During the thirty years I lived in Italy, at dinner parties, there was one statement that was sure to shut down conversation. “You have to admit, Mussolini did a lot of good things. After all, he made the trains run on time.”
Guests, whether ex-Communist party members or Berlusconi fans, would fall into silent acceptance of an apparently irrefutable truth.
There is a corollary in the U.S., where many Americans fall for the idea that tyranny’s silver lining is efficiency. At least stuff gets done. Or they think the opposite, that Mussolini’s Fascism was a kind of opera buffa where no harm was done.
Is it true?
Not really. But it presents a lesson that Americans looking for a way to beat MAGA should consider.
Let’s start with Mussolini’s “good things.”
Many of Mussolini’s programs were not his at all; he liked co-opting.
The claims are many. Mussolini gave Italians pensions, new infrastructure, an improved economy, and the reclaiming of malarial swamps around Rome. Not to mention that he protected Italy’s Jews, reduced crime, and tamed the Mafia. And of course, those trains . . .
Mussolini tended to be motivated by programs that helped him consolidate his power or create patronage opportunities for himself and his cronies. Most of the “infrastructure” was intended to provide a space for bombast.
Many of Mussolini’s programs were not his at all; he liked co-opting. He nationalized the public housing projects of local governments. He took over Italy’s pension program, which was set up in 1898, and renamed it the INFPS, the National Institute for Fascist Social Security (it is now just “INPS”, no “F” for fascism).
Likewise, swamp reclamation began before Mussolini came to power, although Mussolini loved posing bare chested and “at work” at swamp reclamation sites.
Mussolini created an aura of legality, with highly illegal means of black-shirted thugs and Gestapo-like surveillance apparatus.
If Italian Jews fared better than others in Europe, it had little to do with Mussolini.
And the trains?
Who knows? A 1931 Fascist law on “public safety” punished “offenses against the prestige of the state or its authorities” and “against nationalist sentiment.” Italy’s railroads were state-owned and its authorities were state ones. Did they run on time or was it too risky to complain?
In any case, these “good things” do not compensate for the anti-Semitic laws of 1938 and the deportations, or military adventures with Hitler. Together, these killed millions of civilians in North Africa and the Soviet Union, as well as thousands of Italian soldiers betrayed by feckless and corrupt military leaders.
So what can myths about Mussolini teach the resistance to MAGA today?
They are potent reminders that what people really want are simple, measurable public services that work. They like them so much that they are willing to forget or overlook civil rights violations. Just ask those in the former Eastern bloc who have Ostalgie (nostalgia) for the security and social services of Communism.
America’s Republicans once understood this. The core of Reaganism was the idea that the government had gotten too big and bloated to provide services and that fiscal conservatism would replace them with a cheaper and better government run like a good business. Trump’s promises about infrastructure in 2016 and DOGE in 2024 seduced many into thinking the Republicans would — metaphorically — run on time.
Trump’s “infrastructure week” never came. And we know all about DOGE.
Democrats must remind Americans what they do not know or have forgotten. Before the cuts of the last few decades, the U.S. government delivered many valuable services and programs. And it did so without trampling civil rights like Mussolini or former Communist regimes.
The Democratic party keeps tying itself into ideological knots in search of some comprehensive theory or program that will unite the centrist and progressive Democrats.
Millions of American voters like, and want back, accurate weather forecasts, protection from epidemics, safe food, safe transportation, reliable pensions, functioning utilities, speedy justice, and many other things.
In the meantime, millions of American voters of every political persuasion, sexual orientation, socio-economic, and educational level already agree on a lot. They like, and want back, accurate weather forecasts, protection from epidemics, safe food, safe transportation, reliable pensions, functioning utilities, speedy justice, and many other things.
These are not controversial issues.
Thousands of fired government experts and administrators not only could restore these services, but also make the improvements many deluded Trump voters voted for. There is a huge pool of potential candidates who already know how to do these things.
A lot of these are boring issues. But they are not controversial. Candidates who campaign on providing reliable services can circumvent the culture war litmus tests and pull voters in from all parts of the spectrum.
If the Democrats rebrand themselves as the party that can “make the trains run on time” and field candidates with proven expertise at doing it, they can start winning.
And no one will have to take off a shirt and stand in a malarial swamp for a photo op like Mussolini.
