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In the Hollywood hit comedy starring Daniel Brhl, a son goes to extraordinary lengths to try to convince his sick mother that she is still living in the hardline socialist state - despite the fact that the Berlin Wall has fallen and the regime is no more.

At the Alexa-Senioren-Residenz in Dresden the same principle applies. And dementia sufferers have shown progress in remembering things - and generally enjoying life more - in a part of the home given over to the German Democratic Republic.

There is a shop there selling products from the lost socialist Atlantis. Films and TV shows from the time when it was Soviet Russia's closest ally are screened in a room where pictures of former DDR rulers are on display.

GETTY

When home director Gunter Wolfram saw people "remembering things from the past when they couldn't remember their own name" he expanded the experiment.

Old objects from East Germany - such as a bread slicer, original wall hangings, a Communist-manufactured tape recorder and piles of old newspapers and magazines - now give those who grew up under Communism and grew old under capitalism a boost that no drugs can achieve.

GETTY

We got the idea to set up an area of the home in the style of the GDR

Gunter Wolfram

One carer at the home said: "Suddenly, amazing things are happening. Residents who barely could remember their names suddenly began talking about the brands of toothpaste from their youth, the petrol they put in their mopeds and the sorts of gherkins they used to buy."

Director Wolfram went on: "We got the idea to set up an area of the home in the style of the GDR. There is now, thanks to flea markets and e-Bay, an electric mixer from the GDR, GDR furniture, GDR cleaning fluids and much else besides.

"Since we started this therapy space, the number of applications for people to come and live here has rocketed."

Therapist Alicia Schppe and her team oversee the residents in this recreated piece of East Germany.

"Since it started, many have started to feed themselves again for the first time, can go to the loo unaided again and no longer lie around in bed all day."

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Care home experiments has OAPs believe they are still living in Communist East Germany - Express.co.uk

Forbes

South America's Last Bastion Of Socialism Is Falling To Pieces Forbes The currency is worth a dime, though probably not even that much. The brain drain is immense. People are starving. Unemployment is in the double digits. Inflation is triple digits. And its president, Nicholas Maduro of the disastrous United Socialist ... and more »

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South America's Last Bastion Of Socialism Is Falling To Pieces - Forbes

Citizen service is the very American idea that we meet our challenges not as isolated individuals but as members of a true community, with all of us working together. Our mission is nothing less than to spark a renewed sense of obligation, a new sense of duty, a new season of service. President Bill Clinton

When the United States was created, it was created with a new form of government, a democratic-republic, where the people have a great deal of power but not the final say. As one should remember from the last election, that those with the most popular support do not always win. While in this case, the majority peoples opinion was right, one easily could create a case in theory where the popular opinion is wrong and should not be supported by the government. In the article, it is stated that it would best for corporations to be owned and operated by employees, where the employees would all have an equal final say, one voice, one vote. But this is not true even in the USAs democratic-republic, so to work towards that goal is unreasonable. What the article is arguing is that workers, executives, and customers need to be more connected to each other and be willing to assist each other so that the economy acts in a more just way. This lack of connectedness is not just present in the workplace but in the society as whole as well.

The specific suggestion that cooperatives are the best way in which to create a more democratic economy is misguided because it provides a solution that is too simple and inapplicable. Co-ops could certainly work in many conditions, but the better overall solution is to use the current options available to increase the connectedness among the executives, employees, and customers. This could be achieved for example through strengthening labor unions, or through forcing corporations to have more local governing structures or through breaking up larger corporations. Co-ops are not the only way.

In Dr. Putnams book Bowling Alone, one sees that a current problem in society as whole is that people are increasingly focused on themselves and less on others and groups. The American system was never supposed to work under these circumstances where employees and employers are completely disconnected and do not care about each others well-being. The answer is not more government involvement but more community involvement. Government involvement can certainly be useful especially for those in the middle and lower classes, but it will not fix the problems that exist in society. If the government takes more of a role in caring for others without the society first gaining increased connectedness and compassion, then the government will only make the problem worse. For example, people will not see how their taxes are benefiting others and then question why are they paying taxes at all for people who they do not know. When people know about and care for each others life more, then the economy can work for all people, and one can create a system that is more democratic.

