School Official Gets DEATH THREATS For Investigating Neo-Nazi Students by the Young Turks Jan 3, 2022
A group of teenagers from a California high school were pictured with prominent swastikas drawn all over their bodies, prompting an investigation by their school’s superintendent. As it turns out, the superintendent, her family, and her colleagues have been receiving death threats almost daily. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian discuss on The Young Turks. Watch LIVE weekdays 6-8 pm ET. http://youtube.com/theyoungturks/live
"A school superintendent from California said she's been "subjected to death threats on a daily basis" after launching an investigation into a photo showing a group of students posing with swastikas drawn on their bodies.
"This has been one of the most traumatizing experiences in my life and in the lives of my colleagues," said Wheatland Union High School District Superintendent Nicole Newman on in a video shared to Facebook on Thursday.
She and her colleagues have also received "threats that are aimed against our families," Newman added in the video.
The photo, showing eight white students with thick, black swastikas painted onto their torsos, went viral on social media. The students, some of whom are holding alcoholic beverages, appear to be at a house party. The students attend Wheatland Union High School, Newman confirmed."
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A California school superintendent said she's been 'subjected to death threats on a daily basis' since launching an investigation into a photo of students posing with swastikas drawn on their bodies by Yelena Dzhanova Jan 2, 2022, 7:07 AM
* A California school superintendent said she's facing death threats after announcing an investigation into students posing with swastikas.
* Nicole Newman said she saw a photo of Wheatland Union High School students with thick, black swastikas painted onto their torsos.
*"This has been one of the most traumatizing experiences in my life and in the lives of my colleagues," she said.
A school superintendent from California said she's been "subjected to death threats on a daily basis" after launching an investigation into a photo showing a group of students posing with swastikas drawn on their bodies.
"This has been one of the most traumatizing experiences in my life and in the lives of my colleagues," said Wheatland Union High School District Superintendent Nicole Newman on in a video shared to Facebook on Thursday.
She and her colleagues have also received "threats that are aimed against our families," Newman added in the video.
The photo, showing eight white students with thick, black swastikas painted onto their torsos, went viral on social media. The students, some of whom are holding alcoholic beverages, appear to be at a house party. The students attend Wheatland Union High School, Newman confirmed.
"When I first saw them, I was profoundly disturbed and heartbroken. I knew just how much pain these images were going to cause our community," Newman said.
The students have been disciplined, according to the Sacramento Bee. But details of the consequences they are expected to face were not publicly shared for legal reasons.
Newman said the video message posted on Thursday would be the last public update on the case "as we cannot legally go into detail regarding the discipline of these students."
"There is no denying that, the choices made by the students in the picture were hurtful and deeply troubling. Their actions do not represent who we are as a school district and community," Newman said in a separate statement on December 23.
Newman said she'd reach out to elected officials and "key community stakeholders" to "begin the process of having a broader community conversation about how we can work together to prevent this type of issue from ever happening again."
Expert GOES UNDERCOVER and EXPOSES Recruitment Tactics of Dangerous Extremist Groups Kristofer Goldsmith* [The Neo-Nazi Hunter: “A few years ago, a friend of mine that I served with called me up and said, ‘Hey, Goldie, I joined a neo-Nazi organization, and I want you to help me take them down.’” —Kristofer Goldsmith, Founder of Task Force Butler. Veteran Kristofer Goldsmith fought in Iraq. Now he brings his fight to the far right at home. Founder of the nonprofit Task Force Butler, Goldsmith works with other veterans to infiltrate neo-Nazi hate groups and compile evidence to stop them.] MeidasTouch Jul 27, 2023
Against All Enemies is a YouTube/podcast series and upcoming documentary film about threats to American democracy. In today’s episode, Thomas Rousseau, of the violent white nationalist street gang Patriot Front, is exposed as a failed leader of a dangerous cult. Learn more about how these white nationalist and fascist street gangs are shot through with pedophiles and murderers in our earlier episode:
Transcript
Goldsmith CEO of task force Butler at both against all enemies and task force bottom lawyer we're focused on making sure you're informed about the persistent threat of neo-nazi's fascist street gangs and extremists militia as we're going to show you today the radicalization pipeline is taking angry young white men and juicing them up on grievances hyping them on militant versions of masculinity and gun culture and turning them back into our society there's a generation of Timothy mcveigh's and Dylan roofs being groomed for violence and they're just one bad day away from being our next Mass shooters today we're going to make sure you know about Patriot front leader Thomas Rousseau and the Nazis who follow him break the law under his orders and go to jail to impress him you might have seen last week that five members of patriot front were convicted for conspiracy to Riot in Idaho Rousseau and 30 other members of his Neo-Nazi gang were arrested last summer as they were preparing to attack a pride event in Coeur d'Alene they were convicted thanks to Rousseau writing down that plan to attack people and carrying that plan with him for the police to find when they were arrested Rousseau is 25 and grew up middle class in Texas Thomas Rousseau is also a committed white supremacist who hangs out with pedophiles and murderers to be clear those are not the opinions of myself or of task force Butler those are proven facts with documentary evidence and multiple convictions to back up the statements I'll address those facts very soon but first Thomas Rousseau Rousseau began showing signs of white nationalist beliefs as a young teenager by High School the FBI had picked up on his racist organizing across Texas and as infamy grew as he emerged as a leader of the white nationalist gang Vanguard America in 2017 Rousseau's role as a leader in Vanguard America also meant he was a leading organizer behind the deadly Charlottesville unite the right Neo-Nazi rally just a moment to define the terms we're using here because extremists have done a pretty good job of blurring the lines when we say white nationalist we're not talking about people who are patriotic and happen to be white Senator tuberville this note is for you to be a white nationalist means to be an advocate for genocide the force removal or mass murder of people of color this is the definition of genocide and genocide is the only way to achieve an ethno State a white nationalist is a genocidal Maniac Okay tuberville and when we say Nazi we're not using hyperbole we're talking about national socialism the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party in Nazi Germany again we're talking about people who want to see our government commit genocide against our own people Jews people of color the lgbtq community and others this is what we're talking about when we say Patriot front is a white nationalist gang of neo-nazis now that we have that cleared up remember when I said Thomas Rousseau Pals around with child sex predators and murderers here's where so in his Vanguard America uniform leading Vanguard America as their so-called ground Commander during the unite the right rally with James Fields James Fields is the man who murdered Heather heyer and injured over a dozen when he rammed a car into a crowd during the reunite the right protests in the weeks following the attack Rousseau claimed that Fields wasn't a Vanguard America member which is a pretty classic are you going to believe me or Your Lying Eyes defense there's ample documentary evidence of fields in the Vanguard America uniform getting invited to the Neo-Nazi rally to march with Vanguard America being in Vanguard America private chats standing with other Vanguard America members and carrying a shield with the Vanguard America emblem right before he murdered someone unite the right had the exact opposite effect for the assortment of deplorables that gathered in Charlottesville then the name of the Neo-Nazi rally sought to achieve Vanguard America like other far-right groups that showed up they're splintered in effect that was accelerated by Rousseau's paranoid immature leadership style rosette was actually been pretty successful in projecting The Narrative that Vanguard America dissolved into chaos and ceased to exist end of story but the true story is that rasoja seized control of the organization its online servers its members and then rebranded it into a totally new organization Patriot front Vanguard America is Patriot front Patriot front is Vanguard America Patriot front has emerged as a National Domestic threat with membership that have been active across all of the lower 48. they've been showing up at anti-abortion rallies Jewish synagogues black lives matter protests and lgbtq pride events Patriot front members still to this day communicate using Vanguard America's server which is named blood and soil and that's a direct undiluted callback to Nazi Germany Rousseau and Patriot front equate the white European identity to the right to inherit American soil Rousseau is completely lacking in any original thought and has nothing to offer in his critiques of American society in his writings about the so-called silent majority after the 2016 election Rousseau sounds like he's openly cribbing from 1980s Pat Buchanan just very poorly here's what he had to say in Fall 2016. quote the truth is white voters especially the working class have had more than enough of being called racist sexist xenophobic islamophobic homophobic and the rest of the trite usual buzzwords now keep in mind Rousseau is saying this in the context of Trump's candidacy being built around being openly all of those things Russo continues whining and saying quote The Forgotten majority of the American electorate has shown that much to the dismay of the globalist agenda that they have not been replaced by the tens of millions of blue voting immigrants from abroad that they can still hold up some semblance of resistance against the decay of their Nation from the globalist agenda to the replacement Theory to the championing of the underclass Rousseau is the epitome of what a dumb person thinks a smart person sounds like now I know Rousseau's Cadence voice and manner of speaking are extraordinarily annoying but I'm only exposing you to a few minutes of this clown so bear with me as we make a point here here he is at a recent DC rally we're called the greatest threat there is a threat we pose but not to the people we threaten only the Intolerable conditions which allow our highest offices to be filled with career criminals and plutocritic scum here in the city that does not deserve Washington's Name by political prisoners many of whom were tried and found guilty by