♪ amy goodman: from pacifica, this is dememocracy now! >> i i'm warrenen christian, the great-great-grandson of confederate general stonewall jackson. and my brother and i are calling for the removal of his statue on monument avenue in richmond, virginia, because we believe the monument is an ongoing symbol of white supremacy and racism in the united states. amy goodman: as president trump faces growing outrage over his response to the deadly white supremacist rally in charlottesville, virginia, we bring you an exclusive interview with the great-great-grandsons

of confederate general stonewall jackson. and we speak with a north dakota activist, whose uncle marched in charlottesville with white supremacists. plus, we will talk to a former neo-nazi who co-founded the group life after hate. >> we decided 30 years ago that at that point we were not going to shave our heads. we were going to trade our boots for suits, and go enroll in college recruit on campuses, and we would get jobs in law enforcement, go into the military to get training and be able to recruit there, and even run for office. and here we are 30 years later with that dream -- or that nightmare -- realized. amy goodman: all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amamy goodman. today, a democracy nowow special looking at the fallout from the recent deadly white supracist rally in charlottesville, virginia, where an anti-racist

protester named heather heyer was killed when a car driven by a neo-nazi plowed into a crowd of counterprotesters. the white supremacist charged with heather's murder, 20-year-old james alex fields jr., was in chararlottesville fr the "unite the right" rally, along with several thousand white supremacists, neo-nazis, and ku klux klan members, opposing the planned removal of a statue of confederate general robert e. lee. the night before, rally organizers held a march that was reminiscent of torchlit parades in nazi germany, with hundreds of mostly young, white men chanting "you will not replace us! jews will not replace us!" and the 1930s nazi slogan, "blood and soil!" later in the show, we will speak to a former neo nazi and a north dakota activist, whose uncle marched with the white supremacists in virginia, but first, we look at the growing movement to remove confederate statues in the wake of charlottesville.

ateast 1,500 symbols of the confederacy can be found in public spaces across the country. according to the southern poverty law center, most of them were built during the early decades of jim crow or in reaction to the civil rights movement -- not right after the civil war. but now, a number of the monuments are coming down. in baltimore, the city, under orders from the mayor, removed all four of its confederate statues. in durham, north carolina, protesters toppled a confederate statue after a college student named takiyah thompson climbed up a ladder and looped a rope around the top of the confederate soldiers monument. she appeared on democracy now! just before going to court. takiyah thompson: and i did this because the statue is a symbol of nationalism, and it's a symbol of white nationalism. and the type of white nationalism i'm talking about is the type of white nationalism that is sending me death threats

on facebook. i'm talking about the type of white nationalist that, you know, has killed a woman in a protest. amy goodman: and the calls for the removal of the statues are even coming from the descendants of the leadersf the confederacy. today, an exclusive interview with two of the great-great-grandsons of confederate general stonewall jackson. jack and warren christian have just written an open letter to the mayor of richmond, virginia, calling for the removal of the stonewall jackson statue in richmond. they write, "[o]ur sense of justice leads us to believe that removing the stonewall statue and other monuments should be part of a larger project of actively mending the racial disparities that hundreds of years of white supremacy have wrought. we hope other descendants of confederate generals will stand with us." jack christian joins us from western massachusetts where he teaches. and warren christian is in raleigh, north carolina. he works with international students at the university of north carolina.

i began by asking jack christian why he was speaking out. jack christian: yeah, well, i think that [inaudible] wrote definitely is a product of something that we've been thinking about and feeling for a long while now, but was also very much catalyzed by what we saw in charlottesville, and particularly in durham, pulling down their confederate monument. so that inspired warren and i to kind of feel like this was the time to write this letter. amy goodman: and, warren christian, in baltltimore, under cover of night, two nights ago, the mayor had four confederate monuments pulled down. one of them was a monument of your great-great-grandfather, stonewall jackson. your thoughts today and how you

