Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning

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“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.

What Customers Say About Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning:

Let's be honest, Bill Clinton was---far from a liberal---a moderate Republican viewed from the vantage point of New Deal politics; he simply outwitted the right at their own game. Was it not just another one of a long list of ill-conceived Glenn Beck-like rants to besmirch anyone not a Republican pundit. Pre-read:Goldberg's book first caught my attention in the midst of the furor of the 2008 election campaign. After all liberalism found its birth pangs in the cry for individual freedom, and was best represented in the philosophical writings of John Locke and John Stuart Mill--a far cry from the hateful diatribes of Pinochet, Mussolini, or Hitler. After having read some book reviews, my opinion remained essentially the same, though, like many liberals of the sixties, I shared in the fear of "big brother." But could not Orwell's 1984 also be found in a monolithic corporate culture, where blood tests, state of the art psychological testing, and highly profitable defense contracting. 'Corporate welfarism' did more to deny individual freedom than any increasingly irrelevant liberal state. To suggest, therefore, that the modern manifestation of liberalism, sparked fascism seems patently ridiculous. Was it not the excesses of monopoly capital and its attendant political domination of society during the gilded age, after all, which spurred on the reaction to unfettered invisible hand; it alone could and should not be the sole arbiter in meeting all public needs; therefore regulatory commissions and labor unions served as the essential equalizer in ensuring that the individual had sufficient power to stand up to these new titans.Now I will the book and see if my views have changed.

But ask anyone to define it and no one knows what it is. I go through phases where I can tolerate political books. Usually, political books turn me off because the author will bust off the tracks and start giving diatribes defending his own viewpoints. The first time I ever heard the word "Fascism," was in an old Sonic Youth song, "Youth Against Fascism." And growing up, I sort of knew vaguely that fascism was behind WWII and it was a bad thing. One thing I pulled from it was a deeper understanding of Mussolini and a better knowledge of what fascism is. The reason I liked this book was because of its thorough history of fascism during the reign of Mussolini and onward into WWII.

This book, as you might guess from the cover, leans slightly right. I like to read books of a convservative viewpoint, and those of a liberal viewpoint and try to form a somewhat center opinion if I can. This book helped me grapple with a more concrete understanding, first, of what fascism is and how it still resides today in modern politics despite claims people making about being 'progressive,' and 'compassionate.' I am turned off if a book leans too far left or right. I found this fascinating. and it has made me step back and want to know exactly what fascism is. But I don't feel they go too far.

I should mention I purchased the audio version and the narrator does a great job.

He shows the belief systems of the Nazi Party, Italy's fascist party pre-world war 2 and how American Progressives fit into the equations. I want all my tuition money back from college. If you don't read another book this year read this one.I had a lot of misconceptions about Fascism, President Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR and many others. I admittedly took a lot of history & political science classes at university and feel like a got a raw deal. Jonah Goldberg lays out a very detailed and well researched explanation of what a fascist really is. The most interesting piece of the book is how the various early twentieth century players (Communist, Progressive, and Fascist) changed the terminology to hidden their true belief systems and motives. Bottom line is you want to get the information that your "teachers" over the year left out for whatever reason this the book for you.

Are we Fascists. Looks like we are in some ways according to Goldberg. Very balanced view.

But he didn't need 400+ pages to prove his point. An easy example is Rahm Emmanual's bragging about never letting a good crisis go to waste. Then Goldberg proceeds to follow the historical path of this train of political thought, to show us how Wilson sympathized with Mussolini and FDR with Hitler, thus starting the fascist line within the United States, firmly within the left camp. With Mussolini, the focus was the Italian state, with Hitler, the German race, with Hillary Clinton, the `village'.

There seems to be evidence that he jumped back and forth on the political spectrum, but I beleive this to have more to do with the fact that he had no ideology but his own. Does it matter if left-wingers call right-wingers fascists. The word bundle here is significant because as Goldberg will demonstrate over the remaining pages, fascism of both the historical and liberal fashion tends to focus on grouping people together. I found the text to drag in many places. Using crises to advance their polititical agenda was a common tactic of the fascists.

Hitler's a little hazier to me. He continues through the 60's, with JFK and LBJ, right through the Clintons and Obama.As a right-leaning independent, I was sympathetic to the premise and found it intriguing. It seems he pulls every single Mussolini or Hitler sympathizer out of the closet, until the book almost turns into a boring list of people and anecdotes. It's just another tag.

In Liberal Fascism, Jonah Goldberg uses 400+ pages to mash onto our heads that 1) fascism, as originally defined in history (Mussolini's Italy, Nazi Germany), was not right-wing; 2) modern-day conservatism does not have its roots in said fascism; 3) contemporary liberals uses some political tools from the fascist toolbox; and 4) the modern Left's use of the word fascism to define anything they oppose has led many today to believe that right-wingers are fascist.He starts from the beginning, giving us the root of the word, the Italian fascio, which means bundle and was also used as a term for unions in Italy at the time of Mussolini. And whatever you think of global warming (it's a real threat vs it's all BS)it's hard to argue that the left isn't using the crisis to advance it's political agenda, whether though higher taxes, more regulation, more intrusion on the lives of Americans, etc. As for the roots of fascism, I didn't think there was anyone who didn't know Mussolini was a socialist before his views evovled into what we now call fascism. Does it matter though. Still in the end, I think Goldberg proved his point. I do think it matters that people are informed when politicians are trying to pull the wool over their eyes, and this book does educate some in that respect. Central to Goldberg's point though is that both Mussolini and Hitler practiced left-wing politics, despite what modern left-wingers would have us believe.

It's important to know that when Democrats are being superficially benevolent, they are often practicing a `nice' form of totalitarianism, and this is probably where Goldberg succeeds the most. He also makes some specious connections- for example, seeming to identify vegetarians with Nazism because Hitler was vegetarian- that irritated me. The history he outlines is pretty clear, and the similarities between the fascist and modern liberal techniques he cites are pretty convincing. I don't think it does.