the media long before the courts had any say so charged with obstructing democracy left of a democracy to obstruct we ask how can one betray a democracy which no longer exists how can one be a traitor against a liberal fantasy to which he was never loyal let them call us their slurs insurrectionists supremacist the list gets longer by the day we seek not Insurrection but Resurrection we seek not Supremacy but sovereignty Patriot front is Thomas Rousseau's personal cult it's his Cult of aggrieved marginal owners who buy into his shtick because name-dropping Thomas Paine is very impressive to people who've never read a book before I know because 15 years ago when I was freshly out of the service and struggling with PTSD it hadn't yet been to school that was me I know from being an ultra conservative Ron Paul supporter back in 2008 when I was in seriously rough shape after coming home from Iraq how important and intelligent people can sound when they rattle off quotes from the founding fathers my personal instability and my desire to find purpose in a new patriotism made me an easy mark back then it made me easy to manipulate back then was when Elmer Stewart Rhodes was using the same exact rhetoric and his connection to the Ron Paul campaign to lure disaffected veterans Into The Oath Keepers I know what it's like to be ripe for radicalization because I was there but what's important to realize is that aggrieved marginal loaners can and do commit real harm when they adopt ideologies promoted by groups like Patriot front and join those Neo-Nazi organizations Dylan roof killed nine black people in a church in Charleston South Carolina here he is wearing a jacket of the flag of apartheid era South Africa and Rhodesia two aggressively racist states that have become the rallying cries for white supremacists who want to accelerate the arrival of an American race war the average Patriot front member has given up their families and friends as they put themselves at legal risk because of their association with Rousseau and his violent cult and like so many Cults they're being used to provide Financial comfort for their cult leader like I said before many are just a single bad day away from being a mass shooter in a country swimming with guns we have these isolated weirdos who are being brought into what is essentially a cult that they have to pay to be members of Thomas Rousseau has taken from Joseph Goebbels of Nazi Germany to build a sophisticated media production system with an Affiliated LLC called media to rise he has explicitly said that their energetic use of video and social media is so-called marketing for Patriot front so we have this kid who's taking lessons from Mussolini and Hitler on how to build a fascist movement and then is marrying it with Kim Kardashian's influencer lessons to Rebrand white supremacy by painting it red white and blue except Thomas Rousseau is a failed leader most of the young men who become members of patriot front don't stick around for very long they might still be neo-nazis and they might still be white supremacists but dealing with Rousseau's immaturity his paranoia his grifting behavior as he funds his lifestyle buff by leeching off of their effort it sucks for the average Patriot front member and they leave how do we know this a task force Butler because we've infiltrated Patriot front numerous times we've been undercover as full-blown members we've shown up to their functions both invited and well not so invited we regularly receive tips from an interview former Patriot front members who regret being a part of the group and want to make things right and of course we've analyzed hundreds of gigs of data when groups like unicorn ride gain access to and release their confidential Communications using our inside knowledge task force Butler literally wrote the book on taking down Patriot front using civil suits and criminal prosecutions it's called project blacklisted and you can learn more about that on our website within weeks of sharing the project blacklisted Report with the lawyers committee for civil rights under law that group was able to use our analysis to help them file a lawsuit against Rousseau some of his top lieutenants and members in Virginia and that's for their conspiracy to engage in a campaign of racial intimidation and to destroy murals depicting black excellence Patriot front is at its core a multi-level marketing scheme for a racist boy from Texas but that doesn't mean that it's harmless when someone spends time in Patriot front they get the rush of being part of Rousseau's spectacle when they go out in their little silly parades but they're also trained in street fighting tactics Communications Recruitment and how to avoid detection as they commit hate crimes now just think about this for a moment there are neo-nazis out there who meet this guy Russo and find that he's too toxic to be around after a few months they leave that's what happens with Thomas Rousseau and Patriot front his behavior may drive them out but they're not leaving the white supremacist cause Patriot front is a pipeline that feeds the rest of the fascist street gangs and white supremacist groups throughout the country right now we're also watching a lot of the fascist street gangs evolved from the al-Qaeda model to the Isis model from Big top-down organizational leadership structure to semi-independent local cells for as long as it's existed Patriot front has been spinning off other smaller local and Regional Neo-Nazi organizations like nsc131 who've been terrorizing New England through Thomas Rousseau Patriot front also functions as part of a broader white supremacist Terror Network that includes organizations such as white lives matter National Justice party nationalist Social Club active clubs the rise above movement the Aryan Freedom Network and Blood Tribe just to name a few in multiple task force Butler reports on Patriot front we've documented where these extraordinarily violent groups are coordinating tax on communities of color lgbtq folks and anyone who might wind up in their path when they're out dressed up in their Best Buy uniforms now while they may look Goofy they're kind of doing that on purpose while they're distracting you with their Best Buy cosplay they're also carrying deadly metal weapons and they're wearing armor because they're looking to physically assault anyone who might bump into them so here's what we want you to take away from this today when you see someone say well we can't see their faces how many of them there are or they look like they work at Best Buy they're not that scary or you see someone who you know who's fallen into the maggot disinformation bubble say something to the effect of oh they're undercover feds there aren't real Nazi organizations in the U.S this is what you need to know patriotfront is a violent terrorist racketeering gang that primarily functions to plan train and manufacture weapons for the explicit purpose of engaging in acts of violence and harassment against minorities the lgbtq plus community and others deemed enemies by Patriot fronts leader Thomas Ryan Russo their goal is to inspire terrorists School shooters and other Predators who want to destroy our country using genocide Russo likes to wrap himself up in self-aggrandizing pseudo-intellectual double speak and compare their wearing of masks to that of the Boston Tea Party and how they dressed up as Native Americans Rousseau claims that they're disguising themselves to engage in so-called activism that their criminality is actually an expression of patriotism that goes back to the founding fathers this is garbage when a thief wears a mask to rob a bank it's not an expression of their patriotism or their bravery standing up against a tyrannical government they're wearing masks because they're criminals doing crimes and they don't want to get caught Ry front members wear masks to deceive you and make you think that their numbers are greater than they actually are we know from being inside the organization that they bulk up local actions by getting an assortment of white supremacists from other organizations to mask up with them and wear those clownish uniforms just for that one day Patriot front members wear masks because they're cowards they know that if they're identified as part of a Neo-Nazi organization that they're going to face consequences at work at school with their families and with their local communities and finally Patriot front members wear masks because they've been diluted into thinking that Thomas Rousseau's pathetic little cult is going to give them a sense of purpose and Brotherhood it doesn't Rousseau is a grifter coward who is playing on people's fears and grievances for his own personal and economic gain that is what Patriot front members tell us he may love to play dress-up and wreck other white supremacist lives by convincing them to break laws to impress him but that doesn't make him less dangerous because when Patriot front members are eventually identified and they're completely isolated from their friends and family all they have left is Rousseau and his cult that's why he wants them to get arrested so he can control them and so that they feel like they have no choice but to send Rousseau money to subsidize his lifestyle now remember when I said that Thomas Rousseau hangs out with pedophiles and murderers we introduced you to the murderous James Fields now let me introduce you to Patriot front member Jared Michael Boyce he was one of those guys picked up in Idaho a few months ago and he pleaded guilty to nine felony counts of sexual exploitation of a minor and a misdemeanor count of dealing in material that's harmful to minors we've recently covered the amount of pedophilia in the white supremacist and fascist street gangs you can find the link in today's show notes the five members of patriot front who were just convicted last week Forest Rankin Devon Center Derek Smith James Michael Johnson and Robert Whitted they will for the rest of their lives be unable to scrub off the stink of Thomas Ryan Russo never be confused Thomas Rousseau is a thug leading a gang of thugs who want to terrorize our society into submission because they truly believe in their fever dream of a white ethno state a task force Butler we're regularly infiltrating their networks and imposing legal real world costs on them there are about two dozen more members of patriot front who will be facing trial on those same charges as part of the same conspiracy to Riot including their leader Thomas Rousseau and our research and Reporting is helping to make sure that they get convicted every day a task force Butler we're making it harder for them to fundraise train and organize and in order to do that work we need your support against all enemies is produced by Ken Harbaugh in partnership with task force baller our team includes our producer Michael L cessor and the task force Butler volunteer researchers who provide much of the Intel and Analysis that will be bringing straight to you in this new show come back tomorrow for another against all enemies please like And subscribe to this Channel and share this video with three friends who you know care about democracy and check us out at taskforce butler.org see you soon
Bill Barr, Donald Trump’s former attorney general who once said that voting for the indicted ex-president would be “playing Russian roulette with the country,” stood by his decision to vote for Trump in November while also suggesting that Trump used to regularly float the idea of executing his political rivals while in office.
