{"id":1627215,"date":"2022-08-30T17:02:41","date_gmt":"2022-08-30T21:02:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1627215"},"modified":"2022-08-30T17:03:41","modified_gmt":"2022-08-30T21:03:41","slug":"who-are-you-calling-a-fascist-mr-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/who-are-you-calling-a-fascist-mr-president\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Are You Calling A Fascist, Mr. President?"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fwho-are-you-calling-a-fascist-mr-president%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1627215&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The other day Joe Biden <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2022\/08\/25\/biden-trump-philosophy-semi-fascism-00053831\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">accused<\/a> voters of the opposition party of turning to \u201csemi-fascism.\u201d This is probably the first time in American history a president has openly attacked the opposing party\u2019s constituents in this way. Grammatically speaking, the accusation could use a little work. What Biden probably meant to say was that 74 million Americans who voted for Donald Trump in 2020 are \u201cquasi-fascist\u201d or \u201cincreasingly fascistic.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Then again, Biden, who once <a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/blogs\/politics\/2012\/08\/vp-biden-says-republicans-are-going-to-put-yall-back-in-chains\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">alleged<\/a> that the chaste Mitt Romney was harboring a desire to bring back chattel slavery, is prone to stupid hyperbole. And it\u2019s true that most people who throw around the word \u201cfascist\u201d fail to do so with much precision.* Anyway, our president will probably further <a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Politics\/wireStory\/biden-deliver-prime-time-speech-battle-democracy-89017255\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">explain<\/a> his thinking on the matter of \u201csemi-fascism\u201d when he gives a prime-time speech about threats to our \u201cdemocracy\u201d this Thursday\u2014a week after he broke millions of existing contracts and unilaterally \u201cforgave\u201d student loans by executive decree. Biden has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/corner\/the-new-york-times-agrees-with-joe-biden-that-joe-biden-is-acting-like-a-dictator\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">engaged<\/a> in historic and unprecedented abuses of White House power. Sometimes, the chutzpah is staggering.<\/p>\n<p>These days, the word \u201cdemocracy,\u201d like \u201cfascism,\u201d has lost all meaning. According to Democrats, asking someone to show ID before voting is an attack on \u201cdemocracy,\u201d but so is the Supreme Court\u2019s <em>handing back<\/em> power to voters on the abortion issue. When you have no limiting principles of governance, anything that inhibits your exertion of power is seen as anti-\u201cdemocracy.\u201d If students have loans to be paid, \u201cforgive\u201d them. If you can\u2019t pass a bill, the executive branch should do it by fiat. If the court stops it, pack it. Power is only to be limited when the opposition holds it. When Donald Trump wants to divert money to secure the southern border, it evokes images of 1930s Germany. When Barack Obama <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2017\/01\/19\/10-ways-obama-violated-constitution-presidency\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">unilaterally<\/a> bestows amnesty on millions of newcomers, without any debate or due process, it is just and moral \u2026 and shut up racists.<\/p>\n<p>A microcosm of this confused thinking can be found in the recent spate of hysterical media pieces about alleged Republican \u201cbook banning.\u201d The use of \u201cban\u201d by the media is more than a category error, it\u2019s an effort to paint parents who use the very same exact democratic powers the left has relied on for decades as book burners. Public school curricula and book selection are political questions decided by school and library boards. Neither have a duty to carry every single volume on racial identitarianism or sexually explicit material simply demanded by some busybody at the American Library Association. We can debate whether these books are harmful or not, but it is neither fascism nor authoritarian to make those decisions.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, you\u2019re not just anti-democratic for supporting a Republican presidential candidate, you\u2019re now a semi-fascist. Henry Olson disagrees, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/2022\/08\/26\/semi-fascism-biden-maga-gop\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">noting<\/a> that:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>Classic 20th-century fascism was a political philosophy that comprehensively denounced modern liberal democracy. Fascists believed that multiparty democracy weakened the nation, and that competitive capitalism was wasteful and exploitative. Their alternative was a one-party state that guided the economy through regulation and sector-based accords between labor and business.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>It\u2019s somewhat more complicated, as most fascist regimes were also propelled by ethno-nationalism and jingoism. The left tends to confuse, or conflate, the blood-and-soil European variety with American nationalism \u2014 the kind that a few Nazis in Charlottesville embraced, but which is not even close to the predominant position of Republican voters.<\/p>\n<p>But it is the left that champions government intervention in the economy, with never-ending regulations, subsidies, and mandates that effectively allow for controlling the means of production. Leftists\u2014some incrementally, some less so\u2014are the proponents of nationalizing the health-care system, the energy sector, and education. Again, if progressives have any limiting principles when it comes to intervention in our economic lives, I\u2019d love to hear about them. <\/p>\n<p>The most vociferous defenders of \u201cdemocracy\u201d are also the ones who sound suspiciously like they want a one-party state. Modern Democrats have stopped debating policy or accepting the legitimacy of anyone who stands in their way. They will pass massive, generational reforms using parliamentary tricks, without any input from the minority. And they don\u2019t merely champion their work as beneficial, they claim these bills are needed for the survival of \u201cdemocracy\u201d and \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/08\/08\/opinion\/climate-inflation-bill.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">civilization<\/a>\u201d \u2013 nay, the survival <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/08\/01\/opinion\/can-inflation-reduction-save-the-planet.