Fascism Comes to America

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The term "fascist" has been thrown around in American politics and culture for much of the twentieth and twenty-first century. It is a popular epithet that is used to brand all kinds of political opponents from left to right. What does the term mean? How is it used? How did it show up in American history and culture with the rise of fascist regimes in Europe before World War II? Why has its use persisted even as those regimes were defeated? Why has "fascist" come to carry such negative associations? In Fascism Comes to America Bruce Kuklick explores the history of the use and meaning of fascism in American politics and culture for the past hundred years. His survey spans everything from scholarly work to the statements of politicians, the writings of journalists and pundits, and its use in popular culture, particularly in the way fascism has been employed in film. His goal is to figure out how people have used the concept to critique our politics, to comment on the history of the twentieth century, and as a term of derision in politics and culture. Kuklick argues the term has almost no meaning in the way politicians and pundits have used it. He explores its use in popular culture to show how culture critiqued fascism in serious work-i.e. something like Robert Penn Warren's novel All the King's Men on Huey Long-as well as in comedy and satire. He concludes that the use of the term "fascism" illustrates how language is often drained of meaning as it is employed to deride opposing views or to hide real feelings or issues. --- For example, he explores the way the label "fascist" was applied to Roosevelt and his New Deal and in turn applied by Roosevelt and his supporters to those who opposed the New Deal. This became even more pointed as World War II began and the American Firsters and other isolationist groups traded insults as they fought over whether the United States should get into the war. --- Among other things, Kuklick is trying to understand the way language is used in politics and how culture and politics relate, with culture sometimes taking the lead in explicating what politicians and even academics leave murky"--