September 15, 2025 • 51 mins
Dr. Damon Berry, associate professor of religious studies at St. Lawrence University, regularly consults with federal law enforcement agencies including the FBI and FBI’s BAU-1 (Behavioral Analysis Unit One) on cases involving religious extremism and alt-right movements. In this conversation, we explore the challenges of translating academic research into practical guidance for investigators, including the difficult work of understanding belief systems and worldviews that are dangerous and toxic to pluralistic society. Berry discusses what law enforcement agencies understand well about these movements and how empathetic scholarship can inform counter-extremism efforts.
Dr. Berry's Books:
- Blood and Faith: Christianity in American White Nationalism (https://press.syr.edu/supressbooks/256/blood-and-faith/)
- Christianity and the Alt-Right: Exploring the Relationship (https://www.routledge.com/Christianity-and-the-Alt-Right-Exploring-the-Relationship/Berry/p/book/9780367340551)
- The New Apostolic Reformation, Trump, and Evangelical Politics (https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/new-apostolic-reformation-trump-and-evangelical-politics-9781350179431/)
Show Notes:
- Life After Hate (https://lifeafterhate.org/)
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chip Gruen (00:05):
Welcome to ReligionWise. I'm your host,
Chip Gruen. Today we welcomeback a guest who appeared about
a year ago to talk aboutreligion and the alt right.
Damon Berry, who's associateprofessor of religious studies
at St Lawrence University, cameon in season four, episode one,
to talk about the groups thatwe're talking about when we talk
(00:28):
about the alt right, some of thereligious diversity that exists
within those groups, thecomplexity of dealing with them
as they exist in communities andalso as individuals, operating
independently from one another.
Dr Berry studies these groups,and I think, more importantly,
for his work, how people areattracted to and find themselves
(00:49):
in communities that are based onan ideology of exclusion and
hate. Obviously, this is areally important topic right
now, all more more important allthe time, as these groups are
increasingly getting a seat atthe table and feel as if their
message is gaining traction,both in political circles and on
(01:13):
the national stage. Dr Berry'swork focuses, like I said, not
only on the radicalizationprocess, but wants to think
about deradicalization as well,so that the hate speech and the
crimes that these individualsand groups perpetrate can be
either thwarted beforehand or atleast confronted appropriately
(01:36):
after the fact. And I thinkthat that leads to our
conversation today. We didn'ttalk about it in that previous
episode, but based on thestrength of his work and his
monographs on these groups, theFBI, including their behavioral
(01:56):
analysis unit one has reachedout to Dr Berry over the course
of the last decade and more toconsult about understanding
these groups and what makes themtick and how to effectively deal
with them. And so I thought itwould be super useful to have
(02:18):
him back on to talk particularlyabout that, because, as you know
in the ReligionWise podcast,what we're interested in is the
intersection of religion andpublic life, and how we think
about religion and public life.
And so the governmentalagencies, including the FBI,
have to understand somethingabout religion in order to deal
(02:39):
with these groups, and so it'sedifying, at least for me, to
know that they are reaching outto people with expertise like Dr
Berry in order to sort ofstrengthen their ability to deal
with these threats and to thinkabout these groups, not only
from a political lens or apsychological lens, but also
(03:01):
that there are these deepcultural and religious forces
that might be affecting theirbehavior. So with that being
said, I'm very happy to welcomeDr Berry to the podcast. Damon
Berry, thanks for coming back onReligionWise.
Damon Berry (03:19):
Oh, my pleasure.
Chip Gruen (03:21):
So last time we talked we we talked a lot about
the groups that you study, whatis sometimes referred to as the
alt right, although that's akind of singularity that that
belies the complexity of thesegroups and their various
worldviews and the organizationsthat they they form or or how
(03:43):
they act as individuals. And Ireally wanted to have you back
on today, because I learned thatyou actually have done some
consulting work with federalagencies, in particular the FBI,
and sub unit of the FBI thatI'll let you talk about more to
sort of help fill that literacygap and develop strategies for
(04:05):
dealing with these kinds ofgroups. So I think I'm not alone
in thinking that just soundsfascinating, right? To think
about the way that thoseinteractions work, it's not
actually something I've thoughta lot about. You know, where
that information comes fromright that then is is acted on
by those agencies. So can youdescribe how you first became
(04:27):
involved in this work, theseinvolvements with the federal
federal law enforcement? Wasthis something you sought out?
Did they approach you based onyour work? What did that look
like?
Damon Berry (04:38):
Yeah, well, my engagement with these topics
that are relevant to lawenforcement actually goes back
to my undergraduate studies,which began in earnest, really
at the time 9/11 happened, so Ibecame intensely interested in
the relationships betweenviolence, specifically,
(05:00):
politically motivated violenceand religious discourses, but I
was more interested in domesticgroups, whereas that time
everybody was, I guess,understandably preoccupied with
foreign terrorist organizations.
So in a sense, I had kind of putmyself in that stream of
studying domestic terrorism fora long time, but my direct
(05:21):
engagement really begins about2017 about the time my first
book was published, which wasbased on my dissertation, and it
was actually the AmericanAcademy of Religion that put us
together, so the FBI, FederalBureau of Prisons, both of whom
I've spoken to through theAmerican Academy of Religion's
(05:44):
annual meeting, asked to speakwith me because of my published
work and its relevance todomestic terrorist behavior, but
also prison gangs, that sort ofthing. So but my first
conversation with the FBI was inabout 2017 with two other
scholars. I'm not sure I'mallowed to tell you who was
(06:06):
there, so I'll just defer andjust say it was two other
scholars who study similarmovements, and they asked us
questions. And I thought thatwas going to be a one off,
interesting experience. Theconversations were certainly
enlightening. The differences ofopinion in the room were
enlightening, but I didn't giveit any more thought than that,
(06:29):
and then shortly thereafter, theBehavioral Analysis Unit was
putting together the conferenceand thinking more seriously
about the kind of topics thateventually end up in that
document, and I'll give thetitle for the audience "Beyond
Belief - Preventing andCountering Violent Extremism in
(06:49):
America" And it was put togetherby the FBI Behavioral Analysis
Unit One, which focuses oncounter extremism, and
particularly learning aboutextremism from all kinds of
points of view, psychology,sociology, and then, of course,
the odd person out me, thehistorian of religions, but also
(07:10):
the National Center for theAnalysis of Violent Crime. And
so this was a long project thatwas put together over several
years. The eventual documentwasn't written by any of us, in
particular, the Department ofJustice and the FBI, and under
new leadership, the BAU haddecided to take more of a direct
(07:32):
control over the finishedproduct, whereas initially it
was thought that we would breakup into teams and write chapters
on our own, and they, theychange their mind about that,
but after that, more regionaloffices have kept contact with
me. So it's it's because of thekind of stuff that I focus on
(07:53):
and think about, and they areactually very eager to reach out
and learn from people who haveinformation that might be useful
in preventing and encounteringextremism, but also learning how
to better handle individuals whoare perhaps, perhaps on the road
to radicalization. And theeventual goal is to develop
(08:15):
processes, procedures, you know,ways of getting what we call a
left of bang, right. So if wecan interfere in someone's
radicalization process, get themperhaps the help they need
psychologically, or what haveyou, and prevent, uh, instances
of violence, that's really thegoal. So, and then, you know,
(08:36):
so, from the perspective of ahistorian of religion, right?
You got history as the method,and religion is the object, as
Bruce Lincoln stated. And so,you know, I, I think that's a
unique thing for a historian ofreligion to have that kind of
understanding of particularmovements and groups that are
active. And so they seek peoplelike that out.
Chip Gruen (09:01):
So, just from a historical perspective, and I
can't imagine this was named,but you know, the poster child
for the lack of literacy andlack of understanding is the
Waco. You know, the events atWaco...
Damon Berry (09:15):
Absolutely.
Chip Gruen (09:16):
...and the Branch Davidians. I mean, is that? I
mean, how do you do you see thisprocess as sort of growing
directly out of that was thatever named? How do they think
about those events?
Damon Berry (09:27):
Well, the Waco incident is, well, Ruby Ridge
and Waco together sort of formthis moment. And I don't get
this from the FBI themselves asmuch as just basic historical
research as best as I understandit. So with Ruby Ridge and Waco
together, the FBI and ATF beganthinking more seriously about
(09:49):
the way they do business, thesewere rather public debacles that
definitely made the situationworse and and I teach about
Waco, in my new religiousmovements class, and I have my
students do a project where theylearn as much as we can with the
time allotted about Waco, aboutthe Davidians, about the actual
(10:11):
claims, but also the media andpress events that FBI and ATF
were doing and how that maybecontributed to the tragedy. And
then I have them write up anexercise where they work in
teams as advisors to federal lawenforcement of like, if another
Waco should happen, what couldwe do differently? Well, the FBI
(10:31):
had been thinking about that fora while, and a part of what the
FBI's Behavioral Analysis UnitOne is about is trying to be
smarter about these approaches.
So how do you get into asituation and use the experts
available, which they did havereligion experts available, but
they didn't pay them much mindfrom those who were present,
(10:53):
saying basically that we wereignored. We warned them about
this apocalyptic ideology thatthey were playing right into the
narrative that tragedy was wasgoing to happen if they didn't
approach this differently, andthey were summarily ignored. So
again, my best understanding ofthe internal changes that took
place was learning that theseexperts that can be accessed at
(11:15):
the AAR, for example, actuallydo have something to offer. And
so yeah, there were significantchanges, and especially around
2017 this is about the time thatCharlottesville was happening,
and the FBI is starting torefocus, I won't say focus for
the first time, but refocus in aspecific way on white
supremacist and whitenationalist domestic terrorism
(11:39):
or domestic violent extremism isthe specific term that's used.
