This one knocked the breath out of me. Not because it was shocking — but because it laid bare what’s always been there. The “concentration camps in the Everglades” line hit like scripture. We keep acting like fascism is something that shows up suddenly with boots and banners. But we were the lab. The export. The manual.
This isn’t a pendulum swing. It’s a pattern. And unless more people name it like this, the cycle just keeps dressing up as progress.
Another great piece! You have beautifully woven these critical historical events together to create a clear narrative of how we got to where we are today. I have been trying to explain this to my 96 year old mother who has been very confused about how Trump has risen power and convinced so many people to go along with him. I keep telling her that it isn’t that Trump is some evil genius that conned the country. He is simply a product of American culture. He didn’t create fascism, he is just exploiting it.
Definitely. The eugenicist impulse in western cultures went underground for a while, but these creeps always had champions who clearly understood the history and worked overtime the last few decades to bring it back into power.
Thank you, Jessica! Yes. America was built as a fascist state. Our government is designed to maintain fascism. It is designed to keep the rich, rich. Black Americans enslaved and the Native Peoples (including Hawaiians) locked up on the worst land. Trump, Fauci, Birx, let sarscov2 rip because most of the people who died were elderly, Black, Native American, Hispanic/Latino, Hmong, Pacific Islanders, were poor, had Trisomy 21, Kidney disease, and other diseases.
Covid19 was a holocaust. More than 1,500,000 Americans died. More than 300,000 children became orphans.
It absolutely was. As you've pointed out, it's been fascism all the way down here in America from the start. Sadly enough, the fascists in charge of the country now understand our history better than most of their opponents.
What you say is true, but I feel compelled to point out that, regarding the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, it wasn't all on Trump, not by a long shot. Trump certainly has blood on his hands, but far more people died and were stricken with long COVID under Biden. And while Trump took a sledge hammer to public health in his first installment, Biden - through the likes of Walensky, Cohen, Zients, and Jha, and a host of other COVID minimizers across the media spectrum - brought in a padded wrecking ball and quietly obliterated public health policies protecting us from communicable diseases like SARS2 in the name of the donor class.
That list has a lot in common with what the regime has in store. See Project 2025. RFK Jr. has talked about it in guarded terms already. I could be considered to be on that list.
And since people wonder why I've armed up. I don't recommend it for everyone, though. YMMV.
I've read about all of this for years, plus a lot more. The atrocities committed on the indigenous peoples around the world by the Europeans makes one really wonder about the human race. But then, I also read an anthropology article this morning that said that Homo Sapiens has been like this since they first arrived on this planet. This article talked about how about 700,00 years ago, they were so war like that they nearly wiped out all of the males across the known world at the time. I believe they said that by the time they calmed down, there were only five percent of them left.
People may think we have evolved from that but I don't think so. Look at what's happening in Gaza. Think back in history to Rwanda, Kosovo, the first Nacba, WWII, WWI. Listen to the hard line Israelis right now. Do they sound like we have evolved?
No. We are the cruelest animals on the planet. This article also said that we will probably wipe ourselves out in about 10,000 years. I say less, given what we're doing to the climate. They said that we would be the shortest lived homo erectus species that ever lived, compared to the Neanderthals', Denisovans and those home erectus species before them, all who lived for millions of years before Homo Sapiens wiped them out.
Home Sapiens is a flawed species. That's the awful truth. All you have to do is step back and look at the world, and the long history of our species. We don't seem to be evolving at all. We just keep building better tools to kill each other for no real reason, much like our ancient ancestors did all of those hundreds of thousands of years ago. At least 700,000 years ago, they only killed off the men. Now it's everyone.
Fascism is just a word for the rage built into our DNA against any others who are not of our tribe. And the tribes demographics change at the whims of the alpha males. Because of our evolvement through the centuries into the more efficient killers we are, the scale of the violent rage against those who we deem others becomes nearly incomprehensible.
