Vichy Dems

Amy said that, since I am a history of France fanatic, I should post on the "Vichy Dems" meme. I will re-post a comment from RJ Keefe's Daily Blague below; I will need to expand on the idea some more later.

"Vichy dems" may be clever, but it's not really historically accurate. The Vichyssois were an odd group of reactionaries and technocrats who saw alignment with the Nazis as a pragmatic means to achieve their two main ends: rollback of democratic republicanism in the case of the reactionaries, and establishment of a streamlined state apparatus in the case of the technocrats (e.g., Police Nationale, INSEE). The technocrats' engagement was basically dispassionate, though there were some sinister intersections with the Nazis' and reactionaries' designs (viz. national police force).

I don't think it's accurate to characterize the Democrats as being aligned with the reactionary Republicans. I do agree that they are largely an ineffectual opposition, but I think that scant few of them share Republican goals, crackpots like Zell Miller notwithstanding.