If conservatives will not defend capitalism, who will?



In the aftermath of Zohran Mamdani’s electoral victory earlier this month, it became clear that socialism is a greater threat on the left than ever before. It is also clear that the GOP could no longer coast along by proclaiming, “Vote for us because he’s a socialist,” assuming that people would forever have a knee-jerk reaction to that word.

One issue that defined New York’s mayoral race — and increasingly politics throughout the country — is affordability. For millions of Americans, affording rent, groceries, health care, and a home seem further out of reach than ever before. The issue has been winked at by politicians across the spectrum for years around election time with precious little results to show for it.

Explaining to voters why they are wrong — or even worse, outright dismissing their concerns — has never worked politically, and that is not going to change now.

We have largely reached a point where this can no longer be avoided: We are now seeing regular releases of ever-worsening economic figures. The median age for all U.S. home buyers is 59 — a staggering statistic by itself, made even worse by the fact that it is up from just 28 back in 1991.

And it is not just that people are getting priced out of home ownership — rents have gone up astronomically over the past decade, leading us to a situation in which the American consumer is clearly struggling to get by. From credit card debt at record highs with seriously delinquent accounts hitting 12%, the highest since 2012, to auto repos matching 2009 levels, it is pretty clear that the consumer is maxed out.

Looking around at how conservative pundits spent the last few weeks talking though, you would not know it at all. You would be forgiven if you thought they had just come off a huge electoral victory. Conservatism simply cannot reduce itself to being the worst caricature of cold elitism that turns a blind eye to the very real economic struggles many in the country are facing.

Ben Shapiro kicked things off after suggesting to young people that they simply should not live in places like New York City, criticizing the idea that someone would deserve to live where they grew up and where job opportunities are heavily concentrated.

That same week, Donald Trump opened a rift within his own base — a rare sight for sure — in an interview with Laura Ingraham over the issue of H-1B visas. When she pushed him on his stance, saying that we have “plenty of talented people here,” he interrupted with, “No you don’t, no you don’t.” Instead of focusing on how to make American workers more competitive through better education or training, the message heard by many was that Americans were not up for the job.

Worst of all may have been Dinesh D’Souza, who felt the need to weigh in on Vivek Ramaswamy’s meritocratic education reform by essentially race-baiting, saying: “How ironic it will be if a brown American like Vivek actually helps to fix education and raise the prospects of white kids, while all the professional whiteys on X continue their idle boasting.” Whatever the merits of education reform, mocking struggling Americans — especially through whatever “professional whiteys” is supposed to mean — is not doing anyone any favors.

With approaches like these from the right, who needs the left anymore? It took Ramaswamy’s opponent in the Ohio gubernatorial race, Amy Acton, all of 24 hours to put together an ad saying that Ramaswamy thinks “Ohioans are lazy and mediocre. He’s wrong.” It practically wrote itself.

Arguments like these from conservatives do more damage to the defense of capitalism than attacks from socialists ever could and are totally disconnected from what free markets actually are. Capitalism has delivered more prosperity than any system in human history, and it is not even close — but it did not get there by running on the platform of saying, “You’re too poor to live where you grew up, our country isn’t talented, move aside.”

New York City is famous throughout the world because it is the city where generation after generation of people who wanted to work hard could go and make something of themselves. Nobody I have seen on the right is asking for a luxury life handed to them on a silver spoon while they sit on the couch. They are frustrated by the fact that the world seems to be increasingly out of reach for them.

The only person in the GOP who seems to be able to see this, I’m horrified to say, appears to be Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), who spent the last few weeks getting attacked for acknowledging that many “young adults are barely making it” and accusing Trump’s allies of gaslighting Americans about the cost of living. On Saturday, she posted on X: “My heart is with Americans who struggle to afford life in America today.”

To her credit, she has been consistent in prioritizing cost-of-living issues — something that has become far too rare in the GOP since Donald Trump took office. She has taken the lead in warning that health insurance premiums would double for millions of Americans — including her own adult children — when enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies expire, while Republican leadership has largely sidestepped the problem.

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Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

We on the right have long embraced a tougher-love approach that certainly includes prioritizing a strong work ethic, and nobody needs to give that up. But that is not the issue here at all — Ben Shapiro’s comments are not directed at people who do not want to work; they are directed at and felt by those who do work and still cannot afford many basic things that previous generations took for granted.

Explaining to voters why they are wrong — or even worse, outright dismissing their concerns — has never worked politically, and that is not going to change now. Support for capitalism has now fallen to 54% overall, with Democrats preferring socialism 66% to 42%.

