[Misuzu]

So, I have been inspired by recent discussions to make this poll. I wonder, are the Teabaggers a serious Fascist threat, or nothing more that bluff and bluster from the Republican Party? Personally, I would be careful before labeling them as fascist. To me, it is a bit like the rhetoric that the PATRIOT Act would turn Bush into a dictator. There maybe some racist people in it, but they seem to overall be a vehicle for the Republican Party.

[Order227]

The Tea Party, in and of itself, is not necessarily fascist. However, it does contain the seeds of a fascist movement in its DNA. Time will tell if the Tea Party is merely a tool of the Dino-cons (the Republican Party and/or Faux News), or whether it has memetic staying power of its own. I personally suspect the latter, but would be overjoyed to be proven wrong.

For the moment, I abstain from voting, pending further reflection.

[The Immortal Goon]

I don't like comparisons to fascism, as a rule, as they tend to be too heavy-handed. The Tea Parties are Bonapartists, at worst - but probably very few of them could be persuaded to be out and out fascists.

One is often reminded of the rise of Bonaparte III when the Tea-Bagger opens his mouth:

Marx wrote:

Whether it was a question of the right of petition or the tax on wine, freedom of the press or free trade, the clubs or the municipal charter, protection of personal liberty or regulation of the state budget, the watchword constantly recurs, the theme remains always the same, the verdict is ever ready and invariably reads: "Socialism!" Even bourgeois liberalism is declared socialistic, bourgeois enlightenment socialistic, bourgeois financial reform socialistic. It was socialistic to build a railway where a canal already existed, and it was socialistic to defend oneself with a cane when one was attacked with a rapier.

This was not merely a figure of speech, fashion, or party tactics. The bourgeoisie had a true insight into the fact that all the weapons it had forged against feudalism turned their points against itself...What the bourgeoisie did not grasp, however, was the logical conclusion that its own parliamentary regime, its political rule in general, was now also bound to meet with the general verdict of condemnation as being socialistic...The parliamentary regime leaves everything to the decision of majorities; how shall the great majorities outside parliament not want to decide? When you play the fiddle at the top of the state, what else is to be expected but that those down below dance?

Thus by now stigmatizing as "socialistic" what it had previously extolled as "liberal," the bourgeoisie confesses that its own interests dictate that it should be delivered from the danger of its own rule; that to restore tranquillity in the country its bourgeois parliament must, first of all, be given its quietus; that to preserve its social power intact its political power must be broken; that the individual bourgeois can continue to exploit the other classes and to enjoy undisturbed property, family, religion, and order only on condition that their class be condemned along with the other classes to like political nullity; that in order to save its purse it must forfeit the crown, and the sword that is to safeguard it must at the same time be hung over its own head as a sword of Damocles.

[Order227]

That's a very interesting and pertinent quotation. However, the conditions mentioned by Marx as leading to Bonaparte are by and large the very same conditions that led in 1933 to the fall of the Weimar Republic (which, in order to legitimize its governance, had to begin by putting down a Communist uprising). It took 15 years, not for the masses of the proletariat, but for the industrialists, clergy, and military leadership to accept National Socialism.

Nowadays, many of the aforementioned conditions seem to be repeating themselves. Obviously, no one will ever accept a monarchy on U.S. soil. But the ground for Fascist dictatorship is being cautiously and carefully sown, through the manipulation of key hot-button issues (immigrants, race, religion,feminism, abortion, etc.). All the "liberal media" has to do is keep "ignoring" the silent majority for another 10-20 years, and the Tea Party will have "proven" its point. Naturally, much of the wind will be taken out of the Tea Party's sails simply by electing another Republican president, but it remains to be seen whether the GOP can ultimately keep a lid on the grievances of "grassroots" movements and keep them on the company leash.

