So Far, Silence

If you have not yet taken the time read the Indictment in the case of United States of America v. Donald J. Trump and Waltine Nauta (Trump’s valet), click that link and read. It should be every American’s civic duty to do so. The original document is eminently readable and thoroughly documented chronicle of former President Trump’s flagrant disregard for the law. So far, nearly all the Republicans who have gone on record about the latest Trump indictment (with the notable exception of Mitt Romney), have bizarrely claimed that it is a miscarriage of justice, politically motivated, and spells the death knell for the rule of law in our country. If any of these know-nothings have actually read the indictment or understand how the rule of law actually works, you certainly could not tell it from their inane commentary. 

I’m sure there are many other examples, but that of U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) interviewed on ABC News by George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, June 11, is breathtaking in the whataboutism and misinformation that are quickly becoming the Republican blare machine’s main talking points. It really is worth your time to listen—because this is the garbage that you will likely hear again and again—all by way of avoiding any actually serious discussion of the merits of the indictment itself—and the evidence that underpins it. Senator Graham, who possesses a Doctor of Jurisprudence from the University of South Carolina, must know that he is engaging in gross misinformation. Beyond the usual off-the-point whataboutism of emails and laptops, Graham suggests that the content of the Espionage Act under which Trump is indicted only applies to the most egregious examples of overt spying and bulk transfer of sensitive information to foreign adversaries (think Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange). This is a smokescreen that depends on the Republican faithful’s ignorance of the law. They all need to read the indictment.

Where’s Cathy McMorris Rodgers on the indictment? We can take a clue in her official statement issued August 9, 2022, the day after the FBI exercised the court-authorized search warrant of Mar-a-Lago and seized 102 documents with classified markings Trump had conspired to keep. Her statement starts off predictably by characterizing the search and seizure as an “FBI Raid of President Trump’s Residence”, evoking an portrait of battering rams and rough treatment. It goes on:

Last night’s unprecedented raid and seizure of documents from President Trump’s private residence is alarming and raises a lot of questions. I am deeply concerned about the appearance that the Biden administration is weaponizing the FBI and Department of Justice to target a political opponent, which would be an egregious abuse of power. This sends a dangerous message to the American people that their Constitutional rights can be trampled because of their political beliefs. 

McMorris Rodgers’ statement sets up this bizarre double-speak Republican talking point: because he was once president any act that challenges Donald Trump’s actions must be politically motivated and cannot possibly be the actual legitimate workings of the rule of law. Since he was once president Trump must be above the law, while, at the same time. exercising a legitimate search warrant is “an egregious abuse of power”. If she reads the indictment, it should be evident to her that not indicting Trump based on the evidence therein would itself be an abandonment of the rule of law. 

I await McMorris Rodgers’ slippery words in response to the federal indictment. Will she actually read it? Will she still spout the words “weaponization of the ______”, the phrase no doubt hatched and pushed out to the media by Republican Party operatives as focus-group-tested propaganda?

The best I have read from among those commenting on the indictment is Robert Hubbell’s legally-informed June 11th Substack post in which he puts the indictment and the upcoming trial into perspective:

The trial is designed to achieve two purposes: To punish Trump for his crimes and to dissuade future bad actors from repeating those crimes. In short, the trial is not—and can never be—a solution to the political problem of a potential Trump second term.

If Trump wins a second term, the trial will be irrelevant, even if Trump is convicted before the election. As a second-term president, Trump can manipulate the DOJ to fire special counsel Jack Smith and reverse the conviction somehow, as the DOJ did for Michael Flynn, or he can grant himself a self-pardon. (I do not believe a self-pardon would be constitutional, but if Trump grants himself one, it will be a “get out of jail free card” for the duration of the appeal through the Supreme Court.)

The only solution to the political problem of a Trump second term is to defeat Trump (or any other GOP contender) at the ballot box.

There is a corollary: If Trump regains the Presidency, we will have, thereby, abandoned the rule of law and along with it any pretense that the law applies equally to everyone.

Republicans will twist logic in knots trying to pretend that the grand jury in the Southern District of Florida that voted to indict Trump based on the evidence presented to them by the Department of Justice and Jack Smith was somehow “politically motivated”. Read the indictment. Don’t let them get away with it.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

An Exemplary Effort to Deal with Homelessness Up North

People are rendered homeless by economic and social circumstances that are often beyond their control. Homelessness is a growing problem not just in Spokane, but throughout the nation, including many small towns and rural areas where homeless people are often less visible than recent times in larger cities.

