(New York) Warnings are increasing in the United States against the rise of fascism which would be embodied by Donald Trump. Most of the time, they obscure an important historical detail: Americans have already swooned over fascism and its inventor, Benito Mussolini, with whom the former Republican president shares similarities.
This reminder is of obvious interest, if only to put into perspective any comparison inspired by Donald Trump’s Hitler-like rhetoric on immigrants who are “poisoning the blood of our country”.
Nazism has never been popular in the United States. In contrast, fascism embodied by Il Duce enjoyed wide popularity in the 1920s, as recalled by historian Katy Hull, author of a book on the subject published in 2021 and entitled The Machine Has a Soul: American Sympathy With Italian Fascism.
In a recent email exchange with The PressKaty Hull lists several reasons to explain this phenomenon, some of which contribute, a century later, to fueling Donald Trump’s popularity with a significant part of the electorate.
The most striking common trait [entre les deux époques] is cynicism about democracy.
Katy Hull, historian and professor of history at the University of Amsterdam
“The feeling that democracy was of little help to ordinary Americans encouraged people to look for solutions outside the democratic model, including fascism. Likewise, today, the feeling that the federal government is corrupt and self-interested […] makes people open to alternatives in the form of populism and authoritarianism. »
Violence
In the 1920s, many Americans also saw fascism as an effective bulwark against communism in Italy, notes Katy Hull. Conservatives praised Mussolini for creating a stable business environment for American investors. Progressives admired him for his infrastructure projects and social programs for mothers and children. Catholics were grateful to him for having made peace with the Vatican. Political scientists were interested in his ideas of a corporate state. And Italian-Americans finally had a hero to fight the prejudice against them.
“In the imagination of many Americans born in the United States, Italy went from the land of beautiful chaos before fascism to a nation where Mussolini made sure “the trains came on time.” [comme le voulait le mythe populaire] », recalls Katy Hull.
PHOTO, ARCHIVES ITALIAN ILLUSTRATION
Italo Balbo, Benito Mussolini, Cesare Maria de Vecchi and Michele Bianchi in Naples, October 1922
Very few admirers of Mussolini took offense at the violence which accompanied his conquest of power in 1922 during the march on Rome of his Italian fasces, according to Katy Hull.
“Some Americans denied the existence of this violence – just as today some Trump supporters are downplaying the extent of the violence during the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. Other Americans saw fascist violence as necessary to defeat Italian socialism [nous pourrions peut-être établir un parallèle avec les personnes qui louent les Proud Boys pour avoir combattu les antifas]. Additionally, some Americans welcomed fascist violence itself. »
Katy Hull gives the example of the great journalist of New York Times Anne O’Hare McCormick and the United States Ambassador to Italy Richard Washburn Child, who take center stage in her book. “McCormick and Child believed that American society in the early 1920s was becoming too soft and easy, and that a little violence would be good for the national spirit,” the professor and author comments today.
“Stifle freedoms”
Katy Hull is also not the first person to see similarities between Mussolini and Trump, notably in the way they puffed out their chests and raised their chins when addressing the crowd, “a sort of exaggerated representation of masculinity – which can be impressive or comical depending on the eyes of the beholder,” she writes.
He added: “I think we should take these performances seriously, in the sense that, in both cases, they are the outward expression of regimes that promulgate a strict binary vision between masculine and feminine. It is no coincidence that the Trump administration and Mussolini’s Italy encouraged policies hostile to the LGBTQ community and women’s freedom of choice. Gender freedom, sexual freedom, and reproductive freedom are all threats to a binary worldview, and Mussolini’s Italy as well as Trump’s America have sought to stifle these freedoms. »
Like Mussolini, Trump also relies on rallies to establish a direct link with “the people”. And it encourages violence “when committed in [son] political interest.
But while Mussolini institutionalized this violence in the form of the Blackshirts, Trump did not – at least not officially.
Katy Hull, historian and professor of history at the University of Amsterdam
Americans eventually became disillusioned with Mussolini in the 1930s. Among the reasons for this disenchantment were Italy’s rapprochement with Nazi Germany, Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, and the racial laws of 1938 which institutionalized anti-Semitism in Italy.
“As Americans turned away from Italian fascism for these reasons, they were simultaneously turning toward democracy in America through the New Deal,” writes Katy Hull. [Le président Franklin Roosevelt] was fully aware that he had to create a different type of democracy, one that presented itself as a solid alternative to fascism and socialism. »
When the United States entered World War II in 1941, American supporters of fascism only formed a fringe of the population. The question today is whether Americans are once again tempted by this authoritarian trend.