I suspect statements like this sound fairly familiar to you if you've been listening to conservative media or politicians lately. "Those closed-minded, totalitarian Marxist professors who dehumanize those they disagree with." Well, this paragraph was written in January 1956.

It was published in this magazine, the January 1956 edition.

The context for that particular statement about Marxist professors was a discussion of fluoridated water. You've probably guessed already that the Americanism Bulletin was agin' it, and you'd be right.

The Americanism Bulletin in 1956 was convinced that instituting science-based public health measures would put us on the slippery slope to a police state. Sound familiar?

The Americanism Bulletin also expressed some, shall we say, unorthodox ideas about Hitler.

This is the lens through which historians familiar with the US far right interpret the words of people like Josh Hawley or Jimmy Concepts. Sometimes railing against "Marxist professors" is just hot air. And sometimes it's just the tip of a really nasty iceberg.