Jeff, Part 1

Angela and Brad sit down with Jeff, beginning a candid, former-to-former conversation about vulnerability, feelings, realizations, and breaking free from the violent far-right. Jeff's childhood, upbringing, and early family life are typical, without extremes or many of the things we usually associate with becoming radicalized. Jeff shares his less-than-common experience of seeking out the violent far-right on his own as a teenager, beginning a long stint–nearly three decades–of involvement in one of the most blistering neo-Natzy groups around. The formers share hard-earned wisdom, experiences, and the realities they wish others knew. You don’t want to miss the illuminating conversation had in part one, episode 2 of The Daily Former.


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www.thedailyformer.com

Transcript

Angela 0:11

Hi there. You're listening to season three, episode two of the daily former this season. We're interviewing formers themselves, letting them tell their story on their terms and asking questions that we get from our friends in the discord, people writing in. and things we want to know about in general. My name is Angela and today I'm here with Brad and Jeff, Jeff, how are you?

Jeff 0:38

I'm good. Thanks for having me on the program.

Angela 0:41

If we're all ready, let's go ahead and get started. So when we first met Jeff, I shared that I wanted you to come today prepared for the deep stuff to talk about feelings, experiences. Are you ready for this?

Jeff 0:59

Yes,

Angela 1:00

1st 1, give us the low down on your background. How'd you grow up? Were you in a political or religious household? Was it strict? Was it lenient? What was your childhood?

Jeff 1:15

So I would say my childhood was was pretty average or pretty good. I grew up in rural Minnesota working class, middle class family. My mother came over from Germany and my grandparents did as well. So first generation here. And had a pretty good pretty good upbringing. I w I would say as far as being strict that's tough to say. I, looking back at it now as an adult, when you're a kid growing up, you'd say, Oh man, my parents are so strict, but as an adult looking back, it really wasn't that strict, we had specific times we had to be home and things like that, which sometimes was earlier than other peers, so maybe it was a little strict, but I don't think so. Looking back on it, it was just pretty, they worked hard, really hard and Brought us up in a loving household. We weren't taught racism or hate or anything like that. I wouldn't say my parents were overly political. Back then one parent was a Democrat and one was a Republican and that was okay. Unlike today where things are so hyper polarized, but it was a pretty good upbringing.

Angela 2:10

Thanks for sharing that. Do you have siblings? Did you have a lot of extended family cousins that you hung out with?

Jeff 2:17

So I have a sister. I have a younger sister. And then my dad's family had 14 brothers and sisters. So there was a very big extended family on that side.

Angela 2:25

Sounds like you had a really decent childhood and upbringing. How old were you or at what point? Did you become aware of the violent far right that it existed and was out there? And if you could describe a little about what was happening in your life at that time.

Jeff 2:47

My journey in was a little is a little unique or a little different. I guess you could say, everybody's is unique. Everybody's story is unique, but it was a little different in the sense of, as I mentioned, my mother had come over from Germany, and my grandparents did as well. My grandfather fought in the German army during World War II, and my great uncles did as well. This was something I knew from a very young age. We heard German being spoken in the house. My dad didn't, but my mom and my grandparents did. And I was one of those kids that was curious about everything. And like the kid that asked, how does, why is the sun shine in the sky that, that was me, I'm asking a million questions all the time. I'm pestering my grandfather about, tell me about the war and that sort of thing. So I had this fascination and that started. Really young like fourth grade. I remember being in the elementary school library sitting in this little corner because the world war ii books were down in this Corner and I still envision it in my mind I just thought, wow, this is really cool. My OPA, my grandfather was in, in here, maybe he's in one of these books and. That was the beginning for me. So it wasn't that I learned hate in the home or anything like that. It was that fascination with German history. I'd learned Growing up later that are my grandmother and her family had lost their homes and all that kind of stuff. And so I learned about that family history as I'm getting older. I'm pressing more and more to hear war stories and things like that. I sought out the movement, nobody recruited me per se, like back in those days you didn't have, the internet wasn't very prolific and I had to look this stuff up. At age 15, I'm in Germany cause I've still have family over there. And I was wanting to seek out the movement there and that didn't really happen. At 16, I ordered from a bookstore um, all this kind of stuff. So I'm propagandizing myself to a degree, but I didn't really get indoctrinated until after I joined at 18.

