United States Politics Thread 47

[Raphael]

Interesting statement-and-response on the Liberal Currents website.

Toby Buckle argues that yes, Trumpers and related movements are fascists now, but no, Conservatism as a political philosophy wasn't always fascist: https://www.liberalcurrents.com/it-wasn ... all-along/

In response to that, Silvaria Lysandra Zemaitis argues that, yes, it actually was fascism all along: https://www.liberalcurrents.com/it-was- ... all-along/

As someone who's not much of a Humanities Left person, I don't think I agree with all of Zemaitis's choices of intellectual sources for arguments, but on the whole, I find her points more compelling.

[zompist]

Toby Buckle argues that yes, Trumpers and related movements are fascists now, but no, Conservatism as a political philosophy wasn't always fascist: https://www.liberalcurrents.com/it-wasn ... all-along/

In response to that, Silvaria Lysandra Zemaitis argues that, yes, it actually was fascism all along: https://www.liberalcurrents.com/it-was- ... all-along/

Very interesting articles, thanks for finding them. I find them both pretty correct, though I have quibbles with both.

Both go wrong (a bit), I think, in assuming that fascism and conservatism are ideologies at all. As Robert Paxton pointed out, fascism is not actually interested in a coherent ideology. It reinvents itself as it wishes. And as Jean-Paul Sartre pointed out, it uses argument and reason only as tools, never seriously, but only to play with opponents who expect arguments to be sincere and fact-based.

And conservatism at root is no different. I wish both of them had read Frank Wilhoit's blunt critique:

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:

There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

There is nothing more or else to it, and there never has been, in any place or time.

[...] As the core proposition of conservatism is indefensible if stated baldly, it has always been surrounded by an elaborate backwash of pseudophilosophy, amounting over time to millions of pages. All such is axiomatically dishonest and undeserving of serious scrutiny.

The weakest part of Buckle's page is the attempt to define what conservatism is. He makes an attempt with his "extra-human order", but Wilhoit cuts to the bone. However, he's very good at examining liberalism and socialism and how the center-right hollowed itself out to nothing.

Zemaitis is right in general on fascism being the urgent and violent form that conservatism devolves into when it feels threatened; also that the "iron fist" has always been evident to sexual and racial minorities. Buckle knows this (he refers to the KKK too) but not as viscerally.

Where Zemaitis errs, I think, in assuming that 1990s progressive movements were somehow the crisis that unleashed the iron fist. This, to be blunt, far overstates how important or dangerous (say) trans activism was. Trans people did not break the system. They were simply a convenient scapegoat. It wasn't quite safe to attack gays and lesbians; but even progressives were often happy to throw trans people under the bus. For no gain, I should emphasize. Throwing people under the bus does not mollify fascists, it only encourages them to demand more sacrifices.

I think she fails to recognize that conservatives have always had things to be outraged about. Or rather, she recognizes it but fails to explain why the 1990s, in particular, were worse than any other decade for conservatives. They were on top in the early 2000s! They could have rested on their laurels and maintained power for a generation. Something kept impelling them to become worse, to go from things a lot of people could agree with to things even their own side has trouble with.

FWIW, I think Buckle is more correct that there were, historically, center-right and far-right factions. They have often opposed each other, and the center-right prefers if it can to keep power without relying on the far right. Zemaitis is wrong, I believe, to simply appeal to Franco as a fascist. He relied on fascism to win the civil war-- then governed as an authoritarian conservative. He wasn't intoning Viva la muerte in the 1960s, nor did he keep inciting fascism as an emotional popular movement. He's not an example of fascism being a stable long-lasting phenomenon; he's an example of fascism giving way to conservatism as the only way it can preserve itself. This is not my own idea, BTW, it's Paxton's. It's also instructive to look at authoritarian right-wing Latin American states, which could maintain themselves for a century, and which resisted what we'd call liberalism as violently and fervently as they did socialism. Conservatism only coexists with liberalism when it's forced to.

