Charlie Sykes: MAGA authoritarians recall Mussolini’s 'enthusiastic' American 'fanboys' of the 1920s

30 November 2023

During a Veterans Day 2023 speech in New Hampshire, former President Donald Trump declared, "We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections."

Historian/author Ruth Ben-Ghiat, in response, warned that Trump was using the sort of rhetoric that fascist dictators like Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, a.k.a. Il Duce, used during the 1930s. And Ben-Ghiat wasn't alone in making that observation.

But while Ben-Ghiat and many other Trump critics have been slamming Trump's extreme rhetoric, that New Hampshire speech drew plenty of cheers from his supporters.

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In a column published on November 30, Never Trump draws parallels between Benito Mussolini's American admirers of the 1920s and MAGA Republicans who are applauding Trump's authoritarian proposals in 2023.

"In the early 1920s," Sykes recalls, "Mussolini had his enthusiastic fanboys in business, labor, Hollywood and the media. After the sanctimony and infirmity of Woodrow Wilson, millions of Americans felt a frisson of excitement from the cut of Il Duce's jib — or as we might say now, his vibe. Conservatives saw him as a bulwark against bolshevism and a champion of traditional values. At the same time, as Jonah Goldberg has pointed out, progressives had an affinity for many of the ideas that have come to be associated with fascism: eugenics, the centralized state."

The conservative journalist continues, "But most of all, his fans admired Mussolini's style. Whatever they might have thought of 'fascism,' they were attracted by his strutting man-of-action persona, his promise of discipline, and even his thrilling embrace of violence."

Sykes warns that in 2023, Trump is showing no signs of toning down his authoritarian rhetoric — in fact, he's doubling down on it.

"Donald Trump's reference to his political enemies as 'vermin' has drawn inevitable comparison to a certain Austrian corporal and his Italian fascist mentor," Sykes observes. "Those resemblances are nothing new, of course, but Trump's rhetoric lately seems purposeful…. In 2024, will America be ready for the Mango Mussolini?"

Charlie Sykes' full column for The Bulwark is available at this link.

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