Stephen J. Ross

All he was told is people like Charles Lindbergh, a great hero, were America firsters.

And so – and it's also a really good slogan, America first.

Why not?

Who's going to run on a platform America second?

Well, also I thought because ending a book, writing the first sentence and writing the last paragraph are the hardest things to do for a writer.

And in this case, I'm drawing on my previous book, Hitler in Los Angeles, where the first question I was asked every single time is what can we do?

What can we do to stop hate?

What can we do to stop these right-wing groups?

And so I thought, well, I'm a historian.

I look at the long view, at what we call the long durée, the long period.

And I don't have an immediate solution other than vote people out of office.

But the long-term solution is we've seen in national politics people aren't talking about I'm the education president anymore.

That's being pushed to the side of anything.

I'm the president who's trying to destroy higher education.

And so I thought, okay, most of these right-wing groups

all consider themselves patriots.

And they all, every single one of them, go back to the founding fathers.

And the founding father that they like the most is Thomas Jefferson.

So I thought, can I hoist them on their own petard?

Can I find Jefferson's writing that might have any valence?