Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism

by Rachel Maddow

There is no direct evidence that George Deatherage relayed the German embassy’s advice—and von Gienanth’s judgment about the power of American antisemitism—to the man Deatherage was recruiting to lead his movement, General George Van Horn Moseley. But it also doesn’t seem like the general needed much prodding along those lines. Out on the hustings, after his retirement from the military, he liked to warm up his crowds with a hearty defense of the Second Amendment—at least for the righteous. “Remember, today the right to carry arms must not be abridged,” he told a luncheon group in Indianapolis, to loud applause. “In taking the rifle or weapon from the Communists, from the [union members who belonged to the Congress of Industrial Organizations], and the murderers, we must not abridge that right of the patriotic Americans to bear arms. Remember that, in all history, before an internal enemy attempts to destroy his victim, he first disarms him by the operation of law.”