Hasn't most of the "American Right" distanced themselves from the white-nationalist/neo-nazi organizations as well as the Left? It bugs me that the associations are constantly made, but the groups themselves don't actually align with, get support from, or considered part of the American Right outside of straw-man narratives putting them together.

> Hasn't most of the "American Right" distanced themselves from the white-nationalist/neo-nazi organizations as well as the Left?

Maybe, but I was referencing that the notion of a substantive association between Nazis/fascists and socialism (or the left more generally) was never taken seriously by any significant group until the last couple of years, where the American Right decided that their existing pejorative labels were losing their sting and they needed to label everything they disagreed with “fascism” and seriously try to sell the connections; Jonah Goldberg's book Liberal Fascism was a notable point in this trend.

Notably the NSDAP originally was early on a total hodgepodge of ideological strands mostly united by nationalism. Some of those included left-wing economic views. Hitler systematically targeted those groups, and most were excluded or left long before the NSDAP got any influence.

Hitler eventually had the last remaining "left wing" faction of the NSDAP (the Strasserists) arrested and/or murdered - this purge was a large part of the purpose of the Night of the Long Knives. But even the Strasserists, despite wanting to borrow some left wing economic policies were staunchly ultranationalist and anti-socialist.

Well, it's "socialist" in the sense that the society (OK, the state, but whatever) matters far more than the individual. But I do agree that they used the term to confuse people.

Amusing factoid: Hitler honed his public speaking skills while working as a government mole in the socialist party.

> Well, it's "socialist" in the sense that the society (OK, the state, but whatever) matters far more than the individual.

It's corporatist, but not socialist (you can probably make an argument that non-libertarian socialism is also corporatist, but not vice versa.)

But, yeah, the cult of manichean capitalism tends to use “socialism” as the generic label for “opposed to capitalism”.

Good point. Corporatist, in that the state is basically a "bundle" (fasces, from which we also get fascia) of corporations.

Corporatism actually refers to the government, businesses, unions, church, and other institutions (the exact institutions included varying between forms of corporatism) working together as parts of a body; it is not derived from the use of “corporation” for a business entity.

Ah, thanks.