September 17, 2025 • 24 mins
The world is more divided than ever, and to help us make sense of it all, we asked former neo-Nazi leader Jeff Schoep to join us on air this week.
Jeff explains the cult-like echo chambers, the pull of identity and belonging, and why “meeting in the middle” with patience and curiosity works better than shaming.
He now works through his nonprofit to help others exit, stressing the need to replace lost purpose and community with healthier pursuits.
The Double A Chattery podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute professional health care services, including the giving of medical advice. No doctor/patient relationship is formed and this podcast is no substitute for professional psychological or other medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. The use of information in this podcast is at the listener’s own risk. Listeners should seek the help of their health care professionals for any medical conditions.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This podcast is for general information only and should not
be taken as psychological advice. Listeners should consult with their
healthcare professionals for a specific medical advice.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Well. Hello, I'm Amanda.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Keller and I'm Anita McGregor, and welcome to Double a Chattery.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
We thought we'd do something a bit different today. The
world is in a strange place, isn't it, Anita?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
It is?
Speaker 4 (00:38):
It is, and we.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Are jumping into it today, aren't we.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Well, this is the thing. We're going to talk to
a guy called Jeff Scoop. He is a former neo Nazi,
so much so he was fully embedded in New York's
biggest chapter of Nazis, if that's how you phrase that.
For twenty seven years he was involved in recruiting kids
the full gamut of what most of us will recoil
at in absolute horror. He is now through that he
(01:04):
has deradicalized. He has been deradicalized and tries to do
exactly the same for others. And at first, when you
think about talking to a neo Nazi of any kind,
I think I'm not interested, don't want too scary.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Scary, horrible, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
But maybe, as you say, Anita. It's time to jump
in and meet in the middle and find what the
solutions are. So let's talk to former neo Nazi leader
Jeff Scoop. Most of us were absolutely horrified at recent
(01:42):
images at Australian rallies. It seems to us the rise
of neo Nazism. But maybe it's just the brazenness within
which they took to lecturns and marched quite openly. Should
we be surprised at this, No, these.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Are extremist groups. You know, they want to be you know,
they are the small minority, but they want to be
loud and obnoxious. And this works across the spectrum no
matter what kind of extremist group you're dealing with. They
want to be upfront, loud and heard, and unfortunately, what
that does is it drowns out a lot of the
moderate voices and the people that are out there for
(02:19):
legitimate reasons.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Jeff, what I'm kind of curious about is that so
I'm Canadian, I've been here for almost twenty years, and
what I've really noticed is that there's a rhetoric against
around immigrants, around refugees, around you know, the you know,
the same rhetoric that we hear, I think in the
States about lazy and you know, routing the system and
(02:43):
all those kinds of things. Should we be surprised that
people who may have been moderate in their views around immigration,
that they have moved towards more kind of radical beliefs
like our like? Should we be surprised because we've been
telling people that immigrants are evil for for twenty you know,
(03:03):
for twenty years or so, should we be surprised?
Speaker 4 (03:07):
I mean my experience, a lot of the immigrants that
you know, First of all, I'm the son of a
German immigrant, you know, so you know, my mother my
family worked very very hard, and a lot of the
immigrants that I know, you know, they've they've struggled, they've
worked very hard. And I think that's a something that
a lot of people are not understanding. You know that
One thing I've been told by a number of immigrants
(03:29):
is that they feel like they have to work ten
times as hard because they need to prove that they're,
you know, worthy of being in the country and things
like that. So, but I think a big problem is
there's a difference between immigration and coming over the right
way and then coming over illegally. I know, here that's
a big problem with with the illegal immigration. You know,
we welcome immigrants, but we don't welcome illegal immigrants because
(03:52):
that's breaking the law. And you know that's that's a concern.
But ask your question, you know, are people getting more radical?
I guess it really depends on the individual, because some
people are getting more radical, and there's a term for that.
It's called reciprocal radicalization. And that is where both sides
are getting more radical and they're being pulled away from
(04:12):
the middle, whether they're right or left, but they're being
pulled out to those extremes. And those are some of
those loud voices. They're not the majority, but those are
the loud voices, and they're the ones that we tend
to be hearing more of unfortunately.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Well let's go back to your life, Jeff. How did
you become a neo Nazi? How does that?
Speaker 2 (04:33):
What was the process for you?
Speaker 4 (04:35):
Well, my journey in was a little different than a
lot of people. For a lot of people, it's a
sense of belonging, it's being a part of something. For me,
it was a family connection. And I say that with
a caveat. You know, it wasn't the family was not
recruiting me into it. But my grandfather had fought in
the German army during World War Two, and my great
uncles did as well, and my grandparents became well, you know,
(04:59):
the male relative were all ended up in pow camps.
And you know, my grandmother and her family ended up
displaced because they were from Prussia, so that was a
part of the German country that was given over to
Poland after the war, so they were displaced and like
most all the Germans from that area. And I heard
about that growing up. So I felt like my family
(05:20):
had been wronged, and you know, I looked up to
my grandfather and I wanted to be you know, I
wanted to fight for my country and fight for my people.
