Letters from an American - October 23, 2024

Episode Date: October 24, 2024

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October 23rd, 2024. The struggle over whether the U.S. government should work for everyone or for the very wealthy in corporations was on display today. Cable and internet providers and home security companies sued to stop the newly finalized Federal Trade Commission click-to-cancel rule that says it must be as easy to cancel a service as it is to sign up for it. Also today, the Department of Transportation reached a record settlement of $50 million with American Airlines, whose damage to wheelchairs and dangerous physical assistance to disabled passengers has broken laws. Senator Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat of Illinois, who lost

both legs in combat in the Iraq war, praised the fine and commented, when an airline damages or breaks someone's wheelchair, it's like breaking their legs. The era of tolerating poor treatment of airline passengers with disabilities is over, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement. With this penalty, we are setting a new standard of accountability for airlines that violate the civil rights of passengers with disabilities. By setting penalties at levels beyond the mere cost of doing business for airlines, we're aiming to change how the industry behaves and prevent these kinds of abuses from happening in the first place. A reader called to my attention that the recent Federal Election Commission filings showed one significant difference in the expenditures of the two presidential campaigns. The Harris campaign

spent $34,550.02 on sign language interpreting services. The Trump campaign spent $0. These details of governance are fragments of a larger picture of how we see our country. Are we all created equal and entitled to be treated equally before the law? Or are some people better than others? CNN was supposed to host another presidential debate tonight, but while Vice President Kamala Harris accepted, Trump declined to attend. In place of a debate, CNN invited each candidate to hold a town hall. In place of a debate, CNN invited each candidate to hold a town hall. Harris accepted. Trump declined.

In her discussion with host Anderson Cooper, Harris focused on the reiteration yesterday by Trump's longest-serving White House chief of staff, retired U.S. Marine Corps General John Kelly, that Trump had spoken admiringly of Adolf Hitler and expressed a desire to have generals like Hitler's. In an interview with the New York Times, Kelly said Trump met the definition of a fascist, would govern like a dictator if allowed, and had no understanding of the constitution or the concept of rule of law. The ideology of fascism is associated with Italian journalist and politician Benito Mussolini, who articulated a new political ideology in the 1920s. Mussolini had been a socialist as a young man and had grown frustrated at how hard it was to organize people. No matter what socialists tried, they seemed unable to convince their neighbors that they must rise up and take over the country's means of production.

The efficiency of World War I inspired Mussolini to give up on socialism and develop a new political theory. Mussolini rejected the equality that defined democracy and came to believe that some men were better than others. Those few must lead, taking a nation forward by directing the actions of the rest. They must organize the people as they had during wartime, ruthlessly suppressing all opposition and directing the economy so that business and politicians work together. Logically, that select group of leaders would elevate a single man who would become an all-powerful dictator.

To weld their followers into an efficient machine, they demonized opponents into an other that their followers could hate. This hierarchical system of government was called fascism after the bundle of rods tied around an axe that was the ancient Roman symbol of authority and power. Italy adopted it, and Mussolini's ideas inspired others, notably Germany's Adolf Hitler. These leaders believed that their new system would reclaim a glorious past with the ideology of the future, welding pure men into a military and social machine that

moved all as one, while pure women supported society as mothers. They set out to eliminate those who didn't fit their model and to destroy the messy, inefficient democracy that stood in their way. But while today we associate fascism with this European movement, its foundational principle that some men are better than others and have the right and even the duty to rule over the majority runs parallel to that same strand in United States history. Indeed, Nazi lawyers and judges turned to America's Jim Crow laws for inspiration, and Hitler looked to America's indigenous reservations as a way to rid a country of unwanted people. For retired Marine General John Kelly, to have spoken out against Trump before the 2024 election was a huge deal.

As Secretary Pete Buttigieg put it, it's one thing for some leftist group to call you a fascist, quite another when it's a fellow Republican, and absolutely astonishing when it's your own chief of staff. But Kelly was not alone. Former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley told veteran journalist Bob Woodward that Trump is fascist to the core. Bob Woodward that Trump is fascist to the core. In tonight's CNN town hall, Vice President Harris told Cooper that she agreed that Trump is a fascist. She noted that when a four-star Marine General comes out two weeks before an election to warn Americans that one of the candidates is a fascist, we should see this as a 911 call to the American people. Trump is increasingly unstable, Harris said, and unfit to serve. The people who know Donald Trump best, the people who worked with him in the White House, in the Situation Room, in the Oval Office, all Republicans, by the way, who served in his administration, his former chief of staff, his national security advisor,

former secretaries of defense, and his vice president have all called him unfit and dangerous. They have said explicitly he has contempt for the constitution of the United States. They have said he should never again serve as president of the United States, she said. When Trump talks about the enemy within,

Harris said, he's talking about the American people. He's talking about journalists, judges, nonpartisan election officials, and he's going to sit there, unstable, unhinged, plotting his revenge, plotting his retribution, creating an enemies list. In contrast, she said she would have a to-do list to work on the things that matter to the American people. When Trump responded to Kelly's claims, he appeared to confuse Kelly, who was retired when Trump chose him to serve as White House Chief of Staff, and Mark Milley, the active duty chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Trump referred to four-star General Kelly,

whose son died in Afghanistan, as tough and dumb, a lowlife, and a bad general, but then went on to talk of him as active duty and to say he stopped seeking his advice in the White House. Forced to comment on Kelly's comment about Trump embracing fascism, Republican leaders are either ducking the question or acting as if it is not a big deal. On CNN this morning, New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu said the news that Trump has praised Hitler will not affect Sununu's support. If we can get a Republican

mindset out of Washington, he said, we need that culture change. At a rally tonight in Macon, Georgia, Trump agreed with the audience as it chanted, lock him up. You should lock them up, Trump said. Lock up the Bidens. Lock up Hillary. Lock them up. Tonight, Sean Riley, the mayor of Waukesha, Wisconsin, a key Republican stronghold, announced he's voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. Letters from an American was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dedham, Massachusetts. Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.