This doesn't undercut Steve's main point, but it does provide some nuance: among those who were positive towards fascist strongmen in the 1930s was none other than FDR. Indeed, he modeled the National Industrial Recovery Act in part after Mussolini's policies.
And Hitler returned the compliment by patterning his policies on laws in the Jim Crow South and promoting the pseudo-scientific theories of eugenics that were being advanced throughout the elite classes of American society.
Moreover, Mussolini started as a Marxist. Lenin called Mussolini "my best student." He couldn't get socialism through in Italy and so he switched to fascism. But fascism a la Mussolini was, at its root, socialism.
Good piece. It took me a minute, but I remember Steve’s columns for the Tribune when I lived there in the nineties. Good to see you still writing, Steve.
I like the commenters ignoring the substance and dutifully parroting the "no but the left" mantra that we were all taught is an appropriate substitute for thought. If the question is "why" the authoritarians took over, even as their presence may have been a continuity rather than an aberration, the willingness of their useful idiots to excuse every possible excess with half-imagined grievances about girls with blue hair certainly is a contributing cause.
Your points are all valid but lately the left has been embracing true fascism - partnerships between big business and government - to a great extent. I think it is likely that the public views Trump as less fascist than the average leftist politician.
And the Left has become more authoritarian with violations of Free Speech / 1st amendment abounding.
The Left are projecting liberalism but enacting authoritarianism and the public has started to see through it. This is the main reason Trump has become so popular.
The current Republican movement is a reflex against the excessive overreach of the Democrats of the last few terms. Action / reaction. It's as simple as that. The Liberals have themselves been in authoritarian territory for some time. Trump isn't responsible for his own popularity. The people choosing him are, and the people have had enough of the Government overreach.
Does the Left sound like they have restraint and moderation? They've utterly ruined Western economies en masse, have censored free speech, lied to the public and removed freedoms that were previously thought to be unshakable.
Nice try haha: "It's the evil liberals and Democrats that made me vote for Trump". Just keep telling yourself that to ease your conscience for enabling a real authoritarian movement in this country.
The "people" you speak of have no problem with government overreach, they're all for it when that government harms their perceived enemies. Someone who truly believes in limited government would be crazy to vote for Trump in 2024. Well, anyone would be crazy to vote for Trump in 2024, but that's a whole 'nother discussion.
Like most people these days, I don't think you understand what an Authoritarian is. You're wearing goggles that are blinding you from reality.
"Liberals" around the world in many countries locked down the population against their will. They coerced them into taking experimental shots that didn't work as advertised. Heck, they didn't work AT ALL. They have censored free speech and violated human rights en masse. This was all sold as "conspiracy theory" for 3 years but is now documented and proven factual.
And THIS is why all of those same countries are now seeing a backlash against the Left.
This isn't just an "American, Trump" problem. The Left has overstepped their bounds in trying to enforce a global elitist agenda, it has been laid bare and the public is now fully aware of it and is lashing back.
This is why you are seeing "Liberal" governments around the world being overturned by Conservative governments. South America, Central America, Europe...everywhere.
You need to open your eyes and look past your CNN / NYT /NBC propaganda news channels or you're missing the big picture.
Or, just stay wilfully ignorant because your party tells you to. That always works well.
Um, someone in this conversation is wearing goggles that are blinding them, that's for sure! The illiberal Right specializes in projection these days so these accusations are predictable.
Governments switch from liberal to conservative and back again all the time in functioning democracies, so that's really no big deal when we're talking about normal conservatives. The "conservative" governments I think you're talking about however, i.e. illiberal nationalist governments, are going to overreach even worse, because any criticism of them, even if valid, will be derided as fake news which will make them incredibly unreceptive to the needs of their citizens. Which unfortunately is the reason they attempt to weaken democracy in order to stay in power. The pendulum does swing the other way eventually anyway, take a look at Poland for example.
Just do me a favor please: if you're an American citizen, can you please vote for RFK Jr. in November? Take a look at his platform, I think you'll like it!
Oh, I like RFKs platform. I just don't think Democrats will let him win.
My "conservative arguments" are not "conservative arguments". They are facts of history.
The mandates imposed around the world by "LIBERAL" governments have been protested and overturned.
The injections of experimental drugs that were purported to be "safe and effective" were neither as safe or as effective as they were sold to be.
The Biden administration is guilty of violating the first amendment in suppressing truths about the pandemic and pushing lies.
The Biden administration is guilty of violating the 1st amendment in suppressing truths about the Hunter Biden Laptop to alter the outcome of the 2020 election.
And the Fake News is hiding all of this by not reporting on these things in appropriate measure.
There is NOTHING you can compare that the Right has done in recent years that looks authoritarian in comparison.
