“Ultra”: Insurrection in America, Then and Now
During the holidays, I’ve been
listening to Rachel Maddow’s podcast “Ultra.” If you have not heard of this
podcast, you need to look into it. This nine-part series recounts a piece of
American history that we have been all too eager to forget. But history does
tend to be forgotten, and it also tends to be, if not repeated, at least able to
produce echoes down the corridors of time. So it is with this episode of
American history.
This story took place in the late
1930s and early 1940s, when Nazi Germany was trying to keep America out of
World War II. Nazi agents such as George Viereck had infiltrated Congress
through political figures including Senator Ernest Lundeen and Representative Hamilton
Fish III, sending pro-Hitler and anti-Semitic propaganda to millions of
Americans using Congress’s franking privileges (free postage). Nazi agents also
worked through ultra-right organizations, including the America First Committee
(notice the echo in the name to today), the largest political pressure
organization in the country, and militant ultra-right groups that had concocted
a rather impressive plot to violently overthrow the government and replace it
with a Nazi-style government.
The story presented in “Ultra” is
far too involved to even summarize in a blog post, but throughout the podcast
series the parallels to today’s America are just too obvious to ignore. While
today’s Republican Party is not colluding with a hostile foreign power like
Nazi Germany, it is hard to ignore Trump’s obvious infatuation with Putin and
other dictators. (It is hard also to not notice how, even after Putin’s illegal
and miscalculated invasion of Ukraine, Trump still refuses to say anything negative
about the heartless strongman.) Today’s Republicans are also not averse to
supporting insurrection for other reasons—not in collusion with a foreign power but in fear of
the wrath of a home-grown wannabe dictator who is willing to do anything, even
toss the Constitution, in his self-centered craving for power and adoration.
What I found striking is that
these far-right individuals and groups who were working to overthrow the
government of the United States in the 1940s did not consider themselves
traitors. No, they were patriots. The parallel here to today’s insurrectionists
is staggering. Hundreds of Trump’s “patriots” are now facing jail time for
their participation in the events of January 6, 2021. So it was in the 1940s
also.
In the fifth episode of “Ultra,”
Maddow recounts the work of Justice Department prosecutor William Power Maloney,
who investigated this grand plot to overthrow the government. He indicted scores
of individuals and investigated many members of Congress who were involved with
the Nazis . . . until Senator Burton Wheeler, a leader of the America First
Committee, whose congressional frank had been used by Nazi spy George Viereck
to distribute German propaganda across America. Maloney’s team found evidence
of Wheeler’s involvement in the plot, but Wheeler fought back. He went to
Attorney General Francis Biddle and threatened to launch an investigation into
not just Maloney but the entire Department of Justice.
The echo here shows up in wannabe
Speaker of the House Kevin McConnell’s threat to investigate the January 6 Committee.
The guilty threaten to turn the tables by investigating those who are trying to
hold them responsible for their sedition. In the 1940s, Francis Biddle caved to
the pressure and fired William Maloney. Today, I can’t imagine Liz Cheney or
Bennie Thompson or Merrick Garland caving to any amount of pressure from Republican
threats, so the parallels are limited, but there are definite echoes.
At any rate, “Ultra” is a sobering
lesson in what happens when we forget the uglier episodes of our own history. It
is a fascinating story, and not just because of what we have experienced in the
past few years. It is, however, yet another reason for Latter-day Saints to
reconsider their overwhelming support of today’s Republican Party while it is
still unrepentant over its involvement in (or merely its silent acceptance of) the
devastation wrought by Donald Trump on our republic. Until the GOP returns to a
principled conservative party, it does not deserve your vote, at any level of
government.
