The American Putsch: The First GOP Coup the Republicans Tried to Whitewash

According to Republicans in Congress, the violent Jan. 6 attack on the national Capitol was little more than a friendly tour of congressional offices by patriotic Americans. On May 12, Rep. Andrew S. Clyde, a Republican from Georgia, downplayed the insurrection as a “normal tourist visit,” despite photographs taken during the attacks showing the retired Navy officer panicking as insurgents tried to bash their way into the House chamber.

Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson claimed it was a “false narrative” to say, “there were thousands of armed insurrectionists breaching the Capitol.” This despite the fact four people died because of the riot, including a Capitol police officer who was beaten and spayed with dangerous chemicals, and that dozens of Capitol and municipal police officers suffered severe injuries, including losing fingers and, in one case, an eye. Johnson’s remark also ignores the fact the rioters were armed with firearms, stun guns, bear spray, even a gallows with a hangman’s noose as they chanted “Hang Mike Pence.”

Some congressional Republicans are trying to deflect blame for the assault away from Donald Trump, who incited his extremist MAGA supporters to riot with his “big lie” rhetoric that the November 2020 election was stolen from him. To them, the Trump supporters were peacefully protesting while outside agitators from Black Lives Matters or Antifa were the actual attackers. (To set the record straight, the FBI said the rioters were all Trump supporters, some 400 of which are currently facing assorted federal misdemeanor and felony charges.)

Yet other Republicans are saying the country needs to move forward and leave the past behind. These, of course, are the same GOPers who continue to promote Trump’s big lie about the election.

GOP Opposes Investigation

On May 19, all but 35 of House Republicans voted against a bill establishing a bipartisan committee to investigate who was behind the insurrection. The bill passed, but still faces strong Republican opposition.

As unbelievable as this conduct appears to any truly patriotic American, it’s not unexpected. It isn’t the first time Republicans tried to whitewash an attempted coup by their cohorts. They did the same thing 88 years ago in the aftermath of the Republican-backed American Putsch.

Also referred to as the Banker’s Revolt and the Wall Street Plot, the aborted putsch took place shortly after President Franklin D. Roosevelt took office. The plot involved raising a small army to storm the White House, arrest FDR, and establish a fascist dictatorship. And, despite the GOP's attempt to portray the plot as imaginative thinking, it was in fact a well-organized and well-financed attempt to overthrow the U.S. government that involved top members of the party.

Legendary American Hero

Retired Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Smedley
revealed a 1933 fascist plot that the GOP
tried to whitewash.

Retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler was a legendary American hero. A recipient of two Medal of Honors for combat actions in America's Banana Wars of the early 1900s, he was also lauded for siding with WWI veterans when they were attacked by the Hoover administration during the Great Depression-era Bonus March.

In 1933, Butler was approached by Gerald P. MacGuire, a Wall Street broker, and another man representing wealthy and conservative American bankers and industrialists. The men explained they had been sent to Europe to study fascism and how best to bring it to the United States. Their backers decided a coup was the best idea. They intended to raise an army of disgruntled WWI veterans to attack the White House, dispose FDR, and install a fascist government—and they wanted Butler to lead it.

Butler was no fool. Despite being a legend in the Marine Corps, “Old Gimlet Eye” as he was called was a progressive iconoclast with a reputation for butting heads with the big brass. Butler didn’t dismiss McGuire’s plot, but played along and gathered evidence for the FBI which eventually exposed the conspiracy.

Dismissed by Republicans

Butler’s evidence was immediately dismissed as a hoax by the Republicans and conservative newspapers. Nevertheless, Democrats initiated a congressional investigation by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Hampered by recalcitrant Republicans, the HUAC investigation, at best, was proforma, with only Butler and MacGuire called as witnesses and the involvement of several prominent, politically powerful financiers and businessmen ignored.

Nevertheless, HUAC report concluded, "In the last few weeks of the committee's official life it received evidence showing that certain persons had made an attempt to establish a fascist organization in this country. No evidence was presented, and this committee had none to show a connection between this effort and any fascist activity of any European country. There is no question that these attempts were discussed, were planned, and might have been placed in execution when and if the financial backers deemed it expedient."

In other words, the planned coup was entirely the work of wealthy Americans with no help from fascist governments in Europe.

No one was ever charged in the coup attempt, largely because FDR suppressed the most damning evidence fearing it would cause a public uprising. The Republicans continued to whitewash the plot, dismissing it as a ruse even to this day. Transcripts of the HUAC testimony was finally made public in 1967. The BBC added more substance to the coup story, reporting in 2017 that one plotter was none other than Wall Street investor Prescott Bush, future U.S. senator, and father and grandfather of two American presidents. Bush was a well-known supporter of Hitler's rise to power and was prosecuted for continuing to do business with the Nazis even after Hitler declared war on the United States in 1941.

Unparalleled Parallels

The parallels between the American Putsch and the Jan. 6 Insurrection are obvious: Trump’s incitement of the riot to overthrow the election of President Joe Biden, and Prescott Bush’s and his cronies’ attempt to incite a rebellion to overthrow the election of FDR. Only the Trump Putsch was put into motion, and it was violent. Unlike the American Putsch, Congress doesn’t need to rely on the testimony of two individuals. There are hundreds of hours of video taken by the news media and security cameras. Dozens of police officers have described the viciousness of the attack. Most important, there is video of Trump and several congressional Republicans inciting the seditionists, and evidence some of those members of Congress may have taken part in its planning. In fact, some of the House Republicans who voted against the House investigation are expected to be called as witnesses. Of course, they want to limit their culpability by downplaying the seriousness and violence of the revolt.

