How to Identify "Active Clubs" in BJJ

Speaker 1: Hey everybody, welcome back to Fighting Matters. I am Steve Quan from BJJ Mental Models. I have a heavily recommended guest here. I'm excited to talk to. I've got Hannah Gaze on the line. Hannah, how's it going? Speaker 2: Good. How are you? Speaker 1: I am awesome. I am excited for this conversation for a few reasons. Um, first of all, because of your credentials, but also because you are actually a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner. Often when we get people on the line who bring in this domain expertise, they've never even heard of our weird sport unless they're studying it because of the white nationalist problem it has, unfortunately. Um, but you come into this with an interesting confluence of of backgrounds. But maybe we can pause that. Let's talk about the relevant stuff here. Talk about your work because we're going to talk about active clubs and their recruitment methods today, but let's talk about you first and and what brings you here. Speaker 2: So, I'm a senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center. It's a nonprofit that's based in Alabama, but we basically do uh nationwide work, um, tracking hate and extremism. Uh, my work for basically since early 2016 has primarily focused on the white nationalist and neo-Nazi movements. Uh, I became interested in kind of what what we in the industry sort of call the movement, um, which is sort of this broad spectrum of ideology, far-right ideologies in early 2016, um, when Trump was running for election. I was interested in this movement called the alt-right, and I started going to some of their events, uh, and covering them as a journalist, and critically as a journalist, I should say. I and I basically just turned that into a career. So, I started working at at SPLC in 2019. Um, I was here throughout the Jan 6 insurrection, and since I also live in Washington D.C., I would say that was quite an experience of having to uh live through your work in many respects. Um, and I would say like one of the consistent trends throughout a lot of the work that I do is that it has since I started this work, not just at SPLC, but reporting elsewhere too. Um, it's become much more mainstream. And it sort of feels a little bit like a cliché now, but I I remember when I first started reporting on the white nationalist movement, one of the questions that you would get often is, why are you paying attention to these guys? These guys are weirdos. No one cares about them. Uh, they don't really have that many followers. They can't really have that much power. And it feels like each passing year is sort of just a complete rebuttal of that, um, insistence that this movement doesn't matter, uh, that you you shouldn't cover it. And now we're dealing with organizations like the Department of Homeland Security tweeting out white flat out white nationalist memes. So, it's been a weird and crazy ride, I guess, you could say for the past decade. Speaker 1: My goodness. Yeah, I I I have so many directions I want to take this. But yeah, the Southern Poverty Southern Poverty Law Center is, man, until I started getting into these kinds of conversations, I wasn't super familiar with their work because I live up here in Canada. And I didn't realize how prominent the SPLC is. I would say at this point, based on my very limited knowledge, it's probably one of the leading organizations doing work in this space and trying to expose hate movements, um, in America and with with a specific bent on a lot of the martial arts stuff. When I hear good stories exposing a lot of the dark side of the martial arts these days, it often comes from the SPLC. So, great work on that front. Speaker 2: Thank you. Thank you. I really have to give a lot of credit actually to my colleague Jeff Tischauser, who has done a lot of work on, um, Patriot Front and, uh, how they have kind of cozied up to, um, certain practitioners in the far-right BJJ space. So, shout out to Jeff. Speaker 1: Got it. Maybe future guest. Speaker 2: I can't I can't really take that much credit to be honest. Speaker 1: Well, man, I I echo your sentiment. One of the challenges that I have in presenting this information is just convincing people about the scope of the problem because I often hear the same thing, which is, this can't possibly be that big a problem, is it? Like, you know, why are you hyper-fixating on a dozen weirdos who, you know, go off into the woods and start some weird Nazi Jiu-Jitsu militia? And I think for many people, they are not truly acquainted with the scope of this problem and how big it is. And also the fact that these guys generally don't advertise their true intentions. They're not sitting there like with their flags like, hey, here's what we're trying to do. Their whole recruiting method is to try to blend in and boil the frog and bring people in. And at first, they're not going to tell you all of their crazy intentions, but part of what they want to do is through exposure and indoctrination, convince you that their extreme beliefs are actually quite normal. And what they're doing is unfortunately working extraordinarily well. I saw a research piece, I think it was a Canadian piece, it might have been American, I'm not sure, but, um, so I don't remember what region it was covering, but their findings were that out of young men today, over half of them carry racist beliefs, which as someone who was born in the 80s, grew up in the 90s, that's insane to me. That that's absolutely insane. I mean, I grew up in a time when racism was, you know, it was just hammered into us how the evils of racism and what it can do. I I'm old enough that when I was in school, they were able to bring in Holocaust survivors who were not even that old at the time to tell their direct experiences of this. Um, it was a factor it was a huge factor in media, right? If you looked at the bad guys in movies or cartoons, they were always racists, right? Um, I I think that we were much more willing to stand up to the to the evils of that. And it feels like due for a variety of factors, I'm sure we'll get into, the, um, the gas pedal has been, you know, lifted a little bit here and we've slowed down on that. And that has created space for really terrible people to come in and use sports like ours as a recruitment ground. And we see that in the form of active clubs, which we've talked about before, right? Basically, extreme right militia movements who use MMA and Jiu-Jitsu and kickboxing as a recruitment ground to inspire young men and then recruit them into their cause. Um, I'll maybe turn it over to you though here to expand on that because the the challenge I constantly have is convincing people about the scope of the problem, uh, in America, Canada, and increasingly the rest of the world. Where where do we stand? How bad is this really? Speaker 2: I think I think things are very bad right now. Although I will say, um, in some level, I think I was maybe more pessimistic at the start of Trump's term, um, Trump's second term, I should say, um, than I am now because there's been significant pushback, uh, just from very normal average people throughout the United States, but there isn't just there are elsewhere. Um, but I think one of the things that has been particularly difficult to overcome in terms of radicalization is just how mainstream it's become. Um, and a lot of these groups, uh, you will find all sorts of weird white nationalist groups. Um, you will find people, uh, say white nationalist fighting quite literally in force. There actually was a group that was doing something that they called force fights, which are I hard to tell what the I I don't know what the rules were necessarily, but it was kind of MMA in the woods. Um, and you'll see kind of this stuff passing around on social media. Um, but what I think is