Barr made the nonchalant admission Friday during a CNN interview when anchor Kaitlan Collins mentioned former Trump White House communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin claiming that Barr was present in the summer of 2020 when Trump suggested that an unknown White House leaker should be executed.
“I remember him being very mad about that. I actually don’t remember him saying ‘executing,’ but I wouldn‘t dispute it, you know… The president would lose his temper and say things like that. I doubt he would’ve actually carried it out,” Barr said.
Collins then questioned whether Trump would say things like that “on other occasions.”
Barr responded that people would sometimes take Trump “too literally.”
“He would say things similar to that on occasions to blow off steam. But I wouldn’t take them literally every time he did it,” he acknowledged.
Rumination increased rather than decreased anger and aggression. Doing nothing at all was more effective than venting anger. These results directly contradict catharsis theory.
The belief in the value of venting anger has become widespread in our culture. In movies, magazine articles, and even on billboards, people are encouraged to vent their anger and “blow off steam.” For example, in the movie Analyze This, a psychiatrist (played by Billy Crystal) tells his New York gangster client (played by Robert De Niro), “You know what I do when I’m angry? I hit a pillow. Try that.” The client promptly pulls out his gun, points it at the couch, and fires several bullets into the pillow. “Feel better?” asks the psychiatrist....
The theory of catharsis is one popular and authoritative statement that venting one’s anger will produce a positive improvement in one’s psychological state. The word catharsis comes from the Greek word katharsis, which literally translated means a cleansing or purging. According to catharsis theory, acting aggressively or even viewing aggression is an effective way to purge angry and aggressive feelings.
Sigmund Freud believed that repressed negative emotions could build up inside an individual and cause psychological symptoms, such as hysteria (nervous outbursts). Breuer and Freud (1893-1895/1955) proposed that the treatment of hysteria required the discharge of the emotional state previously associated with trauma. They claimed that for interpersonal traumas, such as insults and threats to the ego, emotional expression could be obtained through direct aggression: “The reaction of an injured person to a trauma has really only . . . a ‘cathartic’ effect if it is expressed in an adequate reaction like revenge” (p. PAGE?). Breuer and Freud believed that expressing anger was much better than bottling it up inside.
Freud’s therapeutic ideas on emotional catharsis form the basis of the hydraulic model of anger. The hydraulic model suggests that frustrations lead to anger and that anger, in turn, builds up inside an individual, similar to hydraulic pressure inside a closed environment, until it is released in some way. If people do not let their anger out but try to keep it bottled up inside, it will eventually cause them to explode in an aggressive rage. The modern theories of catharsis are based on this model. Catharsis is seen as a way of relieving the pressure that the anger creates inside the psyche. The core idea is that it is better to let the anger out here and there in little bits as opposed to keeping it inside as it builds up to the point at which a more dangerous explosion results.
If venting really does get anger “out of your system,” then venting should decrease aggression because people are less angry. Almost as soon as psychology researchers began conducting scientific tests of catharsis theory, the theory ran into trouble....
pounding nails should reduce subsequent aggression. The results showed the opposite effect. The people who had hammered the nails were more (rather than less) hostile toward the confederate afterward than were the ones who did not get to pound any nails....
venting anger does not reduce aggression. If anything, they concluded, it makes people more aggressive afterward. More recent research has come to similar conclusions... venting anger can reduce physiological arousal but people must express their anger directly against the provocateur. People also must believe that the provocateur will not retaliate. Venting against substitute targets does not reduce arousal....
Cognitive neoassociation theory posits that aggressive thoughts are linked together in memory, thereby forming an associative network. Once an aggressive thought is processed or stimulated, activation spreads out along the network links and primes or activates associated thoughts as well. Not only are associated aggressive thoughts linked together in memory but thoughts are also linked along the same sort of associative lines to emotional reactions and action tendencies (Bower, 1981; Lang, 1979). Thus, the activation of aggressive thoughts can engender a complex of associations consisting of aggressive ideas, emotions related to violence, and the impetus for aggressive actions.
Cognitive neoassociation theory predicts that venting should increase rather than decrease angry feelings and aggressive behaviors. Venting involves behaving aggressively, often against “safe” inanimate objects....In essence, venting is practicing how to behave aggressively. Such aggressive activity should prime aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behavioral tendencies, especially if the people think about the source of their anger while venting. Thus, venting should keep angry feelings active in memory and also should increase the likelihood of subsequent aggressive responses.
“Because at the end of the day, it wouldn’t be carried out and you could talk sense into him,” Barr argued, prompting Collins to counter that an unexecuted order doesn’t remove the threat.
Barr insisted that there was no threat.
“I don‘t think the threat is there. The thing that I worry about President Trump is not that he’s going to become an autocrat and do those kinds of things,” Barr said.
When Collins inquired as to why Barr believes that, and whether or not it’s a “hunch,” Barr responded that it was just his “feeling.”
“Having worked for him and seen him in action, I don’t think he would actually go and kill political rivals and things like that,” Barr claimed.
Later in the interview, Collins read aloud Trump’s mocking response to Barr following his endorsement. Barr replied by effectively kowtowing: “Classic Trump,” he said.
The “real threat to Democracy,” Barr claimed, came from the Biden administration, as opposed to the former president who has been indicted for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Puerto Rico Is an “Island of Garbage”: Outrage Grows over Trump’s Racist & Xenophobic NYC Rally by Amy Goodman DemocracyNow October 29, 2024 https://www.democracynow.org/shows/2024/10/29
They’re trying to restrict what it means to be American and laundering it through racist jokes... it’s interesting that they choose to put these comedians forward, but it’s not a surprise at all. The laundering of white supremacy through so-called comedy is a common tactic...
You know, they want to create an atmosphere of unsafety for communities of color across this nation. And it’s very serious. It’s not a joke....They would be separating millions of undocumented mothers and fathers from U.S. citizen children across this country, leaving them financially and psychologically devastated....
[T]he Trump campaign released a statement saying this joke, talking about the so-called comedian talking about Puerto Rico as an island of garbage, “This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign...
You are American only, in the American-only vision, if you embrace hatred, if you embrace division and if you embrace this exclusionary vision of America where only certain people who fit the white nationalist agenda belong.
In the final week ahead of the presidential election, Republican Donald Trump’s campaign is facing widespread backlash after his rally Sunday at Madison Square Garden, where conservative comedian Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico “an island of garbage” and others leaned into racist and anti-immigrant rhetoric. We speak to journalist Jean Guerrero, who has published books on Trump’s white nationalist agenda and her own Latina and Puerto Rican identity. Trump is “seeking to restrict the notion of what it means to be American,” says Guerrero. Trump and his supporters are not only othering immigrants and people of color, she argues, but anyone who does not fit a narrow, right-wing view of citizenship. “If you are a liberal, if you believe in compassion and equality and freedom for all, you do not belong in Donald Trump’s America.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: With just one week until Election Day, outrage is mounting following Donald Trump’s campaign rally at Madison Square Garden Sunday. The New York Times described it as a “closing carnival of grievances, misogyny and racism,” unquote. During the event, one speaker described Puerto Rico as an “island of garbage.” Trump also continued to spew his racist rants and lies about immigrants, doubling down on his promise to enforce, quote, “the largest deportation program in American history,” unquote, and claiming the United States is now an occupied country. Trump also described Democrats as “the enemy from within.”
Other speakers included Trump’s running mate JD Vance, tech billionaire Elon Musk, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tucker Carlson, Hulk Hogan, Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s white nationalist, anti-immigrant policies which include the separation of families seeking asylum in the U.S.-Mexico border. These are some of the voices from the rally.
DONALD TRUMP: The United States is now an occupied country, but it will soon be an occupied country no longer. … On day one, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history.
STEPHEN MILLER: America is for Americans and Americans only!
TUCKER CARLSON: It’s going to be pretty hard to look at us and say, “You know what? Kamala Harris, she’s just — she got 85 million votes because she’s just so impressive,” as the first Samoan, Malaysian, low-IQ, former California prosecutor ever to be elected president.
DAVID REM: She is the devil, whoever screamed that out. She is the Antichrist.
SID ROSENBERG: She is some sick bastard, that Hillary Clinton, huh? What a sick son of a bitch! The whole [bleep] party, a bunch of degenerates, lowlives, Jew haters and lowlives.
