My dad had a copy of that book, and when I was a callow youth I read it often, never cover-to-cover though (it was, after all, an anthology). After I quoted it in this column once, though, a kind reader actually sent me a gift copy of the 1944 edition, and recently I got around to doing a read-through of it.
Naturally I remembered most or all the stories after a dusty brain synapse would fire. But having not seen or read it for over 50 years, some of the little anecdotes rang quite true.
One involved Huey Long, the former governor of Louisiana in the 1930s, who was a dictatorial type with a flamboyant outer shell. "The Kingfish" used a populist platform to concentrate power in his own office, and was pretty successful at it until he was assassinated by the son-in-law of a judge whom Long was trying to oust. But I digress.
As Cerf relates, "Huey Long was once asked if we'd ever have fascism in this country. 'Sure', he replied, 'but we'll call it anti-fascism.'"
Like you, I'm sure, my immediate reaction was to think that the old Kingfish was quite right, because we have that in spades right now in the form of "Antifa", the anarchist group that has been fomenting violence around the USA in the name of ... well, none of us really knows.
The Huey Long quote, of course, reminds us that the name "Antifa" is supposed to be a portmanteau word meaning, of course, "anti-fascist."
Although there are a few definitions of fascism out there, I think they (and we) all agree that the two distinguishing characteristics are a dictatorial centralization of power, and violence deployed to get the dictator's way. It's pretty hard not to attribute both to Antifa, and see it borne out every time they have the opportunity to grab some form of power, such as in Seattle last month.
The Democrats -- and clearly that's the side on which Antifa comes down -- are famous for accusing their opposition of exactly what they are doing or have done. There are lots of examples; just think about their engaging the Russians to create the Steele dossier to try to devalue Donald Trump prior to the 2016 election, and then after they lost, accusing Trump of having conspired himself with the Russians to win the election (and then Schiff, and Mueller, dragging that nonsense out for another three years).
In fact, it's astonishing -- try it yourself next time the Democrats accuse Trump of something, anything -- how often it will turn out that they will have done exactly that, themselves, and gotten the lapdog leftist press to ignore it.
It's hard to imagine that most of the Democrats in the House and Senate actually believe that Antifa is a good thing, and that they don't go home at night thinking to themselves "Really, Self, this is what we're supporting?" But they are. At heart, they're about grabbing and holding power. They run in elections not to serve, but to rule.
And so Antifa is becoming more and more the perception of what mainstream Democrat ideology actually is, because no Democrat has the cogliones to stand up and say "Wait a minute." Antifa indeed is the fascist organization, while even by their name they pretend to be in opposition to fascism. They portray the violent representation of leftist, fascist policy exactly as they claim to oppose it.
No one ever said that Huey Long was stupid, but few probably realized how prescient he was. He knew how Democrats operated, being not only a Democrat himself, but a power-hungry dictator in his own realm.
I think that when a quote comes to life 90 years later, it is worth a moment to contemplate and consider the perspective.
Copyright 2020 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here? There are over 1,000 posts from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com, and after four years of writing a new one daily, he still posts thoughts once in a while as "visiting columns", no longer the "prolific essayist" he was through 2018, but still around. Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton
Like what you read here? There are over 1,000 posts from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com, and after four years of writing a new one daily, he still posts thoughts once in a while as "visiting columns", no longer the "prolific essayist" he was through 2018, but still around. Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton
