Interviewing a Former White Nationalist | Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller
You'll never get the truth from a current extremist. Their whole job is to lie to you and to spin things their own way. Which is why I say if you want the truth, talk to a former extremist.
You still have the jacket? Still have the jacket? Oh, so this was Cash Chicago Area Skinheads, which was that first American neo-Nazi group. And then on the back, Final Solution. Final Solution was my band name, with the 88, which is kind of shorthand for the eighth letter of the alphabet, HH, which stands for Heil Hitler.
What was the Final Solution? Well, the Final Solution, in my mind, was the same thing that was in Hitler's mind, and that was the extermination of the Jews. That was the ultimate solution. From the age of 14 to 22, Christian Piccolini helped build America's first neo-Nazi skinhead organization. But today, he has devoted his life to helping people disengage from the same extremist groups he used to belong to.
What I see when I look at those pictures is not a tough guy. I see a very insecure, low self-esteem, and broken young man. I think it's important for people to understand that what draws people to those movements, hate movements, is not the ideology initially. Nobody is born to hate; it's something that we learn. For me, I was searching for an identity, a community, and a purpose.
Christian was ripe for radicalization, and on a street corner in 1987, he was approached by a skinhead leader and recruited on the spot. That man told me that I mattered. Nobody had ever told me that before. I bought into the ideas that they put in my head because it made me feel powerful.
With me today, Chris Piccolini, 19 years old, director of the Illinois chapter of the Northern Hammer Skinheads. "Well, I believe we're warriors today, and we're fighting for a great cause, which is the white race." I noticed my life changed immediately. I went from somebody who had been bullied to now somebody who was feared.
Christian describes his radicalization as a descent into a community of like-minded individuals. They consumed a potent mix of race-based conspiracy theories and misinformation that fueled their anger and justified their attacks. I wonder how that radicalization process compares to mine today. It was very face to face, but what's happened now is the internet has kind of become that digital alley that I was recruited in, except it's an all-you-can-eat 24-hour hate buffet. There are millions and millions of young people like I was at 14 years old.
What about the El Paso shooter? The whole idea of a lone wolf is a misnomer. While there are white supremacists who may never in real life meet another white supremacist, it doesn't mean they're not connected. The internet is a technological game changer, amplifying lies and weaponizing propaganda like never before. Extremists are flooding social media and encrypted chat forums, creating an alternate universe of imaginary threats where lies become truth and conspiracy becomes reality.
As of May 2021, Facebook banned 250 groups linked to white supremacy. Often, what starts as edgy memes that target young men on platforms like Reddit, Twitter, and others quickly spirals into more extreme content. The El Paso shooter, for example, wrote that he was inspired by a manifesto posted online by a shooter in New Zealand who live-streamed himself murdering 51 Muslims, called the Great Replacement. This manifesto justified the killings as a defense of white culture from the existential threat posed by Muslims, minorities, and immigrants.
The fact that these white genocide fears have been debunked time and again over centuries means little online. Within the echo chamber of the movement, the New Zealand shooter's manifesto is revered and used to indoctrinate new recruits. All too often, that's how it works. The speed of online radicalization helps explain why race-based attacks are on the rise. As Christian said, nobody is born to hate; it's learned.