Buckle is closer to the truth identifying the core values of fascism as power and violence. I think he also recognizes better than Zemaitis that the actual hierarchy does not prosper under fascism and in fact may be destroyed by it. (Look what happens to Russian oligarchs. Are they running the country? They know very well that to keep what power they have, and their lives, they must kowtow to Putin.)

Zemaitis's model of an iron fist in a velvet glove is a pretty good analysis, but it would be better, I think, to understand that the fist and the glove correspond to different constituencies. The moneyed elite are not the same as the street fighters. They would understandably prefer to do things without revolution, without a movement that imperils them and doesn't care about the economy. They will make use of the zealots if they see no other choice... or merely if they think they can be controlled.

I don't think the center right has vanished. I think most of it is what the US calls "independents", plus maybe 20% of the Republican Party. Maybe a little more, this isn't something easily teased out of polls. I think what happened is that the zealots ate the rest of the party. Not the first time in history that the thugs have taken over from the rulers they ostensibly served.

(I'd also note that Zemaitis recognizes that the center-right exists in other places, like Europe, where it differs from and resists the far right.
But I think she suffers from the American tendency to not quite believe that other countries exist.)

Edit: one more thought-- Eric Hoffer put his finger on the difference years ago. The conservative is someone in power, and therefore has something to be preserved. They prefer secular power and the enjoyment of their position. (Indeed, if they are secure enough they can diminish into stupidity, as Orwell observed.) Fascism wants revolution and war, and it prepared to annihilate the self, and just about everything else, to get it. The goal (national purity, revenge, glory, etc.) is half a chimera anyway. No fascist state has ever gotten beyond the "purge the enemies" stage.

[zompist]

BTW, and this is not at all important, but I'm amused that Zemaitis follows proper citation etiquette in giving the publisher for a book published in 1790. Like, sure, we're gonna call up that publisher in order to score a copy.

Citation etiquette was devised for a paper-based world where you asked the university librarian to get a book for you. The publisher was a vital piece of information. It hasn't adapted to a world where you can Google that shit.

It's also a status marker. "See, I know how to do academics."

[Travis B.]

To me a key difference between conservatism and fascism is that conservatism seeks to preserve an established traditional social order, with the in-group on top and the out-group on the bottom, whereas fascism seeks to destroy the established order so as to establish some 'new order' or restore some alleged past order. With this in mind, the differences between authoritarian conservatives and fascists, which are often overlooked or minimized for rhetoric's sake, become apparent.

[MacAnDàil]

Historical situations don't just repeat. Political factions change, even if they themselves don't realize it. The quarrels of one century are not those of the last.

If they did, we could expect President Vance declaring war on the EU around 2040 after his Munich speech in 2025, like Putin declaring war on Ukraine 15 years after his Munich speech.

[alice]

No fascist state has ever gotten beyond the "purge the enemies" stage.

Is a "competent fascist" state possible, though? Is fascism viable without the bits which make it incompetent, and if so, is it no longer fascist? If not, then what is it?

[bradrn]

No fascist state has ever gotten beyond the "purge the enemies" stage.

Is a "competent fascist" state possible, though? Is fascism viable without the bits which make it incompetent

I don’t think so. A significant part of fascism is self-delusion about how the world actually works, in particular the nature of military might. (See Umberto Eco’s Ur-Fascism.)

and if so, is it no longer fascist? If not, then what is it?

Depends on the parts of fascism it retains, I suppose, but presumably some variety of authoritarianism.

[Travis B.]

I suspect that fascism which survived its early stages would become authoritarian conservatism, as it would seek to preserve the order that it itself has created (as permanent fascist revolution is basically not sustainable).

[Raphael]

OK, I admit it: I had initially read only the introductory parts, and skipped the rest. That was the basis for recommending the pieces. But now, I've read all of Buckle's piece.

