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Excited, I'm excited and nervous because it feels like a constant,
like dystopian level of being in Atlanta. And I'm sure
you under say of being in Atlanta but in an
area where so conservative al right, and it's increasing power
here that it's like what I.
Speaker 4 (24:37):
Mean, there's a very prominent white supremacist attorney who owns
a lot of real estate in Atlanta.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what ends people here actually, Like
the understanding when you start discovering what is happening and
who is who is here and who has control and
what families have been here.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
It's disgusting anyway.
Speaker 4 (24:57):
It's deep and and I think that's important to remember too,
is that part of what I'm trying to emphasize in
these stories is that none of these guys exist in isolation.
These aren't like one off freak occurrences. This is part
of a recurring pattern. This is part of an interconnected
web of people and organizations Like these guys aren't just
springing up like mushrooms after the rain, right right.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
I know, Like we just had an incident where one
of our state House representative I think, got arrested because
he was angry about the former. Now, did David Ralston,
who had been representative here hadn't done enough for the
white people like it was? And if you know anything
about David Ralston, he was completely concerned, like he was
(25:41):
one of the harshest when it comes to like religious
rights and all these things. So interestingly that that's how
it's growing. Instead of being like they loved him and
that was sufficient enough, ano they're growing even darker.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
It feels like I could be wrong. I mean, he
did get arrested.
Speaker 4 (25:56):
Of course, who's more oppressed than the white men of Atlanta?
Speaker 3 (25:59):
Obviously, look at here.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Can you tell us Obviously we've been talking about future episodes.
Can you tell us and give us more hints about
future episodes?
Speaker 3 (26:09):
Or you're like, I don't know yet.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
The thing is, so I have a list, right like
I you know, been so even before the show started,
and as I go along, when I come across a
guy and I think, oh, that would make a good episode.
So I have a list of like it's like, you know,
fifteen pages long of just these sort of like little
ideas that have occurred to me. Guys I'd like to do,
guys I'd like to come back to. I almost never
picked something from the list, just so like I'll never
(26:32):
run there's no risk of like running out of guys.
I can always go back to the list. But like
from a week to week basis. It's just like a
new thing I thought of, Right, So.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Actually I did this to Antia.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Drives are crazy, like I will have beginning of outlines
that have been sitting there for years, and she's like,
we've never done this on an archive.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
It like it was a good idea.
Speaker 4 (26:50):
Then you could always come back to it, you know,
in an emergency, I can always just come back to
willing Luther Peers, you.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Know, like we're talking of like I've still got in
our list.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
I think we were talk about goth and how like
the feminist movement brought back in and we need to
talk about that goth is for the girls, thank you.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
But it's been sitting there for a year now.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Think I'm about to move that to our pending folder.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
It is bothering me, so fair enough, fair enough. I'm
not very quick to this. Obviously.
Speaker 4 (27:18):
I've got a whole folder of like not just you know,
not just the list, but there's a folder of like,
oh episodes in development where I did I spent a
whole day starting an episode.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
I'm like, I don't want to do that. I'm not
doing that this week. Yeah, I do feel like thirty
of those to be fair.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
We also have uh the outline for understanding Project twenty
twenty five.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
It's too late.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
Yeah, it's too late.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
But trying to understand it ourselves is like, that's just
current events now, Yeah it is, and that's exactly where
we are. We're like, we don't even know at this point.
It's too late because we have to talk about so
many things, and I'm like, yeah, it's gonna be outdated.
I can't wait for our future selves to come back
to these episodes and look back, and I'm I'm hoping
(27:59):
it's gonna get better instead of being like, yep, that
shouldn't That was the warning sign.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
It will get better eventually. That's that's right.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
You know.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
I don't know what the time scale on that is,
but at some point things will be better than they
are now.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Like I need that, Yeah, I need it to be
in my lifetime, in our lifetime instead of after the.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
Fact that I'm less confident about, you know, I get like,
you know, we I think, you know, I tell these
stories of great darkness, right, they don't have happy endings.
It's not like, you know, at the end of the story,
like and everything's fine now because he went to jail.
And it's like, because these aren't isolated incidents. You know,
even if the story ends with this guy died or
(28:40):
this guy went to jail, it's that's actually not a
happy ending because the movement he was a part of
did not die.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
So the stories don't have happy endings.
Speaker 4 (28:49):
And so you know, you might think like, well, these
are stories of hopelessness, and I don't think that's true.
I think there is always hope right in understanding where
these men have come from. There is hope that we
can stop that from continuing to happen. Right There is
hope that by understanding them we can prevent some of
the harm that they do. But I think that hope
(29:10):
exists on a very long time scale.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
That's a good line.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Hope is on a long time scale, is coming right
now exactly.
Speaker 4 (29:18):
When I think it is important for all of us
to do everything we can, you know, behave as if
you think that hope is for you, but know that
maybe it isn't.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
The hope is for who comes after you, right.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Yeah, which is a message we get a lot when
we do. We have a series called Female First, and
a lot of the women we feature on there, they
were doing it for the generations that were coming after them,
and I think that is incredibly important. I'm just curious,
(29:51):
do you have you noticed doing this podcast some themes
that are recurrent when you're talking about weird little guys.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
I mean, I guess this is something we talk about
in sort of the modern political climate, right that, like,
pointing out their hypocrisy is not like it is not
a sharp political weapon, because there is so much inherent
hypocrisy in the way the right behaves. Right, they're the
party of traditional values, but like they're not living traditional values.
But the hypocrisy is stunning, right, Like, so many of
(30:25):
these guys have these secret lives that are very shameful,
and maybe maybe that is part of what motivates them
to lash out or to project an image that is
contrary to the life that they're living. A lot of
them have inappropriate relationships or attractions to children. A lot
of them are hiding parts of their own background. You
(30:45):
know a lot of these white supremacist leaders have a
Jewish grandmother or a Hispanic mom. It is really common
and the hypocrisy is interesting to look at, But I
don't think is that it is an.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
Incisive political tool. Other themes.
Speaker 4 (31:01):
They all hate women, right, so we'd little guys come
in a lot of stripes, right, there's I mean a
lot of them are equal opportunity haters, but I think
for most of them, there is a driving force.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Right.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
They are anti black, they are anti Semitic, they are
they have a specific sort of niche within the movement.
They have their own little you know, their hobby horse.
But regardless of what kind of guy he is, he
hates women and that is what unites them all.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
It is the driving force of white supremacy.
Speaker 4 (31:32):
All right, even the ones with them that are women.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Yeah right, yeah, right, oh no, they definitely they're out there.
This is as we've been discussing a lot of heavy
stuff that you deal with, a lot of stuff that
(32:01):
impacts you emotionally. And we are always interested when we
talk to people who are doing this kind of work,
what are some of the things you do to disconnect
from all of that.