Peter Thiel’s now-viral email from 2020 captures exactly what is underlying this shift:

From the perspective of a broken generational compact ... when one has too much student debt or if housing is too unaffordable, then one will have negative capital for a long time ... if one has no stake in the capitalist system, then one may well turn against it.

He was right then, and he is right now. The only thing left to be seen is whether the right will wake up to that reality before it is too late.

If this month’s performance is any indication, I am not holding my breath.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.

The right must choose: Fight the real war, or cosplay revolution online



Is principled conservatism dead? And would that even be good?

Robert P. George’s resignation from the board of the Heritage Foundation last week suggests a deeper shift inside the conservative world. George is one of the most respected conservative intellectuals alive — a Princeton professor who built the James Madison Program and shaped a generation of natural-law scholarship. His departure, prompted by how Heritage President Kevin Roberts handled Tucker Carlson’s interview with Nick Fuentes, exposes a widening fracture on the right about what conservatism is and what it should defend.

The first lesson conservatives should recover: Reason and faith are not optional in the public square.

I have watched this tension escalate since what some have called Charlie Kirk’s “martyrdom.” Voices from what garden-variety conservatives call “the far right,” what liberals lump together as “the right,” and what Antifa brands “fascist” are pushing for influence inside the movement. Some insist these agitators are leftist plants sent to fracture the right. Others believe God allows the intentions of every heart to be revealed.

Whatever the explanation, the attacks now directed at George follow a predictable pattern: an “OK, Boomer” dismissal of a man who has spent his life defending the unborn, natural marriage, and the created order.

Full disclosure: When I was a graduate student studying natural law at Arizona State University, George took time to meet with me and guide my work. Later as a tenured professor, I became a fellow in the very program he founded. One of my own undergraduate professors — the great ethicist Jeffrie Murphy — said George’s work compelled him to rethink everything.

So-called far-right critics now claim George will debate and even co-author books with Cornel West, with his ties to Louis Farrakhan, but refuses to work with people “to his right.” The charge — absurd on its face — is that he is some kind of “controlled dissenter,” a token conservative tolerated by the Ivy League so long as he stays within its boundaries. From there, the speculation drifts into unfounded theories about motives and self-preservation.

George does not need me to defend him. His life’s work refutes these claims. He has never backed away from his convictions. He has never trimmed the truth to curry favor with elite institutions. He debates West because he believes reason still matters, because he believes truth can be argued in public, and because he believes even fierce disagreement does not require abandoning basic human dignity. He refuses to compromise an inch while treating his interlocutors as human beings.

That shouldn’t be so difficult to understand.

In fact, that’s the first lesson conservatives should recover: Reason and faith are not optional in the public square. They are the foundation for honest argument, and honest argument is the only way a free people can persuade and be persuaded. If we descend into conspiracy theorizing, rage, or tribal loyalty as our primary modes of engagement, we abandon the very tools that made conservatism coherent.

Here is George’s warning: Don’t become postmodernists. Don’t imitate the left’s racial essentialism or identity politics. Don’t throw out reason because some Enlightenment thinkers misused it. If you want to rethink every narrative you’ve heard, fine — do it with reason, not with the power-dialectic that dominates progressive thought.

But principles alone are not enough. Being principled does not mean being naïve. Conservatives once understood strategy and tactics — long-term goals paired with immediate steps that move us toward them. I believe the United States should acknowledge the kingship of Jesus Christ. Presidents from both parties once referred to America as a Christian nation. If that is true, then we must engage publicly, argue publicly, and fight publicly for that idea of ordered liberty.

That means getting into the trenches. It means refuting Marxism and atheism clearly and without apology. It means being innocent as doves and wise as serpents, fighting to win without surrendering either virtue.

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Photo by Zach D Roberts/NurPhoto via Getty Images

What we cannot become is principled losers. The enemy welcomes our gentlemanly retreats. The progressive movement wants more than policy wins; it wants to redefine the human person, the family, and the moral order itself. A party that endorses abortion at any point, supports the mutilation of healthy children, and treats scripture as hate speech leaves no moral ambiguity about which side a Christian or natural-law conservative should support.

Read George’s arguments against liberalism. Read his defense of natural law. If you disagree with him, he will debate you — he always has. But you can learn from him that a revival of natural law and natural theology is essential right now. That requires teaching the truths in Romans 1 and learning from Acts how to speak across cultures and ideologies.

