Prequel: The story of American Fascists

 

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.