As someone pointed out not very long ago, Gaza is just another symptom of the sickness within us. They said that there will be a lot more periods in our history like this soon as the planet continues to heat up and the tribes of homo sapiens move away from the uninhabitable areas of the planet.
If you think Gaza and Ukraine are bad, wait a few more years. Things are going to get a lot worse. Even as isolated from the world as North America is, they won't getaway unscathed. The Americans will likely tear themselves apart and take the Canadians with them.
Excellent reply Terrance. You are obviously very well read, much more so than I. I agree that the article you read that says “we will probably wipe ourselves out in about 10,000 years.” Is definitely in error. Based on what I read, we won’t make it to the end of the century. Just by reading James Hansen’s work tells us that global warming will reach 2c by the late 30’s which is enough to collapse society. And with average warming at .5 degrees per decade, it won’t be long before 3c wipes out Homo Sapiens. The run up to that will be ugly.
Thank you. I do read a lot and you're right. I don't think the planet with humans running amok on it will last that long. The climate scientists are only giving us approximately fifty years right now. And that may be optimistic.
Myself, I think more devastating wars are coming within the next ten to fifteen years. More genocides and ethnic cleansing as the world heats up and causes more water loss. I read a great article from Inside Climate News via Al Jazeera last night , about how humans are emptying out the underground aquifers around the world at such an alarming rate that there is little doubt that humans will be fighting over water and food around the world within the next decade. It will be Gaza on steroids soon in several places around the world soon as resources like water and food run out and the wealthy elites try to take control of what's left for themselves.
The United States is killing itself as the wealthy people try to take control of things and the people start fighting back. Trump is just a mouthpiece for those corporate billionaires. Once the retail store shelves start staying empty within the next few months, the violence will start breaking out in earnest against those they see on the front lines. Which is the local police and federal agents running around with near impunity right now. I am expecting to see violent clashes that will end up with dead people on both sides soon. It's already starting in small places but I am predicting that this will grown in size soon. I'm preparing now for what's coming. There are way too many experts sounding the alarm for me not to pay attention.
Bravo! Wonderfully done, and thank you! I DID NOT KNOW THIS, I'm 84, cum laude grad of Stanford: HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS!!?? Would I have been lured to Stanford by the offer of a DAVID STARR JORDAN (!!) fellowship if I'd known this??? Good heavens! What the hell is wrong with us??
We didn't know much of this because, certainly back then (I'm 62), none of this was taught in schools: U.S. history was, and largely remains, completely whitewashed. For example, Columbus was a hero and intrepid explorer who "discovered" the New World. We weren't taught that he was an absolutely atrocious human being, and that he didn't discover anything - people had been living in the Americas and the various western hemisphere island chains for thousands of years, with civilizations that easily rivaled those in Europe. The "Indians" were villains in our history books and movies, brutal savages trying to massacre those poor, innocent settlers who just wanted to find new homes...on land that had been stolen from the Native Americans after the U.S. Army murdered tribe after tribe. Or that American Nazis held a huge rally in Madison Square Garden in 1939. I don't know about now, but so much of the history we were taught back then was just a pack of lies and witheld inconvenient truths.
Every group of people, regardless of any particular aspect, has, at one time been the oppressor and at other times the oppressed. It’s a constant cycle of conquest and retaliation that never completes. Your essays are the most frank and interesting. Good work!
Great post! One of the things Michael Moore said at one point that's really stuck with me was, to paraphrase, that America was built on the three pillars of genocide of the Native American peoples, slavery, and the subjugation of women. And I always have to shake my head at the folks who look at what's happening and say, "This isn't who we are as Americans!" Sorry, but that's EXACTLY who we are, who we've always been as a nation. Yes, there are many of us who want to permanently change that, but mass incarceration, genocide, etc. - all the elements that breed fascism - have always been with us. People also don't realize that, as you pointed out, a very great deal of what the Nazis did was drawn directly from lessons they learned from the United States. The sad truth is that our nation wasn't founded on the concept of freedom, except for wealthy landowners, it was founded on cruelty and evil, and we've never managed to expunge it from our body politic.
