Equating Fascism and Nazism with the Right is a LIE:

Equating Fascism and Nazism with the right is a LIE:

So, how did this false association come about? A key turning point was World War II and the early Cold War period. After the war, the world was left to make sense of the horrors of Nazism and fascism. Because those regimes were bitter enemies of Marxism, Soviet propagandists quickly began portraying fascism and Nazism as “the far-right,” in order to position communism as their opposite. This framing was politically useful: if communism could claim to be the left-wing “antifascist” force, then all resistance to it—especially Western conservatism—could be painted as somehow adjacent to fascism.

This idea seeped into Western academia and media, particularly during the postwar decades when Marxist and socialist intellectuals were influential in universities. Many historians began adopting a simplistic “spectrum” of politics: communism on the far left, liberal democracy in the center, and fascism on the far right. But this linear spectrum concealed more than it revealed. It lumped conservatism together with authoritarian ultranationalism simply because both opposed Marxism—even though they opposed it for completely different reasons. Communists opposed fascists because they were nationalists; conservatives opposed fascists because they were tyrants.

Adding to the confusion, both fascist and communist movements used similar revolutionary tactics: mass rallies, charismatic leadership, centralized control, and the suppression of dissent. Because fascists were not internationalists like communists, they were depicted as “right-wing” nationalists. Over time, this labeling hardened into common usage—even though it was rooted more in Cold War propaganda and academic shorthand than in the actual ideological foundations of conservatism.

The modern misuse:

Today, calling conservatives “fascists” or “Nazis” has become a rhetorical weapon rather than a historical judgment. It’s often used by opponents on the left to stigmatize the right by associating it with history’s most infamous evils. Yet this tactic ignores the reality that conservatism stands for restraints on government power, individual rights, and the rule of law—the very things that fascists destroyed. In fact, if anything, conservatism provides the strongest defense against a slide into authoritarian collectivism of any kind, whether draped in the banner of class struggle (communism) or racial destiny (Nazism).

When examined honestly, it is clear that fascism and Nazism did not emerge from the soil of conservative thought but from the soil of radical, statist ideologies. They sought to remake society through coercion, violence, and the exaltation of the collective over the individual. Conservatism, on the other hand, insists that the state must remain the servant of the people, not their master. That difference is not cosmetic—it is fundamental. And it is why equating conservatism with fascism is both historically false and politically destructive.

Fascism and Nazism are far closer to the left-wing"

Conservatism and the political right are rooted in principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and respect for tradition. At their core, conservatives believe that people, families, and communities—not an all-powerful state—are best suited to guide their own lives. This is the direct opposite of fascism and Nazism, which demanded absolute loyalty to a centralized authoritarian regime, subordinating the individual to the collective will of the state or the so-called “race.” Conservatism cherishes constitutional limits on power, religious freedom, property rights, and free speech—values that fascist regimes crushed under dictatorship.

The charge that fascism is “right-wing” is misleading, because it confuses nationalist authoritarian collectivism with the liberty-oriented principles of the political right. Fascism and Nazism were forms of ultranationalist socialism, taking elements of economic control and collectivism from the left, but applying them in a racial and nationalistic framework. They were hostile to free markets, hostile to limited government, and hostile to the very individual freedoms conservatives defend. To equate today’s conservatives with fascists or Nazis is not just historically inaccurate—it’s an insult to those who truly uphold the principles of self-government and liberty.

In reality, both fascism and communism belong to the same family of statist, collectivist ideologies, where the state dominates society and crushes dissent. Conservatism, by contrast, is the tradition that resists such concentration of power. Conservatives defend the rights of individuals against the state, insist on accountability of government to the people, and believe that freedom—not coercion—is the foundation of a just society. To call conservatives “fascists” or “Nazis” is to invert reality: it is precisely conservative values that stand as the strongest safeguard against the very tyranny those regimes represented.