And it's not an excuse, it's not the right, you know,
it's not a good reason for going in, but that
was the trajectory for me. And once you become involved
and you become propagandized, you become These movements are very
(05:41):
cult like nobody that's involved, including when I was involved.
If you would have told me this is a cult,
I would have denied it. I would have said, you're wrong,
you don't know what you're talking about. I could tell
you when I was when I was dating. It was
one after another. They were like, Jeff, this is a
cult You're involved in a cult group, and I'm thinking, man,
why am I making these poor choices women? But really
(06:01):
it was me that was the problem and they couldn't
see it. So this is very common for a lot
of people that are involved in it, because this becomes
your world, it becomes all encompassing. It's an echo chamber.
All you're hearing is what's inside that bubble or that
echo chamber, and you know, seeing what's outside of it.
Everybody's just wrong, is how you view it. So radicalization
(06:22):
happens quite fast in those a lot of those scenarios.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
So, Jeff, I've been a forensic psychologist for over thirty
years and worked with gang members and people who have
been radicalized. And the question that I'm always curious about
is that in your own story, Jeff, is there a point,
Is there a time, and especially given that it was
within your family, that somebody could have said something or
done something that would have turned you from that path.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
You know, it's a good question. And my family really
tried actively and hard to discourage me from this, and
my parents kept telling me that I was wrong. My
involvement in this stuff like destroyed my mother's career.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
It was.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
It was a NonStop downhilled spiral for myself and everybody
attached to me, and I didn't see it what it
was like, every lash of the proverbial whip made me
more entrenched, more more dedicated to it. Now I felt
like the government and the system and everybody else was
going after my family for my beliefs. So that just
made me more radical and more angry. So everybody tried
(07:26):
my grandfather as well. You know, he says, you're Jeff,
the path that you're on is going to lead to
one or two places, prison or death. And my response
to him was, oh, but you know, you might have surrendered,
you might have given up, but I'll never stop fighting
for my people. I don't care if they kill me.
I don't care if they throw me in prison, because
that's how radicalized I was. Now, what was that moment?
(07:48):
You know, what was that breaking point? What was it
that reached me? It was something It was seeing the
humanity in the people that had once vilified So like
I was told in school and peers and all these
people outside of the movement. What I was doing was
wrong my family and everyone else. But that didn't work,
that didn't get through. So I don't know, you know,
(08:10):
like that's something I've thought about a lot, Like what
if that meeting, What if those meetings would have happened
years before? Because I was in this stuff twenty seven years, Like,
what if that had happened earlier, would it have made
a difference. That's a tough question. That's when I struggle
with a lot, and that's you know, we'd like to
figure that out. And in the process of pulling people out,
(08:33):
I always say not to tell people that they're wrong,
because you get an instant pushback with that. We want
to show people how they're wrong. Let them come to
that conclusion, because force change isn't real change. Real change
has to come from the heart and from the mind.
And if a person thinks that or believes that they're
being coerced or forced into it, like your wife says, Hey,
if you don't quit this movement, I'm going to take
(08:54):
the kids. And I saw this for decades in the movement,
and vice versa on the other you know, on the
other side of it as well, and that didn't work.
You know, sometimes you know, somebody might you know, bend
to it, but they're not changing. They still have those beliefs.
They have to see it and they have to feel it,
and then it's going to change because they've done that.
(09:15):
So a lot of times when people ask us, you know,
like well, how many people have you personally deradicalized? Like
how many people have you you know, fixed you know,
or repaired this this thinking from? And my answer to
that is, I mean we've helped you know, probably hundreds
of people. But the thing is is they've made that change.
We just helped them get there.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
When you said it was finding the humanity, what exactly
does that mean? What was how do you do that
when you're so strong about your beliefs.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
I'm glad you asked that, you know, because the people
that are involved in this, they think that they're doing
something good and noble, you know, like I was. I
joined this because I wanted to be part of a
cause that was important. I wanted to save my country.
I wanted to save my people, So that was the mindset.
So what it was specifically was sitting down with people
that I had once dehumanized, not them personally like I
hadn't personally dehumanized them, but people from other groups, you know,
(10:09):
like an African American and a Muslim woman. And when
they talked about first of all, they were very respectful,
very kind, and conversations are reciprocal, they're going back and forth.
And the first person I had sat down with that
I feel like planted the first major seeds as a
man by the name of Darryl Davis. He's an African
American musician, played with Chuck Berry, Little Richard, all these
(10:33):
rock and roll blues legends. And when I sat down
with them, he was talking about how the racism had
affected him as a young man and how he was
the only African American child in this boy Scout parade
and he was being pelted with rocks by white adults
and that that didn't sit well with me. That that
(10:57):
really bothered me. And like that are if that belief
system is causing people to do things like that, and
then you try to compartmentalize, you go, well, that wasn't
my organization. I didn't do that. Those guys were scumbags,
you know, uh to do that to a kid, But
the cause is still right, that's the that's the psychology
of it. That's the mental the way, the way I
(11:17):
tried to in the way a lot of people in
these movements try to compartmentalize that stuff. And some people
would just say, oh, so what you know. But I
was always a little bit more compassionate, I guess in
that sense. But it really depends on the individual. But
when you see the humanity and the person that you're
sitting across from like that, it's not some far away
thing like a history lesson or or something that's that
(11:39):
you can detach from. You're sitting across from somebody and
you can feel that, you can sense that, and you
can see it, and that is that's a hard Uh,
that's a hard thing to unpack, I think, you know.
