A Nazi on Wall Street Podcast
A Nazi on Wall Street Podcast
What is Public History? (and why you should care)
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Whether historians like it or not, our identities and histories are often tied up in intense contests of competing narratives—which greatly affect the way we talk about history in public, such as at museums and historic sites, and in our entertainment and media. The A Nazi on Wall Street Podcast is public history, too--but what does that really mean? Dr. Jay Weixelbaum and EJ Russo talk with John Heckman aka “The Tattooed Historian” to get a better understanding of public history and why it’s so important.
Hey, Jay, I'm curious, why do we call this podcast a Nazi on Wall Street?
Speaker 2I'm glad you asked ej. You know, I study history. The Nazi on Wall Street Podcast is part of elusive films, a Nazi on Wall Street Project, which tells the true story of how the Nazis sent a pair of des spies, a German lawyer, and a beautiful diabolical barness to recruit American corporations for the fascist cause. And only a Jewish FBI agent stood in their way.
Speaker 1<laugh>. Wow. How are you going to make this story come to
Speaker 2Life? We are raising funds to produce a short film highlighting just one part of the Anazi and Wall Street pilot script, which showcases our team's talents and writing and production. Awesome.
Speaker 1Where can someone go to learn more and help contribute to the
Speaker 2Cause? Chances are, we're running a fundraiser right now, but regardless of when you hear this episode, you can go to elusive hyphen film slash donate to contribute to putting this highly relevant history on screen.
Speaker 1Great. I hear there's some cool donation incentives too, like mugs, totes shirts, and more for yourself, or to give us a gift.
Speaker 2That's right. Go to elusive hyphen film slash donate to learn more now onto today's show.
Speaker 1Uh, are you in Pennsylvania right
Speaker 3Now? I'm not. I'm in the DC area right now. I was born and raised in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1Oh my God. It might as well be Kentucky. I am very familiar with Chambersburg
Speaker 3Appalachian, Pennsylvania. My, my people come from the Hills, my friends.
Speaker 1Welcome to a Nazi on Wall Street Podcast, because every time history repeats, the price goes up.
Speaker 2I am Dr. Jay Wexel Baum. I am a historian and producer of the a Nazi and Wall Street Project.
Speaker 1And I'm EJ Russo. I'm just a regular guy who has grown concerned by the recent rise of anti-democratic sentiment growing around the world and is just trying to figure out what is really happening. Jay and I created this podcast in part to help promote his project, a Nazi on Wall Street, but to also discuss troubling current events and give them historical context. Jay, my friend, how are you doing this evening?
Speaker 2I'm good. We're hitting, uh, milestones for two different reasons. As, uh, we've mentioned on the show recently, we like to kind of timestamp where we are. Uh, we both just watched the State of the Union, which aired last night. That would make today Yes, February 8th. And of course, I'm also excited because, uh, we're, we're heading towards the conclusion of our second season of
Speaker 1The
Speaker 2Right Around the Corner Project. I know right around the corner in our upcoming episode after this one, uh, we're gonna talk a little bit about, uh, that project itself and, and the milestones we reached there. But anyway, Biden's speech was very interesting last night, wasn't it?
Speaker 1Yes. I, I, uh, I love conversion
Speaker 2<laugh>. The moment, uh, the, uh, Republicans started, uh, booing and heckling about Social security and Medicare, I was like, Biden said a trap, a really easy one. Yeah. And that's gonna be the headline the next day. And, uh, sure enough,
Speaker 1Yeah, that's all anybody was talking about was the, basically like the, so we're in consensus. It's off the table now. Okay. All right. Great.<laugh>, we can move on.<laugh>,
Speaker 2To me, this also lays to rest any arguments that, uh, Biden can't run in 2024. That's some gule right there to have that debate live in front of the American people and all of Congress to mention the Joint Chiefs and the entire Supreme Court and, and everyone else. It's a pretty good move in my, in my opinion, save some headaches. Or at least we hope.
Speaker 1It just seemed like it was an own goal, so to speak, for the extremist Republicans. Like, why boo something that you have openly written as part of your, you know, agenda for this year, which is dismantling or dissolving social security. Why do that? You're opening yourself up to a, a major letdown in 2024. That's what this is, that's what this is gonna lead to. You know, I'm not Yeah, this is, I'm not predicting that. I'm not predicting that they're gonna lose, but I'm just saying like, why give the Democrats this win?
Speaker 2Uh, because, uh, they're, uh, they're getting high on their own supply, you know, and, and, um, this is no surprise, right? Like<laugh>, the Republican party's been talking about cutting social security and Medicare for a long time. I've written ads myself for the Democratic side going back several years now about defending social security and Medicare from cuts even before, uh, our ghoulish friend, uh, Rick Scott, uh, wrote that into, uh, Republican policy recently. Yeah. My, my feeling is not to get too deep cuz we're gonna talk about other stuff in this episode. Um, but my feeling is that Biden's, uh, and the Democrats whole strategy for 2023 is divide the Republicans, which is it, it's, it's a really good environment right now to be able to, to use that strategy.
Speaker 1Yeah. I mean, with all of the infrastructure and Chips Act and Pact Act and inflation reduction, all that stuff really starting to come into play over the next 36 months from the time that we're recording this episode. And then you add in amazing jobs reports and, and the outrageous support to Ukraine mm-hmm.<affirmative> against Russian aggression. It's, it's astonishing that his poll numbers aren't, aren't better than they, they should be, honestly. Unless, unless I am getting high on my own supply
Speaker 2For those who, uh, who are just tuning in to a Nazi on Wall Street. We had a, a really cool round table with some media experts, few episodes back about why that might be<laugh>, the fact that, uh, there's a pretty obvious, uh, bias towards Republicans and against the Democrats, unfortunately, because, uh, sensationalism sells, you know, and Democrats get hammered for being the responsible ones. And Republicans never get held to account for being completely irresponsible, especially when it comes to this really important conflict that kind of characterizes, uh, democracy versus fascism in Ukraine. It's a big deal. The other news, I guess, to stamp the news today too. Yeah. Um, uh, Loda, more solinsky has been touring around as we speak. He was just in the uk I believe he's gonna be in France tomorrow. The aid is flowing. They're getting the big, the big weapons now, and, uh,
Speaker 1Yeah, they're getting tanks.
Speaker 2Yeah. Yeah. So it's, uh, you know, this is all unfolding in real time. Depending on when you listen to this episode, it will be a matter of public history. And
Speaker 1Speaking of, of Ukraine, I've, I mean, you know, I've come across lot of different folks on social media with a colorful array of political perspectives from anarchist leftists to the unapologetic Christian nationalists on the right. But man, like most recently, I ran into a pro Putin as hat regurgitating the same. Ukraine is full of Nazis propaganda that we've heard, I don't know how many times before, but this, this particular guy told me to look up the AZA regiment in Ukraine and to say like, Hey, you know, like, you, you look them up, Google them, and you tell me that they're not Nazis. And at first, that's all I could find out about them.<laugh> mm-hmm.<affirmative>, you know, the, they essentially were a fascist arm of the Ukrainian government, and they were out to do zelensky bidding by committing atrocities against Russian freedom fighters. But, you know, after digging a little bit more about the Ukrainian AZA regimen, I think I've kind of determined a few things. I mean, I don't know if you've read anything about it, but Azov has, okay. So they have indeed been associated with far-right and nationalist ideologies. I mean, I, I think that's pretty clear. And some of its members have been linked to neo-Nazi groups, which is super unfortunate. That sucks. You know, I mean, the regiment was formed during the early stages of the conflict in Eastern Ukraine and has been accused of human rights abuses, including torture and execution of prisoners. However, it's important to note that not all members of the Azov regiment subscribe to far-right. Or, or neo-Nazi ideologies. I mean, the, the regiment is a military unit, and some of its members may have joined for various reasons, including a desire to defend Ukraine from Russian aggression. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, the Ukrainian government has, has also made efforts to integrate the regiment into the national military since they were kind of just like this unaffiliated militia that was in the region of mm-hmm.<affirmative> Ukraine. But Zelensky wants to essentially bring it under government control to essentially bring them into line. But what the thing is, it, it, it sucks because the i ideology and actions of the AZA regimen and its members have been widely criticized by human rights groups and the international community, and the group has been designated as a neo-Nazi organization by several countries, including the United States<laugh>. Yep. I mean, this is not a good look for the pro Ukrainian side, my side, the one that I support, because it just gives fuel to the morally starved Putin defenders, you know, and it's that, I I, it's just, it's deflating in my mind because where I simply believed Russians were making up the entire, you know, we need to save Eastern Ukraine from the Nazis. I now unfortunately, believe that there, there are some Nazis<laugh>, you know, it's al albeit it's embellished, but there's some truth to this, right? I mean, I'm sure, I just don't know how to feel about this because like, I certainly do not support the Russian invasion, but Jesus, it just, to me, it seems to me that there's no good guys really anywhere, right. Who can we really support, right? Mm-hmm. It's, it's like I've been, I've been throwing in support with to a nation that, eh, yeah, they have ties to proud boys. I mean, are they, are they thrilled with it? No, but I, I'm left with a sour taste of my mouth, Jay. And Am am I just, am I just looking up the wrong information here? Because I couldn't find anything that, that completely disproved this idea. You know, it doesn't compromise their tactical advantage, but I think it has compromised a bit of the, in the court of public opinion and, and authoritarians like, like Putin only need that sliver of doubt to prolong this war. And it's just, it's just super, super unfortunate.