Thanks Jessica, that's an immensely valuable post. I knew some of the eugenics history but Hitler's love of westerns, the extermination of Native Americans, reservations as concentration camps was really powerful and useful. Indeed the origins of fascism in the US is something I'll be chewing on for a while (although, as you note, that fascism had earlier forms in Europe - so not an original US idea, simply something refined through the European colonization of the Americas and then revisited by the Nazis). Aarrgh!
Excellent overview of our true history. The more I read, the more important I feel it is to read. The understanding that comes from reading helps to put things into perspective so that I don’t cling to what I think the way things “should” be. I’m then able to respond in a more equanimous way which leads to less suffering. Thank you for this post 🙏
My perspective (awareness) shifted radically in a few paragraphs. We need more historical deconstruction of American myths. They are, in fact, deeply ingrained programming. Well done, and thanks for the insights and historical facts.
Great writing as usual, Jessica. I particularly appreciate the many hours of research that makes the writing possible. How you produce so much content amazes me.
Yes, the historical record you present here is a predictor of the future. At 64 with a bad limp from a brain tumor removed in 2019 I doubt I make the cut as a productive worker for the Reich, and like you the words I write here could haunt me. Sinclair Lewis saw this potential, so I'm not really shocked, but rather in a state of disbelief as the car speeds towards the cliff.
Thank you, Jessica, this is great writing! It was insightful of you to point out that Hitler was inspired by bad policies that the USA had already embraced — not many people are aware of that; Americans regard history lessons as optional. I agree that better education is the solution.
This one knocked the breath out of me. Not because it was shocking — but because it laid bare what’s always been there. The “concentration camps in the Everglades” line hit like scripture. We keep acting like fascism is something that shows up suddenly with boots and banners. But we were the lab. The export. The manual.
This isn’t a pendulum swing. It’s a pattern. And unless more people name it like this, the cycle just keeps dressing up as progress.
Thank you for pulling the mask off.
It's exactly the depression and sorrow I feel at the depth laid bare. Thanks for describing the same feeling of the breath being knocked out me.
I keep thinking I know about the history and depravities of man but it now seems bottomless.
A history lesson everyone should read.
Another great piece! You have beautifully woven these critical historical events together to create a clear narrative of how we got to where we are today. I have been trying to explain this to my 96 year old mother who has been very confused about how Trump has risen power and convinced so many people to go along with him. I keep telling her that it isn’t that Trump is some evil genius that conned the country. He is simply a product of American culture. He didn’t create fascism, he is just exploiting it.
Definitely. The eugenicist impulse in western cultures went underground for a while, but these creeps always had champions who clearly understood the history and worked overtime the last few decades to bring it back into power.
Thank you, Jessica! Yes. America was built as a fascist state. Our government is designed to maintain fascism. It is designed to keep the rich, rich. Black Americans enslaved and the Native Peoples (including Hawaiians) locked up on the worst land. Trump, Fauci, Birx, let sarscov2 rip because most of the people who died were elderly, Black, Native American, Hispanic/Latino, Hmong, Pacific Islanders, were poor, had Trisomy 21, Kidney disease, and other diseases.
Covid19 was a holocaust. More than 1,500,000 Americans died. More than 300,000 children became orphans.
It absolutely was. As you've pointed out, it's been fascism all the way down here in America from the start. Sadly enough, the fascists in charge of the country now understand our history better than most of their opponents.
What you say is true, but I feel compelled to point out that, regarding the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, it wasn't all on Trump, not by a long shot. Trump certainly has blood on his hands, but far more people died and were stricken with long COVID under Biden. And while Trump took a sledge hammer to public health in his first installment, Biden - through the likes of Walensky, Cohen, Zients, and Jha, and a host of other COVID minimizers across the media spectrum - brought in a padded wrecking ball and quietly obliterated public health policies protecting us from communicable diseases like SARS2 in the name of the donor class.