Colville is such a place. Colville, a pleasant 70 mile drive north of Spokane on US-395, is the county seat of Stevens County. Colville’s population is around 5,000, the Stevens County latest estimate is around 47,000. Like Spokane, but on a smaller scale, Colville lacks functional, affordable housing for the poor and those of modest means. Like Spokane’s Woodward administration, it seems that government of Colville would much prefer to sweep the issue under the rug and, in both cases, probably would if it were not for Martin v. Boise, the 2018 Ninth Circuit ruling that held that “cities cannot enforce anti-camping ordinances if they do not have enough homeless shelter beds available for their homeless population.” I don’t have the specifics at my fingertips, but there is a Colville-government-owned and tolerated, minimally-serviced area on the edge of town that serves as a homeless camp.

A local family physician, Dr. Barry Bacon, and his wife Shelley, both thoroughly committed to helping the less fortune, have over several years have dedicated themselves to providing medical care and affordable housing in Colville. They are chipping away at the issues not by holding meetings on the upper floors of a local bank, but by planning, showing up, pitching in, and getting their hands dirty, as well as advocating for additional governmental and citizen involvement. Suzi Hokonson, a local Spokane personage with an active interest in this issue, has been arranging on-the-ground tours in Colville with Barry and Shelley taking part. I attended a tour about a month ago. I found it enlightening and inspiring. There are slots available on tours this Wednesday and Thursday. Check out the invitation below and contact Suzi at the email address at the bottom if you can spare the time visit and learn.

We’ve scheduled two more visits to Colville, Wednesday and Thursday, June 14 and 15th.

We will start at 9:30 and meet at Dr. Barry Bacon’s clinic which is 250 S. Main – in the back parking lot. 

Lunch will be provided at 11:30 in the park afterwards, with Dr. Barry, Shelley, plus other community activists joining us.

14 people were able to join us in May, and everyone had a truly memorable 2+ hours.

It’s truly remarkable when to people of faith choose to live their life to bring about change. 

I am so humbled and honored to have Shelley and Barry in my life.

Please let me know if one of these dates will work for you. We will be limiting it to 15 people each day. 

Contact Suzi Hokonson at (suzihokonson@yahoo.com)

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. Last week and this weekend there was abundant coverage in local media on the ahead-of-promised closure of Camp Hope last Friday. A lot of the coverage centered on the upcoming Spokane race for City Mayor with a Spokesman front-page, top of page headline article entitled “Who will voters believe come November?” by Emry Dinman. The same author also provided a lengthy chronicle of 18 months of Camp Hope—a good reminder of the twists and turns. Both articles are interesting but I think miss the greater point at our peril: Homelessness as a problem in our society, here and elsewhere, is destined to grow. The pressing questions are, “What is the best method of addressing it? What are the underlying currents that are worsening the problem? And how can we meaningfully intervene to lesson the trajectory? If we don’t find answers to those questions we, and a whole lot of people less well off than most of my readers, are in for a very long and painful ordeal.

The Republican smokescreen behind which to deconstruct the administrative state

In a recent one of McMorris Rodgers’ emails, the emails she hopes are targeted to her devoted followers, she writes, “…we [she and her Republican defenders of the fossil fuel industry] advanced the Save Our Gas Stoves Actto protect your choice as a consumer by prohibiting the U.S. Department of Energy from banning gas stoves.” (The bold and the link are hers.) The title of the bill alone is a perfect example of Republican fear tactics. It implies, as is commonly put forward on right wing media, that the government is about to invade your home and remove your gas stove. In fact, H.R. 1640 is a remarkably short, two-page bill (click and have a look) that prohibits the Secretary of Energy from imposing “an energy conservation standard for kitchen ranges or ovens” unless it is “not likely to result in the unavailability in the United States of a type (or class) of product based on what type of fuel the product consumes.” [the bold is mine]

A more complete and accurate title for this bill that originated in McMorris Rodgers’ Committee on Energy and Commerce would be the “Freedom to Pollute Our Indoor Environment For Decades More Act” or the “Encourage More Burning of Fossil Fuels Act”. Remember the huge flap Republicans raised about energy standards for lighting, the standards that nudged us to the now ubiquitous LED lighting that seems to last forever while its use conserves energy? The stove issue is much the same thing—and just as profoundly disingenuous. Absolutely no one is coming for your gas stove. This straw man, fear-mongering framing is a Republican/fossil fuel industry-manufactured outrage meant to preempt intelligent discussion of indoor air quality and encourage the burning of ever more fossil fuels. (See Doug Porter’s Substack article for more detail.)

