Thomas Zimmer: 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.

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

To be very clear: I am not criticizing “the Left,” which doesn’t exist as a monolithic bloc. My issue is with this specific camp, and as much as they like to pretend they do, they really don’t represent “the Left.” In fact, they hate lefties who disagree with them at least as much as “the Libs.”

Always thusly

I need this on a t-shirt.

I've considered myself a leftist all my life, but folks in this crowd won't engage with my arguments, preferring slander me as neolib, a shitlib, whatever. they REALLY enjoy their narcissistic ranting.

I've had people on *here* saying that Stalin was right to tell Communist parties the world over to not treat the fascists and Nazis as the imminent deadly threat they were and just focus on denouncing their social democratic rivals ('social fascists'). Like, the Nazis were VERY bad for leftists.

Yes. I am definitely way out on the left on many positions (I think the goal should be completely open borders, for example) but get called a shitlib anyway because I don’t toe the “liberals are the enemy” line.

I also find the worst offenders to be straight white men who have strong disdain for any analyses that acknowledge gender or race or sexuality. Which is, in the parlance of our times, a tell.

🎯

Eventually, a "left" that strives for an authoritarianism have been resulting in some of the worst examples of how to run a country. It feels like fundamentalism in the economically left political spectrum.

The only time 'the left' ever ran this country, it fixed egregious labor problems, and made the country stable and without bank panics for 70 years; till liberals decided to throw all that away. And the left President was so popular they had to change the constitution to get rid of him.

They are not serious people

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.

I hope these kind of people suffer greatly for their fuckery.

I find it very frustrating because while imo this tweet is basically true (liberal deflection) and liberalism has much to answer for, it is now unfortunately up against something much much worse. It's a bit hopeless.

This is also the guy who wrote the "Q Anon has a point" article

I have a friend who REGULARLY points out this inability to correctly analyze the real enemy is what led to the rise of Hitler in Germany.

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