Reply #23: An interesting idea [View All]

There are some missing components, though:

1. The economy is bad, but it's not Germany in 1932 bad.

2. Have you looked at the teabaggers? Part of the power of the Nazi movement was its ability to marshal an army of thugs, many of whom were young, angry, unemployed veterans, to fight a similarly angry army of socialists in the streets of Germany. If the teabaggers attempted anything of the sort, they would be hampered by their hoverrounds and oxygen tanks.

3. While the tea party movement has the same attitude of rage that the Nazis had, their attitude towards the state is fundamentally different. The tea party movement's libertarian dream is truly utopian (in the original sense of the word, though it is liable to be dystopian in practice): their vision has never been tried in an advanced industrial state, and with good reason. These people cannot even agree on a leader, much less conduct a coup. The Nazis, on the other hand, systematically grew a totalitarian movement and state capable of controlling the lives of most everyone.

4. The young people who voted in this election expressed more progressive attitudes in exit polls than any cohort since 1972. The teabaggers, in contrast, are dying off. These are the George Wallace people, the very same people. They simply won't be around long enough to pull off anything.