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Chapter 4: A Greater Nation
Strongmen, Ben-Ghiat posits, all follow the same basic playbook over time, to which each adds his own unique tools and methods for future strongmen to build on. Chapter 4 deals with the first of these, that being the use of nationalism and the promise of a better future to control the public. A desire for national greatness is used to justify absolute power and any extreme measures taken, as they are all deemed as necessary for the good of the nation. Strongmen specifically use the concepts of utopia, nostalgia, and crisis to maintain their power. Utopia looks to the future, promising greatness, while nostalgia looks to an idealized past, when the nation was great, and promises a restoration of that greatness. Crisis is what the strongman uses to achieve this so-called greatness, by invoking a state of emergency that requires immediate action in order to defend the state from its supposed enemies. This is particularly effective when the leader frames himself not simply as the leader of the nation, but as the embodiment of it, who is using whatever means necessary to heal its sorrows, pain, and embarrassment, as if divinely mandated to help the nation achieve greatness.
Many strongmen have turned to the idea of “cleansing” to achieve this national greatness.
- For Mussolini, that meant the encouragement of healthy, white Italians to procreate and the expulsion and persecution of any undesirable populations, such as criminals, alcoholics, and political opponents, all in the name of restoring Italy’s pride after humiliation on the international stage.
- Hitler implemented cleansing through forced sterilizations in Nazi Germany, particularly of biracial Afro-Germans in the Rhineland as well as the persecution of Jews that the Nazi regime is known for, with these acts being framed as patriotic and moral, all done for the good of Germany.
- Pinochet attacked and expelled leftists, silenced universities, and exhorted his people to return to conservative values.
- Gaddafi promoted his idea of purity in Libya not only by expelling Italians and Jews, but also by discriminating against all Libyan tribes but his own Bedouin tribe, banning their languages, dress, and other cultural signifiers.
- Berlusconi took aim at immigrants and nomadic peoples, stoking the fear of white replacement.
- Meanwhile, Putin draws on religious and cultural traditions that are hostile to LGBTQ+ Russians.
- Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey similarly focuses on religion, with a goal of rebuilding the Ottoman Empire under one faith, Islam.
- Trump bases several of his policies on racism, Ben-Ghiat says, as he characterizes immigrants from Latin America as the biggest threat facing the American people today.
Chapter 5: Propaganda
The fifth chapter focuses on exactly that, describing how strongmen use a combination of political celebrity culture to maintain influence and “advertisement” to market their vision for the nation. Propaganda focuses on capturing the attention of the public via repetition, until the nation as a whole is culturally and politically synchronized. Over time, dictators have used the same methods across different mediums, such as encouraging self-censorship of opponents, manipulating information to justify their actions, using soft power to entice foreigners, and silencing people and ideas that threaten their rule.
Mussolini’s propaganda dealt heavily with his image, showing off his fit body to appear strong and virile, and plastering his name and likeness across Italy so that no corner would be untouched by his influence. Hitler preferred to concentrate on the use of his voice, hosting and recording rally after rally that electrified his supporters and marginalized his opponents. Both Pinochet and Franco used propaganda to rehabilitate their images, in effect marketing themselves and their political visions both to their own people and to foreign powers.
Gaddafi’s preferred method of propaganda was the use of violence as a spectacle, forcing his citizens to watch televised executions of dissenters. He also used publicly-funded education programs to strengthen his cult of personality. In the present day, strongmen such as Putin, Berlusconi, and Trump tend to rely on outrage over real or fabricated crises, using misinformation to redirect attention away from their own personal issues. Intimidation or discrediting of the press often goes hand in hand with these strategies, as seen with Berlusconi’s insistence that any media outlet not owned by him could not be trusted, and Trump’s repeated claims concerning “fake news.”
Chapter 6: Virility
Chapter 6 discusses the importance of masculinity in a strongman’s cult of personality. The reactionary nature of a strongman's rise to power is part of what makes him so attractive to the average citizen, and when this rise comes after a period during which women gained political power, machismo is a guaranteed winner with a nation’s men. Despite the misogynistic nature of the strongman’s rule, women may still be attracted to him and support him, especially if they have something to gain by being of the “desirable” race or class. However, masculinity is not the strongman’s only appeal, for his stereotypically feminine attributes, such as passion and sensitivity to the plight of his nation, make him seem more relatable, authentic, and charismatic.
