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Eric Alterman

Eric Alterman

Posted: June 3, 2010 12:22 PM

Think Again: Springtime for Hitler

What's Your Reaction:

It's Nazi Time again in American politics. Several of America's most noted right-wing pundits are once again fixated on swastikas and skinny mustaches as they seek to explain why Americans should trust their judgment with regard to how to fix our problems. Their goal? To slime anyone who doesn't think the policies pursued by a centrist Democrat such as Barack Obama--or even a committed (albeit pragmatic) liberal like, say, Nancy Pelosi--are somehow indistinguishable from those pursued by the Third Reich.

Hard to believe? Let's take a closer look.

Newt Gingrich appears to be running for president in 2012 as the candidate who is not quite as crazy as Sarah Palin. But apparently Gingrich spied all those "Obama = Hitler" signs at Tea Party rallies and health care town halls and is now worried that too much of the crazy vote is slipping through his fingers. How else to explain why a man who once taught college-level history writing--in a book, no less, not a blog post--can claim that contemporary Democrats, including particularly the Obama administration, are a "secular-socialist machine" that "represents as great a threat to America as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union."

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08:54 PM on 06/07/2010
Fear and Anger = The GOP plan in a nutshell:Fear of gays, fear of women w/brains speaking up, fear of people w/disabilities, fear of "empathy." And, for variety, they sometimes mix it up a bit and stoke up anger, a strong counterpart to fear.
03:20 PM on 06/07/2010
Let us not fail to forget that Newt Gingrich is a tainted Republican who was basically ran out of office in the 1990's. This man is never going to be nominated, and even if he somehow achieved that, he would get his rear end kicked in a national election, there is far too much dirt on the record with this loser. It would not even be close. He is a fame seeking opportuntist just like Palin. Romney is the one to watch. And he is just as dangerous to our democracy, maybe even more so.
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11:56 PM on 06/07/2010
He's to bright for the lazy progressives.
06:38 AM on 06/06/2010
It's the same republican playbook but with new names. Just replace fear of communism with fear of Naziism and you have a familiar script. The republican fear and smear campaign never changes.
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ProfessorDuh
06:53 AM on 06/07/2010
The irony here is that the Republicans weren't communists, but they actually ARE fasclsts. Doesn't matter. Because their target audience is too ignorant to know what those ideas mean, any scapegoat will do when they're peddling panic. It's the oldest trick in the fasclst playbook.
03:20 PM on 06/07/2010
agree fully Mimi!
06:17 AM on 06/06/2010
Glenn Beck has endorsed a book that takes what Eric is talking about several orders of magnitude into bizarro world: http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/now-glenn-beck-loves-american-nazis
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JScott
John Galt's last name is McGuffin-Smithee
08:39 PM on 06/05/2010
Several of America's most noted right-wing pundits are once again fixated on swastikas and skinny mustaches as they seek to explain why Americans should trust their judgment.

Wait a minute-......we're supposed to follow a bloviator who essentially gets paid for their opinions and for the most part don't have to back up anything they say/print etc. with any facts, nor are they in any position to formulate government policy?

That's news to me.
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inthedesert
Those who never question will fall for anything.
06:29 PM on 06/05/2010
My motto is: TRUST NO ONE!!
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10:17 PM on 06/07/2010
Welcome to the tea party.
11:11 PM on 06/04/2010
As the Republicans want to replicate the policies of Chancellor Heinrich Bruening, I can see why they speak of a Hitler upcoming, as this happened because of Bruening.
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jalowe1957
Poisonous epitaphs dished out periodically.
03:08 PM on 06/04/2010
For the likes of them (and you know who I'm talking about) neo-fascism (or should I say Nazism) is the love these down-low political parasites dare not speak its name.
03:00 PM on 06/04/2010
I think there are some similarities between the rise of Nazi Germany and the U.S, today. The right wing looneys are looking for scapegoats to excuse their own miserable existence. They are scared, and so are vulnerable to propaganda. I am uneasy with the present culture because any moderate Republican has either gone underground or has gone so far right that s/he is unrecognizable. Where are any decent Republicans these days? Even our Republican "friends" refuse to listen to any information that is contrary to their own narrow beliefs. Yup--a tad like Nazi Germany--fear and propaganda are fueling the right. The splinter Gingrich is seeing in the eye of Obama is really the reflection of the log in his own (to quote a famous man).
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10:14 PM on 06/07/2010
Who is for more government? Left or Right? Your statement is ridiculous.

Who is for more government in our lives? Left or Right? Your statement is ridiculous.

Who is for more freedom in our lives? Left or Right? Your statement is ridiculous.

I got news for you. 85% of the people who read a comment like yours see the utterly ridiculous assumptions on your part.
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01:20 PM on 06/04/2010
I retired from the NYS Thruway Authority at age 49. I am 52 now and a democrat. Since retiring, I have ascended to President of my gated homeowners association in SimiValley.

I retired from the union. I am a living testament to the fact that unions are good Look at the wages of GM/Ford/Chrysler and compare them to the Japanese! They are almost 2x higher! As progressives/democrats we should be proud of what we have accomplished - I still keep my Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker on my Subaru.

I see the ravishes of capitalism on my daily tour of my neighborhood on my electric golf cart. Employees of Google do not comply with garage door opening tolerances, nor are they picking up pet waste using the recommended approaches - because they work too hard. We need to unionize and make Google green.

Also, John F. Kerry wants to shut down those Nazi talking airwaves. That's great, because we all know that the likes of John Kerry would make better news than Beck! Let's take them over! Just as a reminder Kerry replaced all of his lights with fluorescents, in all eight of his homes!

Government knows best for you and me!
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Marcus1
Trickledownscam
06:19 AM on 06/07/2010
So corporations with no citizen representation would be your replacement for government?
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orbro
graphic designer / production artist
06:33 AM on 06/04/2010
I wish people took Godwin's Law seriously, especially the corollary where once you've invoked Hitler and Nazis in an argument, you've lost the argument. (Wake me up when Cristallnacht II happens and Pepublicans have to put elephant badges on their jackets.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law
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jennysez
09:52 AM on 06/04/2010
The Night of the Broken Gated Communities!
bklynsparrow
creating reality from unreal things
11:31 PM on 06/06/2010
It wouldn't be Huff Post without Godwin's Law being broken (I confess to having done so several times) :)