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The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning
Doubleday
January 2008
On Sale: January 8, 2008
496 pages
ISBN: 0385511841
EAN: 9780385511841
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Political
"Fascists," "Brownshirts," "jackbooted stormtroopers"—such
are the insults typically hurled at conservatives by their
liberal opponents. Calling someone a fascist is the fastest
way to shut them up, defining their views as beyond the
political pale. But who are the real fascists in our midst?
Liberal Fascism offers a startling new perspective
on the theories and practices that define fascist politics.
Replacing conveniently manufactured myths with surprising
and enlightening research, Jonah Goldberg reminds us that
the original fascists were really on the left, and that
liberals from Woodrow Wilson to FDR to Hillary Clinton have
advocated policies and principles remarkably similar to
those of Hitler's National Socialism and Mussolini's
Fascism. Contrary to what most people think, the Nazis were ardent
socialists (hence the term “National socialism”). They
believed in free health care and guaranteed jobs. They
confiscated inherited wealth and spent vast sums on public
education. They purged the church from public policy,
promoted a new form of pagan spirituality, and inserted the
authority of the state into every nook and cranny of daily
life. The Nazis declared war on smoking, supported
abortion, euthanasia, and gun control. They loathed the
free market, provided generous pensions for the elderly,
and maintained a strict racial quota system in their
universities—where campus speech codes were all the rage.
The Nazis led the world in organic farming and alternative
medicine. Hitler was a strict vegetarian, and Himmler was
an animal rights activist. Do these striking parallels mean that today’s liberals are
genocidal maniacs, intent on conquering the world and
imposing a new racial order? Not at all. Yet it is hard to
deny that modern progressivism and classical fascism shared
the same intellectual roots. We often forget, for example,
that Mussolini and Hitler had many admirers in the United
States. W.E.B. Du Bois was inspired by Hitler's Germany,
and Irving Berlin praised Mussolini in song. Many fascist
tenets were espoused by American progressives like John
Dewey and Woodrow Wilson, and FDR incorporated fascist
policies in the New Deal. Fascism was an international movement that appeared in
different forms in different countries, depending on the
vagaries of national culture and temperament. In Germany,
fascism appeared as genocidal racist nationalism. In
America, it took a “friendlier,” more liberal form. The
modern heirs of this “friendly fascist” tradition include
the New York Times, the Democratic Party, the Ivy League
professoriate, and the liberals of Hollywood. The
quintessential Liberal Fascist isn't an SS storm trooper;
it is a female grade school teacher with an education
degree from Brown or Swarthmore. These assertions may sound strange to modern ears, but that
is because we have forgotten what fascism is. In this
angry, funny, smart, contentious book, Jonah Goldberg turns
our preconceptions inside out and shows us the true meaning
of Liberal Fascism.
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