Despite what you've seen or heard, nuts like Adolf Hitler were not right-wing. We are constantly told that fascists were an outgrowth of the extreme right-wing. The fact of the matter is, in the American context, liberal Democrats have much more in common with the National Socialists than anyone on on the right side of the political spectrum.
This, of course, is not to say that American liberals share the same racist, genocidal beliefs of hardcore fascists like Hitler or Mussolini. Hence the title of the book, Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning
. What Jonah Goldberg is saying, however, is that it is undeniable that American liberals, especially since the heyday of the Progressive era in the 1920s, share an intellectual heritage with the fascists of old.That's right, Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson were liberal fascists. In the American context, fascism is obviously much more "friendly" than the fascism of many European states. In the United States, fascism, and therefore progressivism, has seemingly operated under the notion that government is the parent and the populace are children who have no way of understanding what is truly best for them. The people's only hope of receiving care and direction is for government to lead them. They can't even be taught to fend for themselves, government must hold their hand from the cradle to the grave.
If you don't believe that liberals today share similarities to the fascists of old, recall that, like today's Progressives, they favored national healthcare, the purging of religious influence from public life, government pensions, and much more.
That's the basic overview of what you will find in Goldberg's book. I was both informed and entertained while reading this book.
You should definitely consider reading it for yourself!
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