Let's go to Andrew from California. Andrew from California. Welcome to
the program. What's on your mind today? Speaker 2: Yeah. Hey, I was just wondering
if you. I don't remember who the journalist was, but she posted a link to, like, the National
Archives about a 1945 memo that the War Department posted defining fascism and how it could happen
in the United States. Yeah. Break it down, Bill. Speaker 1: No, let me see if I could find it here.
You don't remember the name of the journalist? Speaker 2: No, I don't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, listen, I'll. I'll look for it. We've interviewed
experts on this more recently. You don't have to go back to 1945 in order to get a sort of story
of how we could go in the direction of fascism in the United States. I believe it's Thomas.
Homer Dixon was the guy's name, Canadian professor who we interviewed about that.
There is absolutely a path into it. But but so, I mean, let's let's imagine we agree that
that it's possible. Was it did you have a particular question building on that memo?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with you that, like, you know, there have been more recent things.
The reason why I thought that this memo was so pertinent is because it was it's
it was from the United States government at a time period very close to fascism.
Right. And like in in the memo, it it says a lot of things that like I would say that the
Republican Party do like they pretty much. Yeah. Speaker 1: I found it. It's I found it. So this is
the army. Talk orientation fact sheet on fascism from 1945. When you read it, it's stunning because
it describes a lot of how MAGA works. Here's what it what it says. If people become so dissatisfied
with democracy that they're willing to give up rights and freedoms for false promises of
security and prosperity, fascism could happen in the United States. That's quite literally MAGA
false promises of security and prosperity, which have convinced some people to say,
I don't know that we really need all the freedoms we take for granted. And it goes on to say people
become so indifferent to public affairs, they let a small group of ambitious and unscrupulous
politicians take over the government. People become frightened by threats that they support.
Leaders who claim to be super patriots but really are traitors to democracy. It's stunning. It's
from 1945 and it sounds like it's describing MAGA. Speaker 2: Yeah. Two more things that I thought
were really interesting from that is like Fascism's prime goal is to promote nationalism,
but at the same time question the common sense of the common man. So it was like,
like we're a country that's so great that we can't come within ourselves
because there's like, there's too many, like trans sports athletes. We need to,
like, start intervening in civil liberties. Yeah, but besides that, we're the greatest
country on earth can have the best people and stuff like that. Like, I thought that the
contradiction is very interesting, and it's like. Speaker 1: Many of those there's many of those
we have. We should have no regulation because businesses know what to do, except we need to
tell them exactly whether or not they can require masks, vaccines, except they're not gay customers.
We need to I mean, listen, we we could go on all day with those examples, but very interesting.
Andrew, thanks for telling me about this memo. Speaker 2: Yeah, no problem.
Speaker 1: All right. There goes Andrew from California. Very exciting stuff.