Angela 4:40

That's different than a lot of experiences that we hear about. It reminds me of how today, given technology and the internet, we have people Kind of radicalizing themselves on the Internet, but you were doing it through the library

Brad 4:57

jeff, that is partially something that happens to people when They're saying, look, people are not telling us about this stuff. So that must mean we need to know more about this stuff. If you read the internet at all right now, you're going to find that narrative as a recruitment tool of the far right, specifically, they say, look, they don't want to tell you. And, and that's it. And I think this is where education plays such a major role. If we have the access to the education. Then maybe we're better off. And that's something interesting that I was picking up just with your story as well as the the bit about it. This happens to anybody. This isn't a specific person radicalizer. This is a middle class working class American home that this happens in. You don't have to grow up with a Klan and we need to understand that when we're looking at it, trying to help people that this isn't a generational neo Nazism thing. It can fill a void I definitely was picking up on some similarities with my story too, just being a, middle class person and finding some solace in something that you had yet we had that in common about reading history. Thank you, Brad. Brad.

Jeff 6:10

that's so true. I call it the forbidden fruit effect, like where you're searching for something and we had these searching minds at the time, but when you get involved in something like that, the mind slams shut and all of a sudden that searching mind is gone and it's, and it has to be reconnected.

Angela 6:25

Absolutely. Hearing both of you share It is so reminiscent of my own experience. I didn't. necessarily get recruited either. I was taught racism and homophobia at home, and I was in such a place at that age looking for the something that that's what I found. And it could have been a different kind of gang. It could have been drug use. It could have been so many different, dangerous things, but it happened to be the violent far right. and by the time I found it, I was like I already know this I learned these racial slurs already. I know these stereotypes. I've I've got this. So did your family know what kind of information you were consuming at the time?

Jeff 7:18

I don't know. I don't recall if they were, checking out or looking at the books I was bringing home or anything like that. I think, I always had an interest in history. So it wasn't just that, but that was where the obsession, I guess you could say I wouldn't have called it that back then, but I see it that way now because that's what I was really. obsessed with it, as I got older, when I got involved, of course they knew what I was involved in and it didn't go over well, but I got pretty rebellious around the time I was 16 and was pretty much on my own after 16 because I wasn't following the rules at home and things like that. I finished high school on my own and moved in with a girlfriend because I couldn't follow the rules. I shouldn't say couldn't, I didn't follow the rules at home. Wouldn't. Yeah, wouldn't. Gotta be fair about it, I just didn't.

Angela 8:05

Paint the picture for us. What was it like in the beginning? Did it fulfill something emotionally for you? I want to hear, like, How this went? Did you call them up and say, Hey, I'm interested, how'd it go for you?

Jeff 8:20

I, so I, I wrote all these different groups that I could find. I ended up meeting with a group first, and they put me in touch with And so I met with I met with which is a defunct now, I think a group and there was one other one. I don't recall it. But met up with different groups and I found the interesting. I didn't know about the music that they were incorporating music into the national socialism. I found that interesting. I was a musician at the time I was in a band and I was the lead singer. And so I get involved look at the different groups. The appealed to me because of the historical. Connection because the guy running it had served with and it was an old organization, with a old legacy. And that pretty much started my journey there. I felt like that was the closest thing to the German movement. And I had that family and historical connection and it also had that American national socialist connection that I was was looking for. So I joined up and it was I guess you could say and then rose up to the ranks was appointed a local group leader and I was balancing that and music at the same time, and I went on a radio show with the with the head of The group at the time, and I was using a pseudonym, I was going by the name of Jeff Stevens. And that was for two reasons to protect my family and keep them separated. And the other reason was to separate my music career from what I was doing politically. It was like 18, 19, maybe by the time I went on this radio show. And this is before The term doxxing was widely used or known, but I was doxxed on that radio show. When we were on the program, I was spewing antisemitic vile propaganda. As expected when you're involved in that and the radio host says, your name is not Jeff Stevens. It's Jeff scoop and she spells out my name. She says, your mother is an attorney. She works in this town and named off the town and your father works in manufacturing. He's in this, this is where they live, and in the next commercial break, we're going to call your mother at work and find out how she raised someone that holds these beliefs. So I'm 19 years old and I haven't talked a lot about this, but I feel like it's important I take full accountability, I made these choices. I'm not blaming anybody. I'm not blaming the radio show host or anything like that, but I can tell you what it did to me emotionally and psychologically at the time I'm in panic mode when she says my name on the air, not so much for me, but now you're involving my mother. I was on my own since 16. I'm like 18, 19 at this point. And she's going to call my mother. And ask her how she raised the Nazi son, and I'm like, Oh man, my parents don't agree with any of this stuff. This is terrifying. Like what am I going to do? So my teenage mind says my parents hate me. They don't have nothing to do with me, they, they don't first, I'm telling her they don't agree with this stuff, and that she's not budging, so I'm having this argument a little bit on the air, but also off the air during the commercial break. And I'm saying, please don't call my mother, this could be devastating for her work. And, some crazy person out there could hurt her or things like that. And she's no, I'm going to, I'm going to call her. And I said, my parents hate me. They've disowned me. They have nothing to do with me. And I was brought up not to lie. I don't like lying. And I'm lying, cause my parents didn't disown me. They still, we still had a good relationship and things like that. They didn't agree with me, but the way the family held it together was. We don't talk about politics after I was involved, because at first I'm trying to recruit my parents and all this kind of dumb stuff, It's just like joining a cult. You get involved and you think you have this grand epiphany and, everything now, and you're going to save the world and do all these wonderful things. Yeah, I was trying to recruit my family and all that, and that didn't work. So I'm on this show and I'm going, they don't have nothing to do with me, and I'm trying to, so I'm lying. So now I'm feeling terrible about lying. I'm afraid for my family and it just devolved from there. at that point, it was still like a mental struggle for me. Music was number one and politics was like the side piece. That was my side interest. So what that did after that happened, it changed that trajectory 100%. There was a fallout with my mother's career. Soon after that she was running to be a judge in the state. This was back in the 90s, early 90s and mid 90s. And the governor had said, Mrs. Scoop, your father fought in the German army during World War II, your son's a neo Nazi activist. I don't feel that you're fit to be a judge in this state. And Yeah that, I still carry it. What did that