Speaker 4 (32:15):
So I always feel so guilty when I answer this question,
Like I was recently speaking to a college class and
like that's something when I speak to younger people, that's
the question they're always most interested in. It's like, how
do you do this? What is the emotional toll of
doing this. How do you counteract that? And the answer is, like,
I wish I could give them like a tool or
something that is useful or inspiring. And the answer is,
(32:37):
I don't think you should do this to yourself because
it's not good.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
I'm not good.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
I mean the answer is dissociation, compartmentalization, and like, those
are not healthy strategies that I would recommend.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
But like.
Speaker 4 (32:52):
You know, I'm I'm I have formed a system that
works for me, but I would not recommend it to others. Right,
you know, you're asked about January sixth, like that to me, like,
this is this is something I.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
Should seak to a therapist about.
Speaker 4 (33:07):
Like but like in my memories of that day, I
see myself externally, like so completely dissociated that my own
memory of events is not a POV from my own eyes.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (33:20):
So the answer is you set up a separate part
of yourself that experiences these things.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Yeah, yeah, I can understand that. Let me ask you,
how often do you just cling to your dogs?
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (33:33):
The dogs are the dogs are my most important research assistants,
right right? I have two doc sins Auto and Buck.
They are perfect angels cut they are. I think we
could all learn a lot from Auto. I mean, Buck
is a very thoughtful dog. He often looks very pensive,
like he's got the weight to the world on his shoulders.
Otto has never in his life experienced sadness. He doesn't
(33:57):
think about anything, nothing is, nothing matters. He is just
pure vibes. He has reached nirvana, and I think we
could learn a lot from him. And not that he
hasn't experienced hardship. He's experienced great hardship. He had back
surgery a few years ago. It was really touch and go,
like you know, we were all very scared for him.
He did not care.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
He did not care. He was living all the good
drugs and just like a better I'll be better. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (34:21):
I mean even when he was paralyzed, he was like whatever,
I'll just crawl.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
He didn't care. He's like to next place.
Speaker 4 (34:29):
So that's very aspirational, I think is to to live
like Otto.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
It is aspirational. I want to put that.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
I want to put his picture because my dog is
just pure sadness. She just uses that as a way
to guilt trip me and everything, being like, look how
sad I am.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
Give me things. Is it a hound dog?
Speaker 2 (34:45):
Now, she's a mixed terrier, wired haired terrier with attitude.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
She's a very quirky character.
Speaker 4 (34:51):
I said, depressed terrier has got to be a little
bit dysfunctional, right, because that's a very high energy creature. Right.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
Oh, she's both.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
She's not necessarily depressed, but she gives me the set
a lot. The sad face works well. And knowing that
she will go out often, she'll get treats often, and
she'll get all the attention often.
Speaker 4 (35:09):
But that is I think such an important part of
the day. Knowing that, Like, no matter what I'm doing,
no matter how deep down this weird, Like I just
signed up for a South African genealogical service, I had
to convert currency to rand. Like, no matter how deep
down the hole I am, every two hours, I have
to get up and go outside. Yeah, otherwise someone's gonna
pee on the rug.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Who knows, or gonna make you move, They're gonna make
you see the sunlight.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
It's like it's time.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
I think without that I would I would have completely
lost my mind.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Yeah, I mean that this is and this is where
we're talking about having to disconnect and using whatever you
need in order to get to there, and if it's
a live creature to being like, hey, you have to
take care of me too, and be like, oh yeah,
let me just look at your face, who's just seemingly
happy in this non you don't know what's happening in
the world vibe.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
I love this. He can't even be part of your world.
Good for him, Good for him.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
But you know, with all of that, like on top
of everything you're doing, obviously, telling these stories are so
important so that we don't pretend like it's not happening.
We have to know what's going on. We need to
know the history, we need to know the background. We've
got to understand that this is a part of history
and why this is horrible. But we need to keep
moving forward and understanding and unearthing the truth of it all,
(36:26):
so that in itself is an activism that has to
happen for those of us who aren't necessarily going to
research and not necessarily going to you know, get into
the depths and darkness. What kind of advice you would
give would you give to us to make sure we're
spreading more of these truths and more of these stories. Obviously,
outside of telling people about your podcast.
Speaker 4 (36:45):
Yeah, definitely download my podcast. My mom says it's really good. No,
I think you know. I'm not a political organizer. That
is not a role that I fill in society. But
I do think that everyone should at least try to
engage on an extremely local level. Like I'm not saying
you should canvass for your senator. As a matter of fact,
I don't care about that at all. But I do
(37:08):
think you should know who's on your school board. I
do think you should know who's on your city council.
You know, go to a committee meeting that no one
else goes. To get involved on this extremely local level,
because that's going to be our last line of defense here.
And I will say the local school board is a
breeding ground for weird little guys. It has been a
(37:31):
strategy cultivated on the right for decades now to run
their weirdest little freaks for local office. And so your
local school board may have a guy on it who
doesn't think dinosaurs are real. We had one a couple
of years ago in the county, not in the city.
So get involved on the local level. Find your local
weird little guy, because you know, before they start hurting
(37:52):
people they're just out there being kind of a weirdo.
And I bet you have one in your town.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
So get out there and get out there and thwart him.
Thwart him. I feel like you're threatening me. You got
weird little guys? You do you do?
Speaker 4 (38:07):
There is a guy on your city council who probably
doesn't think women should vote.
Speaker 3 (38:11):
You know, like, yes, you the listener invariably wherever you.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
Live, go find your weird little guys.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
I'm not saying you should do anything to him. I'm
just saying you should know about him. I'm not advocating
anything here that's going the wrong way.
Speaker 4 (38:27):
It no, because there's there's if there's one thing they hate,
it's you knowing about them.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
Yeah. Yeah, that's I mean, that's great advice. And right
now that's we keep talking about that too. It's the
importance of local politics and being really aware about that,
trying to find your little for a little guy.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
And knowing that this happens everywhere where.
Speaker 4 (38:48):
After Unite the Right, people were looking at Charlottesville like wow,
like what's wrong with Charlottesville, right? And the answer is
this could have easily happened anywhere. It has, it does
it will, it could happen anywhere, and so you know,
these aren't exceptional stories. It's just we are not allowed
to think of them in context because these stories are
(39:08):
not told in context. Like I hear from listeners all
the time where you know, their town gets mentioned and
they're like, I didn't know that happened here. I didn't
know that guy lived here. I got an email from
a listener who I mentioned in passing an incident where
the Klan tried to blow up an elementary school in Columbus,
Ohio in nineteen seventy nine to prevent bussing for integration,
(39:30):
and this person had gone to that school in the
years immediately following that, and he's like, I didn't I
didn't know they tried to blow up my elementary school
to prevent integration. I didn't know that happened here. And
it happens everywhere, but we don't tell these stories. We
don't know these stories, and so it's not something that
happens in another town to other people.
