The dark wilderness of loserdom

James Kunstler yesterday:

I prefer to be direct. Sarah Palin represents a dangerous force in American culture that is startlingly similar to the grandiose hyper-patriotic militarism that Hitler brought to Germany during his rise to power. We have better things to do in this nation than go down some twisted path of vengeance-seeking in the name of lost glory. I hope that Sarah Palin's competitors on the right will stand up to her American fascist themes and call her out for what she is: a half-educated TV performer unqualified for high political office. The true shame of this country is that we have to take a clown like Sarah Palin seriously.

That's the conclusion Kunstler makes after describing the manipulation of the German people by the Nazis (playing on Germans' feelings of humiliation and promising deliverance back to lost greatness). He goes on to say this about the Palin campaign:

This is exactly the theme of Sarah Palin's campaign. A large segment of the American public has entered the dark wilderness of loserdom. They've lost jobs, incomes, and even their homes. They can't support a family, can't afford to gas up their God-given cars, can hardly even afford to buy food - though many of this group have been programmed, tragically, to get much of their food from hamburger and taco dispensaries that "free market" America has generously dotted the landscape with. They are ashamed, especially living in a nation where liberty is supposed to enable you to get a leg up in the world, to be self-reliant, to make something of yourself. Hence, they imagine themselves to have somehow been deprived of liberty (and honor!) which they must now get back.

This is, of course, the Tea Party. Palin, and Michele Bachmann, too, are Tea Party darlings because they are manipulating people in the same way, and for the same ends, as the Nazis did.


Kunstler provides about as succinct a description of it as I've ever read.