Prequel

 

Oct. 6, 1935 "German Day" celebration at Madison Square Garden

 

Now is a good time to discuss Rachel Maddow’s new book titled “Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism”.

Doctor of political science Rachel Maddow has written an important book on the rise of pre-WWII Nazism in the United States.

While it is an excellent study of history, the parallels to our present time are striking and disturbing. Holocaust survivors have noted the similar rhetoric of Trump and his white nationalist movement to the rise of the Nazis in 1930’s Germany. It would be to our greatest peril if we don’t heed their observations. 

From "Prequel" we learn the racist ideology of the Nazi “Aryan master race” was influenced by America’s history of slavery, Jim Crow, and the subjugation of Native Americans. With time there has been progress, but American white nationalism has exponentially risen again. 

Extreme nationalism craves unity, meaning, and purpose. Preferably under a strongman. Donald Trump is their beloved and revered autocrat, to be served, obeyed, and believed without question. His control over his followers’ thinking and beliefs is no different than that of a cult leader. And like a cult, every far-right nationalist movement fears and loathes outsiders. The leader tells them who are to be blamed, who are to be hated, and worst of all, who are to be punished.

This October of 2024 every decent and informed American citizen wants to vote to end our national nightmare by shutting down for good the admitted aspiring dictator Donald Trump. 

The rise of Nazism wasn’t just in Germany.  American Nazis filled Madison Square Garden several times in the 1930s. We’ve seen the images and film of them holding those rallies, festooned with American flags and swastikas. They loved and revered Hitler and wanted America to be under a dictatorship, in allegiance to Hitler. They hated the British, but FDR’s Democrats especially were their despised enemies. Naturally all these Nazis considered FDR to be a “communist”.

It wouldn’t be a far stretch to suggest their offspring and grandchildren are now MAGA. It’s also not hard to imagine a certain Klan-friendly Fred Trump among those Nazis. Following the American Nazi tradition, Donald Trump and his corrupt party of appeasers today falsely and absurdly demonize and accuse Democrats of being “communists”. 

History is teaching us something here. This tactic of demonization can be regarded as a metric of fascism, a measure of their autocratic leanings. The early Nazis hated New Deal Democrats and Jews. Today’s neo-Nazis still do, while other white nationalist groups confirm their fascism when the show their own particular hate, bigotry and racism.

They are all white, and they all frame the groups they fear and hate as scapegoats.

Before the US entered the Second World War a patriotic American named Henry Hoke identified 20 representatives and senators who were inserting German propaganda into the Congressional Record. The politicians would forward the Nazi propaganda around the country in taxpayer funded congressional mail. Among these congressional purveyors of Nazi writings and speeches were Senators Earnest Lundeen of Minnesota, Robert Rice Reynolds of North Carolina, Burton Wheeler of Montana, and Representatives Hamilton Fish of New York and Jacob Thorkelson of Montana.

After the war the DOJ found records in Germany that showed over a million Americans on their mailing lists. Most were teachers, clergymen, doctors, and lawyers. Millionaires, major investors and judges amounted in tens of thousands more, not to mention many state legislators.

Young reporter Eric Sevareid wrote of a group in Minnesota while Charles Slocombe tracked them in California and reported them to Naval Intelligence.

Other patriotic, determined, and courageous anti-Nazi activists who exposed or prosecuted them included Leon Lewis, Dillard Stokes, William Maloney, and O. John Rogge. 

The latter two were federal prosecutors removed from their roles in trying the Nazi collaborators. Senator Burton Wheeler convinced the DOJ to "promote" Maloney out of his role as prosecutor. Rogge acquired records in post-war Germany that named 24 sitting congressmen on the take from Hitler's Nazis. Soon after Senator Wheeler visited with President Truman, Rogge was fired 

After the war and before his suicide, Hermann Göring told Rogge he would have gladly spent not just $5 million but $150 million to defeat FDR. 

Pro-Nazi groups had proliferated in the US in the 1930’s, often under the cover of isolationist or anti-war organizations.

The antisemitic American Nazi movement included the German American Bund, the Silver Shirts, the Crusader White Shirts, the Protestant Gentile League, the Christian Front, Christian Mobilizers, the American Nationalist Federation, and yes, Lindbergh's America First Committee.

Lindbergh's fellow aviator Laura Ingalls declared at her trial, a "witch hunt" according to her lawyer, that the US "needs someone like Hitler building a country while America is in chaos".

