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For varied causes, January 6 rioters have been held collectively in a segregated wing of the D.C. jail that they got here to name the “Patriot Pod.” They developed their very own rituals and inside jokes, and bolstered each other’s narratives. Over time, the anticipated occurred: They grew to become additional radicalized. And thru connections with right-wing media, they’ve tried to recast themselves with phrases corresponding to political prisoner and hostage, which the presidential candidate Donald Trump has now adopted as his personal.
On this episode, we observe a younger rioter from the Patriot Pod who went into jail a mischievous goofball and emerged keen to die for the MAGA trigger. We inform, for the primary time, an inside story of precisely what occurred throughout the pod, the way it unfold out to the world, and what this tight-knit group is planning for the long run.
That is the fifth episode of We Stay Right here Now, a six-part sequence about what occurred after we came upon that our new neighbors had been supporting January 6 insurrectionists.
The next is a transcript of the episode:
Hanna Rosin: In Could of 2024, a brand new particular person was hanging round our neighbors’ home—a younger man, recent out of jail, who was spending nights on the “Eagle’s Nest.” Round us, Micki referred to him as “the little boy.” His actual title is Brandon Fellows.
[Music]
Rosin: Brandon had come to the Capitol on January 6 armed with a faux orange beard that appeared prefer it was comprised of his mother’s leftover yarn and a bizarre knitted hat. He was having enjoyable till somebody in entrance of him began smashing a window with a cane, which prompted a cop to swing his baton, after which Brandon freaked out.
Brandon Fellows: I’m like, Oh my god. Holy shit. Holy shit. I mentioned it, like, 5 instances, and I’m similar to, Yeah. They clearly don’t need us in there. That’s what I mentioned in my thoughts. I’m not getting into there. I’m not getting hit. I like my face. I’m not going to get hit. I’m not doing that.
Rosin: So Brandon simply hung round for some time, did some individuals watching. Ultimately, he wandered over to the opposite aspect of the constructing, the place, in line with him, he noticed cops simply type of passively letting rioters inside. So he climbed by a window and ended up in Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley’s workplace together with his toes up on the desk, smoking a joint.
I had this concept of Brandon as, like, the Seth Rogan of insurrectionists: goofball, excessive by midday, not precisely militia materials.
Rosin: Are you Brandon?
Fellows: Sure.
Rosin: I’m Hanna. Hello.
Fellows: Good to satisfy you.
Rosin: However the Brandon I met three years later appeared totally different: completely beardless, conspicuously match. He confirmed up at this Memorial Day march that Micki organized a couple of week after he was launched from jail.
Lauren Ober: Hey, Micki. How far are you going?
Micki Witthoeft: To the jail.
Rosin: The counterprotesters had been already trailing with megaphones, so Micki was strict. Keep on the sidewalks. Don’t trigger bother.
Witthoeft: I’m not concerned with any type of battle.
Ober: However newly launched Brandon was having an excessive amount of enjoyable to obey. A D.C. resident advised him to get off his property. Brandon yelled again, “I used to be on the Capitol on January 6!” A bunch of fellows in MAGA hats saluted him, “Political prisoner. Thanks for sticking it out!” Marchers cheered him on as he walked by, took selfies, requested questions.
Marcher: Did you are feeling such as you had been going to get your ass kicked occasionally, being in a D.C. jail? I imply, I’d suppose that if you happen to’re a white boy in D.C. jail, you’d be getting your ass kicked.
Fellows: It’s complete tradition shock. It’s loopy. However I survived. I solely received into one struggle.
Rosin: I used to be concerned with Brandon as a result of he was one of many solely launched J6ers who got here straight again to D.C., a one-man experiment I might observe for what was coming for us on January 6, 2025, the day the subsequent election is scheduled to be licensed—particularly if Trump loses.
And I might inform, even simply from that march, that some new type of power was blooming in Brandon. No extra weed. No extra disguises. Postprison, his defiance had a distinct tone, which I picked up once I was following him on the march and I overheard him point out demise a few instances.
Fellows: Yeah. If it’s my time to die, it’s my time to die. I desire to not, however life is gorgeous.
