The biggest Christian movement of the 1940s was supporting Nazis… who knew…

Those Democrats racists are now quite literally (at least via descendants) Republicans. The racism didn’t change. They just changed teams.

 

Who’s bashing Christians? Pretty sure this thread is about a preacher who used his massive pulpit to preach hate and authoritarianism. The thread is about how close this country was to majority leaning sympathy with the Nazis and their filthy ideology.

Any attack on Christianity itself would be absurd.

 

"To see through only red or blue colored lenses tends to distort what is in front of ones nose". -Tilly

 

The "who knew" part of the thread title seemed weighted.

But ... Again... I was really just yanking WDGs chain.

 

Father Coughlin is pretty well known for anyone that has studied the depression and WW2.
Coughlin was a bit different than today’s radio and TV talk show morons, he was a direct response to the Great Depression. He hated capitalism, favored wealth redistribution, and blaming the Jews was scapegoating for the country’s money problems, it was in part a way to blame corporate America, because Jews had “power”.
He was forced off air after the start of WW2 in Europe when he basically backed Hitler and Mussolini , ostensibly by a radio trade group, but I think at the behest of FDR who knew we would eventually have to enter WW2 and wanted to start moving the country in that direction.
But at one point, his audience was 25 percent of the country. So yeah, he had some pull.

 

Okay, I started this today. Great as expected so far. Maddow isn’t the best interviewer IMO but is always a fantastic story teller of history. Recommend Bag Man as well.

 

Yep. There are still those roots out there too. The new Italian government, far right and quasi-fascist says that they're defending Christianity. The Catholic Church did not absolve the Jews of Deicide and accept freedom of religion until after Vatican II in 1965. But perhaps the root of that aspect of Catholicism that is most active in the US is Spanish, from the last Nation with an openly fascist government, which lasted until Franco died in 1975. Also my ancestral homeland.

Opus Dei sprung out of the original Spanish Civil War era, was a big part of the Franco government, and still has a lot of influence today in the US, most currently through the Supreme Court. I'm now reading Anatomy of a Moment by Cerclas about the 23 February 1981 attempted coup when the fascists tried to retake power but Juan Carlos helped ensure that democracy survived in Spain, which only "joined" Europe in the mid 80s and NATO in 1992.

 

Bag Man was excellent

 

"I don't understand why people focus on the 70% of the GOP that supports fascism instead of the ever shrinking 30% that just wants tax cuts."

 

That is BRILLIANT! You win the internet today

 

Not a perfect fit but I will put this here. Pinellas County School Board race

School board hopeful changes her answer on QAnon, conspiracies. Dawn Peters now says she does not question the reality of the 9/11 terror attacks.


Peters posted her statement after the Tampa Bay Times reported her critics were circulating 2-year-old screenshots from her social media accounts. The images showed her appearing to join others in a QAnon pledge and retweeting an item that called the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the moon landing and the coronavirus pandemic “hoaxes.”

When asked about the posts for that article, Peters confirmed they were real but said she could not recall what she was thinking when she shared them. She said she had “no idea” whether the three historic events were hoaxes, and that people should “think for themselves.”

Her supporters criticized the Times article as a distraction and “fake news.” Local blogger David Happe, who is involved in political campaigns, wrote on social media that Peters is “a person of the highest moral Christian character, with a reputation of integrity and community service.”
School board hopeful changes her answer on QAnon, conspiracies - Tampa Bay Times

 

Not through the podcast yet, but Wikipedia describes Senator Lundeen as a Communist sympathizer who eventually became sympathetic to Germany because he was a isolationist and opposed to war. Different vibe that I was getting in the podcast. And what to make of the DOJ/FBI denying that he was under investigation, assuming he actually was? the Wikipdia article doesn't even mention FBI agents and a DOJ official on board the plane.

 

I keep waiting for them to explain why DOJ denied the investigation. I don't know if there are different standards than about public comment.

In terms of his history, they did mention that Lundeen also opposed World War I but not much else. But that's not surprising that he would be a communist sympathizer in that era, if that was the case. It was a pretty common reaction to the Great Depression. Then Germany seemed to have an answer to the Depression (largely through military buildup), which also lured people in. There was a lot of suffering, and people were searching for some other solution.

I've also read historically about the fact that the Bolsheviks got a lot of mileage due to the sheer amount of losses in WWI. After they took over Russia, not only did they withdraw from the conflict but they also released a lot of confidential governmental papers that showed negotiations going on for years to stop the butchery that were stymied due to various economic interests.

There were other reasons too but they obviously selectively released communications, and there were a lot of them, showing that the war continuing due to economic concerns, and contrasted their "worker's paradise" peaceful approach to what seemed like rapacious exploitation. They did it for their own propaganda reasons but it obviously hit home to a European populace experiencing a lost generation of mass death that very few people appreciate now because World War II came along. You can imagine how they reacted learning about economic interest keeping the war going, and how that undermined the faith in capitalism

 

Mr Ford and Mr. LINDBERG were on the Nazi admiration train.

 

Good find. I was thinking about this part during the podcast. So, the secretary sees passengers struggling on the plane and thinks specifically they're struggling with her boss (a U.S. Senator), and she just goes on about her day without staying there, calling the police, or anything? That seems awfully odd to me.

 

Hitler’s Social Democrats we’re democratically elected and sustained by popular plebiscite, supported heavily in Lutheran precincts, opposed vehemently in Catholic precincts. Read Khunnelt-Leddin’s Liberty and Equality in this regard.

 

Organized Christianity is like organized anything else. Corrupt. Christ is looking for a pure and spotless bride. He needs to keep looking.

 

Concur. Bag man was also very good.