This pendulum swing by the Right is going to hit hard. The general public is aware of all of this and is hitting back. It's going to be a bloodbath in politics, and it's about time. The Liberals of today are not the Liberals of yesterday and they need to get smacked down for all the evil they've done in the last few years. Everything else pales by comparison.
Really? It's just the evil Democrats that will keep RFK Jr. from the throne in an election he would obviously win otherwise? Please clear the fog from your goggles! The Right, at least in America where a psychopath is their cult leader, knows they can't get a majority to support them and therefore will continue weakening institutions and the rule of law in order to try and gain power and govern as a minority. Everything else flows from there.
All the supposed leftist crimes who mentioned have been reported on extensively, there's no cover up. Also, they aren't crimes either, that's the fake news part. I can't really argue with someone who thinks the vaccines were completely ineffective or even harmful, that is so far outside the bounds of reality. I'll give Trump credit here, the vaccine rollout was his greatest accomplishment as president. Unfortunately for him, he can't brag about it because his own voters hate the vaccines.
The only bloodbath, unfortunately, will be the result of right-wing terrorists trying to get their way when they lose the next election (elections are only rigged when your side loses apparently). It will be Jan 6 all over again, only worse.
I wonder why you people keep voting if the Dems and the media are just going to steal the election anyway. Just do us all a favor and stay home next time.
The reason the Left won 2020 is for the same reason the Left accused Trump of winning 2016, ironically. Election interference.
The election WAS stolen, but not by the methods that most have suggested.
You cannot have a free and fair election without an independent and free press. And over the last few years, the majority of the press was captured and has been controlled by the Left.
SO MUCH SO, that Biden is in the Supreme court for violating Free speech laws and the 1st Amendment and therefore manipulating public perception.
This is no small thing. In fact, this should be the greatest thing being discussed.
The Left, by capturing the majority of media have shaped what they call truth and influenced voters.
The Left has been caught red handed suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story and the pandemic narrative, BOTH of which affected people's votes. Who here thinks Biden would have one if the Free press was actually reporting truths rather than fabricating them? Laughable.
And check yourself sir. I did NOT say the vaccines did nothing. What I said was that they were not as safe or as effective as we were told they were. In fact, they were so ineffective that they had to CHANGE THE DEFINITION OF THE WORD IMMUNITY in September of 2021 to accommodate them, otherwise they wouldn't be called vaccines.
We were told they would stop transmission. Now we know for certain they never did. Stop the spread, remember? lol
We were told they were safe. Now we know for certain that there are severe consequences from them in far greater number than were led to believe.
The right don't hate vaccines. You're moving the goal posts. What the right hate are the blatant, clear lies of the Left. They hate that the Left pretends to be pro-choice, but forces it's ideology on everyone. They hate that when openly caught lying, there is no accountability for the open and brazen lies.
Trump had many great accomplishments, but the Left will do their best to make sure nobody will hear about them. His speech to the Arab nations in promoting the Abraham Accords is one of the greatest Anti-terrorism speeches in political history. Most have never heard it.
His ability to get Saudi Arabia's blessing for an independent Palestinian state was no small thing. I know, I've studied the Middle East for years.
It was completely buried in the media, covered with Trump smears and obliterated by Biden's administration...and here we are fighting an unnecessary war because of it.
And yes, Democrats will do the same to RFK as they have attempted to do to Trump and have done to Bernie.
I am a long time, personal friend of Bernie's campaign manager and what they did to Bernie, by burying his popularity, by manipulating the media they also did to Trump and will do the same to RFK.
The left are caught red handed and it's on display for everyone to see, and THIS is why the people are up in arms and voting for Trump. They've had enough.
The "right wing" response is simply a strong RE-action to an incredibly authoritarian push by the Left to steamroll over everything in an unprecedented manner, and I use "right wing" in quotes, because all of these pushbacks would have been done by the Left 50 years ago.
We've never seen anything like this "Liberal" movement, and I use "Liberal" in quotes because it's the opposite of true Liberalism. It's a sprint towards slavery.
The left have lost their minds and don't realize it.
Why, why, why? This is the question that neither the book nor your article seems to answer. Given that there has always been a strain of authoritarianism on the right, why do they now control the party? Obviously the mere existence of that strain or faction is not enough, otherwise they would have controlled the party from the beginning. So what changed? What is the cause? Plus I think the issue is larger than presented. This is not a trend to authoritarianism limited to the US. It is everywhere. Look at Europe. I suspect that the failure of the conservative defense of a free society has been revealed to be bankrupt by its inability to answer the challenges presented by a culture dominated by subjectivist ideas that extend to denying the sex differences between men and women. If there are no facts only emotions, then politics is about gaining power to enforce your views.
This doesn't undercut Steve's main point, but it does provide some nuance: among those who were positive towards fascist strongmen in the 1930s was none other than FDR. Indeed, he modeled the National Industrial Recovery Act in part after Mussolini's policies.
