Dinesh D'Souza on How the Left Rebranded Fascism as “Right Wing” | Real Talk | PragerU

The big lie is the transposition in the meaning of fascism and Nazism. The original fascism was um a phenomenon of the political left. It was anti- capitalist. It was explicitly socialist and hence the name Nazi which is essentially a compression of national socialism. And this wasn't just Hitler using the term because the the Nazis have which you can look look it up online a 25point platform which they campaigned on. This was their platform and their platform if you read it it's very clear. It's state control of the banks, state control of industry, state control of education, state control of the churches, state control of the media. So you go down this list and you go, does this sound more like Donald Trump or does it sound more like let's say Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders? And the answer is it sounds exactly like Bernie Sanders. It's the left-wing agenda. So the Nazis, the fascists, which is Mussolini in Italy, they saw themselves as on the left. The critics of fascism also saw them as being on the left. Everybody recognized that this was a phenomenon of the left. However, after World War II, when the when fascism and Nazism became completely discredited, people saw the starving, emaciated figures coming out of the concentration camps, you could not defend fascism or Nazism anymore. the progressive intellectuals who dominated American academia and also the the emerging intellectual classes of Europe, they all realized that their own views were suspiciously close to those of Mussolini and not all that far from those of Hitler. And so they realized we have to sort of redefine fascism and Nazism to remove our association with it. And so what they basically did is they said fascism is not what you thought it was. It's not an economic agenda. It's not about any of this. Fascism simply means militarism and nationalism. Now first of all there are militaries all over the world, right? The Chinese have a military. Uh Genghaskhan had a military. Genghaskhan wasn't a fascist. And if you say that fascism is nationalism, that doesn't make any sense either. Gandhi was a nationalist. He wasn't a fascist. Right? You've got all kinds of figures who are Mandela was a nationalist. George Washington was George Washington was a nationalist. So, so nationalisms runs the whole political gamut from left to right. It depends on on who that particular nationalist is. But the left very cunningly took fascism from the left-wing column and moved it into the right-wing column so that now you have the utterly bizarre phenomenon where somebody can go up to Benjamin Netanyahu and point their finger at him and call him a fascist or even a Nazi, right? uh without the intellectual spade work of doing what I just described that would be impossible in fact ludicrous but because this project has been so successful of redefining fascism that's the nature that's the big lie they're now able to do it with a straight face and get credible people gullible people to believe them so people will respond to this and say well DH yes it is true that there is horrible anti-semitism on the left, but now we're starting to see horrible anti-semitism on the right and there is horrible anti-Israel on the right. And so, how do you how do you explain the big lie as in accuse the Jew of what you should actually be blamed for, which is what we're seeing in many, many cases. those who accuse the Jews of pedophilia or those who accuse the Jews of of thievery or colonialization or whatever it is that they're accusing the Jews often times it's actually what they themselves are doing we are seeing this both on the left and on the right yes I I do think and and this is something that has been very striking to me is the way in which anti-semitism and this is different than let's say racism. The accusations against the Jews come from sometimes opposite directions. And not only that, the Jews are accused simultaneously of being opposite things which you can't be. So, for example, the Jews are accused of being left-wing communists and secular perverts. And at the same time they're accused of being fanatically um they're in fact Hitler accused the Jews of being insidious capitalists and controlling the banks and running all the financial institutions um and and and being feverishly tribalistic and nationalistic. So you can see here that what I'm getting at is that it's like get your story straight. You know, I was recently in this I I did an online debate with this Nick Fuentes character, this young whippersnapper guy, and he's like, you know, Israel controls, you know, America. And I'm like, are you saying that a group of what 10 to 12 million people have somehow established control over a group of 350 million people who are part of a much bigger and stronger and richer country? How is that even possible? I mean, if if if 10 million people can pull that off, I like maybe they are the master race, you know, and I his face was like he looked a little startled. But what I was getting at is that is that people come to believe utterly preposterous things. Why? Why the Jews? Because again, the Jews see with traditional racism, it's it in a way it's very simple, right? Because in racism, I'm up here, you're down there. Y you're inferior. You're unintelligent. You're a loser. But nobody would accuse you of running the world because you're too stupid to run the world. I should be running your life because I'm smarter and better than you are. Many people will connect anti-semitism and racism, but notice how anti-semitism doesn't work like that. Because with anti-semitism, it's almost like the Jews are up here and I'm down here and I'm looking at the Jews and going, you're running everything. You control Hollywood. You control business. You control the media. So there is an there are new emotional elements that come into it, including the element of envy, uh, including the idea that I'm not doing as well as I think I should be because somebody else is taking advantage of me. Notice that this is a very this