• No one seems to differentiate between Nazism and fascism anymore
• The “passionate” seem to differentiate their enemies by nothing save ideology, no region, habits, circumstance, etc.
• No one seems to mention that the more vociferous the protester, than more active social media, and the more marginal the employment  (so it seems to me anyway – that would be a good study for someone)
• Hoffer quotes of the day –
  

  The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause.

  and

  It is easier to hate an enemy with much good in him than one who is all bad. We cannot hate those we despise. The Japanese had an advantage over us in that they admired us more than we admired them. They could hate us more fervently than we could hate them. The Americans are poor haters in international affairs because of their innate feeling of superiority over all foreigners. An American’s hatred for a fellow American (for Hoover or Roosevelt) is far more virulent than any antipathy he can work up against foreigners. It is of interest that the backward South shows more xenophobia than the rest of the country. Should Americans begin to hate foreigners wholeheartedly, it will be an indication that they have lost confidence in their own way of life.

  and

  Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. Thus people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both.

I’m reminded of two things in light of the recent Charlottesville murder(s).

1.  Dan Carlin’s observation that this is what happens when pressure builds up in a society – the weak parts just start popping.  He was originally talking about the stabbing murders in Portland and the congressional shooting in Virginia.  To wit – political violence in America is rarely planned, and often carried out by short term thinkers, the highly anxious,  the failed artists, the “frustrated” (in Hoffer’s sense)
2. I heard a debate after the Newtown murders about video games.  One person rightfully said that there are no studies directly linking the two.  The other rightfully said that there is no way to have a control group, and raised the question – if you were going to train someone to commit horrible crimes like that (a Manchurian candidate for our modern times I suppose) wouldn’t you want to find some mentally or socially aberrant (pick your dysfunction, anxiety, addiction, neurotic or any bad thing that comes from a horrible childhood) person and have them virtually shoot things for 8 hours a day?  Substitute our modern wealth of outrage media, sleep deprivation, drugs (pick any really), and I think you get the same result.

Sadly Eric Hoffer gets more relevant every day.