The "authoritarians" are on the rise: How the "democratic disconnect" makes democratic societies "easy prey" for right-wing extremists like Donald Trump

“The receptivity of the masses is very limited, 

their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. 

In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda 

must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans 

until the last member of the public understands 

what you want him to understand by your slogan.”

Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" 

By Patrick

The USA is heading with full speed into this fateful election year, and one thing seems already certain: This won't be an election like the previous ones. Even 2008 with Sarah Palin's demagoguery was most likely only a "mild prelude" to what is coming now. The leading Republican contenders are two extremists, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, and the "old GOP" is barely visible any more. The Republican base has been whipped into a frenzy, the obvious result of many years of relentless vicious right-wing propaganda. It appears that many Republicans now want the "real deal": A strong man who does not care too much about traditional views, but is willing to go to extreme measures to solve real or imagined problems.

In every democratic country there is a part of the population which is deeply distrustful of the democratic system. These people perceive the system as "weak" and favor the easy, quick solutions. Also, every country has a choice: Either a society pushes these people to the side, and treats them as outcasts, or you allow them to become part of the mainstream. Once they are in the mainstream, it is very difficult to get rid of these people again.

While "experienced countries" like Germany treat these people usually as outcasts, remembering very well how right-wing extremists once destroyed a German democracy and afterwards caused chaos and destruction all over the world, many people in a country like the USA are unfortunately much more open to treat these people as viable contenders for the highest positions in the country. These extremists like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz receive huge attention by the media, and their often ridiculous talking points as well as their shameless lies become part of the mainstream.

The "Transatlantic Academy", a US-German research organisation, published an extensive report in 2013 called "The Democratic Disconnect - Citizenship and Accountability in the Transatlantic Community." In this report,  the researchers provide an excellent summary of why Democracies are increasingly under threat (page 11):

Democracy is in trouble. The collective engagement of a concerned citizenry for the public good — the bedrock of a healthy democracy — is eroding. Democratic governments often seem crippled in their capacity to deliver what their people want and need. They are neither as responsive nor as accountable as they need to be in an era of hard choices and rising non- democratic powers.

There is widespread concern about apparent declining rates of voter participation and about the alienation or disaffection of citizens from the political process. In Europe, there is fear that the distance between ordinary citizens and the politicians and bureaucrats in Brussels compromises democratic legitimacy. In the United States, lamentations about gridlock and polarization are the order of the day. Canadians worry about the tendency of their political system to place largely unaccountable power in the hands of the prime minister.

Acute crises are putting political systems under stress, both in the United States after the 2008 financial crisis, and in Europe today. Angry demonstrations in Greece and elsewhere over externally enforced austerity programs inevitably raise questions about the stability of the democratic system itself. Citizens have ways of expressing themselves when their vital interests are being harmed — but increasingly in a manner that seems to challenge, rather than reinforce, democratic government. Democratic governments, for their part, frequently behave in ways that are incomprehensible to their citizens.

These two architectural features of liberal democracy — citizenship and governance — are connected, or ought to be. But today they seem increasingly disconnected.

Domestically, there is a deepening democratic disconnect between the formal government institutions of established and aspiring democracies, on one hand, and the lived democratic experience of their citizens, on the other. This report contends that both sides of this citizen-government relationship merit serious policy attention.

The democratic disconnect also shows itself in the international community’s half-hearted responses to persistent authoritarianism or to dynamic popular upheavals such as the Arab Spring. The engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan have left the very notion of liberal interventionism widely discredited. Democracy promotion is beset by self-doubt. The economic success of some rising nondemocratic regimes accentuates democracy’s malaise.

Established democracies in the West struggle to meet the demands of their people. Economic and financial globalization has been empowering for some citizens, but for many others, it appears to reduce government to a passive mediator between the demands of global financial markets and citizens’ expectations. Democratic governments themselves are hostage to the imperatives of international financial flows. Increasingly, we see the privatization of gain and the collectivization of pain. Meanwhile the global institutional infrastructure mutates from traditional multilateralism to “minilateralism” at a time when resilient institutions are ever more needed to address proliferating problems of global governance.

This report explains how the erosion of Democratic systems is a world-wide phenomenon, and unfortunately, a significant part of the society in the USA has become a "part" of this anti-democratic movement as well. The people who reject Democracy in its current form are now usually called "The Authoritarians." 

Seducing the disillusioned population: Nazi election poster from 1932 - "Our Last Hope - Hitler" 

Citizen in Berlin looking at this election poster

In December 2015, the online magazine "Vox" published excerpts from an extensive poll among Americans, showing that many US-citizens are not very keen on living in a Democracy any more.

