“I do think that [there are] fascistic tendencies” in the Republican Party, pontificates Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who thinks “we certainly saw a lot of fascist sympathizing” at the Conservative Political Action Conference this past weekend, especially from the man she loves to hate, Donald Trump. Worse, AOC added, “There are legitimate white supremacist sympathizers that sit at the heart and at the core of the Republican Caucus in the House of Representatives,” and “American white supremacy” is the driving force of this supposed fascism overtaking the GOP.

This sounds serious.

Or it would if anything AOC said ever made a lick of sense. As usual, however, her historical ignorance is a feature, not a bug, in service to the radical Left’s political agenda. And she’s far from the only leftist spouting such nonsense. It’s coming from other elected Democrats, from their lickspittles in the Leftmedia, and from their intelligentsia in education. Whether it’s offhand comments on cable news shows, “think” pieces littering the Internet, or academic papers and classes, leftists yelling “fascism!” as an inaccurate pejorative for conservatives has a long and storied history in America.

But what is fascism anyway? For all the public school-educated “progressives” out there, perhaps a history lesson is in order, and who better to give it than the esteemed Thomas Sowell. In a 2008 column, he explained it quite simply:

Real Fascism [was] introduced into Italy after the First World War by Benito Mussolini.

The Fascists were completely against individualism in general and especially against individualism in a free market economy. Their agenda included minimum wage laws, government restrictions on profit-making, progressive taxation of capital, and “rigidly secular” schools.

Unlike the Communists, the Fascists did not seek government ownership of the means of production. They just wanted the government to call the shots as to how businesses would be run.

That sure does sound an awful lot like today’s Democrat agenda. Who are the real fascists? The alleged “racists” who want an American melting pot and Rule of Law for everyone, or the ones pushing government takeover of healthcare, energy, finance, education, etc., as well as race-based policies and an aggressive and totalitarian cancel culture?

The Nazis, by the way, were really only adding a racialist and nationalist variation to fascism, which is why American leftists today deliberately distort the meaning of those words and project upon their Republican opponents what they themselves are guilty of doing and perpetuating. It’s why they laughably call their rioting fascist goons “antifa,” which is short for “anti-fascist.”

In fact, conservatives might do better to trade in the word “socialism” for “fascism” to describe Democrat proposals. Few Democrats want the government to literally own the means of production. Instead, as Sowell said in a 2012 column on the subject, “[They want] government control of the economy, while leaving ownership in private hands. That way, politicians get to call the shots but, when their bright ideas lead to disaster, they can always blame those who own businesses in the private sector.” That’s the textbook definition of fascism.

The truth is fascism, Nazism, socialism, and communism are all variations on a leftist theme of control and power. Don’t let them tell you that your rejection of that totalitarianism makes you the fascist when reality is quite the opposite.