Yeah it’s a delicate balance. You don’t want a watered down, half assed understanding of socialist economics. On the other hand, there’s not a lot of people that can go straight from having doubts about liberalism and capitalism to soviet apologia. Which is not a knock on the defense of elements of the USSR, just that a path is needed.

If we want it to mean anything, we have to stop using "social fascist" so loosely. It means someone who supports social-ish policies in the imperial core while supporting fascism in the periphery.

Incorrect. Social fascism is the recognition that social democracy is the left flank of fascism, they are two sides of the same coin. Unsurprisingly since Germany was ride with revisionist social democrats that oppressed other socialists and communists and materially supported fascists via the state apparatus. Social democrats, similarly, supported imperialist wars, which was not exclusive to core vs periphery, as the imperialism in question itself was spread around and also targeted against mutual European powers.

Nathan J Robinson is a wishy washy socdem that can barely discuss topics consistently. Maybe he has moved a little left since he pushed out his employees for trying to govern Current Affairs collectively, I don't know and haven't followed him for a couple years. But unless he's sharing principled socialist views it is likely appropriate to still call him socialist fascist, particularly given the extent of his historical chauvinism.

So sure, let's use the term for what it actually means and apply it to NJR.

Regarding his more recent writings, like those you posted, what we should look for is pulled punches and a tendency to "both sides", the hallmark of an imperial core social democrat. A target of imperial violence (etc) only reluctantly defended, gotta throw in some condemnations of the target in one way or another.

In the Gaza article, even just the tagline is already the imperial socdem messaging less than one month after Oct 7: ceasefire. In contradiction of the resistance and principled communist messaging at that point, the messaging needed was to reject a condemnation of Hamas, push back against the onslaught of Hasbara, and humanize Palestinians who are dehumanized constantly.

In the article, we can see him criticizing Biden for his kneejerk Zionism and material support, humanizing Palestinians in the sense of their suffering but not much else.

Then in the second section he leads with the inevitable condemnation of Oct 7:

No humane person could condone the attack launched by Hamas on October 7. To explain the causes of the attack is not to justify the killing of innocent people. The slaughter of young people at a music festival, of old people in their homes on a kibbutz, even of children, is impossible to justify. The facts of the killings are stomach-churning. The taking of hostages is also banned under international law, and if we are to make appeals to the law during the present crisis, we must be willing to apply them to all parties.

In this paragraph he cites 4 sources. The first is for the music festival, which we know has a far murkier story and likely firing on the crowd by occupier helicopters. A chauvinist article, it also simply attributes everything to "Hamas militants" rather than the coalition of fighters and independent participants, pushing the Hasbara to isolate Hamas and place the focus on it being somehow uniquely evil and separate from the rest of Gaza and Palestine. NJR does not push back on this, simply cites it as a given. The second source is about the killing of old people and children and babies, which we now know are largely uncorroborated claims by IOF and Zionist entity intelligence - they forever blocked all independent investigation and access to journalists, UN folks, and so on. Again, NJR cites this without pushback or comment. The third id the debunked claim of beheading babies and children. You guessed it: cited without comment or pushback by this alleged leftist journalist.

I promise that I did not read his article before making my prediction of what an imperial core socdem would do in this situation. And lo and behold, you get the both sidesing, the reluctant push against empire (making sure to condemn both sides in at least some capacity.

Later on:

“Revenge has no place in politics,” James said. Indeed, revenge just fuels a cycle of violence that never ends, and just as the Haitian massacre brought terrible results for the newly-freed Haitians, Hamas’ mass killings created a predictably brutal and callous Israeli response. A free, independent Palestine cannot be one ruled over by Hamas, which embraces vicious antisemitism and is thirsty for bloody vengeance rather than a democratic peace.

He also refers to Palestinians in Gaza as Gazans throughout. This is a common practice, sure, but it is also one explicitly requested to be avoided by Palestinian messaging groups, including those with close ties to Palestine and the resistance. The people who live in Gaza are Palestinian and they are largely refugees seeking the right of return. I mention this because it is illustrative of the disconnect between imperial core socdems and the actual on the ground struggles. They largely learned about Palestine in that preceding month and did not, generally speaking, organize in concert or thoughtfully around them.

NJR does dedicate a section to opposing Hasbara narratives, though this is of course incomplete given the citation-laden condemnation of October 7 above.

Naturally, there is a salient question unanswered in this article, but the most central one for knowing the fundamental orientation of the author: is Nathan J Robinson a Zionist? A socdem can easily be critical of US money for Israel, place extra focus on Netanyahu as uniquely evil and responsible, condemn October 7, while also harboring a basic Zionism: a believer in and justifier of Israel's existence, a settler colonialism project premised on the construction of an ethnostate and genocide. The idea that the basic premise of Israel is invalid is not raised nor contended with, but this is presented as a primer for what folks need to know about Gaza? I honestly don't feel like trawling for info on this at the moment, but the absence of this discussion is salient.

So... I think we can comfortably still call NJR a social fascist unless he has made substantial progress in like 2 years.