How did fascism become "unthinkable" & "unseeable" in US political culture? I've been reading the thick FBI files of a Cold War era US fascist named Kenneth Goff. Scores of people wrote to the FBI expressing concern about Goff's activities, but every single one of them said "I think he's a commie." - ThreadSky

sethcotlar.bsky.social • 2 days ago

How did fascism become "unthinkable" & "unseeable" in US political culture? I've been reading the thick FBI files of a Cold War era US fascist named Kenneth Goff. Scores of people wrote to the FBI expressing concern about Goff's activities, but every single one of them said "I think he's a commie."

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rosemmason.bsky.social•2 days ago

I'm so glad I found your account a few months ago. I'm 71, so this period in US history interests me greatly. It's interesting how the Judeo-Bolshevik myth of White émigrés to Germany c.1920 made its way to the US as the "Jewish/Communist/race-mixing conspiracy." IOW, it was adapted to US culture.

janeleecomiskey.bsky.social•2 days ago

Thanks for sharing!

“History is too complex and sensitive to be left to politicians.”
~ Jonathan Steele, 2009
(former Moscow correspondent for The Guardian)

pushkin99.bsky.social•2 days ago

They did not know what a communist actually was. (Not that I am defending communism.)

drhspoliticalcafe.bsky.social•2 days ago

Between willful and manufactured ignorance and malicious scum like Nazi Heidegger and his apprentice Ernst Nolte, several generations of people who have no concept of the difference between Fascism and Communism, nor other political ideologies and systems. Which has benefitted Fascists immensely

sethcotlar.bsky.social•2 days ago

Anyone who knows anything about the history of fascism could have quickly and immediately sussed Goff out as a textbook "fascist propagandist." During Goff's long career from the 1940s into the early 1970s, however, very few people called him a fascist. The FBI called him a "borderline psychopath."

sethcotlar.bsky.social•2 days ago

The FBI, of course, was happy to use Goff as a source in their hunt for American Communists (Goff had been a Communist from 1936 to 1939). In the early 1950s they stopped relying upon him so much, however, because they came to realize he was a habitual liar and "borderline psycopath."

sethcotlar.bsky.social•2 days ago

Throughout the 1960s Goff was like the Forrest Gump of incipient American fascism, coming into contact with scores of people who were plotting to violently overthrow the government to "save America" from the existential threat of the Jewish/Communist/race-mixing conspiracy. https://bsky.app/profile/sethcotlar.bsky.social/post/3lrbrmmwnrk2o

melancholyhammer.bsky.social•2 days ago

I had to look up the etymology of Kook to make sure it hadn't slid around like "woke." Turns out it was fashionable in the 60s, same definition.

sethcotlar.bsky.social•2 days ago

The FBI was somewhat keeping tabs on these right wing extremists, but for the most part they seemed to consider them fairly harmless kooks, overzealous super-patriots who mostly meant well but had been deceived by unscrupulous leaders. They never saw it as an existential threat.

sethcotlar.bsky.social•2 days ago

The mainstream press for the most part never referred to Goff as a fascist, choosing instead to call him an "anti-Communist Christian minister." One exception was Drew Pearson, who caught a ton of flak for clearly naming and exposing the rising fascistic movement on the right. This is from 1967.

sethcotlar.bsky.social•2 days ago

D. Pearson, 1967. “Most Americans are so obsessed w/ the menace of communism, wch seeks to turn a free society into a closed tyranny, that they’ve become oblivious to the attack on our freedoms by the radicals of the right who, in the name of liberty, wish to take away the liberty of the majority.”

jacksprat39.bsky.social•2 days ago

The American media.
#Telneas

ubermenchies.bsky.social•2 days ago

Pearson understood the assignment.

coverthistory.bsky.social•2 days ago

Drew Pearson's archived reporting has been a treasure for research into my grandfather's Cold War work for CIA proprietaries. So many of our societal ills originate from being unmoored from history.

erbeckman.bsky.social•2 days ago

Brings to mind headlines here in the Twin Cities labeling the Hortman assassin a "devout Christian".

trainingporpoises.bsky.social•2 days ago

Professor! Long time. Has the Trump administration completely dismantled the extremism research office of the FBI or wherever it was?

sethcotlar.bsky.social•2 days ago

I believe so

drsepinwall.bsky.social•2 days ago

I hope your book comes out ahead of mine so I can cite you on all of this, Seth!

craigwinston.bsky.social•2 days ago

This is how the Republican party and MAGA electeds disavow any connection to the dear leader's rhetoric and that of his enablers to the actions of followers. Those that do act aren't actually true believers following through on what they are telling them to do but just another lone wolf crazy.

ubermenchies.bsky.social•2 days ago

He claimed to have been a member of the Communist Party and that ended all critical thinking on the matter.

trainingporpoises.bsky.social•2 days ago

Unroll @skyview.social

rogerday.bsky.social•2 days ago

Bukowski, everyones favourite down and out poet, was a fascist

He was half German, US soldier father married a German woman during the occupation of 1918-20

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