Kenneth Goetz, MCAS 20

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LTE: A Response to Socialism Is the Solution - The Heights

This presents a crucial test to the tea party movement that has reshaped American politics since 2008. The most obvious challenge is that Trump has chosen to leave Social Security and Medicare alone, two of the biggest components of the federal budget and two prime targets for conservatives like Speaker Paul Ryan.

Trump is going to assure Congress that the draconian cuts to domestic programs like the Environmental Protection Agency, reductions which tea party Republicans love, will balance out the huge increase in military spending. But the reality will be different.

President Ronald Reagan learned in the early 1980s that cutting government programs is extremely hard in practice. When Reagan slashed income taxes and boosted military spending, promising to balance the budget with domestic cuts, he failed. Reagan also backed away from cuts to Social Security and Medicare when he faced a political backlash for trying.

In the end, deficits skyrocketed in the 1980s. Reagan faced a Democratic House. Yet we have seen that Trump is already learning how hard it is to cut government, even in a moment of united partisan control, as he backs away from eliminating increasingly popular parts of the Affordable Care Act. In his speech to Congress, he also promised to move forward with a $1 trillion infrastructure bill, which surely won't sit well with fiscal conservatives in his party.

Finally, this increase in military spending is a significant expansion of the federal government. While tea party Republicans might want to distinguish national security from the rest of government, in reality if they swallow this proposal they are revealing that conservatism really is about what kind of government to support, not whether big government is bad.

Tea party Republicans insisted that they would be different and for much of the time that they have had representation in Congress since 2008 they have been true to the word. They have been an intensely ideological coalition, insisting on a commitment to purity on policy that left the Obama administration deeply frustrated and tied up in knots.

Added to all this is the curveball that the president threw when he announced that he is open to immigration reform that would allow a large number of undocumented immigrants to remain in the country. Despite his continued attacks on undocumented immigrants in his address, the mere mention of a proposal to liberalize policy is anathema to many Tea Party Republicans who represent constituencies that are sympathetic to hardline anti-immigration sentiment.

The Republicans went to great lengths to fight Obama on spending cuts. When Obama sought compromise, they stood their ground in the budget battles of 2011, threatening to send the federal government into default. Hawkish Republicans were equally frustrated with their tea party colleagues when Congress could not reach agreement on spending in 2013 and as a result of the rules put into place in 2011, forced the implementation of budget sequestration that imposed caps on military and not domestic spending.

When Republican leaders like former Speaker John Boehner showed that they were willing to give even an inch to the Democrats, the tea party toppled them from power.

The current Speaker, Paul Ryan, has built much of his career around promising tea party Republicans that he would move forward with "entitlement reform" (meaning Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid cuts) despite the political risks. He has been a zealot on this issue and hoped that this moment of unified government would offer an unprecedented opportunity. A frustrated Speaker Ryan, who said after the election that Trump had a "mandate," has now warned: "I've been a big time entitlement reformer for a long time because if you don't start bending the curve in the out years, we are hosed."

By supporting Trump, tea party Republicans would also put themselves on the record as being in favor of big increases in certain kinds of government spending.

Tea party Republicans will soon discover that President Trump's budget doesn't really add up. They will be receiving numbers from a Republican administration, which generally is sympathetic to their goals on most major issues, that will contradict their promise to the reddest constituents that they would hold firm on the anti-government cause. Jim DeMint, the former South Carolina senator, said, "America cannot wait any longer before we get serious about balancing the budget."

Trump is putting the Republican Party in a difficult spot at a moment of united government that could easily have turned into a period of triumph. If tea party Republican members of Congress swallow what the President has sent them, they will quickly reveal to their supporters that they are as craven and opportunistic as anyone else in Washington. They will place themselves at risk to be "tea partied" out of office and they will greatly damage their own credibility with the electorate in the coming election cycle.

