Dinesh D’Souza, from a recent speech at Trinity University in San Antonio:

“Is it really the case that Trump is a fascist? Is the GOP a fascist party?

First of all, it’s important to know that this whole business of Trump and the GOP being fascist relies upon an assumption that is never questioned — that fascism is something that is “right wing,” fascism is a “right wing” phenomenon.

If you think about it, most of us haven’t thought about why fascism is right wing. What does it even mean to be “right wing” and what is it about fascism that makes it “right wing.”

“Well the fascists were really ultra-nationalists!”

First of all, being ultra nationalist hardly makes you “right wing.” Che Guevara was an “ultra-nationalist.” Stalin was an “ultra-nationalist.” In fact, he talked about “motherland Russia” and what he called “Socialism in one country.” Ghandi was a nationalist. FDR was a nationalist. Hugo Chavez in Venezuela was a nationalist. So, clearly it can’t be that nationalism alone — a fierce attachment to one’s own country — automatically makes you a fascist.

“Well, Trump is, uhm, against immigrants!”

I’m an immigrant. My wife here, Debby, is an immigrant from Venezuela. You might think that we’ve been living in fear since Trump’s election. When you open the New York Times everyday I see headlines like “Trump getting ready to deport millions of immigrants.” Not, “illegal aliens,” but “immigrants.” Notice that somehow, suddenly, illegal aliens are conflated with immigrants. I don’t even mean “illegal immigrants.” If you’re illegal, you are not an immigrant.

People say, “Well, Trump is getting ready to deny the illegals their Constitutional rights!”

Yes, this is actually the implication of the argument. It is not an argument from fascism. It is an argument right out of Locke and John Stewart Mill, and the most liberal of liberal traditions to believe that American society is a social compact. It’s a bargain, or a “deal,” among a group of people who come together, form a government, agree to relinquish the exercise of certain of their basic rights, in exchange for certain forms of protection.

This social compact is between and among citizens, in the same way that the rules of a club apply to its members. If someone is outside the social compact, they do not have ANY Constitutional rights.

None.

I’m not suggesting that they don’t have natural rights. Nor am I suggesting that they don’t have human rights. But, Constitutional rights are the result of a civil bargain among citizens. And like I say, this is the core of the meaning of liberalism.

“Well, yea but it’s vaguely reminiscent of all the stuff that Hitler used to do!”

First of all, we live in a society where the term “Hitler” has taken on a certain kind of bizarre significance. The philosopher Leo Strauss used to talk about what he called “Reductio ad Hilterum.” Basically, if Hitler was for it, that makes it bad. But, the point I want to make — in California for example, this whole notion of Hitler and Nazis is preposterously used to refer to things that have nothing to do with Nazism. You literally have people with great excitement say “I’m a food Nazi;” “I’m a surf Nazi;” “I’m a health Nazi.” For them Nazism basically denotes commitment; being really dedicated to something makes you a Nazi.

Hitler was not anti-immigrant. The Jews in Germany were citizens. There weren’t immigrants. They were citizens Germany. So, clearly Hitler’s distinction was not between the immigrant and the native. Hitler’s distinction was within Germany. It was a kind of ethnic or racial distinction, in which some citizens belonged — the Nordics, the Germanics — and other citizens were excluded. Hitler preferred Austrian Germans over German Jews.

So, right away this whole immigrant thing has nothing to do with Hitler. He was operating on a totally different compass.

I’m writing about this and I’m going to have a lot more to say about it [in the future]. I’ll make one more brief observation about fascism [here today]…

Fascism, by the way, is not the same as Nazism. Hitler very rarely used the term fascist. Read Mein Kampf. You will hardly find that term ever used. Mussolini, who was the prototypical fascist, never called himself a “National Socialist.” So, fascism and National Socialism are somewhat different. They’re related. Essentially the main difference is that National Socialism was, at its core, racist. National Socialism was anti-Semitic. National Socialism drew a racial line that fascism never drew.

For example, the Italian fascists were a lot less racist than, for example, the American Democratic Party.

Much less.

I don’t deny, Mussolini did become anti-Semitic towards the end. But, it was mainly because he felt he had to maintain the alliance with Hitler. There was no inherent Antisemitism in fascism. In fact, a number of the early fascists were Jews.

When you look at the origin of fascism — a subject that is now shrouded in mist — you come to a remarkable finding. That is that all — ALL — the founders of original fascism were leftists. All of then were either Marxists, or socialists, or radicals associated in Britain with the Labour Party, in France with the Socialist Party, in Germany and Italy with either the Marxists or the Communists.

In other words, fascism was — start to finish — a left-wing phenomenon, that emerged out of a debate about the failed prophecies of Marx. Essentially, Marx predicted the revolution of the proletariat. It never happened. So, there was something called the “crisis of Marxism” in the early part of the 20th century. Out of that “crisis of Marxism” came two new variations of Marxism — very different from anything Marx would have predicted. The first was Leninist Bolshevism and the other was Italian Fascism.

This is the undisputed truth of history. But, if you are a little puzzled about it, I don’t really blame you. Why? Because after World War II there was a very important progressive cover-up project that went on in America. The basic idea was to camouflage the close associations of the political left with fascism and Nazism; and to move fascism and Nazism from the left — where they were always understood to be — into the right wing column. This was actually one of the most cunning sleights of hand ever performed in American history.

How do you pull something like this off? How do you fool most of the people most of the time? You can only do it if your group — the left — is sufficiently dominant in academia, in media, and in Hollywood. If you have that, then you have the three biggest megaphones of our culture. You can broadcast all kinds of whoppers and lies; all kinds of fake news and fake history; and even if some guy in the audience knows differently — YOU KNOW DIFFERENTLY — but you don’t have a big enough megaphone to contradict this “orthodoxy.”

This is why there is a mentality on the left that tries to keep people like me from speaking on campus. Not because I’m coming here to blast out racial epithets. I don’t need the pompous ‘I’ll defend to the death his right to speak.’ It’s not about that. It is ultimately that the ideas that I put forward can’t be refuted by these people. They don’t know enough. So, they become very bitter, and frightened. Inwardly frightened. Because I’ll say things. I’ll present facts. And they are facts of a scientific nature — by which I mean simply that they are open to refutation.

Open to refutation.”