I wanted to bring Christian Picciolini into
this conversation, founder of Free Radicals
Project, the nonprofit that helps people disengage
from hate and violent extremism, leading neo-Nazi
skinhead and far-right extremist himself in
the ’80s and ’90s.
Talk about your response Friday, when you
heard what happened in New Zealand and heard
about the white supremacist, the white nationalist,
who opened fire, killing 50 Muslim worshipers.
CHRISTIAN PICCIOLINI: Well, Amy, this tragedy
was similar to the hundreds of tragedies that
have been happening since the ’80s and ’90s.
This is not an isolated incident.
This is not a fringe problem.
This is a transnational terrorist alliance.
You know, dating back to the late ’80s and
early ’90s, there have always been connections
to overseas white supremacist groups connected
to the United States, and this is no different.
But this is also another example of how words
matter, especially words from a president,
because this is now the third or fourth time,
just in a matter of months, where violence
has occurred or almost occurred because of
words that the president said.
What’s happened now is the internet has
created a platform where propaganda and conspiracy
theories are being spread to the farthest
reaches of the internet, and it’s reaching
some of our most vulnerable, marginalized,
broken individuals, who are unstable but are
taking these narratives, and it’s fulfilling
them.
It’s empowering them to a certain degree.
But the end result is always violence.
It’s always death.
And we just saw another example of that in
Christchurch.
And I suspect it’s not going to be the last
one we see.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go back to what President
Trump said on Friday, when he was holding
his, what he called, veto ceremony around
defying Congress’s wishes—Republicans
and Democratic senators and congressmembers—and
saying he’s going to appropriate over $8
billion to build a wall on the border, and
a reporter shouted out a question to him about
the increasing threat of white nationalism.
REPORTER: Do you see, today, white nationalism
as a rising threat around the world?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I don’t, really.
I think it’s a small group of people that
have very, very serious problems, I guess.
If you look at what happened in New Zealand,
perhaps that’s the case.
I don’t know enough about it yet.
They’re just learning about the person and
the people involved.
But it’s certainly a terrible thing, terrible
thing.
AMY GOODMAN: “Terrible thing,” he says.
Christian Picciolini, respond.
CHRISTIAN PICCIOLINI: Well, I think the president
is either uninformed or he’s complicit,
because this is a problem that has been very
visible in our country, you know, for the
last five or six decades.
You know, it started with Timothy McVeigh
and, really, with the Oklahoma City bombing,
and it really hasn’t stopped since then.
In the '80s and ’90s, the white supremacist
movement had a very concerted strategy to
mainstream.
We recognized back then, when I was involved,
that we were too edgy.
Our shaved heads, the tattoos were putting
off the average American white racist.
So we decided that we needed to look like
them, sound like them and go where they were.
So we encouraged people to grow their hair
out, to trade their boots in for suits, and
to get jobs in law enforcement and to go to
the military and get training, and also to
run for office if they had a clean record.
And the fruits of that labor are now coming
to fruition.
But I can tell you that even 30 years ago
I never would have guessed that we'd be in
this position today.
But I can tell you also, 30 years ago, we
didn’t have a propaganda center and a command
post on Pennsylvania Avenue.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the importance of
the internet in all of this, Christian Picciolini.
I mean, as we now know, as what happened on
Friday, the shooter, as he opened fire, he
live-streamed this on Facebook.
He live-streamed this.
We haven’t shown any of those images.
Facebook would soon take that down.
Of course, some caught it.
Hours after Friday’s attack, the president
of the Council on American-Islamic Relations,
or CAIR, blamed Trump for the rise of anti-Muslim
terror in the U.S. and abroad.
This is Nihad Awad.
NIHAD AWAD: The terrorist has quoted the most
powerful person in the world: President Trump.
And I would like to address Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump, your words matter.
Your policies matter.
They impact the lives of innocent people at
home and globally.
And you should condemn this not only as a
hate crime, but as a white supremacist terrorist
attack.
And you need to assure all of us—Muslims,
blacks, Jews, immigrants—that we are protected
and you will not tolerate any physical violence
against us because we are immigrants or we
are a minority.
