![]() I think the judgment of history is that it certainly was nowhere near as developed as maybe Butler made it out to seem.īut Butler would then go on to spend the next years of his life as this kind of fascinating leftist gadfly voice against the predations of American capitalism and American imperialism. Subsequently, it's unclear if such a coup plot existed. This was front page news in The New York Times and I think The Philadelphia Inquirer and other places. Smedley Butler, testified before a House congressional inquiry, and then subsequently made that public, that he had been recruited by a Wall Street bond salesman and another high ranking military official to essentially be the figurehead for a fascist coup against FDR, that a combination of right-wing business interests who hated the new president and thought he was a communist and thought he was extinguishing American liberty and was going to destroy American capitalism, along with veterans and active duty members who are sympathetic to that cause would unite and march an army of, Butler said that he was promised 500,000 troops on the Capitol under the false pretense that FDR was sick and declare Butler and maybe someone else as the kind of reigning dictator of the country. In 1934, one of the most decorated Marines, Gen. All these linguistic terms we've grappled with to describe what happened to American democracy tend to have these associations with foreign countries.īut there's actually a fascinating footnote on that about a fascist coup plot in the United States, at least one that was alleged. ![]() I think it's probably also true about insurrection. I think it's powerful language, because it's the kind of language we don't normally think of in an American context and that's, I think, part of the power of that phrase and the effect of it. One of the things that's striking about talking to Congressman Raskin, who's serving on the January 6 Committee is that he refers to what happened on January 6th as a fascist coup or a would-be fascist coup sometimes. If you haven't heard that episode, I really recommend it. ![]() Recently we had Jamie Raskin, the Congress member, on the podcast. Jonathan Katz: When you've got a lot of money and a capital in this country and that money is influential like you use it, that's what happened, unless somebody stops you or unless there's a law passed.Ĭhris Hayes: Hello and welcome to Why Is This Happening with me, your host, Chris Hayes.
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