LaRouchies Get Their Moment In The Sun

I did not immediately recognize that the women in the Barney Frank town hall meeting video was a Larouchie. Apparently, they've been handing out the Obama/Hitler poster. But it shows you how far down the rabbit hole conservatives have gone this summer that the difference between them and Larouchies is no longer readily apparent. Dave Weigel points out that there pretty much is no difference anymore:

After noting that the disturbed woman who accused Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) of supporting a “Nazi policy” was a LaRouche cultist, I checked out the trove of videos that LaRouche’s Virginia-based organization has made available since the health care debate began; they upload new ones at least once daily at their YouTube channel. And comparing their rhetoric to the rhetoric of mainstream Republicans is downright eerie. Take this video, in which Leandra Bernstein of LaRouchePAC.com makes the case that a “mass strike” is on [...]



Now, obviously, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) would never make a comparison like that. But compare her rhetoric to the LaRouchePAC’s.

Two things:

1) That any mainstream political party could credibly be compared to the Larouche cult is really an incredible statement. In a way, modern Republicans and Larouchies are made for each other.

2) This shows you why these town halls should be absolutely dismissed. Anyone who's attended enough political events knows that you can always find a bunch of fresh-faced Larouchie cultists, smiling and handing out the most insane literature you've ever read while laughing so hard you could choke. Lyndon LaRouche has tried to run for office repeatedly as both an independent and a Democrat, but despite the faces singing in the hallways of political conventions and on outdoor promenades, he has never represented more than 0.05% of the national vote. He's the fringiest of the fringe, and absolutely nobody with a scintilla of rationality would consider Larouchies an important voice on anything in American life. Yet their bleatings on the health care bill are indistinguishable from mainstream conservatives.

There's a fallacy here of looking at the combination of Larouchies and teabaggers and presuming some broad-based movement. It's a bad poll and a bad sample.