Speaker 2Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I have lots of thoughts here. Uh, first, uh, dear listeners, oh, uh, you may have clicked on this episode wanting to hear about public history. Well, what does this have to do with public history? Well, a lot, because we have a great guest, uh, te it up for you tonight. Uh, John Hagman, tattooed historian will get there. But to kind of give you a working example, what EJ and I are doing here by talking about the AZA Battalion is that this is kind of a matter of like contested history in real time. Who are these guys? And they're in this context, this environment where Ukraine is a long, kind of very murky complex history where there are nationalists, they're sometimes working with fascists, and then, uh, and then they, they're fighting with fascists. So that's, that's one thought. Another thought is that this particular story, I'm just gonna put this out there, hits personally for me very much, because it's a common trope to blame Jews for the violence done against them. Ukraine as a fact is, has the only Jewish president outside of Israel is led by probably one of the most prominent Jews in the world. Um, president Zelensky for, for a moment there, they had both a, a Jewish president and prime minister. It also has one of the largest Jewish populations in Europe. I'm also, um, my, my, uh, maternal grandfather was also Ukrainian. Uh, so I have lots of, uh, lots of feelings. And of course, to me, especially since the 2016 election, to me, Putin is very much one of the, one of the fascist ringleaders in the world for, so for him to call, uh, a country led by a Jew, a Nazi, and that's the reason why he needs to attack is, uh, is rich, is really, is really quite rich. So that's kind of all on the surface there. And yet he's pointing to the AZA Battalion group and saying, well, they're your Nazis. And the problem is, is that he's not entirely wrong. But here's the really interesting part. When you start, like zeroing in on who the AZA battalion is, and look at some of the historical analogs, this kind of contested historical moment that we're in, it starts to get a lot more complicated. And dare I say interesting AZA group, they actually even been around that long. They were formed in 2014 when they took over Crimea. Crimea, exactly. And so they were, yeah, they were kind of this, uh, paramilitary group. There were a bunch of kind of nationalist paramilitary groups operating in kind of southeast Ukraine in around, yeah. Dobos region, um, Mario Opal. And, uh, yeah, some ties to a group called the, the, um, the Azo movement, which is actually where the, the Nazi stuff comes from. And, you know, reports say that, you know, some of, some of these folks, uh, were, were Nazis. And of course, use, uh, uh, Nazi iconography mainly, um, what the SS markings and the black and yellow, which is what the BJ mentioned, the Proud Boys. And of course, that's also the colors of, uh, libertarian parties here, all, all mixed together in a nice far right movements where the truth is never<laugh> what you think. It's a moving target, depending on what's convenient. But then, like, I started digging into the ASAP group, and this blew my mind. Uh, there's, um, uh, a governor in that area, a Jewish oligarch. It's actually funding the Asop Battalion<laugh> talk about conspiracy. And I know I'm playing right into the conspiracy there. The Jews are the real Nazis. We're behind everything, right? Which is, you know, they're behind everything for those who are paying attention. You know, there are Jewish oligarchs on Putin's side. Victor Vicksburg comes to mind as Des Roman Abramovich. This, uh, this character, um, Igor Holisky, the, the oligarch, one of a few that was funding the AZA Battalion, um, between 2014 and 2016, I believe he, uh, he's got some problems of zone. He actually is banned from being in the US because of some bank fraud stuff. Uh, he's got, uh, Israeli citizenship too. I think that's might be where he is these days. There's all kinds, sorts of shady connections here. And then, and then of course, one other really important point that kind of also skews this a lot, well, actually two, one, the of battalion made, uh, history, again, that public history when, uh, they were one of the last groups in Mario Poll, after, basically in this current war after Russians leveled the city, basically either killed, kidnapped, or chased away almost all the inhabitants. And this group, these holdouts held out in a steel plant there for like three months, like showcasing the, just incredible bravery of Ukrainian defenders and were revered throughout the country and, and many, many parts of the globe. And these are the, some of the same, this is like some of the same group, right? So the other point I wanna make is that, and this may be because they, they have some fascist elements, but they re aza, uh, group is really good at PR too, the AZA Battalion. So this folds into this whole, um, idea of like how Ukraine is not just fighting the war on the ground, but they're also fighting this like, kind of media war, right? And the AZA folks are actually really good at talking up the Ukrainian defenders all over the country and, uh, making fun of the Russians and demoralizing their troops. Yeah. It's a really, it's a really mixed bag. And then, and then I guess, as you mentioned, ej yeah, there's been a kind of a concerted effort by the Ukrainian government to kind of de right wingy these groups, clean up their image. There's actually, um, a long piece in Harts in the Israel, uh, newspaper about the ease of roof and how they've disavowed, um, these right wing connections. And that, you know, it's, it's a lot more complicated. So it's, it's really a mixed bag tier. It's not, it's not clear cut at all.
Speaker 1Should this affect our view of the US cooperation in Ukraine against the Russian aggression? I mean, yeah, I get it. I'm, I, I know that it's not just cut and dry, black, white, the good guy wears the white hat type of thing. I understand that there, like George Lucas says, in revenge of the sy, there are heroes on both sides. I, I understand this, but I'm really trying to fight my naivete here. In my heart of hearts, I sincerely believe that Russia is completely in the wrong here, and we need to support Ukraine and give them as, as much, you know, military and tactical and financial support as possible. But does this dissuade American voters and should it, I guess? Wow.
Speaker 2Well, that's, I mean, that's a whole other, I mean, the American voter, I don't want to get too cynical here. You know, I hope the American voter is prepared to continue to support Ukraine, because it might not be. I, I think, you know, we could hit a turning point this year. I really do. I think there's all the elements that that's possible, but the future's not set. We don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow. The American voter, they may turn their attention to other things. That's more what I'm con I'm more concerned ho honestly, about indifference than, um, because the p because the voters that are, um, that are already, uh, like kind of swayed by, you know, right wing ak Republican talking points there, I don't know how many of them are persuadable.
Speaker 1Fair enough. Has there been a historical analog to this? Like, uh, had there been like fascists that we have had to ally with in order to accomplish a goal that benefits American interests?
