Why far-right populists are at war with history

[Eugene]

Source: Washington Post

Why far-right populists are at war with history

To normalize their own dangerous politics, they must first neutralize the dangerous politics of the past.

By Federico Finchelstein
Federico Finchelstein is professor of history at the New School and author of the new book, "From Fascism to Populism in History."
April 23

It’s no longer just American conservatives like Dinesh D’Souza and Jonah Goldberg who are promoting the false idea that the Nazi Party was a left-wing movement. Now, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is getting in on the act. Along with arguing that Nazis were actually leftists he also claimed that people can forgive them for what they did. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin immediately condemned the remark, then added: “Political leaders are responsible for shaping the future. Historians describe the past and research what happened. Neither one should stray into the territory of the other.”

Yet for decades, populist leaders have been eagerly decimating the historical record, and playing with the memory and experiences of the victims, for political purposes. In fact, the distortion of Nazi history in particular has been a key feature of the populist brand. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, now allied to racist and xenophobic parties in Israel and abroad, had also distorted Holocaust history to fit his political interests, by presenting a pro-Nazi Palestinian leader from the interwar period as a key actor in the extermination of European Jews.

According to Netanyahu, Adolf Hitler asked the mufti’s advice in 1941: “What should I do with them?” and the mufti replied: “Burn them.” There is no evidence that this sort of dialogue ever took place.

Why do populist leaders want to forgive or displace the actual history of Nazism? Because as these leaders draw from the well of fascist ideology, rhetoric and tactics, they have to neuter the history of fascism to normalize their politics. Revising the history of fascism then renders it mythical rather than historical, presenting the fascism of the past as not that bad — or not even fascism at all.

Rewriting history is central to the populist project. Bolsonaro is doing it not just with the Nazi past, but with his own country’s history as well. He wants to officially celebrate the 1964 coup that led to the most murderous military dictatorship in its history. Moreover, he falsely presents this dictatorship as the one that established democracy in Brazil, and even argues that it was no dictatorship at all. For those worried about Bolsanaro's defense of political violence and desire to accrue more and more power, his push to whitewash the country's dictatorial past is troubling.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/04/23/why-far-right-populists-are-war-with-history/

[rampartc]

1. the false theory that fascists and nazis were (are) socialists

may originate in the post buckley national review and jonah goldberg's ridiculous book "liberal fascists."

there is little question that franco saw himself as a conservative, and was supported by hitler and mussolini against the left leaning anarchists and socialists of spain. that is just one of many historical markers.

the american right lap this up because they see themselves as rugged individualistic frontiersmen while their enemies (us) worship the government and are totally dependent on the largesse of social programs. this mythical dependence leads (in their imagination) to a subservient communal mind that is incapable of voting for their annointed republican leaders (thus freeing ourselves from the democratic "plantation.&quot .

i find this to be hilarious, but don't underestimate them. they think they are the heros of a holy crusade and are capable of violence.

[Nitram]

2. Conservatives have always revised history to support their twisted narrative.

Look how long it took to dig back down to the truth of Slavery, the Civil War, the failure of Reconstruction, and the true nature of Jim Crow after all the layers of revision conservatives used to hide the truth.

[appalachiablue]

3. In the early 1990s I heard archivists talking about researchers

who requested documents to use in writing revisionist history, especially about the Second World War. The staffers wanted to block the researchers from using govt. materials or writing rubbish, but couldn't of course because it was their job. This was at the National Archives and at the time I didn't fully grasp the nefarious scope of what they were discussing. But I since learned, rather the hard way.