Along with the book’s title and cover, the degree of focus on Clinton may well have been the work of editors or publishers with driving up sales among a presumed right-wing readership on their minds.īut the more interesting material, partly because it will be less familiar to most readers, is Goldberg’s discussion of the historical roots of fascism in Europe, and the parallels with what were going on in the United States at the time.

This is unsurprising considering the book’s publication date of 2007, when it was widely assumed that she would be the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee the following year. Hillary Clinton – although she deserves plenty – comes in for a perhaps somewhat disproportionate share of that criticism. While Goldberg doesn’t spare those on the right when their worldview or actions stray into fascist territory, and near the end of the book admits that “we are all fascists now” (a provocative statement that may not make much sense unless you read through to that point), his explicit aim is to expose the historical roots of fascism on the left, and show how echoes of those roots remain with us in the politics and methods of liberal leaders in the present and recent past. The author’s sympathies are clearly with the right wing of American politics, and he candidly admits as much.

This is not to say there’s nothing partisan about Liberal Fascism. This is not the literary clickbait it might appear to be at first glance, but actually a well-researched work that contains a lot of interesting information and provides an insightful and I think for the most part accurate synthesis of that information. If an Internet troll who decided to take his habit of posting annoying memes on social media sites were to take his efforts to the next level by writing and publishing a book, it might well look something like this!īut the old saying about not judging a book by its cover applies here, as I discovered when curiosity led me to begin reading it. It’s an inflammatory title, not helped by the lurid red book jacket highlighting a bright yellow smiley face with a Hitler mustache drawn on it. The full title of this book is Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning.

Liberal fascism by jonah goldberg