Agreed. Wall Street and the plutocrats run the country
That list has a lot in common with what the regime has in store. See Project 2025. RFK Jr. has talked about it in guarded terms already. I could be considered to be on that list.
And since people wonder why I've armed up. I don't recommend it for everyone, though. YMMV.
Yep. It looks like Palantir is doing what IBM did in the 1930s. RKF Jr. already trying to make a big database of autistic people. Yep, yep, yep.
I've read about all of this for years, plus a lot more. The atrocities committed on the indigenous peoples around the world by the Europeans makes one really wonder about the human race. But then, I also read an anthropology article this morning that said that Homo Sapiens has been like this since they first arrived on this planet. This article talked about how about 700,00 years ago, they were so war like that they nearly wiped out all of the males across the known world at the time. I believe they said that by the time they calmed down, there were only five percent of them left.
People may think we have evolved from that but I don't think so. Look at what's happening in Gaza. Think back in history to Rwanda, Kosovo, the first Nacba, WWII, WWI. Listen to the hard line Israelis right now. Do they sound like we have evolved?
No. We are the cruelest animals on the planet. This article also said that we will probably wipe ourselves out in about 10,000 years. I say less, given what we're doing to the climate. They said that we would be the shortest lived homo erectus species that ever lived, compared to the Neanderthals', Denisovans and those home erectus species before them, all who lived for millions of years before Homo Sapiens wiped them out.
Home Sapiens is a flawed species. That's the awful truth. All you have to do is step back and look at the world, and the long history of our species. We don't seem to be evolving at all. We just keep building better tools to kill each other for no real reason, much like our ancient ancestors did all of those hundreds of thousands of years ago. At least 700,000 years ago, they only killed off the men. Now it's everyone.
Fascism is just a word for the rage built into our DNA against any others who are not of our tribe. And the tribes demographics change at the whims of the alpha males. Because of our evolvement through the centuries into the more efficient killers we are, the scale of the violent rage against those who we deem others becomes nearly incomprehensible.
As someone pointed out not very long ago, Gaza is just another symptom of the sickness within us. They said that there will be a lot more periods in our history like this soon as the planet continues to heat up and the tribes of homo sapiens move away from the uninhabitable areas of the planet.
If you think Gaza and Ukraine are bad, wait a few more years. Things are going to get a lot worse. Even as isolated from the world as North America is, they won't getaway unscathed. The Americans will likely tear themselves apart and take the Canadians with them.
Excellent reply Terrance. You are obviously very well read, much more so than I. I agree that the article you read that says “we will probably wipe ourselves out in about 10,000 years.” Is definitely in error. Based on what I read, we won’t make it to the end of the century. Just by reading James Hansen’s work tells us that global warming will reach 2c by the late 30’s which is enough to collapse society. And with average warming at .5 degrees per decade, it won’t be long before 3c wipes out Homo Sapiens. The run up to that will be ugly.
Thank you. I do read a lot and you're right. I don't think the planet with humans running amok on it will last that long. The climate scientists are only giving us approximately fifty years right now. And that may be optimistic.
Myself, I think more devastating wars are coming within the next ten to fifteen years. More genocides and ethnic cleansing as the world heats up and causes more water loss. I read a great article from Inside Climate News via Al Jazeera last night , about how humans are emptying out the underground aquifers around the world at such an alarming rate that there is little doubt that humans will be fighting over water and food around the world within the next decade. It will be Gaza on steroids soon in several places around the world soon as resources like water and food run out and the wealthy elites try to take control of what's left for themselves.
The United States is killing itself as the wealthy people try to take control of things and the people start fighting back. Trump is just a mouthpiece for those corporate billionaires. Once the retail store shelves start staying empty within the next few months, the violence will start breaking out in earnest against those they see on the front lines. Which is the local police and federal agents running around with near impunity right now. I am expecting to see violent clashes that will end up with dead people on both sides soon. It's already starting in small places but I am predicting that this will grown in size soon. I'm preparing now for what's coming. There are way too many experts sounding the alarm for me not to pay attention.
