Below new york, thank you for joining us live at town hall in new york city for this very special addition of why is this happening . He is incisive, he is big hearted, he is very, very smart, and admit it, he is taller than you expected. Please give a warm welcome to my friend, my beloved colleague, msnbcs chris hayes. Hey, everybody, hello. [applause] thank you, hey, oh, stop. Stop. [applause] how are you . Good. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Sit down, sit down, sit down. Thank you, thats extremely kind. I hate attention and positive feedback. That was a really hard 20 seconds for me. Thank you for cutting it short. Its amazing to be here, in my hometown of new york city. I got some family here. Tonight, we are going to talk about democracy, and that word, i think we have probably talked more about democracy than the last four or five years that i had in all of my time as a journalist. Even as a topic seems a longer. We all know, america is a democracy, and there is a history that youre thought, that i think is part of america suffolk culture, almost kind of civic religion, which roughly goes for the following. The founders rebelled against the tyranny of the crown, and the injustice of the monarchy. They conceived in liberty, the nation, founded on a government by any of and for the people. That is the Gettysburg Address of it, and they rejected basically the idea that there is some authority above all of us that has dominion over us, that each of us are imbued with the ability to determine our own faith collectively, as it be, and that is a difficult, messy process. Fundamentally, in the eyes of some of the founders, thats a given. In the eyes of others, its a natural truth. That is the idea. We all decide together what we all are going to do. That simple, fundamental and at the time, radical vision is what separates us from the Western Hemisphere from the old war of europe, or you have monarchies, kings, greens and tyrants. As time went on, various forms of blood spilled over authoritarianism, ultimately fascism. You dont really get democracies in that part of the world, from the way that we think about them at the time. There is some, obviously, like there are democratic forms of government that exists, all these revolutions, sort of these compromises to be worked out in uk, in poland and different parts of the continent. But, basically, we are the model for the world, right . Yes, we are the first ones, we figured it out. We sloughed off the yoke of tyranny, and we seized our faith. Now, the other part of the story that we all know is a very complicated story, as one british critic at the time said, the loudest cries of liberty come from the american states. Which is, by the way, an important point that they saw at the time, right . People understood at the time, the incredible, ridiculous tension in american rhetoric about ourself democracy. But the general story i think we have is, we start with an imperfect democracy, and we work towards a more perfect democracy, a more Perfect Union in the preamble. I think there is something to that story. I dont think its a crazy story, but its basically the civic religion that we have. I think theres another way of thinking about the story of american democracy, which is that america is kind of the ongoing dynamic sight of Perpetual Contestation over democracy. That is the site of constant pitched battle between forces on the side of democracy and against them. And the forces against them are not fringe characters. Sometimes, the forces against them are the most celebrated people in the country. Andrew jackson, viewed as a democrat, because he sort of railed against the elites, founded the modern Democratic Party with populism. He invited people into the white house on the day of his inauguration, all that junk. He was not in any recognizable sense was really a democrat in the way that we think about it today. He thought that there was a cast of people who should roll over another cast of people. He was one of the major pursuers of the Ethnic Cleansing that made the continent what is, right . He did not think that everyone had some universal inevitable right, and all of us collectively should rule of all of us collectively. He thought that the white man should rule over slaves and over the Indigenous People that populated the land. Im not saying this in like, Andrew Jacksons canceled way. I mean, he should be, to be clear. I am actually talking in a specific way, how would you characterize and ideological Belief System of Andrew Jackson . Is it accurate to call and jackson a small the democrat . Is it accurate to call Andrew Jackson like a believer in democracy, right . I think its a little tough to say it is, at least in our modern sense [laughter] Theodore Roosevelts on mount rushmore. What does Theodore Roosevelt think . Theodore roosevelt believes, says and rights often is that the white races that rule over the other races. He found this what essentially becomes the american empire, in the pacific, where we will roll over these people. They are not going to get the vote, not going to be citizens, not fully legal, they are subject to authority from our high, and they are forced to be under the authority, not different, in a way, then the remote king at the time. Again, all of these examples i am getting, there are people at the time that recognize this. One of the most pitched debates that happened in American History on the floor of congress about the Trail Of Tears, which people come to say, they did not have the term at the time, is ethnic on sick. This is totally unjust. We cant do this. These people have inalienable rights. At the same time, when we started fighting our wars under Theodore Roosevelt and pursuing american empire, there are people at the time, mark twain, prominent among