Using “fascist” as a political pejorative turns everyone within earshot into Roseanne Roseannadanna, with discourse reduced to aimless ruminations and snark.
The fear that drove Truman to go all RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA with "FACIST" was captured in the classic photo of him on Nov 4, 1948, holding aloft the Chicago Daily Tribune headline. It has driven every POTUS since--and perhaps since "Guttenberg" to "Pontiff"icate fearing Poll land. Or so it seems to me. Doesn't take a single "slug" away from the validity of your >6pts. [I took printshop back in the day--early 50's]
I don't know squat about the structures of In-N-Out or McDonald's, but corporate ownership vs franchise matches my own take on Socialism vs Fascism: Socialists own the means of productions, Fascists control the means of production. In that respect, the government's ownership stake in Intel is more socialist, while the golden veto over US Steel operations and export tax extortion on NVIDIA is more fascist. There is little practical difference.
Is that close to correct?
Then there's the fact that the original big-F Fascists were Mussolini's political party, like the confusing names of the two US parties. I wonder how many modern day self-proclaimed Marxists are anything close to what Marx imagined.
Thank you. Your definitions are clean - without excessive jargon - and concrete. And I agree with your assessment of how throwing around insults damages the integrity of conversations. Coming from an immigrant Jewish family, I don't respond well when people use words like Nazi and Hitler to denigrate people they don't like. I prefer they reserve the words for people who define themselves as Nazis, either then or now - or the actual Hitler.
Also, as someone influenced by Alfred Korzybski at a layperson's level, meaning simplistically, I find it useful to not worry so much about the label than to be able to describe and understand the specific thought, decision, or action, as you have done.
What I find interesting is what happens when you ask a person to provide you with the specifics of why they are using a particular word. Too often they parrot a dictionary definition and flounder when asked for concrete descriptions and real world examples: what I call the real world "by which I mean." If they can expound on a real world action, then we can talk about that action, based on more than subjective abstractions and not waste time trying to agree what to call it.
Also, my experience is that not using insults tends to lower the emotionality of a situation, which makes for a conversation where people can listen to each other and not feel so defensive.
To your point, when words means anything to anybody, they cease to have any meaning at all.
One hopes today’s accusation of “fascist” is only the same mean-spirited political rhetoric that Truman deployed and was later leveled against the Republican du jour.
But it seems more and more like a phony philosophical excuse to attack politically, legally, and eventually physically anyone with whom the left does not agree.
One can point to violence by the oxymoronically named Antifa. Labeling anything fascist is now reason enough for them to burn it down.
Will these accusations work to justify the future prosecution of “crimes” gleefully described by JB Pritzker in Project 2029?
Will being called a fascist over and over be sufficient justification to assassinate an opposition political figure?
I think that the progressives of the 1930s, already enamored with eugenics were "interested" in the early years of the National Socialists and Mussolini's fascism but subsequently maligned it's association with the left (Hitler considered the Bolsheviks as competitors rather than opposition) making it commonly associated with non-progressives of all description. Taken as an economic system similar to your own description as the melding of the economic power of corporations under the coercive power of the state, very few nations today are not more fascist than libertarian making its use as a pejorative irrelevant in an era where its now almost universal and just another symptom of Alexander Tytler's end stage democracy in the west and a somewhat practical (economic) reform on communism in China for example.
So how did the Democrats converting Republican presidential candidates to Fascists come to overlook Dwight Eisenhower, Bob Dole, John McCain, and Mitt Romney?
Come to think of it, *did* the Democrats overlook Dwight Eisenhower, Bob Dole, John McCain, and Mitt Romney?
My memory being inexact, I had recourse to the Internet using a search engine and an AI model. Be aware these are biased sources.
Apparently Bob Dole was "not typically" accused of being a Fascist, and Dwight Eisenhower not ever. Both John McCain and Mitt Romney were, but it wasn't the biggest deal.
But I think it's obvious that Eisenhower's exemption was because he had just led the triumphant international crusade against the Fascists. Nowadays that wouldn't be enough, but back then it was considered sufficient refutation in advance.
And the other three didn't come under full-scale attack because they weren't much of a threat to the Democratic candidate.
A few years back, perhaps in Powerline comments, it was pointed out that every Republican Presidential candidate since Dewey, including Ike, was called either Nazi, fascist, or both in the campaign. Yet now, the same search terms yield AI curated results that lead off with a disclaimer that the candidate was not commonly, or widely, disparaged in that manner. The actual attacks are buried deep in the search results.
That seems right to me, although my actual memory of the campaigns—especially Eisenhower’s second (I was too young for his first)—is now somewhat cloudy.
The Orwell quote seems familiar. Perhaps I was the reader who supplied it.
