Rep. Allen West (R-FL) has thrown another rhetorical bombshell, the Washington Post reports: Comparing Democrats’ political messaging to that of Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany!
West was responding to poll data, showing that Americans are blaming Republicans for the lack of compromise in Congress, and viewing the GOP as “more extreme” than the Dems.
“If Joseph Goebbels was around, he’d be very proud of the Democrat Party, because they have an incredible propaganda machine,” West told reporters during House votes Thursday afternoon. “Let’s be honest, you know, some of the people in the media are complicit with this and enabling them to get that type of message out.”
“But let’s be very honest,” he added. “You have the president, who has an incredible megaphone and a platform, and he has people all across this country believing that the only people on Capitol Hill are House Republicans. He’s not talking anything about his controlled Senate. So, it’s a great propaganda machine. And I have to give him kudos for being able to leverage that.”
West was then asked whether he was comparing the Democrats to the Nazis.
“Once again, you guys will take whatever I say, and you will spin it to try to demonize me and demagogue me,” West said. “What I’m talking about is a person that was the minister of propaganda, and I’m talking about propaganda. I’ll be prepared to wake up tomorrow and you guys make up some crazy story; whatever.”
West might not be the best person to talk about the terrible examples of historical regimes that were based on militaristic nationalism and the demonization of marginalized groups.
West became a star of conservative political circles, and subsequently launched his political career, after his military career ended when he fired a pistol next to the head of an Iraqi policeman. West said this was done in order to stop an impending attack on his unit, but no evidence of such a plan was found based on the policeman’s coerced confession.
Since then, West has become known for declaring that America’s enemy is not militant radical Islamism, but Islam itself.
He also said that in Congress he would remain focused that “this liberal, progressive, socialist agenda, this left-wing, vile, vicious, despicable machine that’s out there is soundly brought to its knees.”
He has also called President Obama, who he makes sure to refer to as “Barack Hussein Obama,” a “a low-level socialist agitator,” and he responded to an attack by DNC Chair and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz by sending her a letter that declared, “proven repeatedly that you are not a Lady, therefore, shall not be afforded due respect from me!”
He has also said that Democratic Party has created what he called a “21st-century plantation” over black voters, with appointed African-American politicians to act as “overseers” — the men who committed the day-to-day atrocities of ruling over slaves in the antebellum South. “So I’m here as the modern-day Harriet Tubman, to kind of lead people on the Underground Railroad, away from that plantation into a sense of sensibility.”
Eric Kleefeld
Eric Kleefeld joined TPM as an intern for the final months of the 2006 midterm elections, and then kept showing up for work. His other interests include guitars, old comic books and the politics of various English-speaking countries.
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