The results of the research are actually truly shocking. Especially many young Americans apparently turn away from democratic values.

Examples:

Just today, "Politico" published a very important article, explaining that there is one fact which unites the supporters of Donald Trump: The fact that they are authoritarians.

Politico writes:

If I asked you what most defines Donald Trump supporters, what would you say? They’re white? They’re poor? They’re uneducated?

You’d be wrong.

In fact, I’ve found a single statistically significant variable predicts whether a voter supports Trump—and it’s not race, income or education levels: It’s authoritarianism.

That’s right, Trump’s electoral strength—and his staying power—have been buoyed, above all, by Americans with authoritarian inclinations. And because of the prevalence of authoritarians in the American electorate, among Democrats as well as Republicans, it’s very possible that Trump’s fan base will continue to grow. My finding is the result of a national poll I conducted in the last five days of December under the auspices of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, sampling 1,800 registered voters across the country and the political spectrum. Running a standard statistical analysis, I found that education, income, gender, age, ideology and religiosity had no significant bearing on a Republican voter’s preferred candidate.

Only two of the variables I looked at were statistically significant: authoritarianism, followed by fear of terrorism, though the former was far more significant than the latter.

Authoritarianism is not a new, untested concept in the American electorate. Since the rise of Nazi Germany, it has been one of the most widely studied ideas in social science. While its causes are still debated, the political behavior of authoritarians is not. Authoritarians obey. They rally to and follow strong leaders. And they respond aggressively to outsiders, especially when they feel threatened. From pledging to “make America great again” by building a wall on the border to promising to close mosques and ban Muslims from visiting the United States, Trump is playing directly to authoritarian inclinations.

The power of the "authoritarians": Admiring the "strong man" who solves all the problems

There is a real danger in my opinion that "the authoritarians", the people who believe that problems should be solved with radical decisions by the government or the president, while ignoring the democratic process, will become more and more popular in the USA. Even if Donald Trump does not become President, there will be politicians who will be inspired by Trump's current success, and will try to imitate him. This is probably already happening.

The "old GOP" is already starting to disappear, but how will the "replacement" look like? It is obvious that a large part of the "base" is radicalized, and the "civil war" in the GOP will likely continue. My expectation is that eventually "the authoritarians" are going to take over the GOP, and this would be very bad news for the USA, and the world.

A very informative study about "The Authoritarians" can be found on the internet here, published by Canadian professor Bob Altemeyer already in 2006. His thoughts from 10 years ago read like a bad prophecy:

But why should you even bother reading this book? I would offer three reasons. First, if you are concerned about what has happened in America since a radical right-wing segment of the population began taking control of the government about a dozen years ago, I think you=ll find a lot in this book that says your fears are well founded. As many have pointed out, the Republic is once again passing through perilous times. The concept of a constitutional democracy has been under attack--and by the American government no less!

The mid-term elections of 2006 give hope that the best values and traditions of the country will ultimately prevail. But it could prove a huge mistake to think that the enemies of freedom and equality have lost the war just because they were recently rebuffed at the polls. I’ll be very much surprised if their leaders don’t frame the setback as a test of the followers’ faith, causing them to redouble their efforts. They came so close to getting what they want, they’re not likely to pack up and go away without an all-out drive.

But even if their leaders cannot find an acceptable presidential candidate for 2008, even if authoritarians play a much diminished role in the next election, even if they temporarily fade from view, they will still be there, aching for a dictatorship that will force their views on everyone. And they will surely be energized again, as they were in 1994, if a new administration infuriates them while carrying out its mandate. The country is not out of danger.

Yes, the USA is definitely not out of danger, and we will see during the course of 2016 whether our fears are justified. Let's just say that with "Trump-mania" in full swing, the year is off to a bad start.

(Many thanks to AnnetteK and junasie14 for providing the inspiration to this post!)

Donald Trump quickly becomes an international joke, but his campaign boosts right-wing extremism, and also incites violence against Muslims in the USA

By Patrick

We thought we had seen it all, but then came Donald Trump, who still dominates the headlines in the USA, and also starts to receive major attention around the world. The man who is basically a SNL-parody which inexplicably came to life has become a huge danger especially for Muslims living in the USA. Trump's violent speeches undoubtedly encourage violence and abuse against Muslims, and in my view it will most likely get much, much worse.

The "Washington Post" reported on Thursday:

Rasheed Albeshari was praying in Castro Valley, Calif., on Dec. 7, when a woman approached him and began shouting insults about his Muslim faith. Albeshari was then "hit by an umbrella before taking a shower of coffee."

From sea to shining sea, Muslim Americans are coming under attack.

