# Prequel [[Rachel Maddow]]'s *Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism* (2023) recovers a largely forgotten chapter of American history: the organized campaign by [[Fascism]] sympathizers and outright Nazi agents to subvert U.S. democracy from within during the years surrounding [[World War II]]. The book grew out of Maddow's [[MSNBC]] podcast *Rachel Maddow Presents: Ultra* (Season 1, October 2022; Season 2, June 2024) and became a #1 *New York Times* bestseller. ## The Argument Maddow's central thesis is that the [[America First Movement]] was not merely a mainstream isolationist tendency but was actively infiltrated and weaponized by a clandestine [[Propaganda]] network with direct ties to the Nazi regime. German agent George Sylvester Viereck operated as the linchpin: he funneled Nazi-produced [[Disinformation]] through more than twenty sitting members of Congress, who used their franking privileges to mass-distribute it to American households as if it were their own material. The book profiles the major figures in this network. [[Charles Lindbergh]] lent celebrity credibility to the [[America First Committee]], culminating in his [[Lindbergh Des Moines Speech]] openly blaming Jewish Americans for pushing the country toward war. [[Father Charles Coughlin]], commanding the largest radio audience in the country, broadcast [[Antisemitism]] to millions and helped organize the Christian Front, a street-fighting movement modeled on European fascist movements. [[Gerald L.K. Smith]] carried the torch of [[Right-Wing Populism]] fused with white supremacist ideology. [[Henry Ford]] bankrolled antisemitic publishing and maintained direct connections to the Nazi regime. The book's dramatic center is the Great Sedition Trial of 1944, in which thirty defendants — including Viereck, William Dudley Pelley (leader of the Silver Legion), and Lawrence Dennis — were charged under the Smith Act with conspiring to undermine military morale and promote Nazi ideology. The trial ended in a mistrial after the presiding judge died, and no retrial was ever mounted. Maddow frames this collapse of accountability as a critical failure that allowed the underlying movement to survive and mutate rather than face public reckoning. Against these plotters, Maddow foregrounds a counter-narrative of Americans who fought back: journalists like Eric Sevareid and undercover investigator Arthur Derounian (pen name John Roy Carlson), Los Angeles businessman Leon Lewis who infiltrated fascist cells, and prosecutor O. John Rogge who pressed the sedition case. Their efforts — often at personal risk — demonstrate that [[Fascism]] in America was recognized and resisted in real time, not just in retrospect. ## Connection to the Ultra Podcast *Prequel* is the book-length adaptation of the research behind *Rachel Maddow Presents: Ultra*. There is no separate "Ultra" book — the podcast and this book cover the same core material. The podcast's narrative structure is more episodic; the book synthesizes and deepens the argument with additional sourcing and context. Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment has optioned the podcast material for a feature film, with Tony Kushner and Danny Strong in talks to co-write the screenplay. ## RWKB Relevance *Prequel* is foundational source material for the vault's coverage of the [[America First Movement]], the [[America First Committee]], and the deep roots of [[Fascism]] in American politics. It provides the historical through-line connecting 1940s pro-Nazi organizing — congressional collaboration with foreign [[Propaganda]], mass [[Disinformation]] campaigns, [[Antisemitism]] as a political mobilization tool — to their contemporary echoes in [[Right-Wing Populism]] and [[Nativism]]. The book directly supports the vault's thesis that the authoritarian tendencies visible in today's right wing are not novel but represent a recurring strain with documented institutional continuity. Essential reading alongside [[Ministry of Truth]] for understanding how the American far right both repeats and revises its own history.