Speaker 2What's really interesting about public history, which really kind of bleeds into not only these conversations and what happens on social media, but also like how things are portrayed in museums and libraries and, uh, in movies that historicized, that Iica Nazi and Wall Street is doing. You know, uh, yeah. We can tell these stories and kind of connect and get zoom out and get some perspective, not fascists. But the obvious analog comes to mind is that, you know, the US was allied with, um, with styling noted, uh, totalitarian, murderous dictator to beat the Nazis in World War ii. But the, the perspective I that I was drawn to when we started looking into, to, to having this conversation for this episode was really like more just in, in Ukraine. There's also a, um, right-leaning, uh, nationalist group. Uh, during, uh, during the, uh, world War II period, maybe before the, uh, Nazi invasion in, uh, 1941 Operation Barbosa, you know, there was this piece, this treaty between, um, Nazi Germany and, um, the Soviet Union where they divided up Poland, and then, uh, Ukraine is under the oak of the U S S R, especially in the west western part of the country. And so when the Nazis roll in, in the beginning of their invasion of, of Russia operation Bara in, in, um, in June of 1941, there were plenty of, of Ukrainian nationalists who were like, actually, we think we can fight on Nazi Germany side and maybe convince them we can get our own. We can carve out our own country later. You know, the Nazis talked about, you know, spheres of, of influence for various ethnic groups. Of course, it later, actually, not later, but pretty quickly became clear that the Nazis really wanted Ukraine more for Leaven's realm or living space. But initially, you know, a Ukrainian nationalist found on the sides of the Nazis, and actually some engaged in helping the, uh, horrible, um, atrocities that the Nazis engaged in against Jewish people, uh, in the Holocaust, in Ukraine, notably the, um, Bob and Ya massacre, which in Kyiv there's a ravine. And the Nazis basically took tens of thousands of Jews there and shot them and left their bodies in ravine, in stacks. And then Jesus, uh, as it's, yeah, it's one of the worst, uh, uh, one of the most notable, I should say, atrocities of the Holocaust. And, and then as they occupied that area over the next little while, they would periodically bring more Jews there to kill. And then they tried to cover up their tracks and burned a lot of the bodies later. But now there's, you know, it's obviously a, an important historical site for the Holocaust. And ironically, when, uh, when Russia attacked Ukraine in very, very recently, they damaged, uh, the, uh, the memorial itself. And then also, ironically, if we're talking about Ukraine as tainted by Nazis with a Jewish president, he, uh, persuaded, uh, his legislature to pass a law to protect and restore the Baard site and pass legislation to fight anti-Semitism in Ukraine. So these nationalists went from helping the Nazis to being like, oh, crap, they're, these guys are bad. And then they were also hunted and killed<laugh> by the Nazis as well. Huh. So, for their collaboration, that's what they got. And, and I thought about that when we were talking about a, you know, the AZA battalion and stuff, because, you know, this is, something's happened before. And, and meanwhile, you know, there's also this vibrant Jewish history in Ukraine, you know, and there's a, there's a secret Jewish agenda here, some of these conversations, and so far that every time there's a big paradigm shift, guess who bears the brunt?<laugh> Jews. Yeah, yeah. In Ukraine, it's like kind of a textbook example, right? When things were, uh, getting ugly in Russia with the kasak, uh, revolutions and attacks, uprising, whatever you wanna call it, in, uh, 16, uh, I think it was in the 1640s mm-hmm.<affirmative>, Boom, you got the pogroms against Jews when, uh, when Sar Nicholas was killed in the 1880s. And, and this kind of a, an attempted revolution, Russia boom, more pogroms against Jews, Russian revolution happened. Oh, guess what? Uh, it's, things are unstable. Go after the Jews, you know, and then of course, when we get to the, the Holocaust kind of culminating in that. So there's kind of this long tradition of blaming Jews and, and using violence in these areas of upheaval. And, and that's what's really scary about this current war. And, and the way Putin's talking about it, and what's so disturbing is that people all over, um, including people in our social circles, are picking up on the arguments Putin's making.
Speaker 1Well, I mean, you just said it yourself, that there is a Jewish oligarch funding the AZA rebellion. So, I mean, make your point, Jay<laugh>.
Speaker 2I think the point is that it's not black and white or black and yellow.<laugh> aza might be, it's, it's, uh, is there a proportion? Is does one Nazi spoil the apple cart? Uh, how about 2000? I think that's the total number in the battalion, although it's reported pretty widely that it's really a minority of people who are actually connected to the Azov movement within this battalion. Amongst,
Speaker 1Are you saying that there's 2000 members of the Azov regiment, or there's 2000 Nazis within the Azo measurement?
Speaker 2People can email and correct me, but I think that's, I think that was the number, the total bef, and this is, this is before a hell broke loose with this current war. I don't know how many are.
Speaker 1So we're talking about an extremely small faction of really just a, a private militia.
Speaker 2Yeah. You know what this reminds me of? Speaking of public history, this reminds me of the, um, George Bush has Nazi ties story. Did we, we, I don't think we've talked about this on this, on this show, but just real quickly, no. Also, also kind of like proportion where the proportionality and, and the way a legend is created and passed along, right? So like, okay, in the year 2000, I believe in, there was a year. So, uh, uh, you know, George George Bush wins a contested election here in the United States. Uh, mu many people in the press do not like him. And, uh, these two authors, um, write a piece in The Guardian, I believe, about how, um, George W. Bush has a, has a grandfather who, who made money off the Nazis. And he talks about this guy, Prescott Bush, who, uh, sat on the board of a bank, uh, whose, uh, one of their accounts was seized in also speaking, which 1941, same year, same time overseas on our side, seized an account that had some, uh, Nazi money. And it was a few million dollars, I believe. Now, you know, I study this stuff, especially the business angle. So I dug into this, and here's where I found there was a, a German industrialist back in like the twenties and thirties, very wealthy guy. He liked the Nazis, uh, when they were amongst many, many kind of political groups in, in the Weimar era. He, he funded them, gave them some money, and, uh, he socked away a lot of his money in, uh, I believe it was, um, a Dutch bank, if I'm not mistaken. And then he actually, uh, saw that the Nazis were getting kind of, uh, nasty. He was, he is like, oh, I don't actually like these guys, which caused him to fall out of favor with said Nazi parties. When they took over, he actually had to flee Germany, this guy's name Fritz Tyson or Tson. And, uh, he actually wrote this controversial book, which we're not sure how much of it's true or not called I Paid Hitler. Anyway, he fled and abandoned his bank account, which was then I believe a part of that bank was bought by another bank. And then that bank was then controlled by yet a third bank in New York where Prescott Busch sat amongst many other board members. The bank account had been abandoned for years. Fritz Tesson, I believe, was finally hunted down and caught a believe in, in Central America, or perhaps was South America. Forgive me folks, my memory's a little bit cloudy at this particular moment, but to say the least, that money wasn't doing anything, hadn't been doing anything for a while. And in fact, the person that would even control that money, uh, had not been friends with the Nazis for years. They found him and killed him. So then, uh, the Treasury Department is going around trying to do whatever they can to fight Nazis. They seize his account, and the story, you know, kind of disappears until these guys in The Guardian, right, in 2000 and all of a sudden YouTube channels and, and conspiracy webpages and all stuff Prescott Busch with a swastika on his forehead and all that, when they're in reality,<laugh> like this is, this is a much more, uh, nuanced story where really, and to be fair, like, here's a story that has not been told. Prescott Bush actually pops up in some of the archives I've looked in. This story is a completely unknown about some Swiss banks. They might have been laundering some stolen Nazi gold. There's a lot of work to be done with that. I do not speak the four languages in this, in this, uh, in this particular, uh, ar um, archival source. I'm, I'm welcoming. Help email us<laugh> on through our website. But, uh, anyway, it's just, uh, just to say that the legend or the myth making, which is what public history is, this kind of contested understanding of what history is in public is very much a live and well in that story as well, when you dig in, it's a much different picture.
Speaker 1Think can the same thing be said? I mean, is there myth making involved when you hear stories of the Vogner private military company?