In New York City, a shop owner was savagely beaten Saturday by a stranger promising to “kill Muslims.” In California, a man was playing volleyball and praying in a park on Sunday when a woman accused of him of being a terrorist, struck him and splashed him in the face with coffee. And in Philadelphia, a severed pig’s head was tossed outside of a mosque on Monday.

On Wednesday, a Muslim American congressman linked the “rise in Islamophobia” — including a death threat he received on Monday — to the “demagoguery” of Donald Trump.

“You have other politicians who are joining the bandwagon and who are fanning the flames of bigotry,” Rep. André Carson (D-Ind.) told interviewer Jake Tapper. “That concerns me because we’re putting people — i.e. Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus and others — into the line of fire exposing them to death threats, discrimination at the workplace and assaults.”

There are more incidents:

In Austin, two young Arab-American women reported they were verbally assaulted at a restaurant Sunday morning by another patron. Leilah Abdennabi, a Palestinian American born in Chicago, and Sirat Al-Nahi, an Iraqi American born in Seattle, who both wear Muslim head scarfs, said an older man at Kerbey Lane Cafe shouted they “should just go back to Saudi Arabia.” The restaurant moved the patron but did not make him leave, the women told Fox 7 TV.

Sarker Haque, who owns Fatima Food Mart in Queens in New York reported he was beaten Saturday by a customer who promised to “kill Muslims.” Haque was bleeding and bruised and had a dislocated hand. He was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital for treatment, according to NY1-TV. Police charged Piro Kolvani, 55, of Jacksonville, with assault and criminal mischief in connection with the incident.

At the Islamic Center of Greater St. Louis, someone claiming to be a former Marine left a threatening voicemail Saturday. The incident is being investigated as a possible hate crime, Fox 2 TV in St. Louis reported.

In Palm Beach, Fla., someone broke windows in a prayer room at the Islamic Center. Police arrested Joshua Killets, 27, on Friday in connection with the incident. He faces charges that include criminal mischief to a religious structure, according to WSVN-TV.

The Manassas Mosque in Virginia received a voicemail threat Dec. 2, the night of the San Bernardino attacks that left 14 people fatally shot by a married Muslim couple who the FBI says were "radicalized." A caller claiming to represent the Jewish Defense League referred to the California shooting and promised to “do to your people what you did to them,” according to a CAIR report.

The Tempe, Ariz., police department received a report of unspecified damage in the last week.

In Grand Forks, N.D., community members believe the deliberate Tuesday morning torching of a restaurant serving Somali food was a hate crime.

There also seems to be a growing trend to throw off Muslims from airplanes:

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee said it received complaints from three airline passengers pulled off planes since Dec. 2. Multiple death threats and other abusive comments have been directed at the group from phone callers, said Abed Ayoub, the committee's national legal and policy director.

The TV-report of the Muslim shopkeeper who was beaten is truly heartbreaking:

But it can and surely will get much worse, and I believe that this is just what Donald Trump wants. He hates other people with a passion, and the "Muslims" and the "Mexicans" are just very convenient targets for him. He will happily add more "targets" to this list, if it appears useful for him.

He is a true fringe candidate and does not care about truth or fiction, he only cares about propaganda, and from history, we know that propaganda can work extremely well.

People who are "infected" by the Trump-virus have become true "believers", and comments like this one can be found everywhere these days on the internet (from an article at Yahoo News):

Trump's rhetoric is in no way different from the methods how the Nazis incited the Germany against the Jews in the years before and after 1933.

If you for example look at old Nazi anti-Jewish cartoons, like this one from 1929 ("The year is over. The fight will go on!"), then the parallels are obvious. The groups are interchangeable. The person on the left could also very well be a Muslim:

The relentless propaganda against the Jews also had the desired results long before the Nazis came to power in 1933.

From an historical overview about the Jews in Berlin:

Goebbels exploited the February 1930 killing of Horst Wessel, an SA storm-trooper man in Berlin, to launch a campaign against the city’s Jews. On the Jewish New Year of 1931, Jews on the way home from the synagogues were attacked on the Kurfurstendamm in western Berlin.

The next year, 1932, saw a spate of attacks on Jewish university students and lecturers in the city. The election campaign that year served to intensify the anti-Semitic atmosphere.

An interesting article explains who the Jews in Germany were living in fear already before 1933 - and how the Nazis were not taken very seriously at the same time:

True, many German Jews understood the danger early on and were all too eager for others to understand their dire situation, as well, including the relatively rare American Jewish visitor like labor organizer Abraham Plotkin. When Plotkin arrived in Berlin in November 1932, German Jews peppered him with questions about Jewish life in the United States. When he said there was anti-Semitism there, too, they scoffed at the notion that it was at all comparable. “Do they ever throw Jews out of subway cars in New York?” they asked, enumerating other acts of violence.“There is hardly a Friday night that we pray without trembling.”

And yet when Plotkin went, on December 16, 1932, to see a Nazi rally, which featured chief propagandist Joseph Goebbels, he found the event anticlimactic. “I confess my disappointment,” he wrote in his diary. “I had come to see a whale and found a minnow.” On January 30, 1933, Hitler was named chancellor.

It is absolutely justified in my opinion to compare Donald Trump's statements and his tactics, his unashamed use of propaganda, with the methods of the Nazis. Such rhetoric inevitably leads to violence and abuse, and this surely is not unintended, as violence seems to emphasize the strength of your very own movement.

Donald Trump and his minions have a very relaxed attitude to violence, to put it like that, as evidenced again by a campaign event on Friday, when a female protester was shoved to the ground by Trump's security guards:

It is also hardly surprising that Neo-Nazi groups enjoy a spike in attention and support:

Politico reports:

But its leaders consistently say that Trump's rhetoric about minority groups has successfully tapped into simmering racial resentments long ignored by mainstream politicians and that he has brought more attention to their agenda than any American political figure in years. It is a development many of them see as a golden opportunity.

Meanwhile, analysts from the two leading organizations that track violence against minority groups say Trump is energizing hate groups and creating an atmosphere likely to lead to more violence against American Muslims.

According to experts at the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center who monitor hate groups and anti-Muslim sentiment, Trump’s call on Monday to halt the entrance of Muslims to the United States is driving online chatter among white supremacists and is likely to inspire violence against Muslims. “When well-known public figures make these kind of statements in the public square, they are taken as a permission-giving by criminal elements who go out and act on their words.” said Mark Potok of the SPLC. “Is it energizing the groups? Yeah. They’re thrilled.”

Marilyn Mayo, co-director of the ADL’s Center on Extremism, said Trump’s proposal this week to halt the entrance of Muslims into the United States is only the latest statement to inject vigor into the racist fringe of American politics. “Since the beginning of Donald Trump’s candidacy, we’ve definitely seen that a segment of the white supremacist movement, from racist intellectuals to neo-Nazis have been energized,” she said.

Donald Trump meanwhile also continues his love-affair with lies and conspiracy theories and a few days ago gave a long interview to the largest promoter of outrageous conspiracy theories, Alex Jones from "Infowars." For me as a German, this type of behavior also immediately reminds me of Nazi-tactics, as the Nazis loved nothing more than conspiracy-theories in order to justify their warped and dangerous views.

Watch:

It is almost comical to see that even extreme right-wing politicians from abroad disagree with Trump - he is too extreme for some of them:

Trump has also been called out by other Western allies, including politicians in France and the Netherlands. France's prime minister, who is less powerful than the nation's president, said Trump "feeds the hatred and the confusion," and Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders called the brash billionaire's remarks "very unhelpful and very discriminatory."

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls also compared Trump to the country's far-right nationalist party, but even the party's leader, Marine Le Pen, rejected the comparison.

"Seriously, have you ever heard me say something like that?" she said when asked about Trump comparisons in a TV interview, according to The New York Times. "I defend all the French people in France, regardless of their origin, regardless of their religion."

In the USA, a broad coalition of members from the public, politicians, journalists and others, strongly condemn Donald Trump. It surely is also a harsh reminder for some people that radical rhetoric will have consequences at some point. Eventually, a larger part of the population will get radicalized, and there will be politicians who will be eager to exploit this. Once you define a huge group of people summarily as "the enemy", then the gloves are off, and anything can happen.

It is refreshing and encouraging to see that some people use social media very effectively to call out Donald Trump, like the British war veteran Chris Herbert, who lost his right leg in Iraq.

His facebook post is very powerful:

I do hope that people continue to speak out against Donald Trump, the big bully of US politics - celebrities, politicians, journalists and citizens. His is riding the Nazi-train, trying to push anyone aside who is "weak." His supporters should not get the impression that they are in the majority, because they clearly are not.

+++

BONUS:

Also worth a read (from Raw Story):

Meet the nutters on Team Trump — the people behind the candidate’s quest for the White House

Excerpt:

The spokeswoman

Katrina Pierson has long been a fixture on cable news, often defending Trump, although she only officially joined his campaign in November. A professional activist who has warned Tea Party members of UN plans to take over Texas, she has worked for the Tea Party Leadership Fund, one of the most prominent “ scam Pacs ” – groups, mostly on the right, that spend almost all the money they raise on themselves. In 2014, she mounted an unsuccessful primary challenge to veteran Texas congressman Pete Sessions. Her campaign was damaged by the revelation that while preparing her run and doing consulting work for the Senate campaign of Ted Cruz , she was receiving government unemployment benefits .

