Prequel - An American Fight Against Fascism -Rachel Maddow

 

I have always dug Rachel Maddow for her charisma and especially for her extreme intellectualism and knowledge of history and politics. I just found this 2023 book and initially believed it to be discussing our country's current administration, but since this was written before they came into power, this is actually a history lesson and a warning.

As Hitler came to prominence in Germany, there were many in America who admired his vile politics, his bigotry and his desire for unfettered power. Ironically, Germany literally learned from America's history of racism - the Native American slaughter, the African American enslavement and all the rest - how to bend laws to serve one race above all others. This isn't hyperbole - they literally studied at southern universities to learn how America defended blatantly un-Constitutional ideas. Quite sobering...

Interestingly enough, Maddow highlights a politician, Huey Long, who used fascistic methods to actually help his constituents in the post-Depression era and managed to become extremely popular - and powerful - by doing so. This is a huge contrast to the current administration who is doing everything possible to hurt the average person just so help the rich (who Long proposed taxing to the point of eliminating the ultra-rich while helping the poor. Excellent ideas, even if he used questionable methods). But, Long was murdered, so there were obviously those who did not agree with helping the average American.

There are a number of other so-called Americans who believed in Hitler and wanted fascism for America - so, while they lived in our country, they did not believe in the ideals of our country. There are an incredible number of similarities between the extremists mentioned here and the current administration and their followers - more so that most true Americans could ever imagine. There was never any doubt that "it can't happen here" because it almost did once before. 

Incredibly, seemingly the majority of authorities - from local police to the FBI - seemed to care nothing about the fact that there were growing numbers of fascists living in the country who wanted to overthrow the government and, in fact, many of the authorities seemed to be on their side. It continues to amaze me how many people who live in this country do not believe in what it stands for.

But the difference between now and then is despite the large number of anti-American fascists there were back then, the overwhelming majority of the country was still pro-America and pre-Democracy and FDR won an unprecedented fourth term by a huge landslide and we went to war with Germany and won and the fascists living in our country realized they were on the losing team and (mostly) denounced their previous activities. In modern times we are more evenly split between those who believe in the ideals that this country is based on and those that want fascism, with just enough apathetic folks that either side is capable of winning. 

It is heartening that good defeated evil back in the 40's and did so despite the fact that much of the media and authorities either outright supported the evil or ignored it. We need more of the heroes that appear in this story in our modern day fight for the soul of our country. Hopefully, they will appear, if it is not already too late.