Now that a Republican is president, the old copy is being dusted off and “fascists” is reappearing in the press. Trump and his ilk are fascists, like most conservatives. Well, as they say, if you repeat something enough it must be true. I also say, back at ya!
Fascism is the creation of the left, who borrowed some ideas from the extreme right. AND, the progressive movement in the United States applauded what Mussolini created, as well as the Bolsheviks, as the way to a more perfect state.
From two sources noted below I summarize.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
In 1919 Benito Mussolini described fascism as a movement that would strike “against the backwardness of the right and the destructiveness of the left”
The Italian term fascismo is derived from fascio meaning a bundle of rods, ultimately from the Latin word fasces.[14] This was the name given to political organizations in Italy known as fasci, groups similar to guilds or syndicates and at first applied mainly to organizations on the political Left.
Fascism was influenced by both left and right, conservative and anti-conservative, national and supranational, rational and anti-rational.
After King Victor Emmanuel III forced Mussolini to resign as head of government and placed him under arrest in 1943, Mussolini was rescued by German forces. While continuing to rely on Germany for support, Mussolini and the remaining loyal Fascists founded the Italian Social Republic with Mussolini as head of state. Mussolini sought to re-radicalize Italian Fascism, declaring that the Fascist state had been overthrown because Italian Fascism had been subverted by Italian conservatives and the bourgeoisie.[54] Then the new Fascist government proposed the creation of workers’ councils and profit-sharing in industry, although the German authorities, who effectively controlled northern Italy at this point, ignored these measures and did not seek to enforce them.
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewsubcategory.asp?id=1223;
Fascism is a totalitarian movement that empowers an omnipotent government to control every nook and cranny of political, economic, social, and private life – generally in the name of “the public good.”
Thus it is accurate to say that progressivism is, in effect, an American version of European fascism.
“Progressivism was a sister movement of fascism,” writes Jonah Goldberg, “and today’s liberalism is the daughter of Progressivism.” The journalist J. T. Flynn – perhaps the best-known anti-FDR muckraker of the 1930s, foresaw that American fascism might one day manifest itself as “a very genteel and dainty and pleasant form of fascism which cannot be called fascism at all because it will be so virtuous and polite.”
“Progressivism was a sister movement of fascism,” writes Goldberg, “and today’s liberalism is the daughter of Progressivism.” The journalist J. T. Flynn – perhaps the best-known anti-FDR muckraker of the 1930s, foresaw that American fascism might one day manifest itself as “a very genteel and dainty and pleasant form of fascism which cannot be called fascism at all because it will be so virtuous and polite.”
Below are some of the famous US folks in the 30’s and what they thought of fascism.
HG. Wells, said in 1932 that progressives must become “liberal fascists” and “enlightened Nazis.” The poet Wallace Stevens pronounced himself “pro-Mussolini personally.” The historian Charles Beard wrote of Mussolini’s efforts: “Beyond question, an amazing experiment is being made [in Italy], an experiment in reconciling individualism and socialism.” Lincoln Steffens, for one, said that Italian fascism made Western democracy, by comparison, look like a system run by “petty persons with petty purposes.” Mussolini, Steffens proclaimed reverently, had been “formed” by God “out of the rib of Italy.” Reporter Ida Tarbell was deeply impressed by Mussolini’s attitudes regarding labor, affectionately dubbing him “a despot with a dimple.” NAACP co-founder W. E. B. DuBois saw National Socialism as a worthy model for economic organization. The establishment of the Nazi dictatorship in Germany, he wrote, had been “absolutely necessary to get the state in order.” In 1937 DuBois stated: “there is today, in some respects, more democracy in Germany than there has been in years past.” FDR adviser Rexford Guy Tugwellsaid of Italian fascism: “It’s the cleanest, neatest, most efficiently operating piece of social machinery I’ve ever seen. It makes me envious.” New Republiceditor George Soule, who avidly supported FDR, noted approvingly that the Roosevelt administration was “trying out the economics of fascism.” Playwright George Bernard Shaw hailed Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini as the world’s great “progressive” leaders because they “did things,” unlike the leaders of those “putrefying corpses” called parliamentary democracies.
So, to quote the signs of protesters, “We are all Fascists, (especially those of us on the left since we invented the concept)” I added a few words, tough to put on a poster in a protest.
Can we not just get along and stop calling each other names; that goes for you too President Trump. Also President Obama, Secretary Clinton, President Clinton, et al.