In his essay, Politics and the English Language, George Orwell wrote, ‘The word fascism has now no meaning.’
Last weekend, I experienced this firsthand. I was attending my first CPAC Conference. After lunch, I stepped outside to get some fresh air. When I heard chanting and screeching, curiosity got the better of me and I went to investigate.
I saw a small group of pale people shouting about ‘fighting the right’ and ‘smashing fascism’. I quickly determined that these skinny, carefully masked-up youngsters posed no danger. They weren’t going to be fighting anyone, not without eating some red meat at least.
But their words struck me as odd, particularly since I was attending CPAC as part of a delegation from the Australian Jewish Association. As the grandson of Holocaust survivors, who experienced first-hand what fascism is, I am hyper-vigilant about its dangers.
It got me thinking, where was this fascism they were protesting so vigorously?
I thought back to the talks I had just listened to that morning. Surely, they didn’t take issue with the all-Indigenous panel talking about why so many Indigenous people oppose the divisive Aboriginal ‘Voice’.
Did these activists think that Zion Lights, the climate advocate of Indian origin, was a fascist? Was it Michael Shellenberger, who ran as a Democrat candidate for California Governor that was getting them so worked up?
Read the article by Robert Gregory in The Spectator.