Springtime for Mussolini: An Administration Il Duce Would Be Proud Of
Three Duces
The truth is that men are tired of liberty. ~ Benito Mussolini
I had a cousin who fought under Benito Mussolini. Luigi, a lowly draftee in the Regia Marina (Royal Navy), like most of his comrades, wasted little time in getting himself captured in North Africa and shipped to a POW camp in the U.S. to sit out the remainder of the war (that's him in the photo below, at Pine Camp, flanked by his American cousins, and a GI guard lurking in the background). Perfect case of wrong place, wrong time. Like the rest of his compatriots, Luigi had had it with Il Duce. He fell in love with America, and wound up immigrating here and becoming a citizen. Fast forward a few decades and another cugino in the same branch of the family served proudly in the army of a democratic Italy, achieving the rank of colonnello. My contemporary kin in Italy express profound embarrassment in having Mussolini in their long, rich and cultured history.
So, what gives with America? Thousands of American soldiers sacrificed their lives fighting to liberate Italy from fascism under the leadership of Mark Clark, Omar Bradley and George Patton. Yet today, we have a president who channels Il Duce's spirit, not to mention his style, and appoints to high office men who would cut dashing figures in black shirts. Take, for example, acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker. Let's call him, say, Benitino, for short.
Benitino Whitaker has denounced the Mueller investigation as a “witch hunt” and a “lynch mob.” He called any effort by Congress to protect the special counsel’s role “a mistake” and suggested cutting “his budget so low that his investigation grinds almost to a halt.” And breaking news reveals that he advised Trump to pressure the Justice Department to "investigate" his adversaries, including James Comey and Hillary Clinton. Who but one of a fascist bent would come up with such schemes?
Add to his utter lack of qualifications to act as attorney general and his unconstitutional appointment to that job, his refusal to recuse himself from overseeing the special counsel’s probe due to his earlier critical statements.
As if all that were not enough, Benitino sat on the board of a company that the FTC shut down in 2017 for “bilking millions of dollars from consumers” and suppressing “complaints about them using threats, intimidation, and gag clauses,” according to the FTC, including warning one customer he could face “serious civil and criminal consequences” if the customer posted negative reviews online or a complaint to the Better Business Bureau. You think he might have threatened to break the customer's legs as well?
Finally, Benitino has dismissed any ethical or legal problems with the meeting in June 2016 in Trump Tower with Russians with links to the Kremlin.
I mean, if in his dreams, Il Duce ever conjured up the perfect grandson, it would be Matthew "Benitino" Whitaker. Just look at the physical resemblance alone.
This cynical appointment to put a fox guarding the hen house is classic Trump. And it fits right in with his ever expanding record of contempt for and attacks on the rule of law. He has successfully purged the leadership of the FBI, incessantly attacked the special counsel as well as his own (now ex-) attorney general and turned his mass of zombie followers against their own government. Where he digresses from Mussolini is that the Italian dictator was methodical and ruthless whereas Trump is reckless and bizarrely comical - more banana republic than old world.
Today, Chief Justice John Roberts took the unprecedented step of rebuking President Trump for his attacks on judges. "What we have," Roberts said, "is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them. That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for."
Something Trump and toadies like Benetino Whitaker cannot fathom. Moreover, they are constantly pushing the envelope to fray the edges of our justice system. This is what wannabe Duces do in their quest to subvert freedom and monopolize power, not to mention save their butts from criminal indictment.
I'm reading a book called, Can It Happen Here? by Cass Sunstein. A compilation of essays by scholars on whether fascism can take root in America, it is timely and thought-provoking and I highly recommend it for anyone who is deeply concerned about Trumpism and the dangerous path this country is on.
New York University law professor Stephen Holmes writes, "The unthinkable is not yet probable, but neither can it casually be ruled out. Wherever we are headed, we need to look seriously again at the conditions under which democratic government, hollowed out from within, might gradually sicken and suddenly die." And David Strauss, of University of Chicago Law School, warns, "each step, legal in itself, might undermine liberal democracy a little bit more . . . . They can do this because the legal system of a functioning democracy is not set up to deal with a systematic effort to undermine democratic institutions."
A happy POW
As we read each day's increasingly alarming headlines, we, as citizens, need to ask ourselves what we can do to counter this trend, unprecedented in our history, of creeping authoritarianism. If we don't, we'll wake up one morning and read about President Trumpolini suspending the Bill of Rights. Were he alive today, cousin Luigi would tell us, "Don't let it happen to you."