Fierce, funny, and controversial, Jonah Goldberg's #1 New York Times
bestseller traces fascism back to its surprising roots--in liberalism.
"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.
