Goldberg’s whole approach, for that matter, involves omitting contradictory factual information. His thesis begins with a real fact: fascism originally based its public appeal, like most right-wing populist movements, by claiming to represent a “neither left nor right” solution but a transcendent unifying force. As such, it often made socialist-sounding appeals in its rhetoric, particularly in its nascent stages. Goldberg explores this in depth by trotting out multiple examples of socialist-sounding rhetoric from fascists, as well as endorsements of fascism by gullible socialists. As Michael Tomasky noted in his scathing review for The New Republic:
Yet for all his chapter and verse on the proletarian rhetoric that Nazis employed, Goldberg somehow forgets to mention certain other salient matters, like the fact that within three months of taking power Hitler banned trade unions--and on the day after May Day, 1933. Their money was confiscated and their leaders imprisoned. And the trade unions were replaced with the Nazi "union" called the German Labor Front, which took away the right to strike. Hitler did many worse things, of course. I single out this act because it would hardly seem to be the edict of a "man of the left." And there exist about a million nearly epileptic quotes from Hitler and Goebbels and other Nazis expressing their luminous hatreds of liberalism and of communism, none of which seem to have found their way into the pages of Liberal Fascism.
Goldberg responded by arguing that the fascists were just foreclosing on their competition: “All that need be said is that if Hitler’s ban on independent trade unions disqualifies him as a leftist, then Lenin, Stalin, and Mao were not leftists either.” This is, in fact, the argument that Goldberg attempts to make in his book as well: That the fascists occupied the “political space” on the Left, and thus were simply out to compete against their fellow leftists.
But this is where Goldberg most deeply portrays a lack of respect for the historical material available to him, because any careful study of the actual details of how the fascists came to power in both Italy and Germany makes abundantly clear that they were occupying the available political space on the right – and had charged hard in that direction from early on in their drive to power. The ideological shift by Mussolini and Hitler away from appeals to socialist sensibilities occurred in the defense of wealthy landowners and the established economic and cultural powers, and it entailed a wave of murderous violence against socialists, leftists, and any form of progressive.
As you will see laid out in detail in these essays, the path to power for both Italian Fascists and German Nazis was essentially the same: They presented themselves as “revolutionary socialists” in their initial appeals but, finding the political space for such a movement already well occupied on the left by socialists and communists, shifted their appeals and their alliances to the right and center, particularly with business capitalists who financed them, sponsored their activities, and essentially contracted with them to engage in systematic violence against the Left. Yet there is not even a scintilla of acknowledgement of this historical reality in Liberal Fascism.
In assessing the broader effects of Liberal Fascism, it may be useful to recall George Orwell’s concept of “Newspeak,” the official language of the totalitarian regime of 1984. Newspeak combines two ideas that, conventionally speaking, are virtual (if not precise) opposites, and presents them as identical – thereby nullifying the meaning contained in each word: “War is Peace.” “Ignorance is Strength.” “Freedom is Slavery.” It serves two functions: It deflates the opposition by nullifying its defining issues, and throws the nominal logic of the public debate into disarray; and it provides rhetorical and ontological cover for its speakers’ own activities and agenda.
Goldberg’s book, merely in conflating the seemingly contradictory terms “liberal” and “fascism,” fundamentally nullifies the meanings of both words – and its core thesis, that fascism was “a phenomenon of the left,” is a historically false fraud. At its core, Liberal Fascism is an act of Newspeak that pollutes the national discourse by destroying our understanding. And when large numbers of people believe nonsense that is simply and provably false, not only is our resulting discourse deeply irrational, but so are the democratic outcomes.