+++

PLUS:

Most of you will probably not watch Donald Trump's interview with Alex Jones which I posted above, but if you do, you will see that this is a conversation of two people who are clearly insane. You will also see that Trump uses another Nazi-tactic to the extreme: Declaring that your own country is the victim of virtually every other country around you, that everybody else just wants to exploit and weaken the USA. That's exactly the type of talk with which Adolf Hitler poisoned the hearts and minds of many Germans.

Donald Trump will cause lasting damage, whether he succeeds with his campaign or not, but it is important that he is being properly called out and exposed as the despicable and insane person he actually is. The USA has to withstand the propaganda, and this will be a great challenge.

Stratfor-founder George Friedman slams Tea Party in leaked emails from March 2010: "I'm pretty hard right and I'm offended", "You are living in a country where disagreements degenerate into massively uncivil behavior", "Physical attacks on people and places you don't agree with has become acceptable" - Friedman compares Tea Party to "Hitler and Lenin", other analysts also make comparisons to Nazi-movement

By Patrick

On March 20, 2010, Fox News reported that the Tea Party is making a "last stand" at the Capital in Washington against the healthcare reform. On this day, ugly scenes happened: An angry and abusive crowd gathered around the Capitol when lawmakers, with surprisingly little protection, entered the building. The Washington Post reported:

"Members of the Congressional Black Caucus  said that racial epithets were hurled at them Saturday by angry protesters who had gathered at the Capitol to protest health-care legislation, and one congressman said he was spit upon. The most high-profile openly gay congressman, Rep. Barney Frank  (D-Mass.), was heckled with anti-gay chants."

Whether the protester intentionally or just accidentally spit on Congressman Emanuel Cleaver has since been subject to debate, but this question ultimately is not important. The video of this incident takes you back to the heated atmosphere on March 20, 2010 - when the Tea Party probably was at its "peak": 

A few days later, the Tea Party brought the protest to Harry Reid's hometown, with about 10,000 protesters  attending - including Sarah Palin as a featured speaker, giving one of her biggest "screeches" ever. "Don't retreat, reload" - yes, we remember.

So this happened 2 1/2 years ago, and although the big crowds are gone, the Tea Party is still there. Congress now is full of "Teabaggers", and the Republican VP-candidate Paul Ryan is clearly a Tea Party guy - bought and paid for by the Koch Brothers, the "financial engine" of the Tea Party movement. Also, don't forget all these new "Tea Party Governors."

Back in March 2010, it was not very popular to point in public that the teabaggers are mainly a bunch of extremists (which are being manipulated and exploited by the billionaires and their fake grassroots groups, as it later turned out). In March 2010, the Tea Party and their nasty protests were still quite a novelty.

Therefore it is fascinating to discover that in the leaked Stratfor-emails, to which Wikileaks granted us full access several weeks ago, not only the CEO of Stratfor, George Friedman, but also other analysts already had very strong views about the Tea Party in March 2010 and had no hesitation to compare them to "Hitler", "Stalin" or the Nazi movement - even quite directly comparing Sarah Palin to Hitler! And I thought we were the only ones at "Palingates" back in 2010 who did that...

As most of you already know, Stratfor is a controversial private global intelligence company. Their emails had been hacked by Anonymous and were then published by Wikileaks (just excerpts of it, in an ongoing process, apparently due to the sensitive nature of the material).

Stratfor CEO George Friedman in particular regarded the Tea Party as a threat to Democracy - despite being politically "pretty hard right", as he says about himself.

In a long email exchange from March 25, and 26, 2010 George Friedman and some of his analysts discuss the Tea Party in a way that has rarely been seen before. If the USA had a truly free media, such an email exchange would be not interesting at all. However, with the "Tea Party" being treated with "kid gloves", things look very different.

Chillingly, this email exchange proves that the Stratfor-analysts foresaw that a terrorist right-wing movement could emerge out of the Tea Party - and we already have more than enough evidence that this did in fact happen. 

Another episode from the series "What the corporate MSM won't tell you."