came, together with jack, to call for the removal of not only monuments to your great-great-grandfather, but all other confederate monuments? warren christian: yes. well, this -- like jack said, this is something that we've felt for a long time. i think it's very clear, if you look at the context in which the monuments were put up, they weren't -- they y weren't celebrating kind of benign war heroes. they were very clearly meant to be things that would intimidate black people and further white supremacy in the u.s. where i work, at unc, there's a prominent confederate memorial, monument, statue right in the heart of campus. and since i've been at the university of north carolina, i have wanted for that statue to be removed, and felt like speaking out about it, and now,

finally, kind of got the courage to do so. i think jack and i, and along with our parents, it's kind of some mixed feelings, mixed emotions, about being direct descendants of stonewall jackson. it's not something that i, you know, widely share, outside of a very close group of friends. so this is really kind of a coming out, in a sort. and also, the -- i think the

amy goodman: this is democracy , democracy now.org. i am amy goodman. foreign policy magazine recently revealed the existence of a recent fbi and department of homeland security bulletin that concluded white supremacisist groups were "responsible for 49 homicides in 26 attacks from 2000 to 2016.....more ththan any otother domestic extremist movement." despite the fbi and dhs findings, the trump administration recently cut funds to groups dedicated to fighting right-wing violence. one of those groups, life after hate, which works to help white nationalists and neo-nazis disengage from hate and violent extremism, was set to receive a grant under the department of homeland security's countering violent extremism program. the grant had been approved by the obama administrationon, but whenen trump homand d security policy adviser katharine gorka released t the final list of grantees in june, life after hate had been eliminated.

gorka is the wife of former trump adviser sebastian gorka, who has been linked to a hungarian far-right, nazi-allied group. on the morning after the memorial in charlottesville for heather heyer, i spoke with christian picciolini, who was once a leading neo-nazi skinhead gang member and far-right extremist in the 1980's and 1990's. he left the movement and co-founded life after hate. he is also author of "romantic violence: memoirs of an american skinhead." i began by asking g him to talk about his response to what happened in charlottesville. christian picciolini: well, i thinink i went to bed, amy, on sunday with a sick feeling in my stomach, like most americans did. but i have to tell you, what i saw last night, with the community gathering together, was what america means to me. i saw people of all different races, all different colors, creeds, religions, gathered together to pay homage to a woman who essentially gave her

life to fight something that is very un-american. and that gives me hope. that gives me hope for america, because i knknow that we want to be able to live in a country where we can get along, where we have equal j justice, , where te systems of racism and the institutions are rebooted so that they're fair for everybody. and i think that this is a turning point for america, because i think we can stop sweeping it under the rug and thinking that we don't have a problem here. it's time to face it head on and make sure that it doesn't happen again.n. amy goodman: christian, when did you become a white supremacist? christian picciolini: i was recruited at 14 years old in 1987. and i spent -- amy goodman: where did you live? christian picciolini: i was in chicago, and that was the home and d the birthplace of the amamerican neo-nazi skskinhead movement. in fact, i was standing in an alley at 14 years old, and a man pulled his car up as i was smoking a joint, and he came over to me, and he said,d, "dont you know that that's what the communists and jews want you to

do, to keep you docile?" at 14, i was a marginalized kid. i had been bullied. i didn't know what a communist or a jew or even what the word "docile" meant. but this man brought me into a family. he gave me an identity, and he fed my sense of purpose. while it was all misdirected, being marginalized and disaffected and feeling abandoned, i was willing to trade in the feeling of power, when i felt the most powerless, for something that was evil and eventually swallowed whole. amy goodman: and can you talk about the groups you were in and what you did? christian picciolini: i was a member of the chchicago area skinheheads, which was america's first neo-nazi skinhead group. eventually i became the leadader of that group, when the man who recruited me, who was america's first neo-nazi skinhead, went to prison. i became the leader of this very infamous group, and we were involved in acts of violence. our primary goal was marketing and recruitment. i started a band, which was a white power band that had violent lyrics that incited