sort of telling about this is it's often very people will live double lives who live in the movement. I it's one of the pretty consistent things that comes up in reporting on them because a lot of what we do is, uh, as investigative journalists and researchers is look for people in positions of power, um, who have connections to the movement, who are involved in the movement, um, who are funding the movement. And I think one of the things that has consistently come up since I started doing this in 2016 is that those connections to position within the movement to positions of power have grown exponentially. There's a white uh white nationalist, uh, named Kevin DeAnna, who I identified years ago, I think basically back right before COVID hit, so it got sort of buried. I he met with Peter Thiel, um, who is a obviously, I don't really think needs much of an introduction here. Uh, back in 2016. Nothing really came of this meeting. Um, the emails I got from a source basically sort of detailed the meeting happened, nothing really came of it, and that was that. Flash forward to now, and you have, uh, tech billionaires just like take Elon Musk, um, just openly promoting white nationalist content on X, um, funding Trump's mass deportation machine, and mass deportations are basically a core policy of the white nationalist movement to the extent that it has policies. So, um, I think it's bad, and I think there's a lot of different things you can point to, uh, January 6 being maybe one of them, the fact that outlets like, uh, Fox News are willing to promote, um, white nationalist conspiracy theories like the great replacement, uh, the fact that Elon Musk is one of the richest people in the world and owns a social media platform that he has basically turned into a right-wing propaganda machine. And also the fact that you have someone like Stephen Miller working in the White House who is basically implementing, um, his own white nationalist fantasies into policy. Uh, all of this, I think, has kind of caused those numbers that you mentioned previously. Um, but I will say I do think there is some element of hope here that we see people pushing back against ice. We see people, um, calling out these beliefs publicly. Um, and while America's political system might be completely fucked right now for lack of a better word, um, I think down the line, I do have some hope of change. Speaker 1: Yeah, I've heard folks like Heather Cox Richardson talk about how the last hope in America is the people. That's the last line of defense. And it really does feel like institutionally, pretty much all of the institutions have failed or are look like they're at least at threat of failing. There's maybe one or two that are still holding, but it's actually quite remarkable how much damage has been done in just a year or two to this this system of governance that took, you know, two and a half centuries to build up. It's really remarkable how quickly it all came crashing down. But the people are really pushing back in pretty interesting ways. I mean, I think of, um, when the example I brought up before is when Kimmel, um, was targeted and was taken off of the air. Disney, um, and, you know, they they were forced to pivot very, very quickly because of the mass cancellations they faced to Hulu and Disney Plus. And we're seeing that again with Open AI right now, who I mean, I just as of last count, they lost something like two and a half to three million subscribers. That's a lot for an AI tool. And basically, all of that business went right over to Claude and Anthropic. So, um, I I think there is a lot of hope. At the end of the day, America's main language isn't English, it's dollars, right? And and people are speaking with their dollars very loudly right now. So, I I think there is, like you said, I'm much more hopeful now than I was in November of 2024. Um, but the challenge that I do have is that with the exception of folks like Elon Musk, whose racism is really quite shockingly blatant, um, for a lot of the people who who believe this stuff, they fly a little bit under the radar. They're they're a little bit more low-key and not as eager to just blast their beliefs out there. I mean, yes, there are a few weirdos who will throw up a Sieg Heil and say something terrible. Um, and that's very direct. But most of these guys are much more nuanced about their beliefs and they won't just put it out there. And that makes it, you know, they're doing this deliberately because they don't want to turn people off right away when they're trying to recruit. Um, they want to again, they want to boil the frog and expose their weirdness and their extremeness over time. Um, but also they want to be able to put on the performance of like, I'm engaging in good faith. I'm engaging in debate. And that can be really hard for people who don't understand what's going on to push back. Right? I mean, like I said, we we've targeted these guys in episodes before, and we always get, you know, 100 active club weirdos who jump into the comments and they say something like, you know, well, what's wrong with being proud of your heritage? What's wrong with caring about immigration? It's like, there's nothing wrong with that. But you and I both know that that's not what you're talking about here, right? You're using weasel words to conceal your true identities. But your actions and the actions of the people you associate with speak about your true intentions. Maybe talk about that a bit and like how these how these people conceal their true intentions for the purpose of blending in with society and then basically siphoning people off to their movement. Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so, basically, they try and present, I think there's, uh, they talk a lot about shifting the Overton window. And the Overton window is essentially this idea of like, what are the boundaries of acceptable discourse? Um, and it's a political science concept that doesn't actually have any it's not just limited to the right. You can basically use this to talk about anything, um, about shifting discourse in terms of, uh, mainstream political discourse or whatever, anywhere, and not just in the US. But within the right, it's particularly used to sort of talk about shifting discourse in the direction that is more open to what would essentially be white nationalist or neo-Nazi ideas. Um, so the idea of a full-scale immigration moratorium, not just, uh, tightening borders or, um, stricter laws around who gets citizenship, green cards, etcetera. Um, other things like limiting the rights of women, um, limiting the rights of non-white people, particularly voting rights, things like that. That is ultimately basically what they're what they want. Um, and in terms of how they manage to achieve it is basically through presenting these ideas as normal. Um, and just presenting as, we're just having a debate, we're just asking questions. I think a really good example could, um, of this sort of in action is, uh, Jake Shields, um, did a podcast with this guy named Paul Miller. And Miller is basically known for this persona called Gypsy Crusader, where he goes onto, um, video chat and tends to interact with, uh, kids because those are mostly the people that historically were using a lot of these chat apps like Chatroulette or I forgot the name of some of the other ones. But, um, Miller's a neo-Nazi. I mean, he's dressed up like a neo-Nazi. He dropped he he drops, uh, slurs constantly. Um, he's worked with neo-Nazis. He's promoted neo-Nazi content. He is not apologetic about it. He doesn't actually really cover cover it up. But one of the things that came through in this conversation in this podcast conversation that Shields did with him is that he just kind of presents Miller as like this guy who used to do journalism. I don't really know what journalism Miller did. I