The Next Threat | E5 Fighting Back

February 22, 2022·33 min·2 clips

A secret recording of Chris Hood's intake call with the Base's founder shows him telling the neo-Nazi terror group he is willing to 'veer outside the lines of legality.'

The warning is explicit. Before the reporting picks back up, listeners hear that the podcast includes offensive and violent material. Then the earlier thread returns: white nationalist organizing, and the way American extremists looked to European fascist movements for lessons beyond older domestic models. Officials were not vague about the danger. Through 2021, U.S. officials kept naming racially motivated violent extremism as a fast growing terrorist threat. The episode stays with the practical question: how do groups connect, recruit, and turn violent talk into plans? Chris steps into that question. He describes a path forward that he says will not be peaceful, with fantasies of overthrow and authoritarian power hanging over the conversation. When reporters press him, he backs away from explaining what he meant. Other people keep listening. Leaders of the base talk about him afterward as a useful asset, partly because of his standing in Patriot Front. Their language says plenty. They see his arrival as a big break from a larger formation and imagine slowly eating more of it. By fall 2019, the narration says, Chris is an active member of the base. Then the pressure changes. Months later, the FBI starts arresting base members tied to alleged terror plots and weapons crimes. Chris leaves before that trouble reaches him, then starts the Nationalist Social Club. Its aim is blunt: in his own words, a physical and ideological vanguard for white New Englanders. The ending does not pretend the story is wrapped up. The host says there is still more distance to cover before these networks are fully understood.

As heard by us

A sober look at white nationalist recruitment, alliances, and how these groups reorganize under pressure.

The episode tracks a white nationalist movement as it tries to look more disciplined and more connected, moving from official warnings about racially motivated violent extremists to Chris's recruiting pitch and then to the Base treating him as an asset and a big piece of ice.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

A grim map of how the movement tries to scale.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Verified