So, so yeah, they theydefinitely Waco and Ruby Ridge
together contributed to a shiftin the approach to groups like
this.
Chip Gruen (11:57):
Well, while we're in the specific timeline and
thinking historically here, Iwonder, you know, when you were
getting into this work in 2017 Imean, there's obviously a big
change afoot in the federaladministration, you know, in the
executive branch of the UnitedStates government that has
direct, well maybe now, moredirect control over the FBI than
(12:21):
they did now. But how do youfind your interactions, you
know, in the last eight years orso? I mean, do they change? Do
they ebb and flow depending onon what that executive looks
like, or is there more of apersistent bureaucratic drive
right to do this work?
Damon Berry (12:42):
Well, yeah, I mean absolutely. The political
priorities shift, the groundshifts. And you know when people
say the government you shouldnever imagine and that's a
singular entity, except now thatthe DOJ's independence, which
was always sort of understoodthat that was going to be the
(13:04):
case, that the FBI'sindependence, that that was
always understood to be thecase. That's no longer exactly
the way things are, though it'smore complicated than that,
right? But in the context of2017 you still had, and through
2020 you had, you knowprofessionals who were not very
interested in the politicalgamesmanship that were concerned
(13:28):
about the violence. So you getChristopher Ray testifying even
when at the tail end of Trump'sfirst administration that that
no these domestic violentextremist groups are the most
significant terrorism threat thehomeland faces, and that's needs
to be our focus. HomelandSecurity is another matter.
That's another conversation.
But, but for the FBI and theDOJ, they're supposed to be
(13:50):
independent. And you know, forthose who perhaps have lived
long enough or know theirhistory, you know, this is the
kinds of shifts that we'reseeing right now in the DOJ and
the FBI is exactly what Nixontried to do. But that's where
Deep Throat comes in. And so,you know, there was a
(14:11):
resistance, always resistance,and there may yet still be
resistance that we don't knowabout but, but, yeah, always the
political winds shift, and, andwe're one sort of cataclysmic
attack away from a major,potentially major shift in
national priorities. And, andthis, this kind of work, ideally
(14:33):
is, is being done by people whoare dedicated professionals, who
have no interest in thepolitical gamesmanship. But the
reality is is the priority isset by elected officials who put
people into office, and thosepeople in those offices make
decisions about what resourcesare spent, where and how and for
what reason. So, yeah, you'realways I mean, one of the
(14:55):
reasons I like doing what I'mdoing is I get to contribute
where I can but I don't have toworry about those strengths
quite so much as if I wereworking for them, if that makes
sense, right?
Chip Gruen (15:08):
So to get back to a more general conversation about
the kinds of interactions youhave. So you mentioned this
report, this Beyond Beliefreport, which we might have
occasion to come back to andtalk a little bit more
specifically, but beyond that,and you talk about regional
offices, what kind of situationsare you dealing with? Is it
(15:30):
active investigations, trainingpurposes, or something that I'm
not imagining? Like when theyreach out to you, what is the
sort of the level of urgency andthe character of those
conversations?
Damon Berry (15:43):
Yeah, so again, to some degree, it has to do with
jurisdiction. So you have theFBI journals jurisdiction and
their their view and look atthings is going to be different
in many ways, from, let's say, alocal law enforcement or bureau
of prisons and those interestsand the way that they work
(16:03):
together, even with the JointTerrorism Task Force, which
includes military investigatorslike sometimes this stuff can be
overlapping, depending on thekind of cases you're dealing
with, BAU is mainly forbackground and general
intelligence purposes. So youwouldn't be, and of course, I
(16:24):
haven't been read into anyparticular active cases that
would be, that would besomething else. Usually, what I
ended up doing, and have donepretty consistently, is just
give background, generalinformation, a general
understanding with the localoffice, you know, thinking about
(16:47):
the region and sort of who'sactive in the region, is there a
way to know through openintelligence sources, which
means, like, you know, anypublications or online posts, or
you know, what have you, anyanything that is accessible
without a warrant, that that aresearcher can get a hold of. So
(17:08):
that's usually the kind of stuffI do. Being read in on a
specific case would bedifferent, and I haven't yet,
and that's probably not,especially now, it's probably
not something that's going tohappen, particularly if, if you
know there might be reason thatif I were to be called to
testify as an expert witness oras a witness for the prosecutor,
(17:33):
they may or may not want me tobe in the middle of all that,
right? Because you know my rolefor them is not as an
investigator. That's not what Ido. My role for them is to
provide that backgroundinformation so that they can
conduct their investigationsmore, hopefully more
effectively.
Chip Gruen (17:52):
So when you're giving these, I don't know,
these briefings, or you're,you're, you know, reading them
in on the background and thehistory. I imagine that this is
a two way street, and you canglean a little bit about where
their holes are, like where youknow things that that they don't
know, that they really need toknow, or even things that they
(18:15):
think they know that they needto be disabused of. What is the
character of that knowledge whenyou walk into the room, what
have you been able to read aboutthat?
Damon Berry (18:24):
Well, actually, it's very genial, very
welcoming, very kind. I'vealways found the folks, I mean,
with rare exception, there isone individual that stands out
in my mind early on as not veryopen to these things. And I
never spoke to him again forsome reason. So I don't know if
they were like, you know, he gotreassigned. I don't, I don't
know, but, but for the mostpart, my experience has been
(18:49):
overwhelmingly positive. They'vecome in and just said, Look,
you're the expert. We don't knowwhat you know. That's why you're
here. So here are our questions,and if there's anything we're
missing, please feel free toinform us. I mean, I that's one
of the things that really blewme away, is understanding, at
least the culture of the folksthat I've been privy to,
(19:09):
especially in the BAU they'revery, very intelligent, very
inquisitive people. They doactive investigations, but they
also spend their days educatingthemselves on how to do their
work better, and they take it.
They take prevention veryseriously within the bounds of
the law, because, of course, theFirst Amendment and Fourth
Amendment prohibits certainkinds of investigative behaviors
(19:30):
that may be an asset,particularly for so called lone
wolf actors. But you know,within the boundaries of the
law, what intelligence can weuse? What assets can we use?
What knowledge can we use toidentify somebody who's on the
path to extremist behavior andmaybe get in front of that and
get them the help they need, thedeterrences that they need, and
(19:53):
in those cases, I've never dealtwith anyone who didn't want to
just learn as much as theycould. So, so I guess, in one
sense, what I've gleaned is thethe the culture of of the BAU is
one of, I mean, it's definitelya police culture. It's
(20:14):
definitely a law enforcementculture. It's the FBI is still
very much sort of a gung ho. Imean, a lot of the folks that
work there are veterans, not allof them, but a lot of them are
but, but they're very they'revery intellectually promiscuous,
I guess I would say, when itcomes to getting the information
they need to do their jobseffectively. So and in the
(20:35):
questions you can kind of learn,you can kind of read between the
lines and figure out whatthey're trying to get at and
what you need to help themunderstand. And in particularly
from my point of view, is thatsomething that you mentioned
outside this conversation isthat in that report Beyond
Belief, religion appears exactlyone time, and that's part of the
(20:59):
problem is, I think they're alittle averse, at least in this
moment, to reference religiontoo much. And certainly some of
the conversations have basicallysaid, look, the ideological
drives are often not asprominent in extreme in
radicalization, as peopleusually think, right? So I think
(21:21):
at this moment, folks are alittle averse to bring up
religion, particularly when itcomes to those who might be
Christian oriented and anddefinitely trying to be careful
about sort of feeding intoIslamophobic tropes. And I think
(21:42):
that's that's some of theinformation that I've sort of
read through the questions andthe way that the final product
is presented. But in privateconversation, they're they're
much more engaged with thereligion question.
Chip Gruen (22:02):
I'm just thinking about the religious diversity
question, right? Because if it'smentioned exactly once in the
report, then it doesn't show areal keen interest in thinking
about the potential differencesin religious diversity that
might exist like that we'vetalked about previously.
Damon Berry (22:20):
Yeah, well, I would say that no they do care, and
they often just don't understandit, right? So just by way of
example, I'm doing my globalChristianities course, and the
first several classes are likeeverything you thought you knew
about the history ofChristianity is narrow, but also
(22:43):
kind of false, right? Becausethere's a more complex story
here that involves minutia thatyou would never be exposed to if
you didn't seek it out. And sothat's kind of the approach that
I bring when I talk to them.
It's like, I know this seemsfrom an outsider's perspective,
it seems like these, many ofthese differences seem
(23:05):
insignificant, but they actuallymatter quite a bit. And it
matters even more whenhistorical differences, and this
is mainly my drive in studyingreligion and the white
nationalist movement, it's likethe differences are actually the
point of strategic negotiationamong and between groups. And
the whole move to become moresecularized at a certain moment,
(23:29):
right, to focus on the politicalgoal of white nationalism and
not worry about the religiouselement and leave that, you
know, as a as an a topic wedon't care about, right? So you
don't usually think aboutreligious toleration as a
necessary political move amongwhite nationalist groups. And
yet, there it was. But this isnot something that most people
(23:51):
would even know about. And lawenforcement, of course, they
they work all day. They don'thave time to do all this
research, right? They haveactive investigations. So in
private conversation, they doget that information. It's just,
I don't think they always knowexactly what it means when
they're writing their finalproduct. Had had the original
(24:12):
plan for this project continuedbecause it really matured over
several years. Had it continued,we would have been paired up,
like I said, and part of thatpairing up, at least on my end,
would have been having thatconversation about the
complexity of religiousrepresentation and
(24:35):
identification among differentgroups, both foreign and
domestic. But that's not theproduct that we got. So you get
more of a slim down documentthat represents the interests of
far fewer people who contributedto that conversation.
