Firstly, on behalf of myself and Louis, I'd like to apologize for the absence of activity on our blog. It all began with a lot of hope and a lot of action only to be stopped in its tracks by circumstances beyond either of our control. But more importantly than that, the point is, we're back. Take it with a grain of salt, take it or leave it, but for now it seems that poLOLitics is moving forward once again!
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So let's get right into it, shall we? In a recent entry on his blog at the New Yorker, Hendrik Hertzberg examined what he and many commentators see as a particularly disturbing and ever-more-pervasive aspect of the American right: ideological hallucination?
"One of the signs that a political movement may be approaching terminal decline is when its more excitable elements begin to see “fascism” where none exists."
-HHThe short
article, in its necessary abridged way, examines several instances in which either the left or the right (depending which end of the spectrum was most desperate, most endangered, most hopeless in its monolithic entrenchment) have employed what is essentially an unfounded and incoherent smear tactic: to label one's opponents as sympathizers with one of the most abhorrent political systems ever known to man, fascism. Now, we all know the old history lesson of why Nazi Germany was, in fact, not quite fascist at all and how Mussolini was the true fascist in WWII Europe. Still, the fact of the matter is that most Americans, especially the earlier in the twentieth century you look, were frightened by even the glimmer of connection between a political movement within their country and the foreign barbarism understood to be embodied by fascism: holocausts, pervasive secret police, corruption, etc.
As Hertzberg clearly demonstrates (and it isn't exactly the hardest thing to illustrate), none of the elements of the right or the left whom were accused of these fascist ties or views were actually fascists. Some may have held extreme views, of this there is no doubt. But the plain truth is that these accusations were blatant lies, products of desperation and despair over the incoherence and unsustainability of their own movements. And those who hurled these accusations at their opponents were, at best, marginal within their movements...
That is, until now. Let me emphasize: this is not an attack on the right. This, my dear readers, is but an observation. An editor of the National Review, conservatism's flagship publication, is a very influential person within the American right. A former consultant in the Reagan White House and an active member of a right-wing think tank might be seen as a natural ideological compass for the Republican Party, as it seemingly gropes blindly at the legacy of the eighties, already tainted and slipping quickly. Yet, these figures have a dirty little secret. Except it's not a secret, just dirty. And little, not in its importance but in its likelihood of success.
Jonah Goldberg writes a regular blog for the National Review Online. Here is its subtle header:
In his
so-called response to Hertzberg, posted on his Liberal Fascism blog, Goldberg attacked Hertzberg for not examining the liberals in the Democratic Party's past who have been associated with fascism. And, just like that, Mr. Goldberg, a guru for right-wingers across the country, reverted back to the same old, same old. Instead of confronting Hertzberg's clearly legitimate claims of dishonesty and misdirection, Goldberg delves into the same antiquated smears that his partisan forefathers might have used against any other Democratic Party incarnation of the last century.
It's a tragedy, of course, but only for Goldberg and his cohorts. If the only way a right-wing academic (say, Michael Ledeen, aforementioned Reagan White House groupie and "Freedom Scholar" at the infamous American Enterprise Institute) can critique social democratic activism of the Obama variety is by comparing it to Mussolini's Third Way, we need a new opposition, period. And my guess is, we'll get one. The substance of right has been consumed by a cancer from within and now, unfortunately for the Republicans, it's starting to show on its seedy exterior.
[This doesn't mean we can let your guard down; some of those out of power in Washington now, still pull strings elsewhere. And they think we, the people, are weak, that the phrase itself, as it reads on our Declaration of Independence, is only a pacifying myth for the masses.]
It was time that liberated the terms "liberal" and "socialism" from their dreaded status a decade ago. And it is time that has made us understand both the evils of fascism and the rarity of it within our political mainstream. Finally, we, the people, will not be deceived. Not by this, the oldest trick in the book of partisan hackery.
Mr. Goldberg needs to learn some new tricks. Or find a new book.
