Club member Madsen compares ‘Trumpism’ with Nazism at virtual event

On the first anniversary of the Capitol insurrection, Jan. 6, National Press Club member, Wayne Madsen, discussed his latest book, The Rise of the Fourth Fascist Reich, the Era of Trumpism and the Far Right, at a virtual event sponsored by the Club's Member-Author Group.

Madsen said he had two inspirations for writing the book. As a reporter, “I covered Capitol Hill for so long and I was nauseated when I saw what was going on last year.” The other reason was that his grandmother served in the underground in Denmark during the Nazi occupation and his mother in New Jersey told him about the German-American Bundt.

The title of the book derives from designating the Holy Roman Empire as the first Reich; Imperial Germany as the second Reich and Nazi Germany as the third Reich. The election of Donald Trump and strong-man leaders around the world in Russia, China, India, Brazil, Hungary, Poland and other nations, in Madsen’s view, constitutes the Fourth Reich.

Madsen went through numerous examples of similarities between Trump and the far right with Hitler and the Nazis such as, “attempts  to destroy local and state governments in Michigan, Oregon, Washington, Georgia [and] Richmond, [Virginia]. The far right is trying to get elected to school boards, city councils [and] state government with no interest in governance. The only thing they have in mind is destroying these institutions.”

After the event, Bea Snyder, a Club member and one of the attendees over Zoom, said it was “scary to see the similarities of the ultra-right groups in the 1920s in Germany and those being used  today in our country by some ultra-right leaders.”

“Trumps version of Joseph Goebbels, Stephen Bannon, has vowed to fight for political control of precinct-by-precinct in elections around the United States and the world,” Madsen said. Accordingly, his book indicates that the battle lines are being drawn “so that the fight can be joined by progressives and democrats everywhere.”

Madsen recounted Goebbels and the big lie. Goebbels said if you tell it often enough people will believe it.  “That’s what’s happening with Trump as he keeps saying the lie that the election was rigged,” he said.

After graduating from the University of Mississippi, Madsen joined the Navy. He later worked at the National Security Agency. As a freelance journalist, his work has appeared in a variety of publications such as The Village Voice, The Progressive and the American Conservative. He has also written columns for several newspapers. He has 21 published books.

The Rise of the Fourth Fascist Reich is available via Amazon.com or through Madsen’s investigative news site, The Wayne Madsen Report (https://www.waynemadsenreport.com/).

Andrew Krieg, of the Member Author Group introduced the author.

The Member Author Group meets at noon on the second Tuesday each month (currently virtually) to produce events highlighting Club authors. To find out more information or to join, please email Joe Motheral at [email protected].