Carolina Politics Online

This weekend I finally finished Liberal Fascism, written by National Review columnist Jonah Goldberg. Now some of you may be saying: “Hey Celtic, why did it take you so long to finish a book that’s been out for a couple months now?”

Well that’s easy- I’m cheap. Rather than buying the book, I went to Barnes & Noble over the course of several weekends and read it while powered by the caffeine and chocolate yummyness of Mint Mocha Chip Frappuccinos. Don’t cry for Barnes & Noble though… what they didn’t make from selling the book they more than made up in coffee sales.

This isn’t to say that Jonah Goldberg’s book is boring. On the contrary, Goldberg might be one of the few people out there who can compare Rousseau-ian and Mussolinian philosophy and actually make it interesting. Fans of Goldberg’s columns on National Review Online should be warned that his typical humor, Star Trek references, and comparisons of today’s news stories to Simpson’s episodes aren’t prevalent in this effort. But such is to be expected out of a more serious and scholarly work. But he does make the philosophy and history easy to read and understand, and his typical casualness is a welcome departure from the usual tete-en-derierre smugness one gets from other authors of philosophic history. Fans of his column will probably like Liberal Fascism; people who wouldn’t know Jonah Goldberg from the wrestler Goldberg might like it too, assuming they have an appreciation for history, philosophy, and unearthing and discrediting an underhanded bit of historical revisionism.

The historical revisionism in question is the lie that conservatism (or big “R” Republicanism) and fascism are philosophically and historically linked, while modern liberalism (and big “D” Democrats) are somehow as clean and pure as the new-fallen snow. In fact, Goldberg argues quite persuasively that the opposite is true. His arguments are a welcome life-preserver for those of us with even rudimentary knowledge of history and economics; we who roll our eyes every time we spot some snot-faced punk holding up a “Bush = Hitler” sign while simultaneously stifling opposing speech and enthusiastically supporting a political party (Democrat, Green, Workers’ World, etc.) that quite openly favors statism over individual freedom. Finally, someone else has confirmed what I’ve been saying all along- the closest thing to real fascism in today’s America isn’t George W. Bush prosecuting the War on Terror, it is Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama insisting on what doctor we are allowed to see and forcibly redistributing wealth in the name of “fairness”.

The argument isn’t too shocking to anyone who has sat down and thought about the philosophical differences between our two parties. Assuming for a second that failed leaders such as George W. Bush and Ted Stevens stopped leading the Republican Party into the big-government abyss and small government conservatives regained party control, ask yourself the following questions: Which party has a greater appreciation for individual liberty? For private property rights? For personal responsibility? Now ask yourself which party is more likely to respond to crises, real or imagined, with more government control? Which party is more likely to dismiss individual liberty for collectivism, communitarianism, and “the common good”? Which party is more likely to take a dim view of free-market economic freedom and try to regulate earnings, wages, and business structures in order to make it more “fair”?

Now ask yourself which party is closer the historical realities of Italian and German Fascism?

Goldberg’s thesis is two-pronged: 1) that modern Fascism and Communism are damn close to being the same thing, and in fact shared the same historical origins and founders, and; 2) that modern liberalism is closer to fascism than modern liberals would care to admit. He tackles the historical divergence of fascism and communism first. Internal disagreements and power struggles led to the leading communists distancing themselves from their “in-house” competition –the fascists- and labeling the fascists as corporate stooges and right-wingers in order to discredit them. Over time, liberals and progressives adopted the tactic of labeling everything they disagreed with as “fascist” or “Nazi” while conveniently ignoring the extraordinary similarities of their own philosophy to their pejorative epithet of choice

Benito Mussolini, the founder of Italian fascism and considered the “Father of Modern Fascism”, began his career as a fire-breathing socialist and was personally commended by no less than Lenin. Mussilini’s economic platform was almost identical to what one would have seen in the Soviet Union- redistribution of wealth, massive welfare programs, government health care, etc. Italian Fascism was the first modern government system that could rightfully be called “totalitarian”, a term that may have been coined by Mussolini himself. Misused today by people who ought to know better (usually those snot-used protesters again), totalitarianism describes a government that is in total control of society to the point of being society itself; one in which “nothing is outside the state, and everything is within it”.

As typically happens when a political movement begins to grow and gain adherents, factions begin to develop and power struggles ensue. This is what led to the split between modern fascism and communism. During WWI, Mussolini supported military action and even joined the Italian army. He felt that a military crises and a subsequently militaristic society could more easily lead to his brand of socialism. Most communists and socialists at the time disagreed with him and ostracized him. Undaunted, Mussolini and his supporters formed a socialist group nicknamed the “Fascists”, derived from fasces, a Roman symbol of authority.

