Says Krugman today:
The answer lies in "What's the Matter With Kansas?," Thomas Frank's meditation on how right-wingers, whose economic policies harm working Americans, nonetheless get so many of those working Americans to vote for them.
You need go no further that the fascists of the 1930's to find precedent for the current right wing tactics.
After the collapse of the German economy in the 1920's, the Nazis merely tapped into the current cultural mood of anti-Semitism in Germany to find a scapegoat for the economic troubles..... In truth Hitler did not invent anti-Semitism. It was there all along in Germany among the lower and working classes.
FASCISM IS THE LAST RESORT OF A FAILED ELITE..... And they will not hestiate to use it if necessary.
For that reason I would call the current Republican Party: "proto-fascist."
They are using societal prejudices against gays, foreigners, blacks, and now even older people....to provide fodder for their latter day Witch Hunts.
The "Dubya Youth" are on the march!
("Wear great uniforms, shoot cool guns and blow things up!!")
Amazingly, AM radio is just stuffed with this kind of thing.... And Fox News picks up where AM radio leaves off.
NO AMOUNT OF RATIONAL ARGUMENT WILL FAZE A STUPID PERSON WHO HAS BEEN ENFLAMED WITH RIGHT WING FEAR AND HATE.....
And I dispare that ANYTHING the Democrats can do will stop this trend now......
The elites in the US have failed horribly: the economy has been looted to the bone....the elites simply have no choice except the Road to Fascism.
True, Democrats can try "class consciousness," but that is a hard sell because it requires some sense of cohesion and a notion of "we," --not "me."
When the going gets tough...and it will, the "me" thinking with the many hatreds of right are far easier to sell to the distracted and desperate working and middle classes.
And, I see no signs that Americans will "wake up" anytime soon....