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">of the planet<\/a><\/em>. Anyone who opposes saving Mother Earth is surely a fascist. There is nothing to debate. The villainization of political opponents isn\u2019t new, but we are breaking new ground. We live in an era where a failed former CIA director, Michael Hayden\u2014the man who was on watch during 9\/11\u2014<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.in\/politics\/world\/news\/former-cia-director-said-he-agrees-with-notion-that-theres-no-political-force-more-dangerous-than-republicans\/articleshow\/93646256.cms\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">says<\/a> that he has \u201cnever come across a political force more nihilistic, dangerous &#038; contemptible than today\u2019s Republicans.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> Some may find it a bit fascist-y that the FBI feels free <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/08\/30\/zuckerbergs-admission-of-fbi-meddling-in-2020-election-is-even-bigger-than-it-seems\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">to instruct<\/a> giant rent-seeking corporations to censor news to help elect their preferred candidate. Or that the White House <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2022\/01\/30\/government-has-no-business-rooting-out-misinformation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">is in the business <\/a>of \u201cflagging\u201d \u201cproblematic posts\u201d or in the habit of threatening corporations to \u201croot out\u201d \u201cmisleading\u201d speech or be held accountable. A \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/2022\/04\/bidens-ministry-of-truth\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Disinformation Governance Board<\/a>\u201d that sifts through speech the administration dislikes or a Justice Department that treats those protesting authoritarian school boards as \u201cdomestic terrorists\u201d is semi-fascism. When Democrats challenge the veracity of election results, and rely on law enforcement and media to con the public, it is merely democracy at work. When Republicans do it, it\u2019s the \u201cBig Lie\u201d worthy of not only condemnation but state-endorsed censorship.<\/p>\n<p>The modern left, which increasingly sees the world in identitarian terms, is also the enemy of true diversity. As one of my favorites, Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, noted long ago, the progressives won\u2019t rest until the person who opposes their orthodoxy \u201clives outside the gates, or is utterly humiliated.\u201d This sounds quite familiar to anyone living in an era where the media and government work to deplatform and chase anyone who diverges from orthodoxy out of the public square. There are entire genres of journalism dedicated to helping the left circumvent debate by falsely claiming to have a monopoly on \u201cfacts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It is curious, as well, that the same people who control basically all major institutions in American life\u2014academia, media, unions, Silicon Valley, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2020\/08\/17\/902626429\/wall-streets-big-money-is-betting-on-biden-and-democrats-in-2020\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Wall Street<\/a>, trade associations, public schools, publishing, the entire D.C. bureaucracy, Hollywood, Madison Avenue, not to mention the presidency and Congress\u2014claim to be victims of budding authoritarianism. The only major institution free of progressives\u2019 grip right now is the Supreme Court. And the left is engaged in a systematic effort to delegitimize the court for doing its job and limiting the state\u2019s power.<\/p>\n<p>None of this is to say that the right is innocent. I often find myself debating the populist right on issues ranging from the free markets and the role of the state.\u00a0Abuses of the Constitution <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/2020\/05\/trumps-illiberal-fairness-doctrine\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">should<\/a> be <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/corner\/trumps-eviction-moratorium-is-state-sanctioned-theft\/\">called out <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/2020\/08\/trumps-executive-overreach-follows-in-obamas-footsteps\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">no matter<\/a> who engages in them. However, progressivism\u2019s crusade to destroy separation of powers, its attacks on religious freedom and free speech, its undermining of civil society, its binding of the economy to the state, and its fostering of perpetual dependency and victimhood, are far bigger long-term threats to the republic than Trumpism\u2014and far closer to the definition of \u201csemi-fascism\u201d than the Republican agenda. <\/p>\n<p><em>*I am guilty of this, as well. In my book \u201cNanny State,\u201d I called anyone who proposed limiting my air conditioning a \u201cfascistic monster\u201d and accused those proposing to limit soda sizes of being \u201cTwinkie fascists\u201d who wouldn\u2019t stop until we were saying \u201cSieg Health\u201d as we choked down cauliflower. But, of course, I\u2019m not the president.<\/em><\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<div class=\"article-author-description fst-italic\">\n  David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist. Harsanyi is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of five books\u2014the most recent, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Eurotrash-America-Reject-Failed-Continent\/dp\/0063066017\/\">Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent<\/a>. His work has appeared in National Review, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Reason, New York Post, and numerous other publications. Follow him on Twitter, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/davidharsanyi\/\">@davidharsanyi<\/a>.<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-comments mt-30 mt-sm-60\">\n<div class=\"article-comments-container d-flex flex-column align-items-center py-30\">\n    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"110\" height=\"106\" src=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/fdrlst-mark.svg\" class=\"img-fluid mb-20\" alt=\"The Federalist logo eagle mark\" \/>    <\/p>\n<p>Unlock commenting by joining the Federalist Community.<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/plans\/pricing\/\" class=\"btn btn-on-white\">Subscribe<\/a>  <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The other day Joe Biden accused voters of the opposition party of turning to \u201csemi-fascism.\u201d This is probably the first time in American history a president has openly attacked the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":831,"featured_media":1894469,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1627215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1627215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/831"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1627215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1627215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1894469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1627215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1627215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1627215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}