Speaker 3 (39:51):
It's happening where you live.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Yes, that's a great point, because we get that a
lot in the South, and we were we made the point,
you know, after Georgia unfortunately went read this election, but
it was so close, and that's amazing because it normally
isn't and there's so many obstacles in place that keep
it that way, and so it can happen anywhere. And
(40:17):
now we're getting the dismantling of DEI, the Department of Education.
The information part of this and what stories do get
told is really important. And it doesn't surprise me that
the listener would write in and be like, I've never
heard of that, even though I lived here. It went
(40:38):
there soon after. So, well, are there any other things?
We know that your episodes are kind of in flex,
but aren't there any other things in the future that
you're looking forward to? Anything you're working on?
Speaker 4 (40:57):
Oh gosh, looking forward to hard to say. I mean,
I I do get genuine joy out of like digging
around and finding my little, you know, diamonds in the rough,
little my horrible little facts amidst the you know, the
the avalanche of research.
Speaker 3 (41:11):
That I do.
Speaker 4 (41:13):
So I don't I don't want to give the wrong
impression that I'm you know, I'm out here suffering. I
genuinely enjoy the research process. It's it's satisfying to me.
So I love making the show. I hope I get
to make it forever. Actually, I hope I run out
of guys. I hope they stop making new guys and
I run out.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
Of Double Edged Sword.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
Yes, and we enjoyed your podcast, I immensely. It is
so good. Your storytelling is amazing. Your ability to really
show a lot of empathy and compassion the victims and
the people that you're talking about is beautiful. Your layout
in your stories is really really like it it gets me.
(41:51):
I'm like sitting in the car and not want to
leave trying to finish out the story because it's just
so enticing.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
Thank you. Yeah, I love my tangled little webs.
Speaker 4 (42:00):
But yeah, I think I lately I find myself focusing
more on trying to more explicitly connect these things to
our current political situation right that like these aren't fringe
ideas anymore, and sort of drawing these direct through lines
to like, you know, here's this Nazi at a rally
in two thousand and four, and here's this idea and
how it's destroying your life right now from the White House.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
YEP, which is very that's so important. It's so important
and necessary. So thank you so much for doing that work,
for coming on the show. Where can the good listeners
find you?
Speaker 4 (42:36):
You can find Weird Little Guys wherever you get your podcasts.
Any podcast app that you like it is there, so
please listen to it so that Sophie will be proud
of me.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
We all want Sophie's approval. Approval.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
Yes, so listen to Weird Little Guys wherever you get
your podcasts. I'm on Blue Sky. I don't know. Posting
isn't even fun anymore. I feel like posting used to
be fun.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
Yeah, I agree. Well, thank you, thank you, Thank you
so much for being here. Come back anytime.
Speaker 3 (43:05):
Please, Thank you guys so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Yes, but listeners in the meantime, if you would like
to contact us, you can. You can email us at
Hello at stuff onnevertold you dot com. You can find
us on Blue Sky at Momstuff podcast, or on Instagram
and TikTok at stuff one never told you for us
on YouTube. We have a tea public store, and we
have a book you can get wherever you get your books.
Thanks as always to our super producer Christina, executive producer Maya,
and our contributor Joey. Thank you and thanks to you
(43:29):
for listening. Stuff Will Never Told You is production by
Heart Radio. For more podcasts on my heart Radio, you
can check out the Art Radio, Apple podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to stuff
I've never told your production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
And today we are excited to have a journalist, writer, creator,
fellow podcaster dog mom because I've seen.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
This Molly Conger on the show. Hello, Molly, Hey, thanks
for having me. Can you introduce yourself to our listeners?
Oh gosh, who am I question?
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Question?
Speaker 4 (00:39):
Yes, my name is Molly Conger. I live here in
Charlottesville in Virginia. I have a new podcast on iHeart
I guess it's not new anymore. We're six months in
called Weird Little Guys. It is terrible stories of terrible
men that you've probably never heard of.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Yay, it's true.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Just jumping into your podcast, I was like, this is
how did I describe it before? As like a kindly
told tale about really horrible people and fact that you
really didn't want to know but need to know, Like
it's just so much to it, and like your storytelling
is phenomenal.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
But before we jump into all of that.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Because you have a long and deep history in the
middle of the most intense events, I feel like, especially
in our generation, you were kind of in the middle
of the aftermath. I guess both in the Unite the
Right rally which happened in Charlottesville. Right, you also kind
of were in the middle of the did you go
(01:38):
actually investigate the January sixth.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
As well? There? Yes?
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Okay, so both of these things blew my mind. I'm like,
what is she doing to herself? And why is she
doing this? Ay, that's the big question. Is she that
dedicated or is she a massacres? Like what is this question?
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Answer is yes.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
But with all of that, because I realized even though yes,
you are a coworker and now friend, I have been
following you for a while on Blue Sky, I think
I followed you. I did follow you on Twitter as well,
because you are in the middle of all of this
intense labor in letting us know what was happening in
these types of aviz Can you talk to us about
how you got started in this intense work.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
So I don't have a background in journalism, Like I
didn't go to journalism school. I have not had, you know,
a professional journalism job. But in like you said in
the aftermath of Unite the Right, you know, living here
in Charlesville, I'm kind of looking around at this town
where I've lived for a long time, but had never
been really politically engaged with you know, I was living
my own life, and all of a sudden in twenty seventeen,
(02:42):
I was unemployed suddenly for unrelated reasons, and I'm just
looking around being like, what happened here? What?
Speaker 3 (02:50):
What just happened?
Speaker 4 (02:51):
To us as a city, to us as a nation
as a people, like what what just happened? And I
had the spare time to commit to sort of it
was a personal journey, right, Like I wanted to know
for myself, and as I sort of dug deeper into
trying to figure out what happened here, you just never stopped.
And it started to become obvious that, like, other people
(03:13):
wanted to know too, and I was in a position
to help tell them.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yeah, I mean, even without the background in journalism, you
are an incredible investigative journalist. Like it's interesting to see
how things have been uncovered as you do your good research.
And by the way, we'll talk about this in a minute, Sophie,
that's the first thing she told me outside about you're
an amazing person, but that you are an amazing researcher.