TONY HINCHCLIFFE: And these Latinos, they love making babies, too. Just know that. They do. They do. There’s no pulling out. They don’t do that. They come inside, just like they did to our country. Hahahaha! Republicans are the party with a good sense of humor. … There’s a lot going on. Like, I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. Yeah, I think it’s called Puerto Rico.
AMY GOODMAN: “There’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.” Those, the words of the conservative so-called comedian Tony Hinchcliffe at Trump’s rally Sunday in Madison Square Garden.
Trump’s campaign has faced widespread anger and condemnation from elected officials, Latino groups, prominent Puerto Rican leaders from both political parties, including the head of Puerto Rico’s Republican Party, as well as Republican Congressmember María Elvira Salazar, who represents parts of Miami and has attended Trump rallies. Vice President Kamala Harris called the remarks “nonsense,” while Puerto Rican music stars Bad Bunny and Ricky Martin quickly announced their endorsement of Harris following Trump’s rally. Reactions to the racist comments included this response on ABC’s The View from co-host Sonny Hostin, whose mother is Puerto Rican. Hostin looked into the camera as she addressed Trump directly.
SONNY HOSTIN: Puerto Rico is trash? We are Americans, Donald Trump. Americans. … And we vote. Pennsylvania is home to almost half a million Puerto Ricans; North Carolina, 115,000; Georgia, 100,000; Arizona, 64,000; Wisconsin, 61,000; Michigan, 43,000; Nevada, 27,000. We vote, Donald Trump. Trash?
AMY GOODMAN: For more, we go to Los Angeles, where we’re joined by Jean Guerrero, contributing opinion writer for The New York Times. She is the author of the book Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda and Crux: A Cross-Border Memoir, which won a PEN Literary Award. She’s a senior journalism fellow at the UCLA Latina Futures 2050 Lab.
Jean, welcome back to Democracy Now! Well, why don’t you just respond to what happened on Sunday? Twenty thousand people gathered at Madison Square Garden. Talk about what they heard.
JEAN GUERRERO: Well, what we saw there was an extreme escalation of the Latinophobic rhetoric that has defined the Trump campaign. And I want to respond first of all to the comments that were made about Puerto Rico. As a Puerto Rican woman with family on the island, who was raised by a Puerto Rican mother who taught me to love this country, to work hard for this country, to defend the vulnerable in this country — all of which appear to be foreign concepts to Donald Trump — I felt very personally offended by these comments but also was filled with a renewed conviction to defeat Trump, which I think a lot of Puerto Ricans are feeling right now.
The bottom line is these comments are evidence that the Trump campaign has nothing to offer the American people besides more hate and more division. They want to divide the Puerto Rican diaspora from the residents of the island. They want to divide Mexican Americans from Central American immigrants. They want to divide Latino men from Latina women. But these divisive tactics are not going to work. They’ve become extremely old. And people, Latina women and Latinos in general, are organizing in response to this extremely racist rally and making sure that they’re going to defend their communities.
But, in general, what these comments also showed during this rally is that they’re seeking to restrict the notion of what it means to be American, who is American, as we saw from Stephen Miller’s comments about “America is for Americans only.” They’re trying to restrict what it means to be American and laundering it through racist jokes. But news flash to the Trump campaign: As other speakers have said before, Puerto Ricans are Americans. They are citizens. And they are going to vote. They’re going to make sure that Trump never again steps foot in the White House.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Jean, I’m wondering if you could talk about the potential impact of this especially in Pennsylvania, where not only is Philadelphia the home of the second-largest Puerto Rican population in the U.S., of any city after New York, but there are these other cities in Pennsylvania? Reading is 67% Latino; and Allentown, 54%; Lancaster, 40%. There’s an enormous — and most of these are Puerto Ricans. There’s an enormous Puerto Rican population in all these small towns in Pennsylvania, in addition to Philadelphia, that I’m sure this is going to have an enormous effect on — as these folks go to the polls this week.
JEAN GUERRERO: Absolutely. I mean, Puerto Ricans are something like half of the Latino vote in Pennsylvania and are a significant portion of the Latino vote and of the vote in general in the other battleground states. And so, I think what we’re going to see as a result of this completely unacceptable rhetoric is the mobilization of the Puerto Rican vote. And we’re going to see people show Donald Trump that we are not going to be divided, that the Puerto Rican diaspora, regardless of not living on the island, we have family on the island. We are proud to be Puerto Rican.
And what that also means is that we’re proud to be American. When the Republicans are trashing Puerto Rico, they are trashing America. And it’s no different from the way that Donald Trump talks about the United States as a dumping ground. You know, this — love of country has become a completely foreign concept to the Republican Party, as revealed by their complete disdain for Latino Americans, for Puerto Rico and for anyone from the region of Latin America. And what you’re going to see as a result of that open disdain, which has been going on for years but has been significantly escalated as of the past couple of days, is a historic mobilization of the Latino vote. And we’re going to make sure that Donald Trump never again is able to wield his power to oppress our communities.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And I’m wondering if you could comment, as well, about the comedian who opened this rally, the patently and really nakedly racist comments he made about other Latinos, about Palestinians, and, in general, his remarks?
JEAN GUERRERO: I mean, all of these remarks, it’s interesting that they choose to put these comedians forward, but it’s not a surprise at all. The laundering of white supremacy through so-called comedy is a common tactic. But when you look at the white supremacist texts and publications that have inspired top Trump advisers like Stephen Miller, it is very clear that they believe in the racial inferiority of people of color, and that not only that, but that they promote violence towards these communities. The end goal of Trump’s anti-immigrant and racist rhetoric is violence towards these communities. You know, they want to create an atmosphere of unsafety for communities of color across this nation. And it’s very serious. It’s not a joke.
You know, they are trying to launder this through comedy, but when you look at what these people actually believe, what they have advocated for, and the policies that they have put in place previously and that they plan to put in place in a second Trump term, these are extremely serious and potentially deadly actions that would separate millions of mixed-status families across the United States. Trump’s mass deportations in a second term would be — they would make his family separations from his first term look restrained. They would be separating millions of undocumented mothers and fathers from U.S. citizen children across this country, leaving them financially and psychologically devastated. We’ve already seen the consequences of this in a first Trump term, and it would be unimaginably worse in a second one.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to play a few clips, Jean Guerrero. First, Trump’s former lawyer, the former mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani, who went on an anti-Palestinian rant as he took the stage.
RUDY GIULIANI: Hamas is not there for us! Iran is not there for us! They want to kill us! And the Palestinians are taught to kill us at 2 years old!
AMY GOODMAN: Last week, a federal judge ordered Rudy Giuliani to hand over his luxury Manhattan apartment and other costly possessions to a pair of Georgia election workers who he defamed after Trump lost in 2020. Now, as this, what the Times called a carnival took place, Kamala Harris lost no time especially on the attack on Puerto Ricans. On Sunday morning, she went to a Puerto Rican restaurant in Philadelphia. She also had released an ad there. But after this campaign rally of President Trump, Kamala Harris released another ad.
TONY HINCHCLIFFE: A floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.
DONALD TRUMP: Puerto Rico.
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: I will never forget what Donald Trump did. He abandoned the island and offered nothing more than paper towels and insults. Puerto Ricans deserve better. As president, I will always fight for you and your families. And together, we can chart a new way forward. I’m Kamala Harris, and I approved this message.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, we should say that the Trump campaign, after the enormous outcry, after Bad Bunny endorsed Kamala Harris right after all of this took place, the Trump campaign released a statement saying this joke, talking about the so-called comedian talking about Puerto Rico as an island of garbage, “This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign,” Danielle Alvarez, a Trump campaign spokesperson, said in a statement. That was one comment they referred to. But there were many for hours at Madison Square Garden. I want to go back to former Trump White House adviser Stephen Miller, who immediately launched into an anti-immigrant, racist tirade when he took the stage at Madison Square Garden.
STEPHEN MILLER: Who is going to stand up and say the cartels are gone, the criminal migrants are gone, the gangs are gone? America is for Americans and Americans only!
AMY GOODMAN: “America is for Americans and Americans only.” Now, Jean Guerrero, you are an expert on Steve Miller. You wrote a book about him, Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda. People don’t usually get to see him speaking unless they’re at some of the rallies where he introduces President Trump. But he is very prominent in writing speeches and in creating — and in working with Trump on this particular issue. Your comments on his significance and in — one in a new Trump administration, where so many of the officials have left Trump at this point in his former administration, but not Stephen Miller?
