@bretweinstein Re: Ep. 330, What Is Fascism?
Spoiler: It's Communism.

Remember a few years ago when we were all arguing "does this whole left-right spectrum even mean anything?" bc conservatives were just as up in arms about Trump as liberals, and yet Trump was so popular on "the right," so other than leaping to "fascists," one had to question, what exactly is "right wing?"

Strongly recommend you read Curtis Yarvin/Mencious Moldbug/Neo-Reactionary theory to get the big picture, but Michael Malice will tell you, short and sweet: Conservativism is just Progressivism driving the speed limit. True, but you may be asking, "In what universe?" People loosely recalled it was noted in the first French democratic parliament that liberals sat on the left, "conservatives" on the right. What was less noted was that specifically, those on the right... were kinda happy with the king and generally accepted the previous status quo, while acknowledging its issues. They wanted as little to change as possible, and would've been content to restore the monarchy, but preferred not to get beheaded by Antifa there. So, democracy it is. This is only part of the puzzle though.

The other big part is remembering that "Nazi" was short for National Socialist party. Fascism has much more in common with Communism, and is not "right wing" in almost any way but one. Recall that the Marxist telos of Communism was that one day, "workers of the world would unite" against the bourgeois. Once Communism took hold in one country, it was to spread across the globe. Thus Russian Bolsheviks spread the ideology to all their neighbors in the bloc, and continued to pursue its spread through the Cold War. (Mensheviks being the Conservatives of Russia, btw.) But German Nationalists had no such intention. Yes, they wanted to fuse corp control w/ the gov as you mentioned - so did the Communists. But the Nazis cared nothing for spreading this method of governance across the globe, they just cared about efficient gov... for Germans. This was about taking care of themselves.

What do the first right-wing French congressmen and Nazis have in common? Patriotism. Russians and other Communists have no patriotism, and you harp about it in every episode. The hard left destroys our own culture, invents new identities, destroys existing ones, in an effort to form a globalist empire. You, and Trump, and MAGA, have noticed the dangers of this Globalist ideology. It's just Communism by a different name, and seeks to employ fascist governance techniques to achieve it.

So how is MAGA NOT Fascist? Because it's only, purely, right-wing. Patriotism, plain and simple. America First. That's all. It has more Libertarianism in it than traditional Conservativism, though it is not ideologically Libertarian (as the LParty is, which is why they're incoherent and never win elections, lol). And if you love your country more than others, well, you're standing in the way of globalism, aren't ya? Btw, ever notice that "One World Government" is just a Russell Conjugation of "Total Global Domination?"

Put on your Ultra-Patriot Hat and use your theory of mind to assume this definition of "right wing," and re-evaluate the previous examples.