We are in a spiritual war. The weapons are spiritual, but the fight is real. The stakes are real. The consequences are real.

It is far better to be fighting through the mud of Mordor than fat, complacent, and conquered in the Shire.

Conservatives turn their fire on each other after Charlie Kirk’s assassination



The horrific assassination of Charlie Kirk in September should have united Americans. Instead, it split them even further. Conservatives watched too many of their countrymen on the left openly cheer the murder, and even weak denunciations often suggested Kirk got what he deserved.

For a time, the right rallied — praising Kirk and demanding justice. That unity didn’t last. A furious fight over Kirk’s legacy followed, and that’s worse than politics: It’s destroying the movement he built.

Charlie Kirk’s death was a monstrous crime. Let it not become the occasion for tearing the movement he led to pieces.

George Washington spent much of his Farewell Address warning the young republic about foreign entanglements. He praised American separation from Europe’s great power intrigues and warned that making any foreign state a favored nation would corrupt domestic politics. Washington foresaw factions forming around foreign loyalties and predicted patriots who raised concerns about foreign influence would be branded traitors.

His warning applies now, and the fracture cuts through conservatism itself. The United States has long allied with Israel — sharing intelligence, aid, and military cooperation. Many conservatives, especially evangelicals, treat support for Israel as near-religious obligation. Others point to practical security benefits in the Middle East. That religious devotion makes criticism of the relationship politically perilous. You can denounce Britain or Germany without being vilified. Question our alliance with Israel, and you risk immediate slurs — racist, anti-Semite, bigot.

As Washington warned, centering policy on a foreign nation invites domestic discord and foreign meddling. Qatar and other Gulf states now pour money into U.S. institutions. Diasporas like India attempt to consolidate as a power bloc. None of this would surprise Washington. It was predictable. Still, both sides chatter past his counsel — and refuse the restraint he urged.

Anger misdirected

Charlie Kirk excelled at coalition building and peacemaking. He united disparate conservatives behind Trump and MAGA. That’s why the civil war over his death is so corrosive. Conspiracy theories swirl. Former allies denounce one another in his name. Private texts between Kirk and fellow influencers have been leaked and used as weapons. The spectacle is inhuman.

The impulse to treat Kirk’s private words as scripture echoes how people now treat the Constitution — stripping context until the document becomes a cudgel for whatever program you prefer. Left and right both reduce texts to proof texts; neither seeks the actual meaning.

Kirk’s position on Israel was complicated. He loved and supported the state and saw biblical significance in its existence, yet he also held America First concerns about military commitments and complained about pressure from Zionist donors who pushed TPUSA to cancel conservatives. He sought to defuse right-wing animosity toward Israel through messaging at home and tempering excesses abroad. His views were nuanced — like most people tend to be when the shouting stops.

Instead of using the outrage over his assassination to crush the left-wing terror network behind it, too many conservatives turned inward and drew long knives. One faction hates Israel so fiercely it would harm America; another treats any deviation from absolute support as treason.

At the moment, conservatives should unify for survival, they trade blows over purity tests.

Opponents or enemies?

The reality is simple: Israel will remain. The conservative movement needs a coherent strategy. Religious devotion among evangelicals will persist, but it’s waning among younger Christians. Pro-Israel advocates must make a practical case to younger conservatives if they want broad support. Those who question the tie to Israel will keep growing in number.

If pro-Israel conservatives want to avoid the radicalization they fear, they must tolerate dissent within the coalition without staging public witch hunts. Those who seek to re-evaluate the relationship should keep arguments factual and pragmatic. Washington’s cautions about favored nations and about letting hatred sabotage the country remain relevant.

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rudall30 via iStock/Getty Images

We saw, after Kirk’s killing, how large segments of the left revealed a murderous contempt for conservatives. That truth cannot be unseen. But within conservatism, the critical question is whether your rival on the right is an opponent to debate or an enemy to be excised. Zionist or skeptic, neither camp is calling for your child to be shot. That low bar — refusing to wish literal violence on fellow citizens — must hold if conservatives hope to form a durable coalition.

This is not an appeal to centrism. I have my views and have argued them plainly. But Kirk wanted a movement that could hold together. He worked to build a broad tent. The conservative civil war must end because the stakes are too high.

If conservatives continue sniping through Kirk’s memory, they will squander their political capital and invite worse divisions. Washington warned us what happens when foreign loyalties and religious fervor distort public life; he warned that factional hatred breaks nations. Conservatives ought to remember that now — not to moderate principle for its own sake, but to preserve the only structure that allows principle to matter: a functioning political majority.

