Daily Wire host: “Fascism is much, much more progressive than anything that I believe in”
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From the November 14, 2023, edition of The Daily Wire's The Michael Knowles Show
MICHAEL KNOWLES (HOST): Speaking of dictators, the Democrats – they've got a new strategy for taking down Donald Trump. Well, they have a strategy for taking down Donald – the new strategy is the same as the old strategy. It's the strategy that they have been using the entire time to finally take down Donald Trump, and it is to compare him to a fascist dictator.
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KNOWLES: And so, what's the response? What do conservatives say to this?
I think 10 or 15 years ago, what conservatives would have said is, no, we're not fascists. No, no. We actually – you just don't understand. We support smaller government. And you – and then what that argument – what that rejoinder turned into over time was, actually, Democrats, when you really think about it, you're the real fascists because, you see, you want to wield government power more than we do. So, you're just totally misunderstanding this whole situation because if anyone -- I'm not saying anyone's a fascist here, but if anyone's going to be like a fascist, it's you, not us.
And now do you know what the answer is? Do you know what I think -- at least this is my conservative answer to Joe Scarborough or any other Democrat who knows nothing about political philosophy, who knows, certainly, nothing about fascism, who knows nothing about the American political order as it once was and could be again, my answer is, OK. Whatever, bro. Sure. No, but you're a fascist, you're just like Mussolini. OK. That's fine. I got a little more hair than Mussolini. I don't know. My jaw is not quite as wide, but sure. Fine. OK. Why not? Why not?
Fascism doesn't mean anything anymore. It once, actually, did mean something. And unlike Joe Scarborough or any Democrat, really, at all at the national level, I've read the founding documents of fascism. For goodness sakes, my double major was in Italian literature. There isn't that much to read if you study Italian literature. It's Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, and the fascists. The fascist poets and the theorists and the aesthetic philosophers, and it's people like Marinetti, and Alceste de Ambris, and Giovanni Gentile, and Mussolini and then a bunch of poets in the 20th century. So, yes, I've read all the documents. I'm not a fascist. I don't agree with the premises of fascism. Fascism is much, much more progressive than anything that I believe in. But, sure, you're gonna call me that? Alright. Whatever.