This tactic is both malicious and deliberate. Limbaugh is not stupid. He knows full well what he is doing. He also knows that Naziism was the right-wing, polar opposite to the left-wing, Communism in Pre-World War II Germany.
That left-right alignment of political ideologies has not changed. Liberals and their attempts to expand access to the fruits of economic success through social programs are on the left of the political spectrum. Conservatives and their opposition to any change in access to those fruits are on the right.
Limbaugh is betting that the average American's ignorance of history will allow him to conflate those opposites precisely as Hitler did in naming his movement National Socialism (Nazionalsocialismus) and his party the National Socialist Party (Nazionalsocialistische Partei - Nazi for short).
The name National Socialism suggests an ideology favorable to a progressive social agenda rooted in patriotism. The Nazi sobriquet, however, more accurately reflected the party's ideological underpinnings of extreme, right-wing nationalism which led to World War II and the Holocaust.
Calls for that same brand of extreme nationalism are the rabid right's stock in trade. They can be found in the host of anonymously written and blindly forwarded email messages we've all received, which promote the "you're either with us, or you're Un-American" mentality while stirring up irrational fears toward any and all progressive initiatives.
Like those who organized Hitler's Brown Shirts, the folks behind the anti-healthcare reform protests at town hall meetings have no interest in debate or compromise. They want an America where their narrow beliefs are mandated and dissenters are labelled as enemies of the state.
Taking their cues from Limbaugh, they cloak themselves in the mantle of unassailable patriotism. They lay claim to moral superiority even as they use intimidation and fear-mongering to tar their opponents with labels befitting their own behavior. They use thuggery as they call others thugs. In the mold of Hitler and Joseph McCarthy, they know the ignorant among us will blindly follow if they give voice to their irrational fears and encourage them to shout the loudest.
Thus, it is Limbaugh and those who parrot his diatribes who are the political heirs of Naziism, not those who lean to the left politically.
Since this blog pays homage to Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, an excerpt from that work expressing a possible motive for and dynamic behind Limbaugh's attacks on President Obama seems appropriate.
Those familiar with the novel will recognize the passage as part of Atticus Finch's summation to the jury before they leave the courtroom to determine Tom Robinson's fate. Those unfamiliar with it would do well to pick up a copy and read it.
The witnesses for the state, with the exception of the sheriff of Maycomb County, have presented themselves to you gentlemen, to this court, in the cynical confidence that their testimony would not be doubted, confident that you gentlemen would go along with them on the assumption—the evil assumption—that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women, an assumption one associates with minds of their caliber.
Limbaugh and his followers spread their lies and write their hate-mongering email messages with the same, cynical confidence Bob and Mayella Ewell had in the jury's inability to get beyond their prejudices. They know this tactic will work so long as Americans are willing to go along with them without questioning the assumptions "one associates with minds of their caliber."
No comments:
Post a Comment