Leftists

[Dill]

(08-23-2017, 01:00 PM)Vlad Wrote: Would it have made you feel better had the word been "nationalist" rather than "fascist"?
It shouldn't.
Remember that "nationalism" to leftists is as evil as fascism or Nazism...just because the ambition to make their country great again is attributed to both Hitler and Trump.
There were many great world leaders who were nationalists but certainly not fascist.
Incidentally, the left has just succeeded in creating another bad word..."nationalist" to add to their list of bad words...
Capitalist
Profit
American exceptionalism
Religion
Corporations
What else?

Got a bit of history here for you, Vlad. But first I would like to remind you and everyone else that I am using the term "leftist" in reference to leftists, not liberals and other right wingers you generally disagree with.  One of the signal achievements of the New Right is to get a whole generation of people calling liberals and centrists "leftists"--as if all were the the direct intellectual and ideological heirs of Marx and Lenin.  They are not.  When I speak of leftists I am referring to actual Socialists and Communists, not people who simply want to keep their social security and capitalism, or just support liberal "inclusiveness" extended to new social groups.

Now to the history: "Nationalist" has been a bad word for the real left ever since the 2nd International broke up on the eve of WWI, when so many self-proclaimed socialists suddenly spurned internationalism to return home and fight for the capitalist class in their home countries.  Your namesake, to his credit, did not.

Another bad turn in the history of the left came when Stalin began promoting "socialism in one country." I understand the reasoning behind this, the need to consolidate in the face of capitalist aggression. But this turn quickly bled into a kind of Russian nationalism which contradicted the stated principles of the Soviets.

The critique of nationalism got its biggest boost when, barely 20 years after the first international disaster, the world went to war again, driven by authoritarian nationalism.  Over 60 million dead, and mostly horrible deaths. One unbroken ruin of cities from Antwerp to Stalingrad.  Over a hundred million with debilitating wounds. The greatest disaster in human history.

So the left has not "just succeeded" in making a nationalism a bad word. Nationalism made itself a bad word for an entire century--but only for those who know their world history. And leftists are concerned at its rehabilitation via a campaign based on hatred of liberals, immigrants and Muslims and a strengthened military. George Washington wanted to "make America great" too, but those were not his policy choices.