Who said it: a LaRouche cultist or a Fox News viewer?

I previously had noted that rhetoric one can typically hear on Fox News (or AM radio) comparing Democrats to Nazis is virtually indistinguishable from the sort of extremist rhetoric that you might read in a Lyndon LaRouche publication.

It's fairly disturbing that on first glance it's difficult to tell a difference between the insane ranting of a Lyndon LaRouche publication (LaRouche is an extremist par excellence, seeming to have mixed some of the worst aspect of various extremist ideologies from across the political spectrum) and the sort of thing you can hear on Fox News from Glenn Beck or Jonah Goldberg on any given day.

Dave Weigel has noticed the same thing.

After noting that the disturbed woman who accused Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) of supporting a “Nazi policy” was a LaRouche cultist, I checked out the trove of videos that LaRouche’s Virginia-based organization has made available since the health care debate began; they upload new ones at least once daily at their YouTube channel. And comparing their rhetoric to the rhetoric of mainstream Republicans is downright eerie.

What is really disturbing is that in LaRouche you have someone who has been involved in extremist politics across the political spectrum. And yet the tactics he and his followers use to demonize political opponents are now identical tactics that mainstream Republicans and pseudo-conservative propagandists in the media use on a regular basis.

When a mainstream political party is pandering to the same passions as someone like LaRouche, and using the same tactics, that is not a good sign. It demonstrates quite clearly that the Republican party is mainstreaming extremist villainy.