Rosin: I’m eavesdropping, by the way in which. I received right here on the time if you had been like, I can die. There was one thing about demise, and I used to be like, Huh?
Rosin: I sound awkwardly confused as a result of I used to be confused. Why does a 30-year-old suppose it may be his time to die? Die for what? And why so dramatic?
I’m Hanna Rosin.
Ober: And I’m Lauren Ober. And from the Atlantic, that is We Stay Right here Now.
Rosin: Okay, to know how Brandon went from “I’m not doing that,” on January 6, 2021, to “I’m able to die,” in 2024—somewhat bit about Brandon: He’s now 30. He grew up in Schenectady, New York, born right into a line of army males going again earlier than the Civil Warfare. He advised me his grandfather was the primary inventor of a gun that shoots 3,000 bullets per minute. His dad was an Military sniper. However Brandon was totally different.
Fellows: I type of went by this emo part. I had longer hair. I dyed it black, wore black garments, like rock-band garments.
Rosin: When he was 13, Brandon began carrying eyeliner, attempting to impress the emo ladies he was hanging out with. Often, he would wipe it off earlier than he received to his dad’s home, however at some point he forgot.
Fellows: And he’s like, Is that eyeliner in your face? And I used to be like, No. Clearly it was. I didn’t wipe it off. And he’s like, Don’t misinform me. He hates lies. And I used to be like, All proper. Sure. It’s. And he’s like, Brandon—that is the precise language he mentioned. He’s like, I can’t have fags in my home.
Rosin: He mentioned what now?
Fellows: He mentioned, I can’t have fags in my home.
Rosin: After this and a few minor home disputes, Brandon’s dad mentioned he couldn’t stick with him anymore—like, ever—though they did make up three years later. We couldn’t attain his dad for remark, though his mother confirmed the occasions. He spent the remainder of his teenage years residing solely at his mother’s home, till he didn’t wish to do this anymore, and he discovered his personal technique to dwell.
Fellows: So I’ve two tiny homes nearly always.
Rosin: Wait. You had been a tiny houser?
Fellows: Sure. I’ve been a tiny houser since 2016.
Rosin: Okay.
Fellows: I’ve a veggie-oil-powered bus. It’s nearly—it’s 85 % carbon-neutral. Very cool.
Rosin: From his tiny homes and his veggie bus, Brandon ran a tree-trimming enterprise and a chimney-cleaning enterprise. He’d by no means been to a Trump rally, or any rally, however determined to go that day. It’s type of unclear why. Simply all these items he’d been irritated about—COVID restrictions, small-business restrictions—it appeared extra enjoyable to be irritated in a crowd.
The next morning, January 7, Brandon does what individuals do after a giant occasion: brunch, at a campground with different January 6 tiny housers. Apparently, he’s not alone within the January 6–tiny houser Venn diagram overlap.
Anyway, it was at this brunch the place he realized {that a} lady had been killed on the Capitol: Micki’s daughter, Ashli. Somebody confirmed him a video, and he cried.
Which for Brandon, is one thing. He doesn’t categorical feelings in any simply readable manner and nearly by no means in public. You’ll be able to hear that in the way in which he speaks. However that video of Ashli—it received to him.
Fellows: And that’s a cause why I confirmed again up on the eighth, to D.C. I got here again. However no person was there.
Rosin: No one was on the Capitol—only a huge area affected by empty water bottles and pepper-spray cans—so he went residence. All the opposite individuals on the Capitol on January 6—they went residence too.
After which the FBI started the biggest manhunt in American historical past. Brokers combed by hundreds of hours of video and sourced leads from an nameless group of on-line sleuths known as the Sedition Hunters.
At residence, in New York, Brandon observed a brand new kind of customer to his LinkedIn profile: so-and-so from the FBI Albany area workplace, the D.C. area workplace. After which a cop confirmed up at his mother’s home, and Brandon started his journey again to D.C.
Fellows: It’s July 2, 2021, is once I reached the D.C. jail. So I stroll by the middle doorways, and—I child you not—inside 15 seconds, I hear on the audio system, One thing, one thing, one thing, medical employees, medical employees, stabbing sufferer.