them, saying that we are doing dating that we hate the crown for doing. At each moment in American History, where you have these fights and frictions over what the meaning of democracy is. There are contemporaries on each side of the debate. Its not this knee arc where we start out sort of confused. Dont understand that slavery is wrong, walking into the light. No, they knew, they knew, they knew the Trail Of Tears was wrong. They knew that the wars and the pacific, in the philippines, what we were doing, it was wrong. There were people who clearly saw what it was, and that issue at every point. Its true up until the period and run up to world war ii. Now, that story, we have learned, is basically the following. Because of the trauma of world war one, the u. S. Is reticent to get involved more on european shores, fair. And we kind of dither, and fdr comes up with a land lease, like the basic version, because he is trying to shadow, realized that something will have to be done, but its hard to get americans into the idea Of A Second War In Europe in just several decades later and then pearl harbor happens, were in, and we defeat fascism. Right . [laughter] go us. Thats basically the story, and that story also mask exactly the same thing, that is masked in other movements from the countrys founding to the Trail Of Tears in jackson, to the creation of the u. S. Empire in the u. S. Pacific, under Theodore Roosevelt, which is contemporary bay in society about what democracy is, and whether it is good. Whether what we actually do want is for all of us collectively, as individuals, with sovereign rights over ourselves, collectively to come together, to transfer that sovereignty into a collective we, that the sides as a democracy, how we will mark our faith. How we will go far. Or whether what we want is something else, dominion, ruled by some group or person, that is an internal debate in american politics. We are now realizing this in a way that we did not appreciate until we found ourselves in this moment now, where we debate it again every day. And a feels weird and alien and feels like it landed from mars. Hadnt we all come to a consensus on this . Didnt we all agree that we arent a democracy . Wasnt it the fact that in the old days, we would fight along the 40 yard lines, is the cliche . Right . We did not have extremes. We were not actually debating. No, the debate has been there the entire time. One of the most useful interventions in understanding to debate the whole time, comes by way of this up and coming talent that i spotted. [laughter] [applause] i got a pretty good eye, and this really remarkable podcast called spoelstra, that came out a year ago [applause] totally, if you have not listened to it, go download it, subscribe to my podcast to while doing it, but, download ultra, and it is the story of an attempt at a basic fascist sympathizer in the u. S. Prior to the war and their efforts, and the incredible like they went to. I will not spoil it, well talk about it in a second. Now, subsequently, that as part of it, but i want to urge people, because i read the book this week, because i have to do it that down why. Sauter you to listen to cultural to read the book, because this book, recall, see, look at this [applause] it is not just the podcast in the book, to actually go so much further, an incredible read, and its kind of, i think, a skeleton key for this particular moment. So, without further ado, i would like to introduce, the author of precool, my dear, dear, dear friend, my beloved colleague, richard meadow. [applause] [applause] there are a lot of people in this room. There are a lot of people. For those listening on the podcast, there are 20,000 people. I never seen anything like it in my life. I am wearing my reading glasses, so all of you are little blobs, can see you at all, which is helpful. Yes. Can we i want to start in the way that you wrote prequel. I had to say, its in an incredible town that you have, and this has been shoe on your show for years, finding these unexplored audiences in history, the stories of people dont know, and then you taught them, and youre like, what, really, that happened . Ultra was an incredible example of that i knew who Father Coughlin was, a rightwing, Antisemitic Populace preacher. So i knew that. I knew that there was, theres this american version i read the philippe brought novel which is great. Which is great, that was kind of my caveat for those things. I knew those things. I knew nothing else. So i want you to start by saying, what was your way into it, because its really not on the surface . So, i never set out to tell a history story. I am always looking for something that is going on in current life. Its always something that sprung from things going on in the news. The thing i get dinged for rightly, i think, in terms of the way that i do my work is, if i want to tell you about something happening in the world today, everything has to start with, first, a meteor hit the earth, and then the dinosaurs died. When their bodies dissolved thats a good bit. Thats a good bit. If that is not your way of thinking about the world, i can understand why it is alienating. I love you too. [applause] but that is the way that my brain works, and i was, as unnerved as everybody but also kind of confused and entrusted that we were seeing all of this altright neonazi antisemitic and Holocaust Denial stuff around the rise of trumpism, so trumpism is happening in the electoral politics pace, and we got this at the minute, the altright, i dont think we call them that anymore. But it was seeing the rise alongside trump, and see them cheerleading for trump, and seeing the parallel movements, i did not understand why that was. So, i wanted to figure out, how, not just antisemitism but specifically, Holocaust Denial, has function in