The Greatest Dictator

How Francisco Franco’s success can give us hints about the USA’s first dictator-to-be

People like simple stories and so when we think about dictators of the modern age most people in the West automatically think of Hitler. More adequately educated people also remember Mussolini, and if they’re not too lefty-trendy they may add Stalin and Mao to the list. Those in middle-age may perhaps also vaguely remember PolPot, Peron, Pinochet, Mugabe, Mobuto, and Amin (to name just a few out of dozens), nearly all sponsored in one way or another by the USA in its eagerness to “contain godless communism.” