3-14-18
‘I’m fascinated by Mussolini’
Breaking Newstags: Mussolini, fascism, populism, Steve Bannon
Nicholas Farrell read history at Cambridge University (Gonville and Caius College) and was for many years on the staff of the Sunday Telegraph. He is the author of “Mussolini.”
We are in a hotel suite at the Park Hyatt Hotel in Zurich when Stephen K. Bannon tells me he adores the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.
But let’s be clear. Bannon — as far as I can tell — is not a fascist. He is, however, fascinated by fascism, which is understandable, as its founder Benito Mussolini, a revolutionary socialist, was the first populist of the modern era and the first tabloid newspaper journalist.
Il Duce, realising that people are more loyal to country than class, invented fascism, which replaced International Socialism with National Socialism. He was thus able to ‘weaponise’ — to use a favourite Bannon word — what the people wanted. Bannon is now touring Europe to weaponise what lots of European people seem to want, which is national populism.
Mussolini was perhaps the reason Bannon granted me an interview. It turns out he likes a book I wrote about the dictator years ago.
comments powered by Disqus
News
- Law Prof: If Recent SCOTUS Decisions Relied on Bad History, Opponents Need to Come Up with a Better Version
- How Hitler's Favorite Passion Play Lost its Anti-Semitism
- Fighting Back Against Book Banners
- At CPAC, Trump Presents a Violent Blueprint for Taking Power
- Mario Fiorentini (1918-2022): The Last Surviving Italian Partisan
- Revisiting Lady Rochford and Her Alleged Betrayal of Anne Boleyn
- Walter Russell Mead: Non-Jewish Interest Groups, not "Israel Lobby" Drive Hawkish US Mideast Policy
- The Architecture of the Shopping Mall Shaped by Racism, Surveillance
- The Misuse of History in 2021 Documentary "The Business of Birth Control"
- It's Hard to Be God