How Trump’s second term would echo Mussolini’s 'fascist strongman leadership': historian

16 May 2024

The New Republic has published a series of articles focusing on presumptive 2024 GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump's plans for a second term if he defeats President Joe Biden in November, and the series' theme is "What American Fascism Would Look Like."

The series tackles a variety of ways in which the writers believe authoritarianism would imperil the United States if Trump returns to the White House in 2025, from immigration policies and the country's borders to public education to severe restrictions on the media. Columbia University professor Kian Tajbakhs, in one of the articles, focuses on the challenges Americans would face managing their day-to-day lives during an authoritarian crackdown.

The series also includes an in-depth essay/think piece by historian/author Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who delves into the history of fascism — including the rise of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, a.k.a. Il Duce, during the 1920s — and emphasizes that Trumpism has many fascist elements.

"During his 21 years in power, 18 of them as dictator, Il Duce framed fascism as a revolution of reaction against the left, against liberal democracy, and against any group that threatened the survival of white Christian civilization," Ben-Ghiat explains in her article, published on May 16. "Carrying out a violent destabilization of society in the name of a return to social order and national tradition, fascism pioneered the autocratic formula in use today of disenfranchising and repressing the many to allow the few to exploit the workforce, women's bodies, the environment and the economy."

The historian/author continues, "Trumpism is in this tradition. It started in 2015 as a movement fueled by conservative alarm and white rural rage at a multiracial and progressive America. It continued as an authoritarian presidency envisioned as 'a shock to the system' that unleashed waves of hate crimes against nonwhites and non-Christians. It culminated in the January 6 assault on the Capitol, which was a counterrevolutionary operation in the spirit of fascism."

Ben-Ghiat lays out some reasons why she finds Project 2025, Trump allies' blueprint for a second term, so disturbing.

"The fascists believed that you have to destroy to create, and this is what a second Trump Administration would do," Ben-Ghiat warns. "Project 2025 is a plan for an authoritarian takeover of the United States that goes by a deceptively neutral name…. The plan promises the abolition of the Department of Education and other federal agencies."

Ben-Ghiat adds, "The intent here is to destroy the legal and governance cultures of liberal democracy and create new bureaucratic structures, staffed by new politically vetted cadres, to support autocratic rule. So new agencies could appear to manage parents' and family rights, Christian affairs, and other pillars of the new order. The Department of Health and Human Services is poised to have a central role in governance, given the priorities Trumpism places on policing sexuality, weaponizing motherhood, persecuting transgender people and LGBTQ communities, and criminalizing abortion."

The historian notes that Mussolini, during the 1920s, enacted "public security" laws that "justified the arrest of anyone deemed a security threat — meaning anyone who opposed fascism from a liberal democratic or leftist point of view." And she believes that Project 2025 has similar aims.

"Given Trump’s repeated threats to carry out 'retribution' against his enemies," Ben-Ghiat warns, "expect prompt and showy announcements of trials and investigations of the political opposition, members of the January 6 Select Committee, and anyone who sought to hold him accountable….. Trump has worked hard since 2015 to condition the public to see the strongman brand of leadership as the only choice for America."

Ruth Ben-Ghiat's full essay for The New Republic is available at this link.

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