Rosin: A couple of week later, he’s moved to a short lived cell and extra of the identical.
Fellows: I begin heading over to this basketball court docket, inside basketball court docket. So the primary in all probability, like, two minutes, I see this dude come as much as this dude, and he says, The place’s my honey bun? And he, hastily, begins stabbing a man.
Rosin: Wait. You’re watching somebody—
Fellows: Yep.
Rosin: With what?
Fellows: I couldn’t make out what it was, however I noticed him stabbing him, and I noticed some blood. And I watched that simply with my jaw dropped, and I’m seeking to my proper, and I’m seeing these 4 payphones. And everyone’s simply speaking. They’re nonetheless speaking to the particular person they’re on the telephone with, like this occurs all—like that is nothing. I used to be like, I gotta get out of right here.
Rosin: Have been you genuinely freaked out?
Fellows: I went to go do pull-ups instantly.
Rosin: For lots of J6ers I’ve interviewed, consumption on the D.C. jail is seared into their brains. Most of them had by no means been to jail earlier than, a lot much less the D.C. jail, which is infamous for its violence. I’ve heard of J6ers who cried within the transport van after they realized the place they had been going.
However consumption shouldn’t be the place they stayed. The inhabitants of the D.C. jail is about 90 % Black, and judges had been importing a bunch of fellows whose collective fame was “white supremacist,” so that they ended up housed in a segregated unit. The implications of this had been large and generally absurd.
What resulted would finally develop into often known as the “Patriot Pod,” the place the place teams of J6ers had been imprisoned collectively, 20 to 30 at a time over three years. These are the those who Micki and Nicole held their vigil for each evening over these two years.
By the point Brandon arrived in D.C., about six months after January 6, he already knew in regards to the Patriot Pod.
Fellows: So we’re strolling in, and I’m simply imagining in my head. I’m like, Oh I’m gonna stroll in to cheers. Like, oh one other particular person like, Hey. We’re sorry that is taking place to you. However hey—you already know, you made it.
Rosin: There have been no cheers, however there was loads of goodwill. Plus, for Brandon, this was a who’s who of J6—individuals he’d examine or seen on YouTube in the course of the limitless hours he’d spent on home arrest.
Fellows: Folks began coming as much as my cell and speaking to me. One standout was Julian Khater, as a result of he mentioned, Hey. I’m the man that they accused of killing Officer Sicknick. I’m like, No manner!
Rosin: This was the group that Brandon was strolling into: Khater, who pleaded responsible to assaulting officers with a harmful weapon, and Man Reffitt, Nicole’s husband, who got here to the Capitol with a gun, and a man named Nate DeGrave, who bragged about punching a cop.
Fellows: Tons of individuals began coming over, and so they’re like, Hey. We’ve received commissary for you. We’ve received commissary. And I’m like, Oh. Okay. In order that made up for the not cheering.
Rosin: Fellow J6ers got here by Brandon’s cell and requested, Hey. You want a radio? Pen and paper? Want some further garments? They dropped off beef jerky, ramen, mac and cheese. Dozens got here by simply to introduce themselves and speak to the brand new man. By the top of the day, Brandon had a stack of things outdoors his cell and a whole lot of new mates.
Rosin: They’re simply providing you with stuff?
Fellows: Yeah.
Rosin: I imply, that is like—this appears like summer season camp.
Fellows: I wish to watch out to say that it’s summer season camp as a result of, you already know, we’re not getting daylight. We’re getting horrible meals. We’re getting—yeah, okay, cool—getting camp meals.
Nevertheless it appeared like at that second, regardless of all of the horrible stuff happening, we had sense of group. No less than that’s what I used to be feeling at first. And like, we had been caring for one another.
Rosin: And why do you suppose it was like that?
Fellows: We’re the identical—like, all of us are there for the one occasion. This isn’t like, you already know, within the different wings, the place it’s like, Oh, what are you in for? Everyone knows the occasion we’re in for. We simply, like, have totally different tales of what occurred at that occasion.