think it was basically he embedded with Proud Boys at a fight in New York, uh, that broke out at an event in 2018. I think I'm recalling that correctly. Um, but it wasn't reporting. Um, and they tend to present these things in different it basically just putting a nicer sheen on it. So, this guy was a journalist. He used to do some fighting. And and it just kind of covers up the fact that he was doing they will talk about activism, but they kind of cover up what that activism really was. Um, and that's kind of a consistent trend you see in recruitment. And you see it coming from active clubs when they Robert Rundo, uh, the the sort of de facto leader of the active clubs, um, has talked about this explicitly. Uh, when he founded a similar group called Rise Above Movement, um, back in like the early days of the alt-right, he said that he went to these white nationalist skinhead groups like Identity Europa, kind of groups that people wouldn't necessarily remember now, but were instrumental in planning, uh, the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. That erupted into chaos, resulting in the death of a anti-fascist activist. He went to those groups, and he saw that they were just talking about politics, and he thought it was kind of boring. So, the way that he wanted to do it was going to gyms and working out with guys and slowly interjecting movement ideas. And you see this throughout the propaganda that they produce. The way they recruit in person, the way they recruit online, it's just a consistent trend, uh, throughout the movement. I think it's safe to say, I mean, in some cases, it does work. Some people, if they're just not really familiar with these arguments, or they're not particularly political, will it's it's hard when a person who's a human being comes up to you and says like, hey, this topic matters to me. You should care about it too. And if you don't know, yeah. Speaker 1: Let me ask, what are some of the the warning signs here that people should be mindful of? Because I have observed this personally, where I have seen people attempt this before in the martial arts space. And often one of the common bugaboos that they love to bring up is, um, you know, extreme concern about transgender people. This, I've noticed, is kind of like a little trial balloon that these people will throw out there to gauge the perceptiveness of their message, right? They'll say things like, oh, you know, those those trans people are getting into our sports and they're ruining everything. And they'll wait and see how the other person responds. And if the person is receptive to the idea, they'll take that as permission to advance the conversation to one more extreme. And then before, you know, the the logical conclusion is kind of what we're seeing in America right now, where you you're seeing the systematic disenfranchisement of people based on their their gender or their race. You're seeing rights being taken away. You're seeing torture and murder sometimes, right? Like, this is the logical extent of that. But these guys always start it with something like, oh, well, I'm just really concerned about women in sports or something that, you know, they they had never prior in their life expressed a fraction of concern about until this particular issue came up and they they could use it as a punching bag against a vulnerable population. What are some of the other warning signs that you see that someone might be trying to test the waters for, um, receptiveness to these kinds of ideas? Speaker 2: I think immigration well, I will say right now, immigration, I think is probably a big one. Um, but it does shift. Uh, so, oftentimes, like, the right broadly, um, not just the extreme right, but also obviously the political right just in general, will choose particular issues that they really want to drill down on, particularly usually cultural issues. So, um, women in sports, uh, trans people in sports, trans people basically literally anywhere, um, etcetera. Uh, so, it does shift, but I think, uh, it depends. I mean, I think, um, right now, I would say probably immigration and kind of trans rights or, um, talking about women's women in sports, I think those are probably two relatively common like entry points, and it seems to be kind of something you see somewhat consistently in propaganda. Um, talking about protecting women has been a pretty I mean, throughout the white nationalist movement has been a very long-standing theme. It's core to slogans that they use like the 14 words. Um, I think also just extreme views about race. Um, I think maybe talking about racial segregation, like that might be kind of a little bit beyond sort of where someone would start trying to recruit you, but honestly, politics are so insane right now, I wouldn't be super surprised if that was something that was just dropped. Um, but also mentions of like certain influencers too. Um, I I think there's a fair number of very prominent influencers, uh, who are very radical. Like Andrew Tate, um, Myron Gaines, like people like that. Um, honestly, anyone who was just in Louis Theroux's, uh, manosphere documentary, I think is probably a giant red flag. Um, yeah, I think also just kind of talking about these issues as if there's real existential threat behind them. So, if someone is really going on about like, immigration, not just as like concerns about immigration and concerns about the border, but talking about immigration in the sense of like changing how immigrants are really changing the racial demographic of the country, that's like, that's sort of a step beyond having a normal conversation about immigration policy. Um, so, yeah, I think those are probably some of the ones I would think of right now. Speaker 1: Yeah, I that's a great point. Immigration is a really common entry point for these these positions because immigration is something that in a, you know, a rational society, it's it is a political factor. It's something that merits discussion and we vote based on. So, it's easy for these people to infiltrate their message through immigration in the guise of, oh, well, this is just, you know, I just care about politics and the economy. But there is a difference between saying, you know, like, hey, we're, you know, we're we're bringing in and we're growing the population faster than our infrastructure can handle it, right? We don't have enough housing for all of these people. We don't have enough jobs. Um, that's one conversation. But when you start talking about like, we've got to preserve our cultural heritage. I mean, I don't even know what exactly that means. Like, I live up here in Canada. Most of what I would consider to be our cultural heritage is kind of like this amalgamation of stuff from cultures all around the world, right? I mean, that that's what a modern cultural heritage looks like. Your your cultural heritage is not some pure white as the driven snow ideal of European culture. It has never been that. I mean, America right back to its founding, it was never all white, right? And I mean, we I feel like we can say that over and over again, but just for the problem is that for the kind of people who are receptive to that sort of message, they're getting counter signals from other places, like you talked about influencers, like Andrew Tate. Um, I mean, Charlie Kirk is one that comes to mind for me because, um, prior to his killing, I and everyone I know just kind of thought of him as this like far-right white nationalist loon. And it wasn't until after his assassination that I realized how many people there are out there, like how mainstream this guy actually was. There were a lot of people who were all in on this guy. And interestingly, a lot of them don't seem to be particularly educated about what he even stands for. I mean, I had discussions with people who talked about, you