Tea Party Nazis

America, before the Liberal Enlightenment

It is not unusual to find the Tea Party characterized as "Nazi". A pretty common and unoriginal lefty smear of anything not...lefty. But as I mentioned, Nazism is nothing if not totalitarian, so how can a movement which wants less government power be Nazi?

I think I know why.

In the liberal narrative, life in America prior to the 1960's was a hellish hierarchy of racism, sexism, homophobia, warmongering, anticommunist witchhunts, and runaway capitalism.
Since the 60's it has been changes to law, federal law above all, that have helped to better the oppressed lives of people of color, of women, of gay, has made peace movements strong and mainstream, have reduced McCarthyism to, well, "McCarthyism", and tried to rein in the unbridled greed of multinational and financial corporations.

In the liberal narrative, Americans (aka white, male, straight, traditional, entrepreneurial Americans) unrestrained by a strong liberal government, are by nature bad people, racists above all.  Like Nazis.

So if you ask for less government, you are asking for the Nazis to be let off the leash once again.