Tea Party-like organization during the days of FDR

Which is why much of it is bankrolled by Americans for Prosperity and other corporate front organizations, right? If you want to use an example of an authentic mass political movement in the United States, take the antiwar movement during the Vietnam War period or the populist movement during the Long Depression. The Tea Party movement has been stoked and inflated with the aid of corporate money and free airtime from likeminded news organizations.



Are you making an assertion here that the New Deal was fascist and/or (if you don't know your political spectrum or ideologies) communist in its origin? The New Deal wasn't either of these, and its because of the New Deal that neither of these ideological persuasions took root in the United States during the depression. Had we stuck it out in favor of laissez-faire capitalism, we'd have had a socialist revolution or a fascist coup by the late thirties at the latest.
Someone's defensive....

The New Deal was not fascist because from start to finish, it was achieved in the success of electoral politics and the democratic process. Whether it was all necessary is an argument worth having, as is whether the means employed to make or keep it law actually hold up to the preferences of its contemporary defenders is also an argument worth having.

However, even though it was not overtly fascist, there was support all over the globe for many, many crazy ideas, including the two Isms that defined the nineteen forties.

While it is true that the Right is utilizing the Tea Party movement to its advantage, it would be unfair to suggest that U.S. enemies did not make use of legitimate protests in the 1960's and later for their own political ends.
 
McCormick was not a rabidly far-right Teabagger, just a standard Taft Republican. He operated more like Murdoch than Ailes.
 
His critics were too diverse. You had Huey Long, Francis Townsend, Upton Sinclair and their communitarian socialism, which is best summarized as "RL version of Santa's workshop". Then you had Fr. Coughlin, who was a priestly version of Glenn Beck, and the Liberty League, a league of far-right businessmen who allegedly plotted the "paper coup" involving Gen. Butler. None of them were particularly politically apt, and their ideologies were too diametrically opposed. It would be like asking Ron Dellums and Michelle Bachmann to make common cause against Obama today.

I'm pretty sure Glenn Beck is neither pro-NAZI/fascist, nor anti-semitic...
 
I meant demagogy: saying condradictory trollish things that you don't necessarilly fully believe in to rile up people who do. Coughlin would likely have agreed with Rush, that he was "just an entertainer": anyone who goes from New Deal fanboy to fascist sympathizer in a short period can only be described as a demagogue. Beck is consistent in his beliefs, and believes somewhat diluted versions of what he says on-air, therefore Beck is not a demagogue. Glenn Beck is many things, but pro-Nazism, fascism and anti-Semitism are not among them.
 

Teleology

Banned
One thought: part of what gives the Tea Party such steam is you have "socialist" big government spending on infrastructural/welfare programs, combined with an inopportune/unfortunate bailing out of private industry that you would normally expect from Big Business conservatives. Thus you have the anti-corporate sentiment being used by corporate sponsors and the Big Business wing of the conservative movement to direct people's anger towards the government.

Now, if FDR had needed or been in the position to bailout big sectors of the economy before they completely collapsed, then you might have the perfect storm; since government co-opting of private industry would scream "fascist economics" more than simple mixed economy government interaction in the market.
 
Top