Violence and seduction. This was the double face of the man who founded fascism, the Sweet. This was a century ago. Mussolini had started out as a socialist militant (he directed the party newspaper, Avanti) and then had renounced and established himself as the leader of a new nationalist populism. We already know how history went: both socialism and fascism became bloodthirsty totalitarianisms.
Have times changed? Yes, of course. But with the unpredictable ups and downs, now we return a bit to the beginning. We return to blind faith in the leader, we return to believe in violence to impose one's own truth, we return to inflating the nation, we return to demonizing differences. In Italy, the post-fascist Meloni rules, a xenophobe in sheep's clothing. In the United States, the ultra-rich nationalist Trump, who pushed his most fanatical acolytes to storm the Capitol, as if they were squadristi of the old school, who now undermines democracy from power and has burst onto the international scene with the only law he knows how to practice: the law of the strongest. He is the strongest.
Antonio Scurati is the man who has best captured Mussolini's ideological and personal inner workings. He has dedicated a highly praised tetralogy of novels to him. In the short essay Fascism and populism (Ed. Asuntos - Rayo Verde), translated by Gustau Muñoz, Scurati brings his character into the present. The parallels are too obvious to ignore. Are we sufficiently aware? The overwhelming and magnetic force of Donald Trump seems copied from the energetic, histrionic, and charismatic rhetoric of Benito Mussolini, who spoke in short, grandiloquent phrases, with sayings and slogans that were easy to take out of context, always in the first person: I say, I promise, I threaten. He had no concern for coherence. Intuitive, he could make incredible plot twists based on absolute tacticism, unprejudiced opportunism, cynical pragmatism, and chameleon-like changes of direction and alliances. For the leader, who occupied "the place of bitter reality," says Scurati, there were no convictions, only opportunities.
Donald acts like Benito. From condottiero into the sheriff. He, too, has established himself as the people, and he, too, takes the right path, making spectacular turns. And, of course, if you weren't with Mussolini, you were against Italy. If you're not with Trump, you're against the United States of America. Mussolini said: "I don't do politics, I do anti-politics." He stood up against the caste of parliamentarians, bureaucrats, and corrupt officials in Rome, against their uselessness and weakness. He turned liberal parliamentary democracy into the enemy of efficiency and success. What does Trump do to Washington? We'll see where this new authoritarian drift takes us.
As Scurati explains, Mussolini had the ability to capture people's moods, not to give them a positive meaning, but to exploit resentment and dark passions, to indulge feelings of restlessness, fear, and disappointment and turn them into outbursts of anger. How far gone was the idea of politics as pedagogy, the virtuous sum of all things. The populist hope of then and now is a toxic mix of victorious rage, a hallucinogenic magic potion. There was and is a basic rule: reduce the world's problems to very simple recipes, destroying complex, reflective, or analytical thinking, always identifying an enemy to be defeated, internal or external. Immigrants have the grace of being both, invaders within us.
Benito and Donald, men of action. Of struggle. Fight, fight, fight! As Scurati says, we must follow their example and fight against them to save democracy. How? With work, work, and work. Careful, patient, and intelligent work. There are no shortcuts. "Democracy is more like the vine, the vineyards, and, like vineyards, it demands constant, wise care; it demands love and devotion. The vine must be grafted, pruned, fertilized, protected from parasites, and tied to its supports by agile and strong hands. It is a laborious task that will yield the sweet and intoxicating wine of democracy."
