@gleick - the grandparents already witnessed this in their time - in the 1930's in the USA there was a movement with significant numbers and some celebrity members (such as Charles Lindbergh) sympathetic to fascists, white supremacists and Nazis, as well as a movement of foreign policy isolationists. There was even a sold out rally of US Nazi sympathizers that occurred at Madison Square Garden in 1939. Luckily these people were in the minority rather than the majority at the time.