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YAF at Brandeis: Dinesh D’Souza
This is a report I wrote on the talk that Dinesh D’Souza gave at my school last night, even though you can watch the whole thing here .
In the beginning, the Assistant Dean of Students somewhat awkwardly read a speech about how it is a good thing to have this event on campus, and then she pointed out that if people wanted to be loud, they could go to the convenient protest area behind the actual lecture hall, which got some laughs. (I’m sorry if you were hoping for drama in the piece, but spoilers: There was no trouble, and to be honest I didn’t expect any. D’Souza, who also spoke at Brandeis ten years ago, expressed surprise about this at the end.)
D’Souza opened by remarking that back when he was in college, liberal views were prevalent on campuses, but conservative views were definitely visible, including among professors. Now, it’s harder to talk to people with different views, because different views are seen as a threat. D’Souza expressed doubt that many liberal college students today would be able to answer the question, “What are conservatives trying to conserve?” I would tend to agree.
Next, D’Souza said he would discuss racism and fascism, two things leftists accuse Trump of, and noted that spreading accusations of fascism is new to the Left; it just started about a year ago. In terms of racism, D’Souza gave us the sordid history of the Democrat Party, pointing out that literally all slaveowners were Democrats and it is very logically shaky to blame it all on ‘the south.’ (Here, a tangent on how liberals like to blame things on “America,” “the white man,” etc. instead of on the people who were actually responsible.) Post-bellum, the Democrats invented white supremacy. Segregation, the Ku Klux Klan, racial terrorism, and lynching were all their policies and institutions. Democrat Woodrow Wilson made the Ku Klux Klan cool again by showing Birth of a Nation in the White House in the early twentieth century. The fabled ‘Big Switch’ never happened; only one single Dixiecrat, Strom Thurmond, switched parties. Obama and Clinton both eulogized former Klan member Robert Byrd. There is an idea that, after all, you had to be in the Klan in those days if you wanted to further Democrat ideals.
D’Souza pointed out the obvious fact that fascism has always come from the Left. He provided a brief history of fascism, starting with Mussolini. Mussolini grew up Marxist, but Marx turned out be wrong about many things. The working class did not get poorer. The Revolution did not come from England or from Germany, but rather from Russia, and it came in the form of overthrowing the czarist regime — not capitalism. Marx’s idea of socialism has never worked out, and in D’Souza’s opinion, never will. National Socialism to the rescue! People are much more likely to die for a nation than for an economic class, and that’s why Nazism did better than plain old Marxism.
With that history lecture over, D’Souza brought up Herbert Marcuse and his 1960’s statement, “No free speech for fascists!” The spirit of the Antifa. But the truth, according to D’Souza, is that Trump seems to want the opposite of fascism — to unleash capitalism, and detach it from the state.
Now I’ll just give you highlights from the Q & A period.
The less cringey people came first. Somebody asked a question about politicians changing their minds and what that means, and D’Souza said that all politics is a hybrid of principle and opportunism, and that isn’t a bad thing. He gave a spiel about how SSM succeeded because the Left was cleverly fighting a culture war outside of politics, and the Right was not fighting that war, and so by the time the issue entered politics, it was a fait accompli.
A fun moment a little later on was when D’Souza ended up explaining that Trump does not want to deport immigrants. Illegals are not immigrants, and they do not have constitutional rights.
The really cringey guy came up next. I’ll paraphrase: “You think that Democrats are less moral than Republicans but the Democrats say that they care about climate change!” D’Souza expressed an opinion that climate change seems like theism to him: there is not really empirical evidence that we can all see and thus conclude, yes, it exists. The student’s response, which just sort of went on for a while, immediately reminded me of Pascal’s Wager. So that was funny to me because it seemed to prove the point D’Souza had just made. (You all can watch this segment at 1:21:00 in the video I linked at the beginning, if you want to subject yourselves to it.) D’Souza also talked about how he comes from a third world country and they would love to have things that climate change activists think is bad, such as oil, so that they can become a second world country. No one talks about climate change in India. (My libertarian environmentalist friend was interested to hear that conservatives as well as liberals make the argument that environmentalism is for privileged people.)
