This mother wrote us and she said, you know, my son's 18, he's got Asperger syndrome, and he's found this white nationalist community online, and she goes, you know what terrifies me the most?

Is these people have embraced and accepted my son in a way that no one has in his entire life.

That's Tony Mackelier, a former organizer for the White Aryan Resistance or War. As a skinhead recruiter,

he knew the most effective way to lure young people into a hateful

movement was to simply catch them at a moment of isolation. They didn't have to share his beliefs or

frequent far-right chat rooms. They just had to feel hopelessly alone.

You know when he was in grade seven, when he was 12, he invited his entire class to his birthday party,

and nobody showed up.

At this moment of desperation, a recruiter like Tony would showed up. At this moment of desperation,

a recruiter like Tony would show up,

and he wouldn't reason with them.

He appealed to their emotions.

As human beings, we just want to belong.

And those are deep, deep psychological trials. I'm sure that that kid would believe

that the earth was flat if that's what it took to get that kind of social

acceptance. Tony isn't sharing his story to make you feel pity for him or for those who share a hateful

ideology. Instead he wants you to understand the starting point of hatred before

the headline grabbing horrors of the Christchurch shooting or the torchlit march

to the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.

Because before all that, there's a private journey of one individual into a state of isolation.

You can't understand the rise of extremist movements worldwide until you understand this first fork in the road,

and how technology pushes more young people towards isolation,

...