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Today's Republican Party Emits Sinister Echoes Of 'America First'

Today's Republican Party Emits Sinister Echoes Of 'America First'


When Donald Trump first adopted “America First” as a slogan for his movement, it was unclear whether he had done so from sheer ignorance of its disgraced history or as a slyly malevolent tribute.

Now, as Trump and his far-right acolytes like Fox News’ Tucker Carlson try to drum up support for Vladimir Putin and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, that old phrase eerily resonates with its original sinister intensity. Goose-stepping in line with European neo-fascists who oppose liberal democracy and seek to impose authoritarian rule, the Trumpists are serving Russia first against America and our Western allies.

Suddenly the disturbing parallels between “America First” during the 1930s and the “America First” propagandizing of today are all too clear. Then and now, a global wave of authoritarian movements and governments posed a mortal threat to democracy here and around the world. Then and now, hostile foreign powers reached deep into the United States through political proxies whose influence was at once obvious and subtle. Then and now, those forces wrapped themselves in the American flag and insisted that they were super-patriotic, the defenders of hearth and home against “alien” influences.

Of course, not every member or leader of the original America First organization, founded in 1940 to oppose US entry into World War II, was a fascist or a Nazi sympathizer; indeed, many were sincere and respectable, who were pacifists or wanted to avoid another war in Europe. But their naivete and isolationism enabled the enormous Nazi spy agencies in Berlin, which sent agents into America First to take over its local chapters and transform the entire operation into a vehicle for anti-Semitism, sedition, and vile slurs against President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Brazenly pro-Hitler organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan, the Silver Shirts, and the American Bund (founded as the “Friends of Hitler”) directed their members to join America First as a front for treasonous plotting. They penetrated American institutions, with particular success in the Republican Senate and House caucuses – and at the same time recruited platoons of criminal thugs, not unlike the Proud Boys, into “Christian Front” militia groups that engaged in street violence. Their attempts to undermine the Roosevelt administration only ended after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

The Axis propaganda apparatus, operating as the “World Service” press agency, looks laughably primitive in comparison with the media now exploited by Russian intelligence and its proxies. While mass media has advanced far beyond the technologies available back then, the themes exploited by the enemies of democracy are remarkably consistent: not only the dog whistles of anti-Semitism, but also the demonization of racial minorities, the paranoid attitudes toward democratic government, the populist fury toward “elites,” and the promotion of outlandish conspiracy theories and smears.

When Hitler’s war machine began its rampage across Europe, starting with Poland in 1939, the voices of “America First” laid blame on everyone except the Nazi dictator. If America went to war, they insisted, the fault would lie with the British, the Jews, the international bankers, and especially Roosevelt, who was disparaged as a liar and worse. Today, as Putin attempts to overthrow an elected democratic government and impose a puppet regime in Kiev, the right-wing noise blames President Biden, Hillary Clinton, environmentalists, gays, and literally anybody except the Russian dictator.

One lingering question about Trump – and those who line up with him and Putin – is to what extent they are sponsored by the Kremlin or are simply “useful idiots.” The mystery of Trump’s relationship to Russia still remains to be fully explored.

To students of history, however, the behavior of Trump and his sycophants is darkly familiar. Across media and politics, the fans of our own authoritarian demagogue at Mar-a-Lago and his admired friend in Moscow are doing Russia’s dirty work here. In the 1930s, more than a few of the America First leaders like Charles Lindbergh were in thrall to Hitler. Now, Tucker Carlson is in thrall to the Hungarian authoritarian Orban and to the would-be czar Putin. What the American Firsters have in common then and now is hostility to liberal democracy.

Standing against them, then and now, has always meant upholding real American values. The talk is over—the test has come.

Proud Boys

Proud Boys Attacked Black Churches In DC — Just Like KKK

Reprinted with permission from DailyKos

One of the recurrent myths that far-right street brawlers such as the Proud Boys like to tell each other, in bullhorn speeches and social media posts, is that what differentiates them from "rioters" like antifa and Black Lives Matter (BLM) is that they don't engage in arson and property damage: "That's not who we are!" is a common refrain heard at right-wing events, including the recent pro-Trump "Stop the Steal" protests.

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New NRA President Chairs Board Of Confederate Monument

New NRA President Chairs Board Of Confederate Monument

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Carolyn Meadows, who is succeeding Oliver North as president of the National Rifle Association, is also the chairperson of the Stone Mountain Memorial Association, an organization that maintains the largest memorial to the Confederacy in the United States.

