Demagogues vs. Dictators
Feb 8, 2021MICHAEL LIND
Notwithstanding the mob assault on the US Capitol and the start of his
second impeachment trial, the fact that Donald Trump has left the White House
is proof that he was never a fascist dictator but rather an American-style
populist demagogue. Such figures often appear in democracies where large
cohorts of society are no longer adequately represented.
AUSTIN – Throughout Donald Trump’s single term as president of the United
States, his opponents in both the Democratic and Republican parties frequently
portrayed him as a would-be fascist dictator. But with Trump ousted from the
White House, this analogy has become untenable. The Italian leader Trump
resembles most is not the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini but rather Silvio
Berlusconi, the scandal-prone former prime minister.
Figures like Trump and Berlusconi – tycoons or media celebrities who ran
for office as anti-establishment populist demagogues – are not uncommon in
contemporary Western democracies. In Europe, the list includes elected leaders
like Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, one of the country’s wealthiest men;
former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, previously his country’s
“Chocolate King”; and his successor, Volodymyr Zelensky, a comic actor who had
previously played a Ukrainian president on television.
Although Trump is the first true demagogue to be elected to the American
presidency, the entertainer or plutocrat who wins office by posing as a
champion of the common people has been a staple of mayoral and gubernatorial
races for generations. Media celebrity, in particular, has become an
increasingly common basis for electoral success in America.
In the 1930s, the country music radio star W. Lee “Pappy” O’Daniel became
governor of Texas and then a US senator. In the 1960s-80s, Ronald Reagan
famously made the transition from Hollywood actor to California governor and
then to the White House. Similarly, Jesse Helms, the late US senator from North
Carolina, started out as a right-wing radio star. Then, in 1999, the TV
wrestling celebrity Jesse Ventura (who, along with Trump, had attempted to take
over Ross Perot’s Reform Party) was elected to a single term as Minnesota’s
governor, and in 2003, the movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger became governor of
California with no prior political experience. (Ventura had previously served as
mayor of a Minneapolis suburb.)
Populist demagogues in democratic countries generally do not intend to
create police states, and they could not even if they tried. Whereas interwar
fascist dictators were backed by their countries’ military, police, bureaucratic,
and business establishments, populists rely on the support of alienated
non-elite groups and are typically opposed by most of the other power centers
in society.
Hence, many flamboyant demagogues in the American South – such as Louisiana
Governor (and then US Senator) Huey P. Long or the husband-and-wife team of
populist Texas governors, James “Pa” and Miriam “Ma” Ferguson – represented
small farmers and the white working class against the rich gentry who
monopolized wealth and political office in their states.
Some demagogues exploit minority ethnic groups’ bitterness over their own
exclusion from wealth and power. In the first half of the twentieth century,
James Michael Curley, the corrupt four-term mayor of Boston and one-term
governor of Massachusetts, won and held power by representing working-class
Irish-Americans against the Anglo-American Protestant elite – the so-called
Boston Brahmins.
But while populist demagogues can identify legitimate grievances among some
voters, they almost never deliver on their promises to followers. Some, like
O’Daniel in Texas, become fronts for establishment interests, whereas others
merely create personal patronage machines, using their official powers to
reward family members or cronies. Very rarely do demagogues create new
institutional structures that can carry out reforms long after they leave
office.
In Curley’s case, his Harvard-educated son-in-law, Edward Donnelly, played
a role similar to that of Trump’s Harvard-educated son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
In Louisiana, Long created a family dynasty that included his brother Earl, who
followed him as governor, and Russell Long, who became a long-serving US
senator from Louisiana.
In any case, demagogic populists’ political careers tend to be rich in
scandal and corruption. Whereas Berlusconi had his infamous “bunga bunga”
parties, Trump had the “Access Hollywood” tape, where he boasted about sexually
assaulting women.
And then there are the instances of graft and outright crime. Like Curley,
Berlusconi was sentenced to prison. As Louisiana’s political boss in the 1930s,
Long made a deal with the New York gangster Frank Costello to share gambling
profits in the state, even as his minions “dee-ducted” money from state
government payrolls to benefit a campaign slush fund that became known as the
“deduct box.” In Texas, Pa and Ma Ferguson financed their political machine by
selling pardons to the families of convicted criminals. Recent reports that Trump
allies were paid to lobby the outgoing president for pardons reek of
corruption, not dictatorship.
Of course, the storming of the US Capitol by Trump supporters has
inevitably led to facile comparisons to Nazi Storm Troopers and Italian Fascist
Blackshirts. But America’s own history offers more accurate analogies for
understanding the MAGA mob. It is no accident that in Tennessee Williams’s 1959
play Sweet Bird of Youth, the character of Boss Finley, the
demagogic leader of a Southern state, has his own criminal gang (“Youth for Tom
Finley”) whom he unleashes against his political opponents.
To be sure, demagogues in modern democracies can do a lot of harm, even if
they cannot (and do not intend to) abolish elections, establish police states, and
put their opponents in concentration camps. But opposing demagogic populists
when they appear is not enough. We also need to understand the conditions that
allow this species of politician to flourish.
When major groups in society have adequate representation through electoral
politics and institutions like trade unions, religious organizations, and
community groups, populist demagogues seldom find significant public support.
It is only when large groups in a given city, state, province, or country feel
disfranchised and ignored by conventional leaders that they are tempted to turn
to flamboyant outsiders who claim to represent them, even though they usually
represent only themselves.
Unfortunately, while wealth and status are becoming increasingly
concentrated in modern Western societies, intermediate institutions and local
communities have decayed, and traditional political parties have declined to
the point of being mere labels that billionaires and media celebrities can
easily co-opt. That means the conditions will remain ripe for more Berlusconis
– and for more Trumps.
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