--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Support for this episode of Today Explained comes from Squarespace, a company that wants to help you build your website or secure your dream domain. You can go to squarespace.com to find out how that all works and use the code EXPLAINED to get 10% off your first purchase.
--:-- [Sound of a sunny day]
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's a beautiful, sunny summer Friday in Washington, which should feel great, but the tension in D.C. right now is palpable because actual Nazis are coming to town this weekend. It's hard to believe, but it's a little less hard because of what went down exactly one year ago this weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia.
--:-- Abtin Heydari: My background is Iranian-American, and I grew up Muslim. And for me, growing up in the South particularly, I had always been sort of around these experiences of racism, either directly or indirectly.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Obton's from Harrisonburg, Virginia, about an hour northwest of Charlottesville. And he spoke to us from a summer camp where he's a debate coach.
--:-- Obton: I was at the Torchlight Rally the night before. And that's when I understood how real this is about to be. We were just completely swarmed by white nationalists surrounded with my tiki torches. They were hurling slurs at us. They were throwing lighter fluid and tortures at us. I saw fights break out next to me. White nationalists were speeding up somebody, and as I'm trying to help protect another person, I feel a burning sensation across my face, and it's pepper spray.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So you're blind for about an hour, and they have to form a human shield around us to protect us from neo-Nazis coming up to us, harassing us, trying to take photos of us. And I was just holding the hands of another person who was also maced and also screaming in pain.
--:-- Abtin Heydari: And around the point when I started to see again, police finally declared the Torchlight Rally unlawful assembly. But at that point, the crowd was already dispersed. The neo-Nazis and white nationalists were already in the town and spread out everywhere.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I was just walking down the street, and I just saw a car drive by, just three white guys, shouting white power. And it was tense.
--:-- Abtin Heydari: Once you see it with your own eyes, right? Once you see hundreds of neo-Nazis surrounding you, screaming white power, screaming the Jews will not replace us, holding tiki torches, and seeing, like, the ages of them. I mean, not just these old white guys from the South who were in the Klan and still loved the Confederacy, but, I mean, young kids, like kids my age and younger. I saw families there. I saw fathers and sons.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: August 12th, the day of the United Right rally. I'm just preparing myself mentally and emotionally, I guess. I have been in tense protest scenarios before, but the gravity of what was about to happen was starting to really hit me. Marching to the rally, I saw entire family units, so like mothers and daughters as well, just all these family units marching like for this really insidious and really dangerous and dark way.
--:-- Abtin Heydari: Obviously, it could never prepare me for what was about to happen. The first thing you see are just hundreds, hundreds, way more white nationalists than before. Confederate flags on their Kevlar vests. I saw people with SS patches. And these people are armed tooth and nail. I mean, full assault rifles, multiple weapons, knives, chanting hateful things, throwing water bottles into the crowd so that they knock people out.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And the violence was clearly escalating. Fights were beginning to break out more. And police were starting to throw tear gas into the crowd.
--:-- Abtin Heydari: What I was doing was trying to find people who are injured and get them to medics. And when the police declare the Unite the Right rally an unlawful offense, they're fortunate to get proud to disperse. But one contingent of them decides to keep marching. And they're actually kind of boxing us in, blocking certain parts of the street, controlling our movements.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And this is around when my memory starts to blur. That's when the car rams into the crowd. I don't remember about eight minutes before them, but my next memory is just waking up in the hospital about eight hours later that night.
--:-- Abtin Heydari: In some ways, it's probably better that I don't remember. It would probably have made all the trauma even worse, but there's still some things surreal about it that I can't actually grasp.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: My first thing I see is just the TV on at CNN and it just replaying the video of us getting hit. And I like, yes, wait, that what happened. I see in videos me flip over the hood of the car, me sitting on the side of the road bleeding, a street medic holding my head up and making sure I didn't fall asleep and making sure my head was straight.
--:-- Abtin Heydari: The top part of my tibia, right below my kneecap, was badly fractured. And I had wounds and gashes all over my body, a giant gash on my head from where my head hit the pavement and obviously a very severe concussion.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I don't regret my decision to go to Charlottesville, but the big personal lesson for me is I learned that even if I'm comfortable putting myself in harm's way, there are other people around me who are affected by that. Not only my parents, who I put in a state of fear and anguish over what happened to me, but friends that I was very close to and haven't been that closely deaf.
--:-- Abtin Heydari: How you have to think about the people around you when you make these decisions. And that's what makes it hard for a lot of people to show up and counter-protests.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: These bastards tried to kill me and created a state of like terror and sadness that people in the community still feel. I still deal with the repercussions of Charlottesville all the way down to just the pain in my leg.
--:-- Abtin Heydari: We should be furious about what happened at Charlottesville.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I don't personally have a website, but I have a few favorites I could tell you about. One of them is isitchristmas.com. It's a website you can go to to find out whether or not it's Christmas. I just went there this morning. It's not. If you'd like to build your own website, Squarespace can help. They've got lots of different templates from world-class designers, and you can customize just about all of them. Go to squarespace.com to find out more and get 10% off your purchase of a website or a domain using the code EXPLAINED.
