A Basketball Player, Not a Brawler

(More thoughts inspired by Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism)

Terror became an official government policy in the French Revolution. World War I gave birth to Fascism. Mussolini quit the Socialist Party to become a leader in the pro-war movement. American interventionists such as Woodrow Wilson, John Dewey, and Walter Lippman, like Mussolini, came from leftist perspectives.

Mussolini's thinking had undergone a subtle change. Socialism was predicated on the Marxist view that "workers" as a class were more bound by common interests than nationality. But Mussolini was more interested in creating a national socialism. After being defeated by the Socialist Party in a November election, he moved fascism from socialist to populist. "Direct Democracy and nationalization of industry and banking were two of the main planks of the Fascist agenda. The populists sought to expand the scope of government in order to help the little guy." Sound familiar?

Like Obama, Mussolini was a pragmatist, "constantly willing to throw off dogma, theory, and alliances whenever convenient." (Rev. Wright, Bill Ayres, Tony Rezko: I hardly knew ye!) Like Obama, Mussolini's main governing themes were expediency and opportunism.

So far, though, we have not seen nationalism or thuggish force emphasized by Obama. Mussolini turned to thuggish nationalism with enthusiastic violence. Obama is a basketball player, not a brawler. He seems to enjoy apologizing to the world about America. Mussolini promised to restore pride and order. Obama promises "hope and Change."

After he became prime minister of Italy, Mussolini "never conceded the absolute authority of the state to dictate the course of the economy. He nationalized industry, or "regulated it to the point where the distinction was hardly a difference." This is what Rush Limbaugh so brilliantly has been warning us to watch out for about Obama.