Rachel Maddow traces the fight to defend American democracy back to World War II, when a handful of dedicated public servants and brave civilians stopped far-right conspirators who sought to move our country toward an alliance with the Nazis.

Inspired by her research for the hit show Ultra, Rachel Maddow charts the rise of a wild American strain of authoritarianism that has lived on the extreme right edge of politics for most of a century. Before our troops began fighting abroad in World War II, and even after they did, a network of secrecy undercut the U.S. war effort and flooded the country with disinformation aimed at convincing Americans that our natural alliance was with the Axis powers, not against them. It was a sophisticated and shockingly well-funded campaign to undermine democratic institutions, foster anti-Semitism, and destroy public confidence in elected leaders.