Posted on 01/14/2021 9:00:10 AM PST by Kaslin
Leftists love to throw around the word “fascist,” although half the time they don’t appear to even know what it means. Usually, it’s just a way of insulting someone unenlightened enough to disagree with them. At best, they’re calling the person a big meanie, an authoritarian. But that’s not exactly (or at least not entirely) what a “fascist” is.
Perhaps, for our leftist friends, a brief primer is in order.
Fascism is a political and economic system that arose in Europe following World War I. It has three primary characteristics: extreme nationalism, authoritarianism, and a state-run economy. Indeed, in terms of economics, fascism is very much an ideology of the left, not the right, having more in common with socialism than with any conservative, free-market system. Remember, “Nazi” was short for “National Socialists.” No less an expert than Benito Mussolini called fascism “the third way,” meaning another statist alternative to socialism and communism.
The difference is that, instead of actually owning the means of production, the fascist state allows them to remain nominally in the hands of private citizens and then dictates to those business “owners” what they may and may not do. In that way, the state essentially determines economic winners and losers, depending on which industries and individuals it favors.
As a practical matter, I think we could fairly refer to any person or system that meets two of the three criteria as “fascist.” That’s why the left continues to insist that Donald Trump is a fascist—because they see him as both nationalistic and authoritarian. But Trump is not an extreme nationalist, as his dealings with other nations—including “win-win” trade agreements with Canada, Mexico, Japan, and others as well as his efforts to promote Middle East peace—have made clear. As for his much-publicized (and criticized) “America First” agenda, well—for the president of a country to put the interests of his own citizens ahead of those of other countries should hardly be viewed as controversial, much less extreme.
Nor is Trump an authoritarian, despite the left’s attempts to brand him as a “dictator.” What, exactly, has he dictated? What has he forced American citizens to do against their will? What constitutionally guaranteed rights has he stripped from us? Indeed, in our system, the only way a president can “dictate” is via executive order, and in that respect, Trump’s presidency has been unremarkable. Among one-term presidents, he has issued fewer EOs than Democrats John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Jimmy Carter. He has averaged fewer per year than multi-termers Harry S. Truman or Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In his four years, he issued about the same number (204) as Bill Clinton did in his first term (200).
Moreover, when his executive orders were overturned by the federal courts—as was the case with some of his orders on immigration, early in his presidency—Trump grudgingly acquiesced. He allowed the system to work as it was intended, however much he might have hated doing so. Some authoritarian.
And of course, Trump is obviously no statist. He is a free-marketer all the way, a capitalist par excellence who rose to power on a promise to cut regulations, which he did. So at most, he meets only one of the three criteria for classification as a fascist—nationalism—and even that one, I believe, is a bit of a stretch. (Keep in mind, too, that the most authoritarian AND nationalistic regimes on the planet are communists, not fascists—although I think a good argument could be made that China today, with its selective “capitalism,” is actually closer to Hitlerian fascism than Leninism or Maoism.)
In their embrace of the “Green New Deal,” their Faustian bargain with Big Tech, and their anticipated draconian COVID policy (which I plan to talk about more in a subsequent column), the Bidenites (or should I say “Harrissians”?) are salivating over what they see as their golden opportunity to choose economic winners and losers—the winners, of course, being those businesses and business persons that most closely align with their left-wing ideology.
They might be globalists rather than nationalists, but they certainly meet the other two criteria. So who, exactly, are the real fascists here?
In the US they were both called “progressives”. The Nationalist progressives were led by Teddy Roosevelt. The Internationalist progressives, by Woodrow Wilson.
Importantly, the majority of Republicans back there were conservatives, who didn’t want either ‘flavor’ of progressivism. TR was so obstinate, however, his faction broke off and formed their own third party, which gave the leftists the presidency.
In Europe, the schism between nationalists and internationalists was happening before WWI, but after the war, the nationalists went with the fascists and the internationalists went with the communists. The conservatives were again caught in the middle, not caring for either ‘flavor’.
