Fascism (Again!) Our Very Future Is At Stake

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Fascism (Again!), by Abby Zimet, Common Dreams, Oct. 28, '24. Ed. - Photo: Snapping into the regulation Nazi salute, U.S. Bund members hail swastika at 1939 Madison Square Garden rally, George Washington Birthday Weekend, Feb. 20, 1939. - Excerpts -
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Our very future is at stake.

Replicating another racist, toxic, unnerving hate fest 75 years ago, Trump held a vitriolic rally Sunday in New York vowing to end "the migrant invasion of our country." His best people echoed him: Puerto Rico is "a floating island of garbage," Harris "the devil," and Dems "degenerates (we) need to slaughter" to create what his Goebbels calls an "America for Americans, and Americans only." In 1945, the feds sent pamphlets to World War ll soldiers to explain what "fascism" is. Now, we should know.

The October surprise has been the obvious unraveling of an old, sick “fascist to the core” already running the most racist, incoherent election campaign this country has ever seen.

The vicious, nativist rhetoric labeling as murderous vermin, savages and terrorists every dark-skinned migrant seeking safety here - along with vilifying any opponent as "the enemy from within" - now merged with crude rancor - Harris is "a shit vice-president...Kamala, you’re fired. Get the hell out of here." Every goose in Springfield, Ohio has "gone missing" like the cats and dogs. Obsessed with Harris' college stint working at McDonald's, the guy who was a millionaire at 8 and stiffed every low-wage worker since then pretended to make fries at a closed McDonald's for pretend customers and thought it looked cool.

After 440 mental health providers, citing his "irrationality," wrote Trump "is falling concerningly short of any standard of fitness for office," the psychiatrist who helped craft 1973's "Goldwater rule" that kept providers from opining on his sanity said it shouldn't have, and he'd order dementia tests now. The venom fear-mongering reached a fever pitch at Trump's rally in NYC's iconic Madison Square Garden. He explained the choice of location claiming he wants to "make New York great again" and, in a sinister echo of the past to reenact an infamous 1939 rally at the Garden held by the German American Bund, one of several U.S. groups who supported Hitler with a lethal "cocktail of white supremacy, fascist ideology and American patriotism."

Over 20,000 people attended the Nazi "Night at the Garden" on Feb. 20, 1939. Outside, up to 80,000 anti-Nazi demonstrators gathered, and some 4,700 policemen tried to keep the peace. Inside, the stage featured a towering image of George Washington - the event was disingenuously billed as a "pro-American" celebration of his birthday - flanked by huge swastikas and American flags. The mood was both jubilant and brazenly anti-Semitic. "Isadore Greenbaum was a 26-year-old plumber from Brooklyn," notes one account, "and on this night, he was a Jew surrounded by 20,000 Nazis."

Greenbaum sat through the 3-hour rally, the hateful speeches, the Heil salutes. Eventually, slowly, he started making his way to the front...
https://www.commondreams.org/further/fascism-again-2669457224
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- Nazi Rally, Madison Square Garden, History

Six and a half months before Adolf Hitler invaded Poland, New York City’s Madison Square Garden hosted a rally to celebrate the rise of Nazism in Germany. Inside, more than 20,000 attendees raised Nazi salutes toward a 30-foot-tall portrait of George Washington flanked by swastikas. Outside, police and some 100,000 protesters gathered..
At the time the rally took place, Hitler was completing his 6th concentration camp; and protesters- many of them Jewish Americans- called attention to the fact that what was happening in Germany could happen in the U.S. “Don’t wait for the concentration camps- Act now!” proclaimed fliers advertising the protest. Outside the rally, people carried signs with messages like “Smash Anti-Semitism” & “Give me a gas mask, I can’t stand the smell of Nazis.”...
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/americans-hold-nazi-rally-in-madison-square-garden

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1. 'American Nazis in the 1930s, the German American Bund' The Atlantic, 06/2017

In the years before the outbreak of World War II, people of German ancestry living abroad were encouraged to form citizens groups to both extol “German virtues,” around the world, and to lobby for causes helpful to Nazi Party goals.

In the United States, the Amerikadeutscher Volksbund, or German American Bund, was formed in 1936 as “an organization of patriotic Americans of German stock,” operating about 20 youth and training camps, and eventually growing to a membership in the tens of thousands among 70 regional divisions across the country.

On February 20, 1939, the Bund held an “Americanization” rally in New York’s Madison Square Garden, denouncing Jewish conspiracies, President Roosevelt, and others. The rally, attended by 20,000 supporters and members, was protested by huge crowds of anti-Nazis, who were held back by 1,500 NYC police officers. As World War II began in 1939, the German American Bund fell apart, many of its assets were seized, and its leader arrested for embezzlement, and later deported to Germany. - Photos,
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2017/06/american-nazis-in-the-1930sthe-german-american-bund/529185/