Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Sweet, Sales-Promoting Irony

Jonah Goldberg, who clearly missed the boat by several miles, BUT will do very well, nonetheless:

I have to thank Barack Obama. Here I wrote a book, working on the assumption that Hillary Clinton would be the nominee (hardly a harebrained assumption at the time), about how contemporary progressivism is a political religion with its roots in German state theory, sharing a close family resemblance to fascism. Among the anatomical and genetic similarities: cult of unity, sacralization of politics, philosophical pragmatism, corporatism, relativism, Romanticism, hero-worship, collectivism, and so on. And out of nowhere comes a guy who campaigns as a secular messiah, spouting deeply spiritualized political rhetoric, claims the Progressives as his inspiration, and proudly sees himself as carrying out FDR’s mission. I haven’t counted them, but I’d guess I’ve received a couple hundred e-mails from readers telling me how they thought the whole book was written with Obama in mind, even though I finished it before he was even ahead in the Democratic primaries.

After the election, sales of the book spiked through the roof for a reason. I used to joke that the same people loading up on bottled water and handguns were buying extra copies of the book as a field guide or something.

The title is "Liberal Fascism." I'll read it while cleaning the guns, thanks!

1 comment:

Billiam said...

I know the Libs will hate it, but if they got past the title and actually read it with as open a mind as any of us can manage, I think they'd see much truth in it. I know. I'm living in a fantasy world! LOOK! There's Dopey and Bugs Bunny!