The good news (but just for the time being) is that McMorris Rodgers’ touted H.R.1640 “Save Our Gas Stoves Act” will not make it to the House floor for consideration until Republicans iron out there differences. For now, this bill and three other anti-regulation bills are kept off the floor by legislative machinations that are bit arcane—but of paramount importance to note.

On June 6, a procedural bill, H.Res.463, was put up for a vote on the House floor by Republican leadership. It failed with only 206 (all Republican) Aye votes against 220 Nay votes. The Nays included every Democrat and, tellingly, 12 fractious Republicans, including nine members of the “Freedom” Caucus, Republicans who would ordinarily have supported this effort. This ill-fated bill came after speaker McCarthy angered far right wing Republicans with his negotiation of the debt ceiling bill. The failure to pass H.Res.463 is a spectacular failure of Republican House leadership. An unwritten Republican House rule is that you don’t bring anything to the floor for a vote unless you are sure you are nearly certain you have all the votes necessary to pass the measure. This failed vote on this Resolution is more likely a sign of a brewing revolt within the Republican House majority than it is of any real disapproval of the purpose of the four bills that were temporarily scuttled.

This procedural bill that failed, H.Res.463, would have “provided for consideration” of these four bills on the House floor, advancing them out of committee. Two of the bills, H.R.1640, the one we’ve been discussing, and H.R.1615, the “Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act”, both concern gas stoves and feed on the Republican-stoked fear of home invasion and gas stove seizures. 

The other two bills this Resolution would have brought up for consideration are much broader and far reaching and much less noticed and understood pet projects of McMorris Rodgers and the modern day Republican Party. H.R.277, the REINS Act of 2023 (aka Regulations of the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act) is a grave and largely unrecognized threat from Republicans to dismantle the rule-making function of Executive agencies that has been standard for at least the last half century. REINS has been “put in the hopper” anew in every Congress for years and years—and McMorris Rodgers is a consistent co-sponsor. Understand that this consistent re-submission of a big idea bill year after year, this sort of dogged persistence, is often what is required to enact a new law. (Remember all those years Republican rhetoric and votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act? Yes, like that.) REINS actually passed the House in 2017 in the early reign of Trump, but never made it to the Senate floor. This year H.R.277 REINS has 182 co-sponsors, every one of them a Republican. 

REINS would “amend chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, to provide that major rules of the executive branch shall have no force or effect unless a joint resolution of approval is enacted into law.” In plain English REINS would give whatever majority that existed at the time a second crack at blocking regulations painstakingly developed and based on an enabling law passed by a different majority in an earlier Congress. The obstruction won’t even require Congressional action. A hostile (or over-busy) Congressional majority of the time could kill a developed regulation by passively ignoring it. REINS is a recipe for federal governing paralysis that would suit modern-day Republican anti-government, anti-regulation orthodoxy just fine. Enactment of REINS would come close to Grover Norquist’s goal of shrinking the federal government to a size where it could be “drowned in the bathtub”. 

REINS is just one of a suite of Republican wishlist bills that aim to “deconstruct the administrative state” (Steve Bannon’s words) by fundamentally changing the way government operates. The fourth bill that would have come up for floor discussion had the June 6 H.Res.463 passed was of the same ilk. H.R.288 SOPRA (Separation of Powers Restoration Act of 2023) is more subtle than REINS but works toward the same end. SOPRA changes the U.S. Code to give the Judiciary more power to strike down the regulations developed by the Executive agencies. 

You can be sure that if Republicans ever hold the presidency and simultaneously achieve working majorities in the both houses of Congress (a federal “trifecta”) they will pass a version of all of these bills. Once enacted as law these bills would cripple the function of the Executive branch, concentrate power in the Congress, and devolve power to the individual states, a profound re-arrangement of our governing structure. 

McMorris Rodgers and nearly all her Republican colleagues have a goal to “deconstruct the administrative state”. Effectively that means neutering the function of the Executive agencies that protect our health and safety. It all starts with a simple lie: “They’re coming for your gas stove!”