And and again I wish it would have changed, like
the snap of a fingers, that's very rare. It takes
a lot of contemplation. Yeah, I know a fust or
(12:00):
a few scenarios where people changed in with one act
of kindness. But I can count those on one hand.
And I know hundreds of people that I've left, but
all of them took time. So it's it's not as
common as I wish it was.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
It sounds as though the process is a lot about
planting seeds.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
It really is, you know. And the Muslim lady that
I had met soon after Darryl, she the way she
approached me, and I think this is important because other
people can use this and they're if they're struggling with
these kind of things as well. And she had said
to me, she goes, she never once told me that
I was wrong, but she said to me, she says, Jeff,
the belief system that you have, what you believe in
(12:40):
caused me growing up, caused me to feel less than ugly,
not worthy. And it's like I could see it in
her face. I could feel it like a vibe, like
an energy in the air. And that hurt. That really
really hurt. And you know, it's not something that people
that are in that life wann't admit, but it hurt
(13:01):
deep down.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
So with all these issues we're having with young men
looking to believe in something, needing to feel strong, needing
to feel something bigger than themselves, how do you even
plant that seat? How do you get them around that table?
What steps do you take now to help them?
Speaker 4 (13:26):
A lot of times for people, you know, it's like
I don't suggest people you know, go up to the
nearest Nazi rally and go and try to talk to them,
because that's not the place to do it. It really isn't.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
You know.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
They're around their peers. They're not gonna listen, they're just
gonna holler back at you or be angry. But if
you can get people in one on one situations, and
this is where family members, friends, educators, anybody else that
does this kind of work can come into play and
show the people like how they're wrong. You know, don't
tell them they're wrong, but show them how they're wrong.
(13:56):
So a lot of times that comes with curiosity that
comes with having conversations. In the case of like the
work I do with my nonprofit Beyond Barriers, a lot
of people will reach out. And I was very high
profile when I was in the movement, so they if
you were in the movement, you know who I was.
So they'll reach out and they'll be curious, like, well,
(14:17):
why did you get out? You know, did the Jews
have something on you? Did the government have something on you,
or something like that. That's the first thing that goes
into their mind because they cannot fathom that somebody could
just leave and change from that life, So you know,
I kind of talk them through that. I feel like,
if they're reaching out and they're asking questions and they're curious,
(14:37):
there's a window open. There's a door open that change
can be made in. And one of the most common
questions they ask and sometimes, you know, some of this
stuff comes in it's a little offensive, and you know,
if they're threatening to kill me or something, I'm not
engaging in that. But if they just say other offensive things,
I'll typically still speak with them and they'll say, oh,
(14:58):
so you left the movement, now you're a commune, you know,
are you a communist now? Or if someone leaves the movement,
they must be antifa because in this world there's no
gray areas. Everything is like black and white, no pun intended.
Everything is on the extreme. So like, if you leave
the far right, they're assuming now you're on the far left.
And there's some people that do that, but that's not
(15:18):
a de radicalized extremist. That's just somebody that's flipping one
one extremism to another. So I at first, you know
when I was when I left, and I'm getting like
dozens of emails and calls and stuff like are you
a communist now, and I'm thinking, my gosh, what in
the world am I saying? That is making people think
that I'm getting upset about it, you know, and I'm thinking, man,
(15:40):
I must be saying something really crazy that they think this.
But it wasn't me. I thought that way too, of
anybody that left, because when I was involved, I mean,
you know, so I realized that they are thinking in
those extremes and you have to talk with them. You
have to say, no, I'm not a communist. In fact,
I'm not even I'm not even way over there on
(16:00):
the left. And you know, if you leave, you don't
have to be either. And they're just like, you've just
unveiled this grand epiphany that nobody would have ever thought of.
And it's so simple. But it's that taking that time
and that patience to have those conversations and say, look,
you don't have to do that. And now a lot
of them will say, well, so and so that's a
former they're with Antifa now And I said, they're not
(16:23):
the radicalized. That's so many just flipped extreams. So and
then they go, ha, really, so you don't have to,
you know, do all these things. And just having that
patience to talk with them, because I found that that's
really really helped a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Jeff, So, for twenty seven years, you identified as a
neo Nazi. That was your identity. How how do you
identify now? Like what you know, what identity do you
have for yourself? Like you could call yourself an ex
neo Nazi, but I I'm hearing that maybe your identity
is a little bit different than that.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
Yeah, and that's that's a that's a good question too,
because a lot of us that do this work, you know,
it's like that's not who we are, that's not that's
not our Yes, it's what we do or that's who
we were, but like what we are now is something different.
So I don't know, that's I mean, it's a it's
a lot, it's a lot to unpack the question. I
(17:23):
guess you could say. But I think what gives me
meaning and purpose now is the work that I'm doing now.
So and this is important for a lot of people
that are getting out, is they need to have something
else that gives them that purpose. And like I was
talking to another guy the other day that's that we're
working with, and he's kind of on the fence. He's
(17:43):
not out completely yet, and he's like, you know, you
know when we were in the movement together. You know,
you went around the country and you were speaking and
things like that, and you're still kind of doing that.