[Music]
Rosin: As a result of most J6ers had no prison information, the jail-ness of jail got here as a shock to them. Their households had been largely far-off. They couldn’t shave. Their cells stank. And that is all taking place within the winters of 2021 and 2022, when COVID variants had been working rampant, particularly in jails. Generally they needed to endure lengthy stretches of solitary confinement. Folks advised me that by day three of being confined, they might hear actual disturbing moans coming from among the cells.
Throughout one nine-day stretch of COVID-induced solitary, Brandon type of misplaced it. A fellow J6er, a man named Kash Kelly, was on element, which meant he might roam from cell to cell, and he got here to Brandon’s rescue.
Fellows: Kash comes as much as me, and he’s like, You okay, man? I’m like, Yeah. (Sighs.) After which he’s like, No. No. Are you actually okay? And I begin tearing up and bawling, as a result of I used to be, like—I didn’t anticipate to. I simply began bawling. And I, like, turned away from him. And he’s like, Oh, bro. Bro, you alright?
Rosin: The J6ers had been going by hell, however the distinction between them and the typical particular person in D.C. jail—or, actually, any American jail—is that they had been going by hell collectively, so they might soothe one another with a attain out, some commissary, a well-timed joke.
Generally, they even discovered a technique to have enjoyable. When the COVID period died down and the lads might spend extra trip of their cells, they got here up with one for the ages, one they’ll bear in mind at one million reunions down the highway. They known as it The Hopium Den.
On these nights, the lads of the Patriot Pod gathered their chairs right into a semicircle, their cozy amphitheater the positioning for the present. The emcee was a U.S. Particular Forces vet accused of beating a police officer on January 6 with a flagpole. In jail, his faux mic was a mop.
The Hopium Den was a spot the place the J6ers turned the drudgery of jail into theater. For instance, one man took moldy bologna and rubbed it on one other man’s head and known as it a hair-growth industrial. One other man lifted his shirt up and ate coleslaw like a slob—apparently, he actually liked the gloopy jail coleslaw. This was a roast. They rapped diss tracks, wrote mushy poetry to fake they had been homosexual.
I’ve heard about so many Hopium Den skits, generally the blokes are snorting with laughter after they recount them to me. And I by no means perceive why they’re humorous. However that solely tells me that, as a lot as they had been harassed and received fed up with one another generally, they nonetheless had one million inside jokes.
Nate DeGrave: Pricey fellow Individuals, I by no means thought I’d write a letter like this.
Rosin: It’s not simple to mark precisely when these particular person J6ers grew to become the Patriot Pod—grew to become a unit—and when that unit grew to become an vital image to MAGA out on this planet. One vital early second got here in October 2021, when a man named Nate DeGrave wrote a letter to a right-wing media web site.
DeGrave: That is my cry for assist. My title is Nathan DeGrave, and as a nonviolent participant on the January 6 rally, I spent the final 9 months detained as a political prisoner in pod C2B on the D.C. D.O.C., in any other case often known as D.C.’s Gitmo.
Rosin: In his letter, Nate described the situations as “inhumane.” He mentioned the J6ers had been depressed and anxious from the “psychological abuse we endure.” He complained in regards to the guards. After which got here the vital half: He used the phrases “political prisoner” and “D.C.’s Gitmo”—phrases that may shortly be in every single place.
Nate despatched the letter to a good friend he knew at Gateway Pundit, a right-wing media web site. And instantly, it caught fireplace. Marjorie Taylor Greene posted about it. Greg Kelly known as. Tucker Carlson talked about it.
DeGrave: It began to catch a whole lot of consideration, and extra and extra individuals had been adopting the identical phrases and phrases that we had been utilizing to explain ourselves.
Rosin: Nate DeGrave was on the telephone together with his legal professional proper after his letter received printed, and the legal professional was watching the GiveSendGo, which is a Christian crowdfunding web site. Numerous individuals within the J6 pod use the positioning to lift funds for authorized charges.
DeGrave: I imply, it went from zero to, like, $20,000, $30,000 in a 10-, 15-minute interval.
Rosin: What?
DeGrave: After which I simply continued to climb from there. And I feel on the finish of the primary day, I used to be at in all probability simply north of $70,000.
Rosin: In at some point.
DeGrave: In at some point. It was wonderful. I nearly forgot for a second that I used to be nonetheless in jail.