Hm. It's very well written and well argued. Perhaps a bit cheekily I'll say that I agree with almost all parts of it except for the main point.

I actually like his explanation of conservatism as being about an "extra-human order". It reminds me of something Ares Land posted about the fundamental difference between the Left and the Right years ago, where, a while later, he very kindly gave me permission to quote it.

It's just that fascism, contrary to what Buckle writes, is to a large extent about that, too, except with more emphasis on the most sadistic elements of that "extra-human order". So there isn't much of a difference, except in a few questions of focus.

He's generally right about what he calls "mirroring", but not, I think, when it comes to the specific example he uses. Yes, it's true that fascists simply don't care about economic matters the way socialists do, because their whole main fields of interest are elsewhere. But they do very much care about whether, as a general rule, people should be equal or unequal, and they are very decidedly on the "unequal" side.

One small point where I disagree with Buckle is when he tries to explain or define liberalism. I simply think that the word is too generally meaningless by now for any attempts to do that to make sense. Communism, socialism, libertarianism, conservatism, and fascism are political ideologies in various ways. Compared to that, liberalism is mostly just a word by now. Yes, my opinion on that is informed by my experience as a German who has been very interested in US politics for decades, but I don't think that invalidates it. I'm just too aware of what the word means, first, in German politics, and second, in US politics. I just don't see how you can, in a way that is honest with both yourself and the world, fit Adlai Stevenson and Christian Lindner into one and the same conceptual framework.

Let me repeat something I quoted on that word and its history elsewhere a while ago:

In the beginning, there were times and places when politics, or at least the parts of politics that were treated as important, were about the struggle for power between the old land-owning aristocracy and the newly emergent class of merchants and factory owners. In those days, people who supported the interests of the former were called "conservatives", and people who supported the interests of the latter were called "liberals".

Then, many years, some linguistic shifts, and the occasional firing squad later, in some places, the word "liberal" had ended up meaning "people who support the interests of merchants and factory owners and the like", and in some other places, the same word had ended up meaning "whoever is the main group opposed to the conservatives at any given moment." And so the LORD had confounded their language, that they did not understand one another's speech.

An analogy might be the English word "club". These days, it means both "a simple but effective tool for hitting people, animals, or golf balls with" and "a formally structured and organized group in which people can be members". Now, a while ago, I asked elsewhere on the ZBB how that came to be, and got some interesting answers and explanations. But whatever the semantic history might be, it's simply two identical looking and -sounding words now. I don't think you learn all that many interesting things from trying to explain what the thing you swing above your head and the thing that may or may not accept you as a member have in common.

As for Buckley's claim that conservatism, or right-wing politics more generally, isn't based on any major aspect of human nature - OK, I wish he was right, but I have my doubts. All too many right-wing ways of thinking seem to be so fundamental to the functions of the human brain that even entire parts of the Left or the left-liberal (for lack of a better word) camp can fall into them. For instance, demographic essentialism, which has been all the rage on both the Right and the Left for a while now.

In my more cynical moments, I sometimes think that the main difference between the Right and the Left these days is that the Right mostly tells people the things that, based on their most basic and deeply-rooted biological instincts, feel true to them, while the Left mostly tells people the things that actually are true. Human nature vs. physical reality.

Regarding Wilhoit's famous summary, I think he's on to something, but it's not the whole story.

For a start, the whole idea that conservatives always make sure that "the right kind of people" are protected by the law is an overgeneralization from modern Western societies and especially US society. A way of running things where, if you're a conventional member of the ruling class and you lose an internal ruling class power struggle, it's unlikely that anything worse happens to you than that you're sent into an unwanted but still comfortable early retirement, is historically probably the exception and not the norm. I was about to post concrete examples, but then I saw that zompist already did that.