… During your presidency and during your
election campaign, Islamophobia took a sharp
rise, and attacks on innocent Muslims, innocent
immigrants and mosques have skyrocketed.
We hold you responsible for this growing anti-Muslim
sentiment in the country and in Europe.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Nihad Awad.
I’d like you to respond to that, Christian,
and also the importance of the internet when
it comes to the spread of right-wing white
supremacy.
CHRISTIAN PICCIOLINI: Well, you know, I think
a president’s words don’t just have immediate
consequences; they’ll have lasting consequences
for all the young people who are being born
now into this environment of pure extremism.
And, you know, as far as the internet goes,
let me paint a picture of who may be on the
internet.
It’s not just our friends and dog pictures,
but there are millions of marginalized, alienated,
broken young people who are looking for identity,
community and purpose in real life and can’t
find it there, but they can find it online.
And the internet has become flooded, since
the 2016 election and even just before that,
by propaganda and conspiracy theories coming
in from Eastern Europe and from Russia.
And it’s very difficult to not land on some
of this propaganda.
But they’re also going to some of the most—the
places where some of the most vulnerable people
are—depression forums, online autism forums.
They’re talking to our children over headsets
when they’re playing multiplayer gaming,
and they’re trying to recruit them with
these narratives that are mimicking what the
president is saying.
And because there are so many people online
who are not able to potentially establish
those relationships in real life, they can
build whatever identity, community and purpose
they want.
And the narratives are being given to them.
And this has become the fastest-growing underground
social movement that I’ve ever seen in my
life.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean, online autism
forums?
CHRISTIAN PICCIOLINI: So, discussion forums
where people are discussing, you know, living
with autism, or even Facebook groups.
But it doesn’t stop there.
They’re going to where vulnerable people
go to find help, to talk to other people,
or even where young people might go where
they’re looking for that sense of identity,
community and purpose.
This is really no different than what I used
to do 30 years ago, when I used to look for
vulnerable people outside of arcades or outside
of punk rock concerts or skate parks, because
the idea is, you are banking on the fact that
somebody there is going to feel marginalized,
is going to have what I call potholes that
deviated their path, those things that appear
in life, like trauma, abuse, poverty, mental
illness, that maybe alienate them from the
rest of society.
And then they promise them paradise.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to the Australian
lawmaker who’s been publicly shamed for
his comments following Friday’s massacre,
in which he said immigration is to blame for
the terrorist attack.
Queensland Senator Fraser Anning said, “The
real cause of bloodshed on New Zealand streets
today is the immigration program which allowed
Muslim fanatics to migrate to New Zealand
in the first place.”
On Saturday, while Anning was addressing reporters
in Melbourne, Australia, 17-year-old William
Connolly stood behind him and cracked a raw
egg on the back of his head.
The far-right politician immediately swung
around and punched the teenager in the face.
He then attacked the teenager again, before
the two were forcibly separated.
A group of men then tackled Connolly to the
ground and placed him in a chokehold.
Connolly was briefly arrested before being
released without charge.
The Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison
has sided with the teenager, condemning Anning’s
comments and saying the lawmaker should be
charged for assaulting Connolly.
Let me ask Khaled Beydoun: Your response?
KHALED BEYDOUN: Yeah, you know, first, the
rhetoric of Anning’s, Senator Anning’s,
were, you know, pretty much echoing what President
Trump has been saying for a long time.
You know, one additional point I want to make,
besides rhetoric and words from politicians,
it’s important to also focus on how policies—right?
We have a standing Muslim ban in the United
States, which has been upheld by the Supreme
Court, which echoes what President Trump is
saying, but then emboldens what individual,
private terrorists, like the one in New Zealand,
go on and do.
So there’s policy, and there’s also rhetoric.
But I think that we all, you know, sort of
champion what Connolly did.
I think that he demonstrated the kind of frustration
that individuals had intellectually with the
kind of rhetoric politicians are making against
immigrants.
And I’m happy that the prime minister of
Australia sided with the kid, condemning that
rhetoric, especially after the massacre.
