it is vitally important that the press remains rooted in a fact based universe especially when we enter an era when truth and fiction are becoming indistinguishable. well i'm telling hartman in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture neo nazis marched on charlottesville last weekend of their march on boston this coming weekend are we a great depression away from fascist america well as richard wolfe in just

a moment and is the justice department's increasingly dragnet like investigation into the inauguration day protests in washington d.c. the beginning of a major crackdown on domestic dissent by the trump administration i asked brian pruitt and sam sachs internet politics. white supremacy reared its ugly head last weekend in charlottesville virginia and one brave american ended up dead thankfully we are not living in nazi germany not yet at least but the threat the white supremacy and fascism pose to our democracy is real especially as reaganomics continues to tear apart what remains of our middle class for more on this i'm joined now by richard wolfe a visiting professor at the new school co-founder of democracy at work and the author of numerous and brilliant books including capitalism is crisis deepens

essays on the global economic meltdown richard wolffe welcome back. thank you tom it's great having you with us first things first from an economist's point of view how do you understand white supremacy and fascism how do they develop and how their reaction to specific economic conditions. yes i believe they are i believe if you go back to the nazi experience in germany the fascists in spain and italy that you will see a very strong relationship things like this are always caused by many factors but a very strong relationship between economic breakdown and collapse on the one hand and the desperate search that people go through to explain to them selves what's happening to them why they are losing their jobs why their income is declining why the prospects for their children are looking grim and difficult and in that process

anybody who can come up with some plausible or even fantastical explanation kind of gets a hearing because people want to understand and the right wing folks with their conspiracy theories with their notion that immigrants or some ethnic minority or religious minority whatever you want these folks with the stories they tell begin to find an audience in economic hard times we didn't have this kind of level of activity ten or twenty years ago we've always had these folks but now they're beginning to feel that they have an audience and they felt that way even before trump came along and made an alliance for himself a political alliance with these people which is why we see it now feeling it's all and coming forward but yes i think it is very strongly fed by the economic downturn for masses of americans particularly white people in this latest phase who are

looking for some explanation and for some help and they're listening to these folks how did what we saw this weekend in charlottesville differ from or resemble the fascist movements of the past. they're similar in the sense that you're seeing angry people who have decided that military action is going to save their situation that a strong leader who talks tough like a trump will be a solution for them and they're going to put together their kind of military orientation with their conspiracy of who the bad people are and then try to make an alliance with a big tough leader who's going to stick it to the people who are the bad guys and thereby improve their situation they turned to hitler for that they turned to mosul leni for that they turned to franco in spain for that and they are beginning it and that's the similarity to turn to trump as some sort of hero there is

a difference however whatever you may think of hitler and mussolini and franco they did understand that in order to even get as far as they got they had to in fact do something concrete and tangible for these masses of people whose first problem was their economic distress so they created jobs particularly government jobs of all kinds and they tried to mix add to minimize the deadly ideological story they told and maximize direct service mr trump is different he is not only not providing the jobs he promised he's not doing anything other than the conventional right wing program of cutting taxes for the rich and the corporations reducing regulations on the corporations this is not going to solve

the economic problem of the people he wants to reach it's actually going to make it worse but here is the most dangerous thing because he's not solving even minimally there are economic difficulties he. star hype the theater he has to hype the words he has to hype the tough guy image he has the hype the way he did over this last few days the notion that he is arbitrating between violence on both sides even though the obvious violence for anybody who isn't demented came from one side against the other that's the danger here that precisely because he cannot and will not deliver on the economic problems is to his base he has to create the right wing kind of hysteria around evil people doing damage getting rid of the immigrants all the other scapegoats have to be raised up to a political program because he literally can't and won't offer anything else to his

own base who becomes a fascist i mean the stereotype is the disaffected working class man but from all accounts the people in charlottesville this weekend are not the so-called white trash that everyone thinks white supremacists are in fact most of the look like or many of them look like buttoned up frat boys is that significant. well i think it's always been that way i think before the mass of of disgruntled unheard economic people get around to getting involved there has to be some sort of leadership and the leadership are people who are lost in a kind of no place for them they can't really make it in the regular business community very well they're having difficulties they don't know quite how to understand this the american educational system doesn't explain much about these sorts of situations either here or in other countries so they come to this kind of

