“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.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - A 20th century trip through liberal history
From Teddy to Bill, provides a great review of just where liberal thought comes from and how it has been applied in the western world during the 20th century. If you have socialistic leanings this will clarify the advances and retreats of socialism here and abroad. if you have conservative leanings this will help you understand your liberal friends and provide background to argue for conservative thought. Both liberals and conservatives desperately need to read this very even handed book.
Rating: - Thought-provoking and challenging work
I purchased this in hardcover as soon as it came out, and when I received my Kindle I purchased it again so I'd have it handy. Simply put...this is an outstanding work. Meticulously researched yet written in an approachable style, Goldberg makes an effective argument. I found some of the themes challenging, particularly since I had to "unlearn" a number of things I had discovered I had accepted as dogma prior to opening this book. As a lay reader I needed to put the book aside every so often ... Read More
Rating: - Interesting reading regardless of your politics
Usually, I tend not to bother with rightist or leftist polemics whose sole purpose is to make the other side look bad. But this is different.
Essentially, the thesis of Goldberg's book is that the American Left has more in common with bona fide facism than the right for whom it frequently uses this epithet.
He begins by talking about Benito Mussolini and Otto Von Bismark, the founding fathers of what we now call facism, and makes note of the fact that many liberals initially ... Read More
Rating: - Liberal Fascism
So far, it is a good factual history of the beginnings of what is now accepted as the new religion of the Liberal Left and the likes of Move-on.Org! A sad commentary of what people "feel" rather than what they "know" or what they wish for instead of what is real! How ideology has replaced religion.
Rating: - Great Book As Evidenced by Liberal Reviews & Placement
Plainly this book has been out for quite some time but until it showed up on audio I didn't even know it existed. Why? Because it was well hidden by the major book stores that typically hide anything conservative on the bottom shelf of some sociology section in the back of the store. If this were a fascist-liberal tome like Al Frankens "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot", there would have been 500 copies stacked at the front of every store. Meanwhile, even the "mainstream media" reviews chosen by Amazon ... Read More
- A 20th century trip through liberal history
- Interesting reading regardless of your politics