Read the full exchange - it starts from the bottom:

I highlighted some the quotes in bold which I find particularly revealing:

Re: [OS] US/CT/CALENDAR- Teabagger protest at Harry Reid's house 3/27
Date 2010-03-26 14:01:55
From blackburn@stratfor.com
To analysts@stratfor.com
Others Listname: mailto:analysts@stratfor.com
MessageId: <1777543344.1084331269608515285.JavaMail.root@core.stratfor.com>
InReplyTo: 4BACAEE0.4000604@stratfor.com
Text
Besides the racial slurs & other epithets hurled at elected officials, and
the severed gas line at a congressman's brother's house, and bricks
through windows, there's this shining example of the kind of reasoning to
be found among the Tea Party people -- threatening voice mail messages for
Bart Stupak. He was one of the Democrats who got federal funding for
abortion cut out of the health care reform bill, and he's being called a
baby-killer. Also included are hopes that he bleeds out his ass and dies,
and one woman saying that bad things will happen to him simply because so
many people are *wishing* for them to happen.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6329647n

----- Original Message -----
From: "Marko Papic"
To: "Analyst List"
Sent: Friday, March 26, 2010 7:56:00 AM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central
Subject: Re: [OS] US/CT/CALENDAR- Teabagger protest at Harry Reid's house
3/27

My gut is to say that Palin couldn't tie her shoes alone... but I am sure
that is probably very similar to what Von Papen and other German
conservatives said about Hitler, so I am just going to shut up.

Sean Noonan wrote:

Uh, Palin?

Nice use of the Godwin principle. David Frum just left AEI, I haven't
looked into the details, but if this is any indication of the
republicans replacing smart conservatives with teabaggers, that adds
weight to your argument.

Marko Papic wrote:

nother thing that I have gathered is that there is a decent percentage
that are ex-military such as Timothy McVeigh and that are mostly
recently returned from Iraq/Afghanistan, which ads an obvious
militaristic and skilled element to their capability and mindset.

This is really the key point and the reason I did not think that the
DHS report from early on in Obama's administration was ludicrous, the
one that said that there is an increased threat from ex-military
joining militias.

I agree with Stick and George that the Tea Party movement is something
new and scary. I did not want to use the Nazi Party example due to the
Godwin's principle, but since George did I will run with it.
Basically, the Nazi Party also had extremely real grievances and began
gathering support among the low-middle class conservatives. The Weimar
Conservatives led by von Papen and von Schelicher (and I guess
Hindenburg) thought that they could use the grassroots of the Nazis
and their "energy" to take out the Social Democrats and the rising
influence of the Communists. They looked at the followers of the Nazis
exactly how Republican elites look at the Tea Party today, with
contempt, but salivating because of political gains they thought they
could capture. They also thought Hitler was a stooge, an idiot, an
extremist and someone they could manipulate. Obviously they were
wrong. The danger for me is that the Republican Party makes the same
mistake. It gets desperate enough because of a loss in 2010 (which I
think is coming) to completely encapsulate a radical, anti-federalist,
movement and then gets eaten from the inside.

But there are two major differences. One is that there is no Hitler in
the Tea Party movement. There is no charismatic leader who is also a
brilliant political tactician.

The second is the fact that there are no "Brownshirts". One of the
reasons the Nazis were so effective is because the Sturmabteilung
would kick your ass in the street if you called them "Tea Baggers".
Eventually Hitler would turn on the "Brown Shirts" in the Night of the
Long Knives because he no longer neeeded a milita movement once he
controlled the state. But the point is that they were an extremely
important part of the Nazi power's rise to power.

This is why the mobilization and organization of ex-military elements
who are pissed off at the government and joining the Tea Party
movement is so central to this issue.

All that said, there is a third element in all of this and that's the
illegitimacy of the Weimar Republic and its internal weakness. The
Weimar had nowhere close to the security apparatus that the U.S.
federal government possesses. Nonetheless, a militia movement
associated with a wide-ranging popular front would be an explosive
situation. Interestingly, both the Nazi Party and the Tea Party had a
very important racial component. The Nazis associated the Jews with
Communist/Socialist movements since a lot of the prominent Communists
(in Russia and in Germany) were Jews. Similarly, the Tea Party is 99.9
percent white and it is beginning to associate the Democratic Party in
power with minorities (which again is not untrue, since it took the
mobilization of minorities and swinging of the Hispanic vote to the
Democrats for Obama to actually win).

Chris Farnham wrote:

I came across some of these whakos on a street art internet forum a
few years ago and have been discussing their political views with
them for a while. I'm getting the impression that they are only
fringe by belief, not particularly by number. Another thing that I
have gathered is that there is a decent percentage that are
ex-military such as Timothy McVeigh and that are mostly recently
returned from Iraq/Afghanistan, which ads an obvious militaristic
and skilled element to their capability and mindset. Unbending in
belief and unbending in nature.
As has been thrown around in this conversation already, the swelling
and visibility of the tea party movement is adding group think and
polarizing tendencies to these guys and they are becoming more
belicose and motivated in their discussions. I'm seeing slogans like
"We are the ones we have been waiting for" and other such stuff
coming up a lot more. The second anyone in the Dems starts talking
tighter gun controls the game is going to change.
As an outsider looking in on all of this constitutional,
libertarian, conservative craziness, I think you lot might have a
few roos running loose in the top paddock!!
----- Original Message -----
From: "scott stewart"
To: "Analyst List"
Sent: Friday, March 26, 2010 8:20:15 PM GMT +08:00 Beijing /
Chongqing / Hong Kong / Urumqi
Subject: RE: [OS] US/CT/CALENDAR- Teabagger protest at Harry Reid's
house 3/27

90.1 is not what scares me. They are a small fringe of whackos. The
tea bag people are pulling thousands to their rallies.