know, Charlie Kirk was a really good man. And I said, I don't know. Did you see that video of him, you know, praising the the dude who tried to kill the Pelosis? Did you see the video of him calling for the execution of Joe Biden? And suddenly, they backtrack real quick when you talk about that kind of stuff because it doesn't jive with the curated experience they have of this guy. Um, and you know, interestingly, you see the same the same thing with Donald Trump, right? If you look on conservative media, they cherry-pick out the 1% of things he says that come across as somewhat lucid. And the rest of the the rest of the absolute rambling nonsense he says just gets left on the on the editing floor. I mean, God, if you want an experience, listen to spend a few hours and listen to like a full unedited Donald Trump speech. He is an insane demented old man, right? But through the power of selective editing, a lot of people have kind of clipped around that. So, I I think that those are some examples of, you know, conservative figures that to me, that's a red flag. If someone is like really all in on Charlie Kirk as this philosopher, that to me is immediately a little bit concerning because whether they know it or not, they're going down that white nationalist pipeline and they're already pretty far into it. Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. I think also too, like the way the backlash that we saw after Kirk of basically, uh, I will say it was it was a little bit wild to watch, um, just suddenly anyone be labeled as Antifa. Um, I anyone who has covered the white nationalist movement for as long as I have, like basically most of my close friends, at some point, uh, we have been labeled left-wing terrorists, um, radical anti-fascists. I mean, I guess I I would consider myself anti-fascist. I don't see a problem with that. I oppose fascism, so so the fuck what? Um, but the backlash about it was was wild because it was just these normal people who like like you were saying, pointing out that, yeah, Kirk had these beliefs that were not great. Um, and then they would say so on social media, and they would just get swarmed. Uh, people got fired, um, people got in trouble with their work. And, yeah, I think I think kind of seeing anyone bringing up a kind of like that level of urgency around the death of I mean, the tragic death of a political figure, I would like, he was assassinated. Uh, but just that level of urgency and that level of anger, um, is just is just a red flag. Speaker 1: God, yeah, some of the clips of, you know, Stephen Miller talking at his, uh, at his funeral were just like straight out of the Nazi playbook. They were just absolutely terrifying and horrifying that a high-ranking government official would feel comfortable saying those things in public. Um, and you're right, you know, friend of the show Karen Attiah, who's been on the podcast before, lost her job at the Washington Post because when Charlie Kirk was was assassinated, she posted a comment just saying like, well, you know, you know, what happened to him is tragic, obviously, but like, let's not revise history here. He wasn't exactly known for like his lucid, inclusive takes. This guy carried some really extreme beliefs that were very targeting towards non-white people. And that apparently was enough to cost her her job at the Washington Post. So, yeah, the the amount of rage that that unleashed was, um, again, that was another wake-up call for me and hopefully for a lot of other people, um, realizing truly how big a problem this is. I mean, Nick Fuentes is another good one. This guy a few years ago was just a tiny loon that no one had heard of. And now this this guy is getting covered everywhere. And I mean, he makes Charlie Kirk look like a moderate leftist by comparison. I mean, the fact that someone like Nick Fuentes gets any credibility or airtime at all is is still very shocking to me because you talked about the Overton window. That is an example of how far things have shifted, right? To the point where even engaging with someone like that is considered acceptable. I I mean, when I grew up, the idea of being a white nationalist and bragging about that, man, that would be enough to get you expelled out of school or fired from a job, right? Because I know what that means. But now, there are a lot of people who will argue like, oh, there's nothing wrong with being a white nationalist. That just means I'm proud of my country, which it obviously doesn't. I mean, maybe you can elaborate on exactly what the difference is here. But this is another example of I I see people trying to whitewash this message, and that gives them an in so that then they can they can infiltrate spaces like the martial arts and share those messages. And before you know it, you've got people who will identify as white nationalists, not knowing, I guess, or not caring anymore what exactly that stands for. Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I guess like the simplest definition of white nationalism that I use is white nationalists are a political movement that agitate for a whites-only state. Um, you can get more complicated about it, about like the differences between neo-Nazis and white nationalists. Um, I I guess that is basically my job is actually partially making that distinction. Um, but at kind of at the end of the day, on a practical level, it doesn't really matter. Um, these are basically exclusionary movements. They want to and oftentimes they will be very cagey about the methods that they use to go about establishing this whites-only state. But they look to, um, countries that are explicitly white supremacist, like say Rhodesia, um, being a historical example. Nazi Germany being another example. Fascist Italy, uh, fascist Spain. Um, basically, places that have used authoritarian policies to, um, Spain, I guess, maybe isn't the best example, but say with Rhodesia or Nazi Germany. In the case of Nazi Germany, using authoritarian policies to basically implement a, uh, particular vision of what is the ideal German, um, that is based on bunk pseudo-science, um, that is based on anti-Semitism, etcetera. In the case of Rhodesia, it was white's white minority ruling over, uh, a black majority and believing that they it was their right to do so. Um, or pre-apartheid South Africa too. Uh, I think within the US, obviously, because the US is very big, this becomes a little more complicated about what the what a white nationalist United States would look like. But in terms of the way that they often talk about it, the focus tends to be very much on immigration. So, a lot of the white nationalist groups that I've covered, the ones that, um, see politics as a means of implementing their whites-only state, they will focus a lot on immigration moratoriums. Um, they basically meaning they want zero immigration, or they want immigration from only countries that are deemed white. Uh, a policy example of this would be what Trump is doing now. Uh, uh, well, illegally taking away the rights basically like right to, um, of Haitians who were here legally, um, under protected status, and then allowing basically white refugees from South South Africa. Um, and they talk about it in terms of replacement. So, the idea is that for them, non-whites are replacing white Americans. They will point to, uh, statistics in terms of population and demographic change, um, and then try and correlate those statistics to crime rates, etcetera. Um, now, neo-Nazis might be are a little different. They will, I think both white nationalists and neo-Nazis will often turn to Nazi Germany as an example, um, that they might like look up to politically. Neo-Nazis will be a little more explicit, I think, in terms in terms of basically their embrace of national socialism. Um, they also tend to be a little more explicitly anti-Semitic, although