It should also be noted that the two ‘flavors’ watched and copied each other. Hitler created the Jugend, a youth training organization, to raise a next generation of ideologically pure fascist leaders. Just five years later, the socialists and communists in Norway joined their youth groups to found the Workers’ Youth League (AUF), with the same idea, to create a next generation of socialist-communist leaders.
There is a hidden 5th roommate that is in at least all of the first season. It is weird and a little bit creepy. The guy is clearly there, but difficult to notice.
The four were Mike, Neil, Rik and Vyvyan.
The Young Ones was hilariously funny to me in the 80s. I wasn’t really aware of the jans at Thatcher and Reagan. Went to watch it about seven years ago or so, and it didn’t age well with me. The music was good on it, though. Introduced me to Madness and Motörhead.
I think I was getting Vyvyan and Rik mixed up. I haven’t accessed those brain cells for four decades.
YUP
In the turbid little world of academic Marxian theory one can only be a true communist, i.e. an internationalist, by not only eschewing love of one's country, but by actively hating it: that demonstrates the transcendent quality of an enlightened thinker. In practice that has never been successful for Communist leaders of actual existing nations, an instance of practice trumping theory in a less than ideal world. One would think they'd have gotten the message by now.
By selecting individual already-successful corporate structures and incorporating them into government fascism makes the claim that it is more efficient than free-market capitalism, but in fact the reverse is true. Bernie Sanders' petulant grumbling that one does not need 23 varieties of deodorant is a case in point - one does if the best of them is determined by the customer's choice. Forcing anything else is inherently inefficient. And that is precisely what we are seeing presently when Parler decided to compete and the "official" PTB in the IT industry conspired - there is no better word - to prevent it. "Let the free market decide" has no place in this shackled little world and efficiency has nothing to do with it. The price of corporate cooperation with the government is the enforcement of monopoly.
What is lost in all of that is individual freedom, ironic because "self-actualization" is supposedly the object of communism according to Marx and in practice the resulting authoritarian society must ruthlessly repress it. It is there that communism and fascism are most similar.
I'll take freedom, thanks.
Now I get it ... really jumbled brain cells. I confused Vyvyan for Rik and called Rik, Adrian, which is Vyvyan’s real name.
Rick was such a ludicrous parody of an anarchist poseur that I couldn’t take any of his jabs seriously.
Simple... we should now just refer to the Left as Global Facists. Now they meet all three parts of the definition.
They do not view themselves as nationalist because they hate American and want flush most of our history..tradions..Christian beliefs..as well as the USC in the toilet.
In a Federal (nationalistic) kind of way.
“The LIMIT Vivian. I live on the limit.” Rick
Still breaks me up...
“Of course, the Current Year Left isn’t really even Marxist anymore in the traditional sense. Marx would have deplored all of the sexual perversion they push these days as bourgeoisie decadence, though he would have lacked any moral basis from which to do so.”
Don’t be so sure about that. One of Marx’s goals was the breakdown of the family, and sexual perversion is a dang good way to accomplish that bit. Besides, Lenin himself legalized homosexuality among other things (ironically, it was Stalin who recriminalized it within the USSR, though he DID still support it outside the USSR, purely so it could ensure a communist takeover far more easily).
As far as Fascism and whether it was reactionary, not really. If anything, Mussolini, the guy who founded Fascism, is pretty much all FOR Socialism, and is as much against it as Gramsci was.
“Are there any examples of libertarianism defeating a communist takeover of a country from within? I mean outside of fictional novels.”
Does Pope John Paul II and/or Ronald Reagan count?
“Does Pope John Paul II and/or Ronald Reagan count?”
No. Reagan’s nationalistic military buildup and JP2’s advocacy on behalf of the Church do not count as libertarian. They did achieve some temporary success in their time against the external threat of the USSR, but now the Left uses private companies to spread their poison, and the Catholic Church has a new kind of leadership. Unfortunately, their efforts only held things at bay for a bit.
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