Special to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

Recently I read Dinesh D’Souza’s book, The Big Lie: Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left, which has become a national bestseller. This isn’t a review of the book per say, but the discussion of its thesis. The one trend that has been driving me to the brink of insanity, is the left freely throwing around words such as Nazi and fascist at anyone who doesn’t share their ideas. If you support Donald Trump, you’re a Nazi. If you think identify politics is toxic (even if it does include White Nationalism), you’re a Nazi. If you’re against open borders, you’re a Nazi. As far as they are concerned it is reasonable to compare all forms of opposition to the evil that was obliterated all those decades ago.

I remember this old expression, “The first one to call his opponent a Nazi or a fascist loses the argument.” What the hell happened to that line of thinking? I remember during the Obama administration liberals would throw hissy fits whenever you had a conservative who compared their president to Hitler. Fair enough, considering that calling your opponent a Nazi just shuts down a debate in the same way that Social Justice Warriors like to label their opponents racist. Though interesting enough these same people don’t believe in extending this same courtesy to our current president or his supporters.

One has to ask where the Anti-Defamation League is when the word Nazi is being causally thrown around. I remember when they got their panties in a bunch when Glenn Beck had a poster made of Michael Bloomberg, in the same style as the fascist propaganda posters of the 1930’s. They said that Beck was belittling the Holocaust by comparing Bloomberg to Hitler, even though just about every fascist government used similar imagery in their posters. Plus, Beck said that his Bloomberg poster was actually inspired more from the propaganda posters of the Soviet Union. Yet these same bozos don’t even bend an eyelash when somebody says that Trump is literally Hitler. At the very least they should condemn America’s education system for not properly teaching this generation what the word “literally” means.

The best aspect of Dinesh’s book is that it not only shows the absurdity of comparing Trump to Hitler, but it shows that America’s left actually bares a much more striking appearance to the fascists of the 1930’s. Of course, this isn’t a new concept. Jonah Goldberg wrote about it in his book Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning. Though I thought he went a little bit on a tangent when he said that movies such as Braveheart and V for Vendetta glorified fascism. Dinesh takes it a step further when he points out that Germany’s treatment of the Jews was somewhat inspired by America’s policies towards blacks and Indians, which were usually implemented during Democratic administrations.

I know that there are many who will say that Dinesh is reaching with his claims, but I honestly think he did a much better job backing up his thesis, than most of the people who claim that fascism is inherently right-wing. Most of the arguments that I have heard to support this notion are usually pretty weak, since they revolve around their fundamental ignorance of basic economics. For one thing, they always confuse corporatism with the Free Market capitalism that is advocated by libertarians and certain conservatives. According to the logic of the left, since fascists are big time corporatists where both the government and corporations work hand in hand they are entirely right-wing. It amazes me that people are na�ve enough to believe that there isn’t anybody on the left who is in league with the corporations. Just take a look at the Clintons. When haven’t they been knee deep in crony capitalism? One of the reasons why Bernie Sanders failed in securing the Democratic nomination in the last election is because he wasn’t nearly as big of a corporatist as his democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. Also, the corporations in Germany were nothing more than a means to an end for Hitler, who needed their cooperation to build his war machine. Unlike their Soviet rivals, Nazi Germany allowed the factories to remain in the hands of the industrialists, just as long they went along with Hitler’s desires. Basically, the factories in the Soviet Union where owned by the state, while the factories in Germany remained in private hands that were basically tied by Nazi officials.

I also find it odd that Neo-Nazis and the KKK are referred to as members of the far right, even though the KKK was the creation of the Democratic Party and if you take a look at the Neo-Nazis in America they don’t even seem all that right-wing. Before Christopher Cantwell, got too far involved in all that White Nationalism nonsense, he once talked about visiting Stormfront’s neo-Nazi website, where he a saw a post on their message board that talked about how we can finally implement socialist polices once all the non-white races are deported from this country. What’s interesting about this post is that it echoes Hitler’s own beliefs on the subject of socialism. When Hitler came to power many of his subordinates were at odds with the way he concentrated more on rebuilding Germany’s war machine than he was in providing socialist programs to the German people. Hitler on the other hand, wanted to make sure that only the right people would reap the benefits of socialism.

Now, is it possible for fascism to be right-wing? Sure. For that matter it is just as possible for socialism to be right-wing. Just take a look at the Neo-Conservative Principles that were practiced during the reign of George W. Bush. They had elements of both fascism and socialism. If you think about it, Neo-Conservatives aren’t much different from their left-wing counter parts. That is why I always laugh hysterically when a see somebody on the left criticizing Neo-Conservatives, even though their principles really aren’t much different. Still, I believe that the notion of fascism being more of a left-wing phenomenon has better arguments to support it, though I don’t think it is going to stop the left from screaming Nazi at their right-wing opponents any time soon.

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