Better late than never: I’ve finally watched Marshall Curry‘s A Night At The Garden, which is nominated for Best Documentary Short Oscar. It took me long enough — watch it below.
We’ve all read what it’s about, but these seven minutes of archival footage (which I wish had been colorized) are creepy and chilling all the same.
There isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between the flag-saluting American Nazis who filled Madison Square Garden 80 years ago, and those rural, under-educated redhats who always cheer at President Trump‘s hillbilly Nuremberg rallies. Jews were the villains back then; today it’s African Americans, Mexicans, LGBTQs and others who are looking to poison this country with their heathen-like views and traditions.
Curry: “It really illustrated that the tactics of demagogues have been the same throughout the ages. They attack the press, using sarcasm and humor. They tell their followers that they are the true Americans (or Germans or Spartans or…). And they encourage their followers to ‘take their country back’ from whatever minority group has ruined it.”