people to go out and commit hate crimes. and that was a recruiting tool. it was a social movement to get people together, young, angsty teenagers who were angry at the world, who felt like they had been pushed aside and now were given somebody to blame for that. amy goodman: what was it that started you moving away and questioning what you were doing? christian picciolini: you know, for the eight years that i was involved, amy, i had doubts the whole time. i came from an italian immigrant family who camame to the u.s. in the 1960's, who were often the victims of prejudice, so i wasn't raised with these racist beliefs. it wasn't part of my family dna or fabric. and i questioned myself the whole time, but i squashed it because the power and the acceptance were more important to me, and i was scared to lose that. but, essentially, over those eight years, i started to meet people who i had kept outside of my social circle, who i hated --

african americans and jews and gay peoplele. but the truth was that i had never had a meaningful interaction with them. but when i started to, i started to receive compassion from the people that i least deserved it from, when i least deserved it. they could have attacked me. ththey could have threatened me. they could have broken my windows. but they didn't. and they knew who i was, and they took it upon themselves to show me empathy when i deserervd it the least. and that helped me humanize them and dispel allll the stereotypes that i had in my head. and suddenly, i couldn't reconcile my hate e anymore. amy goodman: and what was the response of the other white supremacists in your group? christian picciolini: well, they certainly weren't plpleased. but luckily, i was a pretty selfish leader, and i never really groomed anybody to take over locally, so when i left, the group kind of imploded. however, i was a national and international figure at the time. and there were definitely threats, of calling me a race traiaitor, you know, insinuatios that i had started working with police, which were not true.

and i still to this day receive death threats almost on n a daiy basis. amy goodman: i wanted to turn to a white supremacist at the charlottesville rally ththis weekend. this is white supremacist christopher cantwell, who was speaking with vice reporter elle reeve about, well, among other issues, ivanka trump. christopher cantwell: i'm herere to spread ideas, talalk, in the hopes ththat somebodody more cae wiwill come alalong and dodo th, somebody l like donald trump who does not givive his daughterer a jew. elle reeve: so, donald trump, but like m more racist. christopher cantwell: a lot more racicist than donald trump. i don't think that you could feel about race the way i do a d watch that kushner btardrd walk around w with that beautiful gi, ok? amy goodman: that t is white supremacist christopher cantwell. i'm sure you saw clips of him, this vice ininterview, christia. your thoughts? in another part of this, they

visit him where he's staying, and he has one gun after another throughout his waistband that he brings out, and finally brings out a knife, and he says he's well armed for more violence. christian piccioiolini: this gegentleman is an insecucure --s no self-confidencece and is clearly broken. there e is something broken. i'm a fifirm believer that ideology isn't what radicalizes people. i think it's the search for identity, community, and a sense of purpose. and if there's some sort of brokenness, a void underneath that in your life -- and it could be trauma or addiction or mental health issues, anything that would hold you back or deviate your path from the intended one that you were on -- you tend to look for acceptance in negative pathways. and it's interesting that we brought up this clip, because i've actually reached out to this man, after i saw the videos, because he clearly needs help. and i want to offer him a compassionate ear to l listen to

what it is that is broken about him, because what we do at life after hate is, rather than argue ideologically with people, because we know that that just polarizes us further, we try to make the person more resilient, more competitive, more self-confident. and we do that by applying services, like mental health therapy or job training or life coaching or even tattoo removal. and when that person feels more confident, they tend to blame the other less. but i would follow that up with challenging their doctrine, not by telling them they're wrong, but by introducing them to the people that they think that they hate. i may introduce a holocaust denier to a holocaust survivor, or an islamophobe to spend the day with a muslim family and have dinner. and it's those connections, those moments, because most people have never met the people that they hate, that helps them humanize these people and dispel the ideas of them being a monster or a parasite. and that has been the most effective tactic that we've used. amy goodman: christian,

who was once a leading nazi skinhead gang member left of movement and cofounded the group life after hate. when we come back, we will host a discussion between christian picciolini and a north dakota man, whose uncle marched with white supremacists in charlottesville. this is democracy now!, back in a minute. ♪ ♪ [music break]

amy goodman: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org. we are continuing our special broadcast. days after the deadly white supremacist rally in charottesville, virginia, a remarkable letetter was s publid in a local newspapaper in fao, north dakotata. the letter was written by pearce