Rosin: The instant virality confirmed one thing for them: Although their environment—iron bars, damaged bathroom, curfew—advised them one story, You might be briefly banished from first rate society, that story, they had been beginning to imagine, was not true. They had been the first rate society. It was the surface that was improper. And perhaps the important thing factor that confirmed this new fact for them was what occurred with the music.
[J6 Prison Choir featuring Donald Trump, “Justice for All”]
Rosin: How did the singing begin? Like, how did that custom begin?
Scott Fairlamb: It was proper, I feel, once I had are available that it began to take off. I’m unsure precisely who began it. It type of simply snowballed, you already know?
Rosin: That is Scott Fairlamb, who pleaded responsible to assaulting a police officer. Scott arrived within the Patriot Pod in March 2021.
Rosin: So it occurred at a sure time each evening?
Fairlamb: Each evening at 9 o’clock, we’d get everyone and make everyone conscious at three minutes out.
Rosin: How?
Fairlamb: I’d yell by the door, “Three minutes!” And everybody else might echo it: “Three minutes.” “Three minutes.” “Three minutes.” So everyone can be prepared.
Rosin: Scott mentioned at first, the singing began out hesitant, type of quiet. They weren’t precisely choir sorts, plus you by no means knew if the CO on responsibility that evening might get pissed in regards to the singing. However evening after evening, they did it. And at first, in these early months of the Patriot Pod, it wasn’t for anybody. There was no viewers. It was only for themselves.
Fairlamb: After which mid-song, you already know, “And our flag was—” after which everyone would yell, “—nonetheless there!” You would really feel the constructing shake.
Rosin: Why “nonetheless there”? Why these phrases?
Fairlamb: As a result of we had been “nonetheless there.” It was a reminder.
Rosin: That what?
Fairlamb: That we stood up for what we imagine in and that we had been nonetheless patriots, regardless of who needed to deem us as lower than that, and it was one thing that basically saved my morale and my love of nation intact.
Rosin: Like The Hopium Den, this singing had a component of theater. In contrast to The Hopium Den, this explicit ritual unfold far and vast, from their little jailhouse group theater out to the political equal of Broadway.
If somebody made the inspirational musical, right here is how it might roll out: A bunch of males imagine they’ve been betrayed by their nation, and so they begin to style despair. With out their love of America, who even are they? Then at some point, certainly one of them opens his mouth and warbles a patriotic tune.
[J6 Prison Choir featuring Donald Trump, “Justice for All”]
Rosin: One of many males—that’s Man Reffitt—tells his spouse about it—that’s Nicole. And at some point, she meets a brand new good friend, Micki, and so they, too, be a part of the singing.
Individual on speaker: It’s 8:59. Let me say the one-minute warning—
Rosin: Fairly quickly, they recruit a small, beginner choir. That’s the nightly vigil. They begin livestreaming the singing each evening, and somebody hears it and has an thought: Take this music plus Trump’s voice, and you’ve got magic.
[J6 Prison Choir featuring Donald Trump, “Justice for All”]
Rosin: Trump begins to make use of this recording as his marketing campaign walkout music, the identical music we heard at CPAC. It goes to No. 1 on iTunes.
At his first massive official marketing campaign occasion, in Waco, Texas, in March 2023, Trump goes massive and theatrical with it.
[J6 Prison Choir featuring Donald Trump, “Justice for All”]
Rosin: Big screens play dramatic scenes from January 6 as he speaks.
Donald Trump: Thanks very a lot, everyone.
Rosin: And curtain.
Ober: In all this singing and fraternizing, there was one one that was on the fringes. Some guys would bully him, get on his case as a result of his cell was filthy. Within the Patriot Pod, Brandon stood out for the improper causes, so he got down to repair that. That’s after the break.
[Break]
Rosin: As Brandon spent extra time fraternizing with these guys, he began to suppose extra about a technique he was not like them.
The best way Brandon noticed it, there was a vibrant line within the pod. On one aspect had been him and a few different guys—the nonviolent guys, he calls them, who, after they noticed bother, ducked. And on the opposite, heroes: individuals like Nicole’s husband, Man Reffitt, who’d introduced an precise gun to the Capitol. Eight months into jail for Brandon, he needed to be on the opposite aspect of that line.
