I guess it was too much to ask that David Oshinsky begin his
New York Times review of Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism without the usual eye-rolling reference to 60s-era liberals referring to any and all opponents as “fascists.”
It isn’t actually illegal for an article that contains the word “fascist” to begin in some other manner, though many writers seem to think it is. The piece could have started, for instance, with a dictionary definition of “fascism.” Or Dr. Oshinsky could have provided some context by offering, as a history professor, an overview of the word’s background and usage that conjures up something more than the image of a hippie in a poncho and headband shrieking “Off the pigs!”
But that would be too straight-faced and pertinent. Current convention demands that the word “fascist” not be treated as if it were meaningful in the post WWII world. Instead, the writer must establish his credentials as a levelheaded reviewer by writing something like, “Coming of age in the 1960s, I heard the word ‘fascist’ all the time…the word belonged to those on the political left. It was their verbal weapon, and they used it every chance they got.”
To be fair, this opening does succinctly introduce Oshinsky’s main premise -- that Jonah Goldberg’s book is “less an expose of left-wing hypocrisy than a chance to exact political revenge.” It’s an assumption that’s as smugly naïve – and as dead wrong -- as most mainstream discussion of the far right. Certainly Dr. Oshinsky does a good job of pointing out the glaring historical omissions in Goldberg’s book, even as he describes the author’s rants as “deliciously amusing” (a word combination I’d like to see expunged from all written and spoken English for the next fifty years) and compliments him on his “witty intelligence.” If one were to judge from this review, Jonah Goldberg is just as cheeky as Bugs Bunny, “fascism,” is merely a carelessly tossed buzzword, and
Liberal Fascism is nothing more than a diverting exercise in rhetorical tit-for-tat.
I’m profoundly skeptical about the claim that “fascist” has been used so cavalierly that it’s lost all meaning. It’s too similar to the complaints I heard back in the ‘90s about the word “racist” being “overused” when applied to those well-spoken, educated gentlemen who wrote
The Bell Curve. Yes, both the words “racist” or “fascist” can and have been misused – as have words like “traitor”, “Communist,” or “Socialist,” with much more devastating consequences for the people labeled as “traitors,” “Communists,” etc. Though I was a kid at the time, I am old enough to remember the ‘60s and ‘70s pretty clearly, and however unfairly the words “fascist” and “racist” may have been thrown by overwrought college students, I don’t recall mass firings of teachers for being “fascist” or “racist.” There were no televised hearings in which nervous witnesses were asked, “Are you now or have you ever been a fascist?”
Which brings us to the current use of the word “fascist” by conservative writers like Jonah Goldberg, who have added it to their lexicon of abuse along with “Commie,” “Pinko” and “Islamacist.”
Liberal Fascism was not written in a vacuum. It’s part of an ambitious ongoing effort by conservatives to alter the manner in which the Nazi era is remembered, an attempt to rebrand Nazism so that it’s associated with the left rather than the right. Dismissing Goldberg’s book as a mere reaction to liberal overuse of the word flies in the face of a reality obvious to anyone who bothers to look for it.
Oshinsky mentions Goldberg’s contention that today “Leftists still drop the ‘f word’ to taint their opponents, be they global warming skeptics or members of the Moral Majority.” After reading this, I did a couple of admittedly unscientific Google searches using the search terms “Fascist” and “Moral Majority” and then “Fascist” and “Global warming.” The first search garnered pretty much what I expected, a mixed bag of intemperate liberals referring to the late Jerry Falwell as a “fascist” and articles that mentioned the Moral Majority but contained the word “fascist” in reference to other right wing movements (like Christian Reconstructionism.)
The second search, however, was more revealing. There were quite a few hits, but instances of liberals using around the word “fascist” about Global Warming deniers were in the minority. The norm was articles like that posted by a contributor to
Prison Planet opining about “the creeping fascism of Global Warming hysteria.”
The Hoosier Gadfly rants about “eco-fascist troglodytes” and Democrats.
The Pundit Review declares that Ellen Goodman is an “Islamo-Fascist” and on
Article Gold someone named Stew Mayers ups the ante by referring to “Eco-Fascist Pagans.” There also were quite a few hits resulting from right-wingers complaining about Global Warming advocates calling them fascists. David Harsanyi in the
Denver Post talks about "challenging Global Warming hysteria" and advises those who do to “Back away slowly. You’ll probably be called a fascist.” Many references to Robert Kennedy Jr. calling Glenn Beck "CNN’s chief corporate fascism advocate" turned up, but even with that example, the right seems to be at least as fond as the left of vehemently and casually invoking terms like “Nazi” and “Fascist.” Given the popularity of terms like "Femnazi" and "eco-Fascist" and "Islamofascist," the right may be even work out to be more prone to such insults than the left.
Why is this very immediate context ignored in favor of an outdated image from the 1960s? Perhaps Dr. Oshinsky, like many mainstream writers, considers the online world of political discussion beneath his notice. Or maybe seriously examining both the meaning of the word “fascist” and the method behind the madness of Jonah Goldberg’s book is just too disturbing.
The closest the review comes to touching on the goals of the right-wing rebranding of “fascism” is when Oshinsky observes: “Oddly, Goldberg has less to say about issues more likely to bolster his case, like the enormous growth of executive power under Roosevelt and his ill-fated attempt to ‘pack’ the United States Supreme Court.” He notices that Goldberg skips over the 1920s, which saw the rise of the KKK and an uncomfortably familiar anti-immigrant fervor, but these omissions don’t get the hard-eyed examination they deserve. Instead, the entire review comes across as a fatherly chuckle and a wag of the finger.
I hope this clueless bemusement is not the template for upcoming MSM reviews of
Liberal Fascism, but I have a sinking feeling that it is. Yes, it’s a silly book, with a ridiculous cover and a thesis that any serious student of history will find laughable. It is no accident, however, that the author of this book is the same person who wrote that Augusto Pinochet’s “abuses” -- which included the mass murder of liberals and leftists and the “disappearing” and torture of dissidents --
“helped create a civil society.” The agenda behind Jonah Goldberg’s effort is no laughing matter, not at a time when the Third Reich is dropping from living memory and tactics like torture and secret detention are being written about as if they were issues upon which moral people can disagree. The lessons we presumably learned from the Nazi era are not just being forgotten. They are being deliberately erased by conservatives who seem less revolted by Nazi brutality and intolerance than by the meaningless use of the word “socialist” in the Nazi party name.
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