“Fascism,” of course, is the verbal f-bomb of politics. As it’s most commonly used today, it’s an inflammatory insult, a rhetorical flame-thrower’s delight. It’s a virtual knee to the groin, a condemnatory epithet, the ultimate slur, shorthand for “You are a subhuman cretin who is beneath contempt.”
The word “fascism” once had a reasonably objective definition (more on that below) but it has been used so often as an emotive vilification that few people have a clear sense of what fascism originally meant. In his comprehensive description of the sadistic labor camps in the USSR, “The Gulag Archipelago,” Alexander Solzhenitsyn explained the historical corruption of the word.
Solzhenitsyn tells us that “fascist” first became a pejorative term in the Soviet Union. The Communist Party branded everyone a “fascist” who wasn’t on board with Comrade Stalin’s plan for global socialism under the control of the Soviet Politburo. This started with the true fascists, such as Hitler and Mussolini, who were condemned for favoring national socialism over global socialism, and for clinging to the un-communist notion of national independence.
But then the word became a term of scorn for all the opponents of worldwide communism—even individuals whose values and policies had little in common with the Fuhrer and Il Duce. Thus, everyone from the pope to atheists such as Ayn Rand, American political leaders ranging from George McGovern on the left to Ronald Reagan on the right, and mortal enemies like the president of Israel and the ayatollahs of Iran, have been lumped together under the denunciatory label “fascist.”
In short, “fascist” means “non-communist.” What does that say about Biden now that he has taken to using the political f-bomb to malign his political opposition? Of course, Biden left himself some wiggle room by saying “semi-fascism.” (Maybe Hillary Clinton should have said “semi-deplorables” when she felt like doing some venting several years ago.) Now, Biden can say that he didn’t really call Trump’s supporters “fascists,” but I suspect he hopes that the stench and stigma of that ugly word will cling to Republicans.
Which of our two main political parties comes closer to meeting this definition?
When it comes to a “forcible suppression of opposition,” it’s Biden and his party that have tried to intimidate Americans into silence by characterizing parents who object to public school policies as “domestic terrorists.” It’s Biden’s party that has leaned on the social media companies to silence debate on vital issues like climate change and COVID-19 vaccinations, and often succeeding in censoring those who dissent from the progressive agenda. It’s the left that has sought to “cancel” conservatives and turn them into what were known as “non-persons” in the Soviet Union.
In short, Biden’s attempt to verbally tar-and-feather MAGA conservatives and populists with the “fascism” slander seems to be a case of projecting his party’s own tendencies onto his political opponents. I suppose one could retort to Biden’s baseless “semi-fascist” mud-slinging by saying that since it has been communists who have led the way in using “fascist” as a term of disgrace and disdain for their opponents, then maybe Biden is a semi-communist.
But let’s not go there. Let’s break away from any disgusting contest to see who can administer the most hurtful or damning verbal insult to political opponents. We need to ratchet down the corrosive emotionality in our political dialogue.
The way I prefer to look at the contest between Biden and progressives on the one side and Trump and MAGA Americans on the other is this: The most important political question is whether government policies protect or suppress liberty. All anti-liberty ideologies and movements—communism, socialism, fascism, progressivism, environmentalism—are opposed to liberty; therefore, they are literally illiberal.
Let’s all forswear the use (actually, the misuse) of the political f-bomb. Let’s have a grownup conversation about whether governments are protecting the rights of all impartially, or instead suppressing them via illiberal policies.
