Ruth Ben-Ghiat is a historian of fascism and Italian Studies at New York University. The following appeared on her blog. Lucid.
“In 2016, I declared, I am your voice. Today, I add, I am your warrior, I am your justice, and for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.” Anyone who wants to understand how Fascist models of leadership can find expression in our own time need only read this passage from former president Donald Trump’s speech at the recent Conservative Political Action Committee meeting held in Maryland.
Trump’s CPAC speech brings forth a century of rhetoric and agendas that have been used to destroy democracy, conjuring threats that are meant to build support for authoritarian action and leadership, starting with the idea of the head of state as a vengeful victim.
“What did Italy need? An avenger!… It was necessary to cauterize the virulent wounds…and eliminate evils which threatened to become chronic,” Fascist leader Benito Mussolini wrote in his autobiography, striking a similar note to Trump as he explained why he had declared dictatorship in 1925.
Ever since Il Duce came to power a century ago, strongman leaders have proclaimed their unique ability to lead their people to greatness, including by righting the wrongs internal and external enemies supposedly perpetrate against the nation. In the process, the strongman absorbs the blows delivered by those enemies, putting his well-being at risk as he battles to save the nation and protect all that is cherished and dear.
The focus on victimhood sets up any repressive action by the state as self-defense. It justifies the literal weaponization of government, with violence used against enemies “for the good of the nation.” The “public safety laws” that jailed leftists and transformed Italy into a police state in the 1920s upheld this fiction.
And Nazi policies did not just make good on Adolf Hitler’s vows to punish elites who had “stabbed Germany in the back” by accepting the draconian terms of the Versailles Treaty (which held Germany responsible for all moral and material damages incurred during World War One). They also targeted groups that Hitler identified as threats to Germany’s survival in the future. These included Jews (“black parasites of the nation”); Bolsheviks (the “scum of humanity”); and war profiteers and international capitalists— the forerunners of the “globalists” Trump regularly denounces, including in this CPAC speech.
When such leaders feel their power is threatened, or are staging a comeback after having been voted out of office, they focus on gaining control of public institutions to exact revenge. This is one meaning of Trump’s declaration that “we’re going to finish what we started.” If he returns to the White House, he will punish all who did not collaborate with his attempt to overthrow the government.
Trump’s well-honed victimhood persona is the star of the CPAC speech, and he invokes a dizzying array of enemies who want to “kill America” and do him in as well. “A sick and sinister opposition, the radical left, communists, the bureaucrats, the fake news media, the big special interests,” as well as “Antifa thugs,” and “corrupt intelligence agencies.”
Fascist leaders pose as pure souls who risk everything to defend the nation. Trump followed suit at CPAC by presenting himself as an innocent and honest man who had never tangled with the law before “corrupt Democratic prosecutors” funded by “the George Soros money machine” sought to stop his “an epic struggle to rescue our country.”
“I had a beautiful life before I did this…”I didn’t know the word subpoena, I didn’t know the word grand jury. I didn’t know that they want to lynch you for doing nothing wrong.” Luckily for his followers, Trump is tenacious. “We’re going to complete the mission, we’re going to see this battle through to ultimate victory. we’re going to make America great again.”
But why stop at America? The true Fascist avenger fixes the world. “I will have the disastrous war between Russia and Ukraine settled. It will be settled quickly. I will get the problem solved. I will get it solved in rapid order—it will take me no longer than one day. I know what to say to each of them. I got along well with all of them. I got along well with Putin.”
In fact, as Trump remarks, had he been in office now, as fearsome and powerful as a mountain, “Russia would have never pulled the trigger. This is the most dangerous time in the history of our country and Joe Biden is leading us into oblivion…Biden is a criminal and nothing ever seems to happen to him.”
With this incitement to violence against a sitting president, Trump’s CPAC speech reaches its peak. Trump offers Americans no policy ideas, but rather a classic Fascist cocktail of negative emotions, satisfying promises of revenge, and a sense of heroism and power.
Like Mussolini and Hitler before him, Trump knows that the strongman must be everything to his people. His devoted followers must be so bonded to him that no other leader is possible in their minds. Only he can save them. “I am your warrior, I am your justice, and for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”
References:
Benito Mussolini, My Autobiography (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1928), 205. Adolf Hitler, speech in Salzburg, August 1920, in Neil Gregor, “Hitler,” in Mental Maps in the Era of Two World Wars, eds. Steven Casey and Jonathan Wright (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 189; Hitler, “Rathenau und Sancho Pansa,” Völkischer Beobachter, March 13, 1921.
Have you met Ruth at all, Diane. She is my lifelong friend since 1st grade. I would love to get you two together or introduce if you have not met face to face.
She studied with Brenner at UCLA and thenPhD at Brandeis focused in Fascist film and architecture.