It's just in a different realm now. And he says me,
I left the movement, but you're still not the radical.
He's like, I left the movement and now I have nothing,
Like I need to find that something so I mean,
(18:05):
and that is a really really common thing because people
were taking like their time off work and their vacations
and things like that to come and do movement events,
and now they lost that. They lost that so called community.
They lost all those people that were around them, and
they've a lot of them have been ostracized from their
families and it's a very lonely road at first. So
(18:26):
you have to find that you have first of all.
That's one of the reasons why I set up the
nonprofit was to make sure that people would have some
kind of community, that they'd have people that have been
through it, that they could talk through this stuff and
have somewhere to go. And then we try to help
them find whatever that purpose might be. You know, one
guy I know he learned to play guitar. Another young lady,
(18:48):
I know, she does extreme sports like jumping out of
planes and things like that, you know, to get that
adrenaline rush. You know, for someone else it's the church.
You know, it's different things for different people, but you know,
we try to find healthy things that they can repurpose in.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
And what I'm hearing from what you're saying as well,
is that as as outsiders like us, when we see
a Nazi, it's like seeing a funnel web. You instantly
know scary, scary, and yet we need the humanity to
meet them somewhere along the line if we ever want
to change that behavior us just being combative isn't and
frightened of them isn't going.
Speaker 4 (19:22):
To do that. You're right, and a lot of them,
you know, they like that fear factor that they seem
scary and things like that, and you know, if you
can kind of disarm that and see the person underneath
the symbols and see the humanity in them as well,
because you know they're not seeing the humanity because once
you dehumanize somebody, you know, you lose your own humanity,
and that process it's not gone forever. But that's literally
(19:44):
what it does is it takes away your humanity. So
they're accustomed to people being nasty to them, people scowling
at them, not being friendly, and sometimes when that's like,
those small acts of kindness can really break through and
kind of open that person up. And especially like in
the work you're doing with psychology and things, I'm sure
(20:07):
you know exactly what I'm talking about as far as
that goes.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
And the other piece that I think is important what
you were noting is the idea of what we call
replacement theory, which is if you're going to get somebody
just stop drinking, you know, what are they going to
be doing with their time? And it sounds so that's
exactly what you're doing. Is if they're leaving from something
that was so well consuming, what else can they do.
Maybe it is playing the guitar or doing something else,
(20:32):
but they need to be able to find something that
will be fulfilling.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
It's critical, It really is critical.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Yeah, i'd suggest cross stitch. I don't even do it,
but I think take up some cross stitch, make some
cushion covers.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Especially out really nasty words.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
On oh that's actually cross stitches where words I would
do that. Oh, absolutely do that.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Yeah, this has been really lovely talking Jeff. It's just
it's so great to to see the you know, the
arc of your story and to see that you have
come around and it sounds as though your life now
is about seeing about how you can make repair, about
how you can work towards and your credibility and being
(21:15):
able to do that is really he's really quite amazing.
Speaker 4 (21:20):
So thanks, thank you, ladies.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
Well, it's time for our glimmers in light of that,
discover that extraordinary discussion we just had.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
I mean, wasn't that amazing?
Speaker 1 (21:38):
You know, I'm feeling, I don't know, a little bit
hopeful about the world right now.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
What it said to me was that thing of we
need to meet in the middle. You can never change
anything until you let your own I'm talking about myself,
my own prejudices go. I'll always be prejudiced against Nazis,
funnily enough, but unless I step in, and he said,
a random act of kindness or humanity can change everything.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
It's amazing that encrusted.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
Well, speaking of that, which this is my this is
the reason I mentioned cross stitch, and it's my glimmer.
Is you know, I'm not a crafty person, Anita. I
know that I'm not a hobby person. You are not,
And yet I sent away for two very small cross
stitch kits. One is a little tin of sardines and
one's a little mini lobster. And they arrived this morning.
(22:30):
And I want to be that person.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Hummy, does thines you when you ordered these?
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Well, I saw them, maybe I did see them late
at night, and I thought, that looks like the kind
of thing I want to do when I'm relaxing and
not doom scrolling and doing some incredibly cute craft. Don't
hold me to having to do it. I was brought
into the promise of being the person who might.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
I am going to ask you in a year to
go and find them for me.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
And I'm going to find task.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
I'm going to find a task between now and then
and get someone to do it, and I'll say, look
at it.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
I finished and framed it and everything and everything. I
well well done, Amanda.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
It starts with one small step. As we just heard
from Jeff, it all starts with one small step step
and a bit of humanity from you.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Would it kill you? Yeah? I kind of.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Glim my glimmer is is this is not exactly crafty.
But we had occasion on the other day when I
was taking care of Logan that to have a box
in the house at quite a large box. And I've
got to say, there's something about a two year old
and a box. We we draw fort fort we had.
(23:47):
We put a pool in the middle of it. We drew,
you know, with with all kinds of felt markers all
over it. We yeah, it was. It was at least
several well several hours of hilarious and total joy.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Oh I love it in a box.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
I was always the person who wanted to keep every
box and my mother didn't want me to.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
And I now live with someone, my husband, Harwie, who
wants to keep every single box.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
And where do you like?
