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In 1935, Sinclair Lewis published a book entitled It Can’t Happen Here about the election of a Fascist President in the United States. It is a creepy read (and not a particularly good book, but I do not think that Lewis really wanted to write great book–just a book with an important warning to Americans. Americans very rarely think about Fascism in the US, but that is due to willful amnesia. Former President Trump’s rally in Madison Square Garden reminded some of the Nazi rally that was held there in February 1939.

Nazi Rally at Madison Square Garden, 20 February 1939

The Nazi movement grew out of the virulently racist period after the Civil War that spawned the Jim Crow laws that institutionally segregated African-Americans. We are familiar with the images of the Ku Klux Klan, but there was a more explicit movement marrying fascism with institutionalized racism which was known as the Black Legion:

“The Black Legion was a spinoff of the so-called Second Ku Klux Klan, which flourished in the 1920s, fusing anti-Catholicism and antisemitism with anti-Black racism. Strongest in the North — with 500,000 members in Ohio alone — it fell apart by the decade’s end in the face of internal scandals and public denunciations. A doctor in Bellaire, Ohio, named William Shepard founded the Black Legion in 1924. He painted KKK robes black and added pirate imagery and an even greater obsession with militarism and secrecy. By 1935 the Black Legion had grown to hundreds of thousands of members nationwide, largely in the Upper Midwest but spreading to at least 21 states. No one really knows how big it was.”

The Regalia of the Black Legion

The Black Legion grew as Fascism became prevalent in Europe in the early 20th Century. It was a dynamic movement, starting with the first Fascist state in Italy in 1920 (although one could argue that Hungary was actually the first after the collapse of the Soviet Republic of Hungary founded by Béla Kun). By 1940, the only European states not ruled by a fascist party were Great Britain and Switzerland (one could argue that the Swiss worked closely with the Nazis). It was an amazing transformation in the space of only 20 years, counterbalanced by the emergence of the communist brand of totalitarianism in the Soviet Union.

Map of Fascist regimes in Europe in 1940

As Americans vote today, we should all be reminded of the Fascist history in the US. It is not necessarily a fluke in American culture, but rather a persistent presence. It can happen here.