I believe this is my first post to pen-l, though I've been poking my head up and down every now and again on lbo and marxmail.
The parallel with Weimar has limitations, as do all comparisons between time periods. But, for a variety of reasons, I think that the Weimar analogy is more suitable than some people give it credit for. Today, we do not have a militant organized 'left' to get into street battles with the Tea Party, but that in itself doesn't deflect concerns about the rise of fascism. The right wing in Germany at the time was fixated on an extremely exaggerated and incoherent set of beliefs and fears about the Jews, which sometimes included a world communist conspiracy, or a world capitalist conspiracy. Both Trotsky and the Rothschilds served this blurred scape-goat purpose. Today we see the same type of incoherent blind fear and paranoia, about 'cultural marxism,' the UN and its coming Global Government/New World Order, and also capitalistic groups of people like the Bilderberg group and George Soros. Plus, in some sense, the latino, black, and gay constituencies are stand-ins for the lack of a unionized left wing. The office-holding right wing has already enacted a sizable 'concentration camp' policy with regard to these groups, through the drug war, and through the imprisonment of illegal immigrants. I'd also add that the post-WW1 split in the SPD, between reformism and revolution, lead to a centre-left party that was deeply fixated on seeming 'legitimate,' and was just as eager to crack down on the left as any other party. Now, the Democratic Party never did have a revolutionary element inside of it, but the effect of 'third way' policies, Clintonism, Obamaism has been similar to this effect in that it has split the centre-left from the left, and the far-left. And the choice between democratic and republican is not unlike the bland range of 'centrism' that germans living under Weimar would have had to choose from if they were loyal or committed to a parliamentary bourgeoise republic. There is also the fact that the Weimar analogy is also much more readily understood by more people than, say, the Gilded Age, or even the run-up to WW1. It has a strong emotional appeal, and re;atively broad familiarity. Now, we can quibble over whether or not totalitarianism/authoritarianism/fascism are the right terms to use, but, in my short life as a politically conscious being, I've never seen 'democracy' in America do anything remotely progressive, beneficial for me, or my age cohort. I've also met many right wing people who, frankly, scare me with their anger and vitriol and endless rage against liberals and blacks and 'faggots' and pacifists. I cannot express my real political beliefs in almost any public place or forum. Reactionary sentiment is deepening, broadening, and becoming the de-facto consensus in many places in America.
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