Even as thousands of people packed the streets of Washington on Friday to protest against government spending, some of the agitators likened President Barack Obama to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
According to a CBS report, most of those would have called themselves "patriots" arguing that their government was betraying traditional principles.
There were plenty of signs identifying Obama with Hitler, or Stalin, that questions his citizenship, that seems to celebrate the death of a famous liberal.
But perhaps what most united these protesters was a broader discontent: a sense that they are not being heard, that their interests, and the national interests, are in the hands of a few.