Marx wrote:

Thus by now stigmatizing as "socialistic" what it had previously extolled as "liberal," the bourgeoisie confesses that its own interests dictate that it should be delivered from the danger of its own rule; that to restore tranquillity in the country its bourgeois parliament must, first of all, be given its quietus; that to preserve its social power intact its political power must be broken; that the individual bourgeois can continue to exploit the other classes and to enjoy undisturbed property, family, religion, and order only on condition that their class be condemned along with the other classes to like political nullity; that in order to save its purse it must forfeit the crown, and the sword that is to safeguard it must at the same time be hung over its own head as a sword of Damocles.

In 21st century terms, the inevitable result of unfettered capitalist competition is consolidation and monopoly, i.e., victory of the strongest one, who sets himself up on a throne made of the bones of the vanquished, and demands fealty from his corporate vassals who, in turn, extort their living from the labour of employee-peasants. The end of capitalism is corporate feudalism.

[Jingle_Bombs]

At best, they're a bunch of conservative wankers, and at worst, they're dangerous grass-roots national populists with a thinly veiled racist agenda. Fascism doesn't really adequately describe them, though I view them in the same light as fascists, frankly.

[proletarian]

The Tea Party Movement is a nationalist, reactionary, movement. In and of itself, it is not a fascist movement; however, many fascist elements are present in it, and many fascist or similar groups attend Tea Party rallies (NSM, Nazi Party USA, etc.). The Tea Party Movement has the potential to bring fascism to America, but it is not at its core a fascist group.

I voted Other.

[Soviet192491]

The Tea Party Movement is just a group of people who believe they're being overtaxed and that Obama is slowly turning the U.S. into a new Soviet Union. They only make the news so people can nod their heads or chuckle. I don't think the Tea Party will be around much longer, especially after election day. Or at least fading down until the next presidential election.

[GreenCommunism]

anticommunism is a definite part of fascism. only problem is, the tea partiers are too stupid to understand socialism requires a shitload more change than what obama wants to implement.

[Tails]

The Tea Party are reactionaries but not necessarily fascist and they want to return to the 'good old days' of laissez-faire capitalism before the days of FDR. They are as fascist as those Christian militia wackos and will disperse once a Republican wins the presidential election. I think once people are told that Obama is nowhere close to enacting socialist policies, the source for the Tea Party would be extinguished and they will cease to have effect on American politics.

[proletarian]

but a lot of fascist groups march in their rallies. The Tea Party Movement is a shelter for those groups, even though it's not a fascist group in itself.

[Order227]

Tails wrote:

The Tea Party are reactionaries but not necessarily fascist and they want to return to the 'good old days' of laissez-faire capitalism before the days of FDR. They are as fascist as those Christian militia wackos and will disperse once a Republican wins the presidential election.

No, I don't believe so. Militias are a permanent part of the political underground in America, since day one. And the Moral Majority (as we call the Christian rightist expression of the Nixonian Silent Majority in this country) hasn't gone away. It waxes and wanes like Oprah's waistline, but never truly disappears, as the recent furore over the presence of "The Family" in Washington, DC. amply illustrates.

Likewise, I don't think that the "Tea Party" is here today, gone tomorrow, any more than the SCLC is gone because MLK no longer marches in Washington. The rallies themselves may disappear (though, at the moment--as depressing as this sounds--they seem to be aiming to become the equivalent of the "peace protests" of the 1960's in terms of organization, frequency, and longevity), but their place will be taken by--gasp!--yet another action-oriented agitation/lobbying organization that will hold the "principles" of the movement fervently in mind, lest anyone for two seconds mercifully forget to pay lip service to them.

Quote:

I think once people are told that Obama is nowhere close to enacting socialist policies, the source for the Tea Party would be extinguished and they will cease to have effect on American politics.

If only, and no. "A lie, told often enough, becomes the truth"--and a rallying cry. The only thing missing from this marching band is an updated version of the "Horst Wessel Lied". I mean, they can't stand around singing "Battle Hymn of the Republic", that was Frederick Douglass' favourite song!

[Red Rebel]

No. While racist, reactionary, ect. they still support bourgeois liberalism. Although they threaten the bourgeois state with violence, we really haven't seen that yet.

proletarian wrote:

In and of itself, it is not a fascist movement; however, many fascist elements are present in it, and many fascist or similar groups attend Tea Party rallies (NSM, Nazi Party USA, etc.). The Tea Party Movement has the potential to bring fascism to America, but it is not at its core a fascist group.

