The mainstream media roundly mocked Ronald Reagan when he remarked, back in the 1970s, that “fascism was really the basis of the New Deal.” August Reagan told reporters: “Anyone who wants to look at the writings of the Brain Trust of the New Deal will find that President Roosevelt’s advisers admired the fascist system. . . They thought that private ownership with government management and control a la the Italian system was the way to go, and that has been evident in all their writings.” This was, Reagan added, “long before fascism became a dirty word in the lexicon of the liberals.” The Washington Post, among others, was agog: “Several historians of the New Deal period questioned by The Washington Post said they had no idea what Reagan was referring to.”
This is merely evidence of the historical ignorance of our prestige journalists.
So let’s take in this observation (source at the end):
“If not always in the same words, [Roosevelt], too, demands that collective good be put before individual self-interest. Many passages of his book Looking Forward could have been written by a National Socialist. In any case, one can assume that he feels considerable affinity with the National Socialist philosophy. . . The president’s fundamental political course still contains democratic tendencies but is thoroughly inflected by a strong national socialism.”
—Volkischer Beobachter, May 11, 1933
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