JEAN GUERRERO: Exactly. He is one of Trump’s most trusted advisers, who shaped his immigration agenda, including the family separation policy, as you noted earlier, Amy. And when he says that America is for Americans only, it’s extremely important to note that when it comes to a second Trump presidency, it’s not only undocumented immigrants who would be deemed undesirable and disposable; it would also be Puerto Ricans, as we saw from this racist rally, even though Puerto Ricans are American citizens. It would also target legal immigrants. If Trump revives the Alien Enemies Act, as he vows to do, countless legal immigrants would be subject to mass internment and expulsion.
But it doesn’t even end with the foreign-born. When it comes to the vision of Stephen Miller and Trump’s other close allies, when they talk about Americans only, they’re talking about the far-right only. And I know this based on the fact that when Trump talks about a, quote-unquote, “enemy within,” he is echoing the title of a book called The Enemy Within that was written by Stephen Miller’s longtime mentor, a man named David Horowitz. And in this book, The Enemy Within, the entire political left is framed as an existential threat to the United States, one that must be defeated at all costs.
And so, when you listen to Stephen Miller talk about Americans only, a lot of people might feel safe, thinking, like, “Oh, you know, like, I was born in the United States.” A lot of Latino voters who are voting for Trump might think that they are immune from these expulsions and these really terrorizing plans that they have in place for the Latino community, but that’s absolutely wrong. They not going to stop with people who are undocumented. They’re not going to stop even with the foreign-born. If you are a liberal, if you believe in compassion and equality and freedom for all, you do not belong in Trump’s America. You are American only, in the American-only vision, if you embrace hatred, if you embrace division and if you embrace this exclusionary vision of America where only certain people who fit the white nationalist agenda belong.
AMY GOODMAN: Jean Guerrero, we want to thank you for being with us, contributing opinion writer for The New York Times, author of Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda and Crux: A Cross-Border Memoir, which won a PEN Literary Award.
Coming up next, we speak with Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a New York University professor and fascism expert. We’ll also speak with a journalist who looked back at Madison Square Garden in an Oscar-nominated film, 1939, a Nazi rally held in the middle of New York City. Stay with us.
A Night at the Garden: An American Nazi Rally in 1939 [ONLY 7 MINUTES] Field of Vision PBS Jul 12, 2020 #ww2 #Documentary #History Official website: https://www.pbs.org/pov/
In 1939, 20,000 Americans rallied in New York’s Madison Square Garden to celebrate the rise of Nazism – an event largely forgotten from American history. A Night At the Garden uses striking archival fragments recorded that night to transport modern audiences into this gathering and shine a light on the disturbing fallibility of seemingly decent people.
Transcript
(crowd cheering) (melancholy music) (crowd cheering) - I pledge undivided allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and the republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. (crowd cheering) (ominous music) - Ladies and gentlemen, fellow Americans, American patriots. I am sure I do not come before you tonight as a complete stranger. You all have heard of me through the Jewish controlled press as a creature with horns, a cloven hoof, and a long tail. We, with American ideals, demand that our government shall be returned to the American people who founded it. (crowd cheering) If you ask what we are actively fighting for under our charter, first, a socially just, white, Gentile-ruled United States. Second, (applause) Gentile-controlled labor unions, free from Jewish Moscow-directed domination. (rumbling and yelling) Here come the police! (muted crowd rumbling) (high-pitched tone droning) (crowd yelling drowns out speech)
Nazis Rallied at Madison Square Garden by Andy Lanset May 1, 2019
Marshall Curry's recent documentary A Night at the Garden (produced by Field of Vision) about the German-American Bund rally in Madison Square Garden in February 1939 and The Radio Diaries piece When Nazis Took Manhattan reminds us that the notion of a fascist America may not just be the stuff of fiction by Sinclair Lewis and Philip Roth, but a real possibility. Given the right social, political, and economic conditions, a significant number of the voting public can indeed be persuaded by demagogues. When Radio Diaries asked the WNYC Archives if we could help with their piece, we were able to come up with two hours' worth of the raw audio from the rally.
A poster used to promote the German-American Bund Rally at Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939. (Poster courtesy of Lorne Bair Books, Inc.)
Why then have we decided to make this hate-filled event available? Well, it wasn't because it's enjoyable listening or that we endorse any of the ideology, perceptions, or language used by the speakers. On the contrary, the rally is a raw, unedited 1 hearing of an infamous event that takes place during a critical period in American history; just months away from the outbreak of World War II, when isolationist and 'America First' sentiment was gaining traction daily. The public rhetoric used by the German-American Bund played to the underlying assumptions of these movements by raising the fear-mongering specter of an internationalist 'Jewish cabal' 2 out to deprive America of its sovereignty and bring Soviet-style communism to our shores. Bund leader Fritz Kuhn put it this way:
We, the German-American Bund, organized as American citizens with American ideals and determined to protect ourselves, our homes, our wives and children against the slimy conspirators who would change this glorious republic into the inferno of a Bolshevik paradise.
Back then the 'cabal' was composed of FDR's treasury secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr., the financier Bernard Baruch and the Rothschild banking family. Today, for those on the alt-right, the Jewish billionaire bogeyman is the progressive George Soros and his supporters.
Original program cover for the German-American Bund rally Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939. Notice, the snake's head has a hammer and sickle on it. (U.S. Holocaust Museum via Wikimedia.)
The speakers relied on a white supremacist tautology with a bizarre American twist that employed George Washington, the nation's founding father, as the patriotic foundation upon which to build their racist non-interventionist platform. The event, orchestrated to coincide with Washington's birthday, (February 22nd), featured a thirty-foot image of the first President flanked by red, white and blue bunting and swastikas as the visual backdrop to a succession of uniformed Bund speakers who drew on Washington's inaugural admonition about avoiding 'foreign entanglements.' One speaker even argued that if Washington was alive today, he would be a 'staunch friend' of Adolph Hitler. To this they added time-worn tropes, stereotypes, and falsehoods about criminal Jewish refugees taking American jobs, Jews creating degenerate art and music, and Jewish teachers corrupting Aryan children.
America's home-grown legacy of slavery, the Klan, Jim Crow laws, and, nativism fed into this anti-Semitic Nazi ideology of racial purity, making it easy for speakers to talk about Jewish carpetbaggers during Reconstruction along with miscegenation or 'race-mixing' and 'lustful Negroes' who only wanted to rape white women. After all, one speaker noted, intermarriage is already illegal in more than half the nation, implying that lawmakers should just finish the job.
Father Charles E. Coughlin broadcasts in Royal Oak, Michigan, Oct. 26, 1936. (AP Photo)
But perhaps no better domestic factor was utilized by the Bund than that of America as a Christian nation with Christian values. Here, the notoriously anti-Semitic Father Charles Coughlin, the outspoken radio evangelist, was held high as a martyr and victim of the 'Jewish-controlled' media. No doubt rally goers were disappointed the controversial preacher was a no-show since Kuhn had repeatedly promised a "prominent Catholic" would attend to discuss "the Jewish question" in the days leading up to the event.
This certainly didn't dampen the address by Bund publicity director Gerhard Wilhelm Kunze, who harped on the Jewish domination of American culture and called for news and culture without "a Jewish accent." Kunze, who fancied himself an American Joseph Goebbels, complained there is "no free speech for white men" in the United States and condemned 'parasites' like Walter Winchell, George Burns, Leonard Bernstein, and Eddie Cantor, for polluting the ether and taking the rightful places of Aryan Americans in the cultural milieu. In brief, he called for the ethnic cleansing of the airwaves. It's not too much of a stretch to go from the Christian Nationalist rhetoric of 80 years ago to current alt-right allusions to Jewish control of Hollywood studios and other media outlets.
The Protests
Towards the end of Kuhn's speech (beginning 1:57:00) you will note there's a disruption of some kind. While we can't see it, Kuhn asks people to remain seated and says, "one fanatic doesn't make any difference, ladies and gentlemen...see, that's the way we never do it." This is the moment when protester Isadore Greenbaum mounts the stage and attempts to reach the podium but is grabbed, beaten, and, stripped by uniformed Bund members. It is Greenbaum's story that is the focus of the Radio Diaries production. The savage assault on him is clearly shown in Marshall Curry's documentary film produced by the short documentary unit Field of Vision.
Isadore Greenbaum being beaten and subdued by Nazi storm troopers at Madison Square Garden, February 20, 1939. (Photo courtesy of The New York Times)
The number of protesters on the streets of New York that cold evening depended in large part on your source, with police estimates ranging anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000.3 Nevertheless, the anti-fascists were hemmed in by at least 1,700 policemen, many mounted on horses, outside of the Garden and at various points on 8th Avenue. (In 1939 the Garden was located at 8th Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets in Manhattan). The New York Times described the police cordon the following day as "a fortress almost impregnable to anti-Nazis."
