One of the dangers in not having a good grasp on United States’ history is believing that events ultimately worked out for the best because it was inevitable that they would. How could they not? After all, we beat the British, created a mostly solid democratic republic, beat the British again, we beat the Confederacy, we beat Germany twice, Japan once, and kinda, sorta worked our way through the Civil Rights Movement.
What’s missing is the knowing the deeper story behind these events, along with many others, and coming to an understanding that the outcomes as we now know them were not inevitable.
For example. . .
If you have not read Rachel Madow’s latest book, Prequel, get a copy. Soon.
What you will discover is a United States woefully, and in some cases, willfully underprepared to meet both the political and military threats of Adolph Hitler’s Nazi Germany. The Nazis used the playbook that still works in 2024. Joseph Goebbels’ propaganda machine got a toehold both with the American people and within the United States Congress. And then it proceeded to what it had done in Germany in the early 1930s: drum up scapegoats, justify violence against undesirables, and plant seeds of doubt as to whether democracy was all that it was cracked up to be. The Nazis knew that a weakened United States with internal political strife posed little threat to their overall cause.
But we prevailed. So, why worry? After all, it was and is inevitable that things always turn out all right.
