Comparing Obama to Hitler: A Tea Party divided

An Iowa Tea Party group has been blasted by fellow Tea Partiers for putting up a billboard comparing Obama to Hitler. What does the incident reveal about the movement?

Obama Hitler
(Image credit: screenshot)

A Tea Party–sponsored billboard in Mason City, IA, comparing President Obama to Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin has opened a fissure in the loosely organized Tea Party movement. The billboard (now concealed) was put up by a group called the North Iowa Tea Party, which argues that it's fair to highlight what they see as Obama's support for socialism. National Tea Partiers, already defending the movement from the NAACP's recent condemnation of its "racist element," are livid. What does the sign reveal about the Tea Party and its internal politics? (See the billboard)

The sign is tasteless, but not wrong: Anyone who's studied Hitler's atrocities "would find the comparison made in the billboard in bad taste," says Susan Duclos at Wake Up America. But it's "factually correct," in that Obama, Hitler, and Lenin are all, as the billboard states, "radical leaders" who "prey on the fearful & naive." You can't blame the North Iowa Tea Party for "fighting against allowing America to become a socialized country under the Obama rule."

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