Jonathan P. Baird: The problem of far right extremism is nothing new
Published: 5/3/2021 8:24:22 AM
The Trump presidency and the events of January 6 made me wonder about past American experience with authoritarian threats. Did America ever have other close calls with far right-wing extremism? Here I am not talking about the racist, totalitarian system that persisted in the South for almost 100 years after Reconstruction.
Although it is little remembered now before Pearl Harbor there was a surprisingly strong pro-Nazi movement in the United States. The story of the heroic war against the Axis powers has overshadowed what happened before Pearl Harbor.
Lois de Lafayette Washburn, an ultra-right-wing blogger from the 1930s, would salute the Capitol insurrectionists of today.
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Lois de Lafayette Washburn of Chicago gives a Nazi salute as she leaves Federal District Court in Washington, D.C., April 17, 1944. She and 29 others were on trial, charged with conspiring with the Nazis to overthrow democracy in the United States. With her is Howard Victor Broenstrupp of Washington, D.C., another defendant. Lois Washburn cried out at the trial, We are here to defend what you give, freedom from tyranny! (AP)
In April 1944, as Allied Forces prepared for the D-Day invasion of Europe, a middle-aged widow from the Seattle area, dressed in a plaid suit and a jaunty hat, snapped off a “Hitler salute” for the press and newsreel cameras in Washington, D.C. She then posed thumbing her nose at the U.S. Federal Courthouse, where she and a host of others were on trial for sedition.
The insurrection in the other Washington is part of a long tradition of extremist thinking in America.
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Trump supporters try to break through a police barrier, Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. As Congress prepared to affirm President-elect Joe Biden s victory, thousands of people gathered to show their support for President Donald Trump and his claims of election fraud.(John Minchillo/AP)
The motto of the Washington Post is, “Democracy dies in darkness.”
Apparently, it can die in broad daylight, too.
Wednesday s attack on the U.S. Capitol by a Trump-supporting mob was not just predictable, but inevitable. It was promised. Its prime cheerleader, the most powerful individual in the world, President Donald Trump, has built a career smashing norms and violating laws in his self-interest, promoting division and soliciting assistance from foreign enemies.
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