Introducing: We Live Here Now

Summary

Podcast Summary: Autocracy in America — Introducing: We Live Here Now

Release Date: October 25, 2024
Host/Author: The Atlantic

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Introduction

In the premiere episode of Autocracy in America, The Atlantic delves into the unsettling persistence of authoritarian tactics within the United States. Titled "Introducing: We Live Here Now", this episode features a conversation with Hanna Rosen, the co-host of the Atlantic's new podcast series, We Live Here Now. Rosen, alongside her partner Lauren Ober, embarks on a profound journey to understand the impact of the January 6th insurrection on their personal lives and neighborhood dynamics.

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Encounter with the Militia-Neutralized Neighbor

The episode kicks off with Hanna Rosen recounting the initial unsettling encounter with a neighbor displaying overt support for the January 6th insurrection. Rosen explains:

“A block past the park, Lauren spotted it. A black Chevy Equinox with Texas plates we'd seen parked around the neighborhood. Just a basic American SUV except for the stickers that covered the back windshield.”
— Hanna Rosen [01:40]

These stickers, adorned with symbols like skulls, American flags, and the emblem of the militia group Three Percenters, signaled a departure from the neighborhood's usual diverse and moderate atmosphere. The tension escalates when a confrontation ensues:

“We live here now, so suck it, bitch.”
— Lauren Ober [03:08]

This hostile exchange marks the beginning of Rosen and Ober's deep dive into understanding their neighbors' extremist beliefs.

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Building Relationships with Extremist Neighbors

Rosen and Ober's approach to engaging with their militant neighbors is both cautious and intentional. Rather than immediately rejecting or confronting them, they choose to "step into that alternative reality", striving to comprehend the underlying motivations and beliefs driving such extremism. Rosen reflects:

“Once you decide to step into an alternative world, it's almost like you have to make the decision... you just do it very, very, very gingerly.”
— Hanna Rosen [05:11]

This delicate balance allows them to observe and interact without escalating tensions, providing listeners with an intimate look into the complexities of bridging deeply polarized communities.

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The Process of History Revisionism

A significant portion of the discussion centers around the revisionist narratives emerging post-January 6th. Rosen highlights how certain groups are "retooling the history of an event" to fit a "lost cause narrative", effectively altering collective memory. She notes:

“You have this incredible mission. And then I think one thing that nobody predicted is that they did keep these guys in a segregated wing of the D.C. jail together... so these guys had a reputation at that day, if you remember, as being white. So they did not want to throw them into the D.C. jail.”
— Hanna Rosen [07:01]

The episode delves into how public figures, like former President Trump, contributed to this narrative shift by portraying January 6th participants as "martyrs" and "freedom fighters", thereby galvanizing continued support among certain factions.

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Radicalization within the D.C. Jail

Rosen provides a poignant examination of how the environment within the D.C. jail facilitated the radicalization of January 6th detainees. The segregation of these individuals, predominantly white supremacists, inadvertently created a "cohesive movement" through shared narratives and mutual reinforcement of extremist ideologies. She recounts:

“Someone just kind of lost it for a day... felt like they were saving the country from evil forces trying to steal an election.”
— Hanna Rosen [10:40]

This dynamic mirrors historical instances where imprisonment led to the strengthening of ideological commitments, underscoring the challenges in deradicalizing individuals within institutional settings.

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Personal Reflections and Emotional Impact

Throughout the episode, Rosen and Ober openly discuss the emotional and psychological toll of their interactions with extremist neighbors. The constant exposure to hostile rhetoric and the militarized atmosphere of Washington D.C. left them grappling with fear and uncertainty. Ober shares:

“I have never before in my life met a person with such penetrating eyes. And she wields them to great effect. If she is staring you down, I promise you, you will find no relief.”
— Lauren Ober [12:21]

Rosen emphasizes the importance of humanizing these individuals to foster understanding, despite the inherent challenges:

“It's a losing strategy. Don't do it. It's so hard... your only option is to just open your mind, hear what they have to say, be curious, ask questions, and that's it.”
— Hanna Rosen [13:28]

This approach highlights the delicate balance between maintaining personal safety and striving for empathy amidst profound ideological divides.

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Conclusion

The episode culminates in a reflection on the broader implications of living alongside individuals who support authoritarian measures. Rosen and Ober's experiences serve as a microcosm of the national struggle to reconcile deeply entrenched beliefs with democratic values. As Rosen eloquently puts it:

“They are true patriots. You are trying to deal with something esoteric. You know, you can deal with it.”
— Peter Pomerantsev [15:24]

We Live Here Now emerges as a crucial narrative exploring the fragile fabric of American democracy, the resilience required to confront authoritarian tendencies, and the human stories that underpin these societal shifts.

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Notable Quotes

• Hanna Rosen [01:40]: “A block past the park, Lauren spotted it. A black Chevy Equinox with Texas plates we'd seen parked around the neighborhood. Just a basic American SUV except for the stickers that covered the back windshield.”