Then, Wilhoit doesn't seem to think much about the fact that the very existence of the "millions of pages" of "an elaborate backwash of pseudophilosophy" has, even if just as a minor accidental side effect, led to the appearance of a few people who really believed that stuff. David Frum might be an example. Or, more clearly, Tim Cushing: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/02/24/imm ... -citizens/

OK, can't think of more to say on this.

[zompist]

As for Buckley's claim that conservatism, or right-wing politics more generally, isn't based on any major aspect of human nature - OK, I wish he was right, but I have my doubts. All too many right-wing ways of thinking seem to be so fundamental to the functions of the human brain that even entire parts of the Left or the left-liberal (for lack of a better word) camp can fall into them. For instance, demographic essentialism, which has been all the rage on both the Right and the Left for a while now.

In my more cynical moments, I sometimes think that the main difference between the Right and the Left these days is that the Right mostly tells people the things that, based on their most basic and deeply-rooted biological instincts, feel true to them, while the Left mostly tells people the things that actually are true. Human nature vs. physical reality.

I think you're ceding too much ground to the rightists here. One could argue that these things are "natural", as they're longstanding and have analogues in the animal world:

* A hierarchy of haves over have-nots
* Sexism
* Competition leading to the strong and smart being on top'
* Hatred of outsiders
* War

But we could equally argue that these things are "natural", as they're longstanding and have analogues in the animal world:

* Cooperation
* Empathy and a sense of justice
* Even the smallest animal having a right to its lair
* Low-rankers overthrowing tired, stupid elites
* Hospitality toward outsiders (note that this makes genetic sense)
* Peace

For that matter, anyone arguing that male dominance is "natural" had better be able to explain why female dominance is present in bonobos, hyenas, and social insects. Or why lionesses do most of the pride's hunting.

And on the third hand, arguably all this is moot. We're not fated to be bonobos or chimpanzees, much less lions or ants. We're not even fated to live like hunter-gatherers, or like Babylonians. We have an astonishingly plastic brain, we can adapt to almost any society and we can choose how we want to live.

[Raphael]

Sorry, perhaps I was a bit unclear. I don't want to say that right-wing hierarchies are natural. I'm more thinking of things like, simplistic Team A good Team B bad thinking. And inability or unwillingness to grasp nuances and subtlety. Seeing patterns in randomness. Being unable to mentally process a world with more than a couple dozen or a couple hundred people in it. Being very bad at grasping the difference between different orders of magnitude if they all come across as simply "big" to you. Being very bad at many important aspects of math, from the deeper implications of basic arithmetics to the statistical likelihood of things. All things that right-wing propagandists make good use of.

[rotting bones]

It's not a secret that the liberal left forced the conservatives into compliance by threatening them with the specter of Communism. With Communism no longer operating as a specter on the global scene, the elites see no reason not to sacrifice the masses to maintain their power. Again, this is not a secret: https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/habermass-bastards

This situation is partly the left's fault. People like Adorno created a new left centered around cultural conservatism. If leftism is culturally conservative, that replaces the specter of Communism with the specter of Islamism. By and large, most people around the world are repelled by Islamism. This creates a new rightist justification for "civilizational" wars replacing the Marxist trope of national wars.

(I put "civilizational" is scare quotes because humans are too dumb to be civilized. They aren't smart enough to realize this either.)

[Raphael]

Now, the Iran War.

Also from Liberal Currents, a podcast episode, unfortunately about 90 minutes long, where Samantha Hancox-Li and Bret Devereaux talk about the Iran War:

https://www.liberalcurrents.com/trump-v ... devereaux/

I mostly agree with the two of them, but some quibbles.

First, what makes Devereaux think that handling what you call "frontier problems" by paying people off is a good idea? I generally have a very low opinion of Kipling as a historical figure, but I think he was on to something in that famous poem.

Now, I'm against Western wars in the Middle East, on both moral and strategic grounds. But I don't think that makes it a good idea to pay any of the blood-soaked butchers who rule much of that region any money. FWIW, I think the general strategy of Western countries towards the Middle East should be that we try our best to defend ourselves as well as possible against any direct attacks from there, while not attacking them ourselves and generally staying out of their affairs as much as we can.