Speaker 2Oh, yeah, we did not talk about Vogner group. So speak in a Nazis on the battlefield. Oh my gosh. Um, you know, if you search for Vogner group, if you just Google image search, I've seen this image multiple times. It, it turns out it's an image of this guy, um, Dimitri Kin, who's like, he's like a high level, uh, guy within, within the Wagner group. He looks like a comic book Nazi, uh, shaved head, no eyebrows. He's got, uh, tattoos of the, um, the SS collar, but they're like tattooed on his skin, like on his clavicles. And then he is got the Nazi eagle on his chest, where normally that would be on like the Nazi uniform, hardcore Nazi. These Vagner group guys are like one of the worst of the worst, right? They fill their ranks with, uh, people from, uh, that they get from various prisons. They send them on suicide waves. They, um, they, uh, Wagner group has this really, uh, I didn't know if you knew about this. EJ has this really, um, trigger warning, I guess, uh, side business doing, um, torture and snuff films. So if they capture people or they, or they have, um, members who don't want to go on a suicide wave, well, you get torture and killed. But then they, they post those on the internet and sell those videos and makes little money on the side. Jesus. Uh, that's, that's who the Vagner group is. And those guys are on the Russian side. They're like one of the, you know, key groups fighting currently in the Bmu area. So it's, it's, again, it's very rich for either Putin or any of the people parroting his, uh, arguments, including people that we know in our social circles say that they're fighting, uh, the AZA of Italian Nazis in Ukraine. In fact, the Vagner group is also very naziesque. In fact, just one more thing. I think they were using this, uh, sledgehammers for a while to torture people. Yeah. And they, which, which had I think some fascist iconography on, on the sledge, they would
Speaker 1Execute people, they would actually people with, with sledgehammers.
Speaker 2Yeah. Horrific, horrific. So it's like, and you know, that's what people do. They tell, they tell a bad story to distract from their own house. Right?
Speaker 1And so I guess that leads me to my ultimate question here. Given the fact that there is this myth-making and really fake news generating paranoia generated by certain perspectives who want to push an agenda out there, either for or against a certain ideology, such as Prescott Bush, such as Azov. What is the difference between that and the YouTube videos? You see, like, I just remember this big video being pushed around social media in the early 2000 called Zeitgeist, which oh yeah, I think it discussed like, you know, the nine 11 conspiracy theories. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. So what's the difference between that and the topic of today's episode, which is public history? Because I feel like there is a very slippery slope when it comes to public history and the sensationalist armchair historian blog that can really be a conspiracy theorist in disguise. Alright, so what is public history? Then?
Speaker 2We're gonna define this with our guest in a moment, but, you know, it's, it's really about the act of creating history of writing and interpreting it in public, for public consumption, and often with public involvement. And the reason it's so volatile and so, um, intense is because it's really where to use another metaphor. The rubber meets the road when it comes to identity and political power, these very, very important concepts in politics. And so public history, uh, plays an important role. And, and it's something I don't think is well known. Like, what is this thing? Yeah, people don't know what public history is. It's really, as far as the historical profession is concerned, it's a subset. It's of the discipline and it's, and, and in moments like these, but really always it's crucial to do public history responsibly, uh, so that people are informed about the world and can make decisions based on accurate information, even in a moment where, you know, there's lots of gray areas and, and things may be kind of dynamic and changing before our eyes. I think moments like these paradigm shift moments make that even more crucial and even more difficult. So again, that's what informs, uh, the Anazi on Wall Street Project, you know, this moment, democracy versus fascism. Were, were talking about a story from 1940, but very much reflecting on our present era, right? So public history's super important, and, uh, the people who do it responsibly are also really important. And we are back. We have a very special guest today. We have John Heckman, a k a, the tattooed historian with us. Uh, really excited to have this conversation. Really pleased to have him here. Appreciate you being here, John, how are you?
Speaker 3Oh, it's great to be here, Jay, thank you so much for having me. Uh, I'm doing well. How are
Speaker 2You, uh, doing well, you know, as, as one can be navigating this space, especially, uh, as you understand as a historian, this is, uh, quite a moment to be in, uh, to bear witness and to be part of that conversation. And, uh, looking forward to digging in a little bit today. Well, I guess we should start, uh, John, tell us a little bit, uh, about what you
Speaker 3Do. I have a graduate degree in history, and, uh, I earned that in, well, 10 years ago this year, which is crazy to think about. It seems like it was only a couple years ago. But I went on to work as an archivist in historian alongside some of the Army Corps of Engineers. They were doing a project in Carlisle. Some of you may have heard of the, the War College in Carlisle. This is at the Heritage Center that's attached to that. And, uh, I got, I basically had got my archival and historian experience there for a couple years. And, uh, I decided to start the tattoo historian project, uh, right from my cubicle to try to make history more accessible to the masses. And this was 2015 when I started it. And, uh, I remember a lot of people being like, why are you doing this on Facebook? What is going on? You know, we don't understand this. And now, uh, eight years later, I still get, why are you doing this? I don't understand<laugh>. Uh, so, uh, some things never, never change, but I, I am all about making history accessible to the masses. And I always said that your content and, and your creations should be friction free for the most part. Obviously you need to pay the bills from time to time. But, uh, it's, it's one of those things where I've always wanted to make, make history accessible to the masses, and to allow people to become a voice within that.
Speaker 2This idea of public history is something I, I've been thinking about a lot during the almost three years of working on the Nazi Wall Street Project. So I'm, I'm really excited to have this conversation.
Speaker 1I guess coming from my perspective, I just see history and historians as one big amorphous blob. Everybody that is into history, whether it's in academia or not, they exist in one sphere. And this is really the first time that I've ever been introduced to the idea or concept of public history. So what exactly is public history and why should I care
Speaker 3<laugh>? That's a great, great question. Ej, uh, we, a lot of us have different ideas of what public history actually is, because in how we, what I say, do history, how we do it. And, uh, for me, public history has always been that front line of historical narrative and teaching history. It's who you meet when you go to a museum. It's who you interact with in an archive, uh, as the layman, as as you would be like, uh, just someone going in and wanna do some research or wanting to see that museum in a location or a historical site. That's public history. It's public facing. You have a different tier of academia, which I'm sure we'll talk about in a little while, uh, where if you go to a university level, uh, or go see a panel at a conference, we're talking academia for the most part on that. But public history to me has always been, uh, kind of the frontline because the public interacts with public history more than the academic side, uh, for most of us. And, uh, you know, it's been really an interesting aspect because we're also the ones, because you're on the frontline getting the most fire thrown your way<laugh>. And so you have to kind of get used to ducking and diving some of the punches being thrown your way as well. So it is really a, an amazing experience to be a public historian in multiple ways. And it's also a learning experience for you as well to understand how historical memory, uh, and, and public history intersect.
Speaker 1So basically, is it garage band history?
Speaker 3<laugh><laugh>, well being someone who was in a garage band for a year, uh, I appreciate that. And, uh, yeah, it's, it's, there are different kinds of public historians. It's like, there's different kinds of music genres, and that's the way I've always looked at it. You know, some people are like, there's different kinds of snowflakes. There you go. Everyone, everyone does history differently. And, and, uh, everyone plays music differently and everyone thinks of art in different ways. I always thought history was an art, and I always wanted history to be an artistic medium in that way. We always say arts and humanities. Well, let's think of it as kind of similar. You know, it's, you need to be a part actor. To be a good public historian, you need to have grab an audience and bring'em in. I was a drummer, so I was in the background all the time, time. So I didn't r really worry about that. But I watched how the guys up front were working. Whoever came to see us, and sorry for whoever came to see us. We, we weren't that great<laugh>, but that is history. To me. That is a thing where it's like, I want to grab your senses and do this. I don't wanna just be facts and figures. Some public historians are different, and that's great. They love the facts and figures and they, and they dive on that. And, and, and all that. I wanted to create the mosh pit of history,<laugh>, you know, so let's keep this kind of music thing going here. I wanted it to be like that, where you could just dive into it, jump into it, and we can all focus on things together. Uh, because to me, it's never been a competition or never been about competition. And I think that's also thrown some people, some curve balls as well. Cause I'm not competing with anyone that's not saying I'm the best. I will never say I'm the best. I don't even use the term expert, but I've never thought I'm in competition with this person to get the most views or the most people on my tour. And I think for some people that's kind of thrown it off just a little bit.
