The other night, I was listening to BBC radio and heard the "tea party" movement described as a "conservative movement", a polite description, considering just how right wing they are. At first, I thought how "fascist" was apparently too polite a term but then I thought that this isn't the right description.

Fascism is technically an autocratic government aligned with corporate interests where the masses are kept in line through fear. Certainly, there's no shortage of either fear or corporate astroturf in the Tea Party but calling them fascist still doesn't fit quite right.

The previous administration comes closer. The corporate cronyism, fear-mongering, wars of aggression, torture and citizen-surveillance of the Bush administration indicate that they came as close as they could get away with. The sentiment in the Tea Party seems to be that Bush wasn't right wing enough. Given how the stoking of hatred of Muslims and immigrants go well beyond what Bush called for, the further shift to the right is evident.

So what's to the right of "fascist"?

More importantly, there's a certain coherency to fascism that the Tea Party movement lacks. Debate with a fascist and you may get arguments like "Saddam had ties to Al-Qaida". It's not true but at least it's a coherent statement. Debate with a Tea Partier and you may get an argument like "Obama is a secret alien from planet Zenutenar who's in league with the lizard people to steal my baby to sacrifice to Cthulu."

The origins of left and right in politics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left%E2%80%...t_politics

The terms "left" and "right" appeared during the French Revolution of 1789 when members of the National Assembly divided into supporters of the king to the president's right and supporters of the revolution to his left.

Just an interesting factoid I thought I'd drop in.

To answer your question about what would be to the right of facist I would say you would have to go to antiquity and to monarchies that ruled by dictat (basically the will of the king).
The people that comes to mind are Genghis Khan and Louis the 14th of France as the epitome of right wing.

Quote:So what's to the right of "fascist"?

The whole idea of a "left-right" scale in politics doesn't work anymore. There exists both right-wing and left-wing fascism; this is undeniable. The Political Compass test has added another dimension to the scale to allow for this:



This allows for the centre-right fascism of Hitler to be compared with the left-wing fascism of Stalin:



It is interesting to note that most governments in the Western world (especially UK / USA) are in the top right square. For instance, both the main parties of the US are in that square, as well as the two main parties (Conservative & Labour) of the UK. The Liberal Democrats of the UK are seemingly the only mainstream party of either country that are below the "authoritarian" line.





Source: http://politicalcompass.org

The so-called "World's Smallest Political Quiz" uses a similar two dimensional grid, but divides it up into 5 main sections (to allow for centrism). You can take the quiz (10 questions) and find your result here: http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz

My result if anyone is interested:

So Gandhi was 'to the left and down a bit', doesnt trip off the tongue quite as easily does it.

Graphs make everything better!!

(September 15, 2010 at 1:15 pm)DeistPaladin Wrote: The other night, I was listening to BBC radio and heard the "tea party" movement described as a "conservative movement", a polite description, considering just how right wing they are. At first, I thought how "fascist" was apparently too polite a term but then I thought that this isn't the right description.

I've witnessed the same thing in the French press media. The label "conservative movement" fails to describe the actual craziness of the tea party.

(September 15, 2010 at 2:02 pm)downbeatplumb Wrote: So Gandhi was 'to the left and down a bit', doesnt trip off the tongue quite as easily does it.

Or "left libertarian", which slips off the tongue a bit better. I think at the height he is, you could call him "centre left" and be a bit more accurate.

Edit: Cock up. sorry.

(September 15, 2010 at 2:08 pm)AtheistPhil Wrote: I've witnessed the same thing in the French press media. The label "conservative movement" fails to describe the actual craziness of the tea party.

Maybe they're just used to hearing about crazy Americans and think this is "conservative" by our standards. Well, actually that's not too far off. The last decade has made me feel really insecure about going abroad with the label "American". (Bag over head).