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books: Reading between the lines.

Am I a Fascist?Jonah Goldberg's tendentious history of liberalism.

By Timothy Noah
Posted Monday, Jan. 28, 2008, at 7:49 AM ET

(Continued from page 1)

This is not to say that the New Deal was evil or Hitlerian. But the New Deal was a product of the impulses and ideas of its era. And these ideas and impulses are impossible to separate from the fascist moment in Western civilization. … Franklin Rosevelt was no fascist, at least not in the sense that he thought of himself in this way. But many of his ideas and policies were indistinguishable from fascism. And today we live with the fruits of fascism, and we call them liberal.

Thirty-five pages later, Goldberg can hold back no longer. "[I]t seems impossible to deny that the New Deal was objectively fascistic," he crows, imposing without irony a Marxist analysis.

The rest of Goldberg's argument unfolds as follows: Wilson begat FDR, who begat contemporary liberalism. The only reason the United States didn't remain a fascist country like Italy or Germany or Spain was "American exceptionalism," i.e., the public's resistance to tyranny over the long term. But Democratic presidents from Roosevelt to John F. Kennedy to Lyndon Johnson to Bill Clinton continued either to impose fascism or to bring the country terrifyingly close to it. To demonstrate this, Goldberg is obliged to render an ever-more-flexible definition of the word fascist.

Was Bill Clinton a fascist president? Well, he certainly believed in the primacy of emotion and the supremacy of his own intellect. … But I think if we are going to call him a fascist, it must be in the sense that he was a sponge for the ideas and emotions of liberalism. To say that he was a fascist is to credit him with more ideology and principle than justified. He was the sort of president liberal fascism could only produce during unexciting times.

Who knew fascism could be boring?

By this point, Goldberg's reasoning has progressed from unconvincing to incoherent. Modern liberalism, he argues, is linked to Nazism because both contain a cult of the organic (Hitler was a vegetarian) and both embrace sexual freedom (Himmler ordered his men "to father as many children as possible without marrying" in order to achieve the Aryan ideal). Eventually, Goldberg backs himself into asserting, in effect, that any government that does more than prevent abortions and provide for the common defense is inherently fascist. Granted, he gives a wide berth to the common defense. In a token criticism of President George W. Bush, Goldberg cites as evidence of fascist influence not the de facto suspension of habeas corpus and refusal to follow the Geneva Conventions, which go unmentioned, but rather Bush's extension of Medicare to cover prescription drugs.

So, what's more fascist, liberalism or conservatism? It's a moronic question. The United States is not, nor has ever been, anything close to a fascist country. But if compelled to choose, I should think it's more useful to consider what political thinkers had to say about fascism not before the full extent of its horrors became known to the world but after. As it happens, the Canadian Web site Sans Everything unearthed two obituaries for Francisco Franco, the fascist Spanish dictator, in the Nov. 21, 1975, issue of Goldberg's beloved National Review. One, by F.R. Buckley (William's brother) called Franco

a Spaniard out of the heroic annals of the nation, a giant. He will be truly mourned by Spain because with all his heart and might and soul, he loved his country, and in the vast context of Spanish history, did well by it.

The other, by James Burnham, stated, "Francisco Franco was our century's most successful ruler." If John Kenneth Galbraith said anything like this, I missed it.

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Timothy Noah is a senior writer at Slate.
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Remarks from the Fray:

The Clintons play right into Goldberg's hands. Remember Hillary's dictum, "It takes a village to raise a child?" That is too easily interpreted -- especially given Hillary's oleaginous self-righteousness -- to mean that parents can, and should, be overruled when they contravene the village's will.

Or Bill's short-lived surgeon general, Jocelyn Elders, who said, "every child [should be] a planned and wanted child." Being interpreted, what can that mean but that children who are unplanned, unwanted, or both should be aborted?

The smiley-Hitler face on Goldberg's book is, in fact, a bit of PR genius: If fascism ever does come to America, it will come For Our Own Good, and those who bring it will smile unceasingly.

--vepxistqaosani

(To reply, click here.)

I'm sorry to disappoint Mr. Noah, but a lot of very calm and normal progressives consider the United States to have become a fascist society. The Republican pro-corporatist class is blatantly fascist, while the Democratic pro-corporatist class has instincts that lead it in two directions... but certainly since Bill Clinton genuine anti-fascist beliefs and actions have been on the decline.

Fascism combines corporate/governmental alliance, along with ethno-national and religious appeals, along with demonization of external and internal enemies.... along with suspension of the rule of law. In what sense are we not now a fascist country and is the Bush administration not now a fascist regime.

Elections? Oh really? Democracy was thwarted in 2000, and probably (we don't know for sure) in 2004. Even under President Obama, who will be in charge? The President and Congress? Or the corporations that set their agendas?

No, we live in a fascist society, and its power is evident in the unwillingness of powerful institutions, media and commentators like Noah to acknowledge this reality.

Fascism isn't far away and scary, and it doesn't always involve jack boots. It's right here and now, and plenty scary if you take the time to see it. As the author said, "when fascism comes to America it will be carrying a cross and wearing a flag"... but he might also have added that it will be managed by flag waving corporations like Wal Mart, Exxon and Verizon, who view the government as an extension of themselves.

Fascism is real, and the term well describes America today.

--RightNow

(To reply, click here.)

By and large Conservatives write books these days to amuse each other, not to actually promote ideas or present coherent arguments for policy prescriptions. And most certainly not to convince the unconvinced. It's something of a cliquey parlor game, that's all. By that token, Liberal Fascism has all the gravitas of a book of tawdry limericks, all of which start and end with a different letter of the alphabet. Its argument is as convincing as one of those mathematical "proofs" that shows 2 = 4, thanks to a little division by zero slight of hand that goes unnoticed by the innumerate and uninitiated, but which elicits little more than a yawn from anyone with more than rudimentary knowledge of the subject.

The sad thing, of course, is that the end result of "proving" that liberals are the true inheritors of Hitler and Mussolini's political legacy, you reduce the essence of Fascism to such commonplace ideas as Keynesian market stimulus and the promotion of organic foods, while aspects such as the ideology's racism and militarism are seen as trivial, secondary offspring.

--dsf3g

(To reply, click here.)

Yes, we've used the word "fascist" far more than is warranted. On the other hand, conservative pundits have a way of referring to any idea that is to the left of Ron Paul as "socialist." It's gotten so bad that I don't think either side really knows what it's talking about any more.

It sounds to me like Goldberg, like so many other pundits, would rather investigate the motives behind various political movements or philosophies (in his case, focusing on the Left) than the movements themselves. This is the great bane of public discourse, in my opinion. We have stopped debating the tenets of political ideals; instead, we attack candidates and parties for more personal foibles and for supposed ulterior motives.

Politics gets complicated but it really shouldn't be. Government has a tendency to overstep its authority; that's the natural progression for all governments throughout history, especially in the modern, post-revolutionary period. And all government authority can be taken to abusive levels. It doesn't matter what side of the debate you start from, Left or Right; both sides are capable of great evil.

I obviously haven't read the book, but despite the scholarship involved, this Liberal Fascism sounds extremely shallow.

--Anse

(To reply, click here.)

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