Fascism in North America

The existence of figures sympathetic to Nazism in high political positions has been pointed out in the administrations of León Cortés Castro and Rafael Ángel Calderón Guardia. Cortés in particular (who spent some time in Nazi Germany) was famous as sympathizer since he was a presidential candidate.[10][11]

In the 1930s, a movement sympathetic to Nazism developed among the large community of German origin.[12] Supporters of Nazism used to meet in the German Club.[12]

Since the declaration of war on the Third Reich by Costa Rica during Calderón Guardia's presidency, many citizens and residents of German and Italian origin were imprisoned and their properties nationalized, even though the vast majority had no links with Nazism or Fascism.[11] The doctrinal origins of racism and the allegations of European racial superiority in Costa Rica had previous origins, as for example among the racist writings of Costa Rican scientist Clodomiro Picado Twight.[13]

The Central American leader who came closest to being an important domestic fascist was Arnulfo Arias of Panama who, during the 1940s, became a strong admirer of Italian fascism and advocated it following his ascension to the presidency in 1940.[14]

• 
  Flag of the German-American Bund (1936)
• 
  German American Bund parade on East 86th St., New York City (October 1939)
• 
  Poster for German-American Bund rally at Madison Square Garden (1939)

The German American Bund, was the most prominent and well-organised fascist organization in the United States. It was founded in 1936, following the model of Hitler's Nazi Germany. It appeared shortly after the launching of several smaller groups, including Friends of New Germany (1933) and the Silver Legion of America, founded in 1933 by William Dudley Pelley and the Free Society of Teutonia. The German-American Bund only accepted members who were American citizens of German descent.[23] Its main goal was to promote a favorable view of Nazi Germany.

The Bund was very active. Its members were issued uniforms and attended training camps.[24] The Bund held rallies with Nazi insignia and procedures such as the Hitler salute. Its leaders attacked the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jewish-American groups, Communism, "Moscow-directed" trade unions and American boycotts of German goods.[25] They claimed that that George Washington was "the first Fascist" who did not believe democracy would work.[26]

The high point of the Bund's activities was the rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City on February 20, 1939.[27] Some 20,000 people attended, The anti-Semetic Speakers repeatedly referred to President Roosevelt "Frank D. Rosenfeld", calling his New Deal the "Jew Deal", and denouncing the Bolshevik-Jewish American leadership.[28] The rally ended with violence between protesters and Bund "storm-troopers".[29] In 1939, America's top fascist, the leader of the Bund, Fritz Julius Kuhn, was investigated by the city of New York and found to be embezzling Bund funds for his own use. He was arrested, his citizenship was revoked, and he was deported. After the War, he was arrested and imprisoned again.

In 1940, the U.S. Army organised a draft to bring citizens into military service. The Bund advised its members not to submit to the draft. On this basis, the Bund was outlawed by the U.S. government, and its leader fled to Mexico.

• 
  Father Charles Coughlin (right) on the cover of Time magazine {1934}
• 
  The poet Ezra Pound in prison (1945)
• 
  George Lincoln Rockwell, leader of the American Nazi Party

Father Charles Coughlin was a Roman Catholic priest who had a very popular radio program in the late 1930s, which often ventured into politics. in 1932 he endorsed the election of President Franklin Roosevelt, but he gradually turned against Roosevelt and became a harsh critic. His radio program and his newspaper, "Social Justice", attacked Roosevelt, the big banks, and the Jews. When the United States entered World War II, the U.S. government took his radio broadcasts off the air and blocked his newspaper from the mail. He abandoned politics but continued to be a parish priest until his death in 1979.[30]

The future American architect Philip Johnson was a correspondent in Germany for Coughlin's newspaper between 1934 and 1940, before he began his architectural career. He wrote articles favourable to the Nazis and critical of the Jews, and took part in a Nazi-sponsored press tour covering the invasion of Poland in 1939. He quit the newspaper in 1940, was investigated by the FBI and eventually was cleared for army service in World War II. Years later he would refer to these activities as "the stupidest thing I ever did ... [which] I never can atone for".[31]

The poet Ezra Pound moved from the United States to Italy in 1924, and a became a staunch supporter of the fascist Benito Mussolini. He wrote articles and made radio broadcasts critical of the United States, intentional bankers, Franklin Roosevelt, and the Jews. After the end of the War he was taken to the United States, where he was imprisoned for his actions on behalf of fascism. He was placed in a psychiatric hospital for twelve years, but was finally released in 1958 after a campaign on his behalf by American writers. He returned to Italy, where he died in 1972.