You know, that's a huge compliment coming from Sophie as
(03:40):
I was say, yeah, as for our listeners, she's like
a producer over at coal Zone Media and a friend
of the show and co worker as well. But all
of that to say, you also do unexpected things. I
feel like you really are a detective, maybe a private eye,
but you do is like being on a collective called
(04:02):
deeplatform hate, which I found interesting.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Can you kind of tell us what.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
That It was sort of a project from ages ago, right,
But it's stilling to know. So the idea of deplatforming, right,
I think it's it's less in the conversation now that
our mainstream platforms are run behind fascists.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
But there was a period of time where there.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
Was an idea that fascists and Nazis and misogynists and
anti semits did not belong on mainstream social media platforms, right,
They did not belong in our collective Internet town square,
and you could apply pressure to have them removed from
these spaces. Again, that dream has died. They run the show.
(04:43):
Now we're not getting them. You're not getting a nazi
kicked off Twitter because that's their playground.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Now. It's one of those moments that you wish we were
could go back.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
To there was momentum for a while behind this idea
that like, you know, if a Nazi is running a
T shirt store, you could contact the payment processor and say, hey, like,
is it your business practice to process payments that are
funding a hate group? And the answer is usually silence.
But sometimes they would say that was not our intention.
(05:13):
We did not know that, right.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
I've really miss when it was there was accountability, like
this could have a whole conversation about cancel culture and
how that doesn't exist and that's not a thing.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
We need to stop talking about this as a thing.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
But it was interesting because I was like, when I
was looking all the stuff up about you, as you
know we do for our guess, she's got her own
Wikipedia page.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Congratulations, humiliating, humiliate. When I saw that, I was like,
I'm not telling anyone about this. I don't want anyone
to know about this. Don't look at it to know
I don't look at it.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
I wouldn't either, honestly, I wouldn't either try.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
To say it. I'm honestly like I had a nightmare
ahead a Wikipedia.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
Page probably not correct, and I just like I can't
I can't engage that like, I think my birth year
is wrong, and it's like that's just.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
They haven they didn't notice that. I was like, okay,
that's interesting.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
But every year on my birthday, I make a joke
about how I get two birthdays because the year I
was born, my birthday was Labor Day, and so it's
not always on Labor Day.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
So I feel like I get both days.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
And it's like, if you know approximately how old I am,
you know what year that was labor Day?
Speaker 3 (06:26):
They did not do they do not.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
But it's really good because it is glowing, like it
is like complimentary of what you have done. So I
will give you that as someone who just recently looked
at it. Okay, like this, it made me want to
be your friend for sure.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
For sure.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
I was like, okay, we're definitely friends. Wow.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
So we are interested in your podcast because all all
of this, all the things that you've done and the
investigative work that you've done, has led to this podcast
weird Little Guys. Can you tell us a bit about it?
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Yeah? So then Sophie actually came up with a name.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
I love Sophie because I guess, you know, work related
and casual friend friend conversations with Sophie like, I'm always
sort of like bursting into the room like the kool
Aid man, with like, look at this weird guy I found, right,
because I'm always sort of digging around looking for I
don't even know what I'm looking for until I find it,
just sort of digging around. And sometimes you find a
guy and you're like, what is going on with this guy?
(07:23):
This guy's got a weird situation. So I'm always saying, like,
look at this weird guy I found.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
And eventually she was like.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
You know, You've got a lot of weird guys. You
can make a whole show about these weird guys. And
so every episode is theoretically centered around an individual man.
You know, women women can be weird little guys too.
I'm actually working on a woman right now. But these
are sort of figures in the white power movement, in
(07:50):
white supremacist movements, neo Nazi movements, and they're sort of
biographical sketches, but it uses each man as sort of
an entry point into the world he was operating in. Right,
So these the way these figures intersect with each other
and with events in history, the way these movements are shaped,
the way they interact with mainstream politics. You know, I
(08:11):
think marketing tagged its true crime, which I think is
a very interesting conversation to have, but sort of the
nature of true crime as a genre, because I don't
think that's incorrect, right, Like from a marketing perspective, these
are stories of crime and they are true, right, But
I know, no shade to the true crime girlies, like
(08:33):
it's my one of my guilty pleasures. I do listen
to a lot of true crime shows, but I find
that genre typically sort of sensationalistic or exploitative, or sort
of focused on finding the worst aspects and focusing on
that without exploring what it means. So my weird little
guys there are they're monsters, right, they are true monsters.
(08:57):
They are beating their wives, their molesting children, they're making
they're trying to overthrow the government. They're doing the worst
things you can think of, and they are what you
would describe as monsters. But the goal of the show
is to show you that they're also just men. They
are human men with strange personal lives and massive personal
(09:18):
failings and the weaknesses of men. Because it is hard
to think of facing a monster, but it's easy to laugh.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
At a man, which is the title is fantastic.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
I will say so between you and Sophie creating that
is a beautiful title. Weird little guys because it does
kind of take away some of that power that they
are desperately trying to get over people in general. But
as I was listening to it, you also in each
of your episodes, it's like a big tangled web of
people and organizations that have like you really lay out
(09:50):
how these people came about, Like how these creations of
these monsters or these men doing these awful acts came about.
And I find that interesting in itself. Also, with a
lot of your conversations and talking you have a like
unearthed people who may be cops who are obvious supporters of,
you know, the alt right supremacist movement, as well as.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Calling out new people.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
I know, I know people are listening hate listening, trying
to figure out if they're going to be swept up
in to your conversation of an organization. Have you gotten
any reactions from any other people you've talked about or reference.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
The fascinating answer to that question is no, really right,
So I've been doing this work for years now, right,
sort of talking about these men, unearthing them, digging them out,
you know, discussing their legal problems, their personal lives. Have
been digging into these people for a long time, and
for years it was this sort of.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Conversation. It was bidirectional.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
They were aware of me, and I was aware of them,
and I could see them talking about me in their
spaces as I'm talking about them in mind. And you know,
sometimes the communication was direct in ways I do not prefer.
But since I started the show, I don't see that,
and I think it's because they're afraid of being on
this show.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
That's amazing. I think they are amazing.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
Hear the you know, these narratives where I'm dissecting someone
and just you know, reading them to filth, and they
don't want that smoke because I don't hear from the
you know, the guys I used to hear from.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
That's fascinating because I would have thought someone would have reacted.
I know you've gotten threats previously. I don't know if
it's been around the podcast, but like any of your other.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Stuff, but that is interesting.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
I really thought you would have gotten some type of
reaction by your podcast. Maybe it's because, like I said,
your storytelling is so good that they're like, wait, it
sounds like it's if I do this, she's going to
do it in a way that I can't combat her.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
What are you saying. I don't know.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
I think they are nervous about it. This was before
the show started. I wrote a piece, like I say,
a year or two ago now about about a man
in particular that I did have a bit of a
personal history with. He'd been on a podcast, a Nazi
podcast that often discussed me in ways that were very
violent and disparaging, and then he got into some legal trouble,
(12:14):
and I wrote an article about you know, his legal
trouble at that moment, and sort of in the style
of the show, I guess before the show started, you know,
was talking about his life leading up to that moment.
