Listening to this series of nine excellent podcasts can be encouraging. That's because Rachel Maddow's "Ultra" tells us that we, the people, have faced the threat fascism poses to our way of life before. Moreover, our democracy dealt with the threat and survived. But, of course, the threat is back...
From the Ultra web page: "Sitting members of Congress aiding and abetting a plot to overthrow the government. Insurrectionists criminally charged with plotting to end American democracy for good..."
This well-researched, timely series documents a piece of history that well-informed good citizens need to know about and understand. And, get this: the parallels to what the power-hungry Trumplicans are trying to do to the USA today are chilling.
Maddow's nine "Ultra" podcast episodes also provide some background to help a listener better understand the hatred of President Franklin D. Roosevelt by extremists on the right during the Depression era and WWII years. Radical priest/radio commentator Charles E. Coughlin (widely known as Father Coughlin) and the Nazi-supporting American First movement/cult provided some of the leadership for anti-liberal/anti-FDR thinking in the USA.
By the way, there's a straight line leading from that America First movement directly to today's American First supporters of Trump. Back in the 1940s that group's activities provided a model for today's hate-driven MAGA cultists who -- in plain sight -- are pursuing an agenda to establish a cruel American autocracy.
For more background info here's a link to a NPR story about Maddow's "Ultra" podcast series. From my standpoint, "Ultra" is quite well produced and reasonably entertaining. It's about some crazy damn history that unfolded only 70-some-to-80-some years ago.
In those mid-century hard times, fortunately America's society was up to confronting the threat posed to its institutions by homegrown fascism. Click here to listen to "Ultra" and learn.
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