From: analysts-bounces@stratfor.com
[mailto:analysts-bounces@stratfor.com] On Behalf Of Marko Papic
Sent: Friday, March 26, 2010 8:14 AM
To: Analyst List
Subject: Re: [OS] US/CT/CALENDAR- Teabagger protest at Harry Reid's
house 3/27

Please do... in fact, I think we all should start listening to 90.1
more often. I have been doing it for 2 years and it has gotten
progressively worse.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sean Noonan"
To: "Analyst List"
Sent: Friday, March 26, 2010 7:01:19 AM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central
Subject: Re: [OS] US/CT/CALENDAR- Teabagger protest at Harry Reid's
house 3/27

As I said in the previous email "a line has been crossed" ;-)

Austin may have been one of the first events, yes. But with the
healthcare bill passing, and a bunch of crackheads getting angry
again and mislabeling it 'obamacare,' the rhetoric, and chance for
horrible consequences has increased. My point was not about when
exactly the line was crossed, but when there is momentum for more
such attacks. That momentum seems pretty high right now.

Time to listen to 90.1 on my way in.

Marko Papic wrote:

If all it takes is one person, hasn't the line already been crossed
with the terrorist attack in Austin?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sean Noonan"
To: "Analyst List"
Sent: Friday, March 26, 2010 6:15:38 AM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central
Subject: Re: [OS] US/CT/CALENDAR- Teabagger protest at Harry Reid's
house 3/27

One point I want to add-- Marko and Matt are right that violence has
been limited--bricks through democratic offices. But someone did go
and cut the gas lines in what they thought was the house of a
Virginia Congressman--no one was hurt, but that could have been
bad.

But the thing here is that the rhetoric and ideology is the same
(and from the same people in many instances) before Timothy McVeigh
bombed the Federal Building. It is the risk of something like that
happening that I am deathly, deathly afraid of. A line has been
crossed- the principle of not using violence- now we must wonder
what happens next. All it takes is one person.

laura.jack@stratfor.com wrote:

There was an op-ed in the nyt a couple of weeks ago called "walmart
hippies" that drew a comparison between the tea partiers and the
radical left in the 60s and 70s.

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: George Friedman

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 23:23:13 -0500

To: Analyst List

Subject: Re: [OS] US/CT/CALENDAR- Teabagger protest at Harry Reid's
house 3/27

When we look back on the south and the anti-war movement, a number
of stages existed. First, small groups of extremely passionate
people. Then the generation of substantial public demonstrations.
Then interference with daily life and intimidation of those who
disagreed with them, in some cases leading to violence. Along side
this, there developed a group of politicians seeking to cater to
their interests.

Neither movement (segregationists and anti-war) had a single,
coherent organization. And neither really could define what they
wanted in practical terms. Both focused on their hatred of the
government. But it was the combination of incoherent rage, with
smaller groups of thugs that created massive crises of confidence in
the country.

Politicians emerged to take advantage of this feeling. George
Wallace and George McGovern as examples. Interesting, the
politicians that arose all failed. The segregationist movement had
a lot to do with JFKs election. The anti-war movement elected and
re-elected Nixon. So the impact is not on who runs the country.
Neither every came close to national power. The impact is in the
destabilization.

Part of that destabilization came from the illusion that they
represented the majority, and the presentation of the government as
a rogue enemy that had to be bought down. So democratically elected
presidents like JFK, Johnson and Nixon were represented as if they
were somehow usurpers, and the segregationists and anti-war movement
represented the people.

It was this reversal that was weird. Kennedy and Nixon were both
treated as illegitimate in spite of the fact that they were
democratically elected and quite popular. The movements pretended
that they really spoke for the country.

It got ugly and it got weird. Tea Party's claims that it represents
the people, when none of them ever won an election, but that the
people who did win the election don't speak for the people reminds
me of them. Along with their tendency to shout down whoever
disagreed.

Churchill defined a fanatic as someone who can't change his mind and
can't change the subject. That was the segregationists, that was
the anti-war movement and Tea Party sound like that to me.

