Thanks for a much more enlightening interview than I expected. Of course Goldberg is being tendentious, but he (and Koppelman) are to be commended for taking Mussolini seriously. It's a dim liberalism that can't engage with a conservative critique, and fascism deserves a fresh look. When you think of the other leading conservatives who just make shit up, Goldberg seems to be worth the wrangle.

I wonder what Jonah Goldberg thinks of Howard Zinn as a revisionist historian.

"These trans-national elites, the Davos crowd who really want to get beyond issues of sovereignty so they can organize and guide the planet on issues like global warming, invest a lot more in the U.N."

Yeah, really. And especially the WTO, a transnational organization that infringes on the sovereignty of nations under threat of economic retaliation. That one's a real threat, too.

"I think that you do have nationalism percolating up in the form of left-wing economic populism, the John Edwards branch of liberalism, which is for raising trade barriers..."

Wait, so Goldberg's against transnational organiztions, but against raising trade barriers? So then I guess he's against the WTO, but for... the WTO? Wait, I'm confused.

I'm not sure that anyone would mistake Mr. Goldberg for someone with a towering intellect.

At first I was intrigued by Goldberg's premise, that American liberalism and fascism share a common ideological thread because both freely use state programs to solve problems, as he puts it, holistically. I became less convinced as the interviewer showed over and over how Goldberg cherrypicks by dismissing examples of similar control exerted by the American right as merely "right wing progressivism," ie not really right wing at all. In reality, the political schema that Goldberg proposes, where political camps are tied together by their lust for holistic control, explodes normal notions of was is right and left wing. Goldberg seems too enamored with the traditional right wing to admit this: that certain factions both right and left have a meager heritage owed to totalitarianism.

Why are assholes like this given credibility? This is the man who was hired to replace Bob Scheer. Ths Ann Coulter version of a man (sorry-to call him a man is to demean adulthood), has contributed "what"? Is he credible because he has a name? What's next, Hannity and Limbaugh on the seriousness of their rants? Why not interview Limbaugh for his books?

It is very sad that a person such as this and his perverse ideas, which are nothing more than right wing conservative hatred, is elevated soley because of the neo totalitarian climate that finally is beginning to recede. That Bill Kristol, who has been remarkably wrong spectacularly about everything, and has been one of the architects of so much pain, is given space at the Times is another indication of this sickness. Goldberg is a captain in this army of madness.

Shame on Salon for giving this drivel even a modicum of respect.

An interesting analysis. The question that comes to my mind is, if it's incorrect to describe ultra-right orthodoxy as fascism, then what meaning _should_ we ascribe to the term 'far right'? I would surmise from reading this article (I haven't read the book, and I agree with Jonah that the shallow blogosphere in which I'm right now participating could stand a little edification) that Jonah would describe the far right as those folks who put laissez-faire free market principals at the center of their moral universe. That certainly seems to fairly accurately describe a large swath of the US Republican party, at any rate.

The usual argument against such thinking, which I agree with, is that pure unrestrained capitalism quickly leads to vast social inequality and a society in which political power derives to only the very few people at the top of the pyramid. It's a positive feedback loop which creates political structures completely out-of-whack with foundational constitutional principals. You know, that old-fashioned "all men are created equal" kind of thing. So would Jonah say the US constitution is a fascist document?

I think the big problem with the left vs. right dichotomy which completely dominates political discourse is that it presents an oversimple view of political, economic, and moral structures which describes all positions as beads on some kind linear string. If it were up to me, I would banish the words "left" and "right" from such discourse altogether.

I'm a Ron Paul libertarian myself, and here's why. The libertarian ethos addresses the totalitarian tendancies of pure capitalism without resorting to nanny state doctrines. It's quite simple, really. As Jonah quite rightly puts it in this interview, the proper role of the state is to protect us from each other. Your right to swing your fist stops at my nose, etc. It's well within the precepts of such a philosophy to believe the state should be responsible for restraining excessive abuses of power, to level gross economic inequality, and to otherwise take the rough edges off of a capitalist economy.

I'm afraid, though, that our political discourse has been so dumbed down by our incessant "left" and "right" name calling that the damage done to our collective minds won't be undone for generations. People just don't get it. This election cycle at least we're doomed to elect yet another nanny or another Wall Street whipping boy. Bah.

To read interviews with Doughy Loadpants, in which DL is treated like a normal person.

What, are you trying to make Camille Paglia look acceptable?

And I think the same thing applies to the radicals in the 1960s; quoting the Port Huron Statement doesn't really change what the radicals did in the streets when they were actually fighting, when they were blowing things up, when they were supporting the Black Panthers, who wanted to assassinate police, when they were taking over universities.

To act as though the Weather Underground enjoyed vast liberal support goes beyond mendacity into outright slander. It's equivalent to equating the conservative movement with the Timothy McVeigh militia types, or the Branch Davidians.

The Panthers only had a modicum of support on the left fringe, and then only because of Malcolm. Even so, it's not as though Malcolm was the darling of the left, in the way Dr. King was.

Others have noted that Goldberg cherry-picks his anti-left blood-libel. I think it's just as important to point to the true genesis of modern American liberalism. Susan B. Anthony, Dr. King, John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, and Barbara Jordan are but a few of our real ideological ancestors. And they cribbed their philosophy from the likes of John Stuart Mill and Bertrand Russel, not Mussolini and Marx.