This is pretty sweet. Cliff May just states more-or-less explicitly that the whole utility of “Islamic fascism” as a turn of phrase is that it makes it easier to conflate disparate groups into a single menace. Intriguingly, I think May’s Corner colleague Mario Loyola actually makes a good point about all this. In the past, we saw no need to make up names to call our enemies. “Fascist,” “Nazi,” and “Communist” are all just the terms that Fascists, Nazis, and Communists used to describe their movements. They’re perjorative terms today just because people generally don’t like Fascists and Nazis and Communists. But to call a Communist a “Communist” is no insult to him and never was. Nevertheless, we seemed to get along just fine.
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