semi educated fantasy story about what the problem is and they love getting dressed up in military hardware now that it's legal to do that and print seeing a round they're not going to go very far unless either the business community or some major political force gathers them in and makes them into something really powerful at this point it's mostly theatre i don't mean to diminish how horrible it is or how dangerous it could become but it's at an early stage in this country relative to what happened elsewhere and it's mostly frat boys and troubled small businesses who have gotten themselves caught up in the theatre of tough guy changing things and it would have been very quiet had not one of them become the president and to act it out on

a national scale the nazis grew to power during the great depression you know we had f.d.r. they had hitler and found that kind of started the whole story we're not a great depression right now is so the threat of a nazi takeover seems a little you know far out at least at this point but what happens if the articles that i keep seen in the front financial times in zero hedge in the conversations you and i have had what happens if we see a rip. off we revisit a crash like two thousand and eight or even worse. well i think that we're seeing more and more signs i notice that bank of america put out a very scary story today about what they see as a signal for economic trouble coming down the line then i think all bets are off i think if you have a major economic dern turn down which we are due for in terms of the normal way the capitalist economy bounces up and down if you see

a sudden wave of unemployment shooting up and bankruptcies across the economy which is what we would expect in a downturn then you're going to see what we've already seen double triple quadruple and we're going to have a polarization between left and right and then it'll be a struggle you're quite right in the united states we had that and the left one out in the sense of the new deal in germany and in italy the right one out and we had fascism if i could say a word about it fascism economically is when the big business community and the government basically come together they do away with the niceties of separation and the big businesses want the government to deliver to them the buyer the worker in order no separate institutions no trade unions no political parties it's a regimented capitalist on top government this has happened in italy and spain and

in germany and it's not yet here in the united states but if you have an economic downturn the government will be called upon to do more than a bailout like in two thousand and eight and to become a real close partner and that together with the polarization of left and right that gives you the conditions when we really have to have a conversation about whether we're going to have a left wing solution or a right wing solution in this country back in one nine hundred forty four boys president henry wallace warned. about the rise of people he called american fascists he described them in the new york times as people who quote claim to be super patriots but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the constitution they demand free enterprise but are the spokesman for monopoly and vested interests their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that using the power of the state in the power of the markets simultaneously they keep the common man in eternal subjection as we look at all

these goldman sachs bankers in the in the trump cabinet we look at scott pruitt turning the e.p.a. and all the regulatory agencies over to the giant corporations the i mean you know branch after branch of our government is right now being handed over to oligarchy in the minute we have left richard wolffe are we looking at something like that right now. i think what we're looking at is the run up to it we're looking at a capitalism that cannot solve these problems in the conventional ways and is therefore looking for the government to bail them out the idea that our big business community which has in which itself staggeringly over the last forty years should be working with mr trump to cut corporate taxes again now in the face of the desperate condition of our economy is a sign of what is happening at the highest levels and that i would argue is the most serious direction from which

a real fascism will come if it continues the way it is now remarkable richard wolf it's always it's always i was going to say grabbing is kind of a grim topic but it's always it's always great having you with us thank you sir at least you can try to understand it and that's why your programs are so valuable so thank you thank you richard you make it that way i appreciate you coming up donald trump is once again drawing a false equivalency between the nazis and the counter protesters who clashed this weekend in charlottesville how much of a threat does this rhetoric pose to our democracy last brian pruitt and sam sachs in just a moment. all the feelings of. every room in your ear.

and you can get it on the old the old. old according to jesse. welcome to my world come on. all the world's a stage and all the news companies merely players but what kind of partners are in t. america playing r t america. r t america. many ways to use it just like the few real new big good actors bad actors and

in the end you could never hear on. the part. of the world all the world's a stage and we are definitely. there's a real irony going. on there it's always. it's always. you know wholesale surveillance you feel you have all meanwhile. has used social new oil are always on the story as it's garbage in real. whatever semblance of good will donald trump earned for himself with monday's half

hearted condemnation of white supremacy in the k.k.k. it completely squandered today in one shocking press conference in new york city for more on that let's turn things over to tonight's politics. with a. for that i politics power brian pruitt contributor red state and sam sax writer and co-founder of the district's sentinel thank you both for being with us tonight here so donald trump perverted to is true self this afternoon once again claiming a false equivalence between the two sides of this weekend's fascist rally and out of protest in charlottesville virginia you had a group of the other that came charging in without a permit and they were very very violent i've condemned many different groups always a group on this side you can call them the lefty you've just called them the left that came violently attacking the other group i think there's blame when both sides

