The Other F-Word and Tents in the Wilderness
I was reminded yesterday why it is that I never fell in for the popular Ron Paul, younger generation hype by watching his CPAC address. Overall it was a good speech, full of thought provoking suggestions and interesting analysis. I suppose the other reason that I didn’t fall in for Paul is that I often times don’t agree with his take on things. It seems to me that Paul provides an interesting flavour on foreign affairs, both military and economic, but that at core he is one of those folks who wants to run away into the past and I just don’t find that option to be very compelling. There are, of course, other elements of Ron Paul’s analysis that don’t mesh well with me, but by and large I can respect where he’s coming from. Which is why it always makes me roll my eyes when Paul gets to this part of his speech,
“We now have moved a major step in the direction of socialism,” Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.) said Friday, adding: “We are close to a fascist system where the government has control of our lives and our economy.”
Boom, just like that you’ve lost me. And frankly, you’ve probably lost a goodly portion of any audience who aren’t automatically primed to hoot, cheer, and applaud at any and every portion of your speech. Call this the reverse Godwin’s Law of political speech writing, but the more consistently a politician refers to either side of the political spectrum advancing their agenda as the steady march of American society towards a fascist state, the closer that politician’s likelihood of building a broad base of support that could conceivably govern as diverse polity as America approaches zero. In other words, saying that this development or that development in American politics means that America is on the brink of becoming a fascist society is an excellent way of ensuring you don’t ever get taken as seriously as you need to in order to have a major impact on said society.
Granted, Ron Paul has his supporters, so I’m not trying to argue that he’s a nothing when it comes to American politics. For goodness sake, he’s a US Congressman and was one of the most talked about Republican candidates for president in 2008. But the Ron Paul movement never seemed to materialize in anything truly significant and some of the people who should have at least been inclined to support, if not vote for, a libertarian leaning Republican like Paul whose analysis I trust, people like Will Wilkinson and Daniel Larison couldn’t bring themselves to do it. Why is that?
Well, there were lots of reasons, but one of them, which I think speaks to the problems inherent with serving up “fascism” throw-ins when addressing an audience is that doing so ultimately undermines the larger point that you’re making by giving in to incendiary, if not perhaps sometimes well-intentioned, rhetorical devices. I mean listen, Ron Paul’s comments and warnings about the slow creep of government intrusion are in fact important points to raise. The tendency for Canadians to, by many accounts, tacitly accept that part of government’s role is to define the terms of what is and is not acceptable through regulation and stunt the moral development of individuals as a result is something I’ve written about vociferously in other venues. But to then point your quivering finger and label that fascism is just a step too far for me and for most people.
A lot of the reasoning for that is, I think, that we have a sense of what a truly fascist society looks like from past examples, we have a good sense about the kind of cruelty and suffering that go on in those societies, we have an understanding of the moral toll that the existence of such societies have on us as a whole. So when you have anyone from either the left or the right, and both sides do cry wolf in this way, sounding off about the impending fascistic overthrow of a country like America, well it’s more than just hard to take that person seriously, it’s somewhat offensive that said person would choose to utilize a word that carries so many historical connotations in such a cavalier manner.
What’s more, from a strategic angle, you actually tend to hurt the ideas you’re promoting more than help them. When the majority of people hear someone making arguments that throw back to the fascist argument in what the average individual would take to be an inappropriate context, the logical conclusion is to assume that that person is not altogether with it in their analysis, that the person occupies a space on the fringe of political and social discourse and is not to be taken seriously. That same person might tell you that it doesn’t really matter what certain people think of her or him because what they’re saying needs to be said.
Fair enough, but the problem there is that their message is simultaneously getting degraded along with them by the very fact they are the one delivering it. Over enough time, people like Ron Paul actually do harm to the very message they seek to spread by letting their grandiose rhetoric actually undermine them with audiences that aren’t already dyed in the wool. And sometimes, on rare occasions like with some of Ron Paul’s content, those message are actually pretty important and doing anything to degrade them by way of association with unnecessarily flagrant rhetorical abuses is something that needs to get called out.
This, I think then, ties in to part of the trouble that some are currently identifying with many conservative and Republican spokespeople. Whether you’re talking about Ron Paul floating the fascist epithet, Rush Limbaugh talking about wanting Obama to fail, or the in many ways fascinating Joe the Plumber phenomenon, there is the palpable concern that conservative message itself is increasingly being degraded due to its formulation around incendiary articulation. Again, which is not to say that any of those figures are lone wolves by any stretch. As with Ron Paul, Rush Limbaugh hosts an extraordinarily popular and well-listened to radio program and is a highly influential individual within the conservative movement. Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher has literally captured the imagination of millions of Americans and has become an instant household name for conservative principles. But all of that notoriety doesn’t necessarily make thos individuals the best spokespeople for their movement in a phoenix moment.
