You know those health-care demonstrators on television equating President Barack Obama with Adolf Hitler? They’re your neighbors. And they’re looking for new recruits to spread the word.
As debate intensifies over a medical system overhaul, the activists – supporters of octogenarian, perennial presidential candidate and self-proclaimed economic guru Lyndon LaRouche – are popping up outside grocery stores across Orange County.
With posters digitally altered to give Obama the Fuhrer’s well-known mustache, they’ve incurred insults (“kooks” and “nutters” are some of the tamer slights) but also racked up donations ($600 at a Bristol Farms in Corona del Mar last weekend).
The overall response has been decidedly “polarized,” LaRouche activist Eric Thomas said at a Gelson’s market in Newport Beach.
Nazi comparisons are thrown about almost casually in politics nowadays, shorthand for anyone acting imperiously. LaRouche and his acolytes, however, use the slur literally, likening some American health-care ideas to Hitler’s policy of executing the disabled.
Proposals to strengthen the commission that advises on Medicare reimbursements, for example, have been interpreted by LaRouche followers as moves to cut costs by denying care to senior citizens.
Citizens must “quickly and suddenly change the behavior of this president … for no lesser reason than that your sister might not end up in somebody’s gas oven,” LaRouche wrote in a pamphlet issued in May.
LaRouche enthusiasts have other big concerns; they say the country is poised for financial collapse at the end of the government’s fiscal year this fall, and that politicians are being manipulated by the distorting financial system of the “British Empire.”
Activist Frank DeFalco, manning a table outside a Trader Joe’s in Huntington Harbour, slowly dragged a finger across his throat and predicted impending doom: “What LaRouche is saying is that if he’s not calling the shots in the next 30 to 60 days, it’s all over.”
But those warnings aren’t what get attention right now. Health care is the hot topic, and few things make for better television than protesters calling the country’s chief executive a genocidal tyrant.
One LaRouche backer received special attention in recent days when she asked Rep. Barney Frank at a Massachusetts town hall event why he continues to “support a Nazi policy.”
The congressman retorted sharply, calling it “a tribute to the First Amendment that this kind of vile, contemptible nonsense is so freely propagated.”
While comparing Obama with Hitler, LaRouche admirers claim to have decency standards. Outside the Gelson’s, for example, one shopper proudly proclaimed he is racist and doesn’t like the president for that reason.
Thomas turned his back on the man. “We don’t like to talk to people who are crazy,” Thomas said. “If they just don’t like Obama for some ideological reason, we don’t have time for them. We want people who want to have an honest discussion.”
They get plenty of opportunities for that, with the Obama-as-Hitler posters drawing laughs and scowls, cheers and profanities.
“Go get ’em!” one supportive shopper shouted at Gelson’s.
“Don’t you guys ever die from idiocy?” asked a less-enthusiastic passer-by at Bristol Farms.
The activists don’t debate with critics; they ignore them if possible, and tartly insult them if needed. “You’ve been totally brainwashed,” volunteer Jason Cottle told one challenger. “Stop arguing with me.”
In the course of conversations, just about everyone is stunned by one thing: the LaRouche activists consider themselves Democrats, and when it comes to health care, they back a single-payer system.
“These so-called right-wingers who are claiming credit for (disrupting) these (town hall) meetings couldn’t organize themselves out of paper bag,” said Nancy Spannaus, editor of Executive Intelligence Review, a publication founded by LaRouche, whom she said was not available for comment.
Not surprisingly, politicos on both sides of the aisle have distanced themselves from LaRouche.
Republican bloggers use the activists to suggest Democrats face internal opposition on health care.
Democrats disavow the movement; in 1986, for example, LaRouche candidate Art Hoffmann was the only Democrat to file papers for an Orange County congressional race, and party leaders had to back a write-in candidate with a $100,000 primary campaign.
“Orange County went berserk,” said Hoffman, who was narrowly defeated, in an interview.
Many locals still get incensed. In a video shot at a Trader Joe’s in Brea, a man snatched one of the Obama-as-Hitler posters, tried to rip it apart and finally threw it to the ground. In Corona del Mar, a poster calling Obama “fascist” was heavily crinkled. “It’s been grabbed and assaulted a couple times,” volunteer Nick Walsh said.
At Bristol Farms, most shoppers ignored the activists, preferring to sample free Muscato grapes at another outdoor table. Most who disagreed did so respectfully, such as Huntington Beach resident Sherie Franssen.
“What we need is a reasonable, thoughtful debate instead of incendiary behavior,” she said.
Others embraced the volunteers and quickly turned over $20 bills. “Not that I have anything against the president; it’s just that I think he’s going in the wrong direction on” health care, said Orange County resident Eileen Moskow, who cut a check for $100.
After a full day in front of the supermarket, Walsh and his partner, Delante Bess, had signed up a dozen new members. Maybe you’ll see those new recruits on your next trip to the grocery store. Or maybe you’ll see them next door.
Contact the writer: 949-553-2921 or joverley@ocregister.com
