Origin of Title and Cover
Goldberg has said in interviews that the title Liberal Fascism was taken from a 1932 speech by science fiction pioneer and socialist H.G. Wells at Oxford. Goldberg quotes Wells as stating that he wanted to "assist in a kind of phoenix rebirth" of liberalism as an "enlightened Nazism." In the book, however, Goldberg writes that he "did not get the title of this book from Wells's speech, but ... was delighted to discover the phrase has such a rich intellectual history". Before being published, alternative subtitles included The Totalitarian Temptation from Mussolini to Hillary Clinton and The Totalitarian Temptation from Hegel to Whole Foods.
The smiley face with an Adolf Hitler-style mustache on the cover of the book is a reference to comments made by comedian George Carlin on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher that "when fascism comes to America, it will not be in brown and black shirts. It will not be with jackboots. It will be Nike sneakers and smiley shirts. Smiley-smiley."
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