To distinguish fascism from other right of center political beliefs, and to counteract the obfuscations of the New York Times and others, a reality-based conceptual framework needs to be established.

As I have long argued, the question of political terminology in the English language has a vast importance which is frequently ignored. The media use of the term “conservatism” is the most egregious of these abuses. For the media, everything right of center is conservative, thus lumping together raving reactionaries and fascist hooligans together with the very few actual conservatives, despite the fact that each of these terms means something incompatible with the others.

CONSERVATIVES are often economically comfortable people devoted to traditions and the status quo. Reactionaries tend to reject the status quo and want to turn the clock back to some more primitive form of society, where they hope to be better off. The term conservative has to do with the desire to keep, preserve, or conserve beliefs, institutions, and practices. On a superficial level, it is not threatening but rather it sounds somewhat reassuring.