American Fascism

I have been reading "Liberal Fascism" by Jonah Goldberg.  The point of the book is not so much that liberals are Nazis, but that after World War 1, Fascism was in the air. If you look at the language of many of the political leaders of the time, including both Roosevelts and Wilson, they are hard to distinguish from statements made by Mussolinni, Hitler, not to mention Stalin and Lenin.  The same was true of George Bernard Shaw, Dewey, and most popular journalists.    It was "common sense" at the time that some kind of war government, if it put its mind to it, could solve all the problems of the day and bring us some kind of utopia.   Any one who disagreed was something akin to a "traitor." 

It is only the grim history of totalitarianism in the 20th century that makes these early 20th century popular dreams so embarassing.  As for limited government liberalism of the 19th century, it was near brain death during this period.   There was virtually no conservative movement, until it was revived in the 1950s.