Something I think about a lot lately is how much Nazi support there actually was in the US and if things had gone slightly differently we would not have been calling ourselves the good guys of WWII
This is beyond the normalization of publications like the Times at the time. But the Times specifically was wrong on Hitler, wrong on MLK Jr, wrong on Ida B Wells, wrong on the famine in ukraine, wrong on weapons of mass destruction. Being wrong somehow isn't disqualifying.
Circling back I do wonder what would happen if we taught WWII history not as the US "boldly daring to do the right thing" but really ending up doing the right thing by the edge of a coin toss, and even then it wasn't like the country saw Jewish people as fully human.
Ive been watching the old UK “The World at War” docu from 1973 and the ep about the US starts off with a nazi rally in NYC populists making isolationist speeches and talking about the “America First” movement. It hit hard.
Also remember the US didn't namely enter the war against Germany to free Europe. They only did so after Hitler declared war on them on 11th December in the aftermath of Pearl Harbour.
Hardly the cavalry riding to Europe's rescue they like to pretend.
Haven't seen that in years. Can't recall at what point in the series the Holocaust comes up. Acknowledged before D-Day, or not until camps are liberated.