tefft about his son, peter tefft, who was photographed attending saturday's deadly white supremacist rally in charlottesville. his father, pearce tefft, wrote, "[n]one of his beliefs were learned at home. we do not, never have, and never will, accept his twisted worldview. "[peter] once joked, 'the thing about us fascists is, it's not that we don't believe in freedom of speech. you can say whatever you want. we'll just throw you in an oven.' "peter, you will have to shovel our bodies into the oven, too. please son, renounce the hate, accept and love all." those are the words of pearce tefft, the father of white supremacist peter tefft, who marched in charlottesville. well, i recently spoke to another member of the family, jacob scott, peter tefft's nephew. in addition to jacob, i spoke continued our conversation with christian picciolini, co-founder of lifife after hate, a nonproft helping people disengage from hate and violent extremism. he was a leading neo-nazi

skinhead gang member and far-right extremist in the 1980's and 1990's. i began by asking jacob about what is happening to his family. jacob scott: peter had for a long time been a bit of a bully and kind of unstable. my cousin and i had long wanted there to be some kind of reaction to this from the family , some kind of repudiation. andas after charlottesville after he was involved in a demonstration that killed a person that we were kind of finally able to get the rest of the family on board with us. we had been forthcoming to the community. there have been posters that have been put up around fargo by other people who had encountered him and dealt with his hate, with his picture on them, saying he is a nazi and not welcome in this community.

lundy's poster started coming up, people talked to me in my cousin and we said, yeah, he's a nazi. you should disassociate with him. going to what the guy with life after hate said, i think his ideology comes from something deeper than just the fact of the values. i feel like there's someththing broken aboutut him as a person. he is ofoften very -- he will gt very, very emotional very suddenly if youou get him flustered.d. he w will get t violent. there was an incident where he attempted to assault my other cousin. i definitely do agree with the idea that this comes from something more deep-seated . amy goodman: how did this white national has happened? -- nationalism happened? jacob scott: i'm the oldest of my generation and he is the youngest of his generation.

even though we are uncles, he's closer to his age. amy goodman: what is it mean when he says his father has disowned him? jacob scott: what? amy goodman: what is it mean that his dad has disowned him? jacob scott: he is no longer welcome at family meetings and the one our family would welcome into our homes. ,o answer your first question our whole family -- we are all progreressives. we are all feminists. the time of the ron paul presidential campaign, peter started getting off into these fringe internet spaces like info wars and the like. he started swallowing up that whole mythos. once he got inundated in that, he just kept moving further and further right. this all happened kind of behind our backs. he became a men's rights activist..

a couple y years ago, he showedp to a famamily gathering and started ranting about the jews. i asked him if he identified as a white nationanalist and hehe , yeah, , i'm a fascist. amy goodman: talk about what it means now that the emily has come out and be letter has beenn published inin the paper. he has been outed as one of the white supremacists at the rally in charlottesville. jacob scott: thousands of people came, when yes, you're racist outed him,m, and were flooding s facebook page e with comments ad various denunciations. there was a little bit of friendly fire, so to speak. there are a few kind of -- there were a few people amidst the , thousands, who were coming after other members of our family. and, you know, some people have been trying to say that these anti-fascists are just as bad as the fascists, and they're -- you know, they're employing the same tactics. but ultimately, i mean,

considering the thousands of people that went after my uncle, it was really just a few bad apples that were attempting to harass certain members of my family. and there were other people who -- we onlysting disowned him, and we only publicly disowned him, to prevent -- to save ourselves, so to speak, to exalt ourselves of guilt. but again, like my cousin and i had been pushing for this for some time. we do not believe that a nazi should be welcome in our family. and we long wanted him to be excluded from family evevents. we d don't think that acceptinga nazi into a family, allowing a nazi to go to our family events, is a morally right thing to do. it condones nazism. it says that it's ok for him to be a nazi and that he'll still be welcomed into the family. and so, we were very glad that we were finally able to get the rest of the family on board with this. amy goodman: so, i was wondering if christian picciolini could respond to jacob -- christian picciolini, the former neo-nazi and co-founder of this group,