And Hitler returned the compliment by patterning his policies on laws in the Jim Crow South and promoting the pseudo-scientific theories of eugenics that were being advanced throughout the elite classes of American society.
Moreover, Mussolini started as a Marxist. Lenin called Mussolini "my best student." He couldn't get socialism through in Italy and so he switched to fascism. But fascism a la Mussolini was, at its root, socialism.
Left wing authoritarian. Right wing authoritarian. At the end of the day it’s all illiberalism. And they tend to look a lot alike.
Good piece. It took me a minute, but I remember Steve’s columns for the Tribune when I lived there in the nineties. Good to see you still writing, Steve.
I like the commenters ignoring the substance and dutifully parroting the "no but the left" mantra that we were all taught is an appropriate substitute for thought. If the question is "why" the authoritarians took over, even as their presence may have been a continuity rather than an aberration, the willingness of their useful idiots to excuse every possible excess with half-imagined grievances about girls with blue hair certainly is a contributing cause.
Your points are all valid but lately the left has been embracing true fascism - partnerships between big business and government - to a great extent. I think it is likely that the public views Trump as less fascist than the average leftist politician.
Correct.
And the Left has become more authoritarian with violations of Free Speech / 1st amendment abounding.
The Left are projecting liberalism but enacting authoritarianism and the public has started to see through it. This is the main reason Trump has become so popular.
The current Republican movement is a reflex against the excessive overreach of the Democrats of the last few terms. Action / reaction. It's as simple as that. The Liberals have themselves been in authoritarian territory for some time. Trump isn't responsible for his own popularity. The people choosing him are, and the people have had enough of the Government overreach.
Right, because authoritarian regimes are known for their restraint and moderation.
Does the Left sound like they have restraint and moderation? They've utterly ruined Western economies en masse, have censored free speech, lied to the public and removed freedoms that were previously thought to be unshakable.
Nice try haha: "It's the evil liberals and Democrats that made me vote for Trump". Just keep telling yourself that to ease your conscience for enabling a real authoritarian movement in this country.
The "people" you speak of have no problem with government overreach, they're all for it when that government harms their perceived enemies. Someone who truly believes in limited government would be crazy to vote for Trump in 2024. Well, anyone would be crazy to vote for Trump in 2024, but that's a whole 'nother discussion.
Like most people these days, I don't think you understand what an Authoritarian is. You're wearing goggles that are blinding you from reality.
"Liberals" around the world in many countries locked down the population against their will. They coerced them into taking experimental shots that didn't work as advertised. Heck, they didn't work AT ALL. They have censored free speech and violated human rights en masse. This was all sold as "conspiracy theory" for 3 years but is now documented and proven factual.
And THIS is why all of those same countries are now seeing a backlash against the Left.
This isn't just an "American, Trump" problem. The Left has overstepped their bounds in trying to enforce a global elitist agenda, it has been laid bare and the public is now fully aware of it and is lashing back.
This is why you are seeing "Liberal" governments around the world being overturned by Conservative governments. South America, Central America, Europe...everywhere.
You need to open your eyes and look past your CNN / NYT /NBC propaganda news channels or you're missing the big picture.
Or, just stay wilfully ignorant because your party tells you to. That always works well.
Um, someone in this conversation is wearing goggles that are blinding them, that's for sure! The illiberal Right specializes in projection these days so these accusations are predictable.
Governments switch from liberal to conservative and back again all the time in functioning democracies, so that's really no big deal when we're talking about normal conservatives. The "conservative" governments I think you're talking about however, i.e. illiberal nationalist governments, are going to overreach even worse, because any criticism of them, even if valid, will be derided as fake news which will make them incredibly unreceptive to the needs of their citizens. Which unfortunately is the reason they attempt to weaken democracy in order to stay in power. The pendulum does swing the other way eventually anyway, take a look at Poland for example.
Just do me a favor please: if you're an American citizen, can you please vote for RFK Jr. in November? Take a look at his platform, I think you'll like it!
Oh, I like RFKs platform. I just don't think Democrats will let him win.
My "conservative arguments" are not "conservative arguments". They are facts of history.
The mandates imposed around the world by "LIBERAL" governments have been protested and overturned.
The injections of experimental drugs that were purported to be "safe and effective" were neither as safe or as effective as they were sold to be.
The Biden administration is guilty of violating the first amendment in suppressing truths about the pandemic and pushing lies.
The Biden administration is guilty of violating the 1st amendment in suppressing truths about the Hunter Biden Laptop to alter the outcome of the 2020 election.
And the Fake News is hiding all of this by not reporting on these things in appropriate measure.
There is NOTHING you can compare that the Right has done in recent years that looks authoritarian in comparison.
This pendulum swing by the Right is going to hit hard. The general public is aware of all of this and is hitting back. It's going to be a bloodbath in politics, and it's about time. The Liberals of today are not the Liberals of yesterday and they need to get smacked down for all the evil they've done in the last few years. Everything else pales by comparison.
