“We’ve taken our democratic functioning for granted, and we’ve forgotten what it looks like to actually have to fight for it.” — William Hitchcock
Today is the twenty-fifth anniversary of 9/11, and there’s a lot of sombre talk about the forever wars triggered by the attack. But sometimes, fighting evil might be necessary. So argues William Hitchcock, whose A Shadow Over the World is a major new history of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the rise of fascism, and the making of American involvement in World War II.
We got the thirties wrong, Hitchcock says. The conventional view is that an interventionist FDR was hamstrung by an isolationist American public. Thus the US’s tardy entry into the war. The truth, Hitchcock argues, is the opposite. Judging from the period’s magazines, radio, films, and plays, he finds that most Americans hated fascism and wanted to act, while Roosevelt wanted nothing to do with Europe until after Munich. Having become an interventionist, FDR managed the propaganda war with such trademark sophistication that “isolationist” and “appeasement” became the nastiest insults in Washington DC. So insulting, in fact, that American policy makers still deploy them today, with every adversary a new Hitler, every negotiation a new Munich.
Because the isolationists ended up as history’s villains, Hitchcock says, we’ve back-projected a narrative in which the 1930s public had its head in the sand and FDR was the lone farsighted interventionist. So the real thirties — featuring a vibrant public conversation about America’s role in the world, with the public actually more anti-fascist than the president — has gotten buried under FDR’s own accomplished myth-making.
And then there’s the F word. Are we back in fascist times? Is the 2020s a repeat of the 1930s? The UVA professor lives in Charlottesville, so it’s a particularly timely question for him. Hitchcock sees fascist behavior, he confesses, but not a fascist country. In the face of authoritarianism, he notes, America remains a vibrant democracy. Maybe that’s what the 2020s, with its public resistance to authoritarianism, has in common with the 1930s. History doesn’t repeat itself, as the line attributed to Mr America himself, Mark Twain, has it — but it rhymes.
Five Takeaways
• We Got the Thirties Wrong. The standard story is backwards: the public hated fascism and wanted action; FDR wanted nothing to do with Europe until Munich. The thirties were “a time much like our own.”
• Coughlin, Not Lindbergh. Roth’s Plot Against America overstates its villain — two-thirds of Americans opposed Lindbergh. The real danger was the radio priest with millions of listeners. And Studebaker sold a Dictator until 1937.
• The Sheriff and the Same Tree. African Americans recognized fascism first — “he’s the sheriff. He’s the mayor.” Jim Crow and fascism as branches of one tree — and a segregated army won the war for democracy.
• The Making of a World Power. From doing nothing — Abyssinia, Spain, Munich — to the switch: weakness itself was the problem. Billions for the Navy, conscription by 1940. And Casablanca decoded: Rick is Roosevelt.
• Not at Midnight Yet. From Charlottesville, Exhibit A: fascist behavior, but not a fascist country. Beware the salami slicers, resist the demonizers — and remember what fighting for democracy looks like.
About Keen On America
Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen.
Website: https://keenon.tv/ Substack: https://keenon.substack.com/ YouTube: https://youtube.com/@KeenOnShow
Buy A Shadow Over the World: simonandschuster.com
Chapters:
00:00:31 Introduction: 25 years after 9/11, when is war necessary?
00:02:00 A just war — reluctantly
00:03:41 The public hated fascism; FDR wanted out
00:05:09 “We got the thirties wrong”
00:05:16 How appeasement became the great sin
00:06:39 Roth, Lindbergh, and The Plot Against America
00:07:33 When America welcomed Mussolini
00:08:10 The Studebaker Dictator
00:08:35 Coughlin, not Lindbergh, was the danger
00:10:24 Was the New Deal fascist?
00:14:42 Dead armadillos: the brain trust’s contradictions
00:18:50 The South’s paradox: Carter Glass and the same tree
00:21:45 Randolph’s high-stakes poker
00:24:44 A segregated army won the war for democracy
00:25:43 FDR, Stalin, and the pact that made him look a fool
00:31:47 The switch: Munich and the making of a world power
00:35:11 Martha Gellhorn’s letters from Spain
00:39:48 Loathing Chamberlain, watching Churchill
00:43:31 Dorothy Thompson: the conveyor belt
00:45:24 Casablanca: Rick is Roosevelt
00:48:10 The lessons of 2026: salami tactics and normalization
00:52:36 Is “evil” useful? The Neiman preview
00:53:29 Charlottesville: fascist behavior, not a fascist country
00:54:49 Not at midnight yet — Darkness at Noon
00:55:46 What Democrats can learn from FDR’s supermajority
00:58:13 My favorite Hitchcock