• Lauren Ober [03:08]: “We live here now, so suck it, bitch.”

• Hanna Rosen [05:11]: “Once you decide to step into an alternative world, it's almost like you have to make the decision... you just do it very, very, very gingerly.”

• Lauren Ober [12:21]: “I have never before in my life met a person with such penetrating eyes. And she wields them to great effect. If she is staring you down, I promise you, you will find no relief.”

• Hanna Rosen [13:28]: “It's a losing strategy. Don't do it. It's so hard... your only option is to just open your mind, hear what they have to say, be curious, ask questions, and that's it.”

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Final Thoughts

Introducing: We Live Here Now serves as a compelling introduction to a series that seeks to uncover the roots and ramifications of authoritarianism in modern America. Through personal narratives and in-depth discussions, Hanna Rosen and Lauren Ober challenge listeners to confront uncomfortable truths and engage in meaningful dialogues to safeguard democratic principles.

For those interested in understanding the nuances of political extremism and the complex interplay between personal experiences and broader societal trends, this episode offers a thought-provoking and emotionally resonant exploration.

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Transcript

[Lauren Ober]

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, Monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations. Foreign.

[Anne Applebaum]

This is Anne Applebaum and this.

[Peter Pomerantsev]

Is Peter Pomerentsev and we're here with a guest today, the Atlantic's Hanna Rosen.

[Hanna Rosen]

Hi.

[Anne Applebaum]

Although our series Autocracy in America has wrapped up, there is still a lot to do and think about ahead of the 2024 election.

[Peter Pomerantsev]

Hannah is the host of the Atlantic's weekly show called Radio Atlantic and she's also just released a new podcast called We Live Here Now.

[Hanna Rosen]

A series yeah, We Live Here now is the story of my partner Lauren Oger and I discovering that we had some new neighbors. And it's about our effort to get to know these neighbors. And it turned out that they were supporting the January 6 insurrectionesques.

[Peter Pomerantsev]

At the end of this episode, we'll include the entire first episode for listeners to hear, but we want to start with a little clip that gives you a sense of what what first launched them into making the series.

[Lauren Ober]

I guess it started just like any other dog walk. Hana and I leashed up our pups and set out from our house on our post dinner stroll. It was early November of 2023 and I remember it was unseasonably warm. We headed off down the hill from our house towards our neighborhood park.

[Hanna Rosen]

A block past the park, Lauren spotted it. A black Chevy Equinox with Texas plates we'd seen parked around the neighborhood. Just a basic American suv except for the stickers that covered the back windshield.

[Lauren Ober]

Stickers we're very much not used to seeing in our mixed race, mixed income neighborhood. Our vibe is more like make D.C. the 51st state and no taxation without representation. But these stickers were a combo platter of skulls and American flags. There was a Roman numeral for three, the symbol of a militia group called the Three Percenters, and the piece de resistance, a giant decal in the center of the back window that read free our Patriots J4J6, meaning justice for January 6th.

[Hanna Rosen]

Lauren notices every new or different thing in the neighborhood and this car was definitely different. As we walked past it, Lauren said what she always said when we saw.

[Lauren Ober]

This car, there's that fucking militia mobile again. Right after I said that moderately unneighborly thing. The passenger side window rolled down, cigarette smoke curled out of the car, and the person inside shouted justice for J6.

[Hanna Rosen]

To which Lauren said, you're in the.

[Lauren Ober]

Wrong neighborhood for that, honey. And then the woman in the car said words I'm not going to forget anytime soon. We live here now, so suck it, bitch.

[Anne Applebaum]

Hannah, I've had confrontation experiences myself. I was once at a dinner in Poland, this is a couple years ago, with old friends who suddenly started repeating a conspiracy theory about the government. And it happened to be the government that my husband had been part of. And I tried to listen politely and go like, uh huh, yeah, that's true. Yeah, sure. And then eventually I left the room, and I'm not sure I could have lasted even that long with people who weren't old friends and were doing the same thing. So we're not gonna talk all about we live here now, since many listeners may not have yet heard the podcast, But I do want you to tell me a little bit more about that experience of being shouted down in your neighborhood, or more accurately, being with your partner as she was being shouted down. Were you never tempted to argue back?

[Hanna Rosen]

Yeah, I mean, I really think it's an accident of how the interaction happened. If it had happened at dinner, I guess you can tempt yourself like you just described, you could never see these people again. Like, you could ignore them or shout them down and then choose to never see them again. But because these people lived a couple of blocks away, I sort of knew I was gonna see them a lot. So maybe that muted my reaction. My partner doesn't have a mute button, but I just kind of knew that I better take a step back and think about what I want to do because I was gonna run into these people who, you know, happened to have malicious stickers and seemingly aggressive. So I just kind of needed a minute to think what I wanted to do. Without that pause, I'm not sure this story would've happened in the way that it happened.

[Peter Pomerantsev]

And how did you build the relationship with them? I mean, was there any kind of discomfort or danger involved when you first met them? But most importantly, how did you build. I mean, how would they learn to trust you?