During World War II, first Canada and then the United States came into conflict with the Axis powers, and as part of the war effort, they suppressed the fascist movements within their borders, which were already weakened by the widespread public perception that they were fifth columns. This suppression consisted of the internment of fascist leaders, the disbandment of fascist organizations, the censorship of fascist propaganda, and pervasive government propaganda against fascism.

In the US this culminated in November 1944 in "The Great Sedition Trial, in which George Sylvester Viereck, Lawrence Dennis, Elizabeth Dilling, William Dudley Pelley, Joe McWilliams, Robert Edward Edmondson, Gerald Winrod, William Griffin, and, in absentia, Ulrich Fleischhauer were all put on trial for aiding the Nazi cause, supporting fascism and isolationism. After the death of the judge, however, a mistrial was declared and all the charges were dropped.

The American Nazi Party was founded in 1959 by George Lincoln Rockwell, a former U.S. Navy commander, who was dismissed from the Navy for his fascist political views. On August 25, 1967, Rockwell was shot and killed in Arlington by John Patler, a former party member expelled by Rockwell for alleged "Bolshevik leanings".[32] The Party was dissolved in 1983.

In the view of philosopher Jason Stanley, white supremacy in the United States is an example of the fascist politics of hierarchy, in that it "demands and implies a perpetual hierarchy" in which whites dominate and control non-whites.[33]

A growing number of scholars have argued that the political style of Donald Trump resembles that of fascist leaders, beginning with his election campaign in 2016,[34][35] continuing over the course of his presidency as he appeared to court far-right extremists,[36][37][38][39] including his failed efforts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election results after losing to Joe Biden,[40] and culminating in the 2021 United States Capitol attack.[41] As these events have unfolded, some commentators who had initially resisted applying the label to Trump came out in favor of it, including conservative legal scholar Steven G. Calabresi and conservative commentator Michael Gerson.[42][43] After the attack on the Capitol, the historian of fascism Robert O. Paxton went so far as to state that Trump is a fascist, despite his earlier objection to using the term in this way.[44] Other historians of fascism such as Richard J. Evans,[45] Roger Griffin, and Stanley Payne continue to disagree that fascism is an appropriate term to describe Trump's politics.[41]

• American Front: an umbrella organisation.
• American Nazi Party: Founded by George Lincoln Rockwell in 1959, this group was central to the foundation of the World Union of National Socialists.
• Aryan Brotherhood: a prison gang.
• Aryan Nations: a Christian Identity organization founded by Richard Girnt Butler.
• Atomwaffen Division: a neo-Nazi paramilitary terrorist organization which is infamous for its killing of 8 people most notably the murder of Blaze Bernstein.
• The Base (hate group): a neo-Nazi, white supremacist and accelerationist paramilitary hate group and training network, formed in 2018 by Rinaldo Nazzaro and active in the United States, Canada, Australia, South Africa, and Europe
• Creativity Movement: a White separatist religion.
• National Alliance: founded in 1974 by William Luther Pierce, the author of The Turner Diaries.
• National Renaissance Party: of occultist James H. Madole.
• National Socialist Movement: formed in 1974.
• National Socialist Party of America: founded in 1970 by Frank Collin.
• National States' Rights Party: founded in 1958 by J. B. Stoner.
• New Order: led by Matt Koehl with the goal of developing a religion based on Nazism.
• The Order: a revolutionary group established in 1983 by Robert Jay Mathews
• Patriot Front: an alt-right American nationalist movement founded by Thomas Rousseau as an offshoot of Vanguard America.
• Proud Boys: a far-right militant group with ties to white nationalism.[46][47][48]
• Stormfront: a white nationalist website.
• Universal Order: founded by James Mason and heavily influenced by Charles Manson.
• Vanguard America: founded by Dillion Irizarry, part of the Nationalist Front and the alt-right.
• Volksfront: a white power skinhead group led by Randall Krager.
• White Aryan Resistance: a highly racist organization led by Tom Metzger.
• White Patriot Party: a group founded in 1980.

• Canadian Association for Free Expression, founded by Paul Fromm in 1981.
• Heritage Front, founded in 1989 and disbanded in 2005.
• National-Socialist Party of Canada, founded by Terry Tremaine in 2006.
• Nationalist Party of Canada, founded in 1977 by Don Andrews.
• Western Guard Party, an extremist offshoot of the Edmund Burke Society founded in 1967.