I think both movements count, uh, like have anti-Semitism kind of as a base, uh, ideology. But really, at the end of the day, it's this idea of whites-only state, and, um, you and also racial preserving what they view as their ideal racial hierarchy. And, yeah, I mean, someone like Nick Fuentes talks explicitly about that. Um, and it's funny because like I I feel like I've been following that guy's career for ages, basically ever since he was a fucking college student. Uh, so, he's been on my radar for a while. So, actually, seeing seeing his, uh, recent explosion into mainstream is pretty wild. But, yeah, I I think that basically is a pretty good summary of it. If you really want the meme take of like what white nationalists want, and this is really funny to me as someone who's from New England, is they'll post these photos of these quaint New England towns where, yeah, the population will be predominantly white. But also, all of those people fucking hate white nationalists. They're all these like lefty, hippie, maybe hippies, uh, lefty, liberal, uh, possibly hippies who are hanging out in a beautiful Vermont town and they want nothing to do with this shit. So, yeah. Speaker 1: This this is something that I I think I I and I hope a lot of white nationalists understand is like, you don't speak for the majority of white people. I think what's happening in like Minnesota is a great example of this. Like, if you think that you're a white nationalist and all of the other white people are your brothers and like, you you are not in the same demographic as them. These people fucking hate you, right? I mean, I like most of the white people that I know will have absolutely nothing to do with white nationalists. These people do not speak for or represent whiteness, which isn't even a fucking thing. I mean, we could that that's a conversation for another day. But, um, something that I I've observed talking to martial artists, as you know, you know, they understandably these sports tend to attract people who are pretty rugged and individualistic. And I think sometimes when you have that mindset, you know, it it's hard to project yourself into other people's life experiences. And so, when I talk about stuff like, hey, you know, we got a real white nationalist problem in this sport. There there is an extremist sport using Jiu-Jitsu and MMA as leverage to peddle their crap. A lot of people will push back and say, well, I haven't seen it. Like, or it doesn't happen at my gym. Um, and my answer to that is always, well, you know, just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean anything. And also, it hasn't happened at your gym that you know of. You know, that doesn't mean it hasn't happened. This comes up a lot when we talk about sexual abuse. Well, people say, well, that I haven't seen that happen at my gym. And again, that that means nothing. That just means you haven't seen it. You probably weren't the target of the abuse. So, you shouldn't be surprised that you haven't seen it. And the same thing goes with white nationalism, right? For a lot of the people who come in and say, well, I haven't seen this. It's like, well, yeah, that's that's because most of the time, you're a white dude. And so, you're not necessarily the target of their anger and their rage. It really does happen though, but it is kind of frustrating to me how many people will push back and say, well, I haven't seen this in my gym. So, therefore, it doesn't happen. But like, look, I I think people need to have a broader understanding of what's going on in the community at large. And also that these people are not always evenly distributed, right? It's not like there's, you know, a bunch of white nationalists that are evenly distributed across every Jiu-Jitsu gym in America. Yeah, you're probably not going to find them if you train in like progressive Portland or something in a gym that explicitly kicks those people out. But there will be clusters of them. And what they look for is infiltration points. They look for a gym where they can get a foothold and then they build from within there and then eventually consume the whole entity. Um, this this has happened, um, actually, there was a a story that I'm sure you were aware of up here where I live in British Columbia, Canada, where a few months ago, the CBC did a big piece on, um, a neo-Nazi rally that took place here that attracted a whole bunch of known Jiu-Jitsu and MMA figures from the BC area. And, um, Karim Zidan from Sports Politica was interviewed for that piece, and he said like, look, you know, yeah, there's a lot of crappy people who are who are doing this. But in terms of the gym owners, there's no guarantee that a gym owner actually knew this was happening in their gym because a lot of the times what these guys do, these, uh, white nationalists, is they will start training at a place and they'll create almost like a subculture within the gym that the coach isn't even always a part of. Sometimes they are, sometimes they're not. So, these groups are not evenly distributed. It's like a virus. They look for a spot that they can infiltrate and then they expand and they proliferate from there. So, my message to people is always, just because you haven't seen it personally, doesn't mean it isn't happening. If you think it isn't happening, shoot me a message. I can introduce you to entire communities of people who have to deal with this stuff on the daily. Like, I've seen video evidence of people getting harassed, you know, like transgender people trying to train in the gym. And then people literally walk in the front door to start harassing them and make them uncomfortable while they're rolling. This shit happens, right? And we should all stand up against that regardless of whatever our immigration beliefs are or whatever our beliefs are on transgender sports. Like, this kind of like hate and violence and intimidation and segregation goes way beyond anything that is considered normal politics. Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. Speaker 1: I mean, it's this so, it's this tactic called entryism, what you're basically describing. Speaker 2: So, entryism is this kind of again, not limited to the white nationalist movement. But it's this concept that fringe political movements will sometimes use to basically gain powers power in institutions. So, they will try and find their way into institutions, shop there, and hopefully like if they for well, hopefully in their view. Um, if that institution doesn't push back on them, they can kind of build up a small community there. A lot of the reporting that I've done on, um, white nationalists who are trying to kind of work their way into the mainstream as opposed to maybe some of these like kind of survivalist neo-Nazi groups that want to go out in the woods and do terrorism. That's that's kind of a separate thing. But, uh, the ones that are really trying to work their way into institutions are using that tactic. So, I've reported on groups doing that at, um, right-wing publications like the Daily Caller, uh, Breitbart. Tons of my colleagues have also done kind of work on that. And it's, yeah, it's not like you point out, it's not limited to one institution. It can also happen at a gym. Um, and I think it's kind of important to be clear about like what's happening there, that it isn't just they do this elsewhere, and they're doing it they're using those same tactics, um, at a gym. Not just it isn't like necessarily just a novel thing. It it's tactics that they developed in other situations and they are taking them to a gym to recruit. Speaker 1: So, what are some of the signs that this is happening in a in an institution or community that you care about? I mean, we already talked about some of the the the the testing the waters that people will do, where they'll start throwing out semi-inflammatory