Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
ché la diritta via era smarrita.
So Dante opens Inferno, the first book in The Divine Comedy. Despite having been written in 1320, it seems an apt metaphor for the world in which we find ourselves today.
Midway along the journey of our life
I awoke to find myself in a dark wood,
for I had wandered off the straight path.
Over the past few years, I’ve spent a lot of time wondering if what we’re witnessing is actually Fascism. Since Trump’s ascent to power, the term has been bandied about, at times seeming like little more than a convenient slogan, a blanket term intended to imply any totalitarian movement. Although I have never supported this administration, I have hesitated—until now—to call this Fascism. I wanted to be sure that it was indeed an accurate description. My grandparents lived in Mussolini’s Italy, under a militaristic regime that successfully revised an entire nation’s moral language, causing reckless harm and undue trauma all along the way. To point the word at Trump, his administration, and the world in which we live would, it seemed to me, carry a grave responsibility.
So much has already been said about Trump’s vile performance in Greenville, NC. But his smug expression as his most rabid supporters chanted that he “send [Somali-born Representative Ilhan Omar] back” was truly one of the most frightening things that I have ever witnessed. Too frightening to not call out. To witness that footage and not name it Fascism suddenly seemed the irresponsible act.
I was 10 years old when I last saw my grandmother. There is very little I know about her life. Here’s one thing that I do know: In 1944, my grandmother was imprisoned by Fascist officials for selling chickens on the black market. She was arrested alongside a friend. Her friend was thrown into a cell adjacent to hers. My grandmother was forced to listen to her friend’s screams as she was assaulted by officers. She was heavily pregnant with my uncle at the time, so she was—as far as I know—left alone until her release.
My grandmother never talked about this event and, over the years, this story has morphed into a bit of family folklore. As soon as the war ended, an entire generation of Italians buried that history, which, though understandable, has made it all too easy to forget.
I don’t know if my grandmother would recognize what we’re witnessing today as Fascism, but Fascism, clearly, is not dead. (It’s unequivocally alive in Italy, where, in October, I spotted a mug for sale in a souvenir shop in the beachside resort town of Cesenatico that left me wide-eyed and shaking. It bore an image of Mussolini’s face along with the Fascist slogan “boia chi molla”.)
No—here we do not live under a dictatorship. Trump has not proclaimed a one-party state. He does not reject capitalism. He does not intend to redistribute wealth. (Imagine!) The checks and balances of the US Constitution still work to contain him. The parallels, though, are alarming.
Mussolini ascended to power by appealing to a frustrated middle class, spinning a narrative of a once-great society destroyed by liberalism. He rejected modernism and wanted to restore Italy as the world power. (He, at least, was clear about the period to which he was hearkening back. Ancient Rome!) As he acquired power, he held in deep contempt anyone that he perceived as weak. His responsibility, he believed, was to purify the nation and reform the character of the weak Italian people, who had succumbed to the bourgeois excesses of liberalism. (You see, he also held his own people in contempt.) This scorn meant that there was no place for humanitarianism in his regime; it was antithetical to the forward march of history, a vision in which only the strong would prevail.
It’s no surprise then that an aesthetic and rhetorical celebration of violence followed (although, followed isn’t the right word since Gabriele D’Annunzio and the Futurists had been hard at work setting the foundation for the valorization of violence years beforehand). One’s ability to enact violence was a sign of strength and courage. In addition to glamorizing warfare, pursuing expansionist militarism, and organizing Italians as young as age 6 to handle weapons and learn to fight for la patria, Mussolini—a notorious womanizer—unsurprisingly promoted a culture of machismo, unabashedly flaunting and glorifying male virility. (He would regularly and publicly brag about how many women he had had in a day.) Anything other than the most toxic form of masculinity was deemed so threatening that, in the 1930s, he implemented a series of antibourgeois measures intended to emphasize certain behaviors over others. Most notably, “Lei”, the polite form of you (which also happens to be the feminine third person), was replaced with the more manly-sounding “Voi”. In fact, the word “Lei” was doubly problematic insomuch as it was both feminine and a foreign import—and, well, Mussolini was a xenophobe.
Is some of this sounding familiar? I like words, so let’s stay on language for a moment. Trump’s own language has repeatedly legitimized racist and sexist discourse, and his ability to blur the contours of reality with linguistic imprecision would have been easily recognizable to Mussolini. More than any other figure in recent American history, he has created an environment in which respect for diverse opinions is seriously under attack. He maintains a deep distrust of the intellectual world and equates independent thought and transparency to forms of emasculation (because, well, they pose threats to his power). As such, he regularly discredits and silences non-aligned voices. (This is what he’s done most recently with Reps. Omar, Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib, and Pressley. There is absolutely no room for dissent in Trump’s America.)
We could go on. However, the parallel that I find to be most interesting is something that Umberto Eco points to in his 1995 essay Ur-Fascism. Fascism was, as Eco called it, little more than “structured confusion”. (It makes sense then that Fascism was a uniquely Italian invention!) Italian Fascism was philosophically discombobulated and ideologically hollow. This differentiated it from other totalitarian movements, and allowed various fascisms to flourish within it. People could take what they wanted from Fascism and still rationalize it. More than anything, it was a cult of the Duce, with Mussolini acting as the emotional lynchpin of a regime. He had no special political philosophy and was hypocritical to the core, but he had the power of rhetoric and he understood how to play on people’s emotions. Dr. Gigliola Sulis, Professor of Italian at the University of Leeds, has compared Mussolini’s speeches from Palazzo Venezia to Trump’s use of Twitter. Both were/are direct and irrational appeals to the people, designed to break down the barriers between the public and personal spheres, to showcase themselves as men of the people and present themselves as the only legitimate spokesmen of the State.
Ultimately, Italian Fascism was able to thrive on the myth of the exceptional man. And President Trump has steadily positioned himself as today’s exceptional man. He has created a divisive environment, repeatedly called into question reality, and condoned a new and horrific set of American values. Make no mistake, he is building a society in which he can act with impunity. He has been fomenting hatred since his campaign and, in North Carolina, his success in doing so was unmistakeable. He is dangerous, and those among us who allow this behavior, brush it off, or refuse to speak out are equally dangerous.
As Dante descends into hell, he passes by a group of souls at the entrance. Virgil explains to him that these were the individuals who had remained neutral at times of great moral decisions. They are worse than the most horrific sinners, not even allowed to dwell in hell so repugnant are they to both God and Satan alike.
This feels like a moment in history that carries great moral weight. If we don’t condemn Trump’s behavior now, both individually and collectively, if we continue to allow him to act with impunity, how much farther will we descend?