Mussolini didn’t actually make the trains run on time. That’s propaganda. 20th century fascists did “sheer vandalism” and elevated superstitions above science, often in self-harming ways. The competence of fascists is another of their self-aggrandizing myths. It’s just that destroying is easy.
"They built highways!" Yea with the forced labor of their political enemies
This is the essence of Fascism. They cannot have "experts" that will contradict them. This is part of the purging of expertise "with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.”
He built the first highway in Europe. Which was empty because nobody had a car
Mussolini was skilled at taking credit for things, a lot of these types are Trump‘s a bit clumsy about it, but enough people seem to swallow it
The “Nzi super-science” trope is so destructive and so misleading; in reality they could barely do “Nzi regular-ass science” because they were always saying shit like “relativity is a Jewish plot.”
It also dovetails with the characteristic American myth (from which Trump has benefited) that businessmen have superior knowhow and will govern more efficiently than bureaucrats.
“I imagined it and told people to do it then it happened.” Yeah… I don’t think that’s an accurate story of business.
This may be a bit of an aside, but note what current-day democratic Italy has accomplished: www.dw.com/en/trenitali...
I think the only scenario that makes sense is this is the results of a very successful longterm Russian psyop
To pick one of many possible examples: the Nazis basically went “those world class nuclear physicists are nerdy eggheads and way too Jewy, not like manly Aryans” while Hitler had people researching the occult. The 20th century equivalent of thinking Putin’s military will easily win because pushups.
Advanced physics were a relatively new area of research attracting people from the newly emancipating European Jewry who were still locked out of other options. Check the list of scientists working on the Manhattan Project.
who is John Galt?
Someone who lives in the middle of nowhere with a few other self-important people who keep complaining that no one’s picking up the garbage.
there is no middle of nowhere and our lives should be in the service of others and I once created a 100 acre open lands project. I know John galt is around here somewhere. learning to walk the path that makes me worthy to wear the shoes of the fisherman
I’ve wondered this a lot - was is simply a well-intentioned effort to paint the Nazis and fascists as so evil that we made them serious seeming and “extreme” in existence. While in reality fascist thinking is fairly common and authoritarians are dangerous but jokes.
Stalin and the entire Soviet Union was a massive joke. All we did was make fun of our absurd government systems and the absurdity of our lives. But, he’s a serious brutal man who defeated the Nazis, we are told.
Most people are more comfortable thinking of big historical evil as hypercompetent supervillains, rather than banal often stupid assholery at scale. The latter can be very damaging though.
Yes. There’s cognitive dissonances in realizing that unserious and unremarkable people can cause so much damage.
If anything could generally describe all of the mainstream extremist movements and groups I've researched, "banal often stupid assholery at scale" is dern near perfect.
Was thinking of exactly this
Destroying is all fascists know how to do.