Welcome to the podcast.

This is episode 408. My name is Douglas Wilson, and I'm very glad you decided to

join us here. I want to talk this time at the outset about fascism, because that is a term that is

thrown around, and it's got all kinds of icky connotations and there is a problem with fascism

but it's not what anybody thinks it is and and there is a problem with fascism in some of

some of Trump's dealings that I but I want to walk carefully so that people don't think that I'm saying something

and I'm absolutely not saying.

What fascist means to most people is dictators, authoritarian dictators, goose stepping parades,

missile parades, dictators in mirrored sunglasses, and authoritarian crackdowns like banana

republic stuff.

And so any kind of overweening authoritarian dictatorship is likely to be described as

fascist and militaristic goes in with it. So that's one definition

of fascism. Many years ago, we had a congresswoman here in Idaho, a gracious Christian lady,

and she was, she came through Moscow and was going to have a press conference up to the

University of Idaho.

And I wanted to hear her at the press conference, so I went up there. And there were a bunch of people waiting for her, most of whom were protesters. They were all lined up. There were the signs

protesting Helen Chenoweth was her name. And they were protesting her looming press conference. But she was

running late. And so we were all standing around the protesters with their signs and whatnot.

And I saw a young college kid across the way who had a sign that he was holding that said,

down with fascism. And so I had time to kill. So I went over

and stood next to him. And I leaned over and said, what is fascism? This thing that you want to go down.

Down with fascism, you say, and I said, what is it? And it just floored him because he didn't know what fascism was. And finally he came up

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