things about immigration or transgender people, but dressed under the guise of legitimate concern. What other elements of the, um, of the infiltration playbook here can we let people know about so they can spot it in their own community? Speaker 2: So, this is going to be this is going to be a slightly convoluted example, but I think it's a really good one. So, it's from a there's an investigative piece I did back in 2019, um, prior to joining SPLC. And it was on a listserv, um, that had a bunch of media people in D.C. Um, one of those people was this guy named John Elliott. Uh, that name will not mean any anything to anyone outside of like conservative politics or libertarian media circles. But basically, he was actually a very big figure, um, within libertarian media circles that, um, and also kind of D.C. right-leaning politics for a while. He for a time, he ran this small, um, program that would basically place journalists, student journalists, or actually, recently graduated journalists at internships at different media organizations in D.C. Some are right-leaning, some are more mainstream. The thing about John is that basically, John, uh, had a different relationship with different students that came through this program, depending on their political leanings. Um, so, he told one woman that he basically saw that she was reading some authors that he thought were interesting, um, that were very far-right leaning. And he kind of struck up a relationship with her and sort of made became a sort of mentor towards her and kind of pushed her towards more radical viewpoints. Um, to the point of what this ultimately culminates in is like basically John being on this listserv with people who he had been in a kind of mentorship capacity, um, with, uh, and they were talking about their admiration for Hitler. They're, uh, how they wanted to incorporate white nationalist ideas into the institutions that they were in. However, I did talk to some people in the course of reporting this article. I talked to some people who actually knew this guy, John Elliott, um, in other capacities, and also in other capacities as, uh, people who had been kind of his mentees at this organization called IHS. And they didn't have that same experience. Um, they just they were actually kind of shocked when I came to them and told them this. And the reaction was very similar when I published this story too, of I never act I like basically, people did not see this in John unless they knew him in this capacity of him showing them his extremism. And that's kind of like a not every example when these guys get revealed is very is exactly like that. And it's not always people in the same positions of power. Um, so this guy is obviously a little bit of a niche figure, but within D.C., he's he was a big deal in that period of time. But it's that kind of consistent trend of sort of seeing this dichotomy, um, this kind of two-faced person is similar. And I think that's kind of the thing you want to watch out for. Is you want to really everyone has slightly different personas when we're talking to say, I don't know, our partner or a close friend or something like that versus when we're talking to someone we don't know. But if you're really kind of hiding your language, um, really kind of like hiding your viewpoints, um, and I think that's that's kind of the red flag here. Um, and it's the the thing that really does worry me in those situations too, is not just the people who are just say, secretly a white nationalist who are showing up to a gym and rolling and then leaving. But it's the people who are like then kind of recruiting and trying to find footholds and sympathetic populations. Speaker 1: I I think that some of these dorks call that hiding their power level, right? Where they're they're kind of suppressing the side of their personality or their true beliefs and they're creating, like you said, this persona for broader public. You know, there's interesting parallels here to the sexual abusers that are so prevalent in the martial arts as well because every time a story breaks, like some famous athlete gets accused of doing something terrible with the women in in the gym. Um, there will always be people who say, well, I can't believe it because I know that guy. And he was always nice to me. And it's like, well, of course he was. You're experiencing a different persona, right? You're not the target of his predatory behavior. So, you're going to see a different side, especially if you know, you your relationship with this guy is you pay him money to come do a seminar for you. Yeah, he's going to be real nice to you because you're not the prey that he's targeting. You will see a different side of that. So, I think whenever you see that that dynamic and you get the impression that someone might have these wildly different aspects of their personality, that that is something to be concerned about for sure. Um, it can it can be a little difficult though for people to rationalize, especially if it's someone they know. I mean, I I think part of the reason why it's so hard right now for people to accept the scope of this problem is because we were all taught that when the fascists came to America, you know, we were taught from Hollywood like, they're going to be wearing Nazi uniforms and swastikas and they're going to be goose-stepping down the street. And and I think there's a lot of people who they their understanding of a fascist is based entirely on like what they know of from Nazi Germany. Not understanding that there is a much broader spectrum of fascistic behavior that can happen there, right? I mean, what ISIS is doing is absolutely fascist behavior. They're just not wearing the same uniforms. Um, but I I do think that sometimes people push back on this because their thought is like, well, it can't be fascism because it's not exactly what I saw on television. Or it can't be white supremacy because they're not dressed up like Klansmen. And that fails to realize that there is a much broader spectrum within these hate movements, right? They all don't fit into this one particular pigeonhole that you might be familiar with from the movies and from TV. Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and that's there are I I mean, there's a bit a couple of examples of neo-Nazi groups basically whipping out swastikas and then marching through town. Uh, there's a group called Blood Tribe, um, that's run by this former Marine called Chris Puho, that basically uses that tactic. But yeah, for the most part, they don't really do that. Um, the way they talk about it in the movement is it's bad optics. And this is actually something that came comes up, uh, when situations like say Elon Musk, uh, did that salute that very much resembled a Sieg Heil, um, during Trump's inauguration. Um, they it's sometimes what you said, the hiding your power levels example of like, the bad optics is you you don't show people that. People are going to think that's too weird. People are going to think that's too too anti-social, too extreme. Don't do that. Um, try and pretend to be a normal person, but kind of at the end of the day, they're really not. Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. It's just it's interesting. I think part of the thing that a lot of people are struggling with right now. I mean, it it feels for people who grew up in modern America, it feels unthinkable that fascism and and hate could ever take root like that in America. So, I think for a lot of people, their denial is based on the fact that they just were conditioned to believe this doesn't happen here. It could never happen here. So, therefore, it isn't happening here. And I think people look for signals, right? They look for, you know, the swastika or some sort of indicator or or the the hooded robe, some indication that this this hate movement conforms to my preconceived Hollywood understanding of what it should look like. I mean, honestly, the thing about ISIS that shocks me more than anything is I always assumed that if fascism came to America, it would be much more competent and disciplined and well-presented. You know, you look in the movies and you see all of these like Nazis in like clean-pressed suits marching in order. And then you look at what's happening in America, and it's a bunch of like out-of-shape dudes in balaclavas slipping on the ice. Like, it it doesn't meet the the the preconceived notion of this like dangerous, hyper-competent threat. These people are goons and thugs. Um, but they're incredibly dangerous. And just because they don't look exactly like what Hollywood told us fascists would look like, that doesn't mean they're not dangerous. It doesn't mean they're they're not fascists. It's just a different flavor of of this hate movement. Um, and and I think sometimes my my biggest frustration is when we try to advertise this stuff in Jiu-Jitsu, a lot of the time people, they're more interested in pushing back than accepting the idea, right? They they get their defenses up because no one wants to believe that the sport they love has a problem, especially if you've made this your whole identity, if you make money off of it. No one wants to admit that like, yeah, we've got a real issue. Um, and Jiu-Jitsu is just starting to come to terms with the fact, I think, that like we have a serious problem with sexual abuse in this sport. But beyond that, what is less discussed is that this is being used as a recruitment method for white supremacists and extremists and hate movements. I mean, you talked about some of the biggest influencers in in the far-right space. You talked about Jake Shields. Well-known Jiu-Jitsu guy, well-known well I'm hesitant to say that well-known because, you know, he was never that famous. The thing from his sporting career, the thing he was most famous for was getting into a post-match altercation in Strike Force and also getting the his ass kicked by GSP in Toronto for 25 minutes. Those were his big accomplishments in the cage. But outside of the cage and off the mats, he's really developed a reputation for himself as being frankly one of the most prominent anti-Semitic influencers in America. I mean, his X page is basically just a a profile in hate at this point. But he is he has achieved way more popularity and influence and presumably money being a white nationalist than he ever did being a martial artist. But that was his entry point. Again, Andrew Tate, a kickboxer, right? There is a pattern here. This this is a powerful on-ramp that a lot of these people are using to get access to an audience of impressionable young men. Um, what do we do in this sport to push back on that? Like, if you are a person like a coach, a gym owner, or just someone with a platform, what should you do? Because I I rightfully understand that coaches don't want to get into thought police, right? Like, if someone comes into your gym and says, I'm a fan of Charlie Kirk. Should you kick that person out of the gym right there? I mean, that's that's debatable one way or the other, I guess, depending on the context of what they say and what they do specifically. But, you know, it there are problems with going down this road of thought police because if you just cut these people off and kick them out, now you have no opportunity to counter-engage them and bring them back into the fold. But there also has to be a line, right? I I think that we would agree. I would hope we would agree. If someone comes into your gym and they've got swastikas and lightning symbols and 88s tattooed over their body, they should be kicked out, probably. But there also is, you know, the reality of the fact is we live in a broadly diverse society and you will get people with views that you find pretty gross coming into your gym. What do you suggest to a gym owner? Like, what is the line that you have to draw where you say like, this is too much to allow in here because it is dangerous for our community that we're building versus this is just a dissenting opinion and I don't like it, but we're going to tolerate it anyway. Because I think Jiu-Jitsu people have a hard time drawing that distinction. Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it is tough. And like, it's I think it's a position that honestly, I'm pretty empathetic towards because it's it's a you're in a difficult spot because you also want to be inclusive and let people train, but you also shouldn't put up with shit. I think probably the two, um, I think the two clearest like no-gos are probably what you mentioned in terms of very visible hate tattoos. Uh, if someone, yeah, there's the ADL. I have mixed feelings about them as an organization, but, um, but they do have a very comprehensive list of hate symbols. Um, another organization that has, uh, is starting to put together a very similar database is called the, uh, Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. Um, it's, um, co-founded by actually two former SPLCers, uh, including Heidi Beirich, who's a woman who who's work I really look up to. Uh, and they have put together a lot of like detailed, um, information on kind of up up-to-date hate symbols that you might see. So, it isn't just swastikas, it isn't just like things like the number, I don't know, 1488 or something like that. Um, it's more they've done a lot of very good work on kind of contemporary examples of this. Um, and Canada also has its own organizations too. Uh, as do lots various places throughout Europe. Um, but I think like, yeah, visible hate symbols, no-go. I think also people recruiting for white nationalist groups. Um, that could be something like having conversations, um, with people at the gym, trying to get them to like show up to active clubs or Patriot Front meetups or something like that. Um, hell, I don't know, I'll throw in the Proud Boys because I feel like there's a possibility that I feel like Proud Boys is another group that could easily come in. Speaker 1: They they are Jiu-Jitsu adjacent. There are there are leading figures within that organization who are like Jiu-Jitsu black belts who have roles in our community as well. Speaker 2: So, yeah, there you go. Proud Boys. Um, or maybe like really trying to get people to listen to certain manosphere influencers like Andrew Tate or something. Um, and trying to get people to kind of go into like group chats or like organizations affiliated with them. Andrew Tate has all of this like, and similar guys have like these, uh, chats that you can pay money for and then kind of be part of their program. Um, I think those are probably like the two kind of clearest cut cases. I think there's also kind of like is someone's behavior making people who are going to your gym for very long time feel unsafe. I think that also goes with the coaches too. I mean, there's a lot of there's a lot of people who are in gyms, who a lot of people who coach, who aren't white. And if you show up and you're you're having to work with a neo-Nazi, I mean, think of your staff too, honestly. Uh, your staff's safety. But I think there's also kind of like at another way to think about responding to this too. I I think outside of those two very clear-cut examples of kind of behavior you should absolutely not tolerate is like, if there's someone with shitty views, I feel like depending on where someone is in life, there's ways you can kind of sway them or kind of lend an olive branch to get them out of the movement. A lot of the stories that I've heard from sources who have left the movement, um, like there's often a there's often like a single breaking point with their relationship with the movement. But a lot of what builds up to that breaking point, and a lot of what shapes their response