But there was an actual period in the US where you'd have Stalinists and Trotskyites arguing on coffee houses ( Dave van Ronk talks about this in that movie "No Direction Home"). The US has no tradition of something like Fabian Socialism. Prior to the Communists it was "bomb throwin' Anarchists" ( which is interesting considering that Stalin at least was anarchist before he was Communist - you can see the line from Anarchism to Communism in Europe as well). See the "Palmer Raids", "1919 bombings", the "Haymarket Riots". All were formative for J. Edgar Hoover.
IMO, and it's probably just me, the Bircher thing rose out of the central American tendency towards isolationism. Pearl Harbor ended that; the rest was secondary. The US simply wasn't prepared and hadn't really thought about it. Most of the things we find ... dissonant now are of design by Eisenhower, who was simply our best bet for dealing with it after having been the Supreme Commander in WWII. Thrown in with the brothers Dulles, most of those things were extremely messy. 1953 in particular was very sticky. We had living memory of the nationalization of the oil fields in Mexico.
Americans tend to believe against central planning. The idea is presented quite well in an otherwise flawed "Liberal Fascism".
IMO, and it's probably just me, the Bircher thing rose out of the central American tendency towards isolationism. Pearl Harbor ended that; the rest was secondary. The US simply wasn't prepared and hadn't really thought about it. Most of the things we find ... dissonant now are of design by Eisenhower, who was simply our best bet for dealing with it after having been the Supreme Commander in WWII. Thrown in with the brothers Dulles, most of those things were extremely messy. 1953 in particular was very sticky. We had living memory of the nationalization of the oil fields in Mexico.
Americans tend to believe against central planning. The idea is presented quite well in an otherwise flawed "Liberal Fascism".