Max’s Dad: Ernst Thallman and his Communists thought the bigger enemy was Weimar, rather than Hitler. He ran for President of Germany in 1932, took 10% of the vote which helped weaken Hindenburg and Von Pappen - and ended up dying in Buchenwald for his efforts.

There it is: A position completely untethered from empirical evidence, as ridiculous analytically as it is dangerous politically, propagated by anti-liberal leftwing intellectuals who are solely animated by their disdain for “the Libs” and have abandoned any regard for accuracy.

I wrote about a this particular camp of prominent leftwing academics who are allowing their singular, disdain-driven focus on (neo-) liberalism to completely distort their perspective on the Right and on politics in general: thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/the-anti-l...

The Anti-Liberal Left Has a Fascism Problemthomaszimmer.substack.com Prominent leftwing intellectuals are allowing their singular, disdain-driven focus on (neo-) liberalism to completely distort their perspective on the Right

That’s also why this camp of leftwing intellectuals is stubbornly refusing to engage seriously with the fascism argument and the radicalizing tendencies on the Right. Their overriding concern is a political struggle against what they believe is the real enemy: The (neo-) liberal elites.

In their view, Liberals are using the “fascism” bogeyman as a way to distract from their own culpability; to discipline the Left into accepting a popular front under liberal leadership; to reinvigorate the (neo-) liberal project by conjuring fears of the ultimate evil.

To them, the fascism talk is intended to make people flock to the liberal cause; to expand power by using tyrannophobia as a way of entrenching liberal rule. It’s all just liberal dishonesty, self-exculpation, and self-aggrandizement that needs to be opposed aggressively.

The problem is that their devotion to this anti-liberal struggle has led them to propagating positions that are completely untethered from what is happening on the Right – sophistry in defense of a premise that is utterly at odds with empirical evidence. thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/the-anti-l...

The Anti-Liberal Left Has a Fascism Problemthomaszimmer.substack.com Prominent leftwing intellectuals are allowing their singular, disdain-driven focus on (neo-) liberalism to completely distort their perspective on the Right

Ernst Thallman and his Communists thought the bigger enemy was Weimar, rather than Hitler. He ran for President of Germany in 1932, took 10% of the vote which helped weaken Hindenburg and Von Pappen - and ended up dying in Buchenwald for his efforts.

Exactly. Once in power, hitler made sure to take out the far left.

The official Comintern line from I think 1924 was that there was no significant difference between social democracies and fascism, and thus they denounced social democrats as social fascists. They did that until the Nazis eliminated the KPD, at which point Stalin decided popular front was the thing.

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