Often times those levling the loudest complaints against Limbaugh or Wurzelbacher are not liberals and progressives, happy to have perceived punching bags to hit back towards atonement for their felt transgressions, but other conservative voices themselves who want to see a conservative movement emerge from this time of in the wilderness stronger than ever and see the direction that these figures intend on taking said movement as the parenthetical opposite to such a goal. So it’s not as though those arguments can simply be chalked up entirely to partisan rancor, there is something more going on here.
Of course, this is the definitive challenge around the generation and maintenance of a political movement: how do you coherently house the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Andrew Sullivan under the tent of conservatism? Because like it or not, they both represent significant branches of thought about what needs to happen next and a movement that chooses to cast either side out dismissively isn’t really doing the job of being a movement.
Not surprisingly, I’m inclined to identify with those sounding the alarms in this regard. Incendiary commentary might be good red meat in venues like CPAC, but it’s no foundation upon which to build a movement.
(Of course, that sword cuts both ways and goes double for people like Andrew Sullivan. Shouting “christianist” on the blog through which you’ve spent years building a loyal following might be cathartic, but if you actually want to affect some kind of meaningful change within conservatism then yiou’re going to have to grow up and let the angles of your better nature — and stronger analysis — lead the way.)
(h/t: on Ron Paul speech – David Adesnik @ Conventional Folly)
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16 comments
Sigh. Contra Jonah Goldberg, fascism was explicitly anti-communist. You only have to go to the historical, written record of the original Italian fascists, the guys who started it all, and see again and again that they defined themselves through their opposition to communism. It’s just a historical non-starter; the fact that someone can write a best-selling book propagating the idea that a definitionally anti-communist ideology is in fact a form of socialism just tells you how about how little intellectual rigor there is in our world.
One thing to remember about fascism is that it was a false ideology, by which I mean that it didn’t have any actually intellectual content behind its fear mongering and nativism. So the term can be thrown around recklessly with little heed for content because there just isn’t any content there. This isn’t to say that ideologies with real intellectual underpinnings have to have value; bolshevism and Objectivism are “true” ideologies in the sense of having an intellectual underpinning and philosophical content. But the point is that, because fascism never really meant much of anything besides hatred of communists, Jews, liberals and foreigners means that the appellation can be lobbed without any basis in reality.
That sigh was meant for Ron Paul, by the way, Scott, not you.
Great post, Scott. I’ve been meaning to write something similar to this for awhile now, mainly because I get incredibly annoyed when Republicans blithely assert that Western Europe or Canada have lapsed into some sort of dystopian socialist nightmare. I mean, life is pretty good over there. I may have my quibbles with the European approach, but it’s a hell of a lot better than most of the alternatives.
Freddie: I figured, but thanks for the clarification.
I think, as I mentioned, that insofar as we do have real life examples of fascist states and societies, intellectual underpinnings or no, we can engage in the work of calling folks like Paul out for their misappropriation of the word.
But you’re quite right, it does get bandied about without any basis in reality, which is part of why it is one of the few litmus tests I use in evaluation where someone is coming from.
As a Canadian, let me assure everyone that we are not living in a dystopic socialist nightmare. In fact, I should have a post up talking about the Canadian “socialized” medical system and why for all its flaws it makes a certain kind of sense to me (my cultural heritage aside).
Thanks for the kind words, Will.
I very much agree with this post, Scott. One thing that’s been on my mind a lot lately has been that people like Limbaugh on the Right, or Moore on the Left are perfectly fine as long as you view their role solely in the sense of “speaking to the choir,” or acting as a sort of de facto party “whip.” I’d still find them distasteful, to be sure, but the fact is that type of role is an essential element to American politics, serving to “rally the troops,” as it were. The trouble is, though, that at some point it was decided that Rush, Hannity, etc. not only spoke “to” the Right – they actually spoke “for” the Right. But they never exactly changed their speaking style to fit this new role (nor should they – they’re paid entertainers who get paid more the more their names are in the paper). In the case of Ron Paul, I think you could make a good argument that his abuse of the term “socialism” came in the context of a political event where his purpose was not much different from that of a talk show host, ie, he was just supposed to rally the troops, not persuade the unconverted masses. Still, it’s not as if Ron Paul is unique in overusing the “socialism” accusation of late, a practice that I have found deeply disturbing and counterproductive because it utterly deprives the word of any meaning. In applying the word to just about every government intervention, it has the same effect as the Boy Who Cried Wolf.
@Freddie: The thing is that socialism and communism are not the same thing. While I probably have my share of problems with Goldberg’s book, his thesis really isn’t all that new except to the extent that he likely uses an exceedingly broad definition of socialism. Road to Serfdom, written somewhat contemporaneously by someone with a first-hand view of the rise of fascism, did not use such an overly broad definition, but makes a compelling argument that fascism is the outcome of socialism. But as I said, RTS uses a fairly specific and narrow definition of socialism that is much closer to the original meaning of the word; it explicitly did not take the position that a social safety net was socialism as defined therein, as I presume Goldberg largely does. This is a pretty important distinction.