Charlie Kirk’s death was a monstrous crime. Let it not become the occasion for tearing the movement he led to pieces. The left must be opposed forcefully and without mercy in politics, but infighting on the right hands them victory. Put down the knives. Honor Kirk by building the coalition he believed in — or watch the movement dissolve into impotence.

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The ‘normie conquest’: Millions just joined the right overnight



My liberal friends are completely oblivious about how radicalizing the last week has been for tens of millions of normal Americans. Zero clue. So I am telling you, my liberal friends and leftists everywhere. This is what has happened.

I’m not talking about people who are “online.” I mean regular, everyday Americans. “Normies.” People who scroll through Facebook posts and Instagram reels from the Dutch Bros drive-thru line. Political moderates who have water cooler chats about Mahomes touchdowns and Bon Jovi concerts, not Twitter threads or Rachel Maddow monologues.

These normal, middle-of-the-road, nonpolitical citizens just become politically active. They realized that politics cares about them, even if they don’t particularly care about politics.

Millions of them. Tens of millions. They’re logging on, they’re engaging, and they’re furious. And I’ll be candid: They blame you guys. They blame the left. Regardless of whether you believe it to be justified, they think you’re the bad guys here. And they are reacting accordingly.

I can already hear some of you racing toward the comments to start screeching in moral indignation, so I’m going to be blunt: Shut up and listen to what I’m telling you. Your movement will lose any semblance of relevance if you don’t develop some small measure of self-awareness, and — absent someone force-feeding you bitter medicine — you guys collectively lack the humility to do this on your own.

Here are the facts.

1) Tens of millions of Americans started the week seeing a 23-year-old blonde woman — a young woman in whom virtually every parent watching pictured their own daughter — stabbed in the neck by a career criminal. These people then found out the murderer had been released from jail 14 times over.

2) Two days later, tens of millions of Americans saw on video Charlie Kirk get murdered speaking to college students. Millions of these people knew who Charlie was; millions of them didn’t. Upon seeing the video, however, these normal Americans from across the land and across the political spectrum agreed that he was the victim of a terrible, fundamentally unjustifiable crime, and their hearts broke in sympathy for his family.

Good people who had never even heard the name Charlie Kirk before wept.

3) Immediately after seeing the footage of a peaceful young man getting shot in the neck, these same people logged on to Facebook and Instagram (remember, we are talking about regular Americans, not perpetually online Twitter or Bluesky users) and saw some of their local nurses, teachers, college administrators, and retail workers celebrating this horrific crime. Not just defending it but cheering it.

These are all facts. You may not like the implications of these facts, and we can certainly debate the underlying causes thereof, but, indisputably, they are factual statements nevertheless.

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Photo by Eric Thayer/Getty Images

Here’s what it means for Democrats reading this: These normal, middle-of-the-road, nonpolitical citizens just become politically active. They realized that politics cares about them, even if they don’t particularly care about politics.

After watching Iryna Zarutska and Charlie Kirk both bleed out from the neck, they think their lives and the physical safety of their families — the bedrock of human society, the foundation of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs — depend on political activation, whether they desire it or not. These people are now sprinting — not jogging, not walking, but racing — to the right.

Because they blame you guys for everything that just happened.

When they see footage of Decarlos Brown stabbing a Ukrainian refugee to death, they don’t see just one demon-possessed man. They picture every university administrator, HR bureaucrat, and DEI apparatchik that ever lectured them about systemic racism, the “carceral state,” or the need to release violent crime suspects without bail in the name of social justice.

They then think back to conversations they’ve had with their cop friends — their buddy from high school who quit the force after getting tired of being called a racist, their friend at the local YMCA who vents about having to release career criminals because Soros-funded prosecutors aren’t willing to file charges — and they realize everything the left has told them over the last five years has been utter BS.

All BS. Not even smart BS, but stale, mid-grade, low-IQ BS. Ordinary Americans see right through it, and they don’t like how it smells.

And they blame you. Because even if you count yourself as a moderate Democrat, your party supported the district attorneys, city council members, and mayors that let fictitious concerns about mental health and racial justice supersede very real concerns for their families' safety.

When these Americans see blood erupt from the side of Charlie Kirk’s neck, they don’t see just a martyred political activist. They think of every extreme leftist they’ve ever met who calls anyone to the right of Hillary Clinton a fascist and constantly jokes — “jokes” — about punching Nazis and “bashing the fash.”

