by Jonah Goldberg (review by Robert L. Franck)
Tired of reading about politics? That’s understandable. But this is no time to doze.
This column promotes the reading of books—books as opposed to newspapers and magazines (and their internet forms, blogs and news sites). These media all have an important role in informing the mind about politics. Newspapers, like television news, focus on a 24-hour news cycle. What happened today? Magazines take a little longer look. What happened last week or last month or even last year? Books, the good ones, attempt to provide a deeper and wider historical perspective. To put it metaphorically, if you’re trying to find out what is happening outside, newspapers are a look out the window, magazines are a drive around the city, and good books are a world tour. Liberal Fascism is a fascinating world tour.
Let me play psychologist for a moment. I’ll say a word and you think about the immediate association the word brings to mind. The word is fascism. Your association, probably, is an image of Nazis murdering Jews. Your association is right for Nazism, one form of fascism, but wrong for fascism in general, which is a political philosophy.
“The next president will be a man inclined to further implement at least some aspects of the political philosophy of fascist socialism.”
Fascism, as defined in the Encarta Dictionary, is “any movement, ideology, or attitude that favors dictatorial government, centralized control of private enterprise, repression of all opposition, and extreme nationalism.” Note that there is no mention of anti-Semitism.
Just as Nazism is a subset of fascism, fascism is a subset of socialism. (Nazi was the name of the German National Socialist Party.) Socialism is a political ideology of the left that enforces economic “fairness” versus market forces. Socialism has taken many forms. Fascism is a pragmatic and national form of socialism. Communism is an ideological and international form of socialism. The same political ideas expressed in the fascist socialism of Germany and Italy through WW II also has had advocates in the United States. Most advocates of this political philosophy never labeled themselves as “fascists” or “socialists,” but first as “Progressives” and now as “Liberals.” Goldberg traces the influence of this ideology, particularly in the Wilson, F. Roosevelt, Johnson, and Clinton administrations.
So what difference does all of this make to you? More than you may think. No matter who wins the election (I write this in October), the next president will be a man inclined to further implement at least some aspects of the political philosophy of fascist socialism. McCain takes pride in his pragmatism of “reaching across the aisle” and fancies himself the second Teddy Roosevelt, who headed the Progressive or “Bull Moose” Party in 1912. Obama is running as a Liberal, playing the fiddle of racial, gender, and class identity politics. In either case, the economic crisis may very well provide the justification for reshaping the size and role of government in accordance with progressive-liberal ideals, just as previous economic and war crises were used to this end.
This should concern Christians. Fascism in its most extreme form leads to the deification of the state and the leader of the state, as it did under Hitler and Mussolini. A deified state—a type of theocracy, if you will—attempts to solve every crisis and meet every need under the chant of the “common good.” Deified states are totalitarian states and Christianity has not fared well under totalitarian states, where churches must be either co-opted and corrupted, or persecuted.
It is important to understand these things. Read Goldberg. Read well.
Excerpts from Liberal Fascism:
“[Fascism] takes responsibility for all aspects of life, including our health and well-being, and seeks to impose uniformity of thought and action, whether by force or through regulation and social pressure. Everything, including the economy and religion, must be aligned with these objectives. Any rival identity is part of the ‘problem’ and therefore defined as the enemy. I will argue that contemporary American liberalism embodies all of these aspects of fascism.” (p. 23)
“While Nazi rhetoric often paid homage to the family, the actual practice of Nazism was consonant with the progressive effort to invade the family, to breach its walls and shatter its autonomy. The traditional family is the enemy of all political totalitarianisms because it is a bastion of loyalties separate from and prior to the state, which is why progressives are constantly trying to break its outer shell.” (p. 377)
“Communism was reactionary because it tried to make a tribe of the working class. Italian Fascism tried to make a tribe of the nation. Nazism tried to make a tribe of the German race. Multicultural identity politics is reactionary because it sees life as a contest between different racial or sexual tribes.” (p. 395)