We finally got around to the female students, and of course they wanted to know about women’s rights. (Reminded me of Brandeis Conservatives meetings; hard to find a woman who really wants to talk politics. I admit that I find it a little embarrassing.) D’Souza said that abortion is not a constitutional right, and even if it was, why should it be subsidized when our other rights, e.g. our second amendment rights, are not? (The student to whom he was saying this shook her head.) He also ended up explaining Roe v Wade and why he thinks it would be a good idea to overturn that decision.
All in all it was an interesting event with a good sized, ideologically diverse turnout, and everyone was courteous. So good for Brandeis, and thank you to Dinesh D’Souza and Young America’s Foundation for the privilege.
Published in General
Thanks for attending/reporting for us, Serif! Query: When you say ‘reinstate’ Roe v Wade, did you perhaps mean: “Return/devolve it back to the states”?
I’m also happy that only vocal cords were strained during the speech… :-)
It goes to show that most people today have no idea at all of what fascism was or is. The term has devolved into nothing more than a slur or label to fling at things we don’t like.
I think this goes down to “what do conservatives wish to conserve.” If the “Right” is the “conservative,” then we ask the question “What are you conserving” and depending on the answer, fascist may or may not fit.
If, as it seems to be for most American Conservatives, they say it is to conserve the Constitution of the United States of America, than “fascism” is not conservative or of the Right. Neither does this definition of conservative or the Right exist for Nazi Germany or the USSR. This is unique to our constitution as it outright delineates “Freedom of Speech.”
If, as is appearing to become a movement here, they say it is to conserve the nation of America, then it is probable that fascism could find its way into that definition of conservative and the Right.
While the right appears to be quite complex and varied in its priorities, we do appear to largely agree that there is some hybrid of constitutional, national, and social conservatism blended in our conservative dna. How much weight we each put on each part alters how we might view fascistic tendencies.
Sorry–yes. He pointed out that it is about states’ rights and not about being anti-abortion, and he said he imagined that hardly any states would actually outlaw abortion anyway.
YAF and Conservatives: Conserving nothing since 1964!
I strongly disagree with the “right vs left” of TT, but (not) for the first time. I think it is because we speak a different language.
To me, the spectrum is much simpler: Free, and Unfree.
The the extent people are free to make their own economic, religious, etc. choices, the society/government/nation are free.
To the extent that people must ask permission before doing what they want to do, they are unfree.
Fascism and socialism and liberalism are all unfree, to varying extents and in different ways.
That is a great accomplishment of the Democrats over the last half century: They have reversed the economic gains made by the working class.
We conflated Nazism, Fascism and Flangism for a lot of reasons, but only the Flangists could properly be called right wing. Fascism was unambiguously left wing. Mussolini and his movement came out of the Socialist International and is the reason communists called them opportunists. Mussolini explicitly adopted nationalism over international socialism because the war had shown it to be so powerful an organizing force. Lenin called fascism the the final stage of capitalism and our own left picked up on it but it was a perverse response to market collapse and the devastation of the war competing in the same political space and philosophical approach to power and economics with the Communists. Nazism was it’s own thing, sick perverse but also a response to the war, the peace and the collapse of the German economy, Hitler rose to power in part on the backs of socialist supporters and killed them as soon as he could. So it is not right to call them right wing. Every country has it’s own right rooted in its own history or the term means nothing.
But that completely upturns the basis of the argument that fascists were lefty!
Why ? Mussolini was editor of a Socialist newspaper. Nazi means National Socialist.
Fascism is a way for government to control the means of production. The Nazis controlled the industrialists who were foolish enough to think they could control Hitler. Crony Capitalism, which we have a significant measure, is a form of fascism. The industrialists, like Jeffrey Immelt, seek favors from government and do the bidding, as in global “warming,” to get those favors.