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Yeah, exactly, like exactly Anita, Oh yeah, got a two
year old in a box?
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Is a great combination, great combination. And we could throw it,
we could recycle it the next day.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Perfect love that We see you next time I see you.
Speaker 4 (24:36):
H
This podcast is for general information only and should not
be taken as psychological advice. Listeners should consult with their
healthcare professionals for a specific medical advice.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Well. Hello, I'm Amanda.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Keller and I'm Anita McGregor, and welcome to Double a Chattery.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
We thought we'd do something a bit different today. The
world is in a strange place, isn't it, Anita?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
It is?
Speaker 4 (00:38):
It is, and we.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Are jumping into it today, aren't we.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Well, this is the thing. We're going to talk to
a guy called Jeff Scoop. He is a former neo Nazi,
so much so he was fully embedded in New York's
biggest chapter of Nazis, if that's how you phrase that.
For twenty seven years he was involved in recruiting kids
the full gamut of what most of us will recoil
at in absolute horror. He is now through that he
(01:04):
has deradicalized. He has been deradicalized and tries to do
exactly the same for others. And at first, when you
think about talking to a neo Nazi of any kind,
I think I'm not interested, don't want too scary.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Scary, horrible, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
But maybe, as you say, Anita. It's time to jump
in and meet in the middle and find what the
solutions are. So let's talk to former neo Nazi leader
Jeff Scoop. Most of us were absolutely horrified at recent
(01:42):
images at Australian rallies. It seems to us the rise
of neo Nazism. But maybe it's just the brazenness within
which they took to lecturns and marched quite openly. Should
we be surprised at this, No, these.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Are extremist groups. You know, they want to be you know,
they are the small minority, but they want to be
loud and obnoxious. And this works across the spectrum no
matter what kind of extremist group you're dealing with. They
want to be upfront, loud and heard, and unfortunately, what
that does is it drowns out a lot of the
moderate voices and the people that are out there for
(02:19):
legitimate reasons.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Jeff, what I'm kind of curious about is that so
I'm Canadian, I've been here for almost twenty years, and
what I've really noticed is that there's a rhetoric against
around immigrants, around refugees, around you know, the you know,
the same rhetoric that we hear, I think in the
States about lazy and you know, routing the system and
(02:43):
all those kinds of things. Should we be surprised that
people who may have been moderate in their views around immigration,
that they have moved towards more kind of radical beliefs
like our like? Should we be surprised because we've been
telling people that immigrants are evil for for twenty you know,
(03:03):
for twenty years or so, should we be surprised?
Speaker 4 (03:07):
I mean my experience, a lot of the immigrants that
you know, First of all, I'm the son of a
German immigrant, you know, so you know, my mother my
family worked very very hard, and a lot of the
immigrants that I know, you know, they've they've struggled, they've
worked very hard. And I think that's a something that
a lot of people are not understanding. You know that
One thing I've been told by a number of immigrants
(03:29):
is that they feel like they have to work ten
times as hard because they need to prove that they're,
you know, worthy of being in the country and things
like that. So, but I think a big problem is
there's a difference between immigration and coming over the right
way and then coming over illegally. I know, here that's
a big problem with with the illegal immigration. You know,
we welcome immigrants, but we don't welcome illegal immigrants because
(03:52):
that's breaking the law. And you know that's that's a concern.
But ask your question, you know, are people getting more radical?
I guess it really depends on the individual, because some
people are getting more radical, and there's a term for that.
It's called reciprocal radicalization. And that is where both sides
are getting more radical and they're being pulled away from
(04:12):
the middle, whether they're right or left, but they're being
pulled out to those extremes. And those are some of
those loud voices. They're not the majority, but those are
the loud voices, and they're the ones that we tend
to be hearing more of unfortunately.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Well let's go back to your life, Jeff. How did
you become a neo Nazi? How does that?
Speaker 2 (04:33):
What was the process for you?
Speaker 4 (04:35):
Well, my journey in was a little different than a
lot of people. For a lot of people, it's a
sense of belonging, it's being a part of something. For me,
it was a family connection. And I say that with
a caveat. You know, it wasn't the family was not
recruiting me into it. But my grandfather had fought in
the German army during World War Two, and my great
uncles did as well, and my grandparents became well, you know,
(04:59):
the male relative were all ended up in pow camps.
And you know, my grandmother and her family ended up
displaced because they were from Prussia, so that was a
part of the German country that was given over to
Poland after the war, so they were displaced and like
most all the Germans from that area. And I heard
about that growing up. So I felt like my family
(05:20):
had been wronged, and you know, I looked up to
my grandfather and I wanted to be you know, I
wanted to fight for my country and fight for my people.
And it's not an excuse, it's not the right, you know,
it's not a good reason for going in, but that
was the trajectory for me. And once you become involved
and you become propagandized, you become These movements are very
(05:41):
cult like nobody that's involved, including when I was involved.
