I Could, But Why?

     Some of the wilder claims made by a major political candidate about people getting into the U.S. cry out for debunking, but why bother?  It's been done.  Done, and the people who most need to hear it are not listening.  When that same candidate promises that removing these largely imaginary invading hordes will be "...a bloody story," his fans cheer.

     What am I supposed to do, against people who cheer for bloodletting?  I know who will bleed, and it won't be a fantasy cadre of wild-eyed, border crossing ax murderers; it'll be powerless schmucks who can't get out of the way.  It won't be anyone with cash to burn, ill-gotten or otherwise.

     Populism ends in blood, or at least in bloodlust.  In this country, it often wraps itself in religion.  Looking up background for this piece, I started out investigating what Huey Long had promised.  It was more than potted chickens -- and a little surprising.  His "Share Our Wealth" plan called for sharply progressive taxes ("progressive" in context means the more money you make, the larger a percentage of it the Feds take -- which did happen, though not as steeply), plus caps on maximum income ($23 million in 2024 dollars), inheritance ($118 million likewise) and private wealth (1.2 billion, 2024) that, while vast, are barely a patch on their one-percenter counterparts today.  He was also pressing for a shorter work week, free higher education, free medical care and old age pensions.  "Why, that's socialism," you may exclaim.  Socialists in Long's day (then a sizable third party) disagreed and debated against it.

     So that's Huey Long, and it's pretty standard populist fare for his time, with a world mired in economic depression and autocrats on the rise.  He managed to get himself shot, ending whatever might have come of his efforts; some of his ideas were massaged by the Roosevelt administration and showed up, unattributed, in the Second New Deal.  But what caught my eye was the Long acolyte who tried to step up afterward: Gerald L. K. Smith.

     More experienced politicians forced him out of Louisiana politics in short order.  But Smith, chaplain of the American Federation of Labor, was a fan of autocrats.  Labor involvement, deep into Share Our Wealth; a modern eye might expect he was looking to the Soviets, but far from it.  No, by 1935, Smith had gotten in with pension advocate Francis Townsend (whose "Townsend Plan" was something of an ancestor to Social Security) and had convinced him to join with Father Charles Coughlin in backing a third-party Presidential candidate opposed to "the communistic policies of the Roosevelt administration."  Smith admired Hitler and was an avowed racist and antisemite; you can look up his own words and actions on those things.

     Smith went on to found the America First Party after failing to ally with the America First Committee; he joined the Silver Shirts and after America's involvement in WW II discredited isolationist and explicitly fascist organizations, went on to start the Christian Nationalist Crusade.

     His efforts only gained traction among the nuttier extremes of the far Right.  As his star faded in later years, Gerald L. K. Smith was better known as the man who masterminded construction of Christ of the Ozarks and the associated passion play.

     And there he is, history's lesson, ostensibly conservative populism fueled by racism, clutching a cross and wrapping itself in the flag -- but rejecting charity, compassion, brotherly love and the American tradition of equality before the law.

     We have seen the current movie before; the only difference is that it has got a much bigger screen now and a louder PA system.  What it doesn't have is any better a philosophy than it has ever had.  It runs on envy, exclusionism and hate.