New York City's mounted police forming a line outside Madison Square Garden to hold in check a crowd that packed the streets where the German American Bund was holding a rally. (AP Photo/Murray Becker)
A mounted police officer attempts to take the flag away from an anti-Nazi demonstrator outside of Madison Square Garden, February 20, 1939. (AP Photo courtesy of The New York Times)
The event received broad national coverage that reflected these divergent takes on what happened. The Brooklyn Eagle reported thirteen people were arrested and eight received medical attention, including four police officers in street skirmishes between Nazis, anti-Nazis, and police. Yet overall, "Despite the scattered fighting in the streets, no serious trouble resulted, and the rally failed to produce the bombing and rioting predicted."4
Socialist Workers Party protest poster against German-American Bund Rally (Poster courtesy of Field of Vision/Marshall Curry Productions.)
People from a wide range of political and Jewish organizations protested, although only the Socialist Workers Party (whose poster is pictured here) was actually noted by the city's paper of record.5 The communist Daily Worker, of course, avoided mentioning the Trotskyist SWP, and pulled no punches in its lead:
"The fetid stench of Hitler Fascism billowed and eddied through Madison Square's vastness last night. Nazidom's outpost in America, the German-American Bund, carried its war on democracy into the Garden with shouts, heils, a band of uniformed storm troopers -- all the made-in-Berlin trappings, including a thin 'Americanism' veneer craftily plotted by German propaganda headquarters."6
My guess is the paper would not have been as damning six months later (August 23, 1939) in the wake of the signing of the Hitler-Stalin non-aggression pact. Still, the Daily Worker that February remained the only newspaper to mention a simultaneous counter-rally "for true Americanism through brotherhood, through democracy," that was held at Julia Richmond High School in Queens. Speakers there included Acting Mayor Newbold Morris (La Guardia was out of town), Judge Anna M. Kross, Professor David Efron of Sarah Lawrence College, and WHN News Commentator George Hamilton Combs. 7
With a pair of Bund "storm troopers" beside her, columnist Dorothy Thompson is pictured still seated, just before being escorted out after laughing and heckling a Nazi speaker. Police later allowed her to return. (AP Photo.)
It Can Happen Here 8
Columnist Dorothy Thompson of The New York Herald Tribune (and wife of novelist Sinclair Lewis, the author of It Can't Happen Here), was escorted out of the rally by two New York City police officers and a Bund stormtrooper after she laughed mockingly when Kunze said the Aryan race follows the Golden Rule while Jews only follow the 'rule of gold' (approx 1:16:50). Thompson was allowed to return after it became clear she was there as a member of the press. Nevertheless, Thompson called Americans 'saps' for allowing such rallies and wrote:
I saw an exact duplicate of it in the Berlin Sports Palast in 1931. That meeting was also 'protected' by the police of the German Republic. Three years later the people who had been in charge of that meeting were in charge of the Government of Germany, and the German citizens against whom, in 1931, exactly the same statements had been made as were made by Mr. Kunze, were being beaten, expropriated and murdered... Whenever he made one of his blanket indictments against all Americans not purely Aryan, the audience applauded and howled with joy. Between Mr. Kunze's speech and a wholesale pogrom is a very short step...I laughed because I wanted to demonstrate how perfectly absurd all this defense of 'free speech' is, in connection with movements and organizations like this one.9
Religious and other groups had, in fact, petitioned New York Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, an outspoken anti-fascist, to ban the rally. A few days before the scheduled event the Mayor suggested featuring Hitler in a chamber of horrors at the World's Fair but said that he wouldn't stop the gathering. He told reporters, "I would then be doing exactly what Hitler is doing in carrying on his abhorrent form of government."10
German-American Bund leader Fritz Kuhn at the Madison Square Garden rally in 1939. (National Archives/Wikimedia Commons)
With the U.S. entry into World War II, the German-American Bund was disbanded and the leaders who spoke at the rally did not fare well. The German-born Fritz Kuhn (the last speaker) was found guilty of tax evasion and embezzling more than $14,000 from the Bund. He was sent to Sing Sing prison for two-and-a-half years. While there his citizenship was revoked on the grounds it had been obtained falsely. He was then rearrested for being an enemy agent and interned at a camp in Texas until the end of World War II when he was deported to Germany. He died in obscurity in 1951.
Gerhard Wilhelm Kunze at the Madison Square Garden Rally in 1939. (National Archives/Wikimedia Commons)
Bund publicity director Gerhard Wilhelm Kunze succeeded Fritz Kuhn as head of the organization. He reportedly provided the New York District Attorney with the financial documents needed to prosecute Kuhn. After the U.S. entry into World War II, Kunze fled to Mexico with the intention of making his way to Germany but was arrested and extradited to the United States, where he was prosecuted and sent to prison for espionage and violating the Selective Service Act.
James Wheeler-Hill, National Secretary for the Bund. (Daily News clipping)
Bund national secretary James Wheeler-Hill was described by the Daily News as "the boy orator of the Bund." He opened the rally and acted as emcee. Wheeler-Hill resigned his post in January 1940 following his arrest for falsely claiming he was an American citizen. A Russian-born (Latvian) national, Wheeler-Hill was convicted and went to prison for a year on Welfare Island. In March 1942 he was interned as an enemy alien by the FBI and may have been deported after the war. This is unconfirmed. His brother Axel was sentenced to 16 years in prison for being a Nazi spy.
Isolationist Pastor Sigmund G. Von Bosse was the rally's second speaker. Described by the Daily Worker as "a frequent headliner at Philadelphia Nazi rallies," Von Bosse was, in fact, a clergyman, heading up the Bethanien Lutheran Church of Roxborough, Pennsylvania from 1934-1941. According to an obituary in The Morning News of Wilmington, Delaware, Von Bosse then went into seclusion. It reported his death in Miami Beach, Florida on November 29, 1958.
Russell J. Dunn was the third speaker. Dunn was a founder of the Catholic Common Cause League and was involved with the founding of the Flatbush Anti-Communist League. He spoke often for the Bund and the Christian Front and had ties to the American Nationalist Party. No other information is available at this time.
The German-born Rudolph Markmann was the fourth speaker. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1933. He led the Atlantic Coast District of the Bund. He was one of eight Bund leaders whose citizenship was revoked in June 1944 on the grounds he violated his citizenship oath by joining the Bund. The Brooklyn Eagle reported (March 21, 1944) that Markmann testified in Brooklyn Federal Court that he eventually quit the Bund's many activities because it interfered with his family life and made him "tired and sleepy." It's not clear if Markmann was ever deported.
A Bund color guard as it marched in Madison Square Garden are saluted by followers on February 20, 1939. (AP Photo courtesy of The New York Times)
Closing Thoughts
After listening to two hours of raw audio and then watching Marshall Curry's six minutes of archive footage, it's almost as if there were two different rallies. Missing from the audio is all of the pageantry and choreography that went into making it a spectacle. Add to that, the earnest looks, the stormtrooper uniforms, and the Nazi salutes. Sure, we hear the crowd roar its approval at what is said, but seeing it, even for a moment, is so much more powerful. Perhaps, this is because it now seems so bizarre, I can't begin to imagine it in my mind's eye.
From a strictly audio perspective, as rallies go, this one had some pretty boring stretches. Kunze was the most dynamic if not rabid of the speakers while Kuhn's revisionist history, though ponderous and tedious, made him, perhaps, the most dangerous. Still, what is remarkable is that their organization was able to muster 20,000 like-minded true believers to fill Madison Square Garden in the name of George Washington and white Christian nationalism. Add to that those around the country who agreed with them but couldn't make the trip and we're talking about a significant number. As filmmaker Curry says:
It’s scary and embarrassing. It tells a story about our country that we’d prefer to forget. We’d like to think that when Nazism rose up, all Americans were instantly appalled. But while the vast majority of Americans were appalled by the Nazis, there was also a significant group of Americans who were sympathetic to their white supremacist, anti-Semitic message.
Eighty years have passed. For some, however, the language and attitudes of that time and place have not faded. Indeed, the ideas and beliefs never really left. It's as if they were a person that went into hiding, kept below the radar and out of sight, waiting patiently for an opportunity to come out into the open. It seems that opportunity has arrived. Some of the persons and groups attacked have changed along with the circumstances, but contemporary discourse and events, sadly, have some eerie echoes from that night at the Garden.
_______________
Notes:
[1] There are a few gaps in the original recording, not necessarily due to an effort to censor or omit material, but simply because that material was missing from the original recordings done on a series of instantaneous lacquer-coated aluminum discs. Based on the original event program, what appears to be missing here is the music and singing.