If you would have told me this is a cult,
I would have denied it. I would have said, you're wrong,
you don't know what you're talking about. I could tell
you when I was when I was dating. It was
one after another. They were like, Jeff, this is a
cult You're involved in a cult group, and I'm thinking, man,
why am I making these poor choices women? But really
(06:01):
it was me that was the problem and they couldn't
see it. So this is very common for a lot
of people that are involved in it, because this becomes
your world, it becomes all encompassing. It's an echo chamber.
All you're hearing is what's inside that bubble or that
echo chamber, and you know, seeing what's outside of it.
Everybody's just wrong, is how you view it. So radicalization
(06:22):
happens quite fast in those a lot of those scenarios.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
So, Jeff, I've been a forensic psychologist for over thirty
years and worked with gang members and people who have
been radicalized. And the question that I'm always curious about
is that in your own story, Jeff, is there a point,
Is there a time, and especially given that it was
within your family, that somebody could have said something or
done something that would have turned you from that path.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
You know, it's a good question. And my family really
tried actively and hard to discourage me from this, and
my parents kept telling me that I was wrong. My
involvement in this stuff like destroyed my mother's career.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
It was.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
It was a NonStop downhilled spiral for myself and everybody
attached to me, and I didn't see it what it
was like, every lash of the proverbial whip made me
more entrenched, more more dedicated to it. Now I felt
like the government and the system and everybody else was
going after my family for my beliefs. So that just
made me more radical and more angry. So everybody tried
(07:26):
my grandfather as well. You know, he says, you're Jeff,
the path that you're on is going to lead to
one or two places, prison or death. And my response
to him was, oh, but you know, you might have surrendered,
you might have given up, but I'll never stop fighting
for my people. I don't care if they kill me.
I don't care if they throw me in prison, because
that's how radicalized I was. Now, what was that moment?
(07:48):
You know, what was that breaking point? What was it
that reached me? It was something It was seeing the
humanity in the people that had once vilified So like
I was told in school and peers and all these
people outside of the movement. What I was doing was
wrong my family and everyone else. But that didn't work,
that didn't get through. So I don't know, you know,
(08:10):
like that's something I've thought about a lot, Like what
if that meeting, What if those meetings would have happened
years before? Because I was in this stuff twenty seven years, Like,
what if that had happened earlier, would it have made
a difference. That's a tough question. That's when I struggle
with a lot, and that's you know, we'd like to
figure that out. And in the process of pulling people out,
(08:33):
I always say not to tell people that they're wrong,
because you get an instant pushback with that. We want
to show people how they're wrong. Let them come to
that conclusion, because force change isn't real change. Real change
has to come from the heart and from the mind.
And if a person thinks that or believes that they're
being coerced or forced into it, like your wife says, Hey,
if you don't quit this movement, I'm going to take
(08:54):
the kids. And I saw this for decades in the movement,
and vice versa on the other you know, on the
other side of it as well, and that didn't work.
You know, sometimes you know, somebody might you know, bend
to it, but they're not changing. They still have those beliefs.
They have to see it and they have to feel it,
and then it's going to change because they've done that.
(09:15):
So a lot of times when people ask us, you know,
like well, how many people have you personally deradicalized? Like
how many people have you you know, fixed you know,
or repaired this this thinking from? And my answer to
that is, I mean we've helped you know, probably hundreds
of people. But the thing is is they've made that change.
We just helped them get there.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
When you said it was finding the humanity, what exactly
does that mean? What was how do you do that
when you're so strong about your beliefs.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
I'm glad you asked that, you know, because the people
that are involved in this, they think that they're doing
something good and noble, you know, like I was. I
joined this because I wanted to be part of a
cause that was important. I wanted to save my country.
I wanted to save my people, So that was the mindset.
So what it was specifically was sitting down with people
that I had once dehumanized, not them personally like I
hadn't personally dehumanized them, but people from other groups, you know,
(10:09):
like an African American and a Muslim woman. And when
they talked about first of all, they were very respectful,
very kind, and conversations are reciprocal, they're going back and forth.
And the first person I had sat down with that
I feel like planted the first major seeds as a
man by the name of Darryl Davis. He's an African
American musician, played with Chuck Berry, Little Richard, all these
(10:33):
rock and roll blues legends. And when I sat down
with them, he was talking about how the racism had
affected him as a young man and how he was
the only African American child in this boy Scout parade
and he was being pelted with rocks by white adults
and that that didn't sit well with me. That that
(10:57):
really bothered me. And like that are if that belief
system is causing people to do things like that, and
then you try to compartmentalize, you go, well, that wasn't
my organization. I didn't do that. Those guys were scumbags,
you know, uh to do that to a kid, But
the cause is still right, that's the that's the psychology
of it. That's the mental the way, the way I
(11:17):
tried to in the way a lot of people in
these movements try to compartmentalize that stuff. And some people
would just say, oh, so what you know. But I
was always a little bit more compassionate, I guess in
that sense. But it really depends on the individual. But
when you see the humanity and the person that you're
sitting across from like that, it's not some far away
thing like a history lesson or or something that's that
(11:39):
you can detach from. You're sitting across from somebody and
you can feel that, you can sense that, and you
can see it, and that is that's a hard Uh,
that's a hard thing to unpack, I think, you know.
And and again I wish it would have changed, like
the snap of a fingers, that's very rare. It takes
a lot of contemplation. Yeah, I know a fust or
(12:00):
a few scenarios where people changed in with one act
of kindness. But I can count those on one hand.