And of course, American Nazis would be compelled to form militias. They even recruited General George Van Horn Moseley to lead the armed insurrection. Some things never change. 

The Christian Front leaders were eventually charged with theft of National Guard weapons and ammunition. At a rally and true to form, their “good Christian Nazi” lawyer howled, “This is a fight for Christ! I don’t have to apologize to anyone for being a Christian!”  They got off due to the Guardsmen helping them cover up the weapons heist, and a defense attorney having a cousin as foreman in the sympathetic jury. The organization also had hundreds of New York City police officers as fellow members.

Today we unsurprisingly note the parallel of police unions supporting Trump. Historically most police actually had no problem with the idea of a police state. Imagine that. Corporate plutocrats also have fondness for having an army of police at their behest. They came in handy for keeping unions under their boot. 

Dick and Betsy DeVos are family of the far-Right Eric Prince, founder of the Blackwater mercenaries. They are funding a controversial, pro-Trump sheriffs program. The Sheriffs Fellowship is run by an ultraconservative think tank devoted to Donald Trump’s candidacy. Four conservative Michigan sheriffs have participated. Trump made a campaign speech in Michigan with a line of sheriff department officers behind him. Sheriffs also generally have no problem with the idea of a police state.

In the ‘30s the notorious antisemite Father Coughlin was a popular pioneer in radical Right radio broadcasting. Other celebrities with Nazi sympathies were Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh. Ford and Coughlin went so far as to distribute the antisemitic novel, “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”. Hitler was such an inspired fan of Ford that he had his portrait hanging in his office. Lindbergh would speak at rallies, urging the US to align with Germany.

The bag man and supplier of propaganda was a German born American Nazi agent named Sylvester Viereck. He would receive his instructions directly from the German Foreign Office, along with large amounts of cash to assure the services of the Nazi sympathizers in Congress. Viereck and some of the Nazi agents were arrested and convicted, but sympathetic power players in Congress would pressure the DOJ to back off from their members. By December 7, 1941, they would slink back into the shadows.

Hitler knew he had a lot of supporters in America he could use in his effort to keep the US out of his war in Europe. He saw the potential for division in America.

Later Putin learned from the Fuhrer’s efforts. The Soviets had practiced "dezinformatsiya" for years. Putin would find it easy to weaponize social media on the internet. Putin’s Great Information War would be his resounding victory over America. Trump would neutralize Ukraine and NATO for him.

How could Putin NOT have been inspired by Hitler’s words?

“America is permanently on the brink of revolution. It will be a simple matter for me to produce unrest and revolts in the United States, so that these gentry will have their hands full with their own affairs.”

His strategy was to find what he called “kernels of disturbance” to exploit “racial controversies, economic inequalities, petty jealousies in public life, and differences of opinion which divide political parties and minority groups”.

The OG Fuhrer would be proud indeed of Trump’s and Putin’s favorite general and possibly our next Secretary of Defense. Dishonored pardoned criminal and retired General Mike Flynn met with fellow neo-Nazis at their paramilitary training camp called “88 Tactical”. “H” is the eighth letter. In neo-Nazi code 88 = Heil Hitler. The number 1488 on their topographical map refers to the 14 words of white nationalism, "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children,” and Heil Hitler.

Now Trump is echoing Hitler’s rhetoric at a fevered pace in this month running up to the election.

"I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within, not even the people that have come in and destroyed our country," Trump told Fox News show "Sunday Morning Futures," referring to American citizens as opposed to migrants.

"We have some very bad people, we have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they're the -- and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard or, if really necessary, by the military," Trump said. "Because they can't let that happen."

Can’t let what happen? Oppose Trump? Disobey his will? Insult him? Mock him? Speak the truth about him?

Well, we can certainly see why this book was titled “Prequel” by Maddow. It is a red flag warning from history. 

"I'm a Republican, not a Nazi", shouted one of them at his 1944 trial for sedition.

Both Putin and Trump are now taking pages from Hitler’s propaganda campaign against America. Divide and conquer is the classic authoritarian power play.

Maddow concludes with, "The story of what it took, inside and outside the government, to stop the violent American ultra-right in the run up to World War II-- that's a gift from the smart, brave, determined, resourceful, self-sacrificing Americans who went before us. If we learn it, and we choose it, we can inherit their work."

Will enough Americans sense this and stand for democracy in the upcoming election? Or will the fascists finally empower a megalomaniacal criminal sociopath to finally end our experiment as a democratic republic?

Let's be clear about Trump's projection. American Nazis left their legacy. HE is the enemy within.