![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Neiwert and Bertlet are deeply invested in their cottage industry of spotting fascism and Nazism in the Republican Party, talk radio and elsewhere. So forgive me if I take all of this gnashing of teeth and rending of cloth over the polemical – as opposed to scholarly – nature of Liberal Fascism with a grain of salt. I would like to think that HNN didn’t know what it was getting into when it started this project. The slanderous and absurd bile in some of these initial responses – comparing my book to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and me to a Nazi propagandist – runs completely counter to the spirit of open debate. Let me say up front that selecting David Neiwert to “introduce” the discussion – without telling me in advance – is pretty strong evidence that this symposium was intended a priori to discredit the book rather than honestly discuss it (usually, introducers at least pretend to be evenhanded). Indeed, according to Goldberg, the entire enterprise was tainted by the fact of my participation: Paxton speak for himself in his own response, except that, as I'll explain, Goldberg's evasive reply is largely in line with the kind of exchange I've previously had with Goldberg. ![]() Goldberg really only deigns to respond in any depth to one of his critics - Robert Paxton, whose essay on Goldberg's scholarly flaws is damning indeed. When we first published that series of historians' critiques of Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism at HNN last week, we awaited Goldberg's response. ![]()
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