life after hate. if you could talk about what you've just heard d and how jacob's family has now come out to also out his uncle, the white nationalist peter tefft, who was part of the rally in charlottesville? what do you can be done in this case? i mean, you've been through this a lot now, people who, like yourself, were a white supremacist and then started to change. christian picciolini: you know, i agree with jacob that we have to hold people accountable for for what they say and what they do. however, i don't agree with the tactic of public shaming or calling somebody out with the intention of pushing them further away. and i know that wasn't the intention. the intention was to try and make a statement so that peter knew that his family cared about him and would welcome him back if he renounced his views. but what happens and why people join these types of movements is

because they already feel ostracized, because they already feel marginalized and disenfranchised. and pushing him farther away and not giving him the support of a family structure, i fear, will actually push him further into this movement, because he went searching for something. he went searching for a community or a family and an identity. and if the family, the real family he has, is pushing that away even further, the chances of him coming back because he feels remorse about what his family said are slim to none, in my opinion. amy goodman: jacob, if you could talk about what it would mean to welclcome peter back and any efforts you've made, as he increasingly t turned tohihite supremacy, to reach out to him before this final disavowal? jacob scott: well, i understand

what mr. picciolini is saying. in this -- and i would agree with that in the general case, if a family out there has somebody who's starting to fall into the white supremacist kind of mind trap. but in peter's individual case, i have to think that he's simply too far gone. you know, before the break, i was talking about how he's -- as a person, he's a bit unstable and a bit unhinged. you know, part of the reason why my cousin and i wanted to have him kind of formally disowned from the family, formally babard from family events, is because, frankly, we do fear him.m. like i said, he gets very, very emotionanal, very, very suddene, if he's even slightly y fluster. and he is very muscular. he's very strong. and a lot of family members just don't feel safe around him. so, while there is the consideration of, you know, how best can we deal with him in such a way that he'll feel that he can still come back to us, there's also the consideration of, you know, in the meantime, could he potentially hurt us?

would it be e more healthy f fos to make sure that he's not in our presence, at least until he, on his own, can find his way back? amy goodman: christian, any wowords of wisdom here? i mean, not only did you move away from white supremacy, the neo-nazi movement, but i am -- in your group, if you could tell us stories, life after hate, of other people? and what are the most effective approaches, through specific anecdotes and stories? christian picciolini: sure. well, you know, our approach is to work with people in a compassionate and empathetic way and to listen to what they have to say, instead of arguing with them ideologically or pushing them further away. and what i listen for are these things that i call potholes -- what exixisted in their path tht deviated it. and then, my job becomes to fill those potholes, whether it's job training or life coaching or tattoo removal or mental health therapy. and what happens inevitably is,

when people are more equipped, understand what they're dealing with internally, they don't necessarily need to blame somebody else for what they feel is being taken away from them, because now they're more resilient and they're more able to compete and they're more self-confident. however, i do challenge their ideology, as well, but not by debating. what i do is i introduce them to people that they think that they hate. and i've introduced holocaust deniers to holocaust survivors, islamophobes to imams and muslim families to have family dinner. and it's those types of connections, those opportunities to humanize, that really bring people back, because people join these groups because they're out searching for something that they're not getting in theirir real life. amy goodman: i wanted to go to your uncle, peter tefft, who recently spoke to the local station wday tv in fargo, north dakota, where you, too, jacob, live. peter r defended the tererm

"fascicist" and said he doesn't blame his family f for speaking against him publicly. peter tefft: fascism is s just loving your family and doing what's s best for your nation. i don't hold anything agaiainst them for what they had t to say about me, , because it's the safest thing to do in this polititical climate. "n"nazi" is a raciaial slur tows white people. amy goodman: jacob, as you listen to him, your thoughts? jacob scott: i mean, he says things like that. fascism is about loving your family, and "nazi" is a racial slur against white people. i i mean, it's like he's so far gone down the rabbit hole that you can't even reach him to bring him back. obviously, i hope that's not true, but ultimately, that's the case that t we find yourselves in. , he -- i consider myself pretty far left. i consider myself a democraticic socialist. and he's t talked to me aboututw

