Benito Mussolini is considered the creator and founder of Fascism, developing the ultra right wing ideology and where most people would associate the present Trump Administration with early Hitler, historians argue that the comparison is stronger with Il Duce than any with Adolf Hitler who took what Mussolini had, and made it his own.
The similarity, according to people who study these things, are like Mussolini, Trump uses simplified, repetitive, and emotionally charged language to bypass traditional media and connect directly with a mass movement rather than just a political party and both tried to cultivate an image of hyper masculinity and alpha-male dominance.
Mussolini’s promised to restore the glory of the Roman Empire parallels the 'Make America Great Again' (MAGA) slogan and both centered their platforms on the idea that the nation had been weakened by corrupt elites and 'internal enemies' and only they could restore its past greatness.
Both tried to dismantle democratic norms such as the judiciary and the press as well as trying to manipulate media outlets and both relied heavily on nepotism in their inner circle, Mussolini’s appointment family members to his ministry and so has Trump with Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump in official advisory roles.
Both have Paramilitaries doing their dirty work. Il Duce had the Blackshirts causing systematic street violence while Trump has ICE currently doing the same while both utilised the technology of their time to bypass traditional gatekeepers such as Mussolini who created LUCE, a government agency that produced propganda newsreels shown in every cinema while Trump created Truth Social which enabled him to speak direct to his followers without censure and cause a constant barrage of misinformation designed to make the public question reality.
Experts have linked Trump’s use of alternative facts to Mussolini’s methods, where the leader's declarations are promoted as the only truth, dismissing established facts as lies.
Like Mussolini, he cast established journalists as 'enemies' and attempted to replace them with a direct, unmediated 'truth' so Mussolini and Trump both positioned themselves as truth-tellers in a landscape they characterised as dominated by a corrupt and dishonest press and positioned themselves as the only ones to believe despite what the evidence showed.
Both tried to centralise power, attacked and attempted to prosecute opposition and targetted minority groups and while Trump often wears hats that says 'Trump was Right about everything', this is almost the same as Mussolini’s slogan 'Mussolini is always right'.
Mussolini’s face was plastered on posters, buildings, and textbooks across Italy to create a sense of omnipresence while the U.S. context is different but Trump is keen to have his name associated with everything and have his name on everything.
While Mussolini scapegoated Bolsheviks, plutocrats and ethnic minorities, Trumps administration targets the Deep State, radical leftists and illegal immigrants.
The slogan, One of Ours, All of yours' which the Trump administration used when defending the ICE agents after they killed a US citizen, is not directly attributed to Mussolini himself but was used within the context of Nazism in general,particularly in relation to the tactics used by Benito Mussolini’s Italian Fascist regime to eliminate opposition and demand total obedience to the state.
Finally Fascism was inherently expansionist and Trump has wanted to add Greenland as well as mentioning adding Panama and even Canada to the United States so make of that what you will but as we all know Mussolini was overthrown by his own side and hung upside from a lamppost and as the American people stir to protest what is happening there, we can only wait to see if the comparison runs right through to the end.
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