With the help of British and Italian government archives, Dennis Mack Smith was able to write an extraordinary biography of Italian leader Benito Mussolini.
What will strike the reader in the aftermath of Donald Trump's improbable election as President of the United States, are the comparisons between the two men.
First, although Mussolini had served as a famous newspaper editor and writer before his fascist movement took power, he had no more grasp of domestic or foreign issues than Trump.
On that score, Mussolini, like Trump, was capable of changing his mind three or four times in a single day on one particular issue. We saw Trump, on world television last autumn, contradicting himself on a single issue within an hour, such as whether he had or had not met with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, whether he had or had not communicated with Putin.
None other than Prince Charles has weighed in on the dangerous similarities between the financially unstable 1930s and the early 21rst century where white nationalism has reared its ugly head in western countries, where the safety nets for old age have shrunk, and working class, manufacturing jobs have been off-shored, mostly to China.
Both Mussolini, as revealed in this biography, and Trump, have been beset by substantial emotional issues, and it is hard to find two world leaders in recorded history who erupted in public and private with such uncontrolled rages and anger. Mussolini, Smith tells, had a difficult relationship with his father and suffered from severe ulcers. When Mussolini was briefly in protection by German troops, German doctors found that Mussolini lacked for somebody to talk to and found the ulcers went away when he had a sounding board, in contrast to a lifetime of failed medical remedies he had been given in Italy for his ulcers.
Trump, too, has the scars of a man who might not have been listened to in childhood, ranting on and on as if his audience will disappear if he backs down or retreats or stops talking, Cinderella who will turn into a pumpkin should he yield the floor or admit to the smallest mistake of fact or error of interpretation. Was he not taken as seriously in the family as his sister who became a federal judge?
Like Trump, Mussolini held his own supporters in contempt, and if Trump said they would not abandon him if he shot somebody in broad day light, Mussolini complained that Italians were so dumb he could tell them anything.
Like Trump, Mussolini was a master of mixed messages, knowing that those who wanted to believe in him would grab onto one of his explanations. This is particularly interesting because surveys found during the campaign that what Trump was saying on his positions and what his supporters thought he was saying often widely diverged.
Like Trump, Mussolini believed he knew far more than Italian diplomats about diplomacy and far more than Italian Admirals and Generals about war. Mussolini's disastrous war with Albania, and on again, off again, alliance with Germany during World War II, were disastrous. Thus far, Trump has mostly managed to damage relations with our European allies by insulting them.
Trump's creepy defense of Russian leader and chief liquidator Vladimir Putin looks a lot like Mussolini's alliance with Adolph Hitler.
[Hansen Alexander's most recent books include "An Introduction to the Laws of the United States in the 21st Century," an Amazon, e-book exclusive.]