I really get uneasy with a movement that contains people who were
never elected and couldn't be elected, claiming political legitimacy
greater than those who do get elected. Speaking for the people
under those circumstance is what Lenin and Hitler did.

Marko Papic wrote:

I have actually brought this question up before the Tea Party
emerged... the anti-government rhetoric has been ratcheted up before
the Tea Party become a key movement. The question is when does this
coalesce into a threat and what is the breaking point.

----- Original Message -----
From: "George Friedman"
To: "Analyst List"
Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 11:02:40 PM GMT -06:00 US/Canada
Central
Subject: Re: [OS] US/CT/CALENDAR- Teabagger protest at Harry Reid's
house 3/27

But sometimes an economic argument, like healthcare, becomes a
political issue, as when it leads to massive civil strife. Apart
from my reaction to the Tea Party, and its swung from mild sympathy
to contempt--the real question is whether this will lead to the kind
of civil unrest we saw in the south in the 1950s, and in
Universities in the 1960s, when civil authority was seriously
challenged and at some points cracked. I can't imagine this going
further than that but those were pretty serious events. Both for
example led to the calling out of National Guard and troops to
control their behavior, massive resistance to democratically reached
decisions, and significant weakening of basic institutions. They
were no jokes.

Were this to happen in the United States this would have huge
geopolitical implications to the ability of the United States to
help. So this is a question of where we put our bandwidth. If you
want to beat a dead horse, go take another whack at health care.
That one is over and done with. The important question now--and
this is really important--is whether the Tea Party will evolve into
a decade long massive civil unrest movement. That's what we need to
answer now as an organization. That question just dwarfs the
healthcare question in importance.
Robert Reinfrank wrote:

To be fair though, my main thrust was about the political reaction
to an economic reality. And it's not that we're not students of
geopolitics, it's just that the question was whether, with
healthcare passed, Obama would have more bandwidth, although I agree
there are more geopolitically relevant aspects that we should be
discussing.

George Friedman wrote:

yup.

Robert Reinfrank wrote:

who do you think

Marko Papic wrote:

Who was talking about economic repercussions? My point was purely
political.

----- Original Message -----
From: "George Friedman"
To: "Analyst List"
Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 10:18:35 PM GMT -06:00 US/Canada
Central
Subject: Re: [OS] US/CT/CALENDAR- Teabagger protest at Harry Reid's
house 3/27

The economics of this is far less important than the social and
political implications of the response. The lack of civility on TV
has now spilled over into the streets. Physical attacks on people
and places you don't agree with has become acceptable. The
fundamental and absolute principle of a democratic republic is that
while your position may be defeated, and you can continue to argue
your point, you do it without demonizing your opponents and without
ever threatening harm.

Whether this is a small fraction of the movement or large is
unimportant to me, as is the argument about healthcare. This
behavior is more frightening that the largest deficit I can
imagine. We use fascist and communist casually, but he definition
of each was that it did not absolutely abjure political
intimidation. I have not seen anything like this since the
segregationists in the south and the anti-war movement in the 1960s.

Both triggered massive political counteractions fortunately, and the
segregationists and anti-war movement was politically crushed. I
certainly hope that the Tea Party has the same fate.

You are both supposed to be students of geopolitics. Approach this
geopolitically. You are living in a country where disagreements
degenerate into massively uncivil behavior. Yet you are both still
arguing the issue. That issue is trivial compared to the way the
losers are responding. I find the language they use offensive in a
civilized polity, and the intimidation tactics of some of them is
monstrous.

You should both be far more worried about the political dimension
than the economic. We will survive the economic. We can't the
political. And as a practical matter, this is the best friend the
Democrats have. I'm pretty hard right and I'm offended. Imagine
how people more moderate than me look at this. These people are
guaranteeing Obama's re-election.

If this is not educational, I don't know what is!

It is interesting to note that it took several more months before the involvement of the Koch Brothers finally was revealed in greater detail - especially through Jane Mayer's ground-breaking article in the "New Yorker" from August 20, 2010.

George Friedman and his analysts focused on the "raw nature" of the Tea Party movement in this email exchange, and were not "distracted" by the fact that the billionaires more or less secretly finance the Tea Party. However, it would probably have strengthened the Nazi-comparisons, as the Nazi-movement was also infamously financed by industrialists.

At the end of the email exchange, a CBS-clip is being mentioned, with recordings of threats against Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak. I uploaded it to youtube for easier viewing:

Finally, I would like to add the documentary "The Billionaires' Tea Party" by Australian filmmaker Taki Oldham. Please buy the DVD! There is also a longer, previous version for sale: "(Astro) Turf Wars."