Freddie: Re-reading your comment, I think my response makes more sense if you substitute “fascism” with “totalitarianism.” You’re right that the term “fascist” has become utterly meaningless.
You raise some good points, and the answers are impossible to see at this point. I see the GOP drifting off into total irrelevance as they follow the blowhard wing of the Party over the cliffs of their own undoing. And good riddance. The wilderness will either gobble them up or make them stronger. I am hopeful of new reforms that blend a savvy understanding of the political realities, with a healthy respect for localism and community, an area that conservatives can make major headway in…
With tens of millions of voters on record in a landslide Democratic year, I doubt very much that the GOP is bound for total irrelevance, it will remain relevant to a substantial portion of the country and the electorate come what may. But the question is whether Republicans are willing to refine their party so as to maximize their eventual resurgence towards their view of the greatest possible good for the country a la Cameronist Toryism (not with the same recipe, but the same willingness to blend different flavours).
I still feel like there is more potential in a reformed GOP with visionary conservative minds like Poulos, Larison, Douthat, Salam, Friedersdorf, Brooks, Buckley, Sullivan, and even older vanguard like Will and Noonan’s at the table. Can you imagine what an unstoppable force a GOP like that would represent?
Might even be enough to make Freddie switch sides ;)
One last point for the night (I hope). One of the few things that I find nearly as irksome as the abuse of the word “socialism” is the tendency of some of my fellow libertarians and of conservatives to bash Canada and Europe as socialist hell holes, even though by most measures, Canada and Europe actually have as good or better economic freedom than the US due to less restrictive licensing laws, less bureaucratic red tape for forming and maintaining a business, etc. The near-obsessive focus on tax rates as the be all and end all of economic liberty has never made any sense to me whatsoever.
Largely agree with what everyone has said–including the stupidity of calling Obama a fascist.
One quibble with what you said though Freddie (and this is NOT a defense of fascism by any means) but it did have an intellectual element. It was not a false ideology in the manner in which you define the term.
Fascism is corporate government rule. The essential merging of corporations with government and government as ruling through national industry corporations. Mark has a point in saying that socialism is not communism as Fascism was a form of right-wing or nationalistic socialism whereas communism is global/trans-national socialism (at least in ideology if not in practice from Stalin on). Democratic socialism or social welfare democratic states being an entirely alternate reality (contra Jonah Goldberg). Point Will and Mark.
That corporatist element of the fascist ideology only appealed (not surprisingly) to the upper industrial elites so Freddie is right that Fascism gained local support through Brown Shirt-ism, anti-Communism, anti-Semitism, political religious revivalism of the soil, blood, and power. In that sense, a false empty ideology.
The corporatist link alone is what allows someone (who ought to know better) like a Michael Ledeen to say that China (officially Communist Capitalists) are Fascists. Or really diluted and slightly crazed what Goldberg and Paul mean in calling corporate liberalism in this country soft-fascism.
But there is a light years worth of difference between protected national industries or even in favored ones, ones that have excessive political influence/connections (i.e. financial sector in the current Democratic Party) and from there to corporate socialism. The farthest I would go in labeling that is what Arnold Kling is calling progressive corporatism. Which again is not fascism, whatever commonalities of corporate power there may or may not be.
Fascism is a fully loaded word, triggering a mind set consisting of fear and loathing (and not just in vegas, but probably especially in vegas :). Ron Paul bandied the word about, but in his defense, he did only state that the U.S. ‘is close to a fascist system’.
The decay of the U.S. is and has been somewhat apparent to many observers. Corruption and lax social mores crop up intermittently throughout the many layers of society, from the lawmakers and bankers to the legions of union workers. As Sally from Peanuts says… “all I want is what’s coming to me, all I want is my fair share”. Unfortunately, the human condition creates a myopic version of ‘our fair share’, in that our fair share has to be larger than another’s. Sadly, many children grow into adults who never appreciate this nugget of truth.
Obama is stepping into a parenting role to a wayward and troubled citizenry. “Toughlove” is only one weapon in his arsenal, complemented with a bribe of unbelievable proportions to ensure the population sticks it out and shoulders the burden of recuperation and restoration. Most people will not give up their fair share unless their peers also suffer the loss of same (see “chump”), so as long as someone “gets theirs”, by golly, so too will every Tom, Dick or Harry continue to rightfully claim “theirs”. How can Obama achieve true change without changing a vast majority of “me first” attitudes? And how can the alteration of that mindset truly come to pass without even a nod to fascism?
Answer me this.. you are free to choose but ONLY if you pay. Is this freedom in your mind?