Day: December 18, 2025
Vatican confirms resignation of Cardinal Timothy Dolan, announces new archbishop of New York
The Vatican on Thursday accepted the resignation of Cardinal Timothy Dolan and announced that Bishop Ronald Hicks of Joliet, Illinois, will become the next archbishop of New York.
This is a breaking news story; check back for updates.
Ed Orgeron gives advice to Sherrone Moore after saga that left him fired, arrested
Ed Orgeron believes fired Michigan coach Sherrone Moore can recover from scandal and rebuild his career, urging him to focus on healing and self-improvement first.
Can Maduro survive as Trump’s oil pressure campaign hits his regime’s weak spot?
U.S. limits on Venezuelan oil exports are cutting the revenue that once sustained Nicolás Maduro, weakening his cash flow and putting the regime’s stability at risk.
Philip Rivers’ NFL return comes with key family incentive as he tries helping Colts to playoffs
With Philip Rivers returning to the NFL, one key part of his Indianapolis Colts contract is a reset of his health insurance from the league, which was set to expire.
How anti-fascism became the West’s civil religion
At the end of World War II, much of the West stood in ruins. Europe’s great powers were shattered, millions were dead, and political leaders searched for a framework that would prevent another civilizational collapse. What emerged was what R.R. Reno later described as the “postwar consensus”: an elite agreement to reorganize Western society around a single overriding moral imperative — never again allow a figure like Adolf Hitler to rise.
Anti-fascism became the West’s civil religion. This was understandable in the immediate aftermath of the war. Nazi Germany’s atrocities demanded more than mere condemnation. But over time, anti-fascism ceased to function as a historical judgment and instead hardened into a permanent moral framework. In the process, it began to distort politics, hollow out institutions, and undermine the concept of the nation itself.
The longer conservatives wait to make reasonable corrections, the more radical — and likely authoritarian — the eventual correction will be.
Anti-fascism served a second, less acknowledged function. The United States and its allies had partnered with the Soviet Union to defeat Hitler. That alliance was strategically necessary but morally grotesque. Communist regimes starved millions, persecuted Christians, liquidated entire classes, and carried out ethnic cleansing on a scale easily outstripping the Nazis.
To sustain the moral legitimacy of the postwar order, Nazism had to remain the singular, unrivaled evil of modern history. Any serious moral accounting risked an intolerable conclusion: that the West had joined forces with a regime at least as monstrous as the one it defeated.
Because communism retained elite defenders in academia, media, and politics, fascism became the only ideology that could be universally condemned. Conservatives opposed both, but liberals embraced or excused communism. Anti-fascism thus became the sole moral language the entire ruling class could share.
That imbalance persists. Public figures openly describe themselves as socialists or communists without consequence. Communist symbols appear on clothing and merchandise, sometimes celebrated as ironic rebellion. Fascism alone remains socially radioactive.
The power of taboo
This asymmetry transformed the definition of fascism into a weapon.
Anything directly associated with Nazism became forbidden, and soon anything vaguely adjacent followed. Online platforms remove or demonetize historical content for displaying Nazi imagery, even in documentary contexts. History itself must be censored to comply with the taboo.
Meanwhile, symbols of communist regimes that murdered tens of millions provoke little more than mild disapproval. A guy wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt or a hammer and sickle may earn a sneer. Wearing a swastika ends careers — even lives.
Absolute stigma confers absolute power. Control the definition of fascism, and you control the moral boundary of acceptable thought.
Mission creep as strategy
The left quickly grasped this dynamic and began expanding the category. Traditional social institutions were recast as latent fascism. Academic works such as Theodor Adorno’s “The Authoritarian Personality” asserted that family structure, masculinity, Christianity, national identity, capitalism, and law and order were markers of authoritarian psychology.
Over time, the list expanded from Nazi symbols to Confederate flags, Christian imagery, art styles, gestures, numbers, and ordinary behaviors. Organizations like the ADL and Southern Poverty Law Center labeled everything from physical fitness to drinking milk and the “OK” hand sign as potential indicators of extremism.
Conservatives often mock the more absurd examples, but many accepted the earlier ones. Borders became suspect. So did preferring some immigrant groups over others. Explicit national identity became a huge red flag. Christianity as a political foundation became authoritarian.
Anti-fascism succeeded not because it was coherent, but because it was unchallengeable.
A society without tools
The result is a civilization that has locked away the tools required for its own survival.
A functional society requires cohesion: shared language, culture, norms, and traditions. Not everyone must conform fully, but enough must for assimilation to mean something. When every mechanism of cohesion is labeled fascist, cohesion becomes impossible.
RELATED: Do you want Caesar? Because this is how you get Caesar.
Blaze Media Illustration
Crime, educational collapse, family breakdown, falling birth rates, and social fragmentation are not impossible to fix. The corrective measures are well understood. But they have been rendered politically illegitimate because they’re all somehow hallmarks of fascism. Conservatives often avoid them out of fear — or worse, oppose them in the name of anti-fascism itself.
This does not prevent authoritarianism. It guarantees it.
What remains
If the present trajectory continues, only two outcomes remain.
One is an increasingly authoritarian managerial state that governs a disintegrating society through surveillance, regulation, and bureaucratic coercion. The other is a decisive leader who smashes the glass labeled “fascism” and uses the forbidden tools outright.
The longer conservatives wait to make reasonable corrections, the more radical — and likely authoritarian — the eventual correction will be.
Nazism was evil, and opposing it was obviously right. But elevating anti-fascism into the West’s single, unquestionable religious principle has been catastrophic. It has stripped societies of the means to govern themselves prudently and ensured that when the correction finally comes, it will be far harsher than anything its most ardent anti-fascists claim to fear.
Meg Ryan shares touching throwback pic with Rob Reiner: ‘Oh how we will miss this man’
Meg Ryan took to Instagram to write a tribute to the late director and actor, Rob Reiner, and his wife, photographer Michele.
Moroccan rapper in Dubai sings about love for Pinoy culture
A rapper from Morocco has been singing Tagalog rap songs here in Dubai about overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and boxing icon Manny Pacquiao, as he has fallen in love with Philippine culture.
LIVE UPDATES: Gilas Pilipinas vs Indonesia at the 2025 SEA Games semifinals
Gilas Pilipinas is taking on Indonesia in the semifinals of the 2025 Southeast Asian Games men’s basketball tournament.
2025 SEA Games: Gilas Women dethrone Indonesia, reach gold medal match
Gilas Pilipinas Women advanced to their fourth straight Southeast Asian Games finals in women”s basketball after dispatching Indonesia in the semifinals, 66-55, at the 2025 SEA Games on Thursday in Thailand.
NBA: Jaren Jackson Jr. goes for 28 as Grizzlies take down Timberwolves
Jaren Jackson Jr. scored 28 points and pulled down 12 rebounds as the Memphis Grizzlies held on for a 116-110 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday night in Minneapolis.
