Milton Friedman once said that the “society that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither”. He was right.
Aspects of liberalism go against the grain of human nature. It requires you to defend your opponents’ right to speak, even when you know they are wrong. You must be willing to question your deepest beliefs.
You must accept the victory of your enemies at the ballot box, even if you think they will bring the country to ruin.
Milton Friedman said he was a classical liberal and the article is written at least nominally from the perspective of a "classical liberal" and does say that the "Trumpian right" poses an even more dangerous threat than the "illiberal left".
"Classical liberals" in the modern era are neoliberals and can safely be considered as conservative even if they aren't a fucked up american conservative. Don't buy into the american political rhetoric that "conservative" and "liberal" are the polar opposites. In fact, the use of "classical" here is precisely to distinguish it from that twisted american notion of "liberal" which more closely represents social-democrat. Whereas is any other country, a liberal would be understood as an opponent of social a democratic policies.
I understand that Friedman can be considered a conservative and that some older conservatives used the term "classical liberal" for themselves. So then are you saying that neo-liberalism is the fighting organization, fascism? That doesn't sound right since MAGA is easily distinguished from neo-liberalism and in fact demonizes them. They're at least two different wings of fascism, right? Or is that to say the theory allows space for more than just two wings of fascism: moderate and fighting? Would neolibs be a different third wing of fascism? If you were to divide fascism into just those two wings, it seems neo-liberalism would fall under the moderate social democracy wing, just a really paltry social democracy in comparison to more left-leaning social democrats. I'm a noob, so this is a genuine question.
You are to earnestly trying to categorize these groups as coherent ideologies that both understand themselves and their relation to each other. None of these groups are "wings" of other groups. Instead consider the primary class constituency of each groups and their material interests. For whatever ideology those groups profess will bend to those interests. MAGA would be petite bourgeoisie, while neo liberal is grande/haute bourgeoisie, and social Democrats, generally, are skilled labor.
The whole "social democracy is the moderate wing of fascism" was just rhetorical polemics, and shouldn't be earnestly taken as theory. It connotes that because social democrats invest in the bourgeois electoral system, they will support it in a time of crisis. Capitalism in crisis will often resort to fascism therefore, social demorats, while having nothing ideologically, in common with fascists will end up supporting them.
Hmm that's not actually how I was thinking. But this makes a lot of sense. Thanks for working through all of this with me.
I think my point is there are no "wings" of fascism. Just many different ideologies that will become fascist under certain conditions. Fascism isn't so much a coherent ideology but a set of behviours.
Hmm, where does this view of fascism come from? Is that the Bolshevik view of fascism? It seems unique to me. I'm basically on board with the first two sentences, but the last sentence I would push back on. For starters, that view of fascism is essentially the starting point for how people argue that Anti-Fa is actually fascist. I would say it is precisely what is in their heads that make Anti-Fa not fascists and the Proud Boys fascists. If you look at Umberto Eco's writing on fascism, it describes it as more of a psychological or ideological phenomenon.
This is the "fascism is capitalism in crisis" explanation of fascism, which is from Lenin (edit: he probably didn't say this himself. More likely the Bolsheviks just attributed it to him). The "antifa is actually fascism" argument is done by striping their behaviors out of context.
It sounds like your being dogmatic or orthodox here. Hate to sound like a lib but you gotta think for yourself sometimes. That's what all the great revolutionaries did.