On the subject of fascism, may I provide an historical misquote? When asked whether fascism would ever come to this country, Huey Long is purported to have answered, "Yes, but we'll call it anti-fascism." Long actually said, "...but we'll call it something else." People prefer the misquote because it's more dramatic. Long's own Share Our Wealth program was socialistic in the worst sense of the term, but he was far from the only radical American of the time. He was one-Uptoned by Sinclair's End Poverty In California plan.
Among the ironies of those times is that a recent graduate of Eureka College, awarded degrees in economics and sociology, noticed the similarity between the New Deal and Mussolini's economic program: Private ownership of the means of production, but firm government control of them. His name was Ronald Reagan.
“Fascism was a variant of Socialism. Orthodox Socialism seeks to exert iron control over society and all its individuals via a centralized, corporate HQ model (like In-N-Out Burger); Fascism seeks to do the same thing using a franchise model (like McDonald’s).”
Thank you for the explanation of fascism and the history of Truman’s use of the term.
Given it, it is hardly unsurprising that in Orwellian fashion the left has chosen to label numerous folks on the right fascist. When in fact, specifically under Obama and especially under Biden, your McDonald’s franchise model describes the authoritarian control leftists tried - and in many cases succeed (see DEI brainwashing courses, e.g.) - to exert over society.
Trump is vulgar. This time around he has done some crony-like deals I don’t approve of. But the left in the U.S. in the past 17 years has by any objective measure been far further up the fascism axis than anything Trump has done.
The federal government under Trump has 10% of Intel's stock, a golden veto over everything US Steel does, and controls what NVIDIA and AMD export through the extortion of an unconstitutional export tax.
Those are some combination of fascism and socialism.
First of all, the Intel thing is because Biden made a terrible deal for U.S. taxpayers and Trump simply made it less worse. I fully endorse what Trump did there as leaving us in a better state than before.
The U.S. Steel stuff I don’t defend, period.
There are legit national security concerns re: NVIDIA products, so you are wrong to put those actions in the same class. *Not* that I am endorsing the actual actions, to be very clear, but it is indeed a legitimate use of state power to limit such sales to China. That you prefer policy that mirrors Marx’ “the capitalists will sell us the rope we use to hang them with” notwithstanding.
Finally, to use the term “fascism” to describe any of these deals is to drain the word of almost all meaning. You clearly took nothing from Bob’s excellent piece.
Intel: Blaming Biden for enabling Trump to do something detrimental is hardly praise.
NVIDIA,AMD. No, GPUs and other chips are not national security assets. You sound like that damned fool who wanted garlic to be declared a national security asset needing tariff protection.
The only way to avoid selling rope to the Marxists is to stop selling rope, period. If that is how you would conduct foreign policy, you're even worse than Trump.
Go back and read the article again. Socialism is owning the means of production; do you think owning 10% of Intel is capitalism because Trump is at the tiller? Fascism is controlling the means of production; do you think controlling US Steel and NVIDIA/AMD is capitalism because Trump's in charge?
That you think Trump somehow isolates those cases from being socialist- and fascist-adjacent shows you did not understand this article or my comment.
I defended your claim about Intel by pointing out Trump made a bad situation marginally less worse. No more, no less. You have zero evidence Trump would have done that deal absent Biden having done his Intel deal first.
“The only way to avoid selling rope to the Marxists is to stop selling rope”.
No, here you have conflated “the only way to be absolutely certain of Marxists not getting their hands on your rope” with “the only way to avoid selling them rope”.
I usually like jousting with you, and find occasionally I even learn something from our sparring. But when you state with conviction that the most advanced GPUs are not national security risks, then claim by analogy that I think garlic is one for stating that GPUs are, I lose interest in continuing.
OK, let’s blame Karl Marx for Hitler’s actions, since you have no evidence Hitler would have done his deeds absent Karl Marx having done his deeds first.
Let’s blame gun manufacturers and car manufacturers and axe manufacturers, since there is no evidence murderers would have done their deeds had the manufacturers not done their deeds first.
Agency, does that mean anything to you? Personal responsibility and accountability? Trump had a choice. He made his choice. And you want to blame Biden.
I think that the description of Fascist leader or dictator could most like be true of Xi. There was not too much difference between Fascism and Communism in it's application, but I think Fascism as an economic means of government will probably be more successful than Communism but not one iota less cruel. In the end both will fail but take too many lives with them on the way.
Thanks for another great essay. You are performing a great act of public service with your keen insight and inimitable wit!
