The original America First movement had a soft spot for Fascists. America First 2.0 is burdened with the same bug.

As Hitler consolidated control over central Europe Republican politicians bowed, scraped and lapped up the money he offered to polish Germany’s public image and rebuild its military. A century later, the Republicans behind our second wave of America First are struggling with the baggage of their newest Fascist ally.
Mitt Romney described the current Republican infatuation with Putin as “almost treasonous” in an interview on Sunday. That treason runs deep, but now it’s running for cover. With Ukraine putting up a fight and global sentiment swinging heavily against the Russians, Republicans with pockets full of rubles are struggling to explain away their pandering for a foreign dictator. It’s not going well.
Prominent Republicans including the former President and former Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, responded to news of the Ukraine invasion by continuing the party’s six year tradition of shilling for the Russians. Tucker Carlson openly sided with the dictator, describing Putin’s enemies as “permanent Washington.” That’s after he said back in November, “Why shouldn’t I root for Russia, which by the way, I am [sic].”
Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast featured mercenary CEO, Erik Prince. The two chuckled over their admiration for Putin’s Russia where, “people still know which bathroom to use.” Russians, they joked, “don’t have those pride flags.”
Republican Senate candidate in Ohio, JD Vance, went further, explaining that he “did not serve in the Marine Corps to go and fight Vladimir Putin because he didn’t believe in transgender rights, which is what the U.S. State Department is saying is a major problem with Russia.”

Why did Republicans spend the past half-decade cozying up to Putin? Money and ideology.
For years the Kremlin has poured money into rightwing causes in the US and Europe. Millions went to the NRA alone, which was entangled in a Cold War-style spy scandal when Maria Butina and her American boyfriend were arrested for an espionage scheme targeting the organization. Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, had been helping the Kremlin in Ukraine for years before the joined the campaign. Manafort helped the Russians strip a plank from the 2016 Republican platform expressing support for Ukraine. Manafort’s involvement in the Trump campaign was described in the Republican Senate Intelligence Committee report on the election as a “grave counterintelligence threat,” opening an avenue for “Russian intelligence services to exert influence over, and acquire confidential information on, the Trump campaign.”
Russian money poured into campaign coffers and phony projects to burnish politicians’ reputations, like an imaginary aluminum mill that Oleg Deripaska promised to build for McConnell in Kentucky. In 2018, eight Republican Congressional leaders spent the 4th of July as guests of the Kremlin in Moscow. No one in the GOP thought that was odd. Republican Senator Ron Johnson was warned by the FBI in 2019 that he was being used by Russian intelligence, a warning he shrugged off. Then he helped Trump in his attempt to extort illegal campaign assistance from Ukraine in exchange for military assistance.
As recently as early February, Republicans were introducing bills to help the Kremlin by blocking aid to Ukraine. The bill gained splashy support from GOP hacks like Matt Gaetz, Madison Cawthorn and Paul Gosar. Even after the invasion, Republican Senator and Presidential hopeful, Josh Hawley, is working to weaken NATO and block support for Ukraine.
More important, and perhaps more sinister than the bribes is the connection between Putin’s model of herrenvolk electoral Fascism and Republican dreams of a new white republic. American Fascist leader, Richard Spencer described Russia as “the sole white power in the world.” Arch-conservative thinker, Pat Buchanan, is perhaps the author of America’s right wing pro-Putin mythology. Back in 2018 he explained that Putin is “standing up for traditional values against Western cultural elites.” Conservative author Rod Dreher, who recently backed up his love of European Fascists by moving to Hungary, echoed Buchanan’s line, “I adamantly oppose risking the lives of boys from Louisiana and Alabama to make the Donbas safe for genderqueers and migrants.”
No one put Republican infatuation with Russia in simpler terms than KKK leader David Duke, who proclaimed two decades ago that, “Russia is the key to white survival.” Putin has become a hero to the white nationalists behind our reborn America First movement. Now that attachment has become a PR problem. They had every reason to expect this would backfire, since the same thing happened in the same way to the same movement in a previous generation.
Henry Ford was convinced that World War I was a plot by Jewish bankers. He’s the only American praised by name in Mein Kampf, where Hitler described him as the “single great man” who stood against the Jewish domination of Wall Street. Ford wasn’t Hitler’s only American friend.
Charles Lindbergh lent his fame to the America First movement. He made several splashy visits to Hitler’s Germany where he was presented with the Service Cross by Göring. On his return to the US he toured incessantly, giving speeches lauding Hitler and insisting that the Germans could not be defeated. Lindbergh explained, “Europe, and the entire world, is fortunate that a Nazi Germany lies, at present, between Communistic Russia and a demoralized France.”

Father Coughlin, a Detroit priest with a widely-followed radio show played the role of Tucker Carlson, spewing racist and antisemitic bile to his broad audience. His shows praised European Fascist movements as the antidote to Communism. He organized public support for the Fascists in Spain’s Civil War. He blamed Kristallnacht on the persecution of Christians. Even after the Protocols of the Elders of Zion had been debunked as a fraud, Coughlin serialized the work on his broadcasts.
The peak of rightwing support for Hitler came early in 1939, when the German-American Bund, the Nazi’s wing in the US, sold out Madison Square Garden. Their event featured a giant banner of George Washington flanked with swastikas. A crowd of more than 20,000 heard the head of the Bund praise the American spirit, built on the power of “the militant white man.”