Speaker 1Then, how does someone in academia's day-to-day differ from something that you do? And the fact that you said, or suggested that history should be more of an art form. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, you know, art takes a specific perspective from the artist. And so how do you avoid subjectivity? How do you maintain, or is there such a thing as objectivity in history in the first place? You know, how can you impede your interference so that you can make sure that everything that you are discussing, or at least trying to, as you say, you know, show an audience as factually correct as possible.
Speaker 3Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, you have to really set aside some of your mentalities today to try to understand, uh, the primary sources that you're reading through. You know, I, I don't wear a room, I'm not a judge<laugh>, so I have to go through a primary source and be like, this is exactly what it says. However, this is the meaning behind it. I think far too often we're sharing things online or we're doing something, you know, we're, we're talking with people and we're saying, well, I found this primary source on this. And obviously a lot of people don't use the term primary source, but they'll say, well, I found this document from history and it says X, Y, Z. They don't understand that there's also an A, B, C, D behind the X, Y, Z. And that's where being a trained historian for me came in handy because I used to be the x, Y, Z person. And I'm like, well, this is what it says. And so that's it. Personally, I needed that training to be able to say, okay, who made the statement and why did they make the statement? Who paid for this person to write this statement, maybe in like a newspaper or, or something else? And that really started to make me understand that I had to put aside some of my current ideas to not defend what was said, but just to understand what was said previously. And that's really the job of a historian, is to connect not only the XYZs, but start back at the beginning and go back to the ABCs of the whole thing. And, uh, I think that's what separates a lot of people who read these primary sources and take it at face value from people who want to understand the mentality behind that, well, why isn't this documented in this particular piece and such? So I, I think that's really where it comes from. It's just this idea of academia helped me become a better historian, but that doesn't mean that I'm a part of it. Uh, like I'm, I'm, I'm all in on it. I did teach for a semester at the university level, and I loved it. I loved working with the students and I can't wait to hopefully do it again someday. But I don't see myself kind of fitting into the academic style. I see myself as more of like the, the rogue kind of person off to the side who's like, you want me to do this today? I'll do this today. You want me to do this tomorrow? I'll do this. I'm kind of like the gumby of history in that way.<laugh>,
Speaker 2I'll stretch and twist the gumby of history.
Speaker 3I'll stretch and twist whichever way you need me to go to try to get the, the message across or to try to make it a little bit more impactful than previous. And if I can't do it, someone can come along with me. Cuz you'll find that on most of my content, YouTube or Facebook, when I was allowed to actually post videos on Facebook, it, it's always me and someone else. Usually, uh, like 95% of the time, I love to bring people along for the ride and we can have discussions like we're talking today about this. And that's what I really thrive on as a whole.
Speaker 2I think what's confusing and where this kind of this contested space, these arguments, debates and public come from is that, you know, there's a lot of like, kind of overlapping ej. There's a great question about, uh, subjectivity. You know, um, at least when, when I was a, a PhD history student, they made us read this, uh, this tone by Peter Novi, uh, it's called that Noble Dream, the objectivity question in US History. And it kind of goes back and talks a lot about, you know, where, where that came from. You know, it's like, well, it's a, it's a bunch of, bunch of Germans in the 18th century who, who wanted to have the, the most accurate interpretation of, uh, Bible quotes and like, be able to know that they were right because they searched the primary sources, uh, the most diligently and had the most comprehensive and, uh, look at the sources and had the most, uh, convincing argument. But it's, it's an art and a science, right? So like, so like there's always been this kind of like, uh, it could be a little bit mushy. It could be one or the other, right? And then obviously history in the public space has some real power to it. It's, it's behind so many potent political arguments which have like real, uh, effects. They motivate people, they manifest actual change in our real world. And everybody's kind of involved in some sense with these kind of contested, uh, histories. Uh, in America. We talk about the, the US Civil War to this day a major contested space because it talks, you know, it's at its core I think it's, you know, about like what America is as a nation and all these things. And, and John, I know you've worked on that. I'm really interested to get your perspective on this kind of push and pull a academics and researchers on one hand, and then the public, they have some ownership over these narratives and shape from themselves whether or not they're trained at all, uh, to be historians.
Speaker 3Yeah. It's, it's a really interesting dynamic. When we look at, let's say the Civil War field, that's, that's a totally different ballgame in the historical context because people are still fighting it,<laugh>, you know, and, uh, for some unknown reason we're, we're still fighting this. It's also because in my opinion, we're going through reconstruction 3.0 at this time mm-hmm.<affirmative>. And so we are still having these discussions that they were having in the 1880s or the 1870s or, or in 1865 when the Civil War ended. We're still trying to come up with, uh, this idea of what is freedom? What is equality, what is, and so we go back to those periods so much, and I've really found that of a lot of the time periods that I have worked in. I grew up in the Civil War field from a young age. I was born 25 miles from Gettysburg. It's, it's, there you go. And my town was burned by Rebel Soldiers in 1864. So it's there. I found that there's a lot of people who claim ownership of that time period more than other time periods I've worked with. They're like, I am the expert on this, or I know more about this than you, et cetera, et cetera. And it's a really interesting dynamic. And I think it goes back to the idea that a lot of people understand there's a lot of eyes on that timeframe, and a lot of people want to be seen as relevant, and maybe they are legitimately relevant. I'm not saying they're not, but I have found that when you go to like the first World War field, it's like a vacation<laugh> compared to the Civil War field where you're like, wow, this is really calm. I'm not used to this, but it's just something about the American Civil War that has really caused deeper questions about who we are as soci society, who we should become as a society. And then the historians, like when I spoke to you, e ej about we're on the front lines, you're the ones catching that fire. Uh, I was just on a, a tour put on by the National Park Service of Gettysburg, and there were arguments breaking out in the group of people Wow. About, well, this is what the Yankees say about this. And it was the people who have come around to understanding more of the context of the American Civil War versus that old lost cause mythology. And you could see it in the group of maybe 30 people now magnify that by a million<laugh>. And now you've got the idea of what you're up against. And, uh, I've found that there's a lot of anxiety out there in the Civil War field, and I've found Civil War historians say, I'm not a Civil War historian anymore. I'm a mid 19th century historian. They don't even wanna be labeled that Wow.
Speaker 2Anymore.
Speaker 3So we're seeing this ebb and flow of what people say they study, even because they know the times could be changing or they don't wanna be seen as the traditional military historian. They wanna be seen a different way. So, you know, it's kind of like rolling with those kind of waves and being like, which direction are we gonna go today as a public historian? And then as you say, it's so politicized, we must be doing something right, because we're we're being targeted<laugh>. You know what I mean? And you hate to say that, but when you anger someone about something or you drive them crazy about something, it's because you're hitting those preconceived notions of what we are as a country, what we are as a world. And then that causes, people want to have a conversation, and some people just don't want to have a conversation. They just want to stay in their lane. And, and that's it. And I think that's why we're seeing some pushback as well. But it's all involved in this, what I call Reconstruction 3.0 and the kind of misuse of history and the lack of funding for a lot of historical programs. A lot of grant opportunities are not there like they used to be. We literally stopped teaching history back in the day, like we learned in the late nineties, uh, because a No Child Left Behind. It really gutted a lot of the historical programs in public schools, and that has a ripple effect. So we're starting to see that in this era of history. I know it's a long-winded answer, but, uh, I was tongue-tied at birth and they, and they, they fixed that. And now I just don't, I'm not quiet<laugh>.
