Many talk about Charles Lindbergh when discussing who could've been the right person to lead a Fascist U.S. in the 1930s/1940s. But what if Earhart completed her trip across the world and got indoctrinated in a movement like this? Would Americans have taken to her? What about Lindbergh?
Amelia Earhart as the leader of a Fascist U.S. uprising
- Thread starter Bullmoose713
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As far as I know, Earhart was apolitical. And in any event, the 1930s was hardly a time when women in America took leading roles in politics. Indeed, it was only 1933 that the first female cabinet officer was appointed: Frances Perkins, appointed by Franklin Roosevelt.
For every rule there is notable exceptions.
Rotha Lintorn-Orman - Wikipedia
I could imagine Earhart for whatever reasons adopting far right views and even organising some marginal fascist movement in US like Lintorn-Orthman in UK, but it's almost impossible for her to become president/national leader in 1930-1940s.
At most I could see her becoming a sort of mascot for a movement rather than the actual leader. Assuming a fascist movement in the US would want to make a woman a public figure. Especially one who was a very outspoken feminist and who had a pretty dim view of traditional marriage. She did after all tell her husband that she was expecting something of an open marriage. So even if she suddenly found an interest in far-right ideologies I don't think they'd have an interest in her. More likely is her going the opposite direction and advocating a socialist or communist government, or at least a far more socially progressive political party.
On that note the way the title of this thread is written it looks like the OP was wondering if Amelia Earhart would lead an uprising against a fascist US, which would be pretty awesome. I could see it now, Earhart and her fleet of sky pirates divebombing Silver Shirt rallies before vanishing into the clouds.
On that note the way the title of this thread is written it looks like the OP was wondering if Amelia Earhart would lead an uprising against a fascist US, which would be pretty awesome. I could see it now, Earhart and her fleet of sky pirates divebombing Silver Shirt rallies before vanishing into the clouds.
Unless someone has particular reasons to claim she had any sympathy with the radical right whatsoever, at best this is just taking someone and turning them into the opposite, along lines of WI Abraham Lincoln was a slaveowner or some such. I certainly think that if she was going to go political at all (and I imagine she did a bit, because just being a feminist aviatrix was sure to involve her in some politics) she'd lean left, maybe only a little bit due to anticommunism or some such, but definitely not Lindberghian reaction.
Heck even Lindbergh was restrained; I believe part of his America Firster stance was defeatism; it was easier for him to believe the Germans would steamroller us because he had a fascistic and racist mindset, but when push came to shove he remained a patriotic American despite our regime being led by the wrong people as he might have seen it, and served the war effort. I have no love for right wing extremism but I don't think Lindbergh was an active fascist really.
Still less Amelia Earhart!
As I understand it there is some possibility that on the world flight where she infamously vanished, perhaps she was in fact doing intelligence work for the USN, scouting out Japanese dispositions...and some agents of the IJN took exception and took covert action.
Patriotism for the USA would hardly prove Earhart was not a fascist, but I think the burden of proof is on whoever dreamed up this fantasy, otherwise it strikes me as rudely slanderous.
Heck even Lindbergh was restrained; I believe part of his America Firster stance was defeatism; it was easier for him to believe the Germans would steamroller us because he had a fascistic and racist mindset, but when push came to shove he remained a patriotic American despite our regime being led by the wrong people as he might have seen it, and served the war effort. I have no love for right wing extremism but I don't think Lindbergh was an active fascist really.
Still less Amelia Earhart!
As I understand it there is some possibility that on the world flight where she infamously vanished, perhaps she was in fact doing intelligence work for the USN, scouting out Japanese dispositions...and some agents of the IJN took exception and took covert action.
Patriotism for the USA would hardly prove Earhart was not a fascist, but I think the burden of proof is on whoever dreamed up this fantasy, otherwise it strikes me as rudely slanderous.
There's no knowing her true political beliefs, and Mosely advocated for feminism.
