I am often struck by the parallels between Trump and Mussolini. Friday he called for the execution of six democrats who told the military that they must disobey illegal orders. Hang them says Trump!
Here is a summary of events from the recent documentary, "Mussolini, the First Fascist" which I found on You tube:
- He seized power in 1922
- He was to make Italy great again - Rome again - adopted the Roman Legion salute, later to be copied by the Nazis (and Elon Musk)
- Democracy was dead by 1925
- Parliament just obeyed Il Duce
- The only news was government propaganda
- Mussolini was on the news continuously - all Il Duce all the time
- Blackshirt fascists watched every family
- Violence solved everything was his operating principle
- To criticize Il Duce was seen as an attack on Italy - prison
- People had to pretend to agree, to hide, and eventually no one spoke out
- There was an assassination attempt where a bullet grazed his nose - HE WORE A PROMINENT BANDAGE OVER HIS NOSE and paraded before the adoring crowds
- The fascist motto was we don't give a damn
- Nothing was ever enough for him
- He inspired other dictators
- 1935 invaded Ethiopia so as to be heirs of the great Roman Empire - poison gas, genocide - but ...
- Then started the downfall - he found out the Italians were not Roman gladiators, pfft...
- He became second fiddle to Hitler even though he had preceded him
- He declared Jews to be the enemy
- He declared Italians to be of the Arian race
- Invaded Albania and allied with Hitler
- Discovered he needed a permanent revolution or he would fall, but the fascist revolution was over
- Italian defeats broke Mussolini
- 1943 the Allies were in Italy
- Mussolini arrested
- Imprisoned
- Hitler rescued him, a diminished shell of a man, watched always by SS
- Italy losing
- Mussolini executed and his corpse hung upside down form a telephone pole and his corpse beaten to a pulp
Turns out, violence didn't solve everything, but it eventually solved Mussolini.
Lots of parallels, including cartoonish strutting and posing