[2] The notion of a global conspiracy by rich and powerful Jews is hardly new. Members of the German-American Bund were no doubt inspired, at least in part, by The Elders of the Protocols of Zion a late 19th-century anti-Semitic tract published in Russia that purports to be the minutes of meetings held by Jews plotting to take control of the world. Although a proven forgery, it was published and widely distributed in the United States in the 1920s by auto magnate Henry Ford through his weekly newspaper, The Dearborn Independent.
[3] 22,000 Nazis Hold Rally in Garden; Police Check Foes, The New York Times, February 21, 1939, pg.1. This contrasts with The Albany Times Union front-page headline the next day proclaiming: "RIOTS AT N.Y. BUND MEETING 100,000 Jam Area as Army of Police Quells Outbreaks."
[4] "Army of Police Cuts Bund Rally Casualties to Only a Few Injured," The Brooklyn Eagle, February 21, 1939, pg.3. But did any of the injured include the 13 Nazis who attacked Joseph L. Greenstein, a.k.a. The Mighty Atom, who ripped down a Nazi banner outside the Garden? It may never be known, but you can listen to Greenstein's story by Nate DiMeo following the Radio Diaries piece at: When Nazis Took Manhattan or go directly to: The Year Hank Greenberg Hit 58 Home Runs.
[8] This refers to the Sinclair Lewis' novel It Can't Happen Here, a political satire describing the election of a 'patriotic' demagogue to the presidency and his Nazi-like take over of the country. This is also the same pitch line filmmaker Marshall Curry used to advertise his documentary on Fox News. The network, however, refused to air the ad as written, calling it "inappropriate." See: Hollywood Reporter.
Fox News Rejects National Ad for Oscar-Nominated Anti-Nazi Documentary (Exclusive). Fox News has rejected a national advertising buy for a 30-second spot that warns viewers about the potential dangers of American fascism after an ad sales representative said network leadership deemed it inappropriate, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. by Jeremy Barr Hollywood Reporter February 13, 2019 3:05pm https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ ... y-1186379/
Courtesy of Marshall Curry Productions
Fox News has rejected a national advertising buy for a 30-second spot that warns viewers about the potential dangers of American fascism after an ad sales representative said network leadership deemed it inappropriate, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
The spot was to double as a promotion of this year’s Oscar-nominated documentary short A Night at the Garden, which recounts a 1939 Nazi rally in New York City, and a warning — “It Can Happen Here” — to Sean Hannity’s largely conservative viewers about the potential dangers of President Donald Trump’s brand of populism.
An ad was bought to air locally during Monday night’s edition of Hannity’s primetime show through a regional advertising buy on Charter Communications’ Spectrum service in Los Angeles, but was precluded by breaking news — coverage of President Trump’s rally in Texas.
The film’s distributor, Field of Vision, then decided to purchase a national spot on Hannity’s show, but was rebuffed by the network, which controls national advertising.
A Fox News national ad sales representative told the distributor’s media-buying agency on Wednesday that CEO Suzanne Scott (“our CEO”) said the ad was “not appropriate for our air,” according to email correspondence viewed by THR.
Cable networks like Fox News do not oversee locally bought ads but can reject national advertising spots. In August 2017, CNN declined to run a paid advertisement from the Trump re-election campaign because it portrayed some of the network’s news personalities as “enemies” of the president, a decision the campaign decried as censorship.
“The film shines a light on a time when thousands of Americans fell under the spell of a demagogue who attacked the press and scapegoated minorities using the symbols of American patriotism,” Night at the Garden director Marshall Curry said in a statement to THR.
He added, “It’s amazing to me that the CEO of Fox News would personally inject herself into a small ad buy just to make sure that Hannity viewers weren’t exposed to this chapter of American history.”
To fulfill Monday’s aborted local ad buy, the documentary’s ad will run during Thursday night’s episode of Hannity in Los Angeles, through Charter. The film’s backers also plan to advertise on other national cable news networks.
Night at the Garden marks Curry’s third Oscar nomination, following nods for his 2005 documentary on now-Sen. Cory Booker (Street Fight) and the 2011 film If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front.
Field of Vision, the documentary unit of First Look Media, was created by Citizenfour filmmaker Laura Poitras, AJ Schnack and Charlotte Cook.
A Fox News spokesperson has not yet responded to a request for comment.
[9] Thompson, Dorothy, "Miss Thompson Issues Statement on Bund Rally," The New York Herald Tribune, February 21, 1939, pg. 3.
[10] "La Guardia Lets Bund Hold Rally," The Daily News, February 18, 1939, pg. 3.
[11] This phrase refers to Hannah Arendt's description of Adolph Eichmann at his 1962 trial in Israel. Eichmann was the Nazis' chief architect of the genocidal 'final solution' for the Jews of Europe. In Arendt's 1963 book, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, she writes about the 'normalization of wickedness'. In this regard, I highly recommend reading a piece by writer Maria Popova.
Special thanks to Andrew Golis, Jim Schachter, Joe Richman, Sarah Kramer, Marshall Curry, Ben Goldberg and Lorne Bair.
Audio recording source: National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
Wearing the shirt which storm troopers ripped when he interrupted a speech given by Bund leader Fritz Kuhn, anti-Nazi protester Isadore Greenbaum is reunited with his wife and son after his ordeal, February 20, 1939. (AP Photo courtesy of The New York Times)
[Tony Hinchcliffe] I welcome migrants to the United States of America with Open Arms, and by Open Arms I mean like this. [Spreads arms wide, w/both hands waving Migrants away.] It's wild. And these Latinos they love making babies too. Just know that. They do. They do. There's no pulling out. They don't do that. They come inside, just like they did to our country.
[Charles Carreon's Declaration of Independence: "Take two, they're small! Forever yours, Charles Carreon"]
There once was a man named Columbus Italian I think that he was He got lost on the way to the Indies And laid claim to this country instead
The people who lived here were Mayas Olmecas, Toltecas and such We worshipped among the volcanoes And lived in traditional huts
We lived mainly on beans and tortillas With tomatoes and chilies for spice We built pyramids bigger than Walmarts But the greeters were not very nice.
When Cortez arrived sometime later He kidnapped the Mexican King We had heavy clubs and obsidian knives But against bullets they don't do a thing.
The Padres and Popes screwed us freely And the Spanish gave way to the French Benito Juarez strung up Maximillian Ruling Mexico's never a cinch.
Of course, we once owned California Arizona, New Mexico, too We mined gold, silver and turquoise But not like Americans do.
Then you dammed up the water, you bastards, The Colorado no longer flows free To the Golfo de California You took it for nothing from me.
You make fun of our clothes and our English Even though Espanol you can't speak You deride us for tanning so darkly While you hide from the sun like a freak.
Go on laugh, you pinche Cabrones Laugh until you piss your pants We are the ones with cojones Move aside, so that we can get past.
We won't spit in your milkshake, hermano In fact let me supersize that More fries? Absolutely senora, When compared with a pig, you're not fat.
You watch porn like you're all maricones Jerking off while your wives waste away When you forget how to screw altogether I will call that a wonderful day.
When cute Mexicanas are flirting Red blooded chamacos must play It's true we don't do much computing You don't make Mexicanos that way.
You're going to build walls on the border With Mexican Labor I hear The Israelis tried that in their desert Soon we'll have suicide beaners here.
You are laughing, I see mi amigo, Your sonrisa is smiling so bright So have one of these chili poppers On a Mexican fourth of July.
We speak with Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an expert on fascism and authoritarianism, who argues that Trump’s use of the hallmarks of “fascism and violence,” including dehumanizing rhetoric, profane and crude discriminatory language and threats to the “enemy within,” echoes the rise of midcentury fascist rulers like Francisco Franco and Adolf Hitler.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, “War, Peace and the Presidency.” I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
Vice President Kamala Harris makes her closing arguments to voters tonight at the Ellipse near the White House, where Donald Trump gave his speech on January 6, 2021, just before his supporters rioted at the Capitol. Trump made his closing arguments Sunday at Madison Square Garden. As he did so, local democratic socialists protested nearby at Bryant Park.
For more on Trump’s closing arguments and the rise of the authoritarian right, we’re joined by Ruth Ben-Ghiat, expert on fascism and authoritarianism. She’s the author of Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present and a professor of history and Italian studies at New York University. She also publishes the newsletter Lucid on threats to democracy.
Professor, welcome back to Democracy Now! In the lead-up to this final week of the election, if you can talk about the comments of President Trump, everything from arresting his enemies to the enemy within, and what this echoes for you?
RUTH BEN-GHIAT: Yeah. So, you know, fascism started almost a hundred years ago in both Italy and Germany with a core of combatants from World War I who brought the war home and turned their wrath and their force and their violence on liberals, on leftists, on progressive priests, on anybody who did not — was not in their leader cults. And so, when Donald Trump talks about America being an occupied country that he’s going to liberate, this is the language also of Francisco Franco. This is the language of fascism and violence.