And I know hundreds of people that I've left, but
all of them took time. So it's it's not as
common as I wish it was.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
It sounds as though the process is a lot about
planting seeds.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
It really is, you know. And the Muslim lady that
I had met soon after Darryl, she the way she
approached me, and I think this is important because other
people can use this and they're if they're struggling with
these kind of things as well. And she had said
to me, she goes, she never once told me that
I was wrong, but she said to me, she says, Jeff,
the belief system that you have, what you believe in
(12:40):
caused me growing up, caused me to feel less than ugly,
not worthy. And it's like I could see it in
her face. I could feel it like a vibe, like
an energy in the air. And that hurt. That really
really hurt. And you know, it's not something that people
that are in that life wann't admit, but it hurt
(13:01):
deep down.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
So with all these issues we're having with young men
looking to believe in something, needing to feel strong, needing
to feel something bigger than themselves, how do you even
plant that seat? How do you get them around that table?
What steps do you take now to help them?
Speaker 4 (13:26):
A lot of times for people, you know, it's like
I don't suggest people you know, go up to the
nearest Nazi rally and go and try to talk to them,
because that's not the place to do it. It really isn't.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
You know.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
They're around their peers. They're not gonna listen, they're just
gonna holler back at you or be angry. But if
you can get people in one on one situations, and
this is where family members, friends, educators, anybody else that
does this kind of work can come into play and
show the people like how they're wrong. You know, don't
tell them they're wrong, but show them how they're wrong.
(13:56):
So a lot of times that comes with curiosity that
comes with having conversations. In the case of like the
work I do with my nonprofit Beyond Barriers, a lot
of people will reach out. And I was very high
profile when I was in the movement, so they if
you were in the movement, you know who I was.
So they'll reach out and they'll be curious, like, well,
(14:17):
why did you get out? You know, did the Jews
have something on you? Did the government have something on you,
or something like that. That's the first thing that goes
into their mind because they cannot fathom that somebody could
just leave and change from that life, So you know,
I kind of talk them through that. I feel like,
if they're reaching out and they're asking questions and they're curious,
(14:37):
there's a window open. There's a door open that change
can be made in. And one of the most common
questions they ask and sometimes, you know, some of this
stuff comes in it's a little offensive, and you know,
if they're threatening to kill me or something, I'm not
engaging in that. But if they just say other offensive things,
I'll typically still speak with them and they'll say, oh,
(14:58):
so you left the movement, now you're a commune, you know,
are you a communist now? Or if someone leaves the movement,
they must be antifa because in this world there's no
gray areas. Everything is like black and white, no pun intended.
Everything is on the extreme. So like, if you leave
the far right, they're assuming now you're on the far left.
And there's some people that do that, but that's not
(15:18):
a de radicalized extremist. That's just somebody that's flipping one
one extremism to another. So I at first, you know
when I was when I left, and I'm getting like
dozens of emails and calls and stuff like are you
a communist now, and I'm thinking, my gosh, what in
the world am I saying? That is making people think
that I'm getting upset about it, you know, and I'm thinking, man,
(15:40):
I must be saying something really crazy that they think this.
But it wasn't me. I thought that way too, of
anybody that left, because when I was involved, I mean,
you know, so I realized that they are thinking in
those extremes and you have to talk with them. You
have to say, no, I'm not a communist. In fact,
I'm not even I'm not even way over there on
(16:00):
the left. And you know, if you leave, you don't
have to be either. And they're just like, you've just
unveiled this grand epiphany that nobody would have ever thought of.
And it's so simple. But it's that taking that time
and that patience to have those conversations and say, look,
you don't have to do that. And now a lot
of them will say, well, so and so that's a
former they're with Antifa now And I said, they're not
(16:23):
the radicalized. That's so many just flipped extreams. So and
then they go, ha, really, so you don't have to,
you know, do all these things. And just having that
patience to talk with them, because I found that that's
really really helped a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Jeff, So, for twenty seven years, you identified as a
neo Nazi. That was your identity. How how do you
identify now? Like what you know, what identity do you
have for yourself? Like you could call yourself an ex
neo Nazi, but I I'm hearing that maybe your identity
is a little bit different than that.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
Yeah, and that's that's a that's a good question too,
because a lot of us that do this work, you know,
it's like that's not who we are, that's not that's
not our Yes, it's what we do or that's who
we were, but like what we are now is something different.
So I don't know, that's I mean, it's a it's
a lot, it's a lot to unpack the question. I
(17:23):
guess you could say. But I think what gives me
meaning and purpose now is the work that I'm doing now.
So and this is important for a lot of people
that are getting out, is they need to have something
else that gives them that purpose. And like I was
talking to another guy the other day that's that we're
working with, and he's kind of on the fence. He's
(17:43):
not out completely yet, and he's like, you know, you
know when we were in the movement together. You know,
you went around the country and you were speaking and
things like that, and you're still kind of doing that.
It's just in a different realm now. And he says me,
I left the movement, but you're still not the radical.
He's like, I left the movement and now I have nothing,
Like I need to find that something so I mean,
(18:05):
and that is a really really common thing because people
were taking like their time off work and their vacations
and things like that to come and do movement events,
and now they lost that. They lost that so called community.