but you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. what does this say about the status of democracy in america when the president is drawing an equivalency between nazis and people who protest nazis when you're in a debate about racism and white supremacy you've already lost and the president lost today because he was in a debate with the press about this issue what's called for at times like this is leadership and guidance and helping the american people understand the stain of white supremacy and how it is antithetical to what america is he wasn't leading today he was debating it's not a debate it's not a question that part of trump's base part of what drove him into office was white nationalism was neo nazi ism you look at the rallies trump is a prevalent force there people are wearing shirts they have signs you see the way

david duke is praised trump after his press conference you heard richard spencer yesterday saying that he thinks trump is an ally so when trump's asked about this stuff he knows this so he's either scared to death of the part of his electorate and doesn't want to disavow that or he himself is sympathetic to the same ideology the same white nationalist ideology and given trump's past given the trouble he had with the part of justice about being a racist renter of his properties given what he said i can actually the first time his name appeared in the new york times was on his company was charged by i think it was the carter administration maybe even before that for refusing to rent to african-americans i mean if you look at trump's history from there to the way you campaign to the comments he's said about mexicans all the way through it's been a consistent thread that he harbors the same sort of white nationalist ideology that we're seeing people who are very emboldened by his present presidency not afraid to hide themselves be out in the open in and promote this ideology in places

like charlottesville to go i might take a quick takeaway is that what we learned today was. is that chief of staff kelly has control of the staff but he definitely has not done anything or has not had any effect in sort of bringing reigning in the president and his natural tendency to see that picture of him standing aside is he looked like he just wanted to crawl yet all i mean that he wanted to get on the a cell and head home. i tweeted after i watched the press conference tweet say in the this is it he's he's he's crossed the rubicon i didn't i didn't say that tweet but you know that he has he has he's gone too far now and the republican party in my opinion and i and i don't hold the republican party in high regard but nonetheless i think the republican party has no choice now but to impeach him if robert mueller gives them even the smallest thread and frankly if they can't wait

for miller they can just go after him on the trumpet teller in washington d.c. it's a clear violation the constitution. i don't see where where the republicans can can continue like this i mean he's got you know it's a. nixon went down when the republicans finally came around and said ok that's it i'm just curious what each of you think about that i mean i have not is confident that republicans will come to their senses on this thing i could see a situation i think that a lot and we talked about this a few weeks ago i think that a lot of the talk around my parents' twenty twenty signifies that maybe even trump himself in the people close to him don't want to do this again in two thousand and twenty don't want to run so i think really i don't think terms going to run in twenty twenty i think that's why the pence one twenty snuffed out the big question is if he's going to make that the two thousand and twenty at this point and i mean whether your theory holds or whether it's his own you know mental stability i'm not sure i don't think he's going to make it to christmas brian i think this is all going to be depending on two things one whether senior staff and cabinet level

position people begin to abandon him you know you saw how he reacted when a couple many a fact. sort of the no big deal panel on manufactured his or never even met it was just it was just just names on a piece of paper and it completely infuriated him imagine what would happen if a couple cabinet secretaries decided to resign in the coming months i think it's all going to depend on members of the cabinet and senior staff keep an eye on what dana powell does she's very well regarded within the all across the board. in republican circles and also i think on capitol hill some really important people need to start stand up and should the cabinet should should have majority of the members of the cabinet decide enough the only thing that any of the twenty four the only thing that would keep that from happening is republicans concerned about social unrest massive social unrest yeah and that's a very real possibility and in fact in that context after saturday's white

supremacists some white supremacist terrorist attack in charlottesville virginia mayors all across our nation have announced plans to remove their city's confederate monuments but in durham north carolina protesters took things into their own hands last night and tore down a statue dedicated to the confederate war dead that was located outside a courthouse what do you think about protesters tearing down confederate statues can anyone who is not a neo nazi really defend keeping these up i mean we literally banned nazi memorials in germany after world war two you know declaration thirty i think it was called that in may of forty five i think forty six what makes up the years there but it may have been made they said by january every monument every statue every every street sign must be gone so there's a big difference between tearing monuments down and taking them down what's been done in new orleans is