Yabbut
The fear that drove Truman to go all RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA with "FACIST" was captured in the classic photo of him on Nov 4, 1948, holding aloft the Chicago Daily Tribune headline. It has driven every POTUS since--and perhaps since "Guttenberg" to "Pontiff"icate fearing Poll land. Or so it seems to me. Doesn't take a single "slug" away from the validity of your >6pts. [I took printshop back in the day--early 50's]
I don't know squat about the structures of In-N-Out or McDonald's, but corporate ownership vs franchise matches my own take on Socialism vs Fascism: Socialists own the means of productions, Fascists control the means of production. In that respect, the government's ownership stake in Intel is more socialist, while the golden veto over US Steel operations and export tax extortion on NVIDIA is more fascist. There is little practical difference.
Is that close to correct?
Then there's the fact that the original big-F Fascists were Mussolini's political party, like the confusing names of the two US parties. I wonder how many modern day self-proclaimed Marxists are anything close to what Marx imagined.
Thank you. Your definitions are clean - without excessive jargon - and concrete. And I agree with your assessment of how throwing around insults damages the integrity of conversations. Coming from an immigrant Jewish family, I don't respond well when people use words like Nazi and Hitler to denigrate people they don't like. I prefer they reserve the words for people who define themselves as Nazis, either then or now - or the actual Hitler.
Also, as someone influenced by Alfred Korzybski at a layperson's level, meaning simplistically, I find it useful to not worry so much about the label than to be able to describe and understand the specific thought, decision, or action, as you have done.
What I find interesting is what happens when you ask a person to provide you with the specifics of why they are using a particular word. Too often they parrot a dictionary definition and flounder when asked for concrete descriptions and real world examples: what I call the real world "by which I mean." If they can expound on a real world action, then we can talk about that action, based on more than subjective abstractions and not waste time trying to agree what to call it.
Also, my experience is that not using insults tends to lower the emotionality of a situation, which makes for a conversation where people can listen to each other and not feel so defensive.
But using insults is a way to shut down the conversation!
“If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts.
If you have the law on your side, pound the law.
If you have neither on your side, pound the table”
Today’s inconvenient truth for leftists brought to you by the letters CD (Climate Denier).
Now I feel terrible for ever having besmirched fascism by associating it with Donald Trump.
To your point, when words means anything to anybody, they cease to have any meaning at all.
One hopes today’s accusation of “fascist” is only the same mean-spirited political rhetoric that Truman deployed and was later leveled against the Republican du jour.
But it seems more and more like a phony philosophical excuse to attack politically, legally, and eventually physically anyone with whom the left does not agree.
One can point to violence by the oxymoronically named Antifa. Labeling anything fascist is now reason enough for them to burn it down.
Will these accusations work to justify the future prosecution of “crimes” gleefully described by JB Pritzker in Project 2029?
Will being called a fascist over and over be sufficient justification to assassinate an opposition political figure?
I think that the progressives of the 1930s, already enamored with eugenics were "interested" in the early years of the National Socialists and Mussolini's fascism but subsequently maligned it's association with the left (Hitler considered the Bolsheviks as competitors rather than opposition) making it commonly associated with non-progressives of all description. Taken as an economic system similar to your own description as the melding of the economic power of corporations under the coercive power of the state, very few nations today are not more fascist than libertarian making its use as a pejorative irrelevant in an era where its now almost universal and just another symptom of Alexander Tytler's end stage democracy in the west and a somewhat practical (economic) reform on communism in China for example.
So how did the Democrats converting Republican presidential candidates to Fascists come to overlook Dwight Eisenhower, Bob Dole, John McCain, and Mitt Romney?
Come to think of it, *did* the Democrats overlook Dwight Eisenhower, Bob Dole, John McCain, and Mitt Romney?
My memory being inexact, I had recourse to the Internet using a search engine and an AI model. Be aware these are biased sources.
Apparently Bob Dole was "not typically" accused of being a Fascist, and Dwight Eisenhower not ever. Both John McCain and Mitt Romney were, but it wasn't the biggest deal.
But I think it's obvious that Eisenhower's exemption was because he had just led the triumphant international crusade against the Fascists. Nowadays that wouldn't be enough, but back then it was considered sufficient refutation in advance.
And the other three didn't come under full-scale attack because they weren't much of a threat to the Democratic candidate.
A few years back, perhaps in Powerline comments, it was pointed out that every Republican Presidential candidate since Dewey, including Ike, was called either Nazi, fascist, or both in the campaign. Yet now, the same search terms yield AI curated results that lead off with a disclaimer that the candidate was not commonly, or widely, disparaged in that manner. The actual attacks are buried deep in the search results.
That seems right to me, although my actual memory of the campaigns—especially Eisenhower’s second (I was too young for his first)—is now somewhat cloudy.
The Orwell quote seems familiar. Perhaps I was the reader who supplied it.
