http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175247/tomgram%3A_greg_grandin%2C_does_the_tea_party_run_on_race
>From a Tom Dispatch by Greg Grandin:
<begin excerpt>
The 1040 Archipelago
At the heart of Tea Party history is the argument that "progressivism
is fascism is communism." Conceptually, such a claim helps frame what
many call "American exceptionalism," a belief that the exclusive role
of government is to protect individual rights -- to speech, to
assembly, to carry guns, and, of course, to own property -- and not to
deliver social rights like health care, education, or welfare.
At Tea Party rallies and on right-wing blogs,
it's common to hear that, since the time of President Woodrow Wilson,
progressives have been waging a "hundred-year-long war" on America's
unique values. This bit of wisdom comes directly from Beck, who has
become something like the historian laureate of American
exceptionalism, devoting many on-air hours to why progressivism is a
threat equal to Nazism and Stalinism.
Progressives, he typically says, "started a hundred-year time bomb.
They planted it in the early 1900s." Beck has compared himself to
"Israeli Nazi hunters," promising [8], with language more easily
associated with the Nazis than those who pursued them, to track down
the progressive "vampires" who are "sucking the blood out of the
republic."
<end excerpt>
In other words they agree with us that, compared with other advanced Western economies, the US stands out for how much less it provides to its citizens collectively, and even more for how little there is in our categories of thought to legitimate such collective provision (no category of solidarity, for example). So US stands out -- it's an exception -- for being relatively "anti-collectivist," in thought and deed. The only difference is that TP conservatives *embrace* this "american exceptionalism." And they see progressivism as a century old organized effort to overthrow it -- to make the US more like other civilized countries in this regard. Which put like that, doesn't sound entirely wrong either.
So all you have to do now is replace "organized effort to" with "conspiracy to," which in many sentence is just the rhetoric of hyperbole. And then rename the progressive goal from "fundamentally improve things" to "betray the principles that define American exceptionalism" -- and hence define America.
If you grant the premises -- which from a different POV we certainly can arguendo -- that makes a certain coherent sense.
This also explains very simply why they lump together fascism, communism, socialism and liberalism. The first two are forms of collectivism, and the latter two are forms of collective provision. And at least in their dreams they're against all that. They realize the country will always fall short of their individualist utopia. But for them the important thing is to never give up the fight.
Michael