Fascism in America Lost to Time

As Fascism Threatened Europe, an Ambitious Play Warned Americans to Pay Attention

By Adam Hochschild, Smithsonian Magazine, November 2023

Some Americans have had a love affair with Fascism nearly as soon as it appeared formally in Italy, and certainly when it took over Germany. So, it’s not a surprise that many Americans today seem ready to accept it once again as the form of government they would prefer. That, my friends, should scare the heck out of you. You have only to look at Italy under Mussolini, Germany under Hitler, and Spain under Franco to see just how deadly it would be here.

In the 1930s, Sinclair Lewis recognized how it had the potential to destroy the American democratic way of life. He wrote a novel to warn Americans. And, as this Smithsonian article shows, the U. S. government listened to him, to his reporter wife Dorothy Thompson, whom the Nazis kicked out of Germany for her truthful and unflattering reporting, and to the news coming out of Germany. The U. S. government began the Federal Theater Project and that entity brought a stage version of It Can’t Happen Here to venues around the country. The linked article above tells the story of FTP and the stage version of It Can’t Happen Here.

Demagogues were aplenty in 1930s America and plots to overthrow the government where hatched by some of these individuals. For more on these groups and plots, you can read Rachel Maddow’s new book Prequel, which is based on her podcast Ultra. For more on Prequel and Ultra see her interview on Lawfare.

It Can’t Happen Here (1935)

By Sinclair Lewis

While not Lewis’ best what with his sarcastic and sardonic style in highest dudgeon, it does remind readers just how thin the layers of democracy and civilization are, more easily than we care to believe blown away like topsoil during the Great Depression. It warrants a reading because of the warning and prescient message it has delivered to every generation of Americans since its publication in 1935. 

While readers, distant as they are from the 1930s, may think the novel alerts to the dangers of fascism, it’s really more about the rise of populist demagogues who play on the emotions of disgruntled and disenfranchised people, specifically in Lewis’ case, Louisiana governor and senator Huey Long. The message is it can happen here when given a sufficiently dissociated electorate who respond to simplistic messages, such heard numerous times in American history, as well as most recently: “Make America Great Again,” and “What Have You Got to Lose?”  and most recently, “The Deep State.” To which Lewis, and millions of others, would respond: “Nonsense, if the messages weren’t so fraught with danger.”

The novel divides into three parts. The first covers the furious campaign of one Berzelius Windrip (even the names drip with the sardonic) and his cohorts to win the 1936 Democratic nomination, the winning of it, the organization of a fascist-like corps, and then the rapid conversion to virtual dictatorship. In the second comes the complete destruction of democratic institutions and the use of propaganda and doublespeak to befuddle a nation and whip up enthusiasts, while actively suppressing all kinds of opposition, as well as tossing many into concentration camps and the liberal use of physical abuse and murder. Windrip’s “The Fifteen Points of Victory for the Forgotten Man,” a hodgepodge of socialist and fascist fantastical pledges aimed at those who feel left behind bear a striking resemblance to Long’s eight “Share the Wealth” planks, among them limits on personal wealth, guaranteed income, proper treatment of veterans, and the like. In the third the oppressed organize to conduct their own propaganda campaign to undermine the authoritarian government of Windrip and his successors by palace revolt and assassination, closing on the thought that the effort will be long and relentless.

The focal character here is a sort of intelligent everyman, small town newspaper editor and armchair philosopher Doremus Jessup. As his name implies, Doremus is something of a gatekeeper, here a defender of the American republic way of life, who fails at first to recognize how easily the nation can be swayed by demagoguery into giving up its precious freedoms. However, once aroused, Doremus joins with others, to his own personal peril, in active rebellion. Readers will find it interesting to compare the final words of It Can’t Happen Here with those of Tom Joad in Steinbeck’s 1939 ode to the plight of the oppressed, The Grapes of Wrath. The former concludes with, “And still Doremus goes on in the red sunrise, for a Doremus Jessup can never die.” Tom Joad exits near the end with these words to his mother, “Then I’ll be all aroun’ in the dark. I’ll be ever’where—wherever you look.” (It continues and represents one of the most stirring moments in the novel.)