If they hold to principle, as they did under President Obama, then the Republicans as a party will be facing a dangerous moment. A Republican President, who has shown that he doesn't have much loyalty when it comes to people getting in the way of his success, will be facing off against a huge portion of the congressional Republicans. The Freedom Caucus, with about 32 votes, has the numbers in the House to tie up the administration.

Will Republicans unite and make the most of their control of Congress and the White House? Or will many of them remain true to their small government philosophy and risk war with a White House that wants to reshape Washington?

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Trump's huge challenge to the tea party - CNN.com

It's tempting to compare widespread, influential movements to the Tea Party's formation in 2009. It was done in 2011 with Occupyand in 2015 with Black Lives Matter.

Now, the 2017 protests against President Trump's administration are being benchmarked against the Tea Party movement, with observers wondering if a durable political movement will form, elect a congressional class of protest representatives in 2018 and resist the Trump administrations policies for the next four years.

While it is too early to answer those questions with any precision, the volume of protests thus far this year suggest it is a worthwhile one to consider. To do this, two important dimensions of the tea party are worth considering.

First, from its earliest days, the Tea Party was defined by bold imagery and clear symbolism. The immediate naming of the movement and use of images, such as the coiled "Don't Tread on Me" snake, alluded to popular notions of American history. These communicated an easily understandable political message of personal freedoms and liberty.

And, while many of the strategies used by the Tea Party were directed at opposing President Obama at every turn, the movement's messaging suggested broader ambitions for political change and an overhaul of Washington.

Second, the Tea Party wasn't limited to clever messaging. One of the most interesting aspects of the Tea Party protests of 2009 and 2010 was the association with the formation of a vast network of new organizations, some formal and others informal or virtual.

These organizations quickly formed and then drew loyal members. Based on the best recent data, membership in the major Tea Party organizations expanded rapidly from 2009 to 2012, but continued to grow, though at a slower rate, through 2015. As a result, the Tea Party has been a durable political movement, able to rely on this national network of organizations to mobilize voters to support candidates and a largely conservative policy agenda.

Thus far, it is hard to see the clear messaging or the organizational formation associated with the Tea Party in the 2017 protests.

To be sure, the Women's Marches in January drew millions of supporters of women's rights, likely more than the Tea Party protests in 2009 (Erica Chenoweth maintains excellent original data at theCrowd Counting Consortium). Subsequent protests supporting immigrants and voting rights and opposing the refugee executive order have regularly attracted large crowds. The recent round of town halls held with members of Congress also seem to be drawing record numbers of constituents.

While many of these protests are targeted at the president, a unifying message or image has not set. Given the variety of concerns expressed from reproductive rights to immigration policy to healthcare to LGBTQ rights this may not be a bad thing. Yet this recent period of protest doesn't yet have the common and consistent messaging as the Tea Party did.

Additionally, while the crowds have been record-breaking and hundreds of civic organizations have been involved in the careful planning of each event, there does not appear to be the same creation of new organizations as we saw in 2009 with the Tea Party.

Now, we are just two months into 2017, and at this point in 2009 few of the Tea Party organizations had moved beyond a quickly designed website. Nevertheless, if new organizations were essential to the Tea Party's influence, that has not yet defined what is happening today.

In 2009, many commentators focused on whether the Tea Party was a truly authentic grassroots movement or a manufactured Astroturf one. I've argued in the past that it was both: an expression of real concerns by citizens organizing around kitchen tables and in local town halls, as well as a well-orchestrated communications strategy supported by major political money.

In 2017, I suspect the same could be said of the recent protests. To be successful, political movements need money and people. Political success comes from organizing and effective strategy.

The important question today seems to be not whether the protests are Astroturf or grassroots, but whether they will build the durable institutions needed to be sustain political action over the next four years.

Following the direction of the Tea Party is one option, but not necessarily the only way forward for protesters.

Heath Brown is an assistant professor of public policy at the City University of New York (CUNY), John Jay College and the CUNY Graduate Center. He is the author of "Tea Party Divided:The Hidden Diversity of a Maturing Movement" (Praeger, 2015).

The views of contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.

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Do anti-Trump protests really compare to 2009 Tea Party ...