[Hanna Rosen]

It's interesting. Once you decide to step into an alternative world, it's almost like you have to make the decision. Most of the time, we just don't make that decision. We're like, this is cuckoo. I'm not going there. I don't share anything in common with these people. We don't even have a shared set of facts in the way we might have 15, 20 years ago. So there's no beginning to this relationship. For whatever reason, we closed our eyes and decided to stay, step into that alternative reality. And once you make that decision, you just do it very, very, very gingerly. In this case, they happened to do a public event, which we knew was happening every single night. And it's out on a street corner in D.C. and it's public space. So that actually gave us the freedom to show up at this public event. It's outside the D.C. jail, and they're in support of the January 6th prisoners. The detainees are all held in a segregated wing of the D.C. jail. So they hold a protest every single night at the exact same time. So, you know, you can steel yourself up every night and say, like, okay, tonight's the night. I'm gonna go to the vigil. You know, can I actually ask you.

[Anne Applebaum]

Some more about that vigil? Because one of the things we live here now does. It explores the way in which people can rewrite history, which is one of the things that happens. And you talk about how at the vigil, there are posters with faces of people who died on January 6, and each poster reads, murdered by Capitol Police, even though only one person was found to have died from a bullet fired by the police. And so there's now a narrative that the people in jail are the good guys and the people outside of jail are the bad guys. I actually spent 20 years writing books about the history of the Soviet Union, and this is very much what autocratic regimes do. They change the way you remember history. They make heroes out of villains, and vice versa. How did you see that happening, and how did you come to understand how it worked? Why was it successful among the people that you were visiting?

[Hanna Rosen]

Well, that was one of the most remarkable experiences I had as being that close to watching revisionism happen. Like, the nitty gritty, like, going back in timing. Okay, when was the first time that Trump mentioned Ashley Babbitt, who is the woman who was shot by the Capitol Police officers? Because Initially, right after January 6th, many, even Trump supporters said, the Capitol Police officer did a good job. He did his duty. It was a terrible day. If you look at things that happened in. In early January, everybody was sharing the reality of what happened on January 6th. And then you watch how slowly kind of people peel away from that reality. Trump starts trying out lines at his rallies. Oh, Ashley Babbitt was murdered. He uses the words they a lot. They killed Ashley Babbitt. They did this. And at that point, the big lie, the lie that the election was stolen kind of could have faded away. It felt like a moment where it could have just been relegated to history. And then it's like all of a sudden, there's this collect, oh, no, we're gonna revive this. And the way we're gonna revive it is by talking first about this martyr and then about this group of people. And suddenly black is white and white is black. And because these people who we got close to, there's sort of innocence in this narrative. One of the main characters is Mickey Widthoff, who's the mother of Ashley Babbitt. And just think about that. She's a grieving mother. It's like as if her emotional grief reality starts to align with Trump's messaging in this perfect storm. And then all of a sudden, things that aren't true seem not just true, but righteous.

[Peter Pomerantsev]

Tell me a bit about the myth, though, because on the one hand, it's an alternative reality, which you described so well just now, but on the other hand, isn't it quite American at the same time, I love when you talk about how they describe themselves as saving democracy. They're the true patriots. I mean, as. Did you find it completely alien myth or something that actually sort of resonated with so many American, I don't know, stories about themselves rebelling against Washington?

[Hanna Rosen]

Yes. I mean, one thing that I came to feel about the January 6th detainees, like, often it would pop into my head, like them in costume. I'm like, okay, they're sort of role playing 1776 here. You know, particularly one of our episodes is about jury trial. My partner was very randomly called onto a jury as many people in D.C. and it happened to be a January 6th case. And not only that, but it happened to be one of these January 6th cases in which you feel that someone just kind of lost it for a day. You know, it's a dad, he has five children. By a judge's count, extremely law abiding. Been married for a long time. But then during that day, just kind of, you know, went nuts. And as you get closer to what they did that day, you do feel like there was just a rush, like a rush of sort of feeling heroic, you know, feeling like patriotic, feeling like you were saving the country. Like you have this incredible mission. And then I think one thing that nobody predicted is that they did keep these guys in a segregated wing of the D.C. jail together. We don't usually do that. I mean, Gitmo is the other place where we've done that, but the D.C. jail is largely black. And so these guys had a reputation at that day, if you remember, as being white. Supremacists. So they did not want to throw them into the D.C. jail. But the result of keeping these guys together, you can imagine what happened.

[Anne Applebaum]

So this is exactly the thing that I wanted to ask you about. I was very struck by one of the characters who you interview and describe. This is Brandon Fellowes, who was a guy who was almost accidentally caught up. In January 6, he entered the Capitol. He wound up smoking a joint in one of the offices in the Capitol. As a result, he was arrested. And because he was part of this group of prisoners, he was essentially radicalized. And that story of how the prisoners together radicalized one another created a mythology around themselves. It reminded me of so many other moments of history when that's happened. I mean, for both good and for bad. I mean, the IRA and British prisons radicalized. Various jihadis in various prisons around the world are said to have radicalized that way, too. But also the ANC in South Africa who were together in a prison on Robben island for many years. I mean, that's how they created their cohesive movement. So it can work positively, too. Weren't you tempted to try and talk him out of it?

