Strongmen

October 5, 2020
Historian Ben-Ghiat (Italian Fascism’s Empire Cinema) examines in this incisive and richly detailed account the origin myths, power-grabbing tactics, and personality traits shared by the 20th century’s fascist dictators and today’s right-wing authoritarians. She analyzes how Italian rulers Benito Mussolini and Silvio Berlusconi, Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, Libyan revolutionary Muammar Gaddafi, and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, among many other “strongmen,” seized and held on to power through political uprisings, military coups, and “antidemocratic tactics like fraud and voter suppression.” Ben-Ghiat compares Adolf Hitler’s seizure of the Sudetenland in 1938 to Putin’s annexation of the Ukraine in 2014; dissects how Mussolini, Gaddafi, and Mobutu Sese Seko, the ruler of Zaire, bolstered their power by vaunting their sexual virility; and details how “new authoritarians” including Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro use social media “to create the news they need to stay in office.” Throughout, Ben-Ghiat notes the similarities between President Trump and antidemocratic rulers of the past and present: “A nation that never endured dictatorship or foreign occupation now has firsthand experience of the authoritarian playbook.” It’s a persuasive case, though the decision to leave leftist strongmen largely out of her study leaves Ben-Ghiat open to charges of political bias. Still, this is a thought-provoking look at how authoritarianism has shape-shifted from WWII to today.