Entitlements: can’t live with them, can’t live without them. While 20-year-old rich kids on college campuses whine that the government doesn’t do enough for them, Dinesh D’Souza’s Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party reveals that the government, specifically Democrats, want to do exactly what a government is supposed to do-- and more.
How Democrats are taken seriously as they preach freedom and equality while simultaneously moving further toward government-controlled discrimination is evidence of the left’s gift for revising history to fit their agenda. Therefore, it should come as no surprise they’ve managed to make many Americans forget or disregard the progressives’ alliance with fascism.
As D’Souza points out, however, the reality is quite simple, when you realize that fascism is what helps make entire groups of people completely dependent on government. Take Franklin Delano Roosevelt, for example. His administration and the greater progressive movement took from the European fascists their charismatic leadership style and propaganda, among other things.
Modern progressivism also fit quite neatly into fascist ideals, including killing off those seen as “useless” or “undesirable” and the fascist economic policy of creating entitlements for Americans and then using that to justify government control. After World War II when fascism was seen for what it really is, they rejected forced sterilizations and outright racist immigration policies, but as we see from Planned Parenthood’s targeting of poor and minority women, the racism and killing is still alive and well.
Despite this, leftists today argued that progressivism is what saved capitalism, which proves it to be superior. D’Souza argues that is not the case, that it was capitalism that thrived because of the failure of progressive policies that were offered up in an attempt to undermine capitalism.
Though most would point to FDR as a bastion of American fascism, there’s a 2016 presidential candidate with their own fascist streak. And it’s not Donald Trump.
It may seem extreme to call Hillary Clinton a fascist given the controversy and rampant misuse surrounding the term, but she has proved time and time again to fit that label. Not only is she in favor of creating more government programs which will ultimately leave minorities, then everyone else, subject to state control, she’s even used her “defense of children” to advocate for a mass expansion of state control.
2016 is no doubt a difficult year for many Americans. Political polarization seems to be at an all-time high, and a disdain for the status quo has led to an election where people are finding it easier to vote for a specific person rather than the issues they care about. This is why the leftist association with fascism is so dangerous. In times of great tumult is when a country is most vulnerable, and leftists are more than willing to seize this opportunity. As stated in Hillary’s America, “fear, entitlements, and state appropriation...the three defining features of fascism, continue to inspire progressives today.”