One thing I think neither of them brought up that might be relevant when thinking about how the world got there is Trump's own mental state, that is, specifically, which role might his much-speculated-about declining mental abilities have plaid in starting all this?

The reason why I'm asking is this: I'm very sure that Netanyahu tried to get Trump to do something like this throughout his *first* term. I mean, that's been Netanyahu's No. 1 priority for decades now. But back then, Trump didn't do it. Now he did. Why? What changed? I strongly suspect that it was Trump's own mental abilities. He was never the sharpest tool in the shed, but he used to have fairly sound instincts for what would or wouldn't play how well with large parts of the American public. And those instincts used to tell him how well another major US war in the Middle East would play. This year, they didn't. I think that's in itself a pretty strong indicator of mental decline.

At one point, Devereaux indicates that he thinks that Israeli strategic planners might already expect the US/Israel partnership to end soon, and might be trying to get as much out of it as possible while it still lasts. OK, that's not my impression at all. Based on what I've seen of the people currently running the show in Israel, I'd say they've got a very good understanding of the domestic political landscape in the USA of 20, 30, or 40 years ago, and very little awareness of what changed since then, let alone their own role in changing it. I mean, Netanyahu himself spent much of the 1980s in various diplomatic postings in the US and often came across as very convincing on US TV during that time, and he might not have done the math on how old the old people, middle aged people, and young people whom he could persuade so well back then are now. He and the people around him might well believe that if only those nasty Democrats can be kept at bay, the alliance will last forever.

More generally, Netanyahu and his friends might get their information about what's going on in other countries from their most like-minded friends in each country, which would seriously warp their analytical skills. A lot of political right-wingers are in systematic denial about the real depth of the opposition to them. They more or less seem to think that it's all just a bunch of shallow fad-followers, young people going through a phase, and maybe propaganda shills paid by evil billionaires. Many of them will never get how many reasons they themselves give us to oppose them. So they and people taking their understanding of what's happening from them might seriously underestimate what they're up against.

Specifically in the context of Israeli understanding, or lack thereof, of the USA, you might have heard of certain passages which Yonatan Netanyahu wrote in letters to Israel when he lived in US suburbia as a teenager. If you're not, he basically wrote that the US teenagers around him, and perhaps the country as a whole, were living shallow, clueless, meaningless lives, only concerned with trivial things, and insulated from the harsher sides of the world. Judging from some comments I sometimes see some Israelis make on the Internet, I've got the impression that that kind of view is still at least somewhat common there. In which case they have no idea how real the concerns that lead many Americans to oppose the right-wing, and therefore many of Israel's closest allies in the USA, are.

[rotting bones]

It might not make sense to pay oppressive leaders, but sense is precisely that which reality doesn't make. The best we can do is perform accounting to trace flows of dependence in a network of causes.

The world economy is dependent on oil. The Middle East has a lot of it. Outsiders try to come get it. Natives resist. Outsiders install puppets to subdue the rebels. Hence the patronage networks. This gives these clients leverage against leaders around the world.

It's not a matter of whether this makes sense. All we can do is reason about which levers to pull to reroute the flows of causal dependence.

[Nortaneous]

Conservatives? You mean, like, the party of Dick Cheney? Dick Cheney was alive in the last election cycle, right? Did he make an endorsement?