• French Rev lefties distrusted their right-wing bc they had a "democracy is inherently, objectively, morally better system than monarchy" bent, and the right-wing was insufficiently caring about the exact structure and method of governance, so long as France retained its French character. Including things like respecting Louis XIV, Charlemagne, brie, etc. The right-wing stood in the left-wing's way, incidentally. There's another historical pattern you see: Lefties never know when to quit. The job is never done. Only in Progress.
• Recall that post-WWI, Germany was absolutely neutered, and they saw the western powers, lead by the UK and US, forming a global empire all around them. They smelled it in the air, saw how the League of Nations had dismembered them as punishment for WWI (which itself was a global diplomatic mess to begin with), and were afraid of the idea of Germany losing its character and identity. Totalitarian governance seemed like an effective vehicle for change, and Hitler's early relationship with Russia was rather warm, he admired their governance strategies, at first. But as the years went on and they continued making eastern bloc countries into vassal states, Hitler realized his days were numbered and Communism did not jive with National Socialism. Thus his relationship with Stalin weakened and eventually broke.
• For that matter, how come we don't talk enough about how cozy FDR got with fucking STALIN? No, not weird? When you consider that Globalism is just Communism with some frosting on it, you can see that they have their leftism in common, FDR also admired Stalin's governance. His New Deal was a much gentler approach to do the same thing: EXPLODE the size of government, and take a LOT of new responsibilities on. It just wasn't as totalitarian. You might even call it "Conservative Communism." But clearly FDR and Stalin had a lot more in common with each other than they did with Hitler. Their core agreement, was noticing that Germany was too content to stay Germany, and not assimilate into a global utopian government. You might also remember that extermination of the Jews was sorta, not mentioned, in American news until like, late 1945.
• On that note, let's acknowledge the elephant in the room: Yes, Hitler was racist. I'll come back to that, but here I want to mention that, per Thomas Sowell, Jews make great scapegoats around the world. They're a diaspora, they are foreigners everywhere they go, and they go everywhere. They also have more loyalty to each other than to the local host country (not to make them sound like parasites). This makes Globalism both an easy fit for left-leaning Jews to adopt, and something equally easy to accuse right-leaning Jews of secretly being. Their global distribution paired with their loyalty to each other makes for a de facto "global" patriotism. From this frame, it's easy to see why Hitler would see them as being spies and saboteurs for the the global order that was actively hemming in and deracinating Germany. It also doesn't help their case that Jews tend to be high IQ with good work ethics and thus typically rise to roles of prominence in their host societies, which lends to their being suspect of betrayal. I'm not buying sympathy for Hitler, nor selling hate for Jews, just describing the lay of the land in game theoretic terms. Even if some German Jews were actively globalist, by definition it couldn't have been all Jews, but that's how fear and noticing of real conspiracies can lead to over-reaction and broad brush racism.
• One more weird "noticing" thing. Remember that footnote that after American Revolutionaries pushed the Brits out of the colonies, that "many people's" first instinct was to name George Washington as... king? King, really? Didn't we just have an entire friggin' WAR because we wanted "No Kings?" And yet, plenty of Americans were content to name their own king! Monarchy was apparently not so repulsive to them as far as a structure of government back then, I guess. How did it get that way? Hm. There's something inherently liberal, inherently left-wing, about democracy. It seems to have stolen authority from the few, to distribute it evenly among the many. It's sorta like, the political Communism to Monarchy's... not-Communism. Once the authority is redistributed by force, isn't it inevitable that the people would want to redistribute... everything else? By force? Is this "Progress?"

Now with our new definition of "right wing" meaning more like "patriotism," especially in contrast to Communism or "globalism" (soft Communism), let's review the bullets on the Ur-Fascism Hypothesis, and notice how it was clearly written by a leftist. Let's recap all the points, from a right-wing perspective.