While not Lewis’ greatest, it is a book with a message, a shouted warning that the lovers of democracy must always be on guard and always ready to rise to its defense, the sooner always being the better. w/c

Fascism in America Isn’t Anything New

Ultra

By Rachel Maddow; Podcast

In the world’s greatest democratic experiment in self-government, there are many people campaigning for an authoritarian government. Contrary to what some would believe, fascist, anti-immigration, and rightwing conspiracy imaginings are nothing new in American history. As examples, consider the Federalists’ promotion of Thomas Jefferson as trying to bring French radicalism to the U.S.; the wellspring of hate by the Know Nothings against Irish Catholics in the 1840s and 1850s; the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in the post Civil War South and 1920s America; the spread of support for Hitler and fascism in the 1930s and 1940s by such groups as the German American Bund, the Black Legion, the Silver Shirts, and others; the fear of communism that fostered McCarthyism, the John Birch Society, followed by the steady increase in rightwing state militias and paramilitary organizations, such as the Oath Keepers. And this barely exhausts the list.

Inroads made by fascism in America prior to and during World War II is the subject of Rachel Maddow’s eight-part podcast Ultra. Maddow and her team take listeners through the rise of fascism and antisemitism during this period, and it is a startling story. This isn’t so much because of the racism and campaigning for a more authoritarian American government; it’s because not only people outside the U.S. government organized for this, but because elected officials not only supported them, they also used their offices, including their franking privileges, to disseminate propaganda received directly from Germany. If that wan’t sufficient, when brought to trial for conspiring with a foreign power that the United States was at war with, they successfully beatdown the prosecution almost at every turn, demonstrating how inadequate the American justice system was, and is, at defending itself against who have no regard for it.

In light of January 6, all that preceded it, and everything that has and will surely follow it, Maddow’s Ultra could not be more timely.

You can listen to it wherever you get your podcasts. And you can read transcripts of the podcasts, see photos of the cast of historical characters appearing the podcasts, and read supporting documentation on the podcast site at MSNBC, linked here. Listening will be well worth your time. w/c

How You May Be Helping Fund Rightwing Groups without Knowing It

“That Cardboard Box in Your Home Is Fueling Election Denial“

by Justin Elliott, Megan O’Matz and Doris Burke, ProPublica; co-published with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, October 26, 2022

You’ve products shipped in their boxes. You yourself may have purchased their boxes, or any of their other myriad of products.

They are Uline, a private, family-owned company headquartered in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin. Liz and Dick Uihlein own and run the company. Going back a couple of generations, and including this generation, the family has funded some of the most far right organizations in America, including the original America First Committee of Charles Lindberg, the John Birch Society founded by Robert Welch, and currently pro-Trump America First Action, as well as prominent election denier candidates.

Perhaps this doesn’t mean much to you. But if it does, then you should be aware of how your hard earned dollars might inadvertently be falling into the hands of people who are using them to promote causes you be opposed to.

For more on Uline, the Uihlien family, who it funds, and how it runs its business, click on “That Cardboard Box in Your Home Is Fueling Election Denial” and educate yourself. w/c

Will We Elect a Fascist State?

Now’s the time to reread what Madeline Albright wrote two years ago about where we might end up if not careful. No better time to heed her advice than now while in election season.

Fascism: A Warning

By Madeleine Albright

Who better to help former Secretary of State Madeline Albright make her point than the first fascist, Il Duce, Benito Mussolini. He advised, pluck the chicken feather by feather so as to keep the squawking discrete; in this way, disappearing freedoms go unnoticed until too late. Sounds similar to what we are experiencing in the form of lie constantly, toss out outrageous statements regularly, do all to divert attention and confuse matters.

Using fascist leaders, dictators, and authoritarian rules from Mussolini’s and Hitler’s days, Albright describes and thereby alerts us to the pattern of how these people work. Wise people should pay attention.