[Lauren Ober]

Were you?

[Anne Applebaum]

Did you not want to say, don't you see what's happening to you?

[Hanna Rosen]

Yeah. I mean, with him, that instinct was very powerful because, you know, he's slightly older than my oldest child. And so in his case, I did have the instinct of, like, trying to shake this out of him. Like, don't you see? Like, you were in this. You were in this jail, you know, and he was in this jail. He came in as a goofball. Then he came to see these guys as, like. And by the end, he came to see them, as you said, Peter, as true patriots. So it's not just that they were, like, tough guys. It was like they were true and righteous in the next generation of founding fathers. And he was just like, you don't get it. I'm, you know, deadly serious here.

[Peter Pomerantsev]

So you didn't sort of build a coalition with them. You didn't convince them. You don't try to convince them to change parties, but you spent a year with them. What is it that you found meaningful in that interaction? And why is it meaningful for all of us to hear about it? I mean, it's fascinating. But also, what is the importance of doing something like this?

[Hanna Rosen]

I can only tell you about a limited importance, which is that over the last few years, I've started to read, as I bet you guys have. You know, what do you, like, we all throw up Our hands. We're so polarized. We're not even living in the same reality. We can't talk to each other. You cannot go into a conversation as much as you deeply, deeply want to with the intention of changing the other person's mind. That is a losing strategy. Don't do it. It's so hard. It's as hard in politics as it is in a relationship. It's very hard because we all just want to do that. And so your only option is to just open your mind, hear what they have to say, be curious, ask questions, and that's it.

[Anne Applebaum]

And how do you do that without becoming angry?

[Hanna Rosen]

I mean, that's your. They. Just because I've, you know, been to enough couples therapy that it's like, that's your. That's your only option. And you almost have to do it with a leap of faith that there's something human at the end of that.

[Peter Pomerantsev]

So the meaning, in a way, is learning to just behave and interact in a different way.

[Hanna Rosen]

There are surprising kind of moments of non nastiness that arise when you approach the world from that perspective.

[Peter Pomerantsev]

I mean, I spent a lot of my time writing about propaganda and talking to people with all sorts of deeply warped beliefs. And at one point I realized that the only worthwhile question I could ask that would lead to a conversation that was human was how did it start? How did you start believing in X?

[Hanna Rosen]

Yes.

[Peter Pomerantsev]

And then you'd always get a very personal story, usually about some sort of trauma. I'm not saying that's any kind of excuse, but it suddenly became a human story about how someone's making sense of the world.

[Hanna Rosen]

Yes.

[Peter Pomerantsev]

And suddenly there was a person again. I never changed them. They're still gonna do horrible things, but at least I knew they were a person. I don't know. Maybe in the long run that helps us come up with better strategies to deal with it, but not immediately. It's not a like, aha moment.

[Hanna Rosen]

Yeah. It's not a Kumbaya. It's just like it really is a leap of faith. Cause as you're doing it, you feel, am I doing something dangerous like humanizing this propagandist? Like, is this wrong what I'm doing? And you just kind of live with that doubt and you keep asking questions.

[Peter Pomerantsev]

Yeah, but humans do lots of bad things. Humanizing doesn't mean making it good. It just makes it. Makes it human.

[Hanna Rosen]

Yeah.

[Peter Pomerantsev]

You know, that doesn't. It's like, oh, human. Yeah. I think maybe the word humanizing needs to lose its positive aura. Humans are pretty awful.

[Hanna Rosen]

That's pretty good idea.

[Peter Pomerantsev]

But they are human.

[Hanna Rosen]

So what is the point of humanizing if you remove the positive aspects? Humanizing is good because you start to.

[Peter Pomerantsev]

See the challenge for what it is rather than something esoteric. You know, there you go. It's a real person doing real things, therefore we can deal with it.

[Anne Applebaum]

Hanna Rosen is the co host, along with Lauren Ober of the new six part podcast series from the Atlantic called We Live Here Now. You can find We Live Here now wherever you listen to podcasts and we.

[Peter Pomerantsev]

Have the first episode here. Keep listening. And Hannah, thanks for talking with us today.

[Hanna Rosen]

Thank.

[Lauren Ober]

You. When the neighbor incident first happened, it didn't really feel like much of anything. Or maybe we were both just too stunned to take it all in.

[Hanna Rosen]

It wasn't until we started telling other people the story and they reacted that it began to feel like maybe we had discovered something.

[Lauren Ober]

I guess it started just like any other dog walk. Hana and I leashed up our pups and set out from our house on our post dinner stroll. It was early November of 2023 and I remember it was unseasonably warm. We headed off down the hill from our house towards our neighborhood park.