Carl Peterson has decided to attack his allies her in LA. This week he went after Scott Schmerelson and a few weeks ago he attacked my work to try to bring a Jerry Brown inspired charter into the district as a district affiliated charter. It is what it is but he puts your name on every article wherein he is making the attacks
David
David,
I have not met Ruth Ben-Ghiat. I hope you can arrange it. I’m sorry to hear about Carl’s change of mind.
The “I am your retribution” part ought to make all the both-siders finally wake up. Probably won’t. But it should. As well as the looney left who are extremist right-adjacent.
Trump seldom uses such big words.
As I have stated over and over again, Bannon writes it, Miller does the final edit. They may be among the very few who understand the historical lessons of fascism who are shaping the coming American fascism. They have the Idiot needed to deliver the message to the cult.
“DeSanctimonious” being the current winner….
It today’s paper DeSantis announced, “You ain’t seen nothing yet.” Florida must brace for more unreasonable, fascist dictums.
Yes. The monster, Trump, is the creature of Stephen “Goebbels” Miller and Stephen “Pig Pen” Bannon. Trump has one ideology–the glorification of Trump. He has no clue what Fascism or any other political philosophy is, though he likes what he sees of Fascism (the parades, the goosestepping, the monuments, the absolute adoration of and genuflecting before the Glorious Leader. One can always tell when one of these other toads has been at work on the Trump material. The syntax is cleaned up a bit, and big words like “retribution” replace Trump’s typical toddler vocabulary. And don’t forget that it was Miller and Bannon and Jeff “Hoorah for the Lost Cause” Sessions who picked Trump out of a pity party for himself and saw in him the Chosen One to carry their message of white supremacy and hatred toward immigrants and POC forward. These three LITERALLY picked him and trained him. See the Frontline documentary on this, Zero Tolerance.
Sounds like something that Steve Bannon wrote for Trump and of course, Trump embellished and put his own narcissistic twist on it (woe is me).
Trump loves to play the victim. The woe is me billionaire woth pure gold toilet seats.
More like worth what’s stuck to those seats.
Exactly, Lisa.
Even though Dangerously Deranged Demon and Despot DeSantis wasn’t there, his ghost was hoving just off stage watching, learning, and adapting/revising what he will say to the MAGA Mob as he finally gets what he’s ater, to replace the Traitor when Trump finally falls.
Lloyd– love the new 5-D moniker for DeStalinist.
Transcript of the tRump’s speech:
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. . . .
At least that is what I read.
lol. yes!
https://m.facebook.com/1039153428/
lol. yes!
Johnny Cache! ROFLMAO.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02MsAEzhfgvNcm2oXog4E4QCkBaB66UCzSAERR7MQx3wSxTf9drTg7nbdbjM5zzeXZl&id=1039153428
Everything seemed normal until General Pinochet declared he was taking over the government of Chile on September 11, 1973.
The Chilean government had been run democratically since 1923.
But Pinochet + the Nixon administration had already infiltrated and gotten the loyalty of both the police, the army, and the civilian paramilitaries.
So when Pinochet rolled up to the presidential palace and declared he was taking over, nobody came to the defense of the elected president, Salvador Allende. The police were already loyal to Pinochet, including the police who defended that nation’s capitol.
Gradually, then suddenly.
When Chileans poured into the streets, Pinochet swept them up and held them in the national stadium, where tens of thousands were tortured, murdered, or simply disappeared. One of the favorite tactics of his military was to throw “liberals” out of helicopters over the ocean to kill them, a practice celebrated by rightwing militia around the US today.
Pinochet’s democratic political opposition lost all its power and went underground. It would be 17 years before anything resembling democracy would return to Chile, a process that is still pulling itself together.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217709679
This is what scares me about our situation. The few times fascists have taken over governing, it has always happened quickly. Even on the day that Hitler became chancellor on January 30, 1933, it was still commonly thought that he would be reigned in by conservatives and the gravity of the job would hit and change him. By March 4, 1933, that type of thinking seemed like it was decades ago and the grip on power was unremovable.
The chaos that never ceased from the first minute of the Idiot’s administration is now seen as a lesson that more has to be done more quickly to take power for the short- and long-term. If you doubt that, check out the actions of a certain Ron DeSantis since he won a landslide reelection. If they get the chance again, which I am convinced it will in January 2025, by March constitutionally-ordered governing will end. It will look the same, but it will be dead on the inside.
Even the FOX talkers agreed he was crazy. He will be crazier still if he is re-elected. No limits.
It can’t happen here?
Oh, yes it can! And, is….
Spooky.
yup
The scary part is that the two Republican front runners both fit this bill. Remember that DeSantis’ final campaign add said God created a strong leader on the eighth day. Meanwhile, the Georgia legislature is going after Fani Willis, Governor Bill Lee is going after drag queens, and then there is Greg Abbot in Texas. The perfect storm…
BOTH OF THEM.
The whole damned lot of them…
Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Just signed a bill that rolls back child labor protections across Arkansas.
Including a measure requiring employers to obtain work certificates for children under the age of 16.