Conservatives aren't known for their willingness to see where the radicals are coming from. The radicals are just commies. Dirty commies, who need to stop doing drugs, cut their hair, and stop using foul language - which may be difficult for them, if speaking proper language correlates sufficiently with having parents who've been to Martha's Vineyard. But sometimes the foul language is easy to understand. If you are a <race> <gender> with aspirations to upward mobility and the current respectable establishment thing is putting "do not hire any <race> <gender>" in writing in internal memos, congratulations, you get to be a radical. And sometimes the Episcopalians decide it's actually un-Christian to prosecute smash-and-grabs and they're like, lol, why do you care so much about property bro? It's just property. What are you, poor? Too fucking poor to handle a little smash-and-grab, bro? And sometimes you try to be an upstanding citizen even though you can't read scientific papers and shit real good, so you trust the responsible authorities, and then they tell such a fat whopper that you feel like a sucker for listening to them at all. Like, why even bother having authorities and laws and shit if they're just going to lie to you, man?

And then maybe someone tells you about Carl Schmitt, who said that all politics is the distinction between ingroups who the law protects but doesn't bind and outgroups who the law binds but doesn't protect, or something like. Like how they've legalized smash-and-grabs, banned going to church, and issued a proclamation stating that the Volga Germans are suspected of disloyalty and henceforth shall not be considered suitable for economic opportunities outside Siberia, right? And just wait til you find out the kind of thing the UK considers to be less of a concern than mean tweets.

So then you vote for the other guy, and his name is, like, Orban or Mugabe or something. One of those creatures that democracy vomits up from time to time. And it's like, sick, bro, he's going to expropriate the farms and shit! Running a farm is easy, right? Right?

[rotting bones]

My advice to you is my advice to mainstream 21st century intellectuals: Take your Lithium.

[zompist]

First, what makes Devereaux think that handling what you call "frontier problems" by paying people off is a good idea? I generally have a very low opinion of Kipling as a historical figure, but I think he was on to something in that famous poem.

Now, I'm against Western wars in the Middle East, on both moral and strategic grounds. But I don't think that makes it a good idea to pay any of the blood-soaked butchers who rule much of that region any money. FWIW, I think the general strategy of Western countries towards the Middle East should be that we try our best to defend ourselves as well as possible against any direct attacks from there, while not attacking them ourselves and generally staying out of their affairs as much as we can.

I have an aversion to videos, but I did read the transcript of this part.

I think Devereaux's analogy is pretty good. I'm not sure you're grasping how the situation works. You are a Chinese emperor facing the possiblity of nomad invasion. You can:

1) If you're at your height, go conquer them all.
2) Use subsidies and princesses to befriend the nearer ones and have them fight the farther ones.
3) If you're weak but eager not to seem so, fight them to prove your machismo and lose.
4) Do nothing and get conquered.

What is hard to understand about (2) being the most cost-effective option? What would you do instead?

Now, the analogy isn't perfect. We don't have princesses to offer, and "paying money" is not a good description of the analogous strategy.

It's nice to oppose both blood-soaked butchers and intervention. But, I hope you don't mind my saying so, but this seems like a very European attitude: you can say that because your country is only an observer and doesn't have to get involved.

If you're a hegemon with global commitments, what do you do if the butchers are a) fighting each other; b) invading nearby countries; c) allowing terrorist factions to take over their territory; d) developing nukes; e) subsidizing militias to destabilize their neighbors; f) fighting a civil war so bad it generates millions of refugees; f) closing down global oil flows? (Note: these are all based on Middle Eastern countries, but not just Iran.)

"Gosh I think we shouldn't be involved" is certainly better than "we must solve every problem with force". But even in Europe you are involved. Those refugee flows may disrupt your politics. Oil shutting down may disrupt your politics. Third-world countries lobbing nukes around might possibly affect someone you care about.

Sometime there is no great answer. But you seem to be saying that one should never, like Obama, make a deal with the bad guys. That's not avoiding harm, that's just pretending that inaction has no consequences.

[bradrn]

The reason why I'm asking is this: I'm very sure that Netanyahu tried to get Trump to do something like this throughout his *first* term. I mean, that's been Netanyahu's No. 1 priority for decades now. But back then, Trump didn't do it. Now he did. Why? What changed? I strongly suspect that it was Trump's own mental abilities. He was never the sharpest tool in the shed, but he used to have fairly sound instincts for what would or wouldn't play how well with large parts of the American public. And those instincts used to tell him how well another major US war in the Middle East would play. This year, they didn't. I think that's in itself a pretty strong indicator of mental decline.