We need better representation in Congress. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

Time to take back “Woke” (and “Freedom”)

Words are encoded symbols. To paraphrase an old saying, the meaning of a word is in the mind of the beholder. To me, a person using the word “woke” as a term of disparagement is in danger of identifying themself as willfully—and often angrily— ignorant of history, a person who is likely spoon-fed most of their news from Fox News, Newsmax, Tucker Carlson or worse. After all, the literal meaning of “woke” is “awakened”, i.e. not asleep. Who but a right wing Republican celebrates wearing blinders, being asleep, willfully ignorant, eyes firmly closed?

Of course, using “woke” as a term of disparagement may light up rather different images in the minds of those speaking and hearing it. That, of course, is a basic trouble with language—meanings morph and blur.

I was recently taken aback when newly elected Spokane County Sheriff John Nowels was quoted in the Spokesman invoking “wokeism” as he criticized Washington State Appeals Judge George Fearing’s opinion pointing out the institutional racism in the Spokane County Superior Court trial conviction of Darnai Vaile:

Nowels wrote that “the dissenting opinion [Fearing’s] appears to be based on wokeism, judicial activism, and the dissenter’s personal view run amuck and is not based on established law,” using the phrase “woke” that is often employed by conservative political thinkers to criticize what they see as overreactions to calls for greater social justice.

(I give some credit to Kip Hill for highlighting the meaning of the word “woke” in the Nowels quote.) 

To me, anyone using “woke” as a disparaging buzzword had better explain exactly what they mean. To disparage being awake suggests the speaker lacks the maturity to learn and understand the consequences of our warty history of treatment of minorities, much less the maturity to consider modifying their speech and actions in light of that history. I might suspect such a speaker believes children should be taught only the myths—a mythic history that must deny or gloss over the stories of racial slavery, the 3/5ths clause, the manifest reason the Civil War was fought (hint: it wasn’t “state’s rights” or “the Lost Cause”), the political resolution of the Civil War, the Jim Crow era, lynchings, race-based voter suppression then and now, the treatment of and treaties made and broken with native Americans, redlining, restrictive covenants, and more.

I endeavor to be “woke” to the fullness of our history, warts and all, and I am suspicious of anyone who suggests that being “woke” is a bad thing. Awareness of our past offers a path toward making a better future for everyone. If you don’t know history you risk repeating it. I don’t want to go back there. 

We need to take back “woke”—and explain to others what it means to us. When a Sheriff Nowels uses woke as a term of disparagement we ought to ask him exactly what the word lights up in his brain. Is he, too, so self-blinkered that he cannot acknowledge our history and lacks the introspection necessary to recognize how that history still affects us? If so, that is a worrisome viewpoint for a sheriff. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. The “judicial activism” of the Nowels quote rings in my ears from my youth as a slur popularized by the infamous John Birch Society. It was a slur leveled at the Supreme Court that at the time was led by Chief Justice Earl Warren. The “Warren Court” (remember “Impeach Earl Warren”?) read in our Constitution rights the reactionary John Birch Society didn’t like. Perhaps the first among the Warren Court’s decisions the JBS didn’t like was Brown v. Board of Education, the decision meant to end government sanctioned segregation in public schools. Today’s Republican Party follows closely on the JBS doctrine. Listen or read “How a Secretive, Extremist Group Radicalized The American Right”

P.P.S. There is a comprehensive discussion of the origins, popularization, and recent attempt to capture the term “woke” in Wikipedia. It is an interesting read.

P.P.P.S. “Freedom” is another word we need to take back. What a significant number of Republicans actually mean when they use the term is the “freedom” is amply illustrated by their legislative actions over the last year—and their definition is makes a mockery of the word. Jamelle Bouie’s brilliant essay in the New York Times, “The Four Freedoms, According to Republicans”, sums it up:

There are, I think, four freedoms we can glean from the Republican program.

There is the freedom to control — to restrict the bodily autonomy of women and repress the existence of anyone who does not conform to traditional gender roles.

There is the freedom to exploit — to allow the owners of business and capital to weaken labor and take advantage of workers as they see fit.

There is the freedom to censor — to suppress ideas that challenge and threaten the ideologies of the ruling class.

And there is the freedom to menace — to carry weapons wherever you please, to brandish them in public, to turn the right of self-defense into a right to threaten other people.

Roosevelt’s four freedoms were the building blocks of a humane society — a social democratic aspiration for egalitarians then and now. These Republican freedoms are also building blocks not of a humane society but of a rigid and hierarchical one, in which you can either dominate or be dominated.