to how they respond to the conditions that maybe come after that breaking point are often shaped by people around them. And people pointing them in the right direction. And people like giving them good information and saying like, hey, like, you're if you're affiliated with this thing, this thing that's bad, it doesn't have to that doesn't have to be your whole life. There's life outside of the movement, and you can leave it. And I think that's also kind of like a conversation that does need to be had because, um, and it's a conversation that's hard. And I think depending on the situation that you're dealing with, um, the kind of person that you're dealing with, maybe it's not always appropriate to go that direction. But like, I just I hear so many stories about people who have left white nationalism behind, basically because of very similar conversations. And I think it's one that, um, people in the kind of mentorship capacity, like as a coach or as a gym owner, they can actually they can kind of have a lot of meaning to the person who's sort of wrestling with being stuck with this shitty, toxic movement that they're in. Um, yeah, so that's my advice. Speaker 1: I think that's that's a good a good way to close this off. I mean, this is something I struggle with a lot because when I I hear people espousing these terrible beliefs, my natural inclination is to want to just cut them out. And I I think there is a time and a place for that. I mean, if you're talking about weird anonymous people on the internet, yeah, just block them and move on and don't engage. Um, but real life is a little bit different. Um, and I think you have to as a gym owner, really do your best to gauge the intent of the person who's there. Like, there there is a difference between a person who comes into the gym with again, like neo-Nazi tattoos and who is clearly trying to recruit people. That is there's a very clear intent that you can read there. And for the the good of your community, you need to remove those elements. But then you also have like a vulnerable, ignorant 15-year-old kid who comes into the gym and the algorithm has fed him a lot of Nick Fuentes, and that's his current role model. And that's based on ignorance more than anything else. And if you reject that person because of this, not only do you then conform to all of their like all of the stereotypes they may hold about liberals and progressives, um, but also you push them into the arms of the enemy, right? Which I think is a challenge and a problem that progressives have have traditionally had is, you know, in in our with our best intent to try to remove toxic elements, sometimes we fail to draw the distinction between people we can reach and pull back to to moderateness versus people who just have truly terrible intentions. And that's where the nuance is, right? You have to as a coach, every coach knows, you have to protect the culture of your gym. It only takes one toxic element to ruin the team, right? If you have one toxic person in a club of 100, and you allow them to be toxic in there, they will spread and it will impact the entire organization. So, you've got to be able to read the difference between like, I am someone who innocently and ignorantly fell down a rabbit hole and I can be reached versus like, no, I'm here to recruit. That is a very different mindset. And I think being able to I think this all comes down to awareness and knowing that this is something that is happening increasingly across North America and the world. So, um, I mean, Hannah, I can't thank you enough for coming and sharing that information, which hopefully helps both practitioners and gym owners be more aware of the risks we're dealing with. Any closing thoughts or important lessons we need to share, data points that we didn't talk about, which you think we should definitely include here? Speaker 2: Uh, I think not much that I can think of, honestly. I think we covered everything pretty pretty well. Um, yeah, I think kind of at the end of the day, uh, any sport is what you make of it, right? And like, I think kind of protecting yourself against this stuff is everyone's responsibility. And it's kind of my viewpoint of it. Speaker 1: Yeah. Good way to close it out. Well, if people want to follow you or check out your work, how can they go about doing that, Hannah? Speaker 2: I am on Blue Sky at Hannah Gaze. I am unfortunately still on X at Hannah Gaze. And I have a very infrequent, uh, newsletter called Post from Underground. Uh, that's on Ghost. Um, just sort of an alternative to Substack. And I write for the Southern Poverty Law Center a lot, as well as other places like The Baffler. And if you happen to read Swedish, I write for a Swedish magazine called Expo. Not in Swedish. It's all translated. I do not know Swedish. But hey, look, just throwing it out there. You never know who's listening to this. Speaker 1: True. Amazing. Well, I will do my best to put links to that in the show notes. And hey, I guess one other thing to plug, you were you mentioned this briefly, but I'm I'm curious because my wife actually said the same thing recently. Um, there was an interesting new manosphere documentary on Netflix, you mentioned. Want to talk about that? Because that might be a good like next step if people want to go and watch that. It might give them a bit more context. Speaker 2: Yeah, Louis Theroux just uh released a very good documentary on the manosphere. Um, for those who don't really know who Theroux is, he's done a lot of really great work on, uh, he did something on the Phelps family, but basically the guys behind those very anti-LGBTQ, um, signs that I'm not going to repeat because yeah, they're slur-laden. But, um, he's done a lot of very good work in the past on reporting on pretty odious characters. And he did a very excellent documentary that's on Netflix right now that's on the manosphere. Um, it's has people like Myron Gaines in it. Um, and talks about the Tates a fair amount. Uh, and I think it's like one of the best primers that I've seen recently on that space. Um, and he does a very good job kind of just revealing those people for frankly, how kind of pathetic they are. Um, which is sort of I think an ideal for a documentary like that. Um, but also showing the extent of the problem and the reach these guys have. So, I would really encourage people to check that out. Speaker 1: God, the the patheticness of some of these guys is the thing that just blows my mind. Someone sent me a clip of that clavicular dude, um, showing like a life hack for men about like how to put little platforms in your house so that when you're walking around, you'll look two inches taller and like presumably people won't be able to tell that you're actually two inches shorter, like to create an optical illusion of being taller and think like, what a what a pathetic, weird way to live your life. I don't even know what to say about this stuff. Like, I mean, there there've always been crazy crazy people and beliefs out there, but this is kind of like next level where people are going with the whole looksmaxing thing. And that's a topic for another day. But anyway, Hannah, thank you so much for doing this. I'll try to put a link to that Netflix documentary in the show notes if I can as well to make that easy for people to find. But yeah, thank you so much for coming by. And thank you for the great work that you do. I think that for people like yourself, being able to shed light on this, that that's what allows the the counter-message to spread. And I think it's very important to to educate people about what's going on here on this front. So, thank you again for doing that. Speaker 2: Happy to do so. It was great to be here. Speaker 1: Great to have you. And thanks to the listeners as well. Great to have you too. And we'll talk to you soon. See you next time.