Sanders signed the bill even after a major US food sanitation company that operated facilities in eight states, including Arkansas, recently paid a $1.5 million civil penalty for employing minors in hazardous conditions.
Packers Sanitation Services illegally employed at least 102 children between the ages of 13 and 17 in jobs that required them to use toxic chemicals and clean razor-sharp saws.
There is NOTHING gradual about this Junta.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/08/politics/sarah-huckabee-sanders-arkansas-child-labor/index.html
!!!!!!!
Sarah Huckster-bee
She’s as sick as Jabba the Trump and DeFascist are.
Kinda bends that arc of justice thing in the other direction, doesn’t it?
Huckabee Sanders, Trump, and DeSatan are trying to flatten the arc of Justice
The Republican Party does not believe in justice. Last night, Chris Hayes made the point that what FOX learned in November of 2020 and Tucker Carlson learned a decade earlier through his various failed media enterprises, is that those who watch Fox have no interest in the truth. Carlson tried to start an objective conservative media outlet and failed miserably. He then followed the money and went to the dark side. Too many simply want to live through fantasy.
Trump may win the nomination, but he will not win the Presidency. And if he does not win the nomination, he will tear his party apart, hopefully running as an independent.
DeSantis worries me more. He does not say he will be the avenger. He IS the avenger and proves it time and time again.
Careful. No one thought Trump would win in 2016 either. People cannot afford to get complacent.
It’s analyses like this that make me pull out what little hair I have left and continue to conclude that we are a doomed society. Everything in this comment assumes that we are living in a rational world with broadly shared views about the process of governing and what it is designed to do. That world does not exist and it likely never will again.
The fact that the Idiot “may win the nomination, but he will not win the Presidency” is irrelevant if the goal is a functioning government with constitutional order. Yes, the ultimate goal is to win the presidency and have complete control over all parts of formal governing from the local to federal level. But they, unlike us, have the Bannon-ish long view. Whether the ultimate victory is in 2024 or 10 or 20 years from now, the most important tactical goal is to make governing impotent and ruling by fiat with the appearance of democratic legitimacy. Their goal is grind to gears of governing to an irreparable halt so that it can never be put together as it was before. The mere chaos of the actual world does that. See today’s House for evidence. They will get nothing done, people’s frustration with governing will increase, and they have the messaging and constituency to make it happen. I repeat: fascist governments don’t need majorities to take power, they never have. A strong minority will do.
But it’s the “hopefully running as an independent” that is utterly reckless and as lefty tone deaf as anything the right produces. Seriously? Let’s assume your political scenario that this will lead to a split to give Democrats a Clinton-like win. At what cost? I think we don’t need a lot of imagination to visualize how miserable and toxic that would be to our social and governing fabric. Really? Winning at the cost of irreparable corrosion to constitutionally-based governing? You seemingly gloat that “it will tear his party apart” without realizing that it’s not party, it is nation. And at least 45% of Americans don’t care.
Writing “DeSantis worries me more” is evidence of the American Disease that infects us all in some ways, some more than others. It implies the DeSantis is far more destructive than the Idiot, therefore the prospect of the latter is less worrisome. In this blog where we discuss the role of standards and interpreting measurements, how do you quantify “more”? To me this is like determining if dying by garroting or impalement is worse. This movement is not about personalities. It is about the 45% or so of the American public who are actively undermining our form of governing while claiming publicly that they are saving it. Their leaders do not lead, they express widely and deeply held bigotries about people, societies, and history by wide swaths of the American population, one that is getting dumber about civics every day.
This comment wrongly focuses in political tactics by depending on political abstractions that are fictional and do no assess the true threat. This strain of reaction has existed in this nation since it was founded and has peaked at times to cause chaos and public divisions from boycotts to wars. Individuals at the top do not just lead, they express the will and misconceptions of an incredibly large minority of people whose motives are driven by desires about identity and the whatever “status” comes with it. Looking to individuals as causes does absolutely nothing to address the fundamental problem: the continued assault on the notion of democratic-republican-based governing based on ideals of fairness, equality and justice. That’s what they’re after, not tactical political power. If you follow thinking like this, you probably get what you deserve. What a terrible way to start the day.
Exhibit A, broadcast last night, posted an hour ago. Millions upon millions of Americans get all their political views here and they are growing, whether they are a majority or not. Regardless of election outcomes, all of will be obligated to live in a world in part shaped or influenced strongly by them, regardless of who the president is. Force yourself to watch it and see it you can make it all the way through:
Yes, this now is the Republican Party. One of the misperceptions that drives me nuts is the assertion that this is all Trump’s doing. There has been a groundswell of autocratic thinking from a core of the Republican Party for decades now, led by libertarian economic lunacy and evangelical fervor. Living in the South, I have witnessed vestiges of this my entire life. This is a movement. Trump and Desantis are popular within the party. If we survive this time, it will not be without pain.