Heather Cox Richardson: December 6, 2024

[erronis]

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/december-6-2024

The battle against fascism continues.

On the sunny Sunday morning of December 7, 1941, Messman Doris Miller had served breakfast aboard the USS West Virginia, stationed in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and was collecting laundry when the first of nine Japanese torpedoes hit the ship.

In the deadly confusion, Miller reported to an officer, who told him to help move the ship’s mortally wounded captain off the bridge. Unable to move him far, Miller pulled the captain to shelter. Then another officer ordered Miller to pass ammunition to him as he started up one of the two abandoned anti-aircraft guns in front of the conning tower.

Miller had not been trained to use the weapons because, as a Black man in the U.S. Navy, he was assigned to serve the white officers. But while the officer was distracted, Miller began to fire one of the guns. He fired it until he ran out of ammunition. Then he helped to move injured sailors to safety before he and the other survivors abandoned the West Virginia, which sank to the bottom of Pearl Harbor.

That night, the United States declared war on Japan. Japan declared war on America the next day, and four days later, on December 11, 1941, both Italy and Germany declared war on America. “The powers of the steel pact, Fascist Italy and National Socialist Germany, ever closely linked, participate from today on the side of heroic Japan against the United States of America,” Italian leader Benito Mussolini said. “We shall win.” Of course they would. Mussolini and Germany’s leader, Adolf Hitler, believed the Americans had been corrupted by Jews and Black Americans and could never conquer their own organized military machine.

...

America fought World War II to defend democracy from fascism. And while fascism preserved hierarchies in society, democracy called on all men as equals. Of the more than 16 million Americans who served in the war, more than 1.2 million were African American men and women, 500,000 were Latinos, and more than 550,000 Jews were part of the military. Among the many ethnic groups who fought, Native Americans served at a higher percentage than any other ethnic group—more than a third of able-bodied men between the ages of 18 and 50 joined the service—and among those 25,000 soldiers were the men who developed the famous “Code Talk,” based in tribal languages, that codebreakers never cracked.

The American president at the time, Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt, hammered home that the war was about the survival of democracy. Fascists insisted that they were moving their country forward fast and efficiently—claiming the trains ran on time, for example, although in reality they didn’t—but FDR constantly noted that the people in Italy and Germany were begging for food and shelter from the soldiers of democratic countries.

Ultimately, the struggle between fascism and democracy was the question of equality. Were all men really created equal as the Declaration of Independence said, or were some born to lead the rest, whom they held subservient to their will?

Democracy, FDR reminded Americans again and again, was the best possible government. Thanks to armies made up of men and women from all races and ethnicities, the Allies won the war against fascism, and it seemed that democracy would dominate the world forever.

But as the impulse of WWII pushed Americans toward a more just and inclusive society after it, those determined not to share power warned their supporters that including people of color and women as equals in society would threaten their own liberty. Those reactionary leaders rode that fear into control of our government, and gradually they chipped away the laws that protected equality. Now, once again, democracy is under attack by those who believe some people are better than others.

Donald Trump and his cronies have vowed to replace the nonpartisan civil service with loyalists and to weaponize the Department of Justice and the military against those they perceive as enemies. They have promised to incarcerate and deport millions of immigrants, send federal troops into Democratic cities, silence LGBTQ+ Americans, prosecute journalists and their political opponents, and end abortion across the country. They want to put in place an autocracy in which a powerful leader and his chosen loyalists make the rules under which the rest of us must live.

Will we permit the destruction of American democracy on our watch?

[LittleGirl]

1. We are so lucky to have Heather on our side

Her reach is growing every day. She keeps my sanity in check and my level of watching media at a minimum. I don't need to watch right wing stations' news anymore. She keeps me up to date. I trust her. She's the GOAT of publishing.

[Lonestarblue]

2. I see the next four years as a very dark age for this country.

And perhaps beyond if Trump declares himself president for life. Voters have clearly chosen fascism over democracy because they perceived a personal benefit for themselves and believed that democratic laws are not important when they stand in the way of their ability to discriminate against minorities, women, and the poor.

We cannot rely on the courts to protect democracy because any lower court opinions Trump does not like will simply go to the Supreme Court, which has already said that Trump cannot be prosecuted for crimes cloaked as presidential actions. By the end of 2028, he is likely to have replaced Thomas and Alito with even more radical and younger judges, like James Ho of the 5th Circuit or Aileen Cannon.

All policy changes will be to favor the billionaire class, whether it’s to end regulations for safe water and air or to end any controls on what tech companies can do to our data privacy and ways they can monetize it. The transfer of wealth from the working class to the billionaire class will continue while the only spending on infrastructure will be what is already part of the Biden programs. Healthcare is likely to get noticeably worse as any regulations in insurance companies are eliminated. As a retiree on original Medicare, my fear is that Republicans will eliminate Medicare and force all people using it into Advantage programs that can cancel your insurance for any reason at will or reject you if you have pre-existing medical conditions.

I hope our Democratic leaders are working on strategies to try to counter some of these moves, though I know Congressional Democrats have little power now. We badly need a strategy for winning back at least the House in 2026.

[erronis]

3. I fear the future looks like how you have described it.

One of my slim hopes is that some of the zillionaires develop a sense of fairness and consciousness and help to turn around this disaster before it is totally too late.

[Native]

4. I love the way she ended this piece. It was so powerful and inspiring.

When America came under attack before, people like Doris Miller refused to let that happen. For all that American democracy still discriminated against him, it gave him room to stand up for the concept of human equality—and he laid down his life for it. Promoted to cook after the Navy sent him on a publicity tour, Miller was assigned to a new ship, the USS Liscome Bay, which was struck by a Japanese torpedo on November 24, 1943. It sank within minutes, taking two thirds of the crew, including Miller, with it.

I hear a lot these days about how American democracy is doomed and the reactionaries will win. Maybe. But the beauty of our system is that it gives us people like Doris Miller.

Even better, it makes us people like Doris Miller.

[erronis]

5. Some great information on that brave man, Doris Miller, from wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doris_Miller

Recognized and honored during the war before his death.

[Tetrachloride]

6. In the blue area of where I sit, I hear not a word of resistance. Perhaps the flyover states will remain flyover

in practice and in spirit.

[live love laugh]

8. The media that allowed Roosevelt to hammer home messaging no longer exists.