I generally try to avoid politics on this blog, but this is an issue that has been gnawing at me for some time now. This post could get me into lots of trouble, but here goes.

Simply put, my concerns over conservative speakers such as Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck continue to grow. I believe many far right conservatives have become masters at stirring anger but offer nothing in terms of solutions. As they rouse anger, they win supporters. Palin and Beck in particular know exactly which buttons to push and how to push them.

At risk of crossing Godwin’s Law, here is my fear. How do the cries of Palin, Beck, and others differ from the cries of Hitler when he was building support? He knew what issues stirred people’s fear and anger. As he lit and stirred the fires of anger, he won fiercely loyal followers. I see the same taking place with Palin and Beck. They do not sound like totalitarian dictators (did Hitler early on?) but they are certainly gaining a following based on little more than their ability to stir anger.

There are reasons to be angry. There are good reasons to be frustrated and fed up with politics as usual in Washington. But I see Palin and Beck as even greater threats. They are not offering solutions to the problem, they are pouring fuel on the fire and when things blow up, they (far right conservatives in general) hope it will launch them into positions of power. If this happens, they will have behind them a base of supporters angry about the way things had been and willing to grant the new leaders a great deal of trust and loyalty. And since the new leaders had stirred so much fear and anger, something drastic and dramatic will have to happen so that it will look like the new leaders are dealing with the problems. In Germany it meant targeting the Jews as the source of every social ill. In the U.S. it will likely be immigrants, starting with illegal immigrants but spreading from there. Then it will be anyone who differs too much from the far right dogma.

Now, I do not believe that Palin or Beck or any others have any intention or desire to be anything like Hitler. Palin does not dream about totalitarian rule. But I wonder if even Hitler had any intention of becoming what he became.

I also do not believe things will get that far. The anger is immense, but I think most people would recognize and back away from the threat of totalitarianism. But if the far left continues its decline into blind insanity (and I have my own speculation on how the far left might try to prevent the rise of the far right, and it is equally troubling) and if the far right continues its plunge into the fires of fury, someday something will have to give.