From a reader:

Mr. Goldberg:
I am halfway through your book and enjoying it.
Here’s a potential additional answer to the “who cares” question:
If a liberal admits that he or she is, in important respects, the
intellectual heir to political ideas that led to fascism, we have a new
way to focus on that person’s views. Does that person believe (a) that
the interests of the people as a whole (represented by the state) have
priority over the interests of individuals, (b) that government should
use expert planners to bring order and efficiency out of the chaos that
would result if people were left to themselves, (c) that government can
and should intervene in people’s lives whenever it can do good, and the
Constitution should not be interpreted to prevent this? Does that
person support liberal leaders because he or she believes those leaders
embody these principles? If the liberal claims to be “for the little
guy” as opposed to “corporate fatcats” (think Edwards), we can now
answer, “That’s what Hitler and Mussolini said, along with Wilson and
FDR. Are your economic policies importantly different from theirs?”
I expect many liberals (once they discover they are not being tarred
with the Holocaust) will end up saying about Wilson and FDR, and even
about Hitler and Mussolini, what many have already said about Soviet,
Chinese, and Cuban communism: “Those guys had good ideas, but failed to
carry them out properly. My version is better and untainted by their
mistakes.” They won’t be convinced to change their views, but everyone
will benefit from additional clarity about what those views are and how
they relate to history. We can ask, for example, “Is it OK to
concentrate power in the hands of a potential public benefactor, despite
the risk that power will fall into the hands of a public menace?”
Another great service that your book provides is its depiction of the
progressive/fascist motivation in a non-cartoonish way. I can’t tell
you how many people I have met (I live in Seattle to be sure) who
believe that liberals (like them) differ from conservatives because
liberals are kind and well-intentioned while conservatives are greedy
and uncaring. My instinct is to respond, “It must be nice to be you.”
Your book explains in an adult way how progressives and fascists could
indeed be well-intentioned, but differ from other well-intentioned
people by having different priorities and goals, different responses to
the dislocations of modern life.