Speaker 2I don't know if I've, I've talked about my own journey here, but I I, these days, I often say, you know, um, I didn't leave the historical profession. It left me, I joined a, uh, a history PhD program in 2009. And, uh, there's kind of a, at least among historians, there's a chart that gets passed around every so often. It's a chart of the amount of, uh, jobs in history versus the amount of applicants, I think it was collected by the American Historical Association and the Great Recession was just devastating. It's just like the jobs collapsed in history, and then you can even see, you know, post great recession, they just never recovered. Like, we lost 50 more than 50% of the jobs, and then they're just gone, like, just gone in, in perpetuity. And that's when I started my PhD program. And for, for those listening, you know, history PhD programs are typically like seven years long. So the time I'm getting out, there's nothing, there's no jobs. There's, uh, you know, you be a history professor, like, well, even like, you know, Ivy League people are competing for like, you know, every single job. They, and they're the ones getting them. And that even if you go to a, you know, quote unquote other good school, it's not an ivy. Like your chances are just infant decimal. And so you kind of just spit out into the world with these skills and this many years of training and it's like, well, good luck. So I feel a lot of frustration about that. But to segue slightly, but also in related point, you know, EJ and I talk a lot about a paradigm shift, this mo moment of intensive change that we're in political, economic, cultural change and history is so much a part of that because it's about identity, like you said, John, it's about like who we are, and it's obviously potent and real. Otherwise we wouldn't be getting this fire<laugh> from people. It has real stakes. And what a time when the historical profession itself is in crisis, and maybe this is all, this is all part of the paradigm shift. You know, we're, we're kind of like making our voices heard as we go along without really any much institutional support.
Speaker 3It's a crazy time to be alive. Uh,<laugh> as a historian, we, we are in a very tight spot right now because of the recession still. Back in 2008, we had a, we had that paradigm shift kind of thing going on. We had the pandemic hit, and I remember I was live streaming in like 20 16, 20 17. I was, someone actually called me the grandfather of, of history live streaming. And I'm like, I'm not that old. But thanks. I think that's, I think that's supposed to be nice, but thank you. And when, and you
Speaker 2Were here
Speaker 3First. Yeah, yeah. Apparently when the pandemic hit, I had so many people who previously said, my audience isn't there, meaning online, on Facebook, on YouTube, whatever the case may be. Now coming to me and saying, how do I live stream? Because they've wanted to stay relevant. And I would freely tell them, this is the pro, this is the programs I use, this is what I do, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And everyone came out of the gate like a horse race, and they're like, they're gunning for the, the first turn. And I'm like, this is, this is a marathon. This isn't a race. You have to be watchful because you're gonna get burned out. And sure enough, people are doing four or five live streams a week, and I'm like, my gosh isn't sustainable. So we are not taught, at least when I went to grad school or when you went and earned your PhD, uh, uh, Jay, we're not taught more the digital end in that generational thing. Now we have a generational shift where, uh, as we said at the beginning with the, with the VR experience, like EJ was saying, we're having a lot more technological advances and 35% of the field, 30% of the field understands where that's going, and 60% don't. And so, not only are we losing the funding because programs are being cut, books are being pulled off shelves, uh, grant money is not there like it used to be. It's insanely expensive to go on tours anymore. And you can't, you can't fill the bus with younger folks when there's recession going on. We're seeing that ripple effect start. And, and I think we need to fight back against this kind of shift because we have these technologies at our disposal now, and that allows us to have that ammunition to say, Hey, we can, we can flank this, we can go around this and, and be better at our craft. And maybe showcasing that this is important, we'll actually help reinvigorate the funding opportunities. It's gonna take a while. It could be five years. We have to be real, but it's a little bit of hope that we, we need because, uh, I guess I'm the kind of person that sees organizations and nonprofits where they're paying the president$200,000 and not paying their interns. I see that as a problem. Why would, why would they, uh, wanna do our field when they're already seeing from the gate they're not respected? And I think we need to hit that too. But I've been calling all kinds of names for, for saying that as well, and I'm kind of used to it.
Speaker 1So as we kind of see the process of researching history and, and becoming a historian, get more, for lack of a better term, get more scrappy, the, the whole environment is flattening. And we're, we're seeing more of, like I suggested earlier, like your garage band historian kind of come out and try to take a stab at their own take researching and relaying the story of history. So what have you seen, or what can public history do to influence politics in a real way? Mm
Speaker 3Mm That's a fantastic question because we know politics is all about money<laugh>. And if we don't have the money, sometimes we don't get the, uh, audience. But really right now, I think we need just to be loud and we need as many voices to be working together instead of competing with each other. I found way too much competition in the history field, and it's because of what we're used to. Like, like I know I've applied to probably 300 history jobs in my life before I've started doing this practically full-time. And I had one interview in 300 job, uh, applications. Yep, that sounds fair. So, so that's, that's the problem. Uh, we are inundated with that kind of stuff. So those voices, garage band voices, if you will, need to be on the same amplifier. And we need to be saying, we need to have more funding, we need to have more understanding of what the historical context is, because we need to have the textbooks be correct. We need to make sure that the younger generation has a shot at actually being in that kind of environment. Because with public history, a lot of it is the first face. You see, when you go into some of these museums or gifts shops and museums are retirees, and a lot of 20 year olds don't want to talk to someone who's their grandfather's age because they talk to them and hear about history from them on a regular basis. They wanna see younger people in there. So we have this, this generational shift that needs to occur, but that's all behind that idea of becoming political. And this younger generation is more political than the previous generation due to the threats they perceive as happening to who they are, who they wish to be. And I think you can see those kinds of, uh, that that kind of ball starting to roll that track is starting to gain momentum with them. I think I saw the other day where in the next 10 years, most of the voters will be Gen Z or millennials. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Maybe that's the opportunity for us to reach out to them finally and say, Hey, this is important. You can become a part of this great garage band and, and really enjoy yourself and get in this, this mosh pit with us and have a good time. But we need you to stand up for us too. We're standing up for each other. We're amplifying each other's voices. So if we could just cut back on the competition just a touch just a little bit, and work together, we can start to create something different. And I hear this all the time from students. I have a lot of younger people who follow me online just because it says tattooed historian. And they're like, wow, okay, cool. But they'll talk to me and they'll say, I feel like I'm being shut out. I don't feel like I fit into the traditional historian what mindset or whatever the drive is there, the desire is there, how do we make that amplified and, and how do we give them that kind of thing. But we really have to get loud and we have to turn it up to 11. Okay? And it's, it's time because we are arguing amongst ourselves with grant funding. Everyone says it. Go on any social media and look. And they're saying, wow, I can't get grant funding for this. I'm, I'm competing for that. I'm doing this. And we're arguing with each other. We're not amplifying it out and saying, this is a major problem, how we need to fix this. I'd rather people argue with the people at the top, uh, who have the political clout than to have historians arguing with other historians, because we're not gonna get anywhere.