Angela 13:03

do to you when that, holy shit, that is life shattering knowing that your choices have that effect on somebody that you obviously love.

Brad 13:15

It's next level doxxing But man, that is that's tough. That's tough.

Angela 13:20

So how do you navigate?

Jeff 13:22

It was soul crushing. It was soul crushing is the best way I can explain that. It was, I was devastated. I'm trying to everything I tried to do to shield my family. I thought, we all go through this. I think when we're young people and you too, especially, Being in the movement and at a young age, you realize, you think you're, you think you're so smart and you're doing all these things. So I thought I'm protecting my family. I'm using this fake name and that'll do it. And that all just got blown out of the water. And what that did to me, what, first of all It destroyed my mother's dream and her career. And that's something to this day, I carry guilt and shame and regret for that. I always will. It devastated her and and that's just the tip of the iceberg. It went, my pair, both my parents had gotten threats over the years, probably even more than they've told me. My sister has gotten threats. She's had issues at getting hired at places and things like that, where it would come up in job interviews so it was devastating. And what that did, that changed my trajectory as far as music being number one, because now I thought look what it did to my mother's career. I can't do this to the band. So I went and shaved all my hair off and I thought this will get me fired from the band. And so that. Symbolic shaving of the hair was like shedding that part of my life, that dream and now becoming the person that I was for the next 27, 25 years after that it was tough to

Angela 14:53

navigate that Jeff, at the time with your family, did you dig in more and excuse. What was happening and turn it to where like you were being targeted for no reason and how? Did you start repairing that damage then or did it take time for that to happen?

Jeff 15:22

That's a good question. After that took place my mother wouldn't talk to me pretty much for I don't remember how long it was it felt like forever But I think it was probably a couple years like she barely spoke to me. It took a lot of time to heal that relationship. Where it put me as far as like Ideology and things like that was I felt like this is so unfair that my family was being targeted I tried to explain to this lady like they had nothing to do with they were against what I was involved In and that was true That got me Pretty much ostracized from my mother for quite some time. My dad was still talking to me, but it took a while to repair that. But what that did psychologically was I was mad. I was mad, at myself in a way because apparently I didn't put enough fail safes in place. People find out. And this is what, that's what happened to me. This is the way I turn in my mind. I was like, I've got to fight back. So what that did was it further entrenched me. And what it did for me was is I turned that into anger and turn that into, to rage. And instead of pursuing my dreams and things like that, and again, I take full accountability. It's my fault. I did this. But at that point, It was like a switch had been flipped and I'm going to put every ounce of energy that I put into the, my music and pursuing that dream into the movement. and I just put all that energy into the wrong things, really wrong things.

Angela 16:49

Right.

Jeff 16:50

But that's what I did.

