So the Nazis, who were apparently leftists, were now also gay according to the brilliant sort of mind that would replace Thomas Jefferson with John Calvin.

I wonder what will happen when they find out that Calvin was French…

They will re-write that history too no doubt. I am sure that if there were no coming warming, in the year 2100 Calvin would be a Texan, fighting at teh Alamo.

But back to the real Nazis. The real no-Godwin historical Nazis.

The central Nazi message was to convince the average German that he was an oppressed victim in his own nation, while simultaneously pumping them up as a master race with a destiny.

There are only certain ways that you can convince the majority that they are victims in their own nation. The Nazis did them all. It is with these points of convergence that people should be very afraid of the very real parallels.

If you are telling people that they are rightful supermen who are better loved than others, the only way that such ubermenschen can be in the dire straits they are is if they were betrayed from within and without. You have to sell many enemies and conspiracy theories everywhere.

Let’s really look at the central Nazi messages:

1. The government is not loyal to you.

2. The government no longer cares for the values of your nation.

3. Your society’s morals have crumbled. The Nazis murdered gay people as well as Jews. In fact, homosexuals were amongst the first groups targeted for murder.

4. As an extension of three, vulnerable groups are quickly identified as the source of those problems. Jews, Gays, Immigrants were all people who were historically marginalized in Germany. They were the first targets. Playing on age old prejudices made it all an easy sell for a certain sort.

5. Extreme xeno-phobia needs to be pumped up. Not only does this fire jingoistic rage, which is then something to use as a wedge issue, but it targets the most vulnerable of all groups, recent immigrants. After all, they surely are not real Americans (I’m sorry, we are talking about Germany)

6. Constant references to a mythical synthesis of a shining Germany that never was… The goal of the master race needs to be the full flowering of cultural superiority. For the Germans, of course it was some mix of Wagner and the might of Prussia.

7. This fits well with an alliance with German industry who will fuel the transformation from powerless to “taking it all back.” As such German industry funded a massive and sustained media push to get the Nazi message out. It gave a disproportionate voice to the growing craziness and legitimized for public speech what would have been counted as madness earlier.

8. Communists and socialists were everywhere according to the Nazis. Spreading fear of them was a very useful way to keep the angry and disenfranchised riled up. But the real key of it was convincing the middle class that they would lose everything unless drastic measures were taken.

9. The Nazis were not above spreading the most vile lies or whining pitiably. They saw themselves early on as martyrs for a sacred cause. Everyone was out to get the Germans, and as the only “Real Germans,” they thought they would take whatever means necessary. Rewriting history and burning books and silencing intellectuals was an early goal of theirs.

10. The Nazis were first and foremost a populist movement. Part of their largest selling point was that they were just average Germans - but with the courage to be everything a German should be - not some whiny gay or socialist or minority professor type of loose morals.

11. They had all sorts of this will fix everything economic theories that in the end of the day favored the industrialists. This dovetailed with convincing people that they were going to lose everything.

Look at the above list and think of Fox, and the messages it and Rush and Beck and Palin and Paul spread. Replace Wagner and the cult of Bismark with a certain view of Christianity and a cult of the Cowboy. Hating gays is the same. replace Jews with blacks and browns. The real saving grace is America has not hit the sort of economic crisis that Germany had after the First World War. However, please look closely at Fox and the far right. The goose steps are there in the echoes of their words.