John Rowles

Of course the Trumpers are slamming this Cold War doc as "the worst ever", because it explicitly exposes -- in the form of Roy Cohn -- the tangible link between the 1950's Red Scare demagogue Joseph McCarthy and our current race-baiting demagogue Trump. Trump's schtick is not his creation. He is running the Roy Cohn playbook chapter and verse and still laments that there is no one (thankfully) to replace his coach, as is: "Where is my Roy Cohn?" The other aspect of this doc that the MAGAites can't stand is that it delves into complexity and nuance and lays bare the blatant racism that was used to drive US public opinion to a place where the Japanese were seen as sub-human. Our government executed this propaganda campaign so that the public would tolerate the massive loss of American lives that would likely have been necessary if we had to invade the home island. Later, it turned out to be useful in creating a permission structure for the US public to tolerate the unspeakable death, pain and suffering that we unleashed on the overwhelmingly civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The doc also points out some historians believe the Japanese would have surrendered without unleashing that horror and the real point was to show the Soviets what we were capable of. This is also a problem for MAGA types who like their history as black and white as they wish their TVs were. What is left out of the right wing criticism is the last word on the topic goes to a historian who, while acknowledging the point, explains that this is 20/20 hindsight. Truman surely factored in keeping the Soviets out of Japan but the battle for Okinawa made it clear that a conventional invasion of Japan would have cost tens of thousands of US military lives. Of course, MAGA world is incapable of understanding anything other than "USA good, Japan bad" and sees any discussion of other motives as an apology and a show of weakness. If you really want to understand the historical context of Trump (and Putin vis Stalin) and what is truly at stake for us and the world if he returns to the White House, watch this documentary.