Chip Gruen (24:54):
So I want to chase that down, that religious
diversity of peace piece bythinking about the way that
agents and their supervisor dealwith religious diversity
generally. I mean, givenconstitutional protections, like
there are religious communitiesand ideologies that we might
(25:15):
find abhorrent, but are notextremist, at least in their
actions or their activities, sothat there's a certain amount of
protection that goes on here,but yet you kind of have to know
about and monitor those thingsthat might be less practically
interested. I'm just thinkingabout the balance between those
(25:36):
two things right, betweenconstitutionally protected
religion and, you know, what didyou say left of bang, right? You
know that the prevention ofextremist activities?
Damon Berry (25:50):
Yeah, well, I mean, that's the dance. That's,
that's, I mean, honestly, that'sthe difficulty. So I think the
clearest example of this is soafter the first assassination
attempt against then candidateTrump, the Monday after this, I
was already scheduled to meetwith a couple of folks from the
(26:12):
FBI and to just continue, justas a normal thing that we would
do, like we'd meet every sooften, And we would have a
conversation about whatever isinteresting to them, but also
things that could come up. So ofcourse, you know, we step in
into the room on that Monday,and I said, Well, I guess we
don't have much to talk abouttoday, do we fellas? So is that
(26:35):
moment of of levity, of justkind of, oh my god, you
couldn't, I mean, it's insane,and what I was able to find,
what was publicly availableabout the shooter who was killed
was a good point of conversationabout the kinds of threats that
we're facing and thecomplexities of the legal
(26:57):
boundaries of proper lawenforcement, which we definitely
want in place, right? So we wantFirst Amendment protections. It
is not illegal for someone tosay, in my religion, we don't
agree with x, and we should doeverything we can to stand in
the way of that, right? If wewant, if we have probable cause
(27:19):
or reasonable suspicion,depending on how the courts will
view that, when you seek awarrant, you may be able to get
access to, you know,surveillance of of their other
activities, if there'ssufficient legal cause to
warrant a warrant, but alsoFourth Amendment protections,
(27:40):
right? We don't want thosewarrants to be given willy
nilly. We've had thisconversation in the context of
the war on terror, and we wewent in a very dangerous
direction with surveillance andbasically vacuuming up
everybody's information and, youknow, having it stored and
processed for analysis when it'sflagged. So there's all kinds of
(28:03):
pitfalls here. But on the otherhand, that shooter, and of
course, the Buffalo shooter aswell, the person who went to a
grocery store in Buffalo, NewYork and killed as many African
Americans as he could point hisweapon at. He didn't make any
notices prior to the action, asI understand it, it was his
(28:25):
manifesto, and the things thathe was saying he was going to do
were found after the fact. Youhad even less to understand the
motive of the Trump's would beassassin. And I made the
argument that there was nothingthere, even if you had a
warrant, there was nothing thereto indicate what he was going to
do. And so, you know, how do westop these so called lone wolf?
(28:51):
It's not a good term, right? Butthese individual extremist acts
that seem to come out ofnowhere, right? Well, there is
there, there, more often thannot, there is something to
indicate that they were doingsomething or they were planning
something. And more often thannot, that's information is going
to come from people know them,who are close to them, in
(29:12):
proximity, but sometimes youwon't know and and so it's it's
a delicate dance between, how dowe prevent acts of violence that
seem to be something that youcan't predict very easily, and
certainly not without treadingon First Amendment and Fourth
(29:33):
Amendment, basic protections.
And honestly, that is, that is apuzzle I still scratch my head
about. And of course, I'm not alawyer, so my view on this is
just simply the historical dataavailable seems to indicate that
this is the trend. It's a trendthat we see. no reason will
abate. So, yeah, I don't know.
(29:57):
Honestly, the whole point is toprevent. It. But if you can't
see it coming, you know, what doyou do?
Chip Gruen (30:04):
Yeah, I'm just wondering, you know, and I guess
I hadn't thought about it thisway before, but, but if you have
community actors, right, peoplewho are working in concert with
one another, like there is muchmore to be analyzed, right, to
be picked up. You haveconversations, you have, you
know, something that is sharedright, that will be on some
(30:27):
level. I mean, not public, likein the newspaper, but at least
public, like it can be heard andseen, whereas these individual
actors, you know, a lot of thatis just going on, you know,
internally. And so I'm thinkingabout, like the relative
usefulness that the FBI orsimilar or local law enforcement
sees. I mean, I imagine you'releaving and a psychologist is
(30:51):
coming in right behind you,right? Like that there's got to
be a conversation right aboutthe usefulness, utility, about
these things that can be moreanthropologically studied or
historically studied andunderstood, versus the
individual psychology of whatgoes behind somebody who's going
to perpetrate one of these acts?
Damon Berry (31:09):
Yeah. I mean, that's exactly right. Again,
these different areas ofspecialization that they pick up
on both people who are internalto the agency and maybe assigned
to that unit, but also the folksthat they're going to be, you
know, trying to learn about, youknow, because, because I've been
asked on more than one occasionto say, recommend people who are
(31:30):
working on these things in otherfields, right? And so they do
actively seek out, specificallypsychologists, right? Just for a
little background, for those whodon't know, the Behavioral
Analysis Unit used to be calledthe Behavioral Sciences Unit,
and that's where John Douglasand all these profilers start
started, you know, a certainkind of conversation about, how
(31:52):
do we, how do we learn about thepsychological traits of people
who are you know, eventuallythey coined the term serial
killers, right? And how that'sdifferent from spree spree
killing, and how the how thesepsychological markers can help
us see somebody who may be apotential threat, or at least in
the context of an activeinvestigation, is it a serial
(32:14):
offense? Are there markers thattell us something that we should
be looking for as we investigatetry to find out who did these
crimes. So that's where BAUactually comes from. BAU is a
much more expanded understandingof that approach, so it's still
very dominated by psychology andcriminology, which necessarily
(32:35):
involves sociological and tosome degree, anthropological
approaches and and I gotta say,I think for somebody who does
something that is firmlyembedded in the humanities, I'm
kind of an oddity. It's not truein the context of the entirety
of the study of terrorism. Soone of the world's leading
(32:56):
experts on Incel violence andIncel extremist attacks is
actually somebody who has herPhD, I believe, in gender
studies. So there is a broadersort of academic world for the
study of these, these types ofthings. But for the most part,
the FBI tends to favorpsychological and criminological
(33:21):
approaches, which makes perfectsense. So, I mean, again, so the
way they're going to frame upthe conversation for themselves
is just going to look verydifferent from the conversations
they have with me in that room,which they may or some of that
may or may not stick. I mean, ifyou can imagine somebody who is
sort of an average educated,some cases highly educated
(33:45):
American, who's relativelysecular in their outlook.
They're just not going to seereligion in the same way as
someone who studies it for aliving. So just bridging that
gap between what are theassumptions when they walk into
the room versus what they'reprepared to process when you
walk out of that room, and youhave no control over that.
Chip Gruen (34:07):
So thinking about this methodologically, one of
the big emphases of yourresearch and teaching, and one
of the reasons I enjoy your workso much is because it it really
wants to think about ideologicalempathy, not sympathy, not...
Damon Berry (34:25):
Exactly.
Chip Gruen (34:26):
Yeah. I don't know how to say it exactly, right?
Damon Berry (34:28):
It's difficult.
It's a difficult line to walk.
Yeah.
Chip Gruen (34:31):
But, but the idea that you that in order to
counter or understand, or, youknow, deal fruitfully, right
with these people. If thatmeans, you know, thwarting
attacks or bringing people tojustice or whatever, you kind of
(34:51):
need to know how they tick,right? You kind of need to know
what that looks like from theinside. But that seems, it
doesn't seem like that kind ofempathetic understanding would
be sort of the the mark of theFBI. How, I mean, how, when you
(35:14):
bring these methods to the fore,how do they respond to that, and
how do they think about that?
And can they process that kindof way of understanding?
Damon Berry (35:21):
And that was certainly my assumption, that
they were just interested ingetting them, let's just get
them. There is an element ofthat where, like the goal here
is to investigate and prosecutesuccessfully criminal behavior,
right? And that's an importantdistinction in and of itself,
(35:42):
right? So for something to be aterrorist action, it has to be a
criminal act in and of itself.
So it's sort of like hate crimein New York State is an
enhancer, right? So, like,you're not allowed to assault
anyone, right? You're notallowed to like, it is either a
high level misdemeanor or afelony to assault somebody on
(36:03):
the street, right? But the hatecrime enhancer comes in when I
say it's because of youridentity or what I perceive your
identity to be, right? So Iidentify as a CIS, hetero male
and but if somebody perceivesthat I'm homosexual because of I
(36:23):
don't know, a shirt I'm wearing,and indicates that that
motivated the assault, that thatapparent motivation can be an
enhancer on the assault right.
And in New York State, you endup on a registry, same as if you
were a sex offender, it's a hatecrime registry. Terrorism works
(36:44):
similarly, and that blowing up abuilding is a criminal act, but
blowing up a building motivatedto incite fear, to some
political end, right, or toattack a group to gain some
political advantage, and that'skind of the more common
(37:04):
definition of terrorism,certainly the one the FBI has
put out. So it's alreadyillegal, but your motivations
and the reasons and the and thatand sort of the process of going
through that criminal actindicates terroristic intent. So
that can that's when it becomesan act of terrorism or
(37:26):
extremism. And these terms arereally kind of muddy and
difficult, but so they need tothink about what's motivating
people. They need to understand,because that's part of how
you're going to investigate, butit's also how you're going to
write up eventually at the DOJ,when they when the prosecutor
writes up the charges and seeksthe indictment and and then
(37:49):
prosecutes the case, they needto prove that you were motivated
by a certain, I guess, yeah,ideological motivation, so that
on one end, they can't asinvestigators, they can't afford
to act like it doesn't matter.
