From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

Des Moines speech

Quality 0.00 · 0 views · Updated 3 days ago

The Des Moines speech, formally titled "Who Are the War Agitators?", was an isolationist and antisemitic speech that American aviator Charles Lindbergh delivered at a 1941 America First Committee rally held in Des Moines, Iowa. In the speech, Lindbergh argued that participation in World War II was not in the United States' interest, and he accused three groups of trying to push the country toward war: the British, who, he said, were propagandizing the United States; Jews, whom Lindbergh accused of exercising outsized influence and of controlling the American news media; and the Roosevelt administration, who, he said, wanted to use a war to consolidate power. Called Lindbergh's "most controversial public speech", his use of antisemitic tropes and monolithic characterization of American Jews as war-agitating outsiders prompted a nationwide backlash against him and America First that the organization "never recovered from".