Trump and Mussolini

The New Yorker
News Desk
Madeleine Albright Warns of a New Fascism—and Trump

By Robin Wright

April 24, 2018

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On a Sunday morning in 2016, Donald Trump retweeted a quote from Benito Mussolini, the Italian dictator, Nazi ally, and leader of the first major Fascist movement. An account called @ilduce2016 had posted, “It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.” (Il Duce was Mussolini’s popular honorific.)

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Mussolini called on his followers to believe in an Italy that would be “prosperous because it was self-sufficient and respected because it was feared,” Albright writes. “This was how twentieth-century fascism began: with a magnetic leader exploiting widespread dissatisfaction by promising all things.” Il Duce, who was Italy’s Prime Minister from 1922 until 1943, said that his mission was “to break the bones of the democrats .?.?. and the sooner the better.” He used the term “drenare la palude,” or “drain the swamp.” He had a talent for theatre, Albright notes, and was a poor listener who disliked hearing other people talk. He discouraged cabinet members from “proposing any idea that might cause him to doubt his instincts,” which, he insisted, were always right. He also promoted the idea of national self-sufficiency “without ever grasping how unrealistic that ambition had become.”

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