"When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross"

'When and if fascism comes to America it will not be labeled 'made in Germany'; it will not be marked with a swastika; it will not even be called fascism; it will be called, of course, 'Americanism'. - Halford E. Luccock.

In 1939, 20,000 Americans rallied in New York's Madison Square Garden to celebrate the rise of Nazism -- an event largely forgotten from U.S. history. A NIGHT AT THE GARDEN, made entirely from archival footage filmed that night, transports audiences to this chilling gathering and shines a light on the power of demagoguery and anti-Semitism in the United States.

[media=https://youtu.be/MxxxlutsKuI]

You can search all of Google Books for the quote:

https://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=%E2%80%9CWhen%20fascism%20comes%20to%20America%2C%20it%20will%20be%20wrapped%20in%20the%20flag%20and%20carrying%20a%20cross.%E2%80%9D

I'm not seeing an early original source though. Many folks attribute it to Sinclair Lewis, but the S.L. scholars say "nope."

[sep][sep][sep][center] UPDATE [/center][sep][sep][sep]

Similar ideas have been expressed elsewhere too, including — surprisingly enough — a 1936 issue of Christian Century, which covered a James Waterman Wise Jr. address, in which he told his audience fascism would not come with a “shirt” or “insignia” but “wrapped up in the American flag and heralded as a plea for liberty and preservation of the constitution.”

Snopes also found a passage in John Thomas Flynn’s As We Go Marching which echoed the sentiment in 1944:

But when fascism comes it will not be in the form of an anti-American movement or pro-Hitler bund, practicing disloyalty. Nor will it come in the form of a crusade against war.

It will appear rather in the luminous robes of flaming patriotism; it will take some genuinely indigenous shape and color, and it will spread only because its leaders, who are not yet visible, will know how to locate the great springs of public opinion and desire and the streams of thought that flow from them and will know how to attract to their banners leaders who can command the support of the controlling minorities in American public life.

The danger lies not so much in the would-be Fuhrers who may arise, but in the presence in our midst of certainly deeply running currents of hope and appetite and opinion. The war upon fascism must be begun there.

Source: [b]https://relevantmagazine.com/culture/books/who-really-said-when-fascism-comes-to-america-it-will-be-wrapped-in-the-flag-and-carrying-a-cross-1/[/b]

Fascism is alive and well in America and Canada and Western Europe. It as it always has been - leftist, big government, anti human. The only difference between a modern liberal and a National Socialist Workers Party member of the 1940s is degree.

"When it comes"??? It's been here for about a century, at least, and we've been fighting it the whole time.

Funny thing here in the good ole US of A is that both sides embrace forms of fascism. But the ones that scream fascist towards the other side are guilty of perpetrating fascism the most. One way thinking doesn't always work in the long term.

I thought it was H. L. Mencken.

I think Sinclair Lewis said that.

Could it have been Clarence Darrow?

"Are we there yet??"😷

What's your problem?