It is time check out the Election Landscape–here’s how

All politics are local, but with our ever more nationally focused news coverage it often harder to learn about the candidate for local office in this August’s municipal primary—who might live in your neighborhood and with whom you could meet face-to-face—than it is to focus on the newest candidate for the U.S. Presidential election that is more than a year away. 

In mid-July, if you’re a registered voter in Washington State, a primary election ballot for municipal races will appear in your mailbox. Now is the time to pay attention. You can avoid what used to be my response to the municipal primary ballot: “Huh? There’s an election this year?” 

Fortunately, thanks to county and state websites it is now possible to orient yourself in the election landscape without relying on what you’re fed by local media. The goal of this blog post is to orient you to official sources of information by using the City of Spokane municipal elections as an example. (I expect that many other states maintain similar official databases, but, confusingly, each state has its own rules and requirements dating back to our founding as a nation, a fact that emphasizes the importance of paying attention to local and state governance.)

In the State of Washington, the office of the Secretary of State (SOS) maintains an online tool for voters, vote.wa.gov. Visit the site and enter your voter information. Then, in the left hand column click “Who Filed”. Voila! Up pops the list of candidates who will appear on your primary ballot. This list is gathered by the SOS from data supplied by each county’s elections office. “Filing week” with the county elections offices was May 15-19. Only candidates who filed during that week will appear on the August primary ballot—there is no more guess work about who’s running. 

In my case, living in the City of Spokane City Council District 2, there are seventeen candidates running for six elective offices. (Two are Superior Court [county-wide] judges who are running unopposed, so the list is effectively fifteen candidates among whom I get to choose for four elective positions.)

That is still too many names to keep track of, so I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that you can glean a pretty clear idea who is serious and competitive among these candidates by researching public records. By law, the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) maintains a database of campaign contributions at PDC.wa.gov. Once a candidate starts accepting campaign contributions they are required to register and file reports with the PDC at regular intervals. As a rule, any truly viable candidate for elective office will have filed with the PDC and started reporting well before the May county elections office “filing week”. (Also note that some aspirational candidates file with the PDC and then never get around to filing with the county elections office to appear on the ballot.)

PDC.wa.gov takes some getting used to. Once you’re there, click “For Voters and the Public” in the upper lefthand corner. Then, under the heading “Political Disclosure Reports”, click “Candidates”. On the resulting page you’ll need to enter 2023 for the “Election Year” and (in my example) “City of Spokane” for the “Jurisdiction”. (This search function is quite fussy. One needs to keep playing with it. For example, it likes “Spokane Co”, but not “Spokane County” for “Jurisdiction”. “City of Spokane” also pulls up “City of Spokane Valley”.)

So where does that leave us with, say, the race for Mayor of the City of Spokane?

Five names will appear on the August primary ballot, but only two, Lisa Brown and Nadine Woodward, have raised campaign funds to date, 158K and 312K, respectively. (Tim Archer reported $150, apparently from a relative, Frances Archer.) Archer and the other two, Stevens and McKann, may share a debate stage with Ms. Brown and Ms. Woodward, but seem highly unlikely to mount any sort of effective campaign. (Note: Legally one must report one’s own monetary contributions to one’s campaign. Lack of reporting any contributions at all suggests a complete lack of a serious campaign effort.) In our current voting system (as opposed to ranked choice voting) these extra three who will appear on the ballot along with Ms. Brown and Ms. Woodward are likely, at most, to serve only as potential spoilers, siphoning votes from the likely frontrunners. (It is interesting to note that three more aspirants for the mayorship who signed up earlier with the PDC never filed with County Elections—Casillas, Kleven, and Legault. None reported raising any funds either.)

Similarly, Betsy Wilkerson and Kim Plese are the only two reporting campaign contributions to the PDC to date, 52K and 91K, respectively, for the position of City Council President of the City of Spokane. Andrew Rathbun signed up with the PDC on May 22nd, seemingly as an afterthought afterfiling with county elections. Mr. Rathbun raised significant funds in the 2019 election cycle as a candidate first for Mayor and then for City Council Member from District 3 (NW). He made it to the November general in District 3 but lost to Karen Stratton for the City Council position. This year he bears watching, but he seems to be off to a very late start. 

There are six City Council seats in the City of Spokane, two from each of three Districts (click here for a map). One seat from each District comes up for election in consecutive odd-numbered years. This year it is “Position 1” from each District that appears on the ballot. 