A friend of mine, another female journalist, had a source
relationship with this man from an unrelated situation, and after
the article came out, he contacted her and said, how
(12:38):
did she know that thing about my grandmother? Like he
was startled that I, you know, I dug up details
about his life that he thought were secret or private
or you know, so far in the past that why
would anyone know that, and it's like, it's because I
built a family tree and I read every issue of
(12:58):
your hometown newspaper for every year of your life. Like
the answer to that is that because I'm good. The
answer to that is because I spent way too much
time on this.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Yes, I love that, but I love you.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
They have that anxiety that like I don't want you
to know my grandmother once killed her neighbor's dog, you know, right,
like don't know the.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Secrets of my past. Please, thank you, thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
And then just at sidebar listening to that of to
your most recent episode, who voiced Donald Trump?
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Who did that? That is my editor, Rory. He's so good,
He's he's so good. I had anxiety. What why? Because
I did? I yelled at my radio listening to because
I'm always like.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
Down to the wire, like I don't have good time
management skills. So like I'm turning the episodes in like
hours before like the last second where he could start
editing it and I couldn't.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
I was like texting the work group chat.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
I was like, does anybody can anybody do these these
Trump line reads for me?
Speaker 3 (13:56):
And like nobody, nobody would do it?
Speaker 4 (13:58):
And Rory was like, as he was editing it, because
I had just read them in as placeholder because I
thought someone would step in and then.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Where he was like, do you twot me to try it?
And it was perfect?
Speaker 1 (14:08):
It was perfect.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Tell him compliments because I got I was like, no,
I don't like I don't like this. Who is doing this?
Speaker 2 (14:25):
But with all of that, again, like we were saying,
our coworker and friend Sophie was complimenting about how you
are such an amazing researcher.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Obviously as you were talking about digging up.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
The grandma and all those things, the recent episode about
Scott Still and the overturning of DEI, there's so.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Much that you were getting.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
You were getting minute day stayls about the councilwoman by
the way, I was like, good god, she just went
down that family tree. With all of that, And as podcasters,
as researchers, we know how important that skill is. We
know how big of a deal and how it can
make and break a podcast. Any really good written work
in general mediums like this, can you give advice on
(15:06):
how to navigate in getting good, reliable, correct information like that.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
I'm a primary source girl. I love a primary source.
I like I said, I don't have a background in journalism,
and so like the idea of like talking to a
source makes me nauseous.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
I don't like that. I don't want I don't not
only do I not.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
Necessarily trust the things that come out of the mouths
of the kinds of people I would need to talk to.
I just I don't like the idea of doing it.
But I love a document, so I rely a lot
on court records. The nature of truth I think is slippery,
but at least with the court record, you could say
this is legally true, right, And so I love an
archival newspaper. I love a court record. I do a
(15:49):
lot of open source research, so you know, I construct
an entire family tree, so for you know, for people
who are currently living, you know currently you know, young
enough to have a face Book or have a mom
who has a Facebook. Like, I'm looking at your I'm
building a family tree, and I'm looking at your cousin's Instagram.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Wait, I'm seeing a conspiracy board happening on your wall
when you're.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
Talking about a specific family moving the red lines? Is
that happening? Okay, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
It's gnarly, and I don't always know what I'm looking for, right,
because you know, you build out, when you're building out
a whole world, and these all these sort of details,
they add a lot of texture to the story, They
make it more real. You don't know what you're looking
for until you find it. So I spend most of
the week collecting information I'm not going to use right, right.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
I feel like that happens a lot, a lot or
you just have the pile of like, well, that was
things I could have looked at but I didn't need.
And again what you talk to us about it? And
you actually said it again in that Scottsdale episode where
you talk about sometimes you don't know what your next
episode is going to be about, and sometimes you're in
a moment of like, oh god, what do I do?
Speaker 3 (16:57):
How do you come up with these epitets?
Speaker 2 (16:59):
So it's what what is like a way of trying
to get past that, like.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
Block, I have no control over what the episodes are about.
And I don't mean there's like a producer somewhere telling me.
I just mean like I choose it, but I don't
know it chooses me. You know, from week to week,
you know, I almost always start out with an idea
that isn't what ends up happening. Like, Yeah, the two
(17:25):
episode arc I'm in the middle of writing the second
half of Right Now wasn't what I sat down to write.
I was thinking about a particular guy and I started
sketching out his life story and I found this one
incident from his life that looked interesting to me, and
I was thinking, like, oh, that could be an interesting
focal point for the story of his life. But that
particular rally from twenty twelve, I was looking at the
(17:49):
other people in the picture and like, who printed those banners?
What was the impetus for this moment? And it's not
about him at all anymore. It's not about him. He's
not even in the story because this other story presented
itself to me, this story of actually what I'm in
the middle of writing right now is an international fascist
(18:10):
mercenary network that was trying to prevent the first post
apartheid elections in South Africa.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Right which, by the way, Like I came in to
that episode thinking you were talking about Elon.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Musk, Like that's what we're gonna be talking about.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
I was like, Yeah, this is absolutely ze On par
and then it traveled into this woman in Louisiana who
was like, let me tell you about this person.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
I was like, wait, that took a hard left.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
That was really anticipating that we were just gonna have
a drag down of Elon Musk. But I was like, wow,
this is an intense level of conversation, especially when you
start putting like international levels, how it does affect within
our own government, which in itself is horrifying.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
And led by a woman.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
Oh, she's she's an interesting character, but it is It's
like I'm just following. I'm just following the story where
it takes me. And you know, I thought it was
a story about a guy in Arkansas, but now I'm
trying to track gun smuggling from Bosnia to South Africa,
like it was an accident.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
That is insane, and all of these stories. I sit
here and wonder for you, because when I listen to
these podcasts, this type of research, the people that you're
researching who seem heartless and like, who are monsters a
little monsters in that they are trying to take away
(19:35):
people's rights, people's lives, all of those things, and with
all the substances do research does that not affect you
at all, or does it?
