Jonah Goldberg’s book, Liberal Fascism, does a great job untangling the false intermingling of fascism and Nazism, and the false distance between fascism and communism.

Italian fascism was quite popular in the US. Before the Nazi’s wreaked their havoc fascism was not the dirty word it became. Jews were not persecuted by the Italian fascists until Italy became a Nazi puppet in 1943. There were Jews involved in the Italian fascist movement before WW II. Franco in fascist Spain did not persecute Jews.

Hitler was not as true a fascist as Mussolini. In fact, early on, Mussolini hated Hitler and considered the Aryans inferior to the Italian heritage. Hitler was just interested in fascism as an idea to unify his followers. He would adopt or change any idea or loyalty if it increased his power.

While Nazism and fascism are often (wrongly) considered kindred spirits, they are considered antithetical to communism when in fact they are very similar. Fascism, Nazism and Communism are all totalitarian offshoots of socialism. They share more fundamental similarities than differences.

How do we explain their antagonism? Writes Goldberg, “One of the great ironies of history is that the more similar two groups are, the greater the potential for them to hate each other.”

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