Rachel Maddow is a journalist for MSNBC who switched to
hosting her show only once a week this year. This left her with time to focus
on her books. There is also a free Podcast of the Prequel book. Thanks to the
current Trump-led politics, she wanted to explore ideas in the 20th century,
starting from the Depression and moving on to the World War. Political history
is not usually of interest to readers when presented this way, but rather
through biographies of interesting or controversial leaders. A book like this
becomes a list of hundreds of names. But it was quite timely in 2023 and the year of chaotic 2024 events in politics was still ahead. "They are eating our cats and dogs!"
Right before the main text of the book is a so-called “cast
of characters” list. The rest of their lives after the 1940s are described in
an appendix at the end. Even the most famous of these are strange names to the
reader. In the book, President Roosevelt met Father Charles Coughlin, who
hosted a popular anti-communist program on his radio show. But soon the
gentlemen parted ways. Coughlin joined the anti-Jewish groups that began to
appear here in the 1930s. Their propaganda supported Germany, and a few
characters in the book even got into Hitler's inner sphere. Father Coughlin
began to support fascism quite publicly, because democracy was supposedly too
weak for communism. Communism was always associated with Jews here at the time.
Coughlin gave a speech in Chicago to 150,000 listeners in 1936. That is considered
the first mass event of fascism. At the grassroots level, secret fascist
organizations began to appear. It was believed that Jews had infiltrated
everything, and President Roosevelt was really Mr. Rosenfelt.
At this point it becomes clear that Maddow's goal in the
book's story is to tell exactly how fascist leaders come to power. The formula
has not changed even in modern times. The leader needs to come up with some
kind of threat to scare the voters. The leaders themselves may be somewhat
racist, but they need to exaggerate the threat that threatens the majority of
the population. In today's world, it is always foreigners or those of a
different religion. No actual facts or numbers should be presented, but stories
should be told that make the threat clear to everyone. When a leader scares
voters enough, change in that country will happen very quickly.
When we get further along in the book, we hear that Congress
was interested in the activities of another country, Germany, in our politics.
There were a large number of German speakers in the country. The children were
sent to summer camps modeled on Hitler Youth summer camps from Germany. Martin
Dies was the chairman of the Un-American Committee and the committee tried to
find out the situation of both Jews and Nazis up until 1940. But the Nazis'
actions were not exactly known and communism was more feared. Dies prepared a
report on the German and Nazi propaganda campaign in the USA, but it did not
make much of an impact. At that point, Germany was more focused on another goal
than recruiting Nazis in the USA. Hitler's propaganda was trying to prevent the
USA from joining the World War. However, if Hitler were to conquer all of
Europe, what was the point of sacrificing American soldiers for the cause?
However, the American conspirators continued their project to make a revolution
and put our own Hitler in power. There were already pro-German representatives
in Congress. They even used the free postal service of Congress members to
distribute propaganda letters. Among public figures, Ford and Lindbergh were
fascists.
Before the end of the World War, prosecutor John Rogge led a
trial of well-known people in 1942 called The Great Sedition Trial. Over 40
were eventually charged with planning a rebellion. Diplomat Lawrence Dennis,
one of the book's main characters, was involved in the prosecution. The man was
an unusual fascist, as one of his grandparents was black. The long-drawn-out
trial ended when one of the judges happened to die. No decision was reached.
But it is estimated that there were at least thousands of people organized into
conspiracies, all ready for some sudden takeover. Communication between the
groups was minimal. A few people were aware of almost all the state-level
groups. In our modern world things are completely different through social
media.
Joseph McCarthy, who became famous in the 1950s, was a
bystander in these events, but this was a good model for tracking people that
were seen as enemies and their eventual exposure. He continued to hunt down
spies and traitors as communism became a new fear. The rest became our 1950s
politics.
Maddow's Prequel title is probably a play on words that
brings up the Trump era. Trump's sudden rise in 2016 and one term as president,
with his subsequent Capitol takeovers, can then be seen as "the
sequel." Democracy is therefore again under threat.
