If I said so, it was bad phrasing.
But, here, let’s accept that authoritarianism is right wing (for now). And my original statement was that it’s more correct to call fascists authoritarians when we’re talking about the things that we don’t like about them. So, hey, the Nazis were right wing, yay!
But, that being said, the uniquely fascist elements of their beliefs are the socialist/left wing elements that lead to ideas of industry-specific collectivism (corporatism). The nationalist elements just say that the people want the freedom of self-determination for their country and to be secure within it. Mohatma Gandhi was a nationalist.
Corporatism is not genocide, nor is nationalism genocide. Genocide is the product of a desire to smash anyone you view as hostile towards yourself and that’s authoritarianism. Authoritarianism long predates Fascism, mostly predates nationalism (though maybe not at the domicile level/tribal level), and you could argue isn’t so much a political belief as it is a human instinct that can be easily turned into a driving force.
In general, there’s an idea that you can only be left or right, but not both. If you’re “both”, then you’re a centrist. Likewise, there’s an idea that you can only be an extremist if you’re at the far left or far right. I don’t know of any evidence to support either of these theories. These are poor ways of categorizing things.
Let’s say that a centrist position is to talk things out and come to a consensus. Yes? In an easy going centrist system, you let that system take as long as it needs, with food, side panels, games, etc. In an extremist centrist system, you lock the two sides in a room with no food and either they die or they work out the conflict and agree to something.
There’s no law of the universe that centrism can’t be extreme.
Gandhi fought for nationalism though peacefulness and self-harm. I don’t know whether that should be considered extremism or the exact opposite.
And Stalin and Mao were clearly left wing commies. They are also both authoritarian dictators which we agreed, right up at the front, to consider to be “right wing”. But there’s no argument that either of these guys was a centrist. So we can be pretty confident in saying that you can take elements of belief from either side, and still exist, and not be a moderate.
In general, if we say that collectivist thought is left wing and individualist thought is right wing - which is generally accepted until the last couple of decades but would certainly have been true at the time - then which side is authoritarianism on? You could place it on the right by saying that in an individualistic society, one individual will reign supreme as the strongest and most mighty of individuals. In a lawless, unordered society, might makes right. And authoritarianism is the word for that. But you could also put it on the left since authoritarianism is, ultimately, the only way to achieve a collective. You’re not going to herd cats nor humans into any reasonable configuration of synchronicity without a top-down, violent, controlling fist. And, in history we do have Stalin, Mao, etc. all turning to authoritarianism so it doesn’t seem distant from them.
I’d personally say that left and right are pretty loose terms. Some things we can more specifically relate to them like collectivism and individualism. Other things are more difficult.
It’s better, in my mind, to just call them what they are. Authoritarianism is what it is, regardless of whether it’s a communist, a king, or a libertarian who is using it. And any of them can use it. It remains bad, either way. And if ancient kings were using it - and they certainly weren’t Communists - then it’s probably not accurate to class it as left or right, just bad.
Most of Eastern Asia practices something like corporatism. They’re very concerned with appearances and making sure that the trains run on time. If you remove the murder, the slavery, and the conquest from the Nazis, and just do something more reasonable and easy-going, you’ll end up with Singapore and Japan - you know, those places commonly described as being more “collectivist” than the West.
So, again, if you want to call the Nazis right wing then, sure, but it’s because they were authoritarians and - if it pleases you - I’m fine with putting authoritarianism down on the right ( I don’t think it really makes sense on a left-right scale but sure). The actual original elements of fascist beliefs - corporatism, a focus on appearances and social cohesion, etc. - seem to have mostly been left wing and diluted down versions of socialist thought. The non-original, not-unique-to-fascism elements of dictatorialism are just dictatorialism. If you want to glue them into fascism then sure but I think it’s better to keep it separate because it’s not unique to fascism, can be removed from fascism, has been removed from fascism, and could just as easily be added to other belief systems.