But that's not something that isimmediately apparent to
everyone, but also the thingthat blew me away and one of
(38:11):
these sessions where it was fourdays of talking to each other
over zoom and interviewingformers, people who have
committed acts of extremistviolence, but also people who
were maybe involved in extremistgroups. And there, I mean, that
was one of the best learningexperiences I have ever had, and
that was listening to theseformers explain themselves and
(38:33):
talk about their experiences andand then also, in some cases,
talking with the people whoarrested them, who still are in
contact with them, and in somecases, the psychologists who
work with them and continue towork with them. And that was one
of the more enlightening thingsI've ever experienced, and that
(38:54):
is on one end, like thepractical use of a former is
they have insights that you cannever have. They lived a life
that you couldn't live, right?
So they're going to have thingsto tell you that are going to be
extremely important forunderstanding how to investigate
(39:14):
but also prevent other acts ofextremist violence. But on the
other hand, too, you learn thatultimately what you're doing is
discourse analysis. You'reanalyzing a narrative because
the only way you have access towhat they experienced is what
they tell you, and so you haveto have a sort of literary
(39:38):
approach to things so that youcan really understand what's
what's being communicated toyou. I mean, on one hand, you
don't want to ever takeanybody's word for it. I mean,
you know, when we tell storiesabout ourselves, it's a
carefully selected narrative forparticular reasons, even if it
seems self deprecating. So youhave to have, again, some sort
(40:04):
of empathy, not exactlysympathy, but empathy, to try to
understand what's motivating theparticular speech act, but also
what the content of the speechact can actually mean, because
there's you can read it on itsface like a transcript, but then
the body language and the waythat they communicate, the way
they hold their head, thatcommunicates all sorts of subtle
(40:27):
cues to what's going on insidetheir mind as they're narrating
their experiences to you. Doesthat make sense?
Chip Gruen (40:34):
Yeah, it does. It makes me think though that you
know, given how useful thatexperience was for you and how
much you were able to glean fromit. It seems like we have a
system right now where there arelaw enforcement officers who try
to get read up on or geteducated on, you know, the
methods and the context and youknow the cultural realities,
(40:58):
right that you can offer,religious context that you can
offer. I mean, I guess I wonderif there is any movement or
desire to have it be theopposite, right? That you get
somebody who's a PhD inreligion, who gets read up on
being a law enforcement officer,as opposed to the other way
around, right? I think you hearabout things like that with with
(41:19):
the CIA and foreign intelligencesometimes, but it seems like it
could be useful here as well.
Damon Berry (41:24):
Well. I mean, ultimately, I mean, when I was
an undergrad, I didn't think Iwas going to be a professor. I
was, you know, kind of stitchedtogether my own degree program
of security and intelligence andReligious Studies. And then when
I went to graduate school, I waskind of disabused of the idea
that I wanted to work with theCIA or some agency like that. I
(41:48):
mean, it couldn't be CIA,because I focused on domestic
anyway. But I mean, you know, Iwas kind of, it was in the
context of the War on Terrorabout 2005 through 2007 I was
flirting with the idea of goinginto public service, and I just
lost my taste for it, as manypeople did about that time
period, and I just kind ofbecame an academic by default.
(42:11):
But that, you know, the ideathat I would do full time
analytical work for some agencyand counter terrorism was always
an option for me. In my mind, itstill kind of is as I think
about things I'm not I'm notnecessarily wedded to my
identity as an academic. It'sjust it's what I do and and I
(42:36):
feel like it's of use to folks,and so that's enough for me. I
don't need a particular identityto feel like my work is
worthwhile. So I would say, ifsomebody is interested in law
enforcement or law school or,you know, working in counter
(42:57):
extremism, even as at an NGO, Iwould say, and I have said in
many occasions, in theseconversations with law
enforcement that citizensleuths, as they came to be
called during January 6, rightor individual, non government
organizations who are able to dothings with a level of
(43:17):
engagement that law enforcementJust can't do so Life After Hate
is one organization, and I'msure you can link this in the
broadcast. They they spend theirwhole time, and it's a lot of
them are formers, if not all ofthem are formers. They spend
their time online, communicatingwith people who were perhaps
radicalizing as Dylann Roof did,online. You know, becoming they
(43:41):
have general racist tendenciesand that get articulated through
this fear of Black crime, whichbecome focused into a grievance
where they they think murderingBlack people to start a race war
is the only way to deal withthings right so NGOs can spend
their folks working with NGOs,or individual citizens can spend
(44:01):
their time using theirbackground and understanding of
these movements, of whatmotivates this behavior, to do
all sorts of positive thingsthat law enforcement just can't
dedicate the resources to. Ifthat makes sense to you.
Chip Gruen (44:16):
Yeah, I mean, I guess it's just a shame, because
it seems like, I mean, I guessthat we're always running up
against limited resources,right? But it seems like the
expertise that you, for example,have to offer, would be useful
on the other side of that wallin the investigation itself,
rather than just as providingcontext and background.
Damon Berry (44:37):
Well, I mean, it's not beyond the realm of
possibility that there would bea specific case where they would
feel like, we want you read infor x, y purposes. But I
understand why they wouldn'tnecessarily want that, given
especially our politicalenvironment, one to have a
professor, you know, in thecurrent DOJ environment, that
(44:59):
would not be very welcome, asyou can imagine. So I mean,
after all that, the nowcommander in chief referred to
professors as vermin, so I don'timagine that I'll be quite
welcome inside of investigationat this point. But also some of
(45:19):
the work that I can that I'veproduced is often misread as
mere attacks on the Trumpadministration, which is
definitely not the case. Soyeah, I understand why I'm not
necessarily an asset to aparticular case, that the
background information that Iprovide is probably where I'm
(45:41):
best suited. But it's notbeyond, beyond the realm of
possibility, if someone hasspecialized, specific knowledge
and ability with language, saythat they could train for the
specific purposes of beingdirectly involved in
investigations, whether that isa law enforcement agent or as an
(46:01):
investigator or analysis oranalyst. And I think you know,
as we're thinking aboutreligious studies, and the
future of religious studies,which seems bleak indeed, in
this moment, those who are ingraduate school should be
thinking about where they canuse their talents, and if you
have a particular aversion tolaw enforcement, which I
(46:24):
understand, I would justencourage you that not every
agency is the exact same. All ofit is complicated, and much of
it's very bureaucratic, butthere are people who are
involved in this work who carevery deeply and want to learn
and want your expertise, and youshouldn't shy away from giving
it because you don't know thekind of a positive effect you
(46:46):
can have if we look at just theway that example, you talked
about Waco. In the aftermath ofWaco, they had a big wake up
call about how badly they weredoing these things, and that
changed the conversation. Ittook a long time to get to the
point where they're activelyseeking out people at the AAR to
learn more. But nonetheless, youknow, if you do nothing, then
(47:12):
perhaps nothing changes.
Chip Gruen (47:14):
So we are, I mean, it goes without saying that we
are living in interesting timeswhere everything is changing so
dramatically, whether it beonline presences and social
media, and I don't know how itwould be involved, but
artificial intelligence and thepolitical landscape changing and
like everything is being thrownup in the air simultaneously.
(47:34):
With that being said, I want tokind of end with the question I
like to end on, which is, whatare we not talking about, right,
particularly given this changein context that we really should
be or that we might be talkingabout more in the coming years?
Damon Berry (47:48):
Well, I mean, for good or ill, the shape of the
presidency has changeddramatically because of Supreme
Court decisions, and that meansassuming that there are
elections in 26 and 28 that thepolitical landscape could change
dramatically. And I will warn,again I usually shun
(48:12):
predictions, but we've alreadyseen it. If those who are, let's
say, dedicated to Trump's visionand agenda. Even if they are a
minority, which they are,there's a real reason why
they've been quiet since thepardons of the January 6
(48:33):
offenders. There's a real reasonwhy they're quiet militia
groups, which I'm working onright now. They had always
warned that the government woulduse federal forces to suppress
people in their states treadingon state sovereignty. Well, here
it is, and not a peep, andthere's a reason, and that is
(48:56):
because this is what theywanted, and that's not a guess.
Elmer Stewart Rhodes, founder ofOath Keepers, one of the things
that got him convicted beforehis sentence was commuted and he
was pardoned, was him sayingthat he wanted to use Oath
Keepers and other groups asparamilitaries on in open
(49:16):
letters to the President. It'snot available anymore, but you
know, the internet is theinternet. It's never fully gone
and to support maintaining hisoffice in 2020 and I would fully
expect that once they are nolonger able to keep the veneer
(49:37):
of legality in their behaviorright now, the Trump
administration, that we will seea resurgence of that commitment
to use extra legal means tomaintain power. There's no
reason to assume that won'thappen. I mean, one of the I
don't want to say specificallywho it was, because I can't
(49:57):
remember who it was that saidexactly this, but one of the
former, well, I guess currently,high ranking members of the
Proud Boys, who was alsopardoned for their actions on
January 6, said that there's noreason for them to be active
right now, because they'regetting everything they want.
And I think that's a strongindication as things go, if the
(50:20):
political winds do changeagainst them. We're going to
need people who understand thisstuff, because it's not going to
just go away. There's no reasonto believe that.
Chip Gruen (50:28):
All right, as bleak as that is, I think it's a good
place to end. I reallyappreciate your time. Really
appreciate your work on this.