I'll be the devil's advocate but the KKK or Nazi Party has about as much hope of taking this country as the CPUSA has via the Democratic Party.

[Komissar_KW]

Order227 wrote:

If only, and no. "A lie, told often enough, becomes the truth"--and a rallying cry. The only thing missing from this marching band is an updated version of the "Horst Wessel Lied". I mean, they can't stand around singing "Battle Hymn of the Republic", that was Frederick Douglass' favourite song!

I know you're being tongue-and-cheek, but I do agree with you. The "Tea Party Movement" seems like a bunch that is hard to reason with.
As for a song for the teabaggers, perhaps the Confederacy's anthem, then? Or maybe they'll ignore history (as they often do) and misinterpret "Battle Hymn of the Republic" to mean whatever they want it to mean.

[Order227]

I ended up voting other. The Teabagger movement, in and of itself, is a sorry bunch of racist know-nothings that are desperate to hang on to a way of life that never truly existed in the "good old" days, or any other. However, they don't represent a fascist movement...yet. There's an old saying, "When Fascism comes, it will come in the form of Americanism", and there's no question in my mind that this country is not only drifting inexorably further and further to the right, but that it was pretty well tilted to the right from day one. The racial issue is going to be the one that either makes or breaks a fascist future in this country.

As for the Confederate anthem, I guess "Dixie" was as close as they came to one. I'm actually rather surprised that we don't see more Rebel flags at these teabagger hoedowns.

[The Immortal Goon]

Order227 wrote:

However, the conditions mentioned by Marx as leading to Bonaparte are by and large the very same conditions that led in 1933 to the fall of the Weimar Republic (which, in order to legitimize its governance, had to begin by putting down a Communist uprising). It took 15 years, not for the masses of the proletariat, but for the industrialists, clergy, and military leadership to accept National Socialism.

Nowadays, many of the aforementioned conditions seem to be repeating themselves. Obviously, no one will ever accept a monarchy on U.S. soil. But the ground for Fascist dictatorship is being cautiously and carefully sown, through the manipulation of key hot-button issues (immigrants, race, religion,feminism, abortion, etc.). All the "liberal media" has to do is keep "ignoring" the silent majority for another 10-20 years, and the Tea Party will have "proven" its point. Naturally, much of the wind will be taken out of the Tea Party's sails simply by electing another Republican president, but it remains to be seen whether the GOP can ultimately keep a lid on the grievances of "grassroots" movements and keep them on the company leash.

You seem to assume that Bonapartism and Fascism are completely unrelated. While they are different phenomenon, they are related through various reasons - though their connection shouldn't be overplayed either. A good quote:

Trotsky wrote:

Fascism in power, like Bonapartism, can only be the government of finance capital. In this social sense, it is indistinguishable not only from Bonapartism but even from parliamentary democracy...The strength of finance capital does not reside in its ability to establish a government of any kind and at any time, according to its wish; it does not possess this faculty. Its strength resides in the fact that every non-proletarian government is forced to serve finance capital; or better yet, that finance capital possesses the possibility of substituting for each one of its systems of domination that decays, another system corresponding better to the changed conditions. However, the passage from one system to another signifies the political crisis which, with the concourse of the activity of the revolutionary proletariat may be transformed into a social danger to the bourgeoisie. The passage of parliamentary democracy to Bonapartism itself was accompanied in France by an effervescence of civil war. The perspective of the passage from Bonapartism to fascism is pregnant with infinitely more formidable disturbances and consequently also revolutionary possibilities.

...

The political mobilization of the petty bourgeoisie against the proletariat, however, is inconceivable without that social demagogy which means playing with fire for the big bourgeoisie. The danger to “order” of the unleashed petty-bourgeois reaction, has just been confirmed by the recent events in Germany. That is why, while supporting and actively financing reactionary banditry, in the form of one of its wings, the French bourgeoisie seeks not to push matters to the point of the political victory of fascism, aiming only at the establishment of a “strong” power which, in the last analysis, is to discipline the two extreme camps.