--:-- Jane Koston: I'm Jane Koston, a senior politics reporter at Vox. How big a deal was this Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville last year for white supremacy in America?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It was a big deal for Americans observing white supremacy because I think that that was the moment where you're like, oh, this is a thing that's happening. It's bad. But Charlottesville was the moment where that kind of broke into mainstream parlance.
--:-- Jane Koston: But for the white supremacists themselves, it was bad. Breaking news, a horrific scene in Charlottesville, Virginia, a white nationalist rally that descended into deadly violence and chaos. You know, Charlottesville was supposed to be this moment of kind of celebrating their ascension to real political visibility. And instead, it made them look like murderous white supremacists.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Who organized Unite the Right last year in Charlottesville?
--:-- Jane Koston: A white nationalist named Jason Kessler. He is from Charlottesville, Virginia. In mainstream parlance, he tries to sound not racist.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Right now we are in a civil rights struggle to save white people from ethnic cleansing, which is happening across the Western world.
--:-- Jane Koston: There is a platform that's supposed to be a challenger to Twitter called Gab. And on Gab, you know, he's talking about shipping every non-white person out of the country. Africans and Europeans sharing a country together is a disaster.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Oh, and he's also a Holocaust denier.
--:-- Jane Koston: So was Kessler alone in organizing the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville? He was not. Richard Spencer, a white supremacist of sorts who also believes that because he went to Duke, he has interesting things to say.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I would say wherever Europeans are on the earth, it's better. We bring a level of civilization and we bring also something that's unique to us.
--:-- Jane Koston: He was one of the organizers, as was Matthew Heimbach of the Traditionalist Workers Party. Of course, we look up to men like Adolf Hitler. We look up to him as inspirations for what we can achieve.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And there were a couple of other groups and entities that were involved in planning Unite the Right.
--:-- Jane Koston: And why did all these turkeys come together at this particular moment for this rally last year? The election of Donald Trump kind of marked their ascendancy into real politics.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know the night before the inauguration there was something called the Deplora Ball which took place in D.C. and a lot of alt figures attended.
--:-- Jane Koston: We're not funny-ditty conservatives who go to sleep at 9 p.m. All right, you know, and get their mom to tuck them in at night. Like, we go out and have fun.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And Richard Spencer was there, and he chanted, Hail Victory, and everyone was kind of like, oh, that's a weird thing to do.
--:-- Jane Koston: But, you know, this moment that Richard Spencer would be interviewed on CNN. Race is real. Race matters. And race is the foundation of identity.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Or they came to colleges to talk. Now, granted, you know, those college conversations did not go well. Richard Spencer notably went to Auburn University and said that they should ban football because that's how black people were getting into college.
--:-- Jane Koston: And if you know anything about Auburn, that did not go over well.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There is something truly sick, I have to say, about bringing in to a school, a school like Auburn, that has a history of white identity, to bring in people who, let's be frank, are not the greatest exemplars of the African race.
--:-- Jane Koston: They kept showing up in kind of mainstream outlets. You know, you saw a lot of profiles of Richard Spencer, which tried to make him seem like he's like white nationalists. You know, this idea that this is something that we should take seriously as like a real thing.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: How did the Unite the Right rally go so badly for these groups that gather in Charlottesville? They thought that this would make them look powerful and strong and like a real political movement.
--:-- Jane Koston: And instead, it made them look terrifying at best and kind of shambolic at worst. And I think that from the white nationalist perspective, this urge to be respected, that was thrown out the window by Charlottesville.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: When you have people chanting, carrying tiki torches and chanting Jews will not replace us. That's something that, you know, for the vast majority of Americans, thankfully, people don't want to get behind that.
--:-- Jane Koston: But at the same time, that march one year ago got so much attention and so much coverage and video of it was viewed millions upon millions and millions of times.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Right. Did that help in any way because any publicity is good publicity?
--:-- Jane Koston: I don't think so. I think a lot of the people involved either did not recognize that other people would not be as friendly to their membership in these groups or just didn't recognize how deeply offensive most people found what happened in Charlottesville.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so because of all the media coverage, you know, if you if you're in a Getty photograph that, you know, the caption lists your name and then someone can Google your name and be like, hey, that guy's running college Republicans at Washington State University. Huh, that's interesting.
--:-- Jane Koston: Now former President James Alsup sent an email to the College Republicans' executive board that he would be stepping down. Even officials at Washington State University confirmed with me it's reviewing feedback from students and alums about Alsup's future attendance at the university.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Or, you know, these are the people who beat up someone in Charlottesville. Let's crowdsource and find their faces. Oh, we identified them within like two days.
--:-- Jane Koston: So what happened to all the people who organized this rally? What have they done since?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Jason Kessler immediately after what happened in Charlottesville first insulted Heather Heyer who was the woman who was murdered and then said that his insults online were the result of him taking Xanax and Vicodin and not being able to sleep and he attempted to argue that you know the violence hadn't been from them it had been from these counter protesters to which people said like we You know, it was on video.
