Meanwhile, hysteria about domestic fascism is unhelpful, even though it is a liberal tradition. In his 1944 State of the Union address, FDR identified opponents of his domestic agenda as fascists. Declaring that his “one supreme objective” was “security,” including “economic security, social security, moral security,” he issued a dire warning: Woodrow Wilson’s progressive policies had been frustrated by “rightist reaction” and “if history were to repeat itself and we were to return to the so-called ‘normalcy’ of the 1920s — then it is certain that even though we shall have conquered our enemies on the battlefields abroad, we shall have yielded to the spirit of Fascism here at home.”
Today’s hysterics are unoriginal. But they learned their bad manners from a master.
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