Angela 16:52

That is deeply personal, and I really appreciate you sharing that and being open about that. I've actually thought a lot about this because I'm from that. Gen X generation And it's made me wonder over the years if there's a medium that works, because research shows that. A little bit of shaming is helpful sometimes, but doxxing is such an extreme, it wrecks whole lives. And as you experienced, It's a domino effect. It's not just you. It affects the people around you, the people that you care about, and they care about you. And what you shared makes me wonder if there's a medium between a little bit of shaming to say, hey, what you're doing, and the way you're treating people is, you Is fucked or, like we're going to just wipe you out with technology. So I have to ask, though, when you make that harder shift into the far right. What did you get out of it? What was it funneling back to you that made it worth it? A

Jeff 18:11

lot of times when, I was an ideologue after I got involved, I indoctrinated myself and then the group indoctrinated me as well and what, As a recruiter later on, I would tell people, especially if they wanted to be leaders in the movement, more leadership comes with more blood, sweat and tears, basically, that it's sacrifice. And when you're a hardened ideologue into any form of extremism you feel like, and I speak from experience on this, is you feel like your life means very little. And the cause means everything that you're willing to sacrifice and give anything for it. And that's, it's what I did, it is what I did. Not it is what I did. Where your life means very little and everything in the cause is the greatest thing. A lot of it was sacrificed, it didn't, there wasn't a lot of benefits, I guess you could say, there was no severance or anything like that, no retirement plan. Come on,

Angela 19:00

come on let's be really real here and I'll start. I was exceedingly violent. As a woman, and that's what I was known for, and it made me feel powerful to be known in that way. When I would get into fights and always come out on top, that made me feel like I'm a winner. Like I am cool, I'm powerful, I'm strong, and this impresses people I honestly find it hard to believe that there was nothing that you liked about it, Jeff.

Jeff 19:39

Oh, no, I'm not saying that. And I understand now, I understand better your question And thanks for sharing that because I did also have those feelings as well. It was when I was appointed. local group leader, I thought, wow, this is pretty cool, and now people have, are listening to me and things like that. So it is that power, there is a power dynamic there for sure. 100%. And and the reactions and things like that you would get from people, I would wear the flight jacket with the patches and, it was walking billboard for neo Nazism basically. And You would get attention for that sometimes, usually negative, sometimes positive. But either, either way you were making a statement. So it was like, I'm going to be a walking recruiter everywhere I go. And it's every person that you woke up or whatever, then that was like a notch in your belt or something, like that was a good thing that you did. And that was the mindset anyways. I'm not trying to get it twisted and saying it was a good thing, but it was. It makes a person feel empowered, I guess you could say, and being a part of something. So I felt like I was going to save the world, here I had this noble ideal that I was going to save my country, save the white race. I'm sure these themes sound familiar to you both because you came from the same similar backgrounds. So there was that. It was that wanting that, try to think of how to explain this psychologically. It was the desire to want to do something good. Obviously, that's a really poor thing. It was bad for the country. It was bad for humanity. It was bad for people in general. But the willingness and the want to do something good was the driving force. And then you get into, you're involved. I can say as the years went on and I was involved in it. And then. Within a couple of years, I was appointed to run the organization. I didn't want that position. It was terrifying when it was offered to me and in the sense of Oh my gosh, can I even do this? But then I willingly took it on and I agreed to it. And then I learned a lot of things over the years and became involved in that life regrettably. But and at that point then you have. Power or perceived power and all those things that that holds you there. You have community, you have people that respect you, that look to you for leadership and direction and things like that.

Angela 21:59

Was there ever a point During, say the pinnacle of your involvement, when you felt like you were being exploited or like you were sacrificing or perceived to be sacrificing so much of yourself and your life and your own dreams for this, was there ever a point that you felt like. I'm just being exploited or think you guys both know when I say that the movement is a fucking racist soap opera, you understand exactly what I mean. Were there times that you felt like, fuck this if these people are going to do this to me when I'm doing all these things for them in the movement or that you were just. Being taken advantage of. You're charismatic. You're a good speaker. Do you think that people ever use that kind of against you for their own edification and benefit?

