Political Memes

however, it was controversial for the anti-Semitic and pro-fascist views of some of its most prominent speakers, leaders, and members.

surprised_pikachu.jpg

Yeah, I'm well aware, hence the word more.

Also worth noting that the two largest ethnicities in the US at the time were Irish and German Americans. With the famine still in living memory as well as Ireland's independence being relatively recent, Irish-Americans were not very keen on helping the British Empire. (Ireland itself maintained neutrality throughout the war, largely for this reason.) Similarly, German-Americans --many of whom still spoke German at home and in their day to day lives-- weren't very stoked about going to war against Germany.

Left-leaning communities like Lemmy want to have it the way that the US recalcitrance in getting involved in the war was only about good old fashioned American racism, but the real history is much more complicated. It turns out that while Nazi sympathizers did play a role, the politics were fraught in many other ways as well. The Irish and German American constituencies were too big to simply be ignored by the politicians in power, regardless of what their own sympathies may have been.

Washington would be appalled by that

It's so fucking wild that Germany just ends up getting used as a scapegoat, so we can blame someone else in the history books, and gloss over one's own country's eugenics programs.

I always think of that line in the movie The Right Stuff where they're talking about whether the Soviets or the Americans had saved the right Nazi scientists and Von Braun says, "our Germans are better than their Germans."