a very logical and responsible process you know guided by a democrat i'll give credit where credit is due michel. drew. but tearing them down only inflames sort of moderate people that are like that that see this as social unrest tearing down monuments people that are not authorized to do so i think what we need to go through is a process of taking them down that's where the government that put it there you know whether it's fifty years ago or ninety years ago goes through the process of respectfully removing them or the police in north carolina are now going after the people who tore this down and that's unfortunate i mean i watched the video and i was excited watching it i thought you know after seeing what happened in charlottesville seeing this happen in the people elated taking it down brought a smile to my face why are white people right in the sheriff is going to use the v.a. grafter and there's a lot of verified go fund me is for legal support for the people who did this project think about this what's going to happen in durham now nothing that statues

gone you're not going to have they are not showing up to defend an empty pedestal right there i think this is a much better process than what brian suggested which you have some date and then you call in the unite the right rally people in the neo nazis to come defended and then you have these clashes they just went in took it down there's thousands of these all around the countries and when you come to schools that are named after confederate heroes this is a big problem it's an offense to many people who live in this country and it's about time we take them down and then people are going to take them down as it's a form of peaceful civil defense disobedience in my opinion there's a big difference between and between tearing something down and engaging what in what martin martin luther king did so those are two very different things i don't know if we were to walk down a street in frankfurt germany and see a giant statue of joe adolf hitler i think that we would be taken aback absolutely and i think that we need to look at these in that context these people were racists murderers genocidal purse and installable and they were traitors and it's time also

put pressure on members of congress we're talking about all these statues that are around the country there's dozens of confederate. there are statues right in the u.s. capitol that's by states that are allowed to miss it out of it by the flag in the in the little subway tunnel that goes between the white house and the best tweet i saw in the last couple days was a former coworker of mine who's now at the blaze used to be at red state and his tweet was nowhere else in the world would you find monuments to people who lost an insurrection you know so i think it's that that's an important point to make is that we're about done with this their margins to people who won reconstruction is basically what they're about to start the roof that the white supremacy was able to outlive the so the end of the civil war and when reconstruction meanwhile the justice department has demanded information on anyone who ever visited disrupt jay twenty or a website used to plan the inauguration day protests here in washington d.c.

dream host the company that hosts disrupt twenty dot org revealed the department of justice is request on monday and said they would it would involve handing over one point three million visitor ip addresses in addition to contact information e-mail content and photos of thousands of people there fighting this in court is this the beginning of a major crackdown by the trumpet ministration on dissent against the trumpet absolutely not two quick points one this request was approved by a district judge in washington d.c. not a bastion of conservative judicial jurisprudence so one that's important to remember too i think the company should offer information just on the two hundred people that have been charged with a criminal offense inciting riots not everybody who's ever visited the website i think the middle ground on this is to offer the information that has been authorized by a judge on the two hundred people that are that are but the charges that are stored in three million dream host has gone back to the department of justice asking for

a narrower warrant to apply maybe to just those two hundred the department of justice says no we're sticking with this this is pretty disturbing. case is pretty disturbing even the g. twenty you have more than two hundred people have been arrested and charged with felony rioting which could carry up to ten years in prison look we saw a few windows smashed we saw a limo burned out two hundred people didn't do that maybe five or six people did that yet you have hundreds of people who have their life on the line here and could go to jail for many many years as for one point three million people now that you want to attach to a couple windows being busted in one hundred thousand dollars and you know property damage mostly that limo i'd say is just beyond the pale here and when you talk about a new ministration there was fears that trump was doing an internal purge at the energy department all these departments and now he i mean if you want to compile an enemy's list of activist and young americans who are against you seems like a great place to start to sound expression pro thank you both of you and i thank you and that's the way it is tonight and don't forget democracy is not a spectator sport get out there get active tag your it.

all the feeling to sleep. every the world experience the leg you get it out of the old world. according to jess.

welcome to on contact today we discussed the rise of the charter school movement with education historian diane ravitch public education is a foundational democratic institution and i believe in choice but i think that if you leave the public system you pay for that choice. with chris hedges. america for the expansion of charter schools is creating a system of educational apartheid charter schools many of them run by for profit corporations are not designed to educate they are designed to indoctrinate break teachers' unions marginalize the poor especially poor people of color along with those with learning disabilities and those for whom english is a second language the objective is to dump these students would cost more to educate in the underfunded and dysfunctional public school.