Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism
by Rachel Maddow
View on GoodreadsRachel Maddow's history of the 1930s-40s American fascist movement — German-American Bund, America First, Charles Lindbergh, sitting members of Congress on the Nazi payroll, the Great Sedition Trial — written as the prequel to current democratic-stress conversations.
Core ideas
- The scale of the homegrown fascist movement is the book's central revelation: dozens of members of Congress were involved in pro-Nazi activity, including taking material support and disseminating Reich propaganda through the congressional franking privilege.
- The legal and journalistic counter-effort — prosecutors, FBI agents, reporters like John Roy Carlson — succeeded in suffocating the movement, but the prosecution itself collapsed in mistrial; the lesson is mixed.
- The pattern (a charismatic populist, a sympathetic press ecosystem, congressional accomplices, foreign-power financial backing, and a vulnerable public) is the prequel's organizing argument — explicitly drawn to the present.
Published2023
Pages416
ISBN9780593444511
ReadNov 2023