And, you know, when we think about all the dehumanizing rhetoric and the explicit references to Hitler’s Germany, you know, Trump doesn’t want people comparing him to Hitler, even sued CNN for $475 million, claiming they were comparing him to Hitler, but he himself has — his campaign has explicitly made these parallels, even releasing a campaign ad that talked about him creating a, quote, “unified reich” and, of course, calling people “vermin.”
And I want to say something about the use of profanity and the crudeness of all of these remarks at the Madison Square Garden rally, which of course was the site of the American Nazi rally, because we think about authoritarianism as imposing controls on people and silencing people, and it certainly does that. But it also is designed, from fascism forward, to make people become their worst selves, to give them permission to be as violent and unrestrained as possible. And so, deregulation, just as, you know, Project 2025 wants to deregulate environmental protections and food safety things, following what happened during the Trump presidency, there’s also a deregulation of inhibitions, of morals, and so that you will be not — less bothered when the violence starts. You will turn the other cheek, or you will participate in it. And this kind of profanity, you know, at women, the misogyny, anti-Black statements, calling Latinos garbage, it’s not only a tradition of dehumanization that starts with fascism and goes through authoritarian movements up to our day, it’s also designed to make people feel, the foot soldiers of MAGA, that there are no restraints, there are no controls, and everything will be accepted as long as it is in the service of targeting the enemy within.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to two clips of Donald Trump, and these have become quite familiar. He called for the National Guard or U.S. military to be deployed on U.S. soil to target what he called radical left lunatics. Trump made the call, at least this particular one — he said it repeatedly — during an interview on Fox News.
DONALD TRUMP: I think the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the — and it should be very easily handled by — if necessary, by National Guard or, if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen.
AMY GOODMAN: And this is Donald Trump speaking in Aurora, Colorado, earlier this month.
DONALD TRUMP: It’s the enemy from within, all the scum that we have to deal with, that hate our country. That’s a bigger enemy than China and Russia.
AMY GOODMAN: And, of course, we know what John Kelly said, his former, longest-lasting chief of staff, the general, who called him the “definition of a fascist.” Your response, Professor Ben-Ghiat?
RUTH BEN-GHIAT: So, you know, retired military officers, especially generals, don’t speak out unless they feel there’s a real need to do so. And the fact we’re seeing General Kelly, General Milley, former Defense Secretary Esper speak out and use the “F” word, calling Trump a fascist, means that they are highly concerned about a possible misuse of the military, because, again, this goes back. When Trump talks about scum and perhaps needing to use the military against them, this echoes Francisco Franco and the whole discourse of the subhuman, which was integral to fascism.
But there’s also a geopolitical dimension that’s very important, because if you’re Putin or Xi or North Korea and you have your expansionist aspirations, the power and professionalism of the U.S. military is a huge problem. The global reach of the U.S. military is a huge problem. So, here comes Donald Trump, who’s the latest partner of Putin — there’s been Gerhard Schröder, Silvio Berlusconi, now we have Trump — who wants to give the U.S. military a new role, concentrating them on domestic repression, withdrawing from NATO, calling troops back from abroad. And so, we have to think about who benefits geopolitically from this rerouting of the military. I’m not saying the military would go along with this, but this is what Trump is saying by — when he declares repeatedly, and as does JD Vance, that the bigger problem — you know, Russia and China are not the biggest problem; it’s the enemy within. So, this refocusing of military and armed force on American people benefits Putin, benefits Xi, benefits any autocrat who has expansionist ambitions.
We take a close look at Donald Trump’s campaign and racist rally at Madison Square Garden with filmmaker Marshall Curry, who attended the rally and also directed the short film A Night at the Garden, about the 1939 Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden, and notes, “The demagogues in 1939 used the same tactics that we see today.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to bring into this discussion Marshall Curry. Marshall Curry went to the Madison Square Garden event, but he also did an Oscar-nominated film. That film was called A Night at the Garden, about the 1939 Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden. This is a clip.
FRITZ KUHN: Ladies and gentlemen, fellow Americans, American patriots, I am sure I do not come before you tonight as a complete stranger. You all have heard of me through the Jewish-controlled press as a creature with horns, a cloven hoof and a long tail. We, with American ideals, demand that our government shall be returned to the American people who founded it.
If you ask what we are actively fighting for under our charter, first, a social, just, white, gentile-ruled United States. Second, gentile-controlled labor union, free from Jewish, Moscow-directed domination.
AMY GOODMAN: A Night at the Garden. That was an excerpt not of Nazi Germany, but of a Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden in 1939, from the Academy Award-nominated short film directed by Marshall Curry. That voice, explain what we just saw and listened to, and the person, the protester, who came up and was beaten up.
MARSHALL CURRY: Sure. So, in 1939, there was a rally in Madison Square Garden where 20,000 New Yorkers gathered to celebrate the rise of Nazism. And when I first saw that footage, I was completely shocked to see the American flag and George Washington and, you know, hear people singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” and saying the Pledge of Allegiance, and then offering a stiff-armed salute and cheering white supremacy.
So, the man who was speaking was named Fritz Kuhn. He was the head of the German American Bund, which had camps all around the country, had quite a big following and some significant power. The protester who runs out on stage and is beaten up was a man named Isadore Greenbaum, who was a Jewish plumber’s assistant who just went to the rally that night to find out what was going on, and was shocked and appalled by what he saw.
AMY GOODMAN: And you went to Madison Square Garden Sunday?
MARSHALL CURRY: I did. So, I made this film seven years ago out of archival material that we sort of found in the National Archive and UCLA’s archive and Grinberg Archive. And that was, you know, seven years ago, at the beginning of Trump’s administration. I saw some similarities between some of the demagoguery that was happening on stage in 1939 and what Trump was doing at his rallies. And so — but I had never actually seen a Trump rally personally. And so, when I heard that he was going to be at Madison Square Garden, I thought I needed to go and see it for myself.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Marshall Curry, as you mentioned your surprise, many Americans are not aware of how extensive the fascist and Nazi movement was in the U.S. back in those days. Could you talk about that?
MARSHALL CURRY: Sure. I mean, when I grew up, I always learned in school that America took on the fascists and we fought the Nazis and defeated them. And we did, and that’s a great, you know, point of pride for our country. But we were not entirely united. As today, there were people in our midst who were antisemites, who were anti-immigrant.
And I think the thing that struck me the most about seeing that footage was the way that the demagogues in 1939 used the same tactics that we see today. You know, they use this kind of dark humor. They wrap their ideology in the symbols of patriotism, and they go after immigrants and the press and minority religions. And they do it to distract people from the fact that they really want to cut taxes for rich people and take away healthcare and do policies that people wouldn’t support.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And I’d like to ask, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, this Madison Square rally has happened numerous times in U.S. history. People forget that in 1968, when George Wallace, the white supremacist governor, was running for president, he held a rally at Madison Square Garden in October of 1968. And it was filled, as well, with segregationists from right here in New York City. And in fact, the police were picking up people in the streets, anyone who was trying to protest the Wallace rally. I know because I was a young college student at the time trying to get down to Madison Square Garden, was picked up by the police blocks away from Madison Square Garden, and we were held in vans until after the rally was over, hundreds of people. The reality is that filling Madison Square Garden is really not that hard for a political movement. You’re talking about less than — in a metropolitan area of 20 million people, being able to get 20,000 zealots in an arena is basically two-tenths of 1% of the population.
RUTH BEN-GHIAT: Yes. And the other thing is that this rally, all the different strains of it, playing “Dixie,” this Trump rally, you know, Trump has always provided a big tent, from the very beginning, 2015, ’16, for every possible kind of racist and extremist in America. He addressed himself to Southern racists, people who — he addressed himself to Proud Boys, to neo-Nazis, famously, at the Charlottesville rally — every type of person with a grievance, and then enlarged that with espousing great replacement theory, and, of course, in partnership with Fox, with the GOP elite, etc.
And so, all of this was represented at this rally, together with people from the fields of business, like the businessman Grant Cardone, who said, “We have to slaughter these people,” referring to people who aren’t supporting Trump. And you had people from the world of entertainment and from sports. And so, Madison Square Garden, you know, a seat of spectacles and sports spectacles, entertainment spectacles, political spectacles, was the perfect place, actually, for MAGA to show how many people are fitting into its big tent of racism and extremism.
AMY GOODMAN: Ruth Ben-Ghiat, we want to thank you for being with us, expert on fascism and authoritarianism, wrote the book Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present. Her newsletter is called Lucid, on threats to democracy. And we want to thank Marshall Curry, director of the Oscar-nominated short film A Night at the Garden about the Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden in 1939.