“It’s a shallow day where we only talk about shallow things” began comedian and moderator Kate Clinton to MSNBC host, Rachel Maddow, before heading into conversation on her book covering the preservation of American liberties and long-term fight against fascism.
Maddow stopped in Northampton Wednesday, Nov. 15 on tour for her newly released book, “Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism,” for an equally serious and sardonic chat with Clinton about the preservation of American democracy from World War II until today, Nazi infiltration and the state of Clinton’s hair that morning.
Although she lives in New York, Maddow has spent considerable time in Western Massachusetts working at WRNX in Holyoke and WRSI in Northampton. The occasion brought her back to what she once described in a 2019 tweet as the “greatest place on Earth.”
For an audience made largely up of queer, older women, Maddow’s arrival onstage provoked an uproar, receiving a minutes-long standing ovation as fans screamed cult-like praise for the New York Times best-selling author.
Maddow’s writing covers the surge of disinformation before, during and after World War II seeking to turn American opinion towards the Axis powers, undermine democracy, incite far-right policy and ultimately instate authoritarian rule — an effort well-funded and well-armed, promoted by figures and organizations foundational to American social, political and economic structures.
In her talk, Maddow described her meticulous attention to detail in her research — making the deliberate decision to include extensive footnotes, an addition, she explained, that writing on the topic had previously lacked. She wanted everything she wrote, especially the insane (like Ford’s self published volumes of anti-semitic propaganda), to be received as solidly and undeniably true.
The book is preoccupied with the historical figures industrialist Henry Ford — responsible for Ford Motor Company and the invention of mass production —and aviator, military officer Charles Lindbergh —known for flying the first nonstop flight from New York to Paris. She effectively reshapes and disrupts predominantly glorifying narratives that surround Ford and Lindbergh, asking us to reassess our surface level understandings of these men — holding them responsible for the extensive antisemitic propaganda that infiltrated the American psyche at the time through Ford’s newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, along with his radio. Further, she asks us to reconsider our own present underpinnings of democracy and America’s lean towards authoritarianism.
“It’s not lucky we live in an important time, but we live in an important time,” said Maddow, in reference to the January 6th insurrection of the Capitol, seeking to overthrow the 2020 election results.
Beneath her historical zeal, Maddow integrated warnings of contemporary surges of far-right sentiment in her talk — Clinton echoes her concern as Prequel” is increasingly poignant given that 3 in 10 Americans believe Joe Biden won the 2020 election due to voter fraud.
Maddow’s unlikely heroes are the journalists and people who stumbled upon evidence and happened to be in the right place at the right time, uncovering vast conspiracies to dismantle democracy. For example, when a dad noticed a piece of anti-semitic propaganda in his son’s college campus he performed an in-depth investigation and discovered it had come straight from the Nazi regime. These pedestrian saviors of American liberties are the people Maddow hoped to spotlight in her book, as she maintained her hope for America’s present.
Maddow and Clinton’s discussion concluded in a profound, yet comparably mundane walk through Maddow’s everyday routine: from her wake up, to her physical therapy, to her day working until nightfall and enjoying time with her partner, Susan. Amidst turbulence and insurgency, these moments for Maddow serve a greater purpose, for her, reconnecting with humanity is the most anti-fascist thing she can hope to do.