Another factor is that this term he’s surrounded himself by yes-men. (And the odd yes-woman, I suppose.) Last term there were at least some people who were willing to attempt to talk him out of this stuff.

Specifically in the context of Israeli understanding, or lack thereof, of the USA, you might have heard of certain passages which Yonatan Netanyahu wrote in letters to Israel when he lived in US suburbia as a teenager. If you're not, he basically wrote that the US teenagers around him, and perhaps the country as a whole, were living shallow, clueless, meaningless lives, only concerned with trivial things, and insulated from the harsher sides of the world. Judging from some comments I sometimes see some Israelis make on the Internet, I've got the impression that that kind of view is still at least somewhat common there. In which case they have no idea how real the concerns that lead many Americans to oppose the right-wing, and therefore many of Israel's closest allies in the USA, are.

My understanding of this phenomenon is that, because Israel is almost surrounded by hostile neighbours whose topmost priority is to destroy the state, some Israelis are convinced that this is a natural state of affairs which must be true of all Western countries. Therefore, people who don’t see this must be weakling leftists in denial about the true state of the world.

Also, I presume mandatory conscription has strongly influenced this attitude. I recall hearing that some veterans from other countries end up feeling similarly about civilian society.

(Also also, as you may have guessed, this is mostly a right-wing thing. The left-leaning Israelis I know — which are most of them — are generally smarter than this, or at least less parochial.)

[malloc]

One small point where I disagree with Buckle is when he tries to explain or define liberalism. I simply think that the word is too generally meaningless by now for any attempts to do that to make sense. Communism, socialism, libertarianism, conservatism, and fascism are political ideologies in various ways. Compared to that, liberalism is mostly just a word by now. Yes, my opinion on that is informed by my experience as a German who has been very interested in US politics for decades, but I don't think that invalidates it. I'm just too aware of what the word means, first, in German politics, and second, in US politics. I just don't see how you can, in a way that is honest with both yourself and the world, fit Adlai Stevenson and Christian Lindner into one and the same conceptual framework.

It seems pretty straightforward to define liberalism: capitalism dominated by private enterprises, rule of law and constitutional limits on state power, representative democracy. It clearly differs from ideologies like Marxism-Leninism or fascism or anarchism which reject many of these principles in one way or another. Most of us are liberals and certainly most of us grew up with liberalism as the dominant political framework in our home countries, which is probably why it seems so vacuous. Fish don't notice the presence of water and all that.

[Travis B.]

One small point where I disagree with Buckle is when he tries to explain or define liberalism. I simply think that the word is too generally meaningless by now for any attempts to do that to make sense. Communism, socialism, libertarianism, conservatism, and fascism are political ideologies in various ways. Compared to that, liberalism is mostly just a word by now. Yes, my opinion on that is informed by my experience as a German who has been very interested in US politics for decades, but I don't think that invalidates it. I'm just too aware of what the word means, first, in German politics, and second, in US politics. I just don't see how you can, in a way that is honest with both yourself and the world, fit Adlai Stevenson and Christian Lindner into one and the same conceptual framework.

It seems pretty straightforward to define liberalism: capitalism dominated by private enterprises, rule of law and constitutional limits on state power, representative democracy. It clearly differs from ideologies like Marxism-Leninism or fascism or anarchism which reject many of these principles in one way or another. Most of us are liberals and certainly most of us grew up with liberalism as the dominant political framework in our home countries, which is probably why it seems so vacuous. Fish don't notice the presence of water and all that.

That definition of 'liberalism', though, differs from many common usages of the term, both left-leaning usages corresponding to social liberalism (fading into social democracy) and right-leaning usages corresponding to laissez-faire free market capitalism with everything that entails.