Wild speculation about the past

April 24, 2025

As I was watching my favourite news show Democracy Now this morning, a guest commented that while he didn’t love the fact that markets seemed to be the only factor controlling Trump, we couldn’t be choosey about our allies. To illustrate this point, he pointed out that the US allied with Stalin to defeat the Nazis. While I was surprised to hear an acknowledgement that the USSR contributed to the defeat of the Nazis, I couldn’t help but wonder:

Would today’s US side with the Nazis over the USSR?

Now that might seem like a ridiculous question, given that Americans love freedom and whatever, but I’m not too certain of the answer. Let’s start with the obvious: Trump and his demons are acting like Nazis. There’s very little question of that. Trump and his government have moved to:

• Silence free speech that goes against Trump’s beliefs/interests, including through suing news media that reports things he disagrees with.
• The illegal disappearance, arrest, and deportation of people, mostly Palestinian human rights advocates and anybody Latino who looks like a gang member to the actual gang members in ICE.
• Allied with fascistic dictators, such as Nayib Bukele.
• Threatened to aggressively invade and annex other countries, such as Canada, Greenland, Mexico, and Panama.

And that’s just a few examples. It’s easy to consider whether today’s America would even get involved in WWII. My guess is that they would not. In one of the world’s most egregious present-day “conflicts,” that being Israel’s ongoing occupation and genocide in Palestine, the US has handily chosen the side of the genocider, on a bipartisan basis.