he and i, and my people and his people, shshould team up, becaue we're both fighting against the same establishment, the same globalists. and, you know, i say to him, "you know, you believe in racial separation. i believe e in raciaial reparat. there's no similarity between us." and he and lots of nazisis think that they're fighting against the establishment. but racism is the establishment, you know? i mean, capitalism is built on racism from the ground up. and so, when you have this worldview that kind of looks at everything upside down and backwards, it's -- i just -- i don't know how to reach him and how to prevent him from doing the things that he says he's going to do. amy goodman: christian picciolini, when you hear peter speak, jacob's uncle, what are your thoughts? christian picciolini: well, from what i heard from the clip frorm peter and what i heard from jacob is that what peter is saying is straight out of, you know, the manual. he's repeating . he's repeating all the things that he's been taught. and, you know, i want to just give the viewers a little bit of hope. and when jacob says, you know, he's too far gone, i don't

believe that anybody is ever too far gone. i've worked with, you know, grand dragons of the kkk who have been in for 40 years and recognize the error of their ways and suddenly now realize, you know, that's not what they want to do anymore and that they've wasted, you know, their lives. you know, i, mysyself, have a vy checkered past. when i was involved in the movement, i was invited to libya by muammar gaddafi to receive money to start a revolution against the jews. i committed acts of violence that nearly killed many people. i stockpiled weapons to prepare for what i believed was an inevitable race war. so, you so, you know, to that, i would say -- and i've worked with people in prison who have murdered people of color because of their racism. and while they were in prison, they found a way to disengage from that, which is probably the hardest environment to do that. so, you know, just to give some hope, i've worked with some very tough people who, you know, most people would never think would

change, and it's really that compassion that you u show them, because that's what's been lacking both within themselves and from the people around them as they get frustrated with, you know, their loved ones' beliefs. so what i would say to jacob is, don't give up. if you care -- and it's apparent that the family cares about peter. otherwise, they wouldn't have said the things that they did, but don't give up. amy goodman: jacob, did peter text you after the klan march on friday night, the torch -- the torch march, where hundreds of white supremacists marched through the university of virginia campus, leading to one of the counterprotesters having a stroke, as he was hit by these tiki torches in front of the thomas jefferson statue at the university of virginia? but did he text you after the rallies on friday and the attatk on sataturday?y?

jacob scott: yes, he actuaually texted me after i was on cnn yesterday. he was texting me, convinced that i was -- that i was secretly on n his side and thati was somehow helping him by giving publicity to this rally that he wanted hold. i'm hoping that he is -- that he's delusional about this and that he doesn't actually have the clout to be able to organize the rally, which may very well be the case. but if he holds his rally, he says he wants to hold it in october. and if that't's the casese, thee will hold our counter rally. and we hope that people would come to fargo and help us, because, you know, we have a thririving progresessive communy here i in fargo, and i'm sure tt there e will be lots of peop here whoho want to counterproto, but, you know, if peter does have a large national profile -- and it's seeming like he might be develeloping one bebecause of thisis whole incident -- he migt be able to bring in, you know, who knows how many nazis, and they might be able to outnumber us, the way we saw in some of the pictures from charlottesville, where there were, you know, just a small ring of counterprotesters and

then just a sea of tiki torches arou them. that's not a situation that i want to see here in fargo . so if he does end up doing something, i would hope that we could get some people from outside of town to come and help us. amy goodman: the leader of the vanguard america neo-nazi hate group that rallied in charlottesville, dillon ulysses hopper, was a marine corps recruiter. now this is very interesting. it's believed that this information led the marine commandant, the head of the marines, to issue a statement. general robert neller, marine corps commandant, tweeted, "no place for racial hatred or extremism in @usmc [the u.s. marine corps]. our core values of honor, courage, and commitment frame the way marines live and act." and it wasn't only the marine commandant who tweeted, but it

seems that almost every general of the joint chiefs of staff have now made statements, and it may well be in part because of president trump's unhinged, fiery, bellicose news conference that took place on tuesday. i wanted to play for you part of what president trump said on tuesday about the deadly charlottesville white supremacist rally. reporter 1: you said there was hatred, there was violence on both sides. are the counterprotesters to blame -- president donald trump: well, i do think there's blame yes come i think there's blame on both sides. you look at -- you look at both sides. i think there's blame on both sides. and i have no doubt about it, and you don't have any doubt about it either. reporter 1: but only the nazis -- : and ift donald trump you reported it accurately, you would say.

