Like many Americans, I have watched too many movies during this seemingly unending stretch of glorified house arrest.
Many of these films I have found on Turner Classic Movies. Even back in the good old days, when I was a free citizen of the United States — remember that place? — TCM was my default channel.
Yes, I know, leftist TCM maven Ben Mankiewicz co-founded the proudly stupid “The Young Turks,” but he and the other hosts keep their politics out of it. Better still, TCM shows uncut movies others do not dare, Blazing Saddles included.
An Introduction to Con...
Best Price: $45.64
Buy New $18.33
(as of 05:04 UTC - Details)
By now, I have seen most of TCM’s movies, but one aired this past week I had not even heard of. On a whim, I DVR’ed it. Good move. Called Gabriel Over the White House, this 1933 liberal wet dream proved to be the most unapologetic celebration of fascism ever put on film.
I watched it wide-eyed. The movie opens with the inauguration of Jud Hammond. A laissez-faire back-slapper, Hammond sees the White House as a way to enrich himself and reward his cronies, Depression be damned. The audience assumes Hammond is a Republican.
Out joyriding one day, Hammond crashes his car and lapses into coma. While still comatose, the Angel Gabriel visits Hammond and turns him into a committed and caring progressive. Is there another kind?
Upon waking, Hammond convenes his cabinet of corrupt self-servers and rejects their plea that the party must come first. Instead, Hammond insists their first priority be the American people. He refuses to use the U.S. Army against a marching mass of the unemployed and fires the secretary of state when he objects.
The Ethics of Liberty
Best Price: $9.63
Buy New $19.00
(as of 02:25 UTC - Details)
“I suggest you read the Constitution of the United States. You’ll find the President has some power,” Hammond warns his cabinet members. Some power? Fully indifferent to the Constitution, Hammond grabs all the power that can possibly be grabbed.
When the cabinet objects to his usurpation of power, Hammond fires the cabinet. When Congress threatens to impeach Hammond, he declares martial law and dispenses with Congress. When accused of being a dictator, Hammond argues that his is a dictatorship based on some imagined Jeffersonian principle of Democracy, namely the greatest good for the greatest number of people.
Now with total power, Hammond enacts a national banking law, stops foreclosures, provides direct aid to some 55 million farmers, circumvents private industry and launches his own “Army of Construction.”
