The Threat of All-American Authoritarianism

If you think it can’t happen in the US, you are wrong.

Americans tend to believe that fascism was a foreign threat that the US bravely defeated when we finally entered World War II in 1941. As I have discussed in previous posts, eugenics or “scientific racism” actually took root in the US before the Holocaust and still persists today.

Before the war, pro-Hitler fascists, white supremacists, and antisemites had more support in the US than many people realize. These far-right extremists’ efforts to overthrow the government and replace it with a fascist dictatorship posed a real threat until 1941.

Please remember this: Hitler didn't start out saying he wanted to murder Jews. In the 1920s, Hitler condemned Jewish people as alien to the nation, identifying them as the cause of all of Germany's problems. "Our strategy is to destroy the enemy from within, to conquer him through himself,” Hitler declared.

It wasn't until 1939 that Hitler talked about exterminating (killing) all the Jews in Germany or Europe. However vicious his rhetoric was, he had previously spoken of removing, deporting, or defeating Jews.

Trump’s extremist and racist/xenophobic rhetoric --condemning “the enemy within” and promising the "largest deportation program in American history” because “America is for Americans” – is pulled straight from Hitler’s playbook.

Trump's increasingly violent and anti-democratic threats are NOT a joke. People of all political affiliations must come together to fight the growing threat of American authoritarianism.

ID: A b/w photo of the German American Bund's Pro American Rally at New York's Madison Square Garden on Feb. 20, 1939. The stage features an enormous portrait of George Washington hanging alongside swastika banners and American flags. Banners in the stands read, “Read America’s Fearless Press, The Free American!” and “Stop Jewish Domination of Christian Americans!”