Like, can you just explain some of the psychology and the psychologizing that happens? In, in these groups

Yeah.

Yes, absolutely.

I mean, there's a lot to that.

And I wanna go back 'cause I missed part of Will's question, uh, first, so let me, let me get that.

But as far as, like, the people that joined, Will, um, it, it, it was in the neo-Nazi movement, you had to be white.

Um, so, and it went by, like, the organization that I was a part of went by the German, uh, neo...

So, so Jesse Raphael? Did, did you, did you make it on her show? [laughs]

Are you just ignoring all that? You're just ghosting them?

Yeah, so when I decided that I was gonna leave, I retired first because I knew that I was gonna speak out, but I didn't know what that looked like.

I didn't know anything about civilian life, but I also knew you can't just stop and then snap your fingers and everything is better.

I still had to work through the Holocaust numbers and things like that.

I wasn't ready to speak out immediately.

I call that the decompression phase, and that's when you're beating yourself up over who you were and trying to process it, and why did I do this? Why did I stay so long? All these different kind of things.

And it was during that period of time before I met the Wiesenthal Center people, I was introduced to a former Al-Qaeda guy that had introduced me to a Jewish woman, and this is a story I always forget to tell.

What do you think will prove that this is repair rather than just rebranding, a fresh coat of paint?

[laughs] Did you have a bit of a identity crisis, you'd say, when you left? Like, it took some years to get back into the flow of things?

Um, [clears throat] it was challenging.

It was, it was really challenging.

But, um, once I put out, uh, once I put out my website that I was gonna speak out against hate and racism, I got contacted by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, um, which is an international human rights organization, and, um-And, um, within a couple of days, uh, the, the head of research there was on a, on a plane out to Detroit to meet with me and ask, you know, "Well, what do you wanna do with your life and everything now that you, you've left the movement?" And, and I said, "Well, I wanna, I wanna be a peace builder.

I wanna, uh, use the lessons of my past to, to help others so people don't make the same mistake." And, and, um, you know, Wiesenthal has been very, uh, um, was very supportive when a lot of other people, um, wouldn't see me as anything else but the person that I was for all those years.

So that wa- it was a, it was a very difficult time at first.

And there's still, I mean, there's always gonna be people that, that, uh, that don't believe in change or that can't embrace that and, and, um, those of us that have led that kind of life, you know, just have to be okay with that and just say, you know, "Okay, you know, I can't convince everybody.

Anything else you wanna close off with here?

Why did that question get through to you when other efforts hadn't?

You know, my family and everybody had tried to me for years and years and years and I wasn't hearing it.

When you're entrenched in it, you think you're doing this noble thing so when someone tells you, "You're wrong.

You're hateful.

You're, you're off." You automatically push back.

It's just human nature.

That's what we do.

I used to think I was in the right, but actually I was wrong and I've seen the light, and now they have to con- front the question of, is it possible that, (laughs) that the current version of Jeff is right and the old version was wrong? I'd love to hear the two of you riff on that a little bit and how you each think about using dissonance.

Why did that question get through to you when other efforts hadn't?

You know, my family and everybody had tried to reach me for years and years and years, and I wasn't hearing it.

When you're entrenched in it, you think you're doing this noble thing.

So when someone tells you you're wrong, you're hateful, you're, you're off, you automatically push back.

It's just human nature.

That's what we do.

That's what most all of us do.

I used to think I was in the right, but actually I was wrong and I've seen the light." And now they have to confront the question of, is it possible that [laughs] that the current version of Jeff is right and the old version was wrong? I'd love to hear the two of you riff on that a little bit and how you each think about using dissonance.

Maybe I'm wrong"?

No.

You know, you would think with this kinda stuff going on in your life, you know, you would, uh, reflect on that, but I doubled down, and that's pretty common in, in that, uh, in that world when someone is faced with that kind of pressure, is they double down, they become more entrenched.

So it's like every lash of the proverbial whip, anybody that tried to stop me from being involved in it or tried to dissuade me, it just made me more, um, dedicated to it and more intense in that belief system.

So I'm, I'm thinking my, I'm gonna ruin my band's career now.

So I quit the band, I shaved my head, and, um, then I put all that energy that I had put into music into the movement.

I felt like I had no choice.

And so, but you guys hadn't seen each other in quite a while, and then on your own, you just started exploring these ideas and changing your perspective.