Brad 23:02

Yeah, The false power of the movement, because when you are given power or given a job to do, like you were, I was also given a job to do with the group, and they're like, here, have this, but not telling you the unintended consequences, which are worse things that are going to happen to you, you're going to get more cops, you're going to get more people that want to kill you from the movement, the infighting, you're going to get all these other things. I'm very interested to hear how that went for you

Jeff 23:33

That's a great question. And Brad, I haven't really thought about that. I don't think anybody's asked me that before as far as that goes, but I know I can say I'd like to say no that I don't think I was prepared for that later on when I was running the group I learned the hard way, but I don't really recall if I feel like nobody prepared me for that because I just don't, I don't remember that I really don't,

Angela 23:57

it reminds me of the kind of holy shit feeling I had when long afterwards I realized that things weren't just happening to me in a vacuum. They were actually self fulfilling prophecies and consequences of my own decisions and it's a really fucking hard lesson to learn. It smacks you like a Rick wall and leaves you like, wow, you mean I could have avoided this if I wasn't actually making these decisions and putting myself out there on this kind of like self made pedestal to be attacked, to be told you're wrong. You're harming yourself. You're harming people. Thank you for sharing so candidly some of these experiences. I have read a lot in preparation. I, of course, have heard of you and seen some of your recorded talks over the years. And some of this I have never heard which leads me to To understand that you showed up knowing what the assignment was and we're prepared to be vulnerable and to share and to dig deep about what some of these experiences meant and how they shaped your trajectory.

Jeff 25:25

If I could comment on that just a little further. I think it's so important when we talk about those aspects of our stories, too, that for people out there that are thinking about getting involved, or maybe they're involved, but they haven't been doxxed or anything like that yet, they're on the fence going, maybe this isn't right for me to think about and to Be able to understand that when you're involved in something like this, it doesn't just affect you. And like some of what I shared about what took place with my family, these are the unintended consequences and of being involved in something like this, where it becomes a snowball effect and it affects, it's the best way I can explain it all the lives, everybody around it. That's what being involved in this does. So a lot of times, especially if you're an ideologue and you're fully committed to this cause, you think it doesn't matter what happens to me. They can throw me in jail. They can kill me. That's how I felt. I'm going to keep going before you get there or when you're at that point and you realize your wife, your kids, your parents, your grandparents. Everybody around you is going to be affected by this. That's something that most people don't think about, once you're involved in it and these things are happening then sometimes Like in my case you become more entrenched and more angry and more bitter and more willing to fight But if you look at that from the outside looking in and you can piece that apart and go wait a minute This what I'm doing is going to affect all these people around me. So you may not care about yourself because you're so committed, but you got to care about those other people because you're ruining their lives as well. You're damaging their lives and how fair and how unfair and how selfish is that? To do something like that, and now I can articulate that looking back and piecing these things together. But at the time it was just like, oh, the system is out to get me and now they're hurting my family. So I'm going to fight back even harder. That's how I saw it at the time. think about those things because a lot of people don't think about that. Those are the ripple effect.

Brad 27:16

Yeah. I'll tell you, you brought up something that's so interesting here, Jeff, about the short term versus medium term and then long term consequences about these movements and what they can do yeah at the beginning, yes, those things, once people find out who you are, and yeah, it can have an effect on your family almost immediately, that kind of thing. But I can say for anyone out there who's thinking about joining this is long term. I've been out of the movement now for 15 years ish. And kids have seen me being declined entry to the United States because of being involved in these movements. And that's as recent as this year. It doesn't and it doesn't happen in a vacuum. These consequences don't stop happening. And yeah, fine, I can, I have a way of explaining those things, but your involvement in these movements, it doesn't add up to what's going to happen later in life and and immediately. As you found out so candidly as a teenager those consequences happen right away. But yeah, as grownup people, we, you must get it all the time. Andrew, we've talked about this, like the formers have things that happen to them as consequences that continue to happen. And, some of these things we don't know of. And we learn about those things in real time. I suggest not joining at all to begin with, even if you're sold a wonderful story it's probably going to be delusions of grandeur, it's going to be much worse than anything that you Can even imagine and I know that stuff. We've talked to each other a lot about Angela about how these things, with you growing up in racism, how those things are consequences to individual people, how is it that we manage these things and talk about these things and yeah, Jeff, you're sharing such intimate details of those consequences. And I think that's important for us to know about and talk more about. Thank you.

Angela 29:13

And, for young people, there's that really risky time when if there's no self esteem and no self confidence, no self respect, an individual can't have it for anybody else if they don't have it for themselves. Even though. We have the ability now in retrospect, and given all we've learned to identify some of those consequences, there still may be some out there that immediately say, look it, I don't care. I don't care. Take my life. Do whatever. It's I think, eye opening for me to have these conversations now on this side of it, because it's so helpful in identifying those places where we may, be able to come in to find some different methods of trying to help people overcome those things, especially young people today.

Ang 30:09

And, that, my friends, is where we leave you until next time. We appreciate you tuning in and hope you'll join us for part two where we discuss how and when the veil started to lift for Jeff.