is part of left-wing victimology, right? Because left-wing victimology is that if I'm not succeeding as a woman, it's because we live in a patriarchal world. If I'm not succeeding as a person of color, it's because white people control the system. Um, this phenomenon is now observable on the right. This is what Hitler accused the Jews of as well. He accused the Jews of Germany basically being destroyed because of of financial elitism that the Jews had. It's it's a it it does seem to rhyme. The in the case of Germany, the remarkable thing was that uh the Jews in in Christian Europe had been pushed into these financial industries because the Christians would say things like, "Well, we will not lend money at interest. You know, we'll let the Jews do that kind of thing." And so you have the the Shillock character emerging in Shakespeare and literature, for example. Um so it's not as if the Jews all just said, "We want to go into finance." And to some degree that was forced upon them. And then Hitler comes along and goes, "You people are too powerful in finance. You people control the banks. You people are running our society." And also this idea that again the Jews were pushed into separate neighborhoods, right? And you so for example in The Merchant of Venice, the Jews don't live with the Christians. They live apart. They live in their own sort of Jewish ghetto um so to speak. Um and so Hitler accuses the Jews again of being a people apart. Well, how did they become that way? You know, they were they were forced into these enclaves in um in in medieval uh and post-medieval Europe. So, I think that uh it's to me very alarming to see this um this anti-semitic blast um which I haven't seen for in my earlier career on the right at all suddenly show its face and sometimes in surprising quarters coming from people that I know and that I've I've dealt with over the years uh and I would not have expected it from them. And so it has um unnerved me to see um their um the zeal with which they push I think this this ugly and indefensible cause. Yeah. I think you mentioned the word zeal which is what's very surprising. I I use the term obsession. There seems to be an obsession, a constant obsession throughout history, but even now especially now since October 7th with the Jews and with Israel. So Israel is a country the size of New Jersey. And here we are finding so many podcasters constantly talking about Israel as if it's the one and only most important subject that they can speak about. And I got to wonder, maybe it is the one and only most important subject that people need to speak about. Is israel the center of the world? And is there something almost mystical uh that is beyond supernatural that that we need to understand is going on here because there are conflicts all over the world. There are Christians being massacred all over the world in Africa, all over the Middle East, right? But there is this constant conversation about Gaza and Israel, a country the size of New Jersey. I know you have become very interested in it as well, right? like how does a person from India who migrates to the United States who marries a Venezuelan who lives in Houston becomes so how do you become so focused and interested in Israel as well? I'm I'm curious what is your conclusion for why Israel continues and the Jews continue to be the center of a worldwide conversation. I think that for much of my career I was looking at Israel primarily through a political lens and viewed that way. Israel appears to be important but not central. And by that I mean if you had asked me in the 80s and 90s like why is the Middle East important? I would say well obviously it's because the United States needs oil. That's the only reason. And uh if people said, "Well, why is Israel important?" I go, "Well, that's because Israel is our friend in the place where we need to get our oil and so Israel is kind of a good ally to have." So, this is looking at things in a political lens. As time passed, I began to think to myself, why is it the case that uh long-standing disputes uh can be resolved in other parts of the world, but in this one spot um nothing gets resolved. I mean, I saw prime ministers going back to, you know, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, they all have peace plans and they all and Nobel prizes are handed out. But but fundamentally like it the issue doesn't go away and I've come to the view that the reason it doesn't go away is that Israel is to a certain degree a mystical place. Uh and by that I mean it is a place that and by the way this is something that was also believed to some degree by by the American founders about America. a providential nation. And a providential nation can be doesn't doesn't necessarily mean that I'm giving a fully like theological account. A providential nation means that there's there's something unique and and a part about this country. The founders call it like the novice ordo cycllorum, a new order for the ages. And they believe America has this providential destiny. And you've got American presidents, even Lincoln and Reagan, who were not extremely devout. I would say either of them. Uh Reagan would refer to God, but he's like the man upstairs, you know, that's how you call him. Uh Lincoln was suspected of being an atheist in his younger days. Um but nevertheless both of them had an ironclad belief that that America's the unfolding of America was part of some providential or transcendental scheme. Uh and I think that's and many times the American founders who thought of this would use phrases like America is the new Zion. So they themselves understood that Israel has always been part of uh some kind of a larger providential scheme. And I think the reality of that is more apparent to me now having been to Israel and had some direct exposure exposure to Israel. So the new kind of obsession with Israel that's coming from a certain wing of the right is at one level disturbing but I think at another level they too recognize that there is a certain type of spiritual battle or warfare going on and they are taking sides in that battle.