All this raises a question too few are willing ask: Should a political party whose members were involved in two coup attempts to overthrow American democracy be allowed to continue?

 

More reading on the American Putsch:

 Gerald MacGuire and the Plot to Overthrow Franklin Roosevelt

The Wall Street Putsch: Did Fascist Bankers try to Overthrow Franklin Roosevelt?

  

Militia Plots: A Rare but Serious Threat

The news shocked many Americans. The FBI announced they had thwarted an armed rightwing extremist militia plot to capture local government officials and hold them hostage.

You may think I’m talking about the October arrests of more than a dozen Michigan militia henchmen who were planning to abduct Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and put her on trial for the heinous crime of trying to save Michiganders from the coronavirus.

You’d be wrong if you did.

What I described above was a 1934 plot to seize control of the San Diego, CA city hall by a rightwing militia of quasi-Christian zealots called the Silver Shirts. Founded in 1933 by William Dudley Pelley (right), a one-time presidential candidate, the Silver Legion of America was patterned after the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini’s Black Shirts with the intention of establishing a “Christian Commonwealth” in America that would exclude all Jews and nonwhites.

The Silver Legion was a pro-fascist/Nazi group, one of several that existed in the U.S. in the 1930s. (See: American Fascists: A Forgotten History.) The local contingent of Silver Shirts concocted a plan to overthrow San Diego’s city government when they heard rumors that a group of communists was making similar plans (they weren’t). Two Marines from Camp Pendleton uncovered the plot when they infiltrated the Legion while investigating a series of weapons thefts from local military units.

Militia coup attempts like those thwarted in San Diego and Michigan might seem rare, but they aren’t unknown, and they are no laughing matter. They pose a very real threat to American citizens and to our democracy.

 The first antigovernment militia coup was the 1791 Whiskey Rebellion. Contrary to the belief of many radical gunowners that the Second Amendment was intended by our Founding Fathers to provide for the overthrow the government, the Whiskey Rebellion was quickly put down by a federal force led by then-President George Washington. (See: The Myths that Drive America’s Love of Guns.)

Anti-government militia plots have been the bane of American life, particularly since the 1990s. Several militia plots were uncovered during that decade. Members of a group called the North American Militia planned to bomb several targets in Michigan, including a federal building and an IRS building, and even discussed assassinating various government officials.

In 1997, members of a Missouri militia group planned a July 4 attack on Fort Hood, Texas, as the military base hosted an annual “Freedom Festival” attended by 50,000 men, women, and children. Fortunately, the FBI and the Missouri State Highway Patrol thwarted the plot. (See: The Militia Movement.) And in March 2011, the FBI charged nine members of an extremist militia group in Michigan with seditious conspiracy for plotting to attack law enforcement and spark an uprising against the government. (See: Domestic Terrorism: Focus on Militia Extremism.)

These rebellions were stopped or quickly suppressed before they started. But that doesn’t mean militia coups are not dangerous. In 1898, a white supremacist militia successfully overthrew the biracial city government of Wilmington, NC. There was no response to the deadly coup from local police, the state government, or Washington, DC. Its success is having unfortunate repercussions in today’s presidential politics, as Donald Trump keeps holding up that event as a model for future coups. (See:  The White Supremacist Coup that Trump Uses as a Template.)

Many Americans like to believe Timothy McVeigh’s April 19, 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building that killed 168 men, women, and children was the act of a “lone wolf” terrorist, Timothy McVeigh. In fact, in addition to McVeigh, three accomplices were also charged and tried for the crime. They had hoped the bombing would initiate an uprising that would take down the U.S. government. McVeigh was also a member of Christian Identity, a rightwing, white supremacist militia, which the FBI believed may have also been involved with the plot. (See: Were There More OKC Conspirators?: The Elohim City Connection.)

The last four years saw a rise in militia activity, thanks to the hateful and extremist rhetoric of Donald Trump. Armed militia members confronted peaceful Black Lives Matter protestors and marched to protest social distancing practices implemented by local governments in the wake of the coronavirus. Even before planning to abduct Gov. Whitmer, Michigan militia gunmen marched on the state capitol in an obvious threat to state lawmakers.

Not all rightwing coup plots were the work of militia movements. In 1933, a group of wealthy conservative bankers and financiers plotted to raise a private army and use it to overthrow the American government and establish a fascist dictatorship. Called The American Putsch and The Bankers Revolt, the plot was thwarted by the man they approached to lead their army. Smedley Butler, a retired Marine Corps major general and two-time recipient of the Medal of Honor, played along with the conspirators and collected evidence for the FBI. One of the alleged conspirators was a wealthy, pro-Nazi financier named Prescott Bush, father and grandfather of two U.S. presidents. (See: American Fascists: A Forgotten History.)

Unlike George Washington riding forth to preserve the country and democracy during the Whiskey Rebellion, Donald Trump has done nothing to mitigate the threat from these rightwing extremist groups. On the contrary, Trump appointed self-avowed pro-fascist, white nationalists like Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller to his staff. He’s referred to white nationalist groups as “some good people” and told the Proud Boys to “stand by.” Trump has also called for armed militia members to act as “poll watchers” during the balloting. His failure to condemn these hate groups or their malicious plots only encourages them to continue their terrorist plots. More conspiracies will be on the horizon as long as this irresponsible president remains in power.

And despite the best efforts of law enforcement, the next plot may not be stopped in time.