Jonah Goldberg seems a little peeved that his yet-to-be-published book, Liberal Fascism: The Totalitarian Temptation from Mussolini to Hillary Clinton, isn’t being taken more seriously.
In an NRO item yesterday, Goldberg defends his forthcoming book as “groundbreaking.” Goldberg seems genuinely disappointed that his critics haven’t been “thoughtful” enough in their analyses. He told Tim Noah that the book is “a very serious, thoughtful, argument that has never been made in such detail or with such care.”
I suppose this shouldn’t come as a complete surprise. Every few months, a far-right writer will publish an inflammatory screed, give it an over-the-top title intended to be provocative and offensive, and then express dismay at the reaction. “This is a book of powerful ideas and intellectual vision,” they say. “Why won’t the left engage in serious debate?”
It happened with Ramesh Ponnuru’s The Party of Death, Dinesh D’Souza’s Enemy at Home, and now with Liberal Fascism.
Part of me suspects this would be frustrating. A writer pours a considerable amount of energy and resources into a book, hoping that it will spur conversation and debate.
But Goldberg seems confused, I’m afraid, about reasonable expectations. As Matt Yglesias explained, “The book is in no way intended to be a serious commentary deserving of serious responses from serious liberals.”
Is it fair to dismiss an unread, unpublished book like this? Actually, yes.
Consider: The cover image is a smiley face with a Hitler moustache drawn on it. The subtitle is The Totalitarian Temptation from Mussolini to Hillary Clinton. The publicity material states clearly that “LIBERAL FASCISM will elicit howls of indignation from the liberal establishment–and rousing cheers from the Right.” Everything about the book, in short, suggests that it’s just meant to poke liberals in the eye in order to provoke howls of rage that will, thereby, garner higher sales on the theory that all conservatives really care about is pissing off liberals. Which is fine, if that’s what Goldberg wants to do.
But, obviously, if you make it clear that you’re not interested in a serious discussion of the issues at hand you’re not going to generate a serious discussion of the issues at hand. I’ll note for the record that Sherri Berman makes a provocative argument about the relationship of fascism to contemporary social democracy in The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europe’s Twentieth Century, although she does so specifically in the context of arguing for what I would regard is an exaggerated account of the distinctiveness of social democracy from liberalism.
Goldberg has been around politics for a long while; he’s not naïve. Writing a book called Liberal Fascism is not about challenging ideological rivals to scholarly debate about policy and philosophy. Comparing Hillary Clinton to Mussolini is not serious. Putting a Hitler mustache on a smiley face is not serious.
Frankly, we’ve all seen this game before. Regnery publishes a screed, Heritage & Co. push it onto the best-sellers list, serious people ignore what is obviously a shallow polemic, and National Review whines about the reaction.
Must we go through this every few months?