Liberal Fascism (Pt. I)

Last summer when antifa ("antifascists") were feeling their oats there was much written about this or that person or institution being "fascist." The word came to be used much like the term "racist," and indeed the two seem to be interchangeable in the jargon of the left.

Like the word "racist" the word "fascist" is an all-purpose epithet used to define anyone or anything that the user doesn't like, and just as the term "racist" is rarely defined by those who invoke it, rarely, if at all, do those who employ the word "fascist" to describe those they hate ever venture to tell us what they mean by it.

Usually, fascism is thought to be an ideology of the right, but as Jonah Goldberg explains in his excellent 2007 book Liberal Fascism,

[F]ascism, properly understood, is not a phenomenon of the right at all. Instead it is, and has always been, a phenomenon of the left.

This fact - an inconvenient truth if there ever was one - is obscured in our time by the equally mistaken belief that fascism and communism are opposites. In reality, they are closely related, historical competitors for the same constituents, seeking to dominate and control the same social space.... [I]n terms of their theory and practice, the differences are minimal.

Prior to WWII American progressives were enamored of fascism, especially the program promoted by Mussolini in Italy, and, in fact, Goldberg relates, American progressivism was the font from which both the Nazis and the Italian fascists drew many of their ideas.

After the war, when the crimes of Hitler were revealed, American progressives disavowed any association with German fascism, but the fact remains that in the 1920s and 30s fascist ideas like eugenics, for example, were very popular on the American left.

After the war Stalin, having been betrayed by his erstwhile Nazi allies, began to label as fascist all ideas and movements that stood in his way, and the American left, having thrown in their lot with the Soviet communists, followed his lead.

Thus, as Goldberg puts it, "Socialists and progressives aligned with Moscow were called socialists or progressives, while socialists disloyal or opposed to Moscow were called fascists." But they were all socialists and thus leftists.

Goldberg states that the United States temporarily became a fascist country under progressive leadership during WWI, making the U.S. the first country in the Western world to feature totalitarian fascism. How else, Goldberg asks,

[W]ould you describe a country where the world's first modern propaganda ministry was established; political prisoners by the thousands were harassed, beaten, spied upon, and thrown in jail simply for expressing private opinions; the national leader accused foreigners and immigrants of injecting treasonous "poison" into the American bloodstream; newspapers and magazines were shut down for criticizing the government; nearly a hundred thousand propaganda agents were sent out among the people to whip up support for the regime and its war; college professors imposed loyalty oaths upon their colleagues; nearly a quarter million goons were given legal authority to intimidate and beat "slackers" and dissenters; and leading artists and writers dedicated their crafts to proselytizing for the government.

All of this, not to mention official racism, was perpetrated by the progressives in the administration of Woodrow Wilson.

Goldberg documents this and much, much more in his book. I found myself thinking of the affinity American progressives have for fascist solutions the other day as I read that, to the applause of our progressive media, President Biden deliberately flouted what he knows is constitutional law in order to have his CDC extend the ban preventing landlords from evicting tenants who do not pay their rent.

The Supreme Court has already ruled that the CDC has no authority to impose, much less enforce, such bans, but President Biden went ahead and did it anyway.

Isn't disregarding the Constitution and the law exactly what a Mussolini or Hitler would do?