they were very fine people on both sides. amy goodman: "very fine people." christian picciolini, co-founder of life after hate, the nonprofit that helps people get away from right-wing extremism, leave groups like the neo-nazis, the klan, what are your thoughts, the role that president trump is playing? there are groups like the anne frank center here in new york that say twitter should close his account because he is inciting hatred anand violence. christian picciolini: i believe that donald trump is the internet's biggestst troll. i i think his account should be shut down, because in the process of his rants and his daily tweets, you know, maligning everybody from disabled people to women to people of color, and supporting organizations like the alt-right and retweeting white nationalists, this is not appropriate action for somebody who holds the largest and most powerful office in the world. the e fbi published a report recently that showed that there isis a massive amount of

recruiting happening within the military and within law enforcement. and, in n fact, it was a cononcd strategy of ouours 30 yeyears o, when i was involvlved in the movement, when we recognizeded that the shaved heads and the swastika flags and the klan hoods were turning away the average american white racist that we could recruit, but they were too afraid to join because, you know, of how edgy we were. so we decided at that point, 30 years ago, that we were not going to shave her head. we were going to trade in our boots for suits. we were going to go enroll in college and recruit on campuses. we would get jobs in law enforcement, go into the military to get training and to be able to recruit there, and then even run for office. and here we are 30 years later with that dream -- or that nightmare -- realized. now, you know, they're wearing polos and khakis, and they blend in. they look like our doctors, our mechanics, our teachers, our nurses. and it's hard to distinguish them, aside from the words that they say and the actions that they take, which oftentimes, in public, when they're alone, they

won't do. so i think that the movement now is much, much bigger than it is, because it has become normalized. it's infected the average american, who normally, you know, would only say things like that behind closed doors or to people that they trusted, now feel very emboldened because of the words and the actions d the policies of the president, that they feel they have a commander-in-chief who gets them, who understands their ideology and is willing to stand up for them and fight for r the. and at that press conference, in fact, that's what he did, by equating both sides and saying that there were good people on both sides and, you know, not specifically calling out the alt-right -- i should mention this. he denounced the kkk. he denounced neo-nazis and white nationalists. but what he specifically left out was the alt-right. and then he later went on to defend them, saying, "well, they had a permit, and the other folks didn't." as far as i'm concerned -- amy goodman: and talked about

the "alt-left," the other folks. christian picciolini: yeah, and talked about the altthere is no alt left. there are americans, and then there are nazis. and let t me just say, the peope that didn't have a permit there, the people who were there to counterprotest the nazis, well, the u.s. constitution gave them a permit to do what they did, so they didn't need one. and as far as i'm concerned, that's one of our most important american values, is the ababiliy to protest what we see as damaging to our core american values, which still, frankly, need a lot of work. amy goodman: i want to turn to a new trump tweet. he just wrote, "sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments. you can't change history, but you can learn from it. robert e. lee, stonewall jackson -- who's next, washington jefferson? , so foolish! also the beauty that is being taken out of our cities, towns and parks will be greatly missed and never able to be comparably replaced!" christian picciolini: amy, let me just jump in. amy goodman: the words of the president of the united states.

christian picciolini? chriristian picciolini:: let me just say. let's take the statues down, however we need to take them down. let's put them in confederate cemeteries, so people who do genuinely believe in the heritage, even though i disagree with that, can still pay homage to their idols and to their family members who lost their liveves in the civil war. however, i think we need to replace those statues with civil rights heroes, true americans, who did give their lives to fight for justice and the american dream. and especially the robert e. lee statue that is in charlottesville, i would propose that a statue goes up in its place to honor the three people who died that day,

woman: do you know what it's like to lose a child? do you? the chambers brothers: ♪ time ♪ man: i'm the one that's gotta breathe that stuff at night. [man speaking native language] the chambers brothers: ♪ time woman: if you are going to shed blood because of our land, we will. the chambers brothers: ♪ time ♪