Republicans and communists

Given the context, this question seems almost absurd. And yet, after reading a little about European communist parties of the interwar and early postwar period, I am struck by the tonal and tactical similarities between these groups and the Republican party in its latest, ever more extreme, incarnation. Fundamentally, the communist parties focused almost uniquely on political goals, despite the economic underpinning of their ideological narrative. To them, the end justified the means, and they often had no problem resorting to violence or economic sabotage. Given that their underlying support was quite limited, they thought they could gain by creating chaos, fostering maximum economic disruption, and generally discrediting the social and political establishment. They could then turn around and claim that their dominant narrative had been vindicated.

Communists put a premium on ideological purity. They had little concern for prudential solutions to practical problems. After all, the force of history was moving inexorably in their direction, so why sweat the small stuff?  Ideology came before facts or reality, and the yardstick was how closely supporters adhered to the dominant political narrative. Communist parties defined themselves as much by what they were against as what they were for – a standard tactic was to accuse all who opposed them, including those on the left, as being associated with fascists or other extremist rightists. For obvious reasons, this was a particularly potent line of attack in the postwar period. In the interwar period, a favorite tactic was infiltration – the grass-roots level take-over of many different left-wing groups, with the goal of subsuming them under the communist banner. This worked very well in some countries.

This is all uncannily similar to the state of the current Republican party, especially after its takeover by the tea-party radicals. Old-school communist parties also relied heavily on intellectual support, and received it from far too many philosophers and thinkers who should have known better. That too is unchanged. Today, people like Robert George are playing the role once reserved for people like John-Paul Sartre.