the United States before. That was the starting point. That was the starting point. How do because, if you go back far enough, in terms of the origins of the holocaust now, which i did, you get back to like 1948, and the Holocaust Denialism has done a lot of things, but one of the things is it is weird. With so much evidence that it happened, how can it be that we say it did not happen. But that is especially true in 1948, where there are lots of people in the world who are witnesses to what happened. So how can it be that it is a source of now for people. Well, its not that data earnestly believe that it happened, theyre using holocaust now as a reason, as part of a political project. That is what i got into in the 40s, and that is how i found my defendants, and that is how i learned that they all got put on trial, and they all got off when the judge died. I thought, you know what, if i am to tell a story, i think of this one. Because i did not know any of it. There is, you treson the book, different strands of pro fascist, antisemitic, not see aligned thought actors. How would you describe because in some ways, its a little bit of misfit toys situations. There are a lot wonder. But there are also operating in a discursive environment that is not closed off to what they are saying. Tell me about Public Opinion around the question of fascism and the rise of it in 1931, 32, when some of the people that you document in the book are trying to, sometimes, at the behest of the german government, cultivate sympathy. Yeah, fascism was the movement at the future. Fascism did not have to cast that we associate now, respectfully with naughty germany. The number one selling book in america in 1941 was for him by Charles Lindberghs wife, and mora lindberg. It was about how fascism is Coming To America, and wouldnt that be fantastic . Because we could finally get some stuff done. It was, in fact, a lot of people who have looked into, fully, i cannot say definitively, but a lot of people say it was gosper in by a guy named Lawrence Dennis, who was the leading fascist at the time. He actually wrote a book called the Coming To America fascism. He wrote one of these things that we found from an old nbc archives, a town meeting on the air, which is a great show that they used to host on the nbc networks. One of the very first things they brought is Lawrence Dennis on to argue for fascism, i guess people arguing against fascism. And he wiped the floor. Fascism crossfire exactly, totally. But it was a popular thing. By the time that you get to 1940, 83 of the American Public is against austria and world war ii. 82 . That is what the fewer was up against. Some of that is that we dont want to fight another war, but some of that is that the people that you want us to fight against, we actually think had the better idea. How did they go about cultivating, talk about dennis for a little bit, a worthwhile time spent on. Oh, there are so many good twists when it comes to him. Well talk about him a little bit. Lawrence tennis had been a State Department official, had gone to harvard, was very area, very articulate guy. He was kind of a Substack Contrary next to him. You can compliment him without insulting you for complimenting him. He was that kind of guy. He was also in his gruffness and controversy in this, made everybody fall in love with him. Men, women, old, young, did not matter, everybody had a crush on Lawrence Dennis, and he slipped his way to the 1930s in a way that he did not understand why his wife minded. Theres a lot of interesting stuff about him. But he was Writing Speeches and books for the isolationists, and the isolationists were not calling themselves fascists overtly, but they had the leading intellectual subscribed fascist in america right in their stuff. And, dennis was a favor of the Nazi Government in berlin. They brought him over for birth rallies, brought him over to germany and gave him access to everybody, up to and including hitler. And he used it to, essentially, become a very well networked, influential person. He interviewed mussolini, interviewed hitler, spent time with all the most important diplomats and foreign leaders at the time. He wrote speeches for isolationists senators and books for Isolationists Wives and heroes. And he was one of the sedition trial defendants. He was so arrogant, he not only defended himself in court, but he insisted that there should be mental examinations of his codefendants, which once they realized that was actually the way out of it, agreed, they all wanted mental examinations. He is sort of the leading fascist american intellectual. But there is also, the soil, the seat is being planted in somewhat fertile soils, for a bunch of reasons. I want you to talk about why that is the case. There is the fact that world war i was awful, and there is an interesting thing to have been in this book, ultra, which is that people understandably and personally thought that was a disaster, being kind of prepared to say that we are never doing that again. That posture, which is not at all ecology posture, totally irrational posture, being the Slippery Slope by the way in which they had been for isolationism and then outright fascism. To do that, you have depression, and then you have this sense of like the brokenness of the american system, slash the messiness of american democracy. All three of those things are running themes and the people that are pushing for, proposing or in the case of huey long, embodying and alternate. Yes, i think it is easy to see when you look at what the germans were secretly telling us. One of the things we now know, in the book too, there was a really big, really aggressive, really well funded secret german propaganda effort targeting the american people, and what were they trying to do . They are basically tryin