For a senator to say that after a massacre
is just egregious.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted now to go to Mick Mulvaney—this
was truly an astounding moment—the acting
chief of staff of President Trump, who was
speaking on Fox News.
This is the chief of staff of the president
of the United States, who found it necessary
to say this.
MICK MULVANEY: The president is not a white
supremacist.
I’m not sure how many times we have to say
that.
AMY GOODMAN: “The president is not a white
supremacist.
I’m not sure how many times we have to say
that,” he said.
Christian Picciolini, you come out of that
movement.
You were an avowed, proud white supremacist
for decades, in the ’80s and in the ’90s.
President Trump tweeted this weekend over
20 times.
Not once did he mention the massacre.
Can you respond to what Mick Mulvaney says?
How do you define white supremacy?
It has been—it is your life.
You were a white supremacist for years, and
now you fight against it and try to bring
people out of this whole movement.
CHRISTIAN PICCIOLINI: Yeah.
You know, I think, just like hatred, white
supremacy is born of ignorance.
Fear is its father, and isolation is its mother.
When we don’t understand something and we
become afraid of it, sometimes that turns
into hate.
I think a lot of, you know, policies that
have come out of this administration have
mimicked things that 30 years ago I would
have applauded.
In fact, white supremacists today are applauding
this president’s policies and even his words.
And in return, you know, on occasion, the
president will retweet a conspiracy theory
from a white nationalist.
This is a problem, because, one, we’re not
calling it out.
We obviously have very open wounds in the
United States that deal with racism, that’s
still affecting people.
And it’s something that we shouldn’t really
take lightly, because now it is turned into
direct action against people of color, against
Jewish people, against Muslims, and against
even the media and politicians.
And this is something that—you know, words
really have consequences.
I can tell you, Amy, 30 years ago, I wrote
racist music and racist lyrics, and I performed
those and sold that music.
Well, I never really thought that it had gone
anywhere, but, 30 years later, that music
got into the hands of Dylann Roof, who posted
my lyrics on a white supremacist message board
just four months before walking into the Mother
Emanuel Church in Charleston.
And that is the power, and those are the consequences,
of our words.
And like I said earlier, President Trump’s
words are going to have lasting implications
for our democracy, for our children growing
up, and for citizens now who are in fear of
their lives, because we can’t even acknowledge
that there’s a problem, let alone we’re
not prepared to address it.
In 2007, Daryl Johnson with the Department
of Homeland Security called out the fact that
white supremacy was on the rise.
And that—under President Obama, that was
shelved.
So this goes back a long period in our history.
This certainly isn’t just President Trump,
but I can tell you that for the first time
in modern history, our president’s words
are actually causing people to murder each
other.
AMY GOODMAN: Again, the alleged shooter in
New Zealand praised Donald Trump, also praised
Dylann Roof and talked about what an inspiration
he was.
And, yes, it’s very important to talk not
only about what happened there, but also to
talk about what happened in Pittsburgh with
the killing of the Jews, the same language
used—the Jewish worshipers there at the
Tree of Life synagogue—talking about “invaders”
and “invasion.”
And that’s the same language that President
Trump used, once again, on Friday, hours after
the manifesto came out, repeating those words.
I want to end by reading a few of the names
of the victims of the Friday massacre at the
New Zealand mosques.
Among the dead are 71-year-old Haji-Daoud
Nabi; 44-year-old Husna Ahmed, father of two;
Lilik Abdul Hamid; and 3-year-old Mucad Ibrahim—just
four of the 50 people, the 50 lives lost in
the terrorist attack.
The Muslim community in New Zealand and millions
of people around the world are mourning their
deaths.
I want to thank Khaled Beydoun, law professor
at University of Arkansas, author of American
Islamophobia: Understanding the Roots and
Rise of Fear, and Christian Picciolini, founder
of Free Radicals Project, was a white supremacist
himself in the '80s and ’90s and has written
a number of books on this issue, among them,
White American Youth: My Descent into America's
Most Violent Hate Movement—and How I Got
Out.
When we come back, young people take to the
streets around the world to demand change
around climate change.
Stay with us.