In District 1 (NE Spokane) Lindsey Shaw and Michael Cathcart have both raised funds. No one else is on the ballot.

In District 2 (South Hill plus) Paul Dillon, Cyndi Donahue, and Katey Treloar have all raised campaign funds. Mike Naccarato reports none so far (although he has a campaign website on which he apparently spent some money)—and only signed up with the PDC last Friday, June 2. 

District 3 (NW Spokane) is swarmed with candidates. Seven are signed up with the PDC, six of whom filed with Elections. Of those six, four report raising campaign funds, Esteban Herevia (13K), Kitty Klitzky (3.5K), Christopher Savage (8K), and Randy McGlenn (4.1K).

I urge you to do your own homework to see who will appear on your ballot. Take the opportunity to meet and talk with the candidates. Visit their campaign websites, their Facebook pages, their blogs. These are localcandidates, after all. That’s the point. Support the ones you like by talking them up with your friends and acquaintances, by posting about your support on social media, by making a campaign contribution, and/or working with their campaigns. This is democracy at work. It’s messy and complicated—but it’s the best system around. If we don’t participate we will lose the whole “By the People” piece upon which our country was founded.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. While I believe that the reported campaign contributions can tell us who is actually mounting a potentially viable campaign, the absolute amount of money a campaign has amassed is no guarantee of success. That success will depend on how the money is spent balanced against many other factors—especially the participation of the electorate. 

P.P.S. The order in which I listed the candidates for City of Spokane elected offices above is the order in which I would currently rank them if we had adopted ranked choice voting. Each front runner (and sometimes the second listed) in my ranking is someone I have met and whose work and qualifications I respect. I reserve the right to change my ranking—but I would be surprised if I do.

There is a lesson screaming at us from the past

Big ideas can have big consequences. In 1997 William Strauss and Neil Howe published a book entitled The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy, part of what is now referred to as part of “Strauss–Howe generational theory”. It is an effort to describe patterns and predict the future based on cycles of generational cohorts. The Fourth Turning, among others of their books, helped popularize terms familiar to us, e.g. Millennials and Generations X, Y, and Z. A basic theme of the book is “…the idea that every 80 years of American history has been marked by a crisis, or ‘fourth turning’, that destroyed an old order and created a new one.” Strauss and Howe suggested that after around 80 years the people that most vividly remember the last calamity—and were most affected by it—have died off, and with them has died much of the generational memory of that last cataclysm. With that lost of generational memory of the last major trauma comes the likelihood of repeating it. 

Steve Bannon, once called “the Leni Riefenstahl of the Tea Party movement” (by Andrew Breitbart), and the man who turned Trump’s 2016 faltering campaign into an electoral success, was so fascinated by The Fourth Turningthat he, in 2010, wrote and directed a documentary film entitled Generation Zero based on the book, produced by David N. Bossie for Citizens United Productions (yes, that Citizens United). 

Last Monday, Memorial Day, as some of us paused to remember those who died in the cataclysm of World War II, Professor of History Heather Cox Richardson published a piece that, for me, brought the Strauss-Howe concept of die off of memory leading to a fourth turning to full circle. In a Substack column (copied below), Richardson pulled quotes from an eight page pamphlet published March 24, 1945 by the U.S. Army, entitled “FASCISM!”. If you have a few minutes, I urge you to click that link and read the original (as well as Richardson’s post). If you read the original keep in mind that it was written and disseminated as the war still raged, before the beginning of the Cold War, before the communist takeover of China under Mao was complete, and before the “Red Scare” of the McCarthy era. In other words, place the pamphlet in its proper place in history. 

Richardson’s post based on the WWII pamphlet offers a stark reminder for me of exactly the loss of generational memory we are now experiencing as the last of WWII veterans go to their graves—and their stories with them. We would do well to see the parallels between the fascism described in the pamphlet and the actions of prominent parts of the modern day Republican Party. We would do well to remember not just those who fought and died in WWII but why they fought and died, lest The Fourth Turning, with the aid of the like of Steve Bannon, forces us to re-live something like that horror.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

May 29, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

MAY 29, 2023

Beginning in 1943, the War Department published a series of pamphlets for U.S. Army personnel in the European theater of World War II. Titled Army Talks, the series was designed “to help [the personnel] become better-informed men and women and therefore better soldiers.”