Me too. It sounds like nonsense on stilts to these American ears. My only quibble with you, iWe, would be the careless use of “liberal” as lumped in with the Left. They are not the liberals — we are! It was probably a mistake for conservatives to trash “liberal” and make it into a pejorative. We should simply have pointed out that we’re for individual liberty within an ordered and (largely) virtuous nation (liberalism of the founders). The Left is for “equality” imposed by people who know best — or, at least, who think they do.
And, if socialism is nationalization of the means of production, how is it distinct from communism? I think socialists are happy to capture industry — making it a virtual state utility — through regulation and redistribution mandates. See Obamacare.
The ’Right’ [fasicsm etc] uses nation (blood, descent, culture, religion, language, soil, history) which is very particular and intrinsic. The ’Left’ [marxism, feminism of one sort at least] elevates (crudely put) ’economic function’ over any of these – which is not particular (a factory worker in India is essentially pretty similar to a factory worker in England) and not intrinsic but caused by our lives.
If one had to make it an aphorism: The Right says that we do what we are, the Left that we become what we do.
People sometimes use ”Right” to mean ”Collectivist” and this is inaccurate – you can have collectivist Rightists (fascists) or Leftists (Marxists), but you can have individualist Rightists (Libertarians) and Leftists (Liberals) too.
I’d take these principles over Conservatism’s globalism any day.
Yep. Hugo Chavez? Left wing. Augusto Pinochet? Right wing.
Aaron Miller (View Comment):
the original American concept of political justice is extraordinary. It is exceptional, and not as the tip of a spear. It is not avant garde, but rather a break with normal human attitudes. So to apply the American version of Left/Right to Europe is a stretch, at least. If we begin from the French model of populists vs royalists, we see that both sides favor extensive centralized authority. The difference is only in who rules.
Royalists, Fascists, Nazis, Communists and, to a variable and often lesser degree socialists, all believe that some hereditary class association determines the purpose of all human life, and ones role in society. Class can be religious, racial, or economic class or some combination thereof.
The favored class has class enemies. The Left is more likely to make exceptions than the right for sufficiently bloody handed adherents born into the enemy group than were the Nazis. There were national socialists before Hitler, yemach shemo, and the international socialists despised them.
To me, the left has a liberal wing and a radical (totalitarian, hence fascist) wing. The right has a liberal wing (free speech, separation of church and state, free markets) and a radical (totalitarian, hence fascist) wing. It’s a circle, not a vector.
“Bellicosity…Bellicosity!” [Fr. Francis X. Mulcahy voice] Where, young sir? Verbal forcefulness in expressing opinion; challenges to your assertions, yes…But, surely, no anger intersecting with ill-intent? If that’s what you’re perceiving, maybe it *is* time for a tall, frothy, cold one (or two). :-)
Hey Gang! With regards to this “does Fascism belong on the left or right?” discussion, I think that the lines are being crossed in this precise location:
When @titustechera says that Fascism is a right-wing phenomenon, I believe that he is referring to a counter-enlightenment school of thought espoused by men such as Joseph de Maistre that was prevalent on the continent following the French Revolution. De Maistre’s political philosophy was an extremely reactionary one in which society was anchored on the triad of King, Priest, and Hangman.
De Maistre is less well known in the USA due to the fact that we owe much of our conservative intellectual heritage to classical liberals such as Edmund Burke. I think it would be difficult to try to connect Burke to Fascism, but the same could not be said of de Maistre (cough, Julius Evola, cough).
So essentially, you have a branching between freedom-loving Anglosphere conservatism and it’s darker authoritarian Continental cousin. And therein lies the rub.
I think Michael’s correct abut that. Titus’s background in southern Europe gives him greater sensitivity to the throne-and-altar, blood-and-soil roots of classical European Fascism. It’s real, if greatly, greatly diminished since WWII. Same with the Franco-ist Fascists that my old parish in the Bronx raised money for in my parents’ childhoods.
One reason Europeans (not Titus; he’s solid) often have oddly distorted ideas about American conservatives is they think it’s the same. It’s not.
So, maybe the answer to, “fascism is a right-wing phenomenon” is — “Not here.”
Ku Klux Klan – Right or Left?
Can’t “Human Scum” be an option?
