some thoughts from me, a German citizen living in very conservative Bavaria (sort of like Texas if you know what I mean...) on birthers, teabaggers and other fringe extremists that are currently creating so much disruption in the US.
I've seen those types - in history books and with my own eyes. In Germany nowadays we call them Neo-Nazis.
The playbook they're operating from stems from the early 1920's and was "masterfully" put into action by the Nazis in their early days. The key components:
- Outrageous lies repeated so often and with such vehemence that uninformed or disinterested regular people come to think there where there's smoke there must be a fire somewhere. The key here is controlling the unity of the message(s) to be repeated endlessly.
In the 1920s in Germany it was the "Dolchstoss"-legend, the notion that evil jewish socialists unilaterally capitulated in the first world war when in fact it was the ruling military elites under Ludendorff and Hindenburg who asked the Anglo-French-US coalition for an armistice.
Today in the US it's birtherism and spreading totally false rumours about healthcare-reform (euthanasia etc.).
- Intimidation of the opposition, at first by disrupting meetings and the regular political process and later on violent acts against political and civic leaders.
In the 1920s in Germany there were regular streetfights between the brownshirts (called the "SA", the Sturmabteilung, the paramilitary organization of the Nazi party) and unions and democratic parties. These then turned into targeted assassinations of democratic leaders and their allies.
In the US today you see attempts to bust townhall meetings and god knows what will follow.
- A glorification of all things military that rapidly engulfs all of civil society. By elevating the military and its members to almost divine status you foster an authoritarian worldview where people worship the "leader" (and yes, in German that's the "Führer") and willingly subjugate themselves to the "command" of unelected demagogues.
In the 1920s in Germany it was the myth of the brave German army that held the front while being stabbed in the back by evil revolutionaries when in fact it was the army itself, the enlisted soldiers on the frontlines and in the navy who started the revolution because they were just sick of the war.
In the US today the cult and hero-worship of the military is widespread and sadly even to be found among democrats. On the far right there are militias training in the backwoods and blogs like Redstate that seem to relive and reglorify the second World War on a daily basis. Even a really bad fighter pilot can make it onto a presidential ticket solely based on his wretchedly ineffective service to his country.
So that's the toxic mix that's brewing: Lying, bullying and violent militarists trying to overturn democratic elections and to conquer the public space by brute force.
And here's how we stop them in Germany these days (because they're not gone, sadly):
- You go out and confront them
Whenever there is a rally of Neo-Nazis there is a counter-rally of at least ten times as many people. In many instances the Neo-Nazi-rallies have to be called off by the police because of safety concerns and the very real prospect of street-fights - take that down as a win for the democratic forces.
- You use all available legal means to destroy their organizations and their leaders
Fortunately, most Neo-Nazis are really stupid. They break tax-codes and embezzle their party funds all the time. They commit really stupid crimes like defacing jewish cemeteries or beating up foreigners and they get caught. You put their leaders into the slammer and bankrupt their organizations through stiff fines for tax evasion and such.
- You educate the young
Every schoolchild goes to visit a concentration camp with their school. History lessons are very intense especially on the Third Reich. There is zero tolerance for right wing viewpoints in schools.
What you definitely DON'T do is to simply ignore the wingers or silently hope that their rage will pass - it won't and they will never go away. That's what the political establishment did in the 19020s and 30s with regard to Hitler. They saw him as an upstart, a loony whose novelty appeal would soon wear off so that the adults could take over again. History books are full of the utterances of sane politicians even after Hitlers rise to power who thought that this episode would soon pass. They were wrong.
You have to stop this madness in its tracks, you have to fight it every inch of the way and you can never let up.