Cheap Hitler Comparisons? Maybe Not So Much...

Sometimes you just have to say it...

If there wasn't so much at stake in November, it would be downright funny the way 'Bagger candidates like Sharron Angle and Rand Paul seem to get more popular the less they speak. It's like folks are so desperate for a break from the 'business as usual' pols that they'll vote for anybody else - until they speak and even the dimmest voters start getting the crazy vibe off them.

Supporting a 'Bagger candidate is a lot like getting pissed off with Pep Boys and taking your car to some random guy across the street to get it fixed instead. He promises a way sweeter deal and says "yeh, stick it to the man... screw those big guys!" But then you pick your car up and realize your exhaust's been replaced with a vacuum cleaner hose and the whole engine's f*cked because the dude dropped acid and filled your gas tank with jello. Yup. The 'Baggers may seduce those who are jaded with 'business as usual'. But jumping from 'business as usual' to 'clueless lunacy' isn't really the way to go.

But watching 'Bagger candidates pop up on the news spouting ridiculous ideas gives me that same feeling I used to have about Bush: They seem dumb as rocks. But you don't get elected if you're dumb. So there must be smart guys arranging the rocks in Satan's Zen garden. With Bush, it was the Neocons and the American imperialist agenda. With the 'Baggers, it's the corporate aristocracy and their 1890s style robber baron fascism. Just as Bush was the Neocons' useful idiot, so the 'Bagger candidates are the Koch brothers' useful idiots.

So whenever you see Christine O'Donnell or Sharron Angle running away from the press like celebs fleeing the Hollywood Paparazzi, it would seem fairly reasonable to assume they've been told by their puppet masters to shut up. You can bet those egomaniacal loons would love nothing more than to rant all day long to anyone willing to listen... but they've been told to "keep schtum"... and that cute Germanism brings me right along to...

You know who else didn't like speaking too much to unscreened audiences? Yup. Said Raymond Gram Swing, a news commentator for the Mutual Broadcasting System network back in the 1930s:

“It’s well to bear in mind that Hitler never speaks at the microphone without the background of a frenzied audience. He never tries to talk quietly and persuasively to an individual listener. He talks to crowds who must give a crowds response. This is an essential of the totalitarian leadership."

Again, I'm not one for mindless Hitler comparisons. I'm not one for cheap Jeffrey Dahmer comparisons either... but if you were caught with a fridge full of brains, people would be forgiven a Dahmer reference. And there is an unmistakable whiff of Nazi M.O. about the 'Baggers. Sucks but it's true. The Nazis, just like the Tea Party, leveraged popular frustration with government and sold themselves as a fresh, new alternative. And they also carefully kept a lid on the crazy just long enough to get elected by a conservatively inclined nation not known for its love of extremists. In this respect, Sharron Angle couldn't look more Hitler-ish if she grew a mustache and had that 'one big bang in the middle of the forehead' thing going on... Cheap Nazi comparison? I'd say not so much.