Here’s a case where you have to invoke a violation of what’s virtually a domestic political Godwin rule and say, yes, the KKK were virtually all Democrats, to the degree they voted. They were fascistic, but not members of elites, and were explicitly based on racism and to a lesser degree, anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish hate. If they’d left off the Catholic part, they’d be considered part of the “right” in Europe.
But the reason they left the Catholic part in is telling: in Catholic countries of Europe, it was the religion of the state and the upper class; but in America, it was the religion of immigrants, pro-alcohol forces, corrupt politicians, priests in thrall to Rome, and therefore the enemy of the still largely Protestant working class, and modest property holders.
Alas for Marxist theory, the Klan was no creation of Southern and Border elites to cleverly entrap innocent Southron and midwest industrial workers. Alas for rightys who want to ignore the gravel that occasionally makes it through our political lint trap, it was also patriotic, pro-religion, and pro-defense, but each in a perverted, distorted way. It was one of the pitchfork rebellions that scared the hell out of the big northern cities, and that might have been its payoff to its supporters of the 1920s, who lived to see it rise and fall.
Sure, but you find these across the spectrum – neither Right nor Left seem to be immune.
Hmm…not any more, I’m afraid.
Short version: they’re not from here (in the way that we are). iow, an iteration of bigotry that is close enough to racism to be as good as. Right?
Imho being Protestant was a marker of being (white) American – the same way that being Catholic was of being truly Spanish – or that being Hindu is now a marker of being a true Indian, like being Sunni is of being Turkish.
Yeah – I think the Marxists are wrong about the basic attractiveness of fascism to human beings – we don’t need no steeenking elites to serve it to us hot or cold. We go for it ourselves : – (
Well, if you’re accustomed to characterizing everyone who wants to treat people differently based on skin color (gender (fluidity), class) as being on the Right… Oh… wait…
I have heard it said that it’s more like the face of a clock. Centrist being straight up Noon, Establishment Repbulicans being somewhere along 1:00-2:00 and establishment Dems begin somewhere along 10:00-11:00. The farther “left” or the farther “right” you move, the closer you get to 6:00, which is straight crazy dictatorships like N. Korea or Nazi Germany. With the clock analogy, the far extremes of both sides are actually closer to each other than they are to the “left” or the “right,” especially in terms of the desire to use government force to dictate how the rest of us should live.
in Klan territory (which wasn’t just the South, there were big Klan rallies in Oakland, California:
That goes back to the xenophobia thing. But “corrupt politicians?” More like protecting “our crooked way of life” from “La Cosa Nostra.” There’s an old adage that if someone served a few terms as Sheriff in the rural South (and elsewhere, for that matter) and didn’t retire rich, there was something wrong with him.
I read a history of San Francisco that asked “with such a big Italian population, how come the Mafia didn’t become a major force?” The answer was that the City’s government wouldn’t allow the competition. Across the Bay in Emeryville, the Mayor and Police Chief controlled the rumrunning and prostitution. There was a large brothel on a major intersection. (The building has been an ashram for years now.) Steel kept Emeryville going for a while after WWII, but the city fell on hard times until neighboring Berkeley’s anti-business climate [Berkeley is a prime example of the toxic mixture of radical politics and political correctness with small town cronyism] gave Emeryville an opportunity: Pixar moved in and the city was gentrifying rapidly even before the recent and ongoing real estate boom.
As to “pro-alcohol forces,” it ain’t that simple. Remember the “Bootleggers and Bootleggers” phenomenon?
“Socialism is bad; jingoism is worse, and the two combined in a kind of debased Italian fascism is the worst creed ever designed by man.”
That is what I found on-line looking for Churchill’s assessment of fascism. So, if fascists are right-wing, we now have socialists on the left and socialists on the right. Where does that leave limited-government, private property rights, WFB, Jr. conservatives? In the middle, where they’ve claimed to be?
I think that’s the most “right.” :)
The reason “right” and “left” are difficult is because there is no one-world context. There are way too many moving parts, and one can’t apply the label from place to place with any certainty that the words will be interpreted in the same ways.
Most students were respectful, and Dinesh is always a gentleman.