They lost all those people that were around them, and
they've a lot of them have been ostracized from their
families and it's a very lonely road at first. So
(18:26):
you have to find that you have first of all.
That's one of the reasons why I set up the
nonprofit was to make sure that people would have some
kind of community, that they'd have people that have been
through it, that they could talk through this stuff and
have somewhere to go. And then we try to help
them find whatever that purpose might be. You know, one
guy I know he learned to play guitar. Another young lady,
(18:48):
I know, she does extreme sports like jumping out of
planes and things like that, you know, to get that
adrenaline rush. You know, for someone else it's the church.
You know, it's different things for different people, but you know,
we try to find healthy things that they can repurpose in.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
And what I'm hearing from what you're saying as well,
is that as as outsiders like us, when we see
a Nazi, it's like seeing a funnel web. You instantly
know scary, scary, and yet we need the humanity to
meet them somewhere along the line if we ever want
to change that behavior us just being combative isn't and
frightened of them isn't going.
Speaker 4 (19:22):
To do that. You're right, and a lot of them,
you know, they like that fear factor that they seem
scary and things like that, and you know, if you
can kind of disarm that and see the person underneath
the symbols and see the humanity in them as well,
because you know they're not seeing the humanity because once
you dehumanize somebody, you know, you lose your own humanity,
and that process it's not gone forever. But that's literally
(19:44):
what it does is it takes away your humanity. So
they're accustomed to people being nasty to them, people scowling
at them, not being friendly, and sometimes when that's like,
those small acts of kindness can really break through and
kind of open that person up. And especially like in
the work you're doing with psychology and things, I'm sure
(20:07):
you know exactly what I'm talking about as far as
that goes.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
And the other piece that I think is important what
you were noting is the idea of what we call
replacement theory, which is if you're going to get somebody
just stop drinking, you know, what are they going to
be doing with their time? And it sounds so that's
exactly what you're doing. Is if they're leaving from something
that was so well consuming, what else can they do.
Maybe it is playing the guitar or doing something else,
(20:32):
but they need to be able to find something that
will be fulfilling.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
It's critical, It really is critical.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Yeah, i'd suggest cross stitch. I don't even do it,
but I think take up some cross stitch, make some
cushion covers.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Especially out really nasty words.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
On oh that's actually cross stitches where words I would
do that. Oh, absolutely do that.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Yeah, this has been really lovely talking Jeff. It's just
it's so great to to see the you know, the
arc of your story and to see that you have
come around and it sounds as though your life now
is about seeing about how you can make repair, about
how you can work towards and your credibility and being
(21:15):
able to do that is really he's really quite amazing.
Speaker 4 (21:20):
So thanks, thank you, ladies.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
Well, it's time for our glimmers in light of that,
discover that extraordinary discussion we just had.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
I mean, wasn't that amazing?
Speaker 1 (21:38):
You know, I'm feeling, I don't know, a little bit
hopeful about the world right now.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
What it said to me was that thing of we
need to meet in the middle. You can never change
anything until you let your own I'm talking about myself,
my own prejudices go. I'll always be prejudiced against Nazis,
funnily enough, but unless I step in, and he said,
a random act of kindness or humanity can change everything.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
It's amazing that encrusted.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
Well, speaking of that, which this is my this is
the reason I mentioned cross stitch, and it's my glimmer.
Is you know, I'm not a crafty person, Anita. I
know that I'm not a hobby person. You are not,
And yet I sent away for two very small cross
stitch kits. One is a little tin of sardines and
one's a little mini lobster. And they arrived this morning.
(22:30):
And I want to be that person.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Hummy, does thines you when you ordered these?
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Well, I saw them, maybe I did see them late
at night, and I thought, that looks like the kind
of thing I want to do when I'm relaxing and
not doom scrolling and doing some incredibly cute craft. Don't
hold me to having to do it. I was brought
into the promise of being the person who might.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
I am going to ask you in a year to
go and find them for me.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
And I'm going to find task.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
I'm going to find a task between now and then
and get someone to do it, and I'll say, look
at it.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
I finished and framed it and everything and everything. I
well well done, Amanda.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
It starts with one small step. As we just heard
from Jeff, it all starts with one small step step
and a bit of humanity from you.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Would it kill you? Yeah? I kind of.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Glim my glimmer is is this is not exactly crafty.
But we had occasion on the other day when I
was taking care of Logan that to have a box
in the house at quite a large box. And I've
got to say, there's something about a two year old
and a box. We we draw fort fort we had.
(23:47):
We put a pool in the middle of it. We drew,
you know, with with all kinds of felt markers all
over it. We yeah, it was. It was at least
several well several hours of hilarious and total joy.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Oh I love it in a box.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
I was always the person who wanted to keep every
box and my mother didn't want me to.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
And I now live with someone, my husband, Harwie, who
wants to keep every single box.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
And where do you like?
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Yeah, exactly, like exactly Anita, Oh yeah, got a two
year old in a box?
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Is a great combination, great combination. And we could throw it,
we could recycle it the next day.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Perfect love that We see you next time I see you.
Speaker 4 (24:36):
H
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