D'annunzio was called Il Duce before Mussolini was. I’m cross-posting this text, in shortened form, from my own blog Politraction.
I’m interested in looking back at various incarnations of Fascism and asking what we can learn from history. I’m a history buff—and many of you on Daily Kos may be. So I hope it’s interesting, and on point.
D’Annunzio’s ideas and undertakings prefigure Fascism in one important way: the style and self-positioning. It is not really an ideology worth its salt, but it is a pattern and that pattern is dangerous.
Central to the Fascist movement is the notion of the hero, or superhero, who stood above the polity and all parts of it. D'Annunzio fancied himself to be a prime example. It’s not something we often associate with Fascism; ruthless order and extermination come to mind instead.
D’Annunzio’s early document, the Constitution of Carnaro was a model for Italian Fascism, the first to take hold and rule.
In distilled form, these are its main principles:
- the primacy of action above reflection or expertise
- the hero above the organization or institution
- the elevation of violence as a positive quality and cleansing process
- the stirring of vengeful impulses toward alien groups said to have degenerated the pure, authentic community.
Now compare to the new reality tweeted into the stratosphere by the Dear Leader:
- Neither I nor my cabinet need to have any prior knowledge. I am unpredictable and I speak my mind.
- I do not recognize any democratic process, party or social organization, or convention
- I will destroy they who oppose me, whether in protests, criticism, or printed commentary. I will destroy whole populations in war.
- the “othering” of any minority and their construction as the cause of our decline.
These are precisely the personality traits Donald Trump has exhibited. Whether deliberate or not, he has the instincts for them.
They are a source of his appeal, to legions of angry citizens, and tacitly to many elites and media commentators, who secretly admire his unceremonious disposal of previously held niceties.
The last item in my list hardly needs to be repeated or summarized, of course, to an educated audience that recognizes, say, the anti-Muslim rhetoric for what it is.
He is for many people a hero. It is for these reasons more that any other that he may be fairly called Fascist.