Thank you, Damon Berry, forcoming back on ReligionWise.
This has been great.
Damon Berry (50:41):
My pleasure, my friend, thank you for having me.
Chip Gruen (50:45):
This has been ReligionWise, a podcast produced
by the Institute for Religiousand Cultural Understanding of
Muhlenberg College. ReligionWiseis produced and directed by
Christine Flicker. For moreinformation about additional
programming, or to make aninquiry about a speaking
engagement, please visit ourwebsite at
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(51:05):
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we look forward to seeing younext time.
Welcome to ReligionWise. I'm your host,
Chip Gruen. Today we welcomeback a guest who appeared about
a year ago to talk aboutreligion and the alt right.
Damon Berry, who's associateprofessor of religious studies
at St Lawrence University, cameon in season four, episode one,
to talk about the groups thatwe're talking about when we talk
(00:28):
about the alt right, some of thereligious diversity that exists
within those groups, thecomplexity of dealing with them
as they exist in communities andalso as individuals, operating
independently from one another.
Dr Berry studies these groups,and I think, more importantly,
for his work, how people areattracted to and find themselves
(00:49):
in communities that are based onan ideology of exclusion and
hate. Obviously, this is areally important topic right
now, all more more important allthe time, as these groups are
increasingly getting a seat atthe table and feel as if their
message is gaining traction,both in political circles and on
(01:13):
the national stage. Dr Berry'swork focuses, like I said, not
only on the radicalizationprocess, but wants to think
about deradicalization as well,so that the hate speech and the
crimes that these individualsand groups perpetrate can be
either thwarted beforehand or atleast confronted appropriately
(01:36):
after the fact. And I thinkthat that leads to our
conversation today. We didn'ttalk about it in that previous
episode, but based on thestrength of his work and his
monographs on these groups, theFBI, including their behavioral
(01:56):
analysis unit one has reachedout to Dr Berry over the course
of the last decade and more toconsult about understanding
these groups and what makes themtick and how to effectively deal
with them. And so I thought itwould be super useful to have
(02:18):
him back on to talk particularlyabout that, because, as you know
in the ReligionWise podcast,what we're interested in is the
intersection of religion andpublic life, and how we think
about religion and public life.
And so the governmentalagencies, including the FBI,
have to understand somethingabout religion in order to deal
(02:39):
with these groups, and so it'sedifying, at least for me, to
know that they are reaching outto people with expertise like Dr
Berry in order to sort ofstrengthen their ability to deal
with these threats and to thinkabout these groups, not only
from a political lens or apsychological lens, but also
(03:01):
that there are these deepcultural and religious forces
that might be affecting theirbehavior. So with that being
said, I'm very happy to welcomeDr Berry to the podcast. Damon
Berry, thanks for coming back onReligionWise.
Damon Berry (03:19):
Oh, my pleasure.
Chip Gruen (03:21):
So last time we talked we we talked a lot about
the groups that you study, whatis sometimes referred to as the
alt right, although that's akind of singularity that that
belies the complexity of thesegroups and their various
worldviews and the organizationsthat they they form or or how
(03:43):
they act as individuals. And Ireally wanted to have you back
on today, because I learned thatyou actually have done some
consulting work with federalagencies, in particular the FBI,
and sub unit of the FBI thatI'll let you talk about more to
sort of help fill that literacygap and develop strategies for
(04:05):
dealing with these kinds ofgroups. So I think I'm not alone
in thinking that just soundsfascinating, right? To think
about the way that thoseinteractions work, it's not
actually something I've thoughta lot about. You know, where
that information comes fromright that then is is acted on
by those agencies. So can youdescribe how you first became
(04:27):
involved in this work, theseinvolvements with the federal
federal law enforcement? Wasthis something you sought out?
Did they approach you based onyour work? What did that look
like?
Damon Berry (04:38):
Yeah, well, my engagement with these topics
that are relevant to lawenforcement actually goes back
to my undergraduate studies,which began in earnest, really
at the time 9/11 happened, so Ibecame intensely interested in
the relationships betweenviolence, specifically,
(05:00):
politically motivated violenceand religious discourses, but I
was more interested in domesticgroups, whereas that time
everybody was, I guess,understandably preoccupied with
foreign terrorist organizations.
So in a sense, I had kind of putmyself in that stream of
studying domestic terrorism fora long time, but my direct
(05:21):
engagement really begins about2017 about the time my first
book was published, which wasbased on my dissertation, and it
was actually the AmericanAcademy of Religion that put us
together, so the FBI, FederalBureau of Prisons, both of whom
I've spoken to through theAmerican Academy of Religion's
(05:44):
annual meeting, asked to speakwith me because of my published
work and its relevance todomestic terrorist behavior, but
also prison gangs, that sort ofthing. So but my first
conversation with the FBI was inabout 2017 with two other
scholars. I'm not sure I'mallowed to tell you who was
(06:06):
there, so I'll just defer andjust say it was two other
scholars who study similarmovements, and they asked us
questions. And I thought thatwas going to be a one off,
interesting experience. Theconversations were certainly
enlightening. The differences ofopinion in the room were
enlightening, but I didn't giveit any more thought than that,
(06:29):
and then shortly thereafter, theBehavioral Analysis Unit was
putting together the conferenceand thinking more seriously
about the kind of topics thateventually end up in that
document, and I'll give thetitle for the audience "Beyond
Belief - Preventing andCountering Violent Extremism in
(06:49):
America" And it was put togetherby the FBI Behavioral Analysis
Unit One, which focuses oncounter extremism, and
particularly learning aboutextremism from all kinds of
points of view, psychology,sociology, and then, of course,
the odd person out me, thehistorian of religions, but also
(07:10):
the National Center for theAnalysis of Violent Crime. And
so this was a long project thatwas put together over several
years. The eventual documentwasn't written by any of us, in
particular, the Department ofJustice and the FBI, and under
new leadership, the BAU haddecided to take more of a direct
(07:32):
control over the finishedproduct, whereas initially it
was thought that we would breakup into teams and write chapters
on our own, and they, theychange their mind about that,
but after that, more regionaloffices have kept contact with
me. So it's it's because of thekind of stuff that I focus on
(07:53):
and think about, and they areactually very eager to reach out
and learn from people who haveinformation that might be useful
in preventing and encounteringextremism, but also learning how
to better handle individuals whoare perhaps, perhaps on the road
to radicalization. And theeventual goal is to develop
(08:15):
processes, procedures, you know,ways of getting what we call a
left of bang, right. So if wecan interfere in someone's
radicalization process, get themperhaps the help they need
psychologically, or what haveyou, and prevent, uh, instances
of violence, that's really thegoal. So, and then, you know,
(08:36):
so, from the perspective of ahistorian of religion, right?
You got history as the method,and religion is the object, as
Bruce Lincoln stated. And so,you know, I, I think that's a
unique thing for a historian ofreligion to have that kind of
understanding of particularmovements and groups that are
active. And so they seek peoplelike that out.
Chip Gruen (09:01):
So, just from a historical perspective, and I
can't imagine this was named,but you know, the poster child
for the lack of literacy andlack of understanding is the
Waco. You know, the events atWaco...
Damon Berry (09:15):
Absolutely.
Chip Gruen (09:16):
...and the Branch Davidians. I mean, is that? I
mean, how do you do you see thisprocess as sort of growing
directly out of that was thatever named? How do they think
about those events?
Damon Berry (09:27):
Well, the Waco incident is, well, Ruby Ridge
and Waco together sort of formthis moment. And I don't get
this from the FBI themselves asmuch as just basic historical
research as best as I understandit. So with Ruby Ridge and Waco
together, the FBI and ATF beganthinking more seriously about
(09:49):
the way they do business, thesewere rather public debacles that
definitely made the situationworse and and I teach about
Waco, in my new religiousmovements class, and I have my
students do a project where theylearn as much as we can with the
time allotted about Waco, aboutthe Davidians, about the actual
(10:11):
claims, but also the media andpress events that FBI and ATF
were doing and how that maybecontributed to the tragedy. And
then I have them write up anexercise where they work in
teams as advisors to federal lawenforcement of like, if another
Waco should happen, what couldwe do differently? Well, the FBI
(10:31):
had been thinking about that fora while, and a part of what the
FBI's Behavioral Analysis UnitOne is about is trying to be
smarter about these approaches.
So how do you get into asituation and use the experts
available, which they did havereligion experts available, but
they didn't pay them much mindfrom those who were present,
(10:53):
saying basically that we wereignored. We warned them about
this apocalyptic ideology thatthey were playing right into the
narrative that tragedy was wasgoing to happen if they didn't
approach this differently, andthey were summarily ignored. So
again, my best understanding ofthe internal changes that took
place was learning that theseexperts that can be accessed at
(11:15):
the AAR, for example, actuallydo have something to offer. And
so yeah, there were significantchanges, and especially around
2017 this is about the time thatCharlottesville was happening,
and the FBI is starting torefocus, I won't say focus for
the first time, but refocus in aspecific way on white
supremacist and whitenationalist domestic terrorism
(11:39):
or domestic violent extremism isthe specific term that's used.
So, so yeah, they theydefinitely Waco and Ruby Ridge
together contributed to a shiftin the approach to groups like
this.
Chip Gruen (11:57):
Well, while we're in the specific timeline and
thinking historically here, Iwonder, you know, when you were
getting into this work in 2017 Imean, there's obviously a big
change afoot in the federaladministration, you know, in the
executive branch of the UnitedStates government that has
direct, well maybe now, moredirect control over the FBI than
(12:21):
they did now. But how do youfind your interactions, you
know, in the last eight years orso? I mean, do they change? Do
they ebb and flow depending onon what that executive looks
like, or is there more of apersistent bureaucratic drive
right to do this work?