[Hanna Rosen]

A block past the park, Lauren spotted it. A black Chevy Equinox with Texas plates we'd seen parked around the neighborhood. Just a basic American suv, except for the stickers that covered the back windshield.

[Lauren Ober]

Stickers we're very much not used to seeing in our mixed race, mixed income neighborhood. Our vibe is more like make DC the 51st date and no taxation without representation. These stickers were a combo platter of skulls and American flags. There was a Roman numeral for three, the symbol of a militia group called the Three Percenters. And the piece de resistance, a giant decal in the center of the back window that read Three Our Patriots J4J6, meaning Justice for January 6th.

[Hanna Rosen]

Lauren notices every new or different thing in the neighborhood, and this car was definitely different. As we walked past it, Lauren said what she always said when we saw.

[Lauren Ober]

This car, car, there's that militia mobile again. Right after I said that moderately unneighborly thing, the passenger side window rolled down, cigarette smoke curled out of the car and the person inside shouted, justice for J6.

[Hanna Rosen]

To which Lauren said, you're in the.

[Lauren Ober]

Wrong neighborhood for that, honey. And then the woman in the car said, well, words I'm not going to forget anytime soon. We live here now, so suck it. We'll get to who that person is soon enough, but we're not there yet. When we first encountered the woman from the car. We had no idea who we were dealing with. I just knew I was sufficiently put in my place. Well, okay. I remember saying to Hana as we walked back home.

[Hanna Rosen]

I remember after it happened, we walked away in total silence. That's my memory. Each of us looping in our own heads about something.

[Lauren Ober]

I remember being mad because I lost.

[Hanna Rosen]

Right.

[Lauren Ober]

Because I didn't get the final word. Yeah. And because I just kept thinking like the whole combination of it felt bad to me. It's like. It's like militia stickers. Justice for J6. We live here. You just called me a name. You know, the whole thing was very out of place and I felt it was a little destabilizing.

[Hanna Rosen]

Yeah, Yeah. I walked home in a half hyper, vigilant neighborhood watch brain, like, who lives here now? What are they doing here? Are we going to get into more of these confrontations? And a half journalism brain like, who's we? Where do they live? Why are they here now? Like it was. It was like those were my two tracks when I was walking home.

[Lauren Ober]

I'm Lauren Ober.

[Hanna Rosen]

And I'm Hanna Rosen.

[Lauren Ober]

And from the Atlantic, this is. We live here now. Most of the country watched January 6 from a safe distance. Something happening in their Twitter feeds or on their phone screens. But for those of us living in D.C. it was happening in our backyard. I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard. Start making a list. Put all those names down.

[Hanna Rosen]

And we start hunting them down one by one.

[Lauren Ober]

We had a disbursement of tear gas in the rotunda. Please be advised, dear, mask under your seats, please. Grab a mask, please.

[Hanna Rosen]

In Washington D.C. a curfew has now taken effect from 6:00pm Eastern tonight to 6:00am Thursday morning.

[Lauren Ober]

We're going to continue of dating. So we were actually left with the wreckage of that day. We were in a militarized city. We were living under a curfew. Streets were blocked off, the windows were all boarded up. And you felt like you were living, if not in a war zone, in a dangerous place.

[Hanna Rosen]

There was National Guard everywhere. All the stores were closed. And there were very few regular people walking around doing regular things. And I was just thinking, like, where am I? What city is this?

[Lauren Ober]

Right. I bought a baseball bat for protection.

[Hanna Rosen]

I remember that.

[Lauren Ober]

Which is why two plus years later, it felt like this whole period of time we'd rather forget was racing back. Donald Trump was looking like he'd be the Republican nominee and a second Trump presidency. Seemed possible. Plus, we had a car with militia stickers lurking in our neighborhood.

[Hanna Rosen]

So, no, we did not welcome January 6th supporters creeping back to the scene of the crime. But also, we wanted to know what they were up to.

[Lauren Ober]

In the immediate aftermath of January 6th, there were three names I associated with what happened at the Capitol. The QAnon Shaman, for obvious reasons. Oathkeepers founder Stuart Rhodes, because he seemed really dangerous. And also he had an eye patch. And Ashley Babbitt, who has everything to do with our new neighbor's arrival in dc. Four people died that day, but I only remember hearing about Ashley. Maybe that's because she was the only rioter killed by law enforcement. Ashley Babbitt was a Trump die hard, so it's not surprising she made her way to D.C. for the rally. She was a Second Amendment loving libertarian. She wholeheartedly believed in MAGA and QAnon. During the pandemic, she was hostile about mask mandates and refused to get vaccinated. When California issued a stay at home order, she tweeted, this is that commie bullshit.

[Hanna Rosen]

The day before her death, Ashley tweeted in QAnon speak. Nothing will stop us. They can try and try, but the storm is here and it's descending upon D.C. in less than 24 hours. Dark to light.

