The Smedley Butler Business Plot Story

3min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

The story of Smedley Butler and the business plot that failed to overthrow FDR resurfaces every few years. The Washington Post in particular re-told the story a week after January 6th. If something very much like January 6th has happened before, does that help us? Would it be comforting to know that this really wasn't the first time? Or would we be just even more weirded out about it?

A violent right-wing mob interrupts lawmakers formalizing the transfer of power to a new leader. But this isn’t Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021, but rather Paris on February 6, 1934. Rachel Maddow and Isaac-Davy Aronson explore that earlier event, the way it reverberates to this day and how it could help us understand what January 6 will mean for the U.S.

Featuring guests:
Jonathan Katz, author of Gangsters of Capitalism
Alice Kaplan, Sterling Professor of French at Yale University, author of The Collaborator: The Trial and Execution of Robert Brasillach

Find out more at msnbc.com/dejanews