Look, I don’t want to get all high and mighty. I’m mindful that on August 8th, 1925, thirty thousand Ku Klux Klan members marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC to vocalize their opposition to our then-stringent immigration policies. So, what we’re seeing in Warsaw isn’t without precedent here at home:
WARSAW—Tens of thousands of Poles marched across downtown Warsaw on Saturday, in an independence-day procession organized by a nationalist youth movement that seeks an ethnically pure Poland with fewer Jews or Muslims.
The largely young crowd shot off roman candles and many chanted “fatherland,” carrying banners that read “White Europe,” “Europe Will Be White” and “Clean Blood.” Some of the marchers flew in from Hungary, Slovakia and Spain and waved flags and symbols that those countries used during their wartime collaboration with Nazi Germany.
A number of people in the crowd said they didn’t belong to any neo-fascist or racist organization but didn’t see a problem with the overall tone of what has become Poland’s biggest independence day event.
“There are of course nationalists and fascists at this march,” said Mateusz, a 27-year-old wrapped in a Polish flag, “I’m fine with it. I’m just happy to be here.”
The march, organized by a group called the National Radical Camp, underscores the rightward politics of a growing section of Polish youth. The Radical Camp presents itself as the heir to a 1930s fascist movement of the same name, which fought to rid Poland of Jews in the years just before the Holocaust. A second group, All Polish Youth, also named after an anti-Jewish interwar movement, co-organized it.
Europe’s fascist movement had enough support here in the States that even after the war some people were punished for having been “premature” anti-fascists by taking the Second Republic’s side in the Spanish Civil War against Francisco Franco’s Falangists.
A couple of things about this, though. We know what resulted from the fascist takeover of Europe. The Poles certainly did not fare well. We also got our act together and fought against the fascists. And, when we were done, we started a decades-long process of cleaning our own house while rebuilding the conquered lands in both Europe and Asia so that we wouldn’t have to fight again.
So, we may not have purest history, but we can be proud and unashamed of our record. Our leadership put us on the right course.
It’s important to remember that the day after the 1925 Klan parade, a sizable contingent of the protesters went across the river to Arlington National Cemetery to lay a wreath at the grave of William Jennings Bryan, who was the Democratic nominee for president in 1896, 1900, and 1908. But it was a Democratic administration that led us through our fight against the fascists. Let’s not pretend that their base was united or that it didn’t take some courage to stand up to them.
What’s different today is that our administration is much more sympathetic to the European fascists than it is to their opponents. And leadership really matters in fights like this. And our leadership is moving their supporters in the exactly wrong direction which is why they’re increasingly acting out.
A Democratic president from Missouri integrated our army. A Democratic president from Texas signed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. They led their followers away from pseudoscience and racism and hatred and violence.
Today’s Republicans need to take a hard look at that history, because it damn well is possible to do the right thing even when your base will punish you for doing it.