On the subject of fascism, may I provide an historical misquote? When asked whether fascism would ever come to this country, Huey Long is purported to have answered, "Yes, but we'll call it anti-fascism." Long actually said, "...but we'll call it something else." People prefer the misquote because it's more dramatic. Long's own Share Our Wealth program was socialistic in the worst sense of the term, but he was far from the only radical American of the time. He was one-Uptoned by Sinclair's End Poverty In California plan.
Among the ironies of those times is that a recent graduate of Eureka College, awarded degrees in economics and sociology, noticed the similarity between the New Deal and Mussolini's economic program: Private ownership of the means of production, but firm government control of them. His name was Ronald Reagan.
https://youtube.com/shorts/2RG0OT-6-hs?si=BHgLIntPk0dsuHOT
“Fascism was a variant of Socialism. Orthodox Socialism seeks to exert iron control over society and all its individuals via a centralized, corporate HQ model (like In-N-Out Burger); Fascism seeks to do the same thing using a franchise model (like McDonald’s).”
Thank you for the explanation of fascism and the history of Truman’s use of the term.
Given it, it is hardly unsurprising that in Orwellian fashion the left has chosen to label numerous folks on the right fascist. When in fact, specifically under Obama and especially under Biden, your McDonald’s franchise model describes the authoritarian control leftists tried - and in many cases succeed (see DEI brainwashing courses, e.g.) - to exert over society.
Trump is vulgar. This time around he has done some crony-like deals I don’t approve of. But the left in the U.S. in the past 17 years has by any objective measure been far further up the fascism axis than anything Trump has done.
Vulgarity is not fascism.
The federal government under Trump has 10% of Intel's stock, a golden veto over everything US Steel does, and controls what NVIDIA and AMD export through the extortion of an unconstitutional export tax.
Those are some combination of fascism and socialism.
First of all, the Intel thing is because Biden made a terrible deal for U.S. taxpayers and Trump simply made it less worse. I fully endorse what Trump did there as leaving us in a better state than before.
The U.S. Steel stuff I don’t defend, period.
There are legit national security concerns re: NVIDIA products, so you are wrong to put those actions in the same class. *Not* that I am endorsing the actual actions, to be very clear, but it is indeed a legitimate use of state power to limit such sales to China. That you prefer policy that mirrors Marx’ “the capitalists will sell us the rope we use to hang them with” notwithstanding.
Finally, to use the term “fascism” to describe any of these deals is to drain the word of almost all meaning. You clearly took nothing from Bob’s excellent piece.
Intel: Blaming Biden for enabling Trump to do something detrimental is hardly praise.
NVIDIA,AMD. No, GPUs and other chips are not national security assets. You sound like that damned fool who wanted garlic to be declared a national security asset needing tariff protection.
The only way to avoid selling rope to the Marxists is to stop selling rope, period. If that is how you would conduct foreign policy, you're even worse than Trump.
Go back and read the article again. Socialism is owning the means of production; do you think owning 10% of Intel is capitalism because Trump is at the tiller? Fascism is controlling the means of production; do you think controlling US Steel and NVIDIA/AMD is capitalism because Trump's in charge?
That you think Trump somehow isolates those cases from being socialist- and fascist-adjacent shows you did not understand this article or my comment.
I defended your claim about Intel by pointing out Trump made a bad situation marginally less worse. No more, no less. You have zero evidence Trump would have done that deal absent Biden having done his Intel deal first.
“The only way to avoid selling rope to the Marxists is to stop selling rope”.
No, here you have conflated “the only way to be absolutely certain of Marxists not getting their hands on your rope” with “the only way to avoid selling them rope”.
I usually like jousting with you, and find occasionally I even learn something from our sparring. But when you state with conviction that the most advanced GPUs are not national security risks, then claim by analogy that I think garlic is one for stating that GPUs are, I lose interest in continuing.
Have a great day.
OK, let’s blame Karl Marx for Hitler’s actions, since you have no evidence Hitler would have done his deeds absent Karl Marx having done his deeds first.
Let’s blame gun manufacturers and car manufacturers and axe manufacturers, since there is no evidence murderers would have done their deeds had the manufacturers not done their deeds first.
Agency, does that mean anything to you? Personal responsibility and accountability? Trump had a choice. He made his choice. And you want to blame Biden.
Jonah Goldberg wrote a book called Liberal Fascism. One of this book’s strengths is describing the history of fascism.
I think that the description of Fascist leader or dictator could most like be true of Xi. There was not too much difference between Fascism and Communism in it's application, but I think Fascism as an economic means of government will probably be more successful than Communism but not one iota less cruel. In the end both will fail but take too many lives with them on the way.