I finally finished this book, after having started it back in January. A combination of being really busy and a brief illness kept me from devoting as much attention as I would have liked.
Even had I had more time to devote to it, it still would have taken me a while to read; it's over 400 pages plus 60 pages of footnotes and is a very thought-provoking book, requiring much reflection and pondering of its many points. It shatters many commonly held myths about the historical Left and Right.
The book had its genesis in the frequent attacks upon himself in particular, and conservatives in general, where members of the Left would attack conservative views and policies as "fascist," and consider the argument over. Goldberg, like most students of history, knew these claims to be false as Fascism was virtually always a product of the Left. After all, if one philosophy holds for smaller, less intrusive government, while another calls for greater government control over virtually all facets of life which one is more fascistic? The one calling for larger government, of course, and yet it is the liberals, who subscribe to that point of view, who call conservatives fascistic. I believe it's for this reason this book had never been written before: liberals didn't know better and conservatives knew the charge was ridiculous and considered it unworthy of a response. Goldberg decided enough was enough and wrote a book that should, once and for all, demolish the association of Fascism and the Right.
He begins with a forward titled "Everything you know about Fascism is wrong" wherein he exposes the falsity of the association of the Right and the Fascists. He then continues with a chapter each focusing on Mussolini and Hitler, showing that their political roots lay in their nations' respective Left. He shows that the hatred between Communists and Fascists lay not in their political opposition, but in the fact they were fighting over the same political turf: the Left. (Think of how much many Republicans hate John McCain, for example, even though he agrees with him so often. Ann Coulter dislikes him so much she'd promised that she'd support Hillary Clinton over McCain, despite the many disagreements between the two blondes. We get angrier with those we expect to agree with us than those who we write off. Just like no one can make us as angry as those we truly love.) He also makes a point to define Fascism before beginning his discussion of its history: "Fascism is a religion of the state." The belief that "salvation" will come through a large, interventionist government that will remake society, and Man himself, for the better is the essence of Fascism.
Goldberg then takes us through American history showing development of Fascist thought and practice in our own nation. He points out that although it's often claimed it could never happen here, it, in fact, already has. Perhaps the most Fascistic President of all was Woodrow Wilson how centralized power, jailed political opponents and increased governmental involvement in the economy to previously unimagined dimensions. (A recurrent theme in this book is that American Progressivism is really just Fascism with a smile. Rather than imposing their will on the people, Progressives claim to be doing what's best for the people.)
The early 1920s did much to reduce the size and breadth of government, but that trend was reversed with the election of Herbert Hoover as President. Despite his portrayal as a typical laissez-faire President, he was actually a strongly interventionist President, as he had been in every public office he had held going back to the Wilson Administration. So, in the true history, there was a change only in degree, not in kind, with the election of Franklin Roosevelt, who may have been even more of a Fascist than Wilson. Both viewed their program in militaristic terms. Roosevelt created the National Recovery Administration, which determined what businesses could charge for their products and pay their employees. Businesses who did not comply were branded unpatriotic and even charged with crimes. (Declaring businesses "unpatriotic" is part of Obama's economic platform today.) Goldberg quotes many European Fascists admiring FDR's accomplishments and even expressing some envy at what he was able to accomplish.
He continues through American history with the 60s Hippie movement, which with its violence and attempts to overthrow the existing order, both political and moral, really does recall the early years of the Nazi movement in Germany. Fortunately, America didn't fall under the sway of such leaders as Germany did. (Another point for the Founding Fathers who prevented swift change the way the drafters of Germany's post World War I constitution did not.)
The weakest part of the book, in my opinion, dealt with Kennedy and LBJ. While he validly points out that Kennedy, as many actual Fascists did, used supposed emergencies to garner support for their policies, this was more, as Goldberg acknowledges, due to his need to have an emergency to focus on than an real attempt to centralize government power. Similarly, while LBJ did have some Fascist tendencies, I wouldn't include him as a Fascist either.
He continues on with a chapter on how the Left uses race as a means to achieve their goals, while attempting to cover up the fact that eugenics, which sought to breed out the weaker races, was a phenomenon of the Left. It was the Right, and especially Catholics, who opposed forced sterilization of blacks and the mentally handicapped. Margaret Sanger was clearly a person of the Left and an active proponent of reducing, if not completely eliminating, the black population. (Interestingly, that racism is still apparently extant in Planned Parenthood today.)
Economics is another area where conservatism and leftist views are confused. It's commonly assumed that conservatives being pro-business, are inherently Fascistic in their desire to help business. In fact, the historical record shows, it is largely the Left who has promoted government-business partnerships in order to increase the cohesion of society and unite it behind their view of how society should be. Again, it's the Left and their interventionist economic policies who are more Fascistic than the Right.
He devotes a chapter to Hillary Clinton, who I had never bothered to read too much about and shows how from the 60s, she's been interested in remaking society and overturning many long held beliefs. He concludes the book with a chapter showing how many things commonly held in our society were first promoted, or first widely promoted by the Nazis, such as the "natural food" movement, environmentalism, anti-smoking laws, among others. He doesn't deride all of these things as wrong in and of themselves; in fact, he shops at Whole Foods frequently himself. However, he does point out that the desire to make things that are personal preferences or opinions mandatory does match the Fascist tendency perfectly.
He finished with an afterword discussing the dangers conservatives face that could draw them into Fascism. He uses Pat Buchanan as an example of a conservative who did become a Fascist. (Fortunately, the conservative movement has written Buchanan out of it in an October 1999 article in National Review. Another example of conservatives kicking extremists out of their movement, a step liberals seem reluctant, at best, to take.) He admits that, in many ways, President Bush does have some Fascistic tendencies, but they are largely in areas that the Left would agree with: the expansion of Medicare and the notion that government has to move when people are in trouble just to name two examples.)
This was an excellent book and one that anyone interested in political discourse should read to clear up a commonly held misconception. It will teach you a lot about history, exposing some myths that have, unfortunately, taken hold in our society and show that the real danger of Fascism comes from those most likely to cry Fascism.
. Lott does correct some mistakes made in that book due to improper assumptions or just failure to conceive of alternative explanations for the phenomena they discuss.
. Arthur C. Brooks, a professor at Syracuse University, undertook a study of American charitable activity to see who gives time and money, not just to organized charities but also in informal methods such as helping out neighbors or loaning money to friends and family. To his surprise, he found that across the board, conservatives are far more likely to give money and time to others than are liberals. He had bought the commonly accepted belief that liberals are more generous than are conservatives. So strong was his belief in this that he rechecked his figures from multiple times from multiple directions but could not escape the ultimate conclusion: conservatives are more generous than liberals.