Thanks to our rotten and all-too-often nefarious public education system, millions of Americans are under the misguided impression that fascism is a right-wing ideology. Because my Dad taught me better, I was able to argue about this with my high school history teacher, so allow me to continue my decades-long work of disabusing anyone of that delusion.
Leftists have a big problem with definitions. They don’t honestly define a woman, a baby, racism, or a myriad of other things that they intentionally distort for political gain. The two political sides don’t just disagree on solutions in this country; we can’t even agree on the meaning of words anymore.
Fascism and Nazism fit in this category, as left-wingers scream those words as epithets at anyone to the right of Karl Marx. Last fall, Kamala Harris lost the election despite — or because of — falsely labeling Donald Trump a fascist, including colluding with the media to do it.
Trump fired back, of course, saying, “She’s a Marxist, communist, fascist, socialist.” His grouping of those ideologies is absolutely correct.
The word fascist is back in the news because “Hey fascist! Catch!” was etched on one of the bullet casings belonging to Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old (alleged!) assassin of Charlie Kirk.
Robinson, not Kirk, was arguably the fascist, but most folks on the Left have that reversed. Kirk peacefully argued for Christianity and traditional values, free speech, and respectful dialogue, even when he vehemently objected to abortion, gender pathology, and race-based policies. Naturally, leftists labeled him a fascist for his decidedly anti-fascist positions, and the ironically named “antifa” crowd radicalized Robinson against Kirk, despite his growing up in a Republican family.
Donald Trump Jr. was among those who blamed Robinson’s radicalization on an even wider group than antifa: “You can’t call someone who you disagree with, or simply can’t win an argument with, a Nazi, a fascist, a dictator, a greatest threat to democracy and the history of civilization, and then pretend you had nothing to do with it when the more radical wing — and there does not seem to be all that much difference to me these days — takes up arms and tries to kill those they disagree with.” He knows — a young man radicalized by inflammatory Democrat rhetoric tried to assassinate his father last July.
Now, to correct the record on words.
Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary actually gets the definition of fascism right:
a populist political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition.
The ideology originated more than a century ago with an Italian leftist philosopher named Giovanni Gentile. He considered fascism the most workable form of socialism because, as opposed to operating on class divisions, everything about society would be subordinate to the state.
The first government to adopt this was Italy under Benito Mussolini and his Fascisti party. He wrote, “All is in the state and nothing human exists or has value outside the state.”
Germany’s Adolf Hitler adopted very similar ideas as the foundation for his Nazi party. “Nazi” is actually a German acronym for the National Socialist German Workers Party, which you’d think would be a clue about where it belongs on the political spectrum.
Fascism is a kissing cousin of communism because both Marxist ideologies rely on the brutal force of the state to achieve their totalitarian ends. Because no part of the economy or civil life is outside government authority, anyone who steps out of line will be punished, perhaps with death.
Sound familiar?
At the risk of oversimplifying it, the reason the Nazis hated the Communists, and vice versa, is that the Nazis advocated national socialism and the Communists prized international socialism. The Germans wanted to run the world because they thought the Aryan race was superior. The Soviets wanted to run the world because they thought the proletariat was superior.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Yet the American Left, via the public education system, has for decades peddled the fiction that Nazis were right-wing. Why?
World War II so thoroughly discredited Nazism and fascism — not least because of the undeniable and brutal genocide of millions — that leftists, particularly in academia, where terms get defined, couldn’t admit the uncomfortably obvious ideological kinship. Instead, they decided to (falsely) accuse their opponents of racist nationalism because the Nazis were nationalist and racist.
However, nationalism crosses the political spectrum, and it isn’t necessarily wrong. In fact, American Patriotism and nationalism are closely linked.
Leftists also pretend that because Nazis allowed the facade of private enterprise, they were somehow for free markets.
Wrong. Another minor difference between socialism and fascism is that in the former, the government controls the means of production, while in the latter, the government controls the companies that manage the means of production. Again, same boss.
Nazism “was anti-capitalist, it was explicitly socialist, and hence the name Nazi, which is essentially a compression of National Socialism,” Dinesh D’Souza argues. He also points out that the Nazi party’s platform was very clear: “It’s state control of the banks, state control of industry, state control of education, state control of the churches, state control of the media.”
Then he brings it home, asking rhetorically, “So, you go down this list and you go, ‘Does this sound more like Donald Trump, or does it sound more like, let’s say, Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders?”
Before Jonah Goldberg succumbed to Trump Derangement Syndrome, he, too, understood this. In fact, he wrote a still-fantastic book called Liberal Fascism explaining the connection between left-wing American Democrats and European fascists.
In short, the effort to convince the American people that Nazis and fascists were right-wing, and that right-wingers like Donald Trump and Charlie Kirk are therefore Nazis and fascists, is sick gaslighting by the Left. It’s meant to cover for the sins of American leftists whose ideology is, as D’Souza notes, “suspiciously close” to the German and Italian fascists of the 20th century.
Far worse, it leads to political violence — as fascism always does.
For particularly deranged leftists (and I know I sort of repeat myself), if your opponent is fascist, Nazi, Hitler, etc., then it justifies a violent response.
This isn’t theoretical. Charlie Kirk is dead thanks to this insane reasoning by his assassin. But Robinson is hardly alone. After Kirk’s murder, YouGov conducted a survey and found that a quarter of young “very liberal” respondents say it is sometimes “justified for citizens to resort to violence in order to achieve political goals.” Another 17% of “liberal” respondents agreed.
For young “very conservative” people, it was 3%.
(Here I’d add that context is important. In the current American political system, violence is not acceptable. When the Founders took up arms against the British Empire, they achieved American Liberty through what might be called political violence. Perhaps that’s another story.)
Similar numbers of left-wingers think it’s fine to approve of or even celebrate the assassination of a political opponent. No wonder they’re actually doing so.
The Nazis and fascists were infamous for killing political opponents. When you believe and advance “us vs. them” lies, violence is often the only recourse against the truth. When you characterize your opponents as hateful oppressors, the oppressed must rise up violently.
The American Right disapproves of those things. Conversely, except in rare instances, the political violence in this country is coming from the Left.
What is a fascist? Not a right-winger, here or anywhere.
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