Mussolini also incurred the wrath of Soviet Union’s socialist leaders by making his brand of socialism more nationalistic than international. This turn of events was a direct threat to the authority Lenin and Co., who felt that the communist revolution should be an international event that transcended national boundaries and (surprise) looked towards Mother Russia for inspiration. When Mussolini rejected this, and by extension the authority of the major world socialist leaders, he became their enemy regardless of how similar his polices were to their own. Socialist leaders like Lenin, and later Stalin, responded by labeling Fascism as everything Communism was against: corporate, business-backed, pro-wealth, and anti-worker. “Useful idiots”, then and now, parroted the party line. But it is simply after-the-fact historical revisionism. Communism/Socialism and Fascism, if not brothers, are at the very least cousins who commonly sleep over at each others’ house. When Mussolini and his supports faced the firing squad after he had been driven from power, one of the supporters of “the father of modern fascism” cried out: “Long live Benito Mussolini and the Socialist Revolution!”

Having successfully set the record straight on modern fascism’s true origins, Goldberg spends the rest of the book attempting to prove the second part of his thesis- that modern liberalism is disturbingly similar to fascism in many ways. This he does well, but less convincingly than the first. Goldberg takes pains to point out, and I should as well, that at no point does he mean to say that modern liberalism is somehow equivalent or even close to the truly evil aspects Nazi Fascism, such as the Holocaust. He even opines that while creeping fascist tendencies can be observed in today’s America, that America’s history of liberty, individualism, and independence will preclude any sort of full-fledged Italian or Nazi style fascism from ever taking hold in our country. But he does ring a timely warning bell for the soft, smiley-faced fascism that he does see in America today, emanating mostly from the left. If Italian or German fascism is George Orwell’s 1984 vision of a boot slamming down on someone’s face, Goldberg says, than the creeping fascism in today’s America is a big warm hug from which we cannot escape. Sure, one is more comfortable than the other, but they both share the same end result.

In the more effective potions of the book, Goldberg reveals the surprising hidden history of how many leading Americans, during the period between the world wars, celebrated and applauded Italian and then German fascism. He contends that America had a democratically elected “fascist-lite” government in during Woodrow Wilson’s war-time administration, and that Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal had far more in common with Mussolinian and Hitlerian economics than the typical liberal would care to admit.

His arguments lose effectiveness when he veers from verified history (like it or not, New Dealers, Hitler did speak well of Roosevelt’s New Deal policies, and Goldberg has the citation to prove it) and starts opining about how some specific key aspects of modern liberalism are derived directly from some fascistic philosophical ancestry. He does his best to defend his opinions with historical fact, and in many cases succeeds, but often it seems like he’s making too big a leap.

 He accuses the modern left of appropriating many fascistic tactics for their own use. One of the most common of these is the “crisis mentality” tactic, wherein some real or often manufactured crisis becomes an excuse for more government power. Mussolini used the real crisis of WWI as a mechanism to gain power, and later several false crises to solidify his hold on power. Hitler used the Reichstag fire, and less-well known crises involving the German economy, health care, the state of the Aryan race, and more. What do today’s liberals use? Ever hear of the War on Drugs? The War on Poverty? Global Warming? The endangered state of American children? The health care crisis? And what’s the liberal solution to all of these crises? Why, more government power and less individual freedom, of course.

He has his history right, but I don’t think it’s fair to accuse modern liberalism taking a page from the fascist playbook when all they’re doing is practicing good politics. I don’t like that liberals play the crisis game, but they do and it’s effective. That Mussolini and Hitler -and Wilson and FDR- did the same does not make that specific tactic fascist or mean that only fascists do it; it’s merely a good strategy.

He makes similar cases about Hillary Clinton’s child-care and health-care initiatives in the chapter entitled, “Brave New Village”. He is correct that her vision of government health-care is most accurately described as fascist health care. And her notion of children being more of the state’s responsibly than parent’s responsibility ought to send a chill down all our spines (her exact quote was: There’s no such thing as someone else’s child”). But while her opinions and opinions of others like her are certainly in the same village as fascism, it’s too far a stretch to call them outright fascism. The desire to rule the world by ruling the next generation is as old as philosophy itself. Even Plato, Goldberg points out, talked about it. Does that make Plato a fascist? Big government authoritarianism is nothing new, and Fascism isn’t the only strain of that disease. However, he does a good job of pointing out how damn close Hillary is to some fascist ideals.

Despite some problems with his specific examples, I think Goldberg is right that modern liberalism has general similarities with modern fascism, and that many proposals espoused by Democrat leaders would take America to a bleak dystopian fascist-like state if taken to the extreme. Fascism and communism/socialism are statist philosophies. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama don’t want concentration camps, or support anti-Semitism, and as far as I know neither plans to set fire to the U.S. Congress and blame the conservatives. But they do want an all-encompassing government with nothing outside its control. They do want to control the mechanisms of the American economy. They do divide people into special classes and groups and exalt collectives over individuals. And they do it with a smile on their face in the name of “safety” or “security” or “fairness”.

I recommend Liberal Fascism for both it’s fascinating historical research and because it provides some ammunition for the next time you see some snot-nosed little punk in a Che t-shirt comparing Bush or McCain to Hitler. Sometimes you may hear conservatives like myself complain that the Democrats have become the de facto Socialist Party of America. Goldberg makes a strong case that the proper description might instead be the Fascist Party of America. Ultimately though, there’s little to differentiate the two, especially while you’re watching your freedoms slowly slip away.

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