If you have never read it, check out "The Mass Psychology of Fascism" by Wilhelm Reich.
Here is a link to a site about Reich and his work:
The American College of Orgonomy
Reich was initially a student and then a colleague of Freud's. They broke over Reich's assertions that there is a vital life force, which he called Orgone, and that this life force is in all biological life forms and is directly tied to a person's health and well-being. He posited that physical health and mental health were inseparably connected to the flow of and accessing of Orgone energy. He talked a lot about physical armoring, sexual repression, and personality formation. I am oversimplifying terribly for the sake of brevity.
Part of the reason I draw upon the Hitler analogy when dealing with George W. Bush is that Hitler is a great example of an extreme personality type, and he shares many characteristics with Bush. While their backgrounds are not so similar at a glance, they are both men of average or lower intelligence, both adhere to rigid religious structures outwardly (although who knows what their actual beliefs and practices are), both espouse rigid sexually repressive policies. Both manipulated their ways into seats of power which they are incapable of administering effectively. Both use scapegoating, fearmongering and violence to manipulate the masses. Both have clear intent to dominate at all costs. Both appear not to value human life, etc. etc.
If anyone is to appeal to the humanity of the people who are followers of such an ideologue, it is important to be aware of the ways they are being manipulated. The main themes are, promise of safety in exchange for relinquishing sense of liberty, promise that the person will be "part of" a greater whole that provides safety through homogeneity, and the promise that by not being different, "other", you are safe thus those that ARE "other" are less human, their suffering means less than "ours" and they are expendable. As much as most Americans would abhor such a belief outwardly, they/we are complicit in and subscribers to exactly those beliefs. Our society accepts the killing of people in Iraq and elsewhere by US soldiers because it is always going on and we are paying for it.
People holding that kind of a belief system are most able to "snap out of it" if/when they see the actual suffering right before their eyes. When the Germans living in the village of Auschwitz were forced, by allied soldiers, to walk through the camp after the liberation, it blew people's minds. It blew my mind to see how people were treated in DC, and I have been in other protests. It wasn't even that much worse than other stuff I've seen, but it did have that effect on me.
What we're seeing in this country now is exactly this. The wars we create abroad are coming home. Some are brought here by people who have been wounded in our wars, and some are brought here by Americans who are snapping under the pressure of living in our hectic, overstimulating, overcrowded, obsessive, materialistic, violent,fear-based society.
One of the important things we witches specifically do when we protest is we appear to be both different and the same as the onlookers. We are obviously the same because we are regular people, AND we are different because we behave differently than most people do on the street, i.e. the ritualistic garb and behaviour.
In Washington two weeks ago one of the things that was powerful for me was giving flyers and bumper stickers to people on the street and making contact with them. Some people were receptive, some walked by, but most were curious, uncomfortable, and were willing to be moved by a friendly nudge to accept a flyer and/or a bumper sticker. I made eye contact with people and whenever I could I let them know that even though the folks we were protesting don't like us, those folks also didn't have the best interests of the person on the street in mind. They got that. I did that with a lot of people, especially with African American and Latina/Latino people.
I think that the six degrees of separation idea offers a lot. Making contact with people's humanity is important. Who do you know? Who do they know? Who of the people in power can you make contact with, bringing your shared humanity into the encounter, and possibly helping to awaken theirs?