[Lauren Ober]

We are walking to the Capitol in a mob. There's an estimated over 3 million people here today, so despite what the media tells you, boots on ground definitely say something different. There is a sea of nothing but red, white and blue. On the day of the riots, she seemed genuinely thrilled to be there, and it was amazing to get to see the President talking. We are now walking down the inaugural path to the Capitol building. Three million plus people. God bless America. Patriots.

[Hanna Rosen]

More like 50,000 people, give or take. And a few thousand of them went into the Capitol, or more accurately, broke in. When the mob of protesters breached the Capitol, busting windows and breaking down doors, Ashley was right there in the mix.

[Lauren Ober]

There's so many people, it's just they're gonna push their way up here.

[Hanna Rosen]

There are four videos shot by rioters that capture this moment in its entirety. Ashley strides down the hallway like she knows where she's going. She's followed by other rioters, but they're suddenly stopped when they come to a set of doors with large window panels. Through the windows, you can make out congresspeople being evacuated away from the growing mob. The crowd Ashley is with has accidentally landed at the bullseye, the actual place where these congresspeople were about to certify the election. On the Other side of the doors is a cop with a gun, although it's unclear if Ashley can see him. She's the only woman in a sea of men, and she's small and she seems to be yelling, it's our fucking house. We're allowed to be in here. You're wrong. One of the riders breaks a window, and then out of nowhere, Ashley tries to climb through it. The cop shoots. She immediately falls backwards and lands on the floor. She jerks and convulses and blood pours out of her mouth. She's dead.

[Lauren Ober]

She's dead. She's dead. I saw the light goes off. She's dead.

[Hanna Rosen]

And then something happens right after she dies. It's a detail I missed at first, but it turned out to be a spark for everything that would happen since that day. People around Ashley take out their cell phones and start filming.

[Lauren Ober]

This individual says he actually saw her die. He actually saw her video.

[Hanna Rosen]

I have the video.

[Lauren Ober]

I have the video of the guy with the gun and they're shooting her. Okay, I want to get with you.

[Hanna Rosen]

One person says he's from Infowars and offers to buy footage from someone close.

[Lauren Ober]

I want to. I want to get you report right now if you got that shot. Okay? I. I need that footage, man. It's going to go out to the world. It's going to change so much.

[Hanna Rosen]

Even in the chaos, they realize a martyr was born.

[Lauren Ober]

Rumors spread immediately that the woman killed was 25, 21, a mere teenager. In actual fact, Ashley was 35. But the details didn't matter. She was a young white woman in the prime of her life, shot dead by a black officer. People were quick to point out that she was a veteran, a war hero, even purportedly upholding her oath to defend the Constitution. When she died on far right pro Trump Message boards post January 6th, Ashley was called a freedom fighter and the first victim of the second Civil War. One person wrote, your blood will not be in vain. We will avenge you.

[Hanna Rosen]

Hey there. I'm Claudia Baid and I lead the audio team here at the Atlantic. I think a lot about what makes great audio journalism. It commands your attention, but isn't noisy. It brings you closer to the subject, but leaves room for you to make up your own mind. And when you hear someone tell their story in their own voice, you understand it in a deeper way. When you subscribe to the Atlantic, you'll be supporting this kind of journalism. You'll also enjoy new benefits just for Atlantic subscribers on Apple podcasts. Think ad free episodes of our shows and subscriber only audio articles. To join us, go to theatlantic.com listener. That's theatlantic.com listener. If you're already a subscriber, thanks. You can head to the Atlantic's channel page on Apple Podcasts and start listening right now. People who came to January 6 thought they were saving our democracy from evil forces trying to steal an election. Three years later, some of them still think that. And now those same evil forces are keeping J6 freedom fighters in prison. Justice for January 6th. That's what those window stickers on the Chevy are about.

[Lauren Ober]

This conspiracy has gotten more elaborate over time. The insurrection was a setup. Or the prosecution of January 6th rioters represented Gross government overreach. Or the government can turn on its own citizens, even kill them.

[Hanna Rosen]

A lot of the people who believe these things have taken their cues from one woman. Ashley's mother. Her name is Mickey Whithoff, as she.

[Lauren Ober]

Was a beloved daughter, wife, sister, granddaughter, niece and aunt. But beyond that, she was the single bravest person I have ever known. She was the quintessential American woman. Today is a dark day for our family and this country, for they have lost a true patriot. I would like to invite Donald J.

[Hanna Rosen]

Trump to say her name out loud.

[Lauren Ober]

It took us a minute, but with the help of some friends, we finally figured out that Mickey was our new neighbor. I wasn't sure what I thought about having Ashley Babbitt's grieving mother come back to the place where her daughter was killed. Why was she here in our D.C. neighborhood? What did she want? Was there some sort of future Jan6 on the horizon? It all felt just a little too close for comfort. In the days after our run in with the neighbor, I Googled till my eyeballs dried out. There were a lot of videos on social media that featured Mickey, but not a lot of solid information. I reported what I could find to Hana. Do you want to know what the house is called?

