Not true. Scan through Mein Kampf: when he is talking about Social Democrats or Communists, he is negative, but otherwise, when talking about philosophical socialism, he is quite upbeat. He even declares that the red part of the Nazi flag stands for socialism. The reasoning is simple: they had to support the working class so they could build a strong German state. It’s important in these discussions to remember that “socialism” has not always meant “what Marx said”, and that was especially true in the land of Lasalle and Bismarck.

The main practitioners (von Papen never was) moved toward “the right” as they positioned themselves against the Communists, and Moscow propaganda successfully painted them into that corner.

Goldberg’s argument, that social democracy/American left-liberalism is a species of fascism

After listening to his interview with Glenn Reynolds, I think you are guessing at his argument from the jacket notes.

But certainly fascism, communism, and social democracy all wanted to overthrow the old order (monarchy, rule of the landed aristocrats, social deference, etc.) and to control/appropriate/contain the new capitalist economic order.

If you mean by the “left” the desire to overthrow the old order, and by the “right” the desire to preserve or restore it. Then yes, fascism is an outgrowth of the left.

But anyone interested in power will use the tools to hand. The right found the tool of fascism very handy. The original theoreticians of fascism may have started on the left but most practicioners were firmly and always on the right. (All those “von”s in the nazi party, such as von Papen, for example.)

And who is this “we” you keep talking about? Is there some new revolutionary cell being formed? And is its Minister of Discipline really only seventeen years old?

I’m not buying.