As war began in Europe, Republican Senator Gerald Nye blamed the Jews in Hollywood for stirring up American passions against the Nazis. In a Congressional hearing to investigate this seditious campaign to bring Americans into the war he read off the names of Jewish studio officials, sneering at the foreign tones. He was on stage at an America First rally in Pittsburgh when news of the attack on Pearl Harbor was delivered.
Nye would lose his next election. Henry Ford would abandon his flirtation with the Nazis, collaborating with the Roosevelt Administration to build “the arsenal of democracy.” Lindbergh ending his America First agitation, offering his assistance to the Army Air Corps. He would fly a few missions as a consultant, but the President denied his request to have his commission reinstated. The church hierarchy would cut off Coughlin in 1939. He’d struggle on with mailings and speeches until his antics were suspended by the government under the Espionage Acts in 1942. He would spend the rest of his days as a modest parish priest.
As World War II began, Americans who’d shamed themselves by their alignment with the enemies of democracy would cover their tracks, struggle to redeem themselves, or fade into obscurity. What happens to the America First Republicans this time around is an open question. Many in the party will rally to Romney’s position, but that lifeboat isn’t big enough for everyone.
Republican support for Russia is pretty outrageous, but it’s not the most roundly unpopular position Republicans have backed, without consequences, in recent years. They may yet escape the consequences of their treason, but we don’t have to forget.
When you have leaders of media and the repubs embracing the totalitarian vision of putin, it is long past trying to reach these people. The only option is their eradication. I don’t mean that figuratively. Kill them before they kill you.
Q. What’s the difference between a Republican and a Ukrainian?
A. A Ukrainian defends their Capitol.
One only has to watch any of dozens of key people in the death cult to understand that they are fascists. C’mon….we have already witnessed what they think of elections…well, the entire democratic process.
I said it before: No later than 2025, the three largest militaries and the 2 largest economies will be in the hands of dictators. What we are seeing in Ukraine is an overt attack against democracy. What is happening in the u.s. is 1000 times more devastating to the democratic order, but is ignored by the loser party because it is being done by fellow “citizens”.
This is interesting:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/mar/04/bot-holiday-covid-misinformation-ukraine-social-media?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark
So if your anti-science trucker convoy is suddenly getting a lot less Twitter-love, there’s your sign.
Chris Ladd is a GREAT human being and, therefore, a GREAT AMERICAN. I have read a LOT in 81 years, nothing so consistently on point and fact based as Ladd’s commentary. Thank you Chris, you give an old man rational cause for hope. Love, Peter Castaldi
Back on Election Day in 2018, I was volunteering at a voting site, and saw a young couple, late teens – early 20s, blond haired all American boy/ girl looks, parading around in red, white, and blue outfits holding up literal “America 1st” signs. We had been instructed not to engage with the opposing side, and I honored that, but I was so tempted to ask then what they knew about the history of the words on their signs. I sort of regret not doing so, but even almost 4 years later I would be willing to take bets that they would have known next to nothing about the things Chris has posted. I knew almost all of it, but sadly not from school.
On a related note, the courage shown by President Zelensky in his public vow to stay in Ukraine and fight would be awe inspiring anytime, but it stands out in even sharper contrast against the mewling, pathetic cowards in the GOP ranks. Witness George Stephenopolis’ interview of Tom Cotton, who couldn’t even muster the backbone to criticize dear leader for praising Putin. Good that George pressed him more than usual, but it’s time for the press to get even tougher.
I fervently hope Zelensky survives this, although his odds are awful. But with his courage he has done major damage to Putin’s schemes, and even murdering him can’t reverse it.
There’s lots of disinformation in war, so I’m cautious about the things I hear, especially the good news. But is does look like Ukraine has a total upper hand in the propaganda front, and if that report of Russian security people tipping off Zelensky is true, Putin probably isn’t sleeping too well. We can hope it’s so.
I’m not an unusually prayerful person, but I am in this case. I’d rather have Zelinskyy as a live leader than a dead martyr. (From my mouth to God’s ear. . . or. . . from my mouth to the ear of [deity of your choice]).
Absolutely. We have too few brave and honorable people. But his willingness to die has put Putin in a bind. He will inspire his people regardless. Hopefully as a live hero.
Amen.
Your chillingly accurate rendition and commentary again enlighten and instruct.
You are fully correct in mentioning the monetary similarities between the original America Firsters and the current group. Then the business people could make many dollars by cozying up to Hitler. Now they can make fortunes by cozying up to Putin.
It is no accident, that the political party involved is the Republican Party.
Those who were paying close attention to the Republican Presidential Convention, noted the strange, last minute change demanded by T regarding military support for Ukraine. Alert media on the left pointed out this inexplicable delay in the convention but no one could figure out what or why this change was happening.
Now we know. T and Putin go way back. Oh, to have been a fly on the wall in Putin’s tv room as election results came in. So many plans…
“Alert Media on the left”. Thank you, ma’am.