Meadows, who sits on the NRA board of directors and was serving as the group’s second vice president, was elected president of the NRA during an April 29 meeting of NRA board members. She will succeed North, who was ousted from the NRA amid infighting that pitted a faction led by NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre against North and Ackerman McQueen, an ad firm that is deeply enmeshed with the NRA and produces the NRA’s media operation, NRATV. LaPierre, who North said engaged in financial improprieties in his role as NRA CEO, was reportedly unanimously reelected CEO by the board.

Meadows is listed by the Stone Mountain Memorial Association website as chairperson of the organization’s board of directors. According to her site bio, “She has been actively involved in the Republican Party since 1964 and served as Georgia’s National Chairwoman for 12 years,” and she is also a board member of the American Conservative Union, the group that hosts the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

Stone Mountain, Georgia, features an enormous relief carving that depicts Confederate leaders Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jefferson Davis on horseback. A 2017 article in Smithsonian magazine notes that “the monument in question is carved 42 feet deep and 400 feet above ground into a granite mountain” and “is a testament to the enduring legacy of white supremacy.”

Stone Mountain is also closely associated with the revival of the Ku Klux Klan. KKK leader William Simmons “ushered in the modern era of the Ku Klux Klan, founding the Second KKK at the top of Stone Mountain on November 25, 1915,” in an event that included a cross burning and signaled “a new era of white nationalist terrorism,” according to Smithsonian magazine. Plans for the memorial were already being made at the time of the Klan ceremony, but the project ended up being shuttered for several decades and was only revived following right-wing anger over the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision ending school segregation. The monument was eventually completed in 1972.

Meadows is not the only prominent NRA official to support Confederate symbols. NRA board member Ted Nugent, who was reelected during the 2019 NRA annual meeting, has long been an outspoken defender of the Confederate flag. Previous NRA President Jim Porter, who served two years as president beginning in 2013, was also an apologist for the Confederacy, having once stated, “NRA was started 1871 right here in New York state. It was started by some Yankee generals who didn’t like the way my Southern boys had the ability to shoot in what we call the ‘War of Northern Aggression.’”

The NRA often calls itself the oldest civil rights organization in America, although that isn’t true.

Senator Who Fought KKK  Says Trump Encourages Violence Against LGBTQ

Senator Who Fought KKK Says Trump Encourages Violence Against LGBTQ

Alabama Sen. Doug Jones says the hatred promoted by Trump and Mike Pence is giving a “green light” to violent bigots to commit hate crimes.

In an interview with Newsweek published Tuesday, the Democratic senator was asked about his February tweet that praised actress Ellen Page for passionately condemning Pence and the Trump administration for their anti-LGBTQ bigotry.

Jones was asked if he worries about “the Trump administration inciting hatred and violence against the LGBTQ community.”

“Yes,” Jones replied. “I do think sometimes people get so caught up in their own zealousness about an issue that they forget how much words matter. They have a pulpit by which people can take things the wrong way, and there’s a lot of people out there looking toward them for a green light to do bad things.”

He added that he does not believe Trump officials are “intentionally trying to incite violence.” But, he said, “I do believe that some of their words unintentionally can give a green light to people, and that’s what we’ve got to be careful of.”

Before he was elected to office, Jones led the successful prosecution of Ku Klux Klan members who planted a bomb that killed four black girls at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, nearly 40 years after they committed the crime.

Jones understands how violent bigotry works, and he is correct that it doesn’t matter whether Trump officials intend to incite violence. They are still doing it — and are still refusing to change course despite mounting evidence that their actions are causing harm.

Since Trump’s election, the FBI has found that reports of hate crimes have increased in America. Despite this data and the moral crisis it has provoked, Trump’s fellow Republicans have largely chosen inaction on hate crimes legislation.

Trump has also refused to stop calling journalists the “enemies of the people,” despite evidence that his words have specifically incited violence and attempted violence against journalists. He continues to spread dangerous lies about Democrats supporting “infanticide,” despite America’s decades-long history of violent anti-abortion terrorism. And he has only reluctantly condemned white supremacy, despite a recent surge of white supremacist terrorism.

Specifically on the issue of LGBTQ equality, Trump and Pence have been trying to turn the clock back. The administration is currently trying to overturn the right of transgender service members to wear the military uniform, after President Barack Obama changed policy to allow equal service.

Trump is also plotting to manipulate federal law so that LGBTQ people are no longer protected by anti-discrimination laws.

These actions are a clear attempt to hold on to the loyalty of anti-LGBTQ voters, who support the Trump presidency in part thanks to Mike Pence, a long-time homophobe.

Trump and Pence have embraced hate and even made it official government policy. Violent bigots have taken their words to heart, and hurt and killed innocent Americans.

And Jones is calling them out for the harm they are causing every day.

Published with permission of The American Independent.