The Strange Stalinization of the American Right [View all]

[damnedifIknow]

With the possible exception of the Post’s Harold Meyerson, who drew a trenchant parallel to Jacobins and Stalinists, the mainstream media, throughout the just-ended phony fiscal crisis in Washington, have avoided comparing today’s Tea Party zealots with the American Communist Party at the height of the Cold War.(via The New Yorker)

But they should have.

The dread Reds of the Fifties evinced a rigid dogmatism and a contempt for partisan comity rare in U.S. politics. But their old-time religion is rivaled by the scorched-earth ideologues of the radical right who blackmailed the global economy in the name of, well… I guess it’s Ted Cruz, the Trotsky of Tortilla Coast."

* For some reason, Americans didn’t take as seriously the malignancy of the Tea Party as we did our native Commies. We elected Cruz, Broun and others — deeming them harmless, enjoying their bombast, trusting that they were too few to do much harm. And oops! We were wrong. Their mischief is manifest. It has cost us dearly, and it lingers. These barbarians won’t be easily driven from the gate."

https://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/10/18-1

Related: http://readerrant.capitolhillblue.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=264004