Liberal Fascism: Review by Arnold Kling

Jonah Goldberg's Revisionist F-Bomb
By Arnold Kling on 23 Jan 2008

Reviewing Goldberg's book is difficult. I would argue that it is many books, written by an author with Multiple Personality Disorder. There is Goldberg the revisionist historian, Goldberg the outraged conservative child, and Goldberg the troll.

In contemporary jargon, a troll is someone who posts a taunt on a web site in an attempt to get under the skin of his opponents. His goals are to draw attention to himself and to enjoy the anger and discomfort that he arouses. The troll appears in various places in Liberal Fascism, most notably in the title and the cover art, which shows a smiling face with a Hitler mustache.

The outraged conservative child is tired of being blamed all the time while his liberal sibling gets away with everything. He writes (p. 118)

In the liberal telling...there are only two perpetrators of official misdeeds; conservatives and "America" writ large...one will virtually never hear that the Palmer raids, Prohibition, or American eugenics were thoroughly progressive phenomena. These are sins America itself must atone for. Meanwhile, real or alleged "conservative" misdeeds--say, McCarthyism--are always the exclusive fault of conservatives...[Liberals] feel no compulsion to defend the inherent goodness of America. Conservatives, meanwhile, not only take the blame for events not of their own making...but find themselves defending liberal misdeeds in order to defend America herself.

The outraged conservative child probably helped motivate Goldberg to write the book, and the troll could serve to motivate more people to read the book. However, my view would be that the troll and the outraged conservative child detract from the message of the revisionist historian.

Where does fascism come from? Consider these possibilities.

(1) It comes from the personality defects of individual leaders, such as Hitler.

(2) It is a demon lurking within capitalism, which can emerge whenever there is a crisis that weakens liberal-progressives.

(3) It is the unintended consequence of liberal socialism (Hayek's Road to Serfdom).

(4) It is the desired end state envisioned by ideological theoreticians, including not only Benito Mussolini but progressives of the World War I era.

Too many people fall back on (1), which in my view reflects the fundamental attribution error. For example, the best-selling novel The Kite-Runner depicts a Taliban leader as the stereotypical schoolyard bully grown up. The banality of evil. No ideology or connection with Islamic theology to see here. Move along.

Instead of accepting (1), Goldberg treats fascism as an ideological phenomenon. He tries to debunk (2) while drawing attention to (4).

The most effective chapter is "Woodrow Wilson and the Birth of Liberal Fascism." Goldberg catches Wilson, Herbert Croly (the founder of The New Republic), Walter Lippmann, and other famous progressives of the World War I era with their hands in the fascist cookie jar. They preferred efficient government to democratic government, undertook severe repression of dissent (on p. 117, Goldberg writes "Hard numbers are difficult to come by, but it has been estimated that some 175,000 Americans were arrested"), and saw a need for the ordinary individual to be manipulated, educated, and constrained by an elite cadre aiming for national greatness. Above all, they saw war and military conscription as a positive force for molding citizenship and speeding the pace of progress.

Should today's Left be held accountable for the errors and excesses of the Wilsonian era? Perhaps not, but in that case John Hope Franklin should not hold white Americans accountable for the errors and excesses of our history.