What has been said sufficiently demonstrates how important it is to distinguish the Bonapartist form of power from the fascist form. Yet it would be unpardonable to fall into the opposite extreme, that is, to convert Bonapartism and fascism into two logically incompatible categories. Just as Bonapartism begins by combining the parliamentary regime with fascism, so triumphant fascism finds itself forced not only to enter into a bloc with the Bonapartists, but what is more, to draw closer internally to the Bonapartist system. The prolonged domination of finance capital by means of reactionary social demagogy and petty-bourgeois terror is impossible. Having arrived in power, the fascist chiefs are forced to muzzle the masses who follow them by means of the state apparatus. By the same token, they lose the support of broad masses of the petty bourgeoisie. A small part of it is assimilated by the bureaucratic apparatus. Another sinks into indifference. A third, under various banners, passes into opposition. But while losing its social mass base, by resting upon the bureaucratic apparatus and oscillating between the classes, fascism is regenerated into Bonapartism. Here, too, the gradual evolution is cut into by violent and sanguinary episodes. Differing from pre-fascist or preventive Bonapartism (Giolitti, Brüning-Schleicher, Doumergue, etc.) which reflects the extremely unstable and short-lived equilibrium between the belligerent camps, Bonapartism of fascist origin (Mussolini, Hitler, etc.), which grew out of the destruction, the disillusionment and the demoralization of the two camps of the masses, distinguishes itself by its much greater stability.

The question “fascism or Bonapartism?” has engendered certain differences on the subject of the Pilsudski regime among our Polish comrades. The very possibility of such differences testifies best to the fact that we are dealing not with inflexible logical categories but with living social formations which represent extremely pronounced peculiarities in different countries and at different stages.

The issue here is, as everyone seems to agree, the Teabaggers aren't really fascists. One could make something up, like "crypto-fascist" or "quasi-fascist" but the proper term is Bonapartist - which again - isn't really fascist, but the word that I think people are looking for.

[Order227]

I don't know about this Bonapartist analogy. No one will ever accept a monarchy on American soil. While this country is drifting further and further right as the culmination of an inborn tendency that's existed since the very beginning, I think the natural outcome of this progression is fascist dictatorship, of a very peculiar and uniquely American kind: i.e. corporate feudalism.

It would help if you could define "Bonapartism", as you mean it in this argument.

[proletarian]

Order227 wrote:

It would help if you could define "Bonapartism", as you mean it in this argument.

Have you not read the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte? Or are you confused on its relevance to the Tea Party

[The Immortal Goon]

Quote:

I don't know about this Bonapartist analogy. No one will ever accept a monarchy on American soil.

Bonapartism isn't necessarily related to the monarchy, I'm defining it in the Marxist sense of the word.

[Red_Bull]

I voted yes. The word Fascist gets thrown around far too much in political discussions. So much so that the very term is no longer fully defined. However I see many fascist tendency's in the tea party movement. They make an enemy out of perceived elites and intellectuals and have shown signs of extreme nationalism. Now here is where my understanding of fascism ends. If national expansion is an accessory to fascism (Getting images of Fascist Italy) than the unyielding support for continual interference in world affairs and support for wars by the Tea party fits the bill.

[Order227]

I refuse to believe the conventional wisdom concerning the "grassroots" origin of the movement. I imagine that the initial ones were financed by Republican strategists as experimental agit-prop groups. Media exposure on Faux News encouraged their proliferation, with the caveat that the new orgs weren't always 100% on the same page as their older, directly GOP-handled elders. The recent Mark Williams flap has proven that.

I would think that the biggest issue in GOP insider circles is the ongoing struggle to bring the Tea Party back under its full control, and silence (or at least discredit) those "fringe" groups that display the most overtly racist/fascist overtones. The problem with the Tea Party is that, much like Victor Frankenstein's creation, it posesses a hideous will of its own, and will not always obey "His Master's Voice". Indeed, at some future point, embattled remnants of the Tea Party may even turn on the GOP itself.