Early on, Albright offers a checklist for defining a Fascist, and it’s worth quoting it here, for if you go no further than this, at least you will have a handy way for judging many of today’s strong men. “To my mind, a Fascist is someone who identifies strongly with and claims to speak for a whole nation or group, is unconcerned with the rights of others, and is willing to use whatever means are necessary—including violence—to achieve his or her goals. In that conception, a Fascist will likely be a tyrant, but a tyrant need not be a Fascist.”

Albright reinforces her point by taking readers through the circumstances allowing, the rise of, and the methods of control employed by a real rogues gallery of tough guys: Mussolini, Hitler, Franco (Spain), Sir Oswald Mosley (England), Stalin, Joe McCarthy, Milošević, Marcos and Duterte (Philippines), Chávez, Erdoğan, Orbán (Hungry), Putin, and the list, unfortunately, could be much longer. Learning about the motives and methods of these men, it won’t be lost on readers how Donald Trump seems to be drawing from these authoritarians’ playbooks. The message here is quite clear, forcefully laid out for all but the blind and addled to see: we like to believe that American democracy and our republican governmental checks and balances afford us protection against such strong men overwhelming our way of life, but we may be much to optimistic.

Back in the dim days of the Great Depression, when fascism rose in Italy and Germany, American author Sinclair Lewis saw clearly that we too could succumb to the siren song of order and national chauvinism. It’s well worth taking a look at his novelistic toppling of our government, It Can’t Happen Here (1936), both about fascist revolution and American populism manifested by Huey Long.

Again, with Albright’s book, we have yet another red flag volume that Americans should read, and that, alas, most, especially those who should, will not. w/c

After Visiting Britain, Trump Has Visions of Nixon Guard?

Coming Soon? The Trump Praetorian Guard

President Donald Trump, famous for, among other things, dodging the Vietnam draft several times due to his fake bone spurs, loves a military display. We all saw how much after his visit to France in July 2017 for Bastille Day. The military display seemed to overwhelm him, though he also seemed to miss the point: it is not so much a military display as the nation honoring the civil rights of its citizens. Upon his return, Trump asked the U.S. military to investigate a gigantic military display in Washington. But, as we know, after much wasted time and money, nothing came of it.

Now, though, you have to wonder, what crazy idea will emerge from Trump’s mind after the royal razzle-dazzle at Buckingham Palace this past Monday? Trump seemed to relish reviewing the Queen’s Guard, decked out in their bright red uniforms and towering busbies. Wheels probably turned in Trump’s head, “Gee, I deserve one of these Guards, too, but bigger, much bigger, and much better.”

Fanciful? Well, the United States has a sort of uniformed presidential guard already. It’s the United States Secret Service Uniformed Division (USSS UD). This presidential “guard” operates like a typical police force and their uniforms correspond those of any American police department, the standard blue familiar to us all.

In the wayback, though, President Teddy Roosevelt, he of Rough Riders fame, mused over the idea of a special uniform for this protective service, but got exactly nowhere. Then came President Richard Nixon. Nixon went so far as to design new uniforms for the Secret Service Uniformed Division. Naturally, the press and the people derided the whole idea of Nixon’s Palace Guard and the banana republic design he submitted to the people. 

As we know, few people have an ego as massive, and as fragile, as Trump’s. Few, too, can rival him in gaudiness, just witness the digs he calls home in Trump Tower. Yes, that is what he calls elegant living. So, it’s not a stretch to imagine Trump in-between tweets on Air Force One penciling out a redesign of the Secret Service uniforms, and it certainly will include lots of gold, and maybe stylish jackboots, as well. While he’s at it, why not change the livery of Air Force One. Because, you know, a woman managed the design, Jackie Kennedy, and, really, it’s weak. Aquamarine blue, please. Less you think this a joke, Axios reported in July 2018 that Trump doesn’t like the look; he  wants something more American. One can only imagine. Perhaps MAGA on the nose cone and Trump’s visage on the tail? 

So, don’t be at all surprised to wake up soon to a Trump tweet calling for a new Praetorian Guard redesign for the United States Secret Service Uniformed Division. And while at it, why not a very strong livery for Air Force One? Yeah, why not, America?

(Please, don’t show this to Trump. We wouldn’t want to give him an idea he by some miracle doesn’t already have.) w/c