Rachel Maddow offers a chilling history lesson

“Prequel” is a vivid, urgent, smart history of the years before and during World War II, when German agents, Nazi-sympathizers, theocrats and others attempted to steer the United States away from fighting Germany — sometimes through isolationism, sometimes hoping the United States might align with Hitler’s Germany. Maddow examines how organized, pro-Nazi paramilitary groups planned to wage war on the federal government through selective targeting, built pipe bombs and other IEDs, and distributed hate materials. She also delves into their eccentric personalities and their general excitement about Hitler and about Nazism