What is Fascism?
Is it a left or right ideology?
Giovanni Gentile, a neo-Hegelian philosopher, and academic expert on the doctrine of fascism said:
“Fascism is a form of socialism, in fact, it is its most viable form.”
Writing for the Foundation for Economic Education, author Emmanuel Rincon wrote:
“Fascism is a form of socialism. As such, it does not engage in a fight between left and right, but between different leftists ideologies.”
Benito Mussolini, whose economic programs were admired by FDR, described his policies as fascist socialization. Six days before he was captured and shot, Il Duce said that his programs were what the democratic regime would call left.
He added:
“The real scarecrow, the real danger, the threat against which we fight relentlessly, comes from the right.”
So, Mussolini declared that the real danger to fascism came from the right, or what he called democratic capitalists.
FDR and New Deal Fascism
FDR and his Brain Trust admired Mussolini’s programs, suggesting that some elements of the New Deal mirrored fascist economic principles.
After reading FDR’s book, Mussolini said that the president had copied his ideas. Roosevelt’s National Recovery Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps were just two examples of programs instituted in Nazi Germany and Italy.
Some historians claim that FDR delayed entering the war against Germany because of his affinity for fascism. In addition, a number of prominent Americans such as Charles Lindbergh and Henry Ford were sympathetic towards Nazi Germany. Lindbergh received the Service Cross of the German Eagle from Hermann Goering on behalf of Hitler.
The Nazi press, including the Völkischer Beobachter, lauded Roosevelt for adopting “National Socialist strains of thought”. They praised FDR for abandoning free market principles, while enacting authoritarian state control.
Congress and the Supreme Court checked FDR’s attempt to enact New Deal measures that had been ruled unconstitutional. In defiance, he proposed legislation to stack the Court with judges who would rubber stamp his edicts. That plan, too, failed.
History does repeat itself, though, as court stacking has been floated by Democrats as a tool to enforce their socialist agenda.
Liberal Fascists
Jonah Goldberg -- editor-at-large of National Review Online -- wrote a book, Liberal Fascism, in which he stated that American liberalism is the unspoken cousin of European fascism.
In her review of the book, author Amanda Busse wrote:
Goldberg argues that fascism under Benito Mussolini and Nazism under Adolf Hitler came from the same intellectual source as Progressivism, the birth-mother of American liberalism. The term “liberal fascism” comes from a speech made by author H. G. Wells when he told a group of Young Liberals at Oxford that Progressives must become “liberal fascists” and “enlightened Nazis.”
Speaking of young liberals, Mussolini redesigned Italy’s education system to serve as a tool of state indoctrination. Progressives adopted similar measures in the United States.
I fully understand that this is not what is taught to students at any level. My political science professors at the undergrad and post-grad levels were socialists, and they taught the politically correct narrative.
Our colleges and universities are not centers of learning but of indoctrination. Dissenting opinions, no matter how valid, are simply dismissed outright.
Weaponizing the Language
Progressives define the meaning of words. When a word or phrase no longer suits their needs, they simply change its meaning or replace it with a different term.
For example, the term collectivism, is a palatable rebranding, or deceptive substitution for the term socialism.
Progressive has such positive-sounding connotations, but no one stopped to ask, “To where are we progressing?” Seemingly, we have progressed to an era where little boys can become little girls, and men can enter women’s private spaces and compete as women.
In the purest sense, we have progressed further and further away from our Constitutional and Biblical traditions. Generations that have gone before us would look at this generation and exclaim, “They have lost their ever-loving minds!”
In the 1930s, there was public outcry that the Great Depression was either caused or prolonged by progressive policies. Then a curious thing happened. Progressives dropped the label like a hot potato and readopted the term liberal. They called themselves liberal even through the failed policies of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society program.
By 2016, Hillary Clinton decided that the term liberal had lost its luster, and she began calling herself progressive.
This is what liberals (or progressives) do. A socialist by any other name, their tactics are intended to confuse and befuddle the public. All the while, they cleverly project their failures and guilt upon the opposition to further muddy the waters and divert the public’s attention from what is true and sensible.
It’s all backed up by the propaganda news media, indoctrination centers, and entertainment industry.
A reader on Substack argued that I am confusing collectivism with socialism. In the context of this article, fascism is a collectivist ideology.
While on a speaking tour, former president Bill Clinton told a convention of business executives that we must move away from the concept of individual liberty and adopt a more collectivist approach. Obama later agreed.
Collectivism is the genesis of DEI. Because we have a Constitution and Bill of Rights, American socialists cannot impose their progressive agenda, so they use flowery terms like diversity, equity, and inclusion to make their policies sound more agreeable.
America was not built upon equity and inclusion. It was built upon equality and assimilation. This is what the left — however they define themselves — is attempting to supplant.