Fellows: These guys are the actual individuals, the actual heroes. I’m not a hero. I’m just a few fool that took selfies inside and smoked any person’s joint that was handed round. I used to be there to take selfies, and I simply occurred to get caught up on this crap. However these individuals had been truly, it appeared, keen, although they didn’t use weapons. After which I simply began—my eyes began opening up.
[Music]
Rosin: Right here was his intelligent thought: A number of the detainees had been given these iPad-like gadgets. The proof getting used in opposition to them consisted of movies, so that they wanted to observe them to arrange a protection. And Brandon observed that on his gadget, the digicam hadn’t been turned off.
Fellows: Bro, a cockroach simply got here out of that. Maintain on.
Rosin: So he began to movie.
Fellows: Do you see him shifting round in there?
Rosin: He leaked these movies to Gateway Pundit, and on Could 25, 2022, they printed a narrative: “Unique Footage: Secret Video Recordings [Leaked] From Inside ‘The Gap’ of DC Gitmo.” It wasn’t “the opening,” only a common cell, however no matter. It’s a greater headline that manner. Quote, “First footage ever launched of cockroach and mildew infested cell of J6 political prisoner.”
His fellow detainees had been, for as soon as, calling Brandon Fellows “courageous.”
Fellows: I advised them, Hey, guys. Right here’s how we’re gonna sneak out future movies. Right here’s how we’re gonna do that. I really feel like I earned my respect, as a result of, bear in mind, a few of them didn’t—a few of them used to say, You’re not even a January 6er. A few of them used to say that as a result of, you already know, I didn’t do something violent.
Rosin: Brandon couldn’t undo how he’d acted on January 6, 2021. However what he might do was pitch himself because the strategist of a future operation, no matter that operation may be.
By the point I met up with him, outdoors the jail, the clock was ticking. The upcoming election was shut. And Brandon was strategizing. This time, some issues had been totally different: For one, he’s a mini celeb. Folks from all around the world have supplied him a spot to remain if he wants it. He’s had job presents, one from one of many many J6ers who’ve run or are planning to run for public workplace. All of the sudden, he appears to be in every single place.
In June, he popped up in my Twitter feed, going viral for making humorous faces behind Dr. Anthony Fauci at a public listening to. And in July, this got here up on our neighborhood textual content chain: D.C. Neighborhood Security Alert. J6er Brandon Fellows in a MAGA group home known as the Eagle’s Nest—sure, like Hitler—is bragging on Twitter about punching ladies at native bars.
Punching ladies at native bars? I’d identified Brandon sufficient by now to suppose this was somewhat out of character. Or perhaps I didn’t know Brandon. So very first thing I did, after all, was watch the movies.
[Overlapping shouting, swearing]
Rosin: Greatest I can inform, here’s what occurred: The bar—which, by the way in which, occurs to be a couple of minutes from my workplace—is packed for July 4. A girl sitting together with her boyfriend says one thing about Brandon’s MAGA hat, which is hanging from his backpack. Brandon is there with one other lady—I do know her from the vigil—and she or he begins filming and taunting the girl and her boyfriend.
Girl: Oh my god!
[Shouting]
Rosin: Then all of it breaks: The girl throws a punch, which lands on Brandon. He punches again. After which the boyfriend will get concerned, and by the top, Brandon is pinning him down.
I can say this: Brandon didn’t begin it. However I may also say this: The trolling escalated fairly rapidly into an actual struggle. And so I out of the blue felt extra urgency to determine what Brandon truly meant at that Ashli rally when he mentioned he was “keen to die,” as a result of on this bar incident, there was a really skinny line between phrases and precise violence, which is, clearly, related to present occasions.
Rosin: Like, how lengthy are you going to remain in D.C.? Like is that this—do you may have a plan right here?
Fellows: Yeah. I plan to remain ’til, like, January 7. (Laughs.)
Rosin: Wow.
Fellows: Yeah. That was my plan.
Rosin: That feels vaguely threatening.
Fellows: I might see why you’ll say that, particularly contemplating, you already know, my emotions.