I agree with everything that you’ve said because it jives with everything I’ve read as well!
Bravo! Wonderfully done, and thank you! I DID NOT KNOW THIS, I'm 84, cum laude grad of Stanford: HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS!!?? Would I have been lured to Stanford by the offer of a DAVID STARR JORDAN (!!) fellowship if I'd known this??? Good heavens! What the hell is wrong with us??
We didn't know much of this because, certainly back then (I'm 62), none of this was taught in schools: U.S. history was, and largely remains, completely whitewashed. For example, Columbus was a hero and intrepid explorer who "discovered" the New World. We weren't taught that he was an absolutely atrocious human being, and that he didn't discover anything - people had been living in the Americas and the various western hemisphere island chains for thousands of years, with civilizations that easily rivaled those in Europe. The "Indians" were villains in our history books and movies, brutal savages trying to massacre those poor, innocent settlers who just wanted to find new homes...on land that had been stolen from the Native Americans after the U.S. Army murdered tribe after tribe. Or that American Nazis held a huge rally in Madison Square Garden in 1939. I don't know about now, but so much of the history we were taught back then was just a pack of lies and witheld inconvenient truths.
Every group of people, regardless of any particular aspect, has, at one time been the oppressor and at other times the oppressed. It’s a constant cycle of conquest and retaliation that never completes. Your essays are the most frank and interesting. Good work!
Great post! One of the things Michael Moore said at one point that's really stuck with me was, to paraphrase, that America was built on the three pillars of genocide of the Native American peoples, slavery, and the subjugation of women. And I always have to shake my head at the folks who look at what's happening and say, "This isn't who we are as Americans!" Sorry, but that's EXACTLY who we are, who we've always been as a nation. Yes, there are many of us who want to permanently change that, but mass incarceration, genocide, etc. - all the elements that breed fascism - have always been with us. People also don't realize that, as you pointed out, a very great deal of what the Nazis did was drawn directly from lessons they learned from the United States. The sad truth is that our nation wasn't founded on the concept of freedom, except for wealthy landowners, it was founded on cruelty and evil, and we've never managed to expunge it from our body politic.
Incredibly powerful piece, Jessica. Thank you.
Thanks Jessica, that's an immensely valuable post. I knew some of the eugenics history but Hitler's love of westerns, the extermination of Native Americans, reservations as concentration camps was really powerful and useful. Indeed the origins of fascism in the US is something I'll be chewing on for a while (although, as you note, that fascism had earlier forms in Europe - so not an original US idea, simply something refined through the European colonization of the Americas and then revisited by the Nazis). Aarrgh!
Brilliant piece of writing!
Excellent overview of our true history. The more I read, the more important I feel it is to read. The understanding that comes from reading helps to put things into perspective so that I don’t cling to what I think the way things “should” be. I’m then able to respond in a more equanimous way which leads to less suffering. Thank you for this post 🙏
My perspective (awareness) shifted radically in a few paragraphs. We need more historical deconstruction of American myths. They are, in fact, deeply ingrained programming. Well done, and thanks for the insights and historical facts.
Great writing as usual, Jessica. I particularly appreciate the many hours of research that makes the writing possible. How you produce so much content amazes me.
Yes, the historical record you present here is a predictor of the future. At 64 with a bad limp from a brain tumor removed in 2019 I doubt I make the cut as a productive worker for the Reich, and like you the words I write here could haunt me. Sinclair Lewis saw this potential, so I'm not really shocked, but rather in a state of disbelief as the car speeds towards the cliff.
Thank you, Jessica, this is great writing! It was insightful of you to point out that Hitler was inspired by bad policies that the USA had already embraced — not many people are aware of that; Americans regard history lessons as optional. I agree that better education is the solution.