On March 24, 1945, the topic for the week was “FASCISM!”

“You are away from home, separated from your families, no longer at a civilian job or at school and many of you are risking your very lives,” the pamphlet explained, “because of a thing called fascism.” But, the publication asked, what is fascism? “Fascism is not the easiest thing to identify and analyze,” it said, “nor, once in power, is it easy to destroy. It is important for our future and that of the world that as many of us as possible understand the causes and practices of fascism, in order to combat it.”

Fascism, the U.S. government document explained, “is government by the few and for the few. The objective is seizure and control of the economic, political, social, and cultural life of the state.” “The people run democratic governments, but fascist governments run the people.”

“The basic principles of democracy stand in the way of their desires; hence—democracy must go! Anyone who is not a member of their inner gang has to do what he’s told. They permit no civil liberties, no equality before the law.” “Fascism treats women as mere breeders. ‘Children, kitchen, and the church,’ was the Nazi slogan for women,” the pamphlet said.

Fascists “make their own rules and change them when they choose…. They maintain themselves in power by use of force combined with propaganda based on primitive ideas of ‘blood’ and ‘race,’ by skillful manipulation of fear and hate, and by false promise of security. The propaganda glorifies war and insists it is smart and ‘realistic’ to be pitiless and violent.”

Fascists understood that “the fundamental principle of democracy—faith in the common sense of the common people—was the direct opposite of the fascist principle of rule by the elite few,” it explained, “[s]o they fought democracy…. They played political, religious, social, and economic groups against each other and seized power while these groups struggled.”

Americans should not be fooled into thinking that fascism could not come to America, the pamphlet warned; after all, “[w]e once laughed Hitler off as a harmless little clown with a funny mustache.” And indeed, the U.S. had experienced “sorry instances of mob sadism, lynchings, vigilantism, terror, and suppression of civil liberties. We have had our hooded gangs, Black Legions, Silver Shirts, and racial and religious bigots. All of them, in the name of Americanism, have used undemocratic methods and doctrines which…can be properly identified as ‘fascist.’”

The War Department thought it was important for Americans to understand the tactics fascists would use to take power in the United States. They would try to gain power “under the guise of ‘super-patriotism’ and ‘super-Americanism.’” And they would use three techniques:

First, they would pit religious, racial, and economic groups against one another to break down national unity. Part of that effort to divide and conquer would be a “well-planned ‘hate campaign’ against minority races, religions, and other groups.”

Second, they would deny any need for international cooperation, because that would fly in the face of their insistence that their supporters were better than everyone else. “In place of international cooperation, the fascists seek to substitute a perverted sort of ultra-nationalism which tells their people that they are the only people in the world who count. With this goes hatred and suspicion toward the people of all other nations.”

Third, fascists would insist that “the world has but two choices—either fascism or communism, and they label as ‘communists’ everyone who refuses to support them.”

It is “vitally important” to learn to spot native fascists, the government said, “even though they adopt names and slogans with popular appeal, drape themselves with the American flag, and attempt to carry out their program in the name of the democracy they are trying to destroy.”

The only way to stop the rise of fascism in the United States, the document said, “is by making our democracy work and by actively cooperating to preserve world peace and security.” In the midst of the insecurity of the modern world, the hatred at the root of fascism “fulfills a triple mission.” By dividing people, it weakens democracy. “By getting men to hate rather than to think,” it prevents them “from seeking the real cause and a democratic solution to the problem.” By falsely promising prosperity, it lures people to embrace its security.

“Fascism thrives on indifference and ignorance,” it warned. Freedom requires “being alert and on guard against the infringement not only of our own freedom but the freedom of every American. If we permit discrimination, prejudice, or hate to rob anyone of his democratic rights, our own freedom and all democracy is threatened.” And if “we want to make certain that fascism does not come to America, we must make certain that it does not thrive anywhere in the world.”

Seventy-eight years after the publication of “FASCISM!” with its program for recognizing that political system and stopping it from taking over the United States, President Joe Biden today at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, honored those who gave their lives fighting to preserve democracy. “On this day, we come together again to reflect, to remember, but above all, to recommit to the future our fallen heroes fought for, …a future grounded in freedom, democracy, equality, tolerance, opportunity, and…justice.”

“[T]he truest memorial to their lives,” the president said, is to act “every day to ensure that our democracy endures, our Constitution endures, and the soul of our nation and our decency endures.”

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