Speaker 2Uh, students will come up to me and, and say, oh, history's boring, whatever. It's like, well, history's everything, so anything you're interested in is gonna be in there. You know, on that tip, John, you're kind of explaining this metaphor like history. The battles within history and what's happening are kind of a, a microcosm of like these larger problems where we're seeing in society, people fighting amongst themselves while like, there's kind of a powerful people, I'm, I'm getting populous here, uhoh who, who, who have a ton of resources and conveniently don't seem to be the, the target of everybody's ire. People will yell at somebody that's sitting next to them, cuz that's convenient. And, and, and a way to air your frustrations, which really doesn't necessarily help anything, which is again, why I get upset about populism. But this idea of, um, both EJ and you, John, you're both kind of talking about this kind of flattening effect where everybody's kind of getting involved in history now. And maybe it's the same thing that's, you know, happened with music and the internet is just flattening everything. And so do your own research is something we hear<laugh> all the time, and then it's, but then it's like, okay, well what sets historians apart from like, random dude on the street? And I feel like, you know, there's some training there, there's some, uh, uh, you've gotta understand the context. You gotta, you gotta get to, you may study A, but then you gotta learn about B, C, D and E and F, right? And, and that's I think where historical training comes in. And, you know, it's like maybe the guy on the Reddit thread isn't necessarily, hasn't necessarily done that. And that's, and that's the challenging part because, you know, academia, its role is to kind of help you understand B, C, D, E and F, right? It's like you go to a, a history grad program, you're gonna read, uh, several books a week through the entire semester, and then you're gonna do that for several years, and then you're gonna have a sense of this thing called historiography, which is only a word that historians really use. It's like, if you wanna study a topic, well, guess what? There's probably like a lot of people over a long period of time who've been looking at this, who've been arguing with each other. Uh, and you gotta understand that landscape and get those signposts. And, and I feel like all that is really hard when we're talking about this other thing, which is history is really important in the public space because it's how people connect their identities as this incredible political power, right? So like us civil war is one topic. Also, you know, we're on the Nazi and Wall Street podcast. We talk about America's role in World War ii, another kind of one of these contested, uh, spaces. I feel, I feel like we're not kind of teasing out these issues and making them more explicit, okay, here's what history research is, here's how it, how it's important. This idea of public history isn't really, it's kind of bubbling beneath the service, but we don't even really use it as a term. And, uh, I think we've been dancing around your question ej about like, well, what does that mean in public? And what does it have power? I feel like, uh, John, I would love to get your reaction to this. Like, I think history has power in public. Like when we uncover something that can really inform those identity questions, then all of a sudden it has this huge amount of power. You find this smoking gun document in some dusty archive. Or just as a practical example, you know, you see, uh, a Reddit thread about this US civil war. Well, it's about state's rights, and then somebody will pull up, you know, the constitutions of some of the Confederate states. Why did they succeed? Well, it says right here in the first sentence mm-hmm.<affirmative> something about slavery. That's why here's the document. Yeah. I feel like it's, it's when you uncover those bits, at least for me, that inform these conversations that have power. I wa uh, John, what do you think about that?
Speaker 3There's always going to be a reaction to these documents coming out that are newly uncovered, uh, that the question a person's identity or, uh, a nation's identity even. Uh, we're starting to see a lot of questioning with my colleagues in Canada about the indigenous schools that were, the residential schools that were, that were put on by the Catholic church. Uh, a lot of my friends who are Catholic are now kind of divided and they're like, wow, I didn't know that my church did this. And some of'em are defensive and some of'em are very open-minded about the whole thing. We have similar issues here when people go on tours of former plantations and people want to hear certain things and they don't want to hear certain things. And we have this blowback from this happening. So when you uncover these documents or you, you put it out there to a new audience, even they may be documents that were discovered 10, 15 years ago, but you're putting it out to an audience who's never heard it before, you're going to get a little bit of fallout from that. But your power is in the document and your power is in the ability to say, well, this is what this document says. That doesn't mean that gets rid of the flack you're going to catch from people. Believe me, my inbox is full of it sometimes. But what it does is it allows you to put your head on the pillow at night knowing you did your work and you did your best and you keep going with it each and every day. I think it all goes back to this idea of identity. And we now have identity politics. Uh, we've had it, but I mean, we, it's really a catchphrase now, right? We, we hear it all the time now, identity politics. And I think that these kinds of revelations about who we once were and who we are now, and, uh, this idea of a more perfect union, even though that makes no grammatical sense or whatever you, however you wanna say more, perfect, whatever the heck that is. This idea that we're a work in progress has slipped some people's minds. And, uh, we as historians have to remind ourselves that we personally are works in progress. And the collective's a work in progress don't come at me with that's a communist theory or anything like that,<laugh>. It's not, I'm not saying that way of a community spirit. I'm saying that if one person has to, uh, make themselves better, let's say you have, you have an addiction or you have a, a father who taught you racist ways and you have to become better. It has, there has to be others. And, and so we as historians should be good at pointing these things out where it's like, Hey, this is what the narrative was. This is what we know now. Now how can we learn from this? Uh, we're trying to dodge these kinds of rounds coming our way of, of new information and, and, and how people perceive that information. Histories are definitely in demand, let me tell you. It's the problem is the jobs aren't there, but we're constantly called upon and be like, what do you think of this? How does this look? So I think when people go in the, in the route that, like I do, uh, where I like to just be on the outside, so to speak, and I use my training for public history in a digital sphere and market history, if you will, in that regard and say that, you know, we, we need to look at this document. We need to look at this way of thinking and what does this mean to us? Now it's almost like I'm creating my own job, but that's just me. I think others have started to embrace that, especially younger historians have started to embrace that because those jobs aren't there. We can help to fight back against these kinds of divisive mindsets and talk about identity in a new way.
Speaker 1Interesting. And I guess coming from somebody like myself who is not a historian, like the two of you are, I'm kind of left asking, what do I do with all of this? What am I left to parse through? How do I utilize any of this in a day-to-day way? And how, in your mind, how do you see the next year, two years, 10 years, really transpire the way you are seeing trends either positively or negatively? I mean, we all know what's going on in Florida with DeSantis and everything like that. Like how do we move towards that more perfect union?
Speaker 3Wow, that's, that's a question for generations to come yet, uh,<laugh> not just historians, right? That's for all of us. It's a fantastic question. I probably, probably don't have an answer to, because it's bigger than me. It's for all of us to consider. And I really think that trying to stay levelheaded at this time can be a tough job. You know, because we're, we're tested in numerous ways. Our anxieties are heightened. The way we ingest information has changed in the last five years. I saw a stat the other day that we, our attention spans have dropped by four seconds since the start of the pandemic. So now we ingest our information differently. People are creating videos online in shorter amounts because we're so used to flipping through our phone. It doesn't matter if you're a historian or not. You're, you're flipping through your phone every day and you're like, I don't wanna see that. I don't wanna see that. I don't wanna see that. And slowly our attention span is going down, which can be a problem,<laugh>, when we're trying to get across a dynamic idea. I can't give you a synopsis of the succession documents in eight seconds. I can't, I can't do it. Uh, I could maybe do 16 seconds, but that's pushing it<laugh>. Okay. It's pretty good though. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it'd be, it'd be, it'd be tight. It'd be, it'd be, it'd be a tight timeframe. Okay. I would just have to highlight the, the really bad parts<laugh>, just put it up there and be like, here you go. But I think when you have this kind of a movement politically in any country, you have forms of resistance. And forms of resistance obviously come in different varieties. I think historians who do the work like I do, or similar to what I do, have the ability to fight back against this kind of thing. Because we're not certified to be teachers in Florida. We're not even in Florida. But we can say, Hey, we're gonna have a reading of a band book live on whatever the case may be. You have to figure out new ways to fight back against it. I think sometimes we're so entrenched in a way we are slash were that when we see these kinds of things pop up, we don't know how to fight back in a positive way and to create a positive legacy. And I think sometimes we just get stuck in the mere, and it takes some very eccentric thinking sometimes to get around that and to try to understand that, hey, we can kind of fight back against this. Even if you're not a historian, you may follow people on a platform. I know people who follow historians. I know people follow me on TikTok who don't care about history as much as I do and maybe never will. But they like the video about a fort or they like the video about the history of a Harley Davidson or whatever the case may be. When you find good history, and I'm not saying me, I'm saying good history in general. When you find good history, share it. When you find that stuff where it's like, wow, this sounds like a really angry person, you know, uh, trying to preach to me about history, you might wanna steer clear of that. But when you have people who are like trying to gently tell you about the past and, and, and here's the documents and here's this and this is what this means and this is the voice. Some people can do that in like 12 seconds, 20 seconds max. I know I put some reels up of, uh, 60 seconds and, and it was like the average watch time was 32 seconds. So now I know I gotta get you in 30 seconds because you're gonna flick. I know where you're at. So if I can do that, that gets disseminated out. It's why across all platforms, I have like 30,000 followers now, which is insane. I never thought I'd have 300 when I started this thing, but if those 30,000 tell two of their friends now look at the numbers and it's just compounding. So it's, it's inviting people to say, Hey, come on to the community. I don't care what video you've liked. If you're not into history, that's fine. But maybe you like the history of garage bands<laugh>, or going back to garage bands again. Maybe you like the history of this amplifier, maybe like the history of this flashlight. I've heard it all. Okay, you're gonna share it out and that's gonna tell people that. It's like Jay said, there's a history to everything. Yeah. And uh, you know, whatever you like, there's a history to it. I think that if we share good history, then we'll be, we'll be okay with that. And we can fight back in new ways, but it's gonna take a long time. It's a patience is a huge thing. And I've had to learn a lot of patience and<laugh> and understanding and empathy. Being a historian, 70% of the time you're uncomfortable, uh, when you read stuff. And I think that embracing that little bit of being uncomfortable from time to time, but also sharing out others, I share out other history content all the time. I think that's gonna help in some way, but it's gonna be incremental.
