OPINION:
Louisiana Gov. Huey Long, Democrat and Depression-era populist, predicted in 1935, “When fascism comes to America, it will come under the guise of anti-fascism.” This prophecy is coming true before our eyes.
This year, Democrats are calling everyone who disagrees with them a Nazi or a fascist while facilitating evil.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz charges that President Trump is “a fascist to his core.” Former Vice President Kamala Harris agrees. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the silver-tongued Rep. Jasmine Crockett, who calls Mr. Trump a “Temu Hitler,” are among the Democrats who have twisted reality to reach the preposterous conclusion that the twice-elected president of the United States is Der Fuhrer.
Not just Mr. Trump but also his supporters are smeared in this ugly fashion.
President Biden warned that “MAGA Republicans” are “a threat to democracy,” during a 2022 Independence Hall extravaganza eerily reminiscent of the 1930s Nuremberg rallies, with its lurid lighting.
Charlie Kirk’s assassin wrote on one of his bullet casings: “Hey fascist! Catch!” Like Kirk, fascists were famous for their eagerness to debate critics.
As a clone of Adolf Hitler, Mr. Trump fails miserably. The president never tried to sabotage the democratic process, unlike Democrats, who worked to keep his name off the ballot in several states in 2024 and used lawfare to keep him off the campaign trail. Mr. Trump doesn’t ignore the courts, unlike his predecessor, who proceeded with student loan forgiveness after the Supreme Court told him it was unconstitutional.
Unlike so many other of our recent presidents, Mr. Trump kept his oath of office by securing the border, after 6.7 million entered illegally under Mr. Biden.
By declaring antifa a major terrorist organization, Mr. Trump is moving decisively against a gang that poses the same threat to America that the brownshirts did to Weimar Germany.
Antifa goons attack police and immigration officials, beat opponents and turn our cities into war zones. Another leftist insurrection was the 2020 riots (20 dead, $2 billion in property damage), which the president’s critics either ignored or applauded.
The left is following a script that was written in the 1930s, when communists started calling their opponents fascists and presenting themselves as the only alternative to fascism.
In reality, the two ideologies are first cousins. Both reject capitalism for a planned economy. (Not for nothing were the Nazis called the National Socialists.) Each believed the interests of the individual must be subordinated to the collective.
Italy’s fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, declared: “Everything within the state. Nothing outside the state. Nothing against the state.” President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a liberal icon, admired Il Duce until Mussolini became an ally of Hitler.
Mr. Trump wants to reduce the size and scope of government. He wants less taxes and regulation and more private control of the economy, the very opposite of fascism.
So, the MAGA crowd are Nazis, huh? Nazis who support private ownership of firearms? On coming to power, Hitler confiscated guns from his enemies. Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15”) would have made a great Gauleiter.
I’m afraid the left has us dead to rights.
We’re Nazis who want less government, Nazis who believe parents should control their children’s education and Nazis who support Israel and abhor antisemitism. Hitler would have had us expelled from the National Socialist Party.
The Nazis and communists weren’t polar opposites but rather rival gangs that started from the same premises.
Democrats think conservatives are fascists because they don’t understand fascism and never understood us.
We are the true heirs of Democrats such as Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson and Harry Truman. The most visible Democrat in America today is socialist candidate for New York mayor Zohram Mamdani, a Marxist who wants to “globalize the intifada.”
Democrats have become the party of statism, group rights and lawlessness, while conservatives remain true to the principles of the Founding Fathers.
At a memorial for Charlie Kirk, Erika Kirk said she forgave her husband’s killer. Fascists are all about forgiveness.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom says immigration enforcement agents act like the Gestapo. Last week, a gunman shot up a U.S. immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Dallas, killing one detainee and wounding two others. Assaults on ICE agents are up more than 1,000% over the same period last year.
If they had any decency, Democrats would stop the insane name-calling. Loose accusations of fascism are getting people killed.
• Don Feder is a columnist with The Washington Times.
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