By Ryan O’Connell Associate Editor By Sarah Daponde Staff Writer Weronika Zawora, outreach & student engagement coordinator for the Henry Whittemore Library, led a discussion of the book “Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism” by Rachel Maddow in the library Oct. 9. “Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism” is a non-fiction book detailing an attempted overthrow of the United States government in the late 1930s which promoted antisemitism and worked with an “ultra-right paramilitary movement,” according to Maddow’s website. Zawora said she had some leading questions for the discussion, and first shared some of her own thoughts on the book. “I’m going to be very honest, I took some very good history classes in high school and college and I’ve never heard any of this story,” she said. Zawora asked attendees if they had felt the same way after reading the book. The people in attendance agreed that they had never heard much about this aspect of World War II, but a few did know about some of the topics covered in “Prequel.” Zawora then drew parallels between excerpts of “Prequel” and modern social media posts, and mentioned how several members of Congress were easily manipulated by bribery. She asked attendees how these parallels influence their “thinking of today’s members of Congress.” One of the attendees said, “If you changed the names and the dates, it could be the same.” The conversation then shifted toward social media. Zawora asked the group if they thought social media would have made the movement more popular. Larry Stoodt, a member of the Framingham community, said there already sort of was social media at the time. “They did have social media - it was Father Coughlin and he had 10 million followers, he was antisemitic, they had Henry Ford publishing massive amounts of antisemitic materials,” he said. “And it functioned basically the same way as social media does now. It was unrestrained,” he added. Millie Gonzalez, dean of the library, said that the comparison was natural to make, but that it’s important to keep it in context. Stoodt added some publications today act similarly to how Congress did when sending out “not explicitly Nazi materials, but that was in the background. Much like we have now … a lot of our news doesn’t come out and actually tell you what they want you to believe, they just build the argument for it subtly.” History Professor Stefan Papaioannou said there are many similarities between social media and the radio and film industries in the ’30s, but noted a key difference was not anyone could produce for radio or film back then. He added the industries were very centralized at the time, so major players such as Father Coughlin needed a lot of money to get his message out, whereas today basically anyone can go viral. The group then discussed how the speed of production has changed over the years, as well as how nowadays there is more of a divide in what sources people choose to get their news from. Zawora said the book sometimes felt modern with all of the antisemitic conspiratorial groups it mentioned, such as the Silver Shirts and the Christian Front. “Which sounds a lot like now - we have the Patriot Front,” she said. Gonzalez said she was surprised to learn from “Prequel” that there was a large number of Americans who were against President Roosevelt, who is today regarded as a good leader. The discussion also touched on topics such as systemic bias in America, America’s back-and-forth relationship with restricting immigration, and whether the Great Depression impacted how popular antisemitic groups were in America at the time.