[Hanna Rosen]

What?

[Lauren Ober]

The Eagle's Nest.

[Hanna Rosen]

Oh, stop. What?

[Lauren Ober]

Yeah.

[Hanna Rosen]

No, we don't have the Eagle's Nest in our neighborhood.

[Lauren Ober]

What does the Eagle's Nest mean to you?

[Hanna Rosen]

Some patriot thing?

[Lauren Ober]

No. Well, sure, one would think. Oh, it's. It's patriotic, right? American eagle. It's where all the eagles go. But do you know who else had a very particular property called the Eagle's Nest?

[Hanna Rosen]

No.

[Lauren Ober]

Well, I'll tell you. It's Adolf Hitler. However, to quote Mickey, who explained to HuffPost why they called the house the Eagle's Nest, she said, we call our house the Eagle's Nest. Which some would say was Hitler's hideout. But we're American citizens, and we won that war, and we're taking back the name. So this is absolutely not an ode to Hitler. Here's what else I found out. The online videos of Mickey didn't exactly make me want to bring over a tray of homemade welcome to the neighborhood brownies. Lots of shouting and scowling and general unpleasantness. Why are y' all here if you're.

[Hanna Rosen]

Gonna let that happen?

[Lauren Ober]

He said, why the hell are y' all here? He said that to you? That was very unprofessional. In one clip online, Mickey is being arrested for blocking and obstructing roadways. She was at a march to honor the second anniversary of her daughter's death, and she walked into the street one too many times. The DC cops did not appreciate that, and they let her know it. It wasn't the only time she got into it with the cops. A year later, I. I try to show y' all respect. I've been arrested twice, and I've done it peacefully.

[Hanna Rosen]

That's your man.

[Lauren Ober]

Is.

[Hanna Rosen]

That's. I wasn't down there, so I can't speak.

[Lauren Ober]

There were more. More than a few videos of Mickey and her housemates getting into dust ups with D.C. folks who did not seem to appreciate their presence in the city. But later in that same video, there's this. Our new neighbors are getting harassed by anti J6 protesters. Folks who like to chalk the sidewalk with phrases like, mickey is a grifter. There are a number of D.C. cops on the scene. I get tense just watching it. Finally, Mickey snaps and screams at them.

[Hanna Rosen]

I heard all the commotions when I got up.

[Lauren Ober]

I can't see you.

[Hanna Rosen]

I didn't see what happened.

[Lauren Ober]

I had to beg him to get out of here.

[Hanna Rosen]

You can tell your man that the.

[Lauren Ober]

Reason I here, cuz, three years ago today, y' all killed my kid. That's why I'm here, right? She's a mom, and the police killed her kid. That's why she's here. She wants to make sure her dead daughter isn't forgotten and that someone is held accountable for what happened. And one way to do that is to maybe get yourself arrested or at least show up everywhere. January 6th. Trials, congressional hearings, the Supreme Court, rallies, marches. My neighborhood. Another way for people to take notice. A nightly Vigil outside the D.C. jail every single night for more than 700 nights.

[Hanna Rosen]

And we mean every night in the rain or scorching heat. Without fail, Mickey and a few supporters stand on what they call Freedom Corner. And Talk on the phone with the J6 defendants held inside the jail.

[Lauren Ober]

As I explained to Hannah, every night at 7pm These apparently true patriots come out and they have a vigil for all of the January 6th defendants who are currently being held in the jail, either awaiting trial or awaiting sentencing. And every night, they get, like, a January 6th inmate on the phone and they put him on the speaker, and then they join in singing, like, the national anthem or America the Beautiful, and they're chanting, like, justice for Ashley. And the evening ends often with God bless America. Lee Greenwood, who's the they? So there's a small cadre of true believers who believe that the people in the D.C. jail are political prisoners.

[Hanna Rosen]

Interesting. Interesting is a boring thing to say. I get that. But I was only just starting to put this whole picture together, that Mickey and her friends were not in D.C. just to cause chaos. They were here to push a narrative that these people, the same ones who turned our city upside down, were victims of a colossal injustice. And also that January 6th was actually a totally appropriate exercise of freedom and liberty. And their version of the story was getting traction with some important people. Actually, the most important person.

[Lauren Ober]

I am the political prisoner of a failing nation. But I will soon be free on November 5, the most important day in the history of our country. And we will together make America great again. Thank you.

[Hanna Rosen]

If our interactions with our new neighbors. Neighbors had unfolded more like the typical neighborhood showdown, my MAGA hat versus your dump Trump sign. Things might have been easier, because that would have been just straight up neighbor warfare. Pure mutual hatred.

[Lauren Ober]

But it didn't happen that way. Instead, two opposite dramas unfolded. One, we got an up close, intimate view of how history gets rewritten. Call it the lost cause narrative for the 21st century. A group of Americans immediately sets to work retooling the history of an event through tweets and podcasts and viral video clips in a way that distorts collective memory forever.

[Hanna Rosen]

But then, too, our new neighbors became real people to us. We also got an up close, intimate view of them. Their monumental grief, their sleepless nights, their deep friendship. Things that make it harder to purely hate on someone.

[Lauren Ober]

This woman, Mickey Whithoff, is many things to many people. Mama Mickey to the January 6th defendants. Mother of a dead domestic terrorist to others. But to us, she's something else. She's our neighbor. Do you want to hear something rotten? I don't know if I do, but I will. After months of getting to know Mickey, I felt like I needed to confess something. She had been telling me how people in the neighborhood had generally been nice to them, except for this one time. One of her roommates, Nicole, had been sitting in the car and these two women walked by and said something totally rude. And I know you've already heard the story before, the Nicole sitting in the car, that was me. And I'm like, fully disgusted with myself and embarrassed, like, because that's not how. That's not how I want to be treated and that's not how I want to think about people. But I did it. Oh, well, I'm surprised. I'm impressed that you admitted that to me.

[Hanna Rosen]

I really am.

[Lauren Ober]

That's going to be interesting when I tell Nicole. Since that incident, I've spent a lot of time with Mickey trying to understand her cause her politics and her anger. I've had many moments where I thought, what the hell am I doing? Getting all caught up in their revisionist history of January 6th? But what I can tell you is that Mickey is not who I thought she was. She is every bit as fiery as she comes off in speeches and confrontations with people who want her out of this city. After nearly a year of knowing her, I'm still terrified of her. I have never before in my life met a person with such penetrating eyes. And she wields them to great effect. If she is staring you down, I promise you, you will find no relief. So the window rolls down and I guess Nicole said, you know, justice for J6, right? Reflexively, in two seconds I go, well, you're in the wrong neighborhood for that right now. I feel like you would appreciate that because sometimes things pop out of your mouth that maybe you didn't think about. I am a person who is very guilty of that is my mouth runs away with me. So I said that. And she goes, we live here now, so suck it, bitch. That's my Nicole. And I was like, well, okay.

[Hanna Rosen]

When we first ran into the militia mobile, we didn't know anything about Mickey and her crew. We thought anyone could be living in that house with that car. Maybe it was an actual militia headquarters with a cache of weapons in the basement. Maybe it was just some wacko whose patriotism had gone totally sideways.

[Lauren Ober]

But now, after nearly a year of repair supporting the story, we know so much more in the rest of the series. We're going to take you through this upside down world we landed in where we found ourselves talking conspiracies.

[Hanna Rosen]

I don't know what I believe them capable of.

[Lauren Ober]

Is it eating babies and drinking their blood? I don't think so, but I don't know. I mean, I don't know what they're up to. How you can suddenly find yourself joking with January Sixers about militias. You're gonna come down here. You gotta know me. You know, I can't. There are too many splinter groups. And, you know, there's factions, there's levels. Listen, there's color coding. Listen, when the gay militia happens, I'm there, okay? When that happens. Until then, country of militias and wondering what could possibly be coming for us.

[Hanna Rosen]

Like, how long are you gonna stay in DC?

[Lauren Ober]

I plan to stay till like, January 7th.

[Hanna Rosen]

That feels vaguely threatening.

[Lauren Ober]

I could see why you would say that.

[Hanna Rosen]

That's coming up on We Live Here Now.

[Lauren Ober]

We Live Here now is a production of the Atlantic. The show was reported, written and executive produced by me, Lauren Ober. Hanna Rosen Reported, wrote and edited the the series. Our senior producer is Ryder Allsopp. Our producer is Ethan Brooks. Original scoring, sound design and mix engineering by Brendan Baker. This series was edited by Scott Stossel and Claudina Baid. Fact checking by Michelle Soraka. Art direction by Colin Hunter. Project management by Nancy Deville.

[Hanna Rosen]

Claudina Baid is the executive producer of Atlantic Audio and Andrea Valdez is is our managing editor. The Atlantic's executive editor is Adrian LaFrance. Jeffrey Goldberg is the Atlantic's editor in chief.

[Lauren Ober]

And then, did I say something like, well, bitch, I live here now or something very close to that? We live here now, so get used to it? No. Suck. Nope, you're right on the suck it. I don't know. Suck at what? Suck at who? Suck at fascist. So much more fascist than me. Don't tell me what I said. You said suck it, bitch. Oh, okay, okay.

[Hanna Rosen]

Mom, Dad, I humbly suggest you save some money and shop Amazon for back to school.

[Lauren Ober]

It's for my growth.

[Hanna Rosen]

Meaning my body's growing at an alarming rate. And clothes you buy me this year.

[Lauren Ober]

Will be very small very soon.

[Hanna Rosen]

Plus, the clothes I love today will be out of style tomorrow. But at least your wallet doesn't have.

[Lauren Ober]

To be my fashion victim. If you shop low prices for school at Amazon.

[Hanna Rosen]

Hopefully this is helpful.

[Lauren Ober]

Amazon, spend less, smile more.