Annals of derp: Have mercy on me!

Update below

It was FDR, not @realDonaldTrump , who cut deals with virulent racists & courted Italian Fascism while in the White House #TheBigLie pic.twitter.com/ucOxylOf7V

— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) November 18, 2017

I guess it's perfectly true that Trump has not courted Italian fascism—yet. I mean, there's not as much Italian fascism kicking around for him to deal with. Other fascisms, from Britain to the Philippines, are another matter, as is Stephen Bannon's apparent interest in the "radically anti-egalitarian, anti-liberal, anti-democratic" writings of Baron Evola, but I think it's a more lively question whether Silvio Berlusconi, currently making some kind of comeback, is courting American fascism with his frequent praise of the most Berlusconian of US politicians. Anyhow where was I?

By the way, was Winston Churchill a leftist? Is that why he admired Mussolini so much? https://t.co/v0PoValcB7 pic.twitter.com/3LOH8Je3Ks

— Yas We Can (@Yastreblyansky) November 19, 2017

So somebody shows up with an ambiguous message. Not sure what it meant, but thought it might be a teachable moment:

Liberal Fascism Watch: War on Christmas edition

Reproduction of an Orthodox icon of Saints Sergius and Bacchus (Sergios and Vachos), by Theophanis the Cretan (1545), Monastery of Dionysiou Mount Athos, via Paracletos.

Jay Nordlinger for National Review writes,

I was interested to read an article by Thomas V. DiBacco in the Wall Street Journal. (By the way, it would be interesting if Professor DiBacco disliked wine — as his name means “of Bacchus.”) The article begins...

Sadly, no. I mean, it doesn't mean "of Bacchus" in the sense of the wine god, most likely, as the Italian personal naming system didn't really get going until paganism was pretty dead, though it could conceivably be after the Saint Bacchus who was martyred at Barbalissos in Syria around the beginning of the 4th century, after being paraded in drag around town with his companion Saint Sergius, who appeared to Sergius after his death, encouraging him to face martyrdom as well so that they could be together for eternity, which Sergius did. Their vita describes them as erastai, which could be translated "lovers", and some scholars have thought of them as Christianity's prototype example same-sex marriage, united in the ritual of adelphopoiesis, though this is of course widely disputed.

Exchange: Liberal Fascism Watch, eugenics section

The embodiment of Liberal Fascism (well, he said he was a Liberal, from 1904 to 1924, Jonah, rather more than Hitler said National Socialists were socialists): Winston Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty sharing a moment with Kaiser Wilhelm II, 1913. Via MaritimeQuest.

From a comment thread at Crooked Timber:

ZM 11.23.15 at 1:37 am

Thinking about re-appraisals, Woodrow Wilson was a fan of the children’s author Jean Webster who wrote Daddy Long Legs and Dear Enemy. I read these when I was in mid primary school, re-reading them a few years ago as an adult was weird (apart from just due to me reading one backwards from end to start — this is as they are epistolary novels so I read the last letter, then I read the second last letter, and so on back to the first letter of the book — I didn’t mean to do this, I was just flicking through the end but I got hooked and read to the beginning to see how it started) — because the former was more socialist than I remembered, and the latter was disturbingly in favour of eugenics, which I didn’t remember at all:

“The Fabian Society in the early 1900s advocated the ideal of a scientifically planned society and supported eugenics by way of sterilisation.

If you’d like to see the charming side of Fabian Socialism, you should read Jean Webster’s two delightful books: Daddy Long Legs and Dear Enemy. Both are epistolary novels written in the 1910s. One is set at a women’s college (Vassar-ish) and the other is set in an orphanage. The former presents a pretty picture of Fabian Socialism and the latter sweetly and ardently advocates eugenics.

Liberal Fascism Watch: Electing another people

Bertolt Brecht–Helene Weigel House in Buckow, Brandenburg. Wikipedia.

Well, on Senator Mary Landrieu suggesting that some element of President Obama's unpopularity might be ascribable to a lingering racism among some persons, I give you Mr. Jonah Goldberg:

In Die Lösung Brecht famously quipped that if the people lose faith in the government it would be better if the government dissolved the people and elected another. For progressives it’s always five minutes to Brecht-O-Clock. What I mean is this desire to fix the people, not the government always seems to be lurking behind liberalism. It was there when Woodrow Wilson said the first job of an educator is to make your children as unlike you as possible....

Liberal Fascism watch

Via Nairaland.

Culture War reporting from Raw Story:

The [Colorado] Civil Rights Commission last week upheld an administrative judge’s finding that Christian bakery owner Jack Phillips had violated Colorado’s anti-discrimination statutes.

“I’m beginning to think, are re-education camps next?” [Family Research Council president Tony] Perkins wondered aloud. “When are they going to start rolling out the boxcars to start hauling off Christians?”