In 1959 I met a German guy who had been a member of the German National Party in the 1920s. He showed me picture of a National Party picnic with himself and Adolf Hitler standing together for a photo in front of the outdoor table.

It was a bit of a surprise, because when one thinks of Adolf Hitler, one does not picture him at a picnic.

Further, at the time the photo was taken the head of the National Socialist Party was not that big a
celebrity. In 1928, the NSDAP got one percent of the vote, while the National Party was part of the governing coalition..

By the late twenties the more respectable conservatives had taken the German government out of the hands of the socialists and communists who had taken over Bavaria and led the revolutionary group that unseated the Kaiser and surrendered.

My point is that Hitler took over because, in the 1932 election, the respectable right disappeared.

Communists and Nazis combined had a majority in the Reichstag after the 1932 election.

So the results of 2012 are not all that sure.

In the United States, the Free Soil Party got less than one percent of the vote in 1848. Then the real parties were Democrats and Whigs. The last Whig president, Millard Fillmore, ran third in 1856 as the American Party’s nominee

By 1856 the Whigs were as dead as the Eternal Other Superpower was in 1990..

The Republicans, whose basic platform was based on Free Soil, were the second real party, and in 1860 it took over with a program that ended up making Free Soil look proslavery.

The problem is that all of this is totally novel to people who keep up with the news.

When the paycheck Whigs disappeared, they were succeeded by people who, in the context of the time, were wild extremists, “Black Republicans.”

When the paycheck right disappeared, Germany got, not socialists or communists, but Nazis. In November 1932 the world press still thought Hitler would put the Kaiser back in. Nobody, but nobody in the establishment knew more about the real NSDAP than the paid Sovietologist knew about the zombie that was their meal ticket.

Mommy Professor assures the kiddies that he knows the inevitable future. But he or she is also very aware that the horse they back keeps having a stroke.

They don’t know how to express this because the establishment is simply not made of people as smart about or as concentrated on political reality as I am.

They, like the paycheck right, are not comfortable with anyone who is smarter than they are.

They read books by people who write things to order. They elect people who are on their level. People who make wrong predictions that they like.

And they’re SCARED.