A strongman’s virility is not merely a show for the public sphere, but also a reality in his private sphere, with devastating consequences for the women around him. Mussolini, Gaddafi, and Berlusconi are known to have been obsessed with sex, often violent in nature. Mussolini sought not only physical satisfaction, but also total domination and conquest of women. He kept tight control of his lovers, raping them, forcing them to have abortions, and keeping them under surveillance even after he was done with them. These violent, misogynistic tendencies were encouraged in popular Italian culture as well. Gaddafi took the opposite tactic, granting women rights in public to a greater extent than other authoritarian regimes, but being even more brutal than Mussolini with women in private, by imprisoning, abusing, and raping hundreds upon hundreds of women, regardless of age. Hitler, in contrast, seemed almost prudish in comparison to his fellow dictators, keeping his few lovers private in order to make himself appear fully devoted to Germany.
Berlusconi was known for his sex parties, which he would handpick women to attend and later reward with political or financial favors. This practice eventually led to his downfall, years later, when it was discovered that underage girls were in attendance at these parties. In the modern day, Ben-Ghiat notes that Trump in the past surrounded himself with fashion models through the pageants he sponsored and has been accused of assault himself, while also supporting men who have been accused of sexual misconduct, even nominating them for positions in his cabinet.
Chapter 7: Corruption
In Chapter 7, Ben-Ghiat defines corruption as the “abuse of public power for private gain.” Many abuses are crimes of a financial nature, including bribery, extortion, raiding and seizing private businesses, and profiting from privatization or nationalization. Overall, corruption is a process of decay in which a leader begins to eat away at civic morals and ethics to advance his own goals as he turns the economy into a source of personal wealth. One contemporary example of this is climate change, in which rulers make decisions that benefit not the planet and the general populace, but themselves and their supporters. These sorts of corruption often go hand in hand with a divide and rule strategy, in which the ruler keeps his cabinet and other aides in constant upheaval to create an environment of distrust and competition between them, always ensuring that they are too busy fighting amongst themselves to unite against the leader or try for a bigger piece of the pie.
Mussolini was often up close and personal with his corruption and was known as a micromanager. Cabinet members were replaced every three to four years, and Mussolini himself often held multiple roles, sometimes up to five at a time, being unafraid to get his hands dirty, whether by involvement with the government-run mafia or by extorting money from Jewish people in exchange for safety. Hitler, on the other hand, delegated to an extreme, with miniature chains of corruption surrounding his officials but not himself. These officials were often given material rewards in exchange for loyal service. Pinochet used Mussolini-style cabinet upheaval to concentrate power in his own hands and Hitler’s system of spoils to ensure the loyalty of high-ranking officials. Gaddafi, meanwhile, used Libyan oil money to get what he wanted, hoarding wealth for himself and certain elites, to the point that he was willing to step back from official positions of rule in order to steal even more wealth from his nation.
New authoritarians, such as Putin, Berlusconi, and Trump, tend to find control not through bribery or material rewards, but through the threat of loss. Their two main methods of corruption tend to be taking over businesses under the guise of cleansing the state of enemy influence (practiced by Putin) and laundering money through offshore financial ventures (practiced, allegedly, by all three). They also focus on removing transparency and accountability in order to further ensure their safety from prosecution.
Chapter 8: Violence
In Chapter 8, Ben-Ghiat explains that when all else fails, violence always comes to the aid of the strongman. Especially in past regimes, violence is a means of gaining and maintaining power. It is often justified in propaganda as both a civic duty and the price of greatness, in a Machiavellian sort of way. Even when citizens are not willing to see violence as their own civic duty, it can still be used to enforce power through fear and create disorder.
Violence is typically reserved for those who oppose the strongman’s regime, or who are painted as a threat against the country as a whole, making it seem far more acceptable than if “good” citizens themselves were openly the targets (they are best targeted in secret). Mussolini, for example, ensured that most of the deaths during his administration were either outside of Italy, in Libya and Ethiopia, or confined to populations such as political prisoners, alcoholics, gay men, and Jews, who were imprisoned on islands. Hitler employed concentration camps, an even more deadly form of remote imprisonment, where similarly “undesirable” populations such as prostitutes, alcoholics, gay men, criminals, and Jews were sent. Franco’s violence focused on his leftist opponents, hundreds of whom were killed by his Army of Africa and buried in mass graves.
Pinochet engaged in brutal torture of political opponents, specifically sexual torture (which was thought to leave less evidence), but his regime was unique in that he had a large amount of foreign influence sanctioning this violence, including South American members of Operation Condor and the United States, as well as independent foreigners from Germany and other authoritarian nations serving as high-ranking officials in his army. Gaddafi, Putin, and Erdoğan focused their ire not only on opponents at home but also on those abroad, tracking down, kidnapping, and assassinating refugees and exiles. In the present day, Ben-Ghiat compares Trump’s detention centers for illegal immigrants to other prison camps of old, citing appalling conditions, the separation of children from parents, and the labeling of immigrants as violent criminals.
