The Big Lie

"His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it."  (excerpted from an OSS psychological profile of Adolph Hitler)

Remind you of anyone?

Of course it is wrong to compare today's Republican Tea Party with the Nazis.

For one thing, the Nazis were much better organized.  Better dressers, too.

However they do share at least a few traits. First there's the fascistic love of pomp and militarism. Remember how hot and bothered the neo-cons got when they saw Simple W. in his flight suit? Not a dry seat in the house! And those were the men...

They love them some war, too. Oh, not to actually fight in--remember Dick Cheney's "other priorities"? But they are very eager for you to fight for them. Because, let's face it, your life isn't nearly as valuable as theirs. (Shocking to think of it, but the Nazis have the moral edge here. They actually fought in their war.)

Then there's the fanatical hatred of the weak or different. Nothing pisses a good Tea Party Republican off more than a different skin color, unless it's a different religion, or a different sexual orientation. Or poor people in general. I think "parasites" is the word they use.

Again I ask, remind you of anyone?

But the biggest similarity is their undying faith in The Big Lie.

And why not? It worked for the Nazis and it's worked for the Republican Party for years. And it's so very easy:

Lie. About anything. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Taxes, Abortion, Healthcare, Education, Welfare, Immigration, Jobs, Foreign Policy, Gun Control, Crime. Then keep on repeating the lie until the simpletons and hillbillies believe it. Fox News and Rush Limbaugh can always be counted on to help with this.

At the same time, in the interest of balanced reporting, the so called "liberal media" will ignore most, if not all, of your lies. Apparently in their eyes, a thousand Republican lies can be counterbalanced by one Democratic lie. Anyway, if and when they do finally notice, enough time will have passed that the lies will have become facts for your base.

The truth can be a powerful thing. But when a political party admits to "creating its own reality", the "truth" becomes anything they say it is.