Really? It's just the evil Democrats that will keep RFK Jr. from the throne in an election he would obviously win otherwise? Please clear the fog from your goggles! The Right, at least in America where a psychopath is their cult leader, knows they can't get a majority to support them and therefore will continue weakening institutions and the rule of law in order to try and gain power and govern as a minority. Everything else flows from there.
All the supposed leftist crimes who mentioned have been reported on extensively, there's no cover up. Also, they aren't crimes either, that's the fake news part. I can't really argue with someone who thinks the vaccines were completely ineffective or even harmful, that is so far outside the bounds of reality. I'll give Trump credit here, the vaccine rollout was his greatest accomplishment as president. Unfortunately for him, he can't brag about it because his own voters hate the vaccines.
The only bloodbath, unfortunately, will be the result of right-wing terrorists trying to get their way when they lose the next election (elections are only rigged when your side loses apparently). It will be Jan 6 all over again, only worse.
I wonder why you people keep voting if the Dems and the media are just going to steal the election anyway. Just do us all a favor and stay home next time.
The reason the Left won 2020 is for the same reason the Left accused Trump of winning 2016, ironically. Election interference.
The election WAS stolen, but not by the methods that most have suggested.
You cannot have a free and fair election without an independent and free press. And over the last few years, the majority of the press was captured and has been controlled by the Left.
SO MUCH SO, that Biden is in the Supreme court for violating Free speech laws and the 1st Amendment and therefore manipulating public perception.
This is no small thing. In fact, this should be the greatest thing being discussed.
The Left, by capturing the majority of media have shaped what they call truth and influenced voters.
The Left has been caught red handed suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story and the pandemic narrative, BOTH of which affected people's votes. Who here thinks Biden would have one if the Free press was actually reporting truths rather than fabricating them? Laughable.
And check yourself sir. I did NOT say the vaccines did nothing. What I said was that they were not as safe or as effective as we were told they were. In fact, they were so ineffective that they had to CHANGE THE DEFINITION OF THE WORD IMMUNITY in September of 2021 to accommodate them, otherwise they wouldn't be called vaccines.
We were told they would stop transmission. Now we know for certain they never did. Stop the spread, remember? lol
We were told they were safe. Now we know for certain that there are severe consequences from them in far greater number than were led to believe.
The right don't hate vaccines. You're moving the goal posts. What the right hate are the blatant, clear lies of the Left. They hate that the Left pretends to be pro-choice, but forces it's ideology on everyone. They hate that when openly caught lying, there is no accountability for the open and brazen lies.
Trump had many great accomplishments, but the Left will do their best to make sure nobody will hear about them. His speech to the Arab nations in promoting the Abraham Accords is one of the greatest Anti-terrorism speeches in political history. Most have never heard it.
His ability to get Saudi Arabia's blessing for an independent Palestinian state was no small thing. I know, I've studied the Middle East for years.
It was completely buried in the media, covered with Trump smears and obliterated by Biden's administration...and here we are fighting an unnecessary war because of it.
And yes, Democrats will do the same to RFK as they have attempted to do to Trump and have done to Bernie.
I am a long time, personal friend of Bernie's campaign manager and what they did to Bernie, by burying his popularity, by manipulating the media they also did to Trump and will do the same to RFK.
The left are caught red handed and it's on display for everyone to see, and THIS is why the people are up in arms and voting for Trump. They've had enough.
The "right wing" response is simply a strong RE-action to an incredibly authoritarian push by the Left to steamroll over everything in an unprecedented manner, and I use "right wing" in quotes, because all of these pushbacks would have been done by the Left 50 years ago.
We've never seen anything like this "Liberal" movement, and I use "Liberal" in quotes because it's the opposite of true Liberalism. It's a sprint towards slavery.
The left have lost their minds and don't realize it.
What do we do now?
Why, why, why? This is the question that neither the book nor your article seems to answer. Given that there has always been a strain of authoritarianism on the right, why do they now control the party? Obviously the mere existence of that strain or faction is not enough, otherwise they would have controlled the party from the beginning. So what changed? What is the cause? Plus I think the issue is larger than presented. This is not a trend to authoritarianism limited to the US. It is everywhere. Look at Europe. I suspect that the failure of the conservative defense of a free society has been revealed to be bankrupt by its inability to answer the challenges presented by a culture dominated by subjectivist ideas that extend to denying the sex differences between men and women. If there are no facts only emotions, then politics is about gaining power to enforce your views.
Obamism begot Trump
Trumpism begot Biden
Bidenism begot…lest he be barred from office, literally…
Get ready for Veep vs Idiocracy…both being based on a true story
Gotta run on. My dogs got the remote control. Peace through superior mental firepower.