Reply #12: The left is exhausted. It has put alot into getting Obama elected. [View All]

Large parts of the left are still "on hold" waiting for him to perform.

Furthermore, as you state yourself, criticism from the left often is seen as "undermining our guy". So why bother to hit the streets? Doomed if you do, doomed if you don't.

The Teabagger movement is ideologically what the NSDAP was in 1930s Germany. As you say, they are anti-intellectual and also anti-communist,
looking for simple authoritarian solutions, blaming immigrants and foreigners for domestic problems and militaristic.

However, I doubt they will produce a right-wing populist leader. The same mechanisms that prevent progressive change will prevent them from
gaining immediate influence on a national level. The coorporations remain in charge.