They realize that there really do exist people who wish to see them dead for their moderately conservative political beliefs, their Christian faith, and even the color of their skin.

They ask themselves if the violence visited upon Charlie might one day show up on their own doorstep.

And they blame you. Because even if you’re just a center-of-the-road liberal, you lacked the courage to police your own ranks. You let modern-day Maoist red guards run loose across every facet of society, and what started with social media struggle sessions has now turned to .30-06 bullet holes.

When these Americans log on to social media and see their neighbors justifying, celebrating, glorifying murder, they realize that some who walk among them are soulless ghouls at best, literally demon-possessed at worst.

These people — whether they faithfully attend church every Sunday or only attend with relatives once a year, on Christmas Eve — start talking about things like spiritual warfare. They implicitly understand that no normal human casually celebrates the mortal demise of a peaceful person.

And they blame you. Because even if you condemned Charlie Kirk’s murder, they probably haven’t seen you condemn those in your own movement who cheered it on. They view you as complicit in allowing heartless fellow travelers to celebrate death, and it repulses them.

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Photo by Jeremy Hogan/Getty Images

For all of these situations, what has your response been? Nothing but BS.

In response to Iryna Zarutska bleeding out on the floor of a train, you post nonsensical statistics about reductions in reported crime. In reality, anyone who’s been to a major urban center in the last decade knows that actual crime has skyrocketed, and victims do not waste their time reporting it to cops who don’t have the manpower to respond and prosecutors who seek to downgrade as many felonies as possible to misdemeanors.

In response to a 31-year-old man taking a bullet to the neck in front of his family, you post nothing but nonsensical whataboutism. “What about January 6?” Honest answer: After you let Liz Cheney spend two years operating a star chamber in the House, combined with countless other failed attempts at “lawfare” against Trump, no one cares any more.

“What about Paul Pelosi?” That’s not comparable to Charlie Kirk getting shot, and we all know it. Also: Paul who?

“What about regulations on assault rifles?” That’s not going to get you very far when one of these killers used a knife and the other one used a common hunting rifle.

In response to teachers, health care workers, and thousands of other liberals cheering on Charlie’s murder, it’s nothing but more BS and misdirection.

“It’s not THAT many people celebrating!” Yes, it is. Everyone has seen it on their Facebook and Instagram feeds.

“I thought you guys didn’t support cancel culture.” We don’t cancel people over their opinions; we’re more than happy to see people lose their jobs — especially their taxpayer-funded jobs — for actively cheering on murder, though. If you can’t see the difference, that’s your own shortcoming.

All BS. Not even smart BS, but stale, mid-grade, low-IQ BS. Ordinary Americans see right through it, and they don’t like how it smells. You probably don’t like hearing this. But you need to hear it. Because I’m right, and as you reflect on this, you know I’m right.

The ranks of my political movement gained millions of righteously angry new members last week. We have a mandate to ensure that these crimes never happen again, and that’s exactly what we are now going to do. If you want to keep a seat at the table as we do so, you’d better clean house and start policing your own.

Editor’s note: A version of this article appeared as a post on X (formerly Twitter).

Charlie Kirk: A good and faithful servant



When Charlie Kirk was asked in an interview how he would want to be remembered, he answered without hesitation.

“I want to be remembered for courage for my faith. That would be the most important thing. The most important thing is my faith in my life,” he said.

In honor of Charlie’s wish, BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock says, “I think he will be,” before reading Matthew 25:23: “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness.”

“I think God is well pleased with Charlie Kirk and what he accomplished in his 31 years of life,” he says.


Kirk accomplished more in his 31 years than most people do in a lifetime — including becoming a major part of America’s strong faith-based conservative base.

“I really don’t like political partisanship, but there is a difference between the two political dynamics, the left and the right. And the difference is at their base, and I’m talking about the hardcore base of the conservative movement. It’s all based on biblical principles,” Whitlock explains.

“Charlie Kirk was a part of that base, that evangelical part of the conservative movement that really is trying to inflict, impose, influence government policies through a biblical lens,” he continues.

However, this is what angered leftists and the mainstream media the most, who labeled Kirk as polarizing.

“For the left, the most passionate people are the most secular people. … They stand shoulder to shoulder with the transgender crowd, the Alphabet Mafia, the pro-abortion crowd … and it’s because their worldview isn’t really biblical,” Whitlock says.

Rather, their worldview is “racial.”

And Charlie aimed to help the leftist youth see the world for more than the color of someone’s skin or a rainbow of genders.

