The "Tom Watson Slide": Today's anti-fascist is tomorrow's fascist

Millions have already seen the short documentary embedded above. I am ashamed to admit that I had not viewed it until yesterday. If you've not seen it yet, you must.

Pay close attention to Matthew Heimbach, who shows up not long past the ten minute mark. You may be surprised by his anti-corporatist, anti-capitalist message. For a moment, he sounds like someone who has been reading Chomsky. Of course, Heimbach believes that anti-capitalism and anti-Semitism go hand in hand; so did many 19th century Marxists.

An argument of that sort may seduce radical leftists into joining the far right. In fact, I've seen that very scenario play out many times.

In 1970, anti-war protestors gathered to hear Jane Fonda say "Don't trust the government" -- and ten years later, the same people voted for Ronald Reagan, who also said "Don't trust the government." I knew a famous leader of the SDS -- someone who testified at the Chicago 8 trial -- who, by the 1990s, had become a quasi-sympathizer of the JBS. I used to know one of the founders of the East Village Other (a great hippie journal of the 1960s); by the 1990s, the same guy was a right-wing kook who wanted to get rid of Social Security. In the late 1980s, I knew people radicalized by Chomsky and Cockburn and Pacifica radio; by 1994, the same people were joining militias and trading conspiracy theories about Bill Clinton and the Rothschilds and the Knights Templar and God-knows-what-else.

The beat goes on: The SPLC tells us that White Nationalist Jason Kessler got his start with the Occupy movement.

We need a name for this phenomenon. I suggest calling it the "Tom Watson Slide," after the populist rabble-rouser Tom Watson, who began as a radical ultra-progressive but eventually morphed into a radical racist. Watson played the Édouard Drumont role in the Leo Frank affair -- and modern Nazis are still defending his scurrilous behavior.

Some readers wonder why I've come to hate the BernieBros. Some wonder why I never had any use for those on the left who despise mainstream liberalism and the Democratic party.

Why do I distrust such people? The Tom Watson Slide. That's why. I've seen it happen far too often.

In the 1930s, the left was split between those who loved FDR and those who called FDR a capitalist sell-out. The latter category included a few notables (such as Whittaker Chambers and, arguably, Irving Kristol) who eventually showed us their versions of the Tom Watson Slide. Meanwhile, those in the former category -- the FDR-lovers -- tended to stay put. If they did slide, they didn't slide very far.

For similar reasons, I oppose anarchism -- all forms of anarchism, including that really cool one that you are now tempted to prattle on about because you seem to believe that I've never heard that kind of prattle before. Why do I stand against the anarchist? Because anarchism, in all its flavors, is a common "gateway drug" leading to Libertarianism, and Libertarianism usually morphs into the latest iterations of the Tea Party or the John Birch Society.

I have read that members of Antifa behaved with true heroism in Charlottesville. They deserve our gratitude and our applause for that.

However, the more I learn about Antifa, the greater my fear that this movement attracts the kind of radicals likeliest to make what I call the Tom Watson Slide. Most members of Antifa are anarchists who oppose conventional Democratic politicians. How can I do anything but oppose their opposition? In response to a previous post, one of my readers insisted on drawing a sharp distinction between Antifa and the violence-prone Black Bloc. But that distinction is far from clear: See here and here and here.

History strongly suggests that today's anti-fascist street-brawler is tomorrow's pro-fascist street-brawler. Those who bravely stood against the Nazis in Charlottesville may find it hard to believe that such a transmogrification is possible. But the Slide has happened before -- many, many times. It will happen again.