Hitler was anti-smoking. Just because a fascist leader has a positive ideas doesn't erase the fact they're, you know, fascists. Frankly claiming the leader of the British fascist party is proof that an American working in American political spheres would have support from the American fascists is nonsense. The fascist movements in America were deeply anti-feminists and constantly harped on having a traditional view of marriage and gender roles, something Earhart would stand in opposition to simply by existing.
Why, do you know for a fact she was unusually coy about them? In the 1920s and '30s? Why presume it is hard to know?
It might indeed be hard to know. She might have taken extra care to avoid this being known, and conceivably was deeply apolitical, perhaps. I am no expert on her biography and I infer you can't be either, or you wouldn't make such a long reach as finding a fascist overseas you think you can characterize as a "feminist" and infer from that you can apparently presume any random feminist whose detailed views you happen to be ignorant a possible fascist.
Clearly logical contradictions in politics get overlooked all the time. It is illogical to expect a typical 1930s fascist to be a feminist, though you claim Moseley was one, however you define feminism. I'm guessing it is a very very stretchy definition of that you are using. I'd ask you to elaborate on how Moseley could be a feminist, but it isn't strictly on topic.
As for "no way to know," let's start by looking up Amelia Earhart on Wikipedia:
Right there in the introduction we have
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelia_Earhart#cite_note-10
Are you familiar with the National Women's Party and its general platform beyond the obvious suffragette plank? I'm not, but behold there is a link to it. Skimming through it, I can't see any red flags of fascistic leanings in the party as a whole or in its leadership or its actions. There was a lot of compromising with segregationists, several controversies hinging on whether African-American women should be included or not--but we can't take the normal spectrum of American racism as evidence of fascism as such, obviously; distinctions were maintained among the racist schools of the day. (Nazi propaganda held up the Ku Klux Klan as evidence of American degeneracy, any way I have seen it used in a negative context in Nazi WWII era propaganda posters--go figure why).
NWP then might have had some people in it who leaned fascistic broadly speaking, but it hardly seems characteristic of them as a group.
You may of course feel free to scan the Wikipedia article on Earhart herself, or any reputable source you care to share, that presents any sort of case for her leaning fascist in any way whatsoever. Her life involved many associations with many people, some of whom like Lindbergh and perhaps various corporate associates (she was quite entrepreneurial) have fascist associations of their own. But beware cherry picking; a quick skim of the article mentions another friend of hers being Eleanor Roosevelt.
The article includes accounts of various myths about her (and strongly tends to discredit the notion Japanese foul play might have terminated her career--Jackie Cochran went through Japanese archives after the war and found no warrant for that idea whatsoever, I mention this because I brought it up and it is due diligence to advise the thread that is far fetched and unlikely in the extreme). None of these discuss her politics one way or the other.
You might be technically correct; with such diverse associates she might have taken care all her life not to be politically pigeonholed, or she might have taken stands in one period she regretted or had simply moved on from in another.
I would bet though that any thorough, careful, well researched documentary on her turns up enough evidence of her leanings to generally categorize her in the American context, and would bet none of it resembles an American fascist profile. Glancing over her background, her family seems to have been both mildly progressive and her father actually somewhat feckless; her personal self-liberation does seem logically in contradiction with general fascist notions. I'd say she was a moderate to liberal American of her day.
Feel free to prove otherwise. Or to vindicate the claim there is "no way" to know her politics, which might be true but would have taken unusual effort on her part to obscure, most people leave a pretty clear paper trail on that.
Certainly dead people of long past generations are fair game for ATL butterflying too.
But gratuitously making Earhart a fascist on whim strikes me as smearing and with various unsavory agendas too--to whitewash Lindbergh for instance (I might be wrong, but I already shared how I think he falls short of the label in his deeds despite his known faults) or to beat a culture wars drum trying to discredit feminism as such.
At any rate it seems mean.
Well there is certainly no contradiction between becoming an accomplished aviator and being a fascist, the weird part is being a woman while being both these things, but there is that German wartime test pilot, Hannah something IIRC, who even postwar was unapologetic, "the only mistake we made was to not win the war!" Fascists can be quite nutty, same as anyone else or perhaps more so.