“And that’s why I say hats off to Charlie Kirk. That in some ways, today is a celebration of a great young man, of someone that at an early age figured out how to match his talents with an activity and a passion and a life’s work that glorified and honored God,” Whitlock says.

“He recognized that this world has become so political, and that politics are driving so much of our worldview, that if he doesn’t inject Christianity and a biblical worldview into politics, we’re going to lose more and more people, and this world is going to become more and more worldly and secular, more and more hostile to God,” he continues.

“And Satan realized this man had to be stopped, because he was having too much impact on this world,” he says. “He was converting and opening the eyes of too many young people, and he had to be stopped.”

Want more from Jason Whitlock?

To enjoy more fearless conversations at the crossroads of culture, faith, sports, and comedy with Jason Whitlock, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

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Leftists' favorite F-word — and why they'll never drop it



I notice to my profound disappointment that two of my major scholarly projects landed with a thud. Despite years of research and two books on fascism and antifascism, my findings have been ignored by both the left and the right — including the so-called conservative media establishment.

That’s a pity, especially with so much loose talk about “fascists” running around Washington these days.

Fascism, as it existed in the 20th century, is dead. Antifascism, as it is wielded today, is a political weapon that thrives by manufacturing enemies.

My argument is straightforward: Fascism was a popular European movement in the interwar period, shaped by several conditions unique to that era — returning soldiers who saw themselves as a “front generation” after World War I, economic turmoil in countries like Italy, France, Romania, and Spain, disillusionment with corrupt parliamentary systems, and a “cult of the leader.”

Fascist movements also fed on fears of the Soviet takeover of Russia. Unlike the communists, who worked to spark revolutions across Europe, fascist groups pushed a revolutionary nationalist ideology.

The most representative example was Benito Mussolini’s Italian movement, which came to power after his March on Rome in October 1922. Italy was the only country to establish a full-fledged fascist government, although fascist or fascist-like parties held influence in coalitions elsewhere. The Italian regime blended a cult of the leader with corporatist economics and nostalgia for imperial glory.

Contrary to the later alliance with Hitler, Mussolini’s government initially drew support from patriotic Italian Jews and between 1934 and 1936 led European opposition to Nazi Germany, denouncing its anti-Semitism as barbaric. The 1938 anti-Jewish laws came only under heavy German influence.

Nazism was not “generic” fascism. Hannah Arendt was right to classify it as totalitarian and genocidal. While Hitler borrowed certain trappings from Latin fascists, Nazi Germany drew far more from Stalin’s Soviet model — particularly in its use of terror, secret police, and propaganda to remake reality.

Equating Mussolini’s authoritarian nationalism with Hitler’s genocidal regime is intellectually lazy, even if Mussolini’s disastrous decision to ally with Nazi Germany at the 11th hour paved the way for the comparison.

My critic Jacob Siegel accuses me of drawing this distinction to “sanitize” fascism. Not so. I do not treat it as an archaic movement out of nostalgia but because it is irrelevant to the contemporary West, which is dominated instead by a woke, bureaucratic left.

Antifascism, however, is another matter. It began with Marxists — and later communist regimes — branding capitalist nations that resisted revolution as “fascist.” The Frankfurt School and its American heirs expanded the label to cover ideas and movements far removed from Mussolini or Hitler. By the 1950s, an “F-scale” was used to screen government employees and teachers for supposed fascist sympathies.

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Photo by JOAQUIN SARMIENTO/AFP via Getty Images

Today, “antifascists” slap the term on anything that conflicts with their politics or lifestyle. Esteemed Yale professors Timothy Snyder and Jason Stanley insist our current president is not only a fascist but possibly a Nazi. In their view, opposing any part of the feminist or LGBTQ agenda puts one on the road to Hitlerian tyranny.

This rhetorical game serves a purpose: It shields the accusers from the obvious countercharge that they are the true totalitarians. In my book on antifascism, written as Antifa and Black Lives Matter riots engulfed American cities in 2020, I documented how the American left and its European counterparts mobilize with the same discipline and ruthlessness as the Nazis before they took power.

The difference is that today’s left faces no organized counterforce comparable to the German communists — and enjoys the support of a compliant media. That media not only excuses leftist violence but portrays it as justified. This mirrors the Nazi and communist tactic of claiming to be under siege even while holding power, using the manufactured threat as a pretext to crush dissent.

Fascism, as it existed in the 20th century, is dead. Antifascism, as it is wielded today, is a political weapon that thrives by manufacturing enemies. And the left is using it with remarkable success.