Speaker 1I am someone who is deathly afraid of TikTok every time I, I have ventured on it. I am instantly shown something by the algorithm that is trying to rile me up, either cementing my own beliefs or contradicting in a very angry fashion what I believe. And it's uncanny how it does this. So I am, I'm very apprehensive to venture further on TikTok. Obviously it is one of, if not the largest forums in the world at the moment. What historian accounts would you recommend or what, what accounts would you like to promote then
Speaker 3On TikTok or everywhere? Uh, because here's the thing. TikTok was really hot and I underscore was really hot because other people have caught onto it. YouTube now has their shorts, Instagram meta picked up on reels. Everyone's fighting back against the TikTok revolution, if you will. So I would say that even though TikTok is kind of the hot thing right now, there are competitors who are really doing good work. I actually get better numbers on reels and shorts than I do on TikTok now. And that wasn't the case. However, I will say TikTok live is hot right now and a buddy of mine, uh, civil War Seattle, shout out to him. He does, uh, civil war history obviously in Seattle, but it's post-war like Grand Army, the Republic stuff and everything like this, veteran's history. He went on a TikTok live yesterday and was just showing people the local cemetery where he does tours. So he just goes around and you never see him on camera. He's showing the stuff. He had 14,000 people view that in his life. Wow. 14,000. Now if he does a post, he might get 1400. So when we see the algorithm going, uh, when we flick through and we say, I don't wanna see this, I don't wanna see this. Oh, I wanna check this out and see what's going on. And then it traps us in that idea of whatever it may be we're looking at, we're like, wow, this is really silly. Or this is really dumb. And then we get another dumb one because we watch that one too long. Some people are just clicking over to live because it's what they wanna watch and it goes on. Really good creators out there know how to locate the other good creators. And the trash that's also on there kind of gets thrown to the side. TikTok has some great creators, but there's not enough historians on there yet. It's like me on Twitch, I'm gaming on Twitch and I've been doing so for two years. There's hardly any historians on Twitch, but the just chatting feature is the heaviest used genre on Twitch. And a lot of people don't realize that. So I think every day over a million people watch, just chatting. I have a lot of friends in the Civil War field because that's where I grew up and that's where I came up. Accounts like Civil War. Seattle is a great friend of mine. He's been around for a while now and he's a good historian, does great work. Uh, civil War Breakfast Club is a great group of people. They do some awesome stuff. I know that there are some of the major players, major publishing houses have accounts as well and you can find their authors through that. Uh, which is what I do. It's kinda like when when we go in, like when Jay and I get a new book, probably one of the first things we do is we look in the bibliography because we're nerds and we wanna see where all this information came from. It's kind of the same thing. I go to some of these major players and I'm like, who are they following? And I look down their list because they're only gonna follow some of the more reputable people. So the algorithm though is us. We are the algorithm. It's kinda like people say, well, social media changed us. No social media showed us who we are as a people. It's sad to say that, but you learned about Uncle Joe<laugh> by what he put on MySpace 12 years ago or Facebook. It's really shown us who we are. And so the algorithm is us. And so whatever we ingest and we keep looking at, it's gonna keep popping up and it's gonna keep popping up. It's like life in general. When you go looking for negative, you're gonna find the negative. When you go searching for positive, you'll find the positive. And I've been preaching that for years and I am definitely not a preacher.<laugh> and I, and I don't have a soapbox, but I think because of my background, I grew up in a very racist background. I grew up in a, a very, um, how should I say this? I grew up in a lost causer background. Cause that was hot in Civil war in the 1990s and it was in our textbooks. And you talk about identity when you've heard this for years and years and years. And you're like, I know this because this is what this says, da da da da. And then you see that you are wrong. It is tough. It is tough. So I had that kind of what people would say is a come to Jesus moment, you know, or whatever you wanna say, however you wanna say it. And it is tough. And some people don't wanna face that. And I think social media is one of those things too, where people don't wanna face the fact that it's really just exposed who we are. It hasn't really changed us, it's really exposed us. So that algorithm that you're seeing sometimes it's definitely not what you want to see. I find stuff on there where I'm like, I don't know why I'm seeing this. No idea<laugh>, I don't want to see this. But still like 70% of what I'm seeing is kind of like in the same ballpark of what I'm used to watching. So I think sharing out those great people, sharing out good creators, whether they're in your field or not. Believe it or not, I listen to this podcast obviously, and I'm not saying that cuz I'm on here, but most of the podcasts I listen to are business podcasts. A lot of people are like, well you know what a history podcast. I don't listen to a lot of history podcasts because I don't want to accidentally emulate what they're trying to do. So a lot of my stuff in my feed may not be history, it might be business, it might be sports, it might be something else. It also shows that historians have other interests are than other than being a nerd. But I really think ej that the point is that you're going to see a lot of crap out there and I still do. Jay still does. It's not gonna end that way, but it's showing us where we are as a society. Even if it makes you mourn sometimes and you're like, why is this happening? But trying to get through that mire. It can be tough. And I think when you see good stuff, our responsibility is to share it out and to let other people see good stuff because we are all anxious right now. We're all on edge and it'd be great to have some positivity outweigh the negativity. I always like to say emulate those loud voices that are positive. I hate to see people on Twitter retweeting stuff they don't agree with. Just to say something about it, stop retweeting the negative stuff.<laugh>, stop and be good and, and be happy. And like I said before, I think we went live, I was told twice in the last two weeks to stop what I'm doing. Just stop. You're, you're not gonna go anywhere If I listen to those voices, I'm just giving into the negative. You have to be a realist and be like, yeah, maybe this isn't going anywhere. I mean, you know, any project any of us have worked on in history or in music or in art or whatever, you know, when the time is to stop, think far too often. We listen to those outside voices and I don't really care what Silky pants 72 says on, on Instagram about what I'm doing. No<laugh>. So I think we need to be good to ourselves, especially when we're suffering through some really traumatic times, especially with Covid and then the post covid, if you wanna even call it that world, cuz we still live with it, with the anxiety we have coming outta states like Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, the big three of the, uh, book banning states, which I didn't know my home state of Pennsylvania was that big into book banning, but apparently they are. It's really good to embrace the positive stuff because we need to make that louder than the negative stuff. Just like we need to make good history louder than the bad and the uh, the propaganda and stuff.
Speaker 2Yeah, I mean, and there's one thing, um, I'm taking away from this conversation is that history is a calling history is is something that might choose you for everyone who's listening out there. John, I really appreciate this conversation. Thank you so much for being a part of it and sharing these insights. I think this is really important to reverberate some of those, some of those other, uh, voices, other thoughts that are not destructive, that are here to construct and to be a guide. And I think if anything, historians can help guide, uh, the rest of us. We get called many things, but that's perhaps one of the most apt terms we can use. Then as we go forward, we can pursue that noble dream of, uh, understanding ourselves and our history just a little bit better.
Speaker 4A Nazi on Wall Street is brought to you by elusive films maker of the a Nazi on Wall Street's film and television series. It was recorded and edited by EJ Russo. Original music was written and performed by Joseph Mulhallen. We can't bring these stories to life on screen without your support, so please consider donating to our crowdfunding campaign@elusivefilms.com. That's elusive hyphen films.com. For Jason Wexel Baum, I'm EJ Russo. Thank you and we will see you next episode.