Speaker 4 (19:45):
I mean sometimes I think if you listen carefully, you
can tell that I'm crying. No, you know, you do
as many takes as you can, and you edit out
the parts where you can really hear the sniffling, But like,
sometimes there's just no getting around it. Like you could
hear in the episode that like I've been crying because
it does. I think it has to. And if it doesn't,
(20:08):
you have to stop. You have to walk away, right, Like,
if you can immerse yourself in this story of truly
the most the most evil things that human beings can
do to one another and not feel it, you're not
doing it right.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
You're not doing it justice.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
You're you've hardened your heart to the point that you're
not okay anymore.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
But you're not telling the story right.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
You know.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
There's this this idea of this you know this, I know,
this holy grail of this journalistic objectivity. And I don't
think that's healthy. I don't think that's how you should
be telling these stories. I think it's a disservice. I
think it is actively harmful to seek that, right.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yeah, I can't imagine hearing some of these stories again
talking about going back to the Scottsdale because I know
you had really invested in this conversation and it really
dug up a lot of the details. And just for
the listeners, they were talking about the fact that the
local council had overturned the DEI initiative. That am I
(21:10):
saying that right? Right?
Speaker 4 (21:11):
So, the city of Scottsdale, Arizona, had one of the
first in the nation a full time city employee position
dedicated to a diversity initiative. So in the late nineties
they were one of the first cities in the country
to do this. And in two thousand and four, a
klansman sent a mail bomb to try and murder the
director of that office, Don Logan. He was injured pretty badly,
(21:31):
but he survived and he kept doing the job and
the office did not close. Like he kept doing the job,
you know, Helmos had his hands blown off, and then
in February of this year, the city council voted to
close the office.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
And like you're telling of the story, it was it
was gut wrenching because not only did you add the
audio of that council meeting where they were making this vote,
but you also had interview with the director had almost
died for this center is literally saying I have shed blood,
I've given my blood to this, and talking about why
(22:07):
it was important, and even talking about the original intent
of having that was because of the corruption, not because
they were being quote unquote woke, but because it.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Was so bad because of wokeness.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
It was because there cops couldn't stop doing discrimination, not
like violating everyone at the violations of people's civil rights, right,
So it really wasn't unresponsibil like, let us be extra
in this, No, let's just make sure we stop before
everybody dies and we have a riot essentially, But in
this level of like storytelling, you do an amazing job
(22:38):
of bringing that empathy and care to these stories.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
How how are you doing this? That's a good question.
I mean part of it is that I love it.
I think it is.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
It is the only thing I can imagine doing, you know,
because I I think I've talked about this before on
the show and elsewhere, But I started telling these stories
from my own community, right, Like I sort of became
sort of an accidental community audience surrogate for trying to
figure out what happened to us as a community. And
so my approach to telling these stories was, as you know,
(23:15):
it was personal, right, and because it was for people
in my immediate community, it was about us. It was
about what we experienced. And I haven't changed the approach.
So even though I'm telling stories for a broader audience,
an audience of people that have no connection to me,
about places I have no connection to. Right, I'm not
a part of these stories anymore, but bringing that same
(23:38):
approach to it, I think makes it more accessible and
more real.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Accessible and real, and like it does feel again like
caring you literally, I feel like allow for the listeners
to care about these individuals who have been victims to
these monsters and making it a more reality of like
this could happen and anywhere it has happened so many places.
(24:03):
You just haven't uncovered that story yet. Which, Yeah, you
should come to Georgia and.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
Oh you've got you've got some weird little guys down there.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Oh you need to down here, a guy on my
list that I am very interested in.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Excited, I'm excited and nervous because it feels like a constant,
like dystopian level of being in Atlanta. And I'm sure
you under say of being in Atlanta but in an
area where so conservative al right, and it's increasing power
here that it's like what I.
Speaker 4 (24:37):
Mean, there's a very prominent white supremacist attorney who owns
a lot of real estate in Atlanta.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what ends people here actually, Like
the understanding when you start discovering what is happening and
who is who is here and who has control and
what families have been here.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
It's disgusting anyway.
Speaker 4 (24:57):
It's deep and and I think that's important to remember too,
is that part of what I'm trying to emphasize in
these stories is that none of these guys exist in isolation.
These aren't like one off freak occurrences. This is part
of a recurring pattern. This is part of an interconnected
web of people and organizations Like these guys aren't just
springing up like mushrooms after the rain, right right.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
I know, Like we just had an incident where one
of our state House representative I think, got arrested because
he was angry about the former. Now, did David Ralston,
who had been representative here hadn't done enough for the
white people like it was? And if you know anything
about David Ralston, he was completely concerned, like he was
(25:41):
one of the harshest when it comes to like religious
rights and all these things. So interestingly that that's how
it's growing. Instead of being like they loved him and
that was sufficient enough, ano they're growing even darker.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
It feels like I could be wrong. I mean, he
did get arrested.
Speaker 4 (25:56):
Of course, who's more oppressed than the white men of Atlanta?
Speaker 3 (25:59):
Obviously, look at here.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Can you tell us Obviously we've been talking about future episodes.
Can you tell us and give us more hints about
future episodes?
Speaker 3 (26:09):
Or you're like, I don't know yet.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
The thing is, so I have a list, right like
I you know, been so even before the show started,
and as I go along, when I come across a
guy and I think, oh, that would make a good episode.
So I have a list of like it's like, you know,
fifteen pages long of just these sort of like little
ideas that have occurred to me. Guys I'd like to do,
guys I'd like to come back to. I almost never
picked something from the list, just so like I'll never
(26:32):
run there's no risk of like running out of guys.
I can always go back to the list. But like
from a week to week basis. It's just like a
new thing I thought of, Right, So.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Actually I did this to Antia.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Drives are crazy, like I will have beginning of outlines
that have been sitting there for years, and she's like,
we've never done this on an archive.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
It like it was a good idea.
Speaker 4 (26:50):
Then you could always come back to it, you know,
in an emergency, I can always just come back to
willing Luther Peers, you.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Know, like we're talking of like I've still got in
our list.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
I think we were talk about goth and how like
the feminist movement brought back in and we need to
talk about that goth is for the girls, thank you.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
But it's been sitting there for a year now.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Think I'm about to move that to our pending folder.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
It is bothering me, so fair enough, fair enough. I'm
not very quick to this. Obviously.
Speaker 4 (27:18):
I've got a whole folder of like not just you know,
not just the list, but there's a folder of like,
oh episodes in development where I did I spent a
whole day starting an episode.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
I'm like, I don't want to do that. I'm not
doing that this week. Yeah, I do feel like thirty
of those to be fair.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
We also have uh the outline for understanding Project twenty
twenty five.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
It's too late.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
Yeah, it's too late.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
But trying to understand it ourselves is like, that's just
current events now, Yeah it is, and that's exactly where
we are. We're like, we don't even know at this point.
It's too late because we have to talk about so
many things, and I'm like, yeah, it's gonna be outdated.