Rosin: About violence?
Fellows: Properly, about how, man, I want, after seeing all of the chaos that’s occurred on this planet and to the nation, how I want individuals did extra on January 6—as a substitute of, like me, taking selfies and simply smiling. I feel it might have been higher off if individuals truly would have truly been there for—like, extra individuals would have truly been there for an revolt.
Rosin: Greatest as I can inform, right here was the evolution of younger Brandon: When he arrived on the Patriot Pod a nonviolent J6er, he was somewhat starstruck. The violent offenders had been, to him, hardcore. However when he left, they had been extra like exalted, not simply hardcore however righteous— extra like Founding Fathers.
Fellows: Who was it, Thomas Jefferson? He mentioned one thing alongside the traces of—I feel it was Thomas Jefferson—each 250 years or so, the tree of liberty should be—What’s it? Like, we’ll must have the blood of the tyrants and the patriots. Like, they’ll must cleanse it. It’ll must be cleansed with the blood of the patriots and the tyrants.
And that’s such a scary thought. I don’t need that to occur. I feel extra individuals, as I regularly level out, I feel extra individuals would have suffered if we didn’t have the Civil Warfare and the Union didn’t win.
That’s how I type of, like, view it. Like, All proper, are we there? Do we’d like one thing like that as a way to, like, save extra lives? That’s how I view it. I do know individuals disagree, however that’s what I look to.
Rosin: So what he’s saying is that generally blood needs to be shed within the short-term to revive America to its unique goal within the long-term, or some illogical logic like that.
Fellows: That is all make imagine, by the way in which. That is—
Rosin: I can’t inform with you what’s make imagine.
Fellows: No. No. No. I’m not making it up. I’m saying, although, I hope that it doesn’t come to this. , I’d be good if Trump simply received in, and if he simply does what he did earlier than, that’ll be a pleasant Band-Help. We’d like one thing somewhat bit extra intense, and I’m hoping it goes somewhat bit extra intense.
Rosin: However there’s only a chance that he’ll legitimately lose this election, like, on the poll field.
Fellows: Yeah. I feel at that time, you already know, individuals might need to do one thing.
[Music]
Rosin: Donald Trump has been saying that he’ll solely lose if Democrats cheat like hell. Brandon is taking that one step additional: He’s saying it doesn’t matter if Trump loses legitimately or illegitimately. Both manner, individuals might need to do one thing. So I suppose now I had my reply—that is what Brandon meant when he mentioned on the Ashli Memorial Day march, “It’s my time to die.”
Possibly the Brandons of the world similar to to speak. Possibly the FBI will likely be higher ready. I don’t know. However I can inform you that so much has modified since Brandon first confirmed up on the Capitol. The power of those J6ers—it’s not shocked and naive, prefer it was 4 years in the past. It’s extra calculated and steely. This complete “cleaning with the blood of the patriots” factor that he’s speaking about shouldn’t be considering of it as an accident that occurred at some point, when issues received uncontrolled. It’s extra like a plan.
Ober: Quickly after that incident on the bar the place Brandon punched a lady, Micki and Brandon “had phrases” about his antics, largely as a result of she doesn’t like drawing that type of destructive consideration to her home or her trigger.
However these amped-up younger patriots and the ladies of the Eagle’s Nest—they could be shifting in numerous instructions. That’s in our subsequent and closing episode of We Stay Right here Now.
[Music]
Ober: We Stay Right here Now is a manufacturing of The Atlantic. The present was reported, written, and govt produced by me, Lauren Ober. Hanna Rosin reported, wrote, and edited the sequence. Our senior producer is Rider Alsop. Our producer is Ethan Brooks. Authentic scoring, sound design, and blend engineering by Brendan Baker.
This sequence was edited by Scott Stossel and Claudine Ebeid. Reality-checking by Michelle Ciarrocca. Artwork course by Colin Hunter. Venture administration by Nancy DeVille.
Rosin: Claudine Ebeid is the chief producer of Atlantic audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor. The Atlantic’s govt editor is Adrienne LaFrance. Jeffrey Goldberg is The Atlantic’s editor in chief.