--:-- Jane Koston: And who other than me has refused to back down on the issue of Charlottesville and the fact that we did not do anything wrong? Now I'm banned from Facebook for what? For nothing.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I should also note that he was already in trouble for misdemeanor assault.
--:-- Jane Koston: And since Unite the Right, there has been continued legal trouble for him. He tried to get a permit to do Unite the Right again in Charlottesville and then was denied. And then he withdrew that petition and gave up. And that's why they're focusing on the D.C. rally.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And then there's Richard Spencer. After Charlottesville, 26 European countries banned Richard Spencer from entering, including France, Germany, Spain, and Poland.
--:-- Jane Koston: And they basically were like, you got to go home, which is a hilarious thing to say to Richard Spencer, who considers himself. You know, he he has talked a lot about how he's like a European white nationalist and all these European countries were like, we'd rather not have you.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Hi, everyone. This is Richard Spencer. And he is begging for money to help pay his legal fees. I am under attack and I need your help.
--:-- Jane Koston: Some of the biggest and baddest law firms in the United States are suing me, along with some other prominent figures, in civil court.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Also, you know, he was doing all these college tours and now he saying like I can do this anymore.
--:-- Jane Koston: Another one Christopher Cantwell who people may remember from Vice documentary about Charlottesville who kept talking about guns and needing to bring violence to the movement.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: All right, so I came pretty well prepared for this thing today. Caltech P3AT, Glock 19, 9mm, and there's a knife. Well, I actually have another AK in that bag over there.
--:-- Jane Koston: You could lose track of your fucking guns, huh?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And then when he was faced with imminent arrest, posted a video of himself sobbing uncontrollably on the Internet.
--:-- Jane Koston: I'm armed. I do not want violence with you. All right. I'm terrified. I'm afraid you're going to kill me. I really am.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: All right. So if I got to go to jail today, you know, it won't be the fucking first time.
--:-- Jane Koston: He has been banned from the state of Virginia for five years. Wow. That can happen. Yes, it can happen.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I mean, it sounds like basically since the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, all of its organizers have just been facing a bunch of legal trouble.
--:-- Jane Koston: Yep, that's pretty much it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And I think one of the biggest and most notable lawsuits is an action that was brought forward by 10 Virginia residents who say they suffered severe physical and emotional injuries.
--:-- Jane Koston: They are arguing in their lawsuit that, you know, Unite the Right was not just an expression of free speech that got out of control, but a direct conspiracy to commit violence.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We have extensive evidence before what happened of their planning of the events that happened. We have extensive evidence on videotape and everything else of what they did, their pictures and the complaint of them punching people and macing people.
--:-- Jane Koston: And then, as you put it, we have extensive evidence afterwards bragging about what they did and taking delight in the fact that someone was killed and that people were hurt.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Can these white supremacists hide behind the First Amendment, behind free speech?
--:-- Jane Koston: That is generally, yes. Inflammatory speech is generally protected speech, even in a rally setting.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But the exception is that when that speech is directed at inciting or producing imminent lawless action or likely to incite or produce such an action, that's not the same thing.
--:-- Jane Koston: If Nazis or KKK or white supremacists just want to stand peacefully on a street corner and hold up a sign saying they hate Jews or they hate black people or, as one of them said, they want Auschwitz to happen again, that is protected speech.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I have no issue with that. But that's not what happened here. It's about people who are being hurt.
--:-- Jane Koston: What's the possible outcome of the lawsuit?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They know that they're not really going to get money out of this, really, that Richard Spencer is broke. We know that Jason and Kessler is broke, but it's more about the fact that they want a judgment that what these people did was not just illegal but wrong.
--:-- Jane Koston: And to make it clear that, you know, if you want to do this, you need to know that the same thing might happen to you.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There were so many counter-protesters out there in Charlottesville last year. Did they coalesce in some way since?
--:-- Jane Koston: I think that that was a really important blossoming point for the counter-protest movement.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: People who were horrified by what happened did what you do when you are on social media and something happens. You tried to help in your own way.
--:-- Jane Koston: And one of those was by identifying the people involved. Because when you show your face chanting, Jews will not replace us, and people can see your face, people will be like, huh, it looks like this guy I work with.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So despite this being what sounds like a complete and utter failure for Unite the Right. Right. And if anything, something that further motivated the left to unite.
--:-- Jane Koston: Right. There is another march this weekend. Yeah. In Washington, D.C. Across from the White House.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I mean, with all this security out there, Secret Service, Park Service, D.C. police, it sounds like it could be safer.
--:-- Jane Koston: Do you think it's safe enough for someone like you or for someone like me to go out there? People who are brown? Black? Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: If I wanted to get yelled at about my purported racial inferiority, I would just, you know, check my email more often.
--:-- Jane Koston: Jane Koston covers politics at Vox. And thanks today to Vox's Zach Beauchamp for sharing his conversation with Abdin Haydari with us.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm Sean Ramos from This is Today Explained. Thanks to Squarespace for supporting the show this week. Squarespace has 24-7, 365 customer support. It's award-winning. We could all use a little support. Squarespace.com, the offer code EXPLAIN gets you 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain. Thanks.