I can't wait for our future selves to come back
to these episodes and look back, and I'm I'm hoping
(27:59):
it's gonna get better instead of being like, yep, that
shouldn't That was the warning sign.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
It will get better eventually. That's that's right.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
You know.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
I don't know what the time scale on that is,
but at some point things will be better than they
are now.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Like I need that, Yeah, I need it to be
in my lifetime, in our lifetime instead of after the.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
Fact that I'm less confident about, you know, I get like,
you know, we I think, you know, I tell these
stories of great darkness, right, they don't have happy endings.
It's not like, you know, at the end of the story,
like and everything's fine now because he went to jail.
And it's like, because these aren't isolated incidents. You know,
even if the story ends with this guy died or
(28:40):
this guy went to jail, it's that's actually not a
happy ending because the movement he was a part of
did not die.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
So the stories don't have happy endings.
Speaker 4 (28:49):
And so you know, you might think like, well, these
are stories of hopelessness, and I don't think that's true.
I think there is always hope right in understanding where
these men have come from. There is hope that we
can stop that from continuing to happen. Right There is
hope that by understanding them we can prevent some of
the harm that they do. But I think that hope
(29:10):
exists on a very long time scale.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
That's a good line.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Hope is on a long time scale, is coming right
now exactly.
Speaker 4 (29:18):
When I think it is important for all of us
to do everything we can, you know, behave as if
you think that hope is for you, but know that
maybe it isn't.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
The hope is for who comes after you, right.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Yeah, which is a message we get a lot when
we do. We have a series called Female First, and
a lot of the women we feature on there, they
were doing it for the generations that were coming after them,
and I think that is incredibly important. I'm just curious,
(29:51):
do you have you noticed doing this podcast some themes
that are recurrent when you're talking about weird little guys.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
I mean, I guess this is something we talk about
in sort of the modern political climate, right that, like,
pointing out their hypocrisy is not like it is not
a sharp political weapon, because there is so much inherent
hypocrisy in the way the right behaves. Right, they're the
party of traditional values, but like they're not living traditional values.
But the hypocrisy is stunning, right, Like, so many of
(30:25):
these guys have these secret lives that are very shameful,
and maybe maybe that is part of what motivates them
to lash out or to project an image that is
contrary to the life that they're living. A lot of
them have inappropriate relationships or attractions to children. A lot
of them are hiding parts of their own background. You
(30:45):
know a lot of these white supremacist leaders have a
Jewish grandmother or a Hispanic mom. It is really common
and the hypocrisy is interesting to look at, But I
don't think is that it is an.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
Incisive political tool. Other themes.
Speaker 4 (31:01):
They all hate women, right, so we'd little guys come
in a lot of stripes, right, there's I mean a
lot of them are equal opportunity haters, but I think
for most of them, there is a driving force.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Right.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
They are anti black, they are anti Semitic, they are
they have a specific sort of niche within the movement.
They have their own little you know, their hobby horse.
But regardless of what kind of guy he is, he
hates women and that is what unites them all.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
It is the driving force of white supremacy.
Speaker 4 (31:32):
All right, even the ones with them that are women.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Yeah right, yeah, right, oh no, they definitely they're out there.
This is as we've been discussing a lot of heavy
stuff that you deal with, a lot of stuff that
(32:01):
impacts you emotionally. And we are always interested when we
talk to people who are doing this kind of work,
what are some of the things you do to disconnect
from all of that.
Speaker 4 (32:15):
So I always feel so guilty when I answer this question,
Like I was recently speaking to a college class and
like that's something when I speak to younger people, that's
the question they're always most interested in. It's like, how
do you do this? What is the emotional toll of
doing this. How do you counteract that? And the answer is, like,
I wish I could give them like a tool or
something that is useful or inspiring. And the answer is,
(32:37):
I don't think you should do this to yourself because
it's not good.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
I'm not good.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
I mean the answer is dissociation, compartmentalization, and like, those
are not healthy strategies that I would recommend.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
But like.
Speaker 4 (32:52):
You know, I'm I'm I have formed a system that
works for me, but I would not recommend it to others. Right,
you know, you're asked about January sixth, like that to me, like,
this is this is something I.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
Should seak to a therapist about.
Speaker 4 (33:07):
Like but like in my memories of that day, I
see myself externally, like so completely dissociated that my own
memory of events is not a POV from my own eyes.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (33:20):
So the answer is you set up a separate part
of yourself that experiences these things.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Yeah, yeah, I can understand that. Let me ask you,
how often do you just cling to your dogs?
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (33:33):
The dogs are the dogs are my most important research assistants,
right right? I have two doc sins Auto and Buck.
They are perfect angels cut they are. I think we
could all learn a lot from Auto. I mean, Buck
is a very thoughtful dog. He often looks very pensive,
like he's got the weight to the world on his shoulders.
Otto has never in his life experienced sadness. He doesn't
(33:57):
think about anything, nothing is, nothing matters. He is just
pure vibes. He has reached nirvana, and I think we
could learn a lot from him. And not that he
hasn't experienced hardship. He's experienced great hardship. He had back
surgery a few years ago. It was really touch and go,
like you know, we were all very scared for him.
He did not care.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
He did not care. He was living all the good
drugs and just like a better I'll be better. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (34:21):
I mean even when he was paralyzed, he was like whatever,
I'll just crawl.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
He didn't care. He's like to next place.
Speaker 4 (34:29):
So that's very aspirational, I think is to to live
like Otto.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
It is aspirational. I want to put that.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
I want to put his picture because my dog is
just pure sadness. She just uses that as a way
to guilt trip me and everything, being like, look how
sad I am.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
Give me things. Is it a hound dog?
Speaker 2 (34:45):
Now, she's a mixed terrier, wired haired terrier with attitude.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
She's a very quirky character.
Speaker 4 (34:51):
I said, depressed terrier has got to be a little
bit dysfunctional, right, because that's a very high energy creature. Right.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
Oh, she's both.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
She's not necessarily depressed, but she gives me the set
a lot. The sad face works well. And knowing that
she will go out often, she'll get treats often, and
she'll get all the attention often.
Speaker 4 (35:09):
But that is I think such an important part of
the day. Knowing that, Like, no matter what I'm doing,
no matter how deep down this weird, Like I just
signed up for a South African genealogical service, I had
to convert currency to rand. Like, no matter how deep
down the hole I am, every two hours, I have
to get up and go outside. Yeah, otherwise someone's gonna
pee on the rug.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Who knows, or gonna make you move, They're gonna make
you see the sunlight.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
It's like it's time.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
I think without that I would I would have completely
lost my mind.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Yeah, I mean that this is and this is where
we're talking about having to disconnect and using whatever you
need in order to get to there, and if it's
a live creature to being like, hey, you have to
take care of me too, and be like, oh yeah,
let me just look at your face, who's just seemingly
happy in this non you don't know what's happening in
the world vibe.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
I love this. He can't even be part of your world.
