David’s purpose for the book seems to be: 1) hold up a mirror to our political discourse and make the case that violent rhetoric can provoke violent action 2) remind us of our historical propensity for utilizing violence to eliminate the unwanted and 3) respond to the increasing use of “Nazi” and “Fascism” epithets by directly addressing Jonah Goldberg’s book “Liberal Fascism”.

David draws heavily on the academic work of Robert O. Paxton (Columbia), Roger Griffin (Oxford Brookes University) and James Alfred Aho (Idaho State). Here’s how he builds his case:

Chapter 1: Explores how language and ideology which used to be confined to the political fringes has become mainstream.
Chapter 2: Explains how this migration from fringe to mainstream happens.
Chapter 3: Discusses the principal personalities responsible for mainstreaming extremist rhetoric in media, religion, and via the internet.
Chapter 4: Discusses the comingling of the radical right with mainstream and the growth of black/white, us vs. them thinking.
Chapter 5: Argues that the conservative movement has morphed into extremism.
Chapter 6: Follows the taxonomy of Fascism as described by Robert Paxton (see The Five Stages of Fascism) to describe how Fascism is understood by academics and directly challenging the book by Jonah Goldberg that Fascism is a political movement of the extreme left.
Chapter 7: Builds on Chapter 6 to explore how the rhetoric of today’s right lends itself toward Fascist ideation and growing militarization.
Chapter 8: Discusses the history of the elimination of people deemed “enemy” in US history. Here he covers the history Native Americans, African Americans, Chinese and Japanese. Regrettably he doesn’t discuss the expulsion of Mexican Americans from the Southwest following Texas independence and the forced deportation of Mexican Americans during the Great Depression of the 1930’s, an episode of which few are aware.
Chapter 9: Discusses the current uses of “eliminationist rhetoric” by the political right.
Chapter 10: Concludes the book by arguing that a virulent and violent type of Fascism can “happen here” and pleads for the return of civility to political discourse. Drawing on Martin Buber and James Aho he warns of the ways we demonize political opponents and calls on all of us to adopt Buber’s I-Thou relationship in dealing with one another as human beings as opposed to objectified “others”.

Recommendation: Chapters 6-8 seemed to me to be the heart of the book and are well worth the read. I especially appreciated the discussion of what Fascism truly is and share David’s concern with the increasing violence of our political discourse. Violent speech can and does legitimize violent acts in the mind of many. Undoubtedly the historical discussion of Chapter 7 will be news to many and is worth the price of the book all by itself.

Another really great read which could have contributed meaningfully to David’s case, particularly in the first 4 chapters, “Argument Culture” by linguist Deborah Tannen. Lastly, for a thorough discussion of the history of the various ethnicities (David's Ch. 8)see this excellent work; "A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America" by historian Ronald Takaki (UC Berkeley). ( )