Hitleriffic

Noam Chomsky's latest on America today:

It is very similar to late Weimar Germany. The parallels are striking. There was also tremendous disillusionment with the parliamentary system. The most striking fact about Weimar was not that the Nazis managed to destroy the Social Democrats and the Communists but that the traditional parties, the Conservative and Liberal parties, were hated and disappeared. It left a vacuum which the Nazis very cleverly and intelligently managed to take over.

[...]

I have never seen anything like this in my lifetime. I am old enough to remember the 1930s. My whole family was unemployed. There were far more desperate conditions than today. But it was hopeful. People had hope. The CIO was organizing. No one wants to say it anymore but the Communist Party was the spearhead for labor and civil rights organizing. Even things like giving my unemployed seamstress aunt a week in the country. It was a life. There is nothing like that now. The mood of the country is frightening. The level of anger, frustration and hatred of institutions is not organized in a constructive way. It is going off into self-destructive fantasies.

I won't bother to analyze this nonsense. I just want to note that when an intellectual starts comparing modern-day politics in a democratic country to Nazism, he's generally hit rock bottom (which is saying something for Chomsky). It takes no imagination--name me any movement and I'll show you the "striking parallels." This is merely the kneejerk reaction of someone who's lost his way and is striking out.

It's strange enough anyone takes Chomsky seriously, but when he says stuff like this, I have to wonder if his supporters aren't somewhat embarrassed. (The site I link to sure isn't.)

Kind of makes me nostalgic for the days before fascism was a touchstone. Back then, whenever a public figure was feeling colicky, he'd say the present situation reminded him of Rome just before it fell. (They still do that sometimes, though it can sound delightfully antiquated.)