Saturday, April 08, 2023

'History repeating itself': Rachel Maddow charts a new outbreak of Nazism in the US

Sarah K. Burris

Rachel Maddow 011014 [MSNBC]

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow explained that over the last several years, there has been a rise of extremism in the U.S., and added that it isn't just about the far-right and their cozy relationship with conservatives.

In one case, author Jodi Picoult had one of her best-selling books banned from a Florida library because a parent objected to the telling of a story involving the Holocaust.

Maddow explained, "it is about a county in Florida, and they have banded from their school libraries under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis' broad, vague, new laws about what kids can and cannot read. The Storyteller is a novel about the Holocaust, anti-semitism, and fascism in Germany. It was a strange irony that they wanted this particular book removed because it was like history repeating itself. That feeling and stuff we thought we left behind is rearing its head again and that feeling is happening a lot these days."

She went on to cite a recent hearing about the COVID-19 crisis and how it was handled that welcomed a witness named Nicholas Wade’s who penned a book called A Troublesome Inheritance. The New Republic wrote a review describing it as "a book which argues, among other things, that Jews possess a genetic 'adaptation to capitalism.'" He was a witness welcomed by the Oversight Committee chair, Republican Rep. James Comer (KY).

"He is famous for writing a book claiming that Jewish people are genetically evolved and biologically programmed to love money. That was the expert they brought in on the science of COVID," said Maddow.

Meanwhile, she pointed to Donald Trump's son Eric, who is traveling the country with an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist who says "the Jews did 9/11" and that "Hitler was fighting 'the same people that we are trying to take down today.'" They headed to one of the Trump properties in Florida for a weekend soon.

Hundreds of anti-Semitic flyers have been dumped all over West Palm Beach, where a group with Eric Trump and his Hitler-loving pal are headed. The person was ticketed for littering.

In Jacksonville, Florida, individuals were seen projecting a five-story tall swastika linked with a cross on a building.

In Ohio, during a drag queen story hour, a hoard of Nazis shows up to protest the event.

"Many of them were armed and a lot of them were carrying swastika flags and shouting," described Maddow. She ran a video of them chanting "Sieg Heil" and giving the Nazi salute. There were more Nazi chants as well.

These are the people that Republicans and conservatives are allying themselves.

"They are talking about Hitler overthrowing the republic," Maddow explained. "You know what his solution was? Again, these guys are out in numbers and enforce screaming at Ohio kids this weekend. We got some folks on the right trying to ban books about the rise of nazism and anti-Semitism in 1930. Others are literally trying to make it happen all over again."

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