I had a teacher in college who suggested that the political spectrum is not a line, with the extreme left at one end and extreme right at the other, but rather a circle, and when you go to either extreme you actually loop around and bump into your “opposite.”

This could explain the love affair between the American Right and communist revolutionary Vladimir Ulyanov, a.k.a. Lenin, whose methods have been emulated by Roger Ailes, the Koch brothers, Karl Rove, Wayne LaPierre, David Green, et al. In Lenin’s words:

“The press should not be only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, but also a collective organizer of the masses.”

“A lie told often enough becomes the truth.”

“There are no morals in politics; there is only expedience. A scoundrel may be of use to us just because he is a scoundrel.”

“One man with a gun can control one hundred without one.”

“Give me four years to teach the children and the seeds I have sown will never be uprooted.”

At this point, it’s not about ideology any more, just power. The “ideals” and “beliefs” are window dressing.