1. Cult of Tradition - Appreciating your own country's heritage? Is that so bad? Sounds like plain Patriotism to me. The description here of course takes it further out, to suspicion of science and research, fear of modernism. There's a reason for suspicion here, and it should be generally accepted by this audience. That is that the dedicated leftists shooting for global utopia are known, KNOWN, to use tactics like invading and taking over elite institutions, particularly university systems, and using them as propaganda outlets, changing the culture through Newspeak, gatekeeping, etc. Look at Evergreen University. Look at Science and Nature magazines, "peer review." This is what Bret and Heather call "Goliath," Moldbug calls this "The Cathedral." They noticed this real conspiracy. As such, is it so unreasonable to be skeptic about academics? I argue no, while acknowledging there comes some line where it crosses into paranoia, and we need to be equally cautious about that.
2. Rejection of Modernism - Need I repeat myself?
3. Cult of Action for Action's Sake - The description elaborates something entirely different: Distrust of Intellectuals. Again, see #1.
4. Disagreement is Treason - Fascism, as a National Socialist (or Patriotic Communist) ideology, is all downstream of democracy. Consolidating democratic power leads to things like totalitarian rule in order to accrue and maintain power. If you can't simultaneously and uniformly lie to the entire populace successfully, then you just need to set up camps to get everyone in line, be they Concentration Camps or Gulags, you need to make scapegoats. Granted, there are monarchs who have done this too, but let's not pretend it's unique to monarchy. I think this point was written as it was just to deflect guilt from the leftist author's position, it's projection. Regardless, it is imperative to question where loyalties lie. Where does Goliath's loyalty lie? It wouldn't seem to be to the American people. And if you're MAGA opposed to Globalism, well then you're a treasonist, aren't ya? To the J6 gulags with you, no trials! Point #4 needs to be disregarded out of hand as a uniquely "fascist" identifier, everyone's guilty of it.
5. Fear of Difference -> Inherent Racism - Is it racism, or is it patriotism, to notice people not of your culture are living among you, and some have stronger loyalties to other states and peoples than the one you share? It's only racism when coincidentally the groups line up along genetic lineages. I stress, "coincidence." Because the way any government would purge or contain its treasonous saboteurs is identical, group identification need not require lineage or color, the treatment will be the same. See how many Frenchmen the democratic Revolutionaries beheaded? See how many Russians were purged by Stalin? Were they not treated as if they were Jews in Hitler's Germany? The "racism" is a coincidence.
6. Appeal to Frustrated Middle. Again, this feels downstream of democracy to me. People don't vote through logic, they're easier to steer in an appeal to emotion. Seasoned democracy-enjoyer turned monarchist, Napoleon Bonaparte, knew this when he said “A man does not have himself killed for a half-pence a day or for a petty distinction. You must speak to the soul in order to electrify him.” The poor are upset with their lot and know they can't do anything about it; the rich are content with their lot, obviously. Who else will you appeal to? The people who almost or feel like they could do something about it are the juiciest target, this is just a Schelling point, not something inherently fascist. Why do you think Goliath gives lipservice to fighting for the poor, then spends even more effort giving a leg up to LGTBQ+!%JU activists? This isn't unique to Fascism.
7. Obsession w/ a Plot, I'll let Bret & Heather's comments on that stand, they summed it up nicely.
8. Enemies Too Weak/Strong, Condemned to Lose Wars. Hitler certainly lost his, but was it due to being unable to accurately gauge the strength of his enemies? Or was it because leftists don't know when to quit? From a right-wing perspective, preserving your people, your culture, your nation, are your end goals. Establishing borders, maintaining your internal character, having a stable government and national peace - clearly definable goals - you win. Admittedly, there's overlap with the goals of fascism there, but fascism employs totalitarian ideology socially to retain democratic power, and uses a government-controlled economy to achieve its goals, which has oversights that eventually undermine it. A command economy under the Nazis eventually lead to them oops running out of food, which was the original impetus for Hitler to call up Stalin and raid the bread-basket between them. It wasn't because Hitler wanted to spread German culture to Poland, much less take over the world, he thought they unGerman trash. You could cry "racism" there too, but then explain to me why he would trust Italy and Japan as allies? It was because they were patriotic, specifically, anti-Globalist. Declined to join the "International Community." You see why patriotism is so reviled by liberals? Communism, and all softer forms of it including democracy, never feel satisfied until they achieve One World Government. That's why Conservatives always wanted to BRING FREEDOM!!1 to all these Third World nations. That's why Communism wouldn't be content just in Russia. This is why American liberals need to make sure the fucking CONGO AND UGANDA are accepting of homosexuality. That's how America won its independence. King George's goal was to simply quell the rebellion. Once Washington's armies fled to Valley Forge, the leftist Brits at home (the Whigs, coincidentally also an American party?) told King George to consider that a win and pack up, especially considering how many of the rest of the colonists weren't resisting the Redcoats. That condemned the right-wing Brits to losing that war, not "gauging the strength of their enemies incorrectly." It was treachery by Whigs who wanted to see the monarchy weakened. 150 years of "Progress" later, neutered monarchy in hand, it was time for globalist British democracy to absorb Germany.
9. Life Is Struggle - Isn't it though? Also Progressives have no business pretending they're pacifists. See Iraq, Ukraine, and Uganda.
10. Contempt for the Weak - His description is just sour grapes for hierarchy, bc it's antithetical to Communism, which is an appeal to emotion to justify stealing from the haves to redistribute to the have nots. It's not about compassion, it's an excuse to obtain power.
11. Heroism, Honor, Pro-Death - Seems more right-wing than Fascist, or Patriotic than Communist.
12. Machismo - "Toxic Masculinity" lol
13. Individuals Have No Rights - Bret notes this is too general, and misunderstands what leadership is historically. 100%
14. Newspeak - Goliath

In the end, Fascism = Communism + Patriotism. Don't confuse them.