1392: Jeff Schoep | An American Nazi's Long Road to Redemption

Jordan Harbinger (0:00)

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Jeff Schoep (1:27)

You know it's not something that the mainstream society likes, but you get this mindset amongst yourself. I got this mindset that I was now a part of this cause that was something greater than myself or something that I was going to be a part of, that I was going to change the world, that I was going to save my country and all these different things. As crazy as it sounds, people that are involved in this, a lot of them feel that it's patriotic, they're doing their duties, so I thought I was going to help save the white race from extermination and all these kind of things. Then it becomes confirmation bias because once you're in that environment, it's very cult-like.

Jordan Harbinger (2:04)

Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On The Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker through long-form conversations with a variety of amazing folks, from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, performers, even the occasional former jihadi, astronaut, hacker, extreme athlete, or tech luminary. And if you're new to the show or you're looking for a handy way to tell your friends about the show, I suggest our episode starter packs. These are collections of some of our favorite episodes on topics like persuasion and negotiation, psychology and geopolitics, disinformation, China, North Korea, crime and cults, and more. That'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show.

Just visit jordanharbinger.com/start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. Today on the show, a neo-Nazis car breaks down in a predominantly black neighborhood in Detroit. He thinks he knows exactly how this ends. Instead, strangers fix his car, refuse his money, and ask him to pay it forward instead. He came in worried about his engine. He left with a much bigger problem. His entire world view was leaking. Today, we're sitting down with Jeff Schoep. For roughly a quarter century, Jeff led the National Socialist Movement, an explicitly neo-Nazi organization that he helped turn into a national recruiting and propaganda operation. He took it from a rag-tag bunch of semi-disorganized chapters and modernized the entire organization, implemented a ranking and promotion system, organized rallies, meetings, recruitment, a record label, and more. After 25 years at the top, the cracks started to form, and he's since left the organization, working now with advocacy groups to atone for his past. His memoir is American Nazi, From Hate to Humanity. This is not a conversation about handing out absolution. It's about how hatred becomes identity, how a leader builds a machine around grievance, what finally breaks that worldview, and what accountability can possibly look like after decades of damage. Here we go with Jeff Schoep.