Good for him, Good for him.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
But you know, with all of that, like on top
of everything you're doing, obviously, telling these stories are so
important so that we don't pretend like it's not happening.
We have to know what's going on. We need to
know the history, we need to know the background. We've
got to understand that this is a part of history
and why this is horrible. But we need to keep
moving forward and understanding and unearthing the truth of it all,
(36:26):
so that in itself is an activism that has to
happen for those of us who aren't necessarily going to
research and not necessarily going to you know, get into
the depths and darkness. What kind of advice you would
give would you give to us to make sure we're
spreading more of these truths and more of these stories. Obviously,
outside of telling people about your podcast.
Speaker 4 (36:45):
Yeah, definitely download my podcast. My mom says it's really good. No,
I think you know. I'm not a political organizer. That
is not a role that I fill in society. But
I do think that everyone should at least try to
engage on an extremely local level. Like I'm not saying
you should canvass for your senator. As a matter of fact,
I don't care about that at all. But I do
(37:08):
think you should know who's on your school board. I
do think you should know who's on your city council.
You know, go to a committee meeting that no one
else goes. To get involved on this extremely local level,
because that's going to be our last line of defense here.
And I will say the local school board is a
breeding ground for weird little guys. It has been a
(37:31):
strategy cultivated on the right for decades now to run
their weirdest little freaks for local office. And so your
local school board may have a guy on it who
doesn't think dinosaurs are real. We had one a couple
of years ago in the county, not in the city.
So get involved on the local level. Find your local
weird little guy, because you know, before they start hurting
(37:52):
people they're just out there being kind of a weirdo.
And I bet you have one in your town.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
So get out there and get out there and thwart him.
Thwart him. I feel like you're threatening me. You got
weird little guys? You do you do?
Speaker 4 (38:07):
There is a guy on your city council who probably
doesn't think women should vote.
Speaker 3 (38:11):
You know, like, yes, you the listener invariably wherever you.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
Live, go find your weird little guys.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
I'm not saying you should do anything to him. I'm
just saying you should know about him. I'm not advocating
anything here that's going the wrong way.
Speaker 4 (38:27):
It no, because there's there's if there's one thing they hate,
it's you knowing about them.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
Yeah. Yeah, that's I mean, that's great advice. And right
now that's we keep talking about that too. It's the
importance of local politics and being really aware about that,
trying to find your little for a little guy.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
And knowing that this happens everywhere where.
Speaker 4 (38:48):
After Unite the Right, people were looking at Charlottesville like wow,
like what's wrong with Charlottesville, right? And the answer is
this could have easily happened anywhere. It has, it does
it will, it could happen anywhere, and so you know,
these aren't exceptional stories. It's just we are not allowed
to think of them in context because these stories are
(39:08):
not told in context. Like I hear from listeners all
the time where you know, their town gets mentioned and
they're like, I didn't know that happened here. I didn't
know that guy lived here. I got an email from
a listener who I mentioned in passing an incident where
the Klan tried to blow up an elementary school in Columbus,
Ohio in nineteen seventy nine to prevent bussing for integration,
(39:30):
and this person had gone to that school in the
years immediately following that, and he's like, I didn't I
didn't know they tried to blow up my elementary school
to prevent integration. I didn't know that happened here. And
it happens everywhere, but we don't tell these stories. We
don't know these stories, and so it's not something that
happens in another town to other people.
Speaker 3 (39:51):
It's happening where you live.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Yes, that's a great point, because we get that a
lot in the South, and we were we made the point,
you know, after Georgia unfortunately went read this election, but
it was so close, and that's amazing because it normally
isn't and there's so many obstacles in place that keep
it that way, and so it can happen anywhere. And
(40:17):
now we're getting the dismantling of DEI, the Department of Education.
The information part of this and what stories do get
told is really important. And it doesn't surprise me that
the listener would write in and be like, I've never
heard of that, even though I lived here. It went
(40:38):
there soon after. So, well, are there any other things?
We know that your episodes are kind of in flex,
but aren't there any other things in the future that
you're looking forward to? Anything you're working on?
Speaker 4 (40:57):
Oh gosh, looking forward to hard to say. I mean,
I I do get genuine joy out of like digging
around and finding my little, you know, diamonds in the rough,
little my horrible little facts amidst the you know, the
the avalanche of research.
Speaker 3 (41:11):
That I do.
Speaker 4 (41:13):
So I don't I don't want to give the wrong
impression that I'm you know, I'm out here suffering. I
genuinely enjoy the research process. It's it's satisfying to me.
So I love making the show. I hope I get
to make it forever. Actually, I hope I run out
of guys. I hope they stop making new guys and
I run out.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
Of Double Edged Sword.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
Yes, and we enjoyed your podcast, I immensely. It is
so good. Your storytelling is amazing. Your ability to really
show a lot of empathy and compassion the victims and
the people that you're talking about is beautiful. Your layout
in your stories is really really like it it gets me.
(41:51):
I'm like sitting in the car and not want to
leave trying to finish out the story because it's just
so enticing.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
Thank you. Yeah, I love my tangled little webs.
Speaker 4 (42:00):
But yeah, I think I lately I find myself focusing
more on trying to more explicitly connect these things to
our current political situation right that like these aren't fringe
ideas anymore, and sort of drawing these direct through lines
to like, you know, here's this Nazi at a rally
in two thousand and four, and here's this idea and
how it's destroying your life right now from the White House.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
YEP, which is very that's so important. It's so important
and necessary. So thank you so much for doing that work,
for coming on the show. Where can the good listeners
find you?
Speaker 4 (42:36):
You can find Weird Little Guys wherever you get your podcasts.
Any podcast app that you like it is there, so
please listen to it so that Sophie will be proud
of me.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
We all want Sophie's approval. Approval.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
Yes, so listen to Weird Little Guys wherever you get
your podcasts. I'm on Blue Sky. I don't know. Posting
isn't even fun anymore. I feel like posting used to
be fun.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
Yeah, I agree. Well, thank you, thank you, Thank you
so much for being here. Come back anytime.
Speaker 3 (43:05):
Please, Thank you guys so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Yes, but listeners in the meantime, if you would like
to contact us, you can. You can email us at
Hello at stuff onnevertold you dot com. You can find
us on Blue Sky at Momstuff podcast, or on Instagram
and TikTok at stuff one never told you for us
on YouTube. We have a tea public store, and we
have a book you can get wherever you get your books.
Thanks as always to our super producer Christina, executive producer Maya,
and our contributor Joey. Thank you and thanks to you
(43:29):
for listening. Stuff Will Never Told You is production by
Heart Radio. For more podcasts on my heart Radio, you
can check out the Art Radio, Apple podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Samantha McVey
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