Damon Berry (12:42):
Well, yeah, I mean absolutely. The political
priorities shift, the groundshifts. And you know when people
say the government you shouldnever imagine and that's a
singular entity, except now thatthe DOJ's independence, which
was always sort of understoodthat that was going to be the
(13:04):
case, that the FBI'sindependence, that that was
always understood to be thecase. That's no longer exactly
the way things are, though it'smore complicated than that,
right? But in the context of2017 you still had, and through
2020 you had, you knowprofessionals who were not very
interested in the politicalgamesmanship that were concerned
(13:28):
about the violence. So you getChristopher Ray testifying even
when at the tail end of Trump'sfirst administration that that
no these domestic violentextremist groups are the most
significant terrorism threat thehomeland faces, and that's needs
to be our focus. HomelandSecurity is another matter.
That's another conversation.
But, but for the FBI and theDOJ, they're supposed to be
(13:50):
independent. And you know, forthose who perhaps have lived
long enough or know theirhistory, you know, this is the
kinds of shifts that we'reseeing right now in the DOJ and
the FBI is exactly what Nixontried to do. But that's where
Deep Throat comes in. And so,you know, there was a
(14:11):
resistance, always resistance,and there may yet still be
resistance that we don't knowabout but, but, yeah, always the
political winds shift, and, andwe're one sort of cataclysmic
attack away from a major,potentially major shift in
national priorities. And, andthis, this kind of work, ideally
(14:33):
is, is being done by people whoare dedicated professionals, who
have no interest in thepolitical gamesmanship. But the
reality is is the priority isset by elected officials who put
people into office, and thosepeople in those offices make
decisions about what resourcesare spent, where and how and for
what reason. So, yeah, you'realways I mean, one of the
(14:55):
reasons I like doing what I'mdoing is I get to contribute
where I can but I don't have toworry about those strengths
quite so much as if I wereworking for them, if that makes
sense, right?
Chip Gruen (15:08):
So to get back to a more general conversation about
the kinds of interactions youhave. So you mentioned this
report, this Beyond Beliefreport, which we might have
occasion to come back to andtalk a little bit more
specifically, but beyond that,and you talk about regional
offices, what kind of situationsare you dealing with? Is it
(15:30):
active investigations, trainingpurposes, or something that I'm
not imagining? Like when theyreach out to you, what is the
sort of the level of urgency andthe character of those
conversations?
Damon Berry (15:43):
Yeah, so again, to some degree, it has to do with
jurisdiction. So you have theFBI journals jurisdiction and
their their view and look atthings is going to be different
in many ways, from, let's say, alocal law enforcement or bureau
of prisons and those interestsand the way that they work
(16:03):
together, even with the JointTerrorism Task Force, which
includes military investigatorslike sometimes this stuff can be
overlapping, depending on thekind of cases you're dealing
with, BAU is mainly forbackground and general
intelligence purposes. So youwouldn't be, and of course, I
(16:24):
haven't been read into anyparticular active cases that
would be, that would besomething else. Usually, what I
ended up doing, and have donepretty consistently, is just
give background, generalinformation, a general
understanding with the localoffice, you know, thinking about
(16:47):
the region and sort of who'sactive in the region, is there a
way to know through openintelligence sources, which
means, like, you know, anypublications or online posts, or
you know, what have you, anyanything that is accessible
without a warrant, that that aresearcher can get a hold of. So
(17:08):
that's usually the kind of stuffI do. Being read in on a
specific case would bedifferent, and I haven't yet,
and that's probably not,especially now, it's probably
not something that's going tohappen, particularly if, if you
know there might be reason thatif I were to be called to
testify as an expert witness oras a witness for the prosecutor,
(17:33):
they may or may not want me tobe in the middle of all that,
right? Because you know my rolefor them is not as an
investigator. That's not what Ido. My role for them is to
provide that backgroundinformation so that they can
conduct their investigationsmore, hopefully more
effectively.
Chip Gruen (17:52):
So when you're giving these, I don't know,
these briefings, or you're,you're, you know, reading them
in on the background and thehistory. I imagine that this is
a two way street, and you canglean a little bit about where
their holes are, like where youknow things that that they don't
know, that they really need toknow, or even things that they
(18:15):
think they know that they needto be disabused of. What is the
character of that knowledge whenyou walk into the room, what
have you been able to read aboutthat?
Damon Berry (18:24):
Well, actually, it's very genial, very
welcoming, very kind. I'vealways found the folks, I mean,
with rare exception, there isone individual that stands out
in my mind early on as not veryopen to these things. And I
never spoke to him again forsome reason. So I don't know if
they were like, you know, he gotreassigned. I don't, I don't
know, but, but for the mostpart, my experience has been
(18:49):
overwhelmingly positive. They'vecome in and just said, Look,
you're the expert. We don't knowwhat you know. That's why you're
here. So here are our questions,and if there's anything we're
missing, please feel free toinform us. I mean, I that's one
of the things that really blewme away, is understanding, at
least the culture of the folksthat I've been privy to,
(19:09):
especially in the BAU they'revery, very intelligent, very
inquisitive people. They doactive investigations, but they
also spend their days educatingthemselves on how to do their
work better, and they take it.
They take prevention veryseriously within the bounds of
the law, because, of course, theFirst Amendment and Fourth
Amendment prohibits certainkinds of investigative behaviors
(19:30):
that may be an asset,particularly for so called lone
wolf actors. But you know,within the boundaries of the
law, what intelligence can weuse? What assets can we use?
What knowledge can we use toidentify somebody who's on the
path to extremist behavior andmaybe get in front of that and
get them the help they need, thedeterrences that they need, and
(19:53):
in those cases, I've never dealtwith anyone who didn't want to
just learn as much as theycould. So, so I guess, in one
sense, what I've gleaned is thethe the culture of of the BAU is
one of, I mean, it's definitelya police culture. It's
(20:14):
definitely a law enforcementculture. It's the FBI is still
very much sort of a gung ho. Imean, a lot of the folks that
work there are veterans, not allof them, but a lot of them are
but, but they're very they'revery intellectually promiscuous,
I guess I would say, when itcomes to getting the information
they need to do their jobseffectively. So and in the
(20:35):
questions you can kind of learn,you can kind of read between the
lines and figure out whatthey're trying to get at and
what you need to help themunderstand. And in particularly
from my point of view, is thatsomething that you mentioned
outside this conversation isthat in that report Beyond
Belief, religion appears exactlyone time, and that's part of the
(20:59):
problem is, I think they're alittle averse, at least in this
moment, to reference religiontoo much. And certainly some of
the conversations have basicallysaid, look, the ideological
drives are often not asprominent in extreme in
radicalization, as peopleusually think, right? So I think
(21:21):
at this moment, folks are alittle averse to bring up
religion, particularly when itcomes to those who might be
Christian oriented and anddefinitely trying to be careful
about sort of feeding intoIslamophobic tropes. And I think
(21:42):
that's that's some of theinformation that I've sort of
read through the questions andthe way that the final product
is presented. But in privateconversation, they're they're
much more engaged with thereligion question.
Chip Gruen (22:02):
I'm just thinking about the religious diversity
question, right? Because if it'smentioned exactly once in the
report, then it doesn't show areal keen interest in thinking
about the potential differencesin religious diversity that
might exist like that we'vetalked about previously.
Damon Berry (22:20):
Yeah, well, I would say that no they do care, and
they often just don't understandit, right? So just by way of
example, I'm doing my globalChristianities course, and the
first several classes are likeeverything you thought you knew
about the history ofChristianity is narrow, but also
(22:43):
kind of false, right? Becausethere's a more complex story
here that involves minutia thatyou would never be exposed to if
you didn't seek it out. And sothat's kind of the approach that
I bring when I talk to them.
It's like, I know this seemsfrom an outsider's perspective,
it seems like these, many ofthese differences seem
(23:05):
insignificant, but they actuallymatter quite a bit. And it
matters even more whenhistorical differences, and this
is mainly my drive in studyingreligion and the white
nationalist movement, it's likethe differences are actually the
point of strategic negotiationamong and between groups. And
the whole move to become moresecularized at a certain moment,
(23:29):
right, to focus on the politicalgoal of white nationalism and
not worry about the religiouselement and leave that, you
know, as a as an a topic wedon't care about, right? So you
don't usually think aboutreligious toleration as a
necessary political move amongwhite nationalist groups. And
yet, there it was. But this isnot something that most people
(23:51):
would even know about. And lawenforcement, of course, they
they work all day. They don'thave time to do all this
research, right? They haveactive investigations. So in
private conversation, they doget that information. It's just,
I don't think they always knowexactly what it means when
they're writing their finalproduct. Had had the original
(24:12):
plan for this project continuedbecause it really matured over
several years. Had it continued,we would have been paired up,
like I said, and part of thatpairing up, at least on my end,
would have been having thatconversation about the
complexity of religiousrepresentation and
(24:35):
identification among differentgroups, both foreign and
domestic. But that's not theproduct that we got. So you get
more of a slim down documentthat represents the interests of
far fewer people who contributedto that conversation.
Chip Gruen (24:54):
So I want to chase that down, that religious
diversity of peace piece bythinking about the way that
agents and their supervisor dealwith religious diversity
generally. I mean, givenconstitutional protections, like
there are religious communitiesand ideologies that we might
(25:15):
find abhorrent, but are notextremist, at least in their
actions or their activities, sothat there's a certain amount of
protection that goes on here,but yet you kind of have to know
about and monitor those thingsthat might be less practically
interested. I'm just thinkingabout the balance between those
(25:36):
two things right, betweenconstitutionally protected
religion and, you know, what didyou say left of bang, right? You
know that the prevention ofextremist activities?
Damon Berry (25:50):
Yeah, well, I mean, that's the dance. That's,
that's, I mean, honestly, that'sthe difficulty. So I think the
clearest example of this is soafter the first assassination
attempt against then candidateTrump, the Monday after this, I
was already scheduled to meetwith a couple of folks from the
(26:12):
FBI and to just continue, justas a normal thing that we would
do, like we'd meet every sooften, And we would have a
conversation about whatever isinteresting to them, but also
things that could come up. So ofcourse, you know, we step in
into the room on that Monday,and I said, Well, I guess we
don't have much to talk abouttoday, do we fellas? So is that
(26:35):
moment of of levity, of justkind of, oh my god, you
couldn't, I mean, it's insane,and what I was able to find,
what was publicly availableabout the shooter who was killed
was a good point of conversationabout the kinds of threats that
we're facing and thecomplexities of the legal
(26:57):
boundaries of proper lawenforcement, which we definitely
want in place, right? So we wantFirst Amendment protections. It
is not illegal for someone tosay, in my religion, we don't
agree with x, and we should doeverything we can to stand in
the way of that, right? If wewant, if we have probable cause
(27:19):
or reasonable suspicion,depending on how the courts will
view that, when you seek awarrant, you may be able to get
access to, you know,surveillance of of their other
activities, if there'ssufficient legal cause to
warrant a warrant, but alsoFourth Amendment protections,
(27:40):
right? We don't want thosewarrants to be given willy
nilly. We've had thisconversation in the context of
the war on terror, and we wewent in a very dangerous
direction with surveillance andbasically vacuuming up
everybody's information and, youknow, having it stored and
processed for analysis when it'sflagged. So there's all kinds of
(28:03):
pitfalls here. But on the otherhand, that shooter, and of
course, the Buffalo shooter aswell, the person who went to a
grocery store in Buffalo, NewYork and killed as many African
Americans as he could point hisweapon at. He didn't make any
notices prior to the action, asI understand it, it was his
(28:25):
manifesto, and the things thathe was saying he was going to do
were found after the fact. Youhad even less to understand the
motive of the Trump's would beassassin. And I made the
argument that there was nothingthere, even if you had a
warrant, there was nothing thereto indicate what he was going to
do. And so, you know, how do westop these so called lone wolf?
(28:51):
It's not a good term, right? Butthese individual extremist acts
that seem to come out ofnowhere, right? Well, there is
there, there, more often thannot, there is something to
indicate that they were doingsomething or they were planning
something. And more often thannot, that's information is going
to come from people know them,who are close to them, in
(29:12):
proximity, but sometimes youwon't know and and so it's it's
a delicate dance between, how dowe prevent acts of violence that
seem to be something that youcan't predict very easily, and
certainly not without treadingon First Amendment and Fourth
(29:33):
Amendment, basic protections.
And honestly, that is, that is apuzzle I still scratch my head
about. And of course, I'm not alawyer, so my view on this is
just simply the historical dataavailable seems to indicate that
this is the trend. It's a trendthat we see. no reason will
abate. So, yeah, I don't know.
(29:57):
Honestly, the whole point is toprevent. It. But if you can't
see it coming, you know, what doyou do?
Chip Gruen (30:04):
Yeah, I'm just wondering, you know, and I guess
I hadn't thought about it thisway before, but, but if you have
community actors, right, peoplewho are working in concert with
one another, like there is muchmore to be analyzed, right, to
be picked up. You haveconversations, you have, you
know, something that is sharedright, that will be on some
(30:27):
level. I mean, not public, likein the newspaper, but at least
public, like it can be heard andseen, whereas these individual
actors, you know, a lot of thatis just going on, you know,
internally. And so I'm thinkingabout, like the relative
usefulness that the FBI orsimilar or local law enforcement
sees. I mean, I imagine you'releaving and a psychologist is
(30:51):
coming in right behind you,right? Like that there's got to
be a conversation right aboutthe usefulness, utility, about
these things that can be moreanthropologically studied or
historically studied andunderstood, versus the
individual psychology of whatgoes behind somebody who's going
to perpetrate one of these acts?
Damon Berry (31:09):
Yeah. I mean, that's exactly right. Again,
these different areas ofspecialization that they pick up
on both people who are internalto the agency and maybe assigned
to that unit, but also the folksthat they're going to be, you
know, trying to learn about, youknow, because, because I've been
asked on more than one occasionto say, recommend people who are
(31:30):
working on these things in otherfields, right? And so they do
actively seek out, specificallypsychologists, right? Just for a
little background, for those whodon't know, the Behavioral
Analysis Unit used to be calledthe Behavioral Sciences Unit,
and that's where John Douglasand all these profilers start
started, you know, a certainkind of conversation about, how
(31:52):
do we, how do we learn about thepsychological traits of people
who are you know, eventuallythey coined the term serial
killers, right? And how that'sdifferent from spree spree
killing, and how the how thesepsychological markers can help
us see somebody who may be apotential threat, or at least in
the context of an activeinvestigation, is it a serial
(32:14):
offense? Are there markers thattell us something that we should
be looking for as we investigatetry to find out who did these
crimes. So that's where BAUactually comes from. BAU is a
much more expanded understandingof that approach, so it's still
very dominated by psychology andcriminology, which necessarily
(32:35):
involves sociological and tosome degree, anthropological
approaches and and I gotta say,I think for somebody who does
something that is firmlyembedded in the humanities, I'm
kind of an oddity. It's not truein the context of the entirety
of the study of terrorism. Soone of the world's leading
(32:56):
experts on Incel violence andIncel extremist attacks is
actually somebody who has herPhD, I believe, in gender
studies. So there is a broadersort of academic world for the
study of these, these types ofthings. But for the most part,
the FBI tends to favorpsychological and criminological
(33:21):
approaches, which makes perfectsense. So, I mean, again, so the
way they're going to frame upthe conversation for themselves
is just going to look verydifferent from the conversations
they have with me in that room,which they may or some of that
may or may not stick. I mean, ifyou can imagine somebody who is
sort of an average educated,some cases highly educated
(33:45):
American, who's relativelysecular in their outlook.
They're just not going to seereligion in the same way as
someone who studies it for aliving. So just bridging that
gap between what are theassumptions when they walk into
the room versus what they'reprepared to process when you
walk out of that room, and youhave no control over that.
Chip Gruen (34:07):
So thinking about this methodologically, one of
the big emphases of yourresearch and teaching, and one
of the reasons I enjoy your workso much is because it it really
wants to think about ideologicalempathy, not sympathy, not...
Damon Berry (34:25):
Exactly.
Chip Gruen (34:26):
Yeah. I don't know how to say it exactly, right?
Damon Berry (34:28):
It's difficult.
It's a difficult line to walk.
Yeah.
Chip Gruen (34:31):
But, but the idea that you that in order to
counter or understand, or, youknow, deal fruitfully, right
with these people. If thatmeans, you know, thwarting
attacks or bringing people tojustice or whatever, you kind of
(34:51):
need to know how they tick,right? You kind of need to know
what that looks like from theinside. But that seems, it
doesn't seem like that kind ofempathetic understanding would
be sort of the the mark of theFBI. How, I mean, how, when you
(35:14):
bring these methods to the fore,how do they respond to that, and
how do they think about that?
And can they process that kindof way of understanding?
Damon Berry (35:21):
And that was certainly my assumption, that
they were just interested ingetting them, let's just get
them. There is an element ofthat where, like the goal here
is to investigate and prosecutesuccessfully criminal behavior,
right? And that's an importantdistinction in and of itself,
(35:42):
right? So for something to be aterrorist action, it has to be a
criminal act in and of itself.
So it's sort of like hate crimein New York State is an
enhancer, right? So, like,you're not allowed to assault
anyone, right? You're notallowed to like, it is either a
high level misdemeanor or afelony to assault somebody on
(36:03):
the street, right? But the hatecrime enhancer comes in when I
say it's because of youridentity or what I perceive your
identity to be, right? So Iidentify as a CIS, hetero male
and but if somebody perceivesthat I'm homosexual because of I
(36:23):
don't know, a shirt I'm wearing,and indicates that that
motivated the assault, that thatapparent motivation can be an
enhancer on the assault right.
And in New York State, you endup on a registry, same as if you
were a sex offender, it's a hatecrime registry. Terrorism works
(36:44):
similarly, and that blowing up abuilding is a criminal act, but
blowing up a building motivatedto incite fear, to some
political end, right, or toattack a group to gain some
political advantage, and that'skind of the more common
(37:04):
definition of terrorism,certainly the one the FBI has
put out. So it's alreadyillegal, but your motivations
and the reasons and the and thatand sort of the process of going
through that criminal actindicates terroristic intent. So
that can that's when it becomesan act of terrorism or
(37:26):
extremism. And these terms arereally kind of muddy and
difficult, but so they need tothink about what's motivating
people. They need to understand,because that's part of how
you're going to investigate, butit's also how you're going to
write up eventually at the DOJ,when they when the prosecutor
writes up the charges and seeksthe indictment and and then
(37:49):
prosecutes the case, they needto prove that you were motivated
by a certain, I guess, yeah,ideological motivation, so that
on one end, they can't asinvestigators, they can't afford
to act like it doesn't matter.
But that's not something that isimmediately apparent to
everyone, but also the thingthat blew me away and one of
(38:11):
these sessions where it was fourdays of talking to each other
over zoom and interviewingformers, people who have
committed acts of extremistviolence, but also people who
were maybe involved in extremistgroups. And there, I mean, that
was one of the best learningexperiences I have ever had, and
that was listening to theseformers explain themselves and
(38:33):
talk about their experiences andand then also, in some cases,
talking with the people whoarrested them, who still are in
contact with them, and in somecases, the psychologists who
work with them and continue towork with them. And that was one
of the more enlightening thingsI've ever experienced, and that
(38:54):
is on one end, like thepractical use of a former is
they have insights that you cannever have. They lived a life
that you couldn't live, right?
So they're going to have thingsto tell you that are going to be
extremely important forunderstanding how to investigate
(39:14):
but also prevent other acts ofextremist violence. But on the
other hand, too, you learn thatultimately what you're doing is
discourse analysis. You'reanalyzing a narrative because
the only way you have access towhat they experienced is what
they tell you, and so you haveto have a sort of literary
(39:38):
approach to things so that youcan really understand what's
what's being communicated toyou. I mean, on one hand, you
don't want to ever takeanybody's word for it. I mean,
you know, when we tell storiesabout ourselves, it's a
carefully selected narrative forparticular reasons, even if it
seems self deprecating. So youhave to have, again, some sort
(40:04):
of empathy, not exactlysympathy, but empathy, to try to
understand what's motivating theparticular speech act, but also
what the content of the speechact can actually mean, because
there's you can read it on itsface like a transcript, but then
the body language and the waythat they communicate, the way
they hold their head, thatcommunicates all sorts of subtle
(40:27):
cues to what's going on insidetheir mind as they're narrating
their experiences to you. Doesthat make sense?
Chip Gruen (40:34):
Yeah, it does. It makes me think though that you
know, given how useful thatexperience was for you and how
much you were able to glean fromit. It seems like we have a
system right now where there arelaw enforcement officers who try
to get read up on or geteducated on, you know, the
methods and the context and youknow the cultural realities,
(40:58):
right that you can offer,religious context that you can
offer. I mean, I guess I wonderif there is any movement or
desire to have it be theopposite, right? That you get
somebody who's a PhD inreligion, who gets read up on
being a law enforcement officer,as opposed to the other way
around, right? I think you hearabout things like that with with
(41:19):
the CIA and foreign intelligencesometimes, but it seems like it
could be useful here as well.
Damon Berry (41:24):
Well. I mean, ultimately, I mean, when I was
an undergrad, I didn't think Iwas going to be a professor. I
was, you know, kind of stitchedtogether my own degree program
of security and intelligence andReligious Studies. And then when
I went to graduate school, I waskind of disabused of the idea
that I wanted to work with theCIA or some agency like that. I
(41:48):
mean, it couldn't be CIA,because I focused on domestic
anyway. But I mean, you know, Iwas kind of, it was in the
context of the War on Terrorabout 2005 through 2007 I was
flirting with the idea of goinginto public service, and I just
lost my taste for it, as manypeople did about that time
period, and I just kind ofbecame an academic by default.
(42:11):
But that, you know, the ideathat I would do full time
analytical work for some agencyand counter terrorism was always
an option for me. In my mind, itstill kind of is as I think
about things I'm not I'm notnecessarily wedded to my
identity as an academic. It'sjust it's what I do and and I
(42:36):
feel like it's of use to folks,and so that's enough for me. I
don't need a particular identityto feel like my work is
worthwhile. So I would say, ifsomebody is interested in law
enforcement or law school or,you know, working in counter
(42:57):
extremism, even as at an NGO, Iwould say, and I have said in
many occasions, in theseconversations with law
enforcement that citizensleuths, as they came to be
called during January 6, rightor individual, non government
organizations who are able to dothings with a level of
(43:17):
engagement that law enforcementJust can't do so Life After Hate
is one organization, and I'msure you can link this in the
broadcast. They they spend theirwhole time, and it's a lot of
them are formers, if not all ofthem are formers. They spend
their time online, communicatingwith people who were perhaps
radicalizing as Dylann Roof did,online. You know, becoming they
(43:41):
have general racist tendenciesand that get articulated through
this fear of Black crime, whichbecome focused into a grievance
where they they think murderingBlack people to start a race war
is the only way to deal withthings right so NGOs can spend
their folks working with NGOs,or individual citizens can spend
(44:01):
their time using theirbackground and understanding of
these movements, of whatmotivates this behavior, to do
all sorts of positive thingsthat law enforcement just can't
dedicate the resources to. Ifthat makes sense to you.
Chip Gruen (44:16):
Yeah, I mean, I guess it's just a shame, because
it seems like, I mean, I guessthat we're always running up
against limited resources,right? But it seems like the
expertise that you, for example,have to offer, would be useful
on the other side of that wallin the investigation itself,
rather than just as providingcontext and background.
Damon Berry (44:37):
Well, I mean, it's not beyond the realm of
possibility that there would bea specific case where they would
feel like, we want you read infor x, y purposes. But I
understand why they wouldn'tnecessarily want that, given
especially our politicalenvironment, one to have a
professor, you know, in thecurrent DOJ environment, that
(44:59):
would not be very welcome, asyou can imagine. So I mean,
after all that, the nowcommander in chief referred to
professors as vermin, so I don'timagine that I'll be quite
welcome inside of investigationat this point. But also some of
(45:19):
the work that I can that I'veproduced is often misread as
mere attacks on the Trumpadministration, which is
definitely not the case. Soyeah, I understand why I'm not
necessarily an asset to aparticular case, that the
background information that Iprovide is probably where I'm
(45:41):
best suited. But it's notbeyond, beyond the realm of
possibility, if someone hasspecialized, specific knowledge
and ability with language, saythat they could train for the
specific purposes of beingdirectly involved in
investigations, whether that isa law enforcement agent or as an
(46:01):
investigator or analysis oranalyst. And I think you know,
as we're thinking aboutreligious studies, and the
future of religious studies,which seems bleak indeed, in
this moment, those who are ingraduate school should be
thinking about where they canuse their talents, and if you
have a particular aversion tolaw enforcement, which I
(46:24):
understand, I would justencourage you that not every
agency is the exact same. All ofit is complicated, and much of
it's very bureaucratic, butthere are people who are
involved in this work who carevery deeply and want to learn
and want your expertise, and youshouldn't shy away from giving
it because you don't know thekind of a positive effect you
(46:46):
can have if we look at just theway that example, you talked
about Waco. In the aftermath ofWaco, they had a big wake up
call about how badly they weredoing these things, and that
changed the conversation. Ittook a long time to get to the
point where they're activelyseeking out people at the AAR to
learn more. But nonetheless, youknow, if you do nothing, then
(47:12):
perhaps nothing changes.
Chip Gruen (47:14):
So we are, I mean, it goes without saying that we
are living in interesting timeswhere everything is changing so
dramatically, whether it beonline presences and social
media, and I don't know how itwould be involved, but
artificial intelligence and thepolitical landscape changing and
like everything is being thrownup in the air simultaneously.
(47:34):
With that being said, I want tokind of end with the question I
like to end on, which is, whatare we not talking about, right,
particularly given this changein context that we really should
be or that we might be talkingabout more in the coming years?
Damon Berry (47:48):
Well, I mean, for good or ill, the shape of the
presidency has changeddramatically because of Supreme
Court decisions, and that meansassuming that there are
elections in 26 and 28 that thepolitical landscape could change
dramatically. And I will warn,again I usually shun
(48:12):
predictions, but we've alreadyseen it. If those who are, let's
say, dedicated to Trump's visionand agenda. Even if they are a
minority, which they are,there's a real reason why
they've been quiet since thepardons of the January 6
(48:33):
offenders. There's a real reasonwhy they're quiet militia
groups, which I'm working onright now. They had always
warned that the government woulduse federal forces to suppress
people in their states treadingon state sovereignty. Well, here
it is, and not a peep, andthere's a reason, and that is
(48:56):
because this is what theywanted, and that's not a guess.
Elmer Stewart Rhodes, founder ofOath Keepers, one of the things
that got him convicted beforehis sentence was commuted and he
was pardoned, was him sayingthat he wanted to use Oath
Keepers and other groups asparamilitaries on in open
(49:16):
letters to the President. It'snot available anymore, but you
know, the internet is theinternet. It's never fully gone
and to support maintaining hisoffice in 2020 and I would fully
expect that once they are nolonger able to keep the veneer
(49:37):
of legality in their behaviorright now, the Trump
administration, that we will seea resurgence of that commitment
to use extra legal means tomaintain power. There's no
reason to assume that won'thappen. I mean, one of the I
don't want to say specificallywho it was, because I can't
(49:57):
remember who it was that saidexactly this, but one of the
former, well, I guess currently,high ranking members of the
Proud Boys, who was alsopardoned for their actions on
January 6, said that there's noreason for them to be active
right now, because they'regetting everything they want.
And I think that's a strongindication as things go, if the
(50:20):
political winds do changeagainst them. We're going to
need people who understand thisstuff, because it's not going to
just go away. There's no reasonto believe that.
Chip Gruen (50:28):
All right, as bleak as that is, I think it's a good
place to end. I reallyappreciate your time. Really
appreciate your work on this.
Thank you, Damon Berry, forcoming back on ReligionWise.
This has been great.
Damon Berry (50:41):
My pleasure, my friend, thank you for having me.
Chip Gruen (50:45):
This has been ReligionWise, a podcast produced
by the Institute for Religiousand Cultural Understanding of
Muhlenberg College. ReligionWiseis produced and directed by
Christine Flicker. For moreinformation about additional
programming, or to make aninquiry about a speaking
engagement, please visit ourwebsite at
religionandculture.com There,you'll find our contact
(51:05):
information, links to otherprogramming and have the
opportunity to support the workof the Institute. Please
subscribe to ReligionWisewherever you get your podcasts,
we look forward to seeing younext time.
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