Reply #182: I think you underestimate them at your peril. [View All]

[RaleighNCDUer]

Yes, they are a disorganized rabble now, but they will still be around with all their hatreds and prejudices long after Obama is gone, and that rabble is being deliberately manipulated by people who are using the system to undermine the system.

There are powerful anti-democratic forces at work, and the teabaggers are a tool they are using. The fact there are as many of them as there are bodes ill for the republic. They are not the end of the republic, as you stated in your post (though the OP said they may be the beginning of the end, which is a different thing altogether), but they are not dissimilar from the Know Nothings of the 19th century - and three decades of their politics led to the Civil War.

If they are now only unified by their hatred of Obama, that does not preclude them being used by anti-democratic demagogues in the future, focused on other issues - whether it be immigration or gays or whatever. And they will use our system against itself, to turn our people against our own.

What was Hitler's biggest mistake? Being born an Austrian, instead of an American.