Welcome to Democracy-ish. I'm Danielle Moody.

And I'm with Jahat-Wili.

And we are excited to be joined and welcome to the show, Andy Campbell, who is a senior editor at Huffington Post, and also the author of We Are Proud Boys, how a right-wing street gang ushered in a new era of American extremism.

Welcome, Andy. So happy to be here. Thanks you guys for having me.

You know, Andy, you said us to your book, and I appreciate you sending me a terrifying book

to read before I sleep that kept me awake for a couple of hours. You know, we're discussing

proud boys, which, you know, the leaders of proud boys and the leaders of the

oathkeepers right now are under trial for seditious conspiracy, because they participated in

the violent insurrection. And you're sitting, I'm sitting there, I'm thinking, I remember the

proud boys. Wasn't this like a joke started by that vice guy? And I just want for the listeners,

for you to connect the dots, the origin story, because oftentimes

what starts off as shit talking and shit posting and snark and, oh, we're just kidding,

wink, wink, very quickly in American right wing politics transforms into violence.

So let's take this Delorean back, if you will, to Gavin McKinnis.

How did the proud boys start?

Right.

That shit talking and snark you're talking about.

Gavin McGinnis is a big purveyor that.

He was the co-founder of Vice Media, and he sort of made a name for himself based off of this snarky, misogyny, bigotry

you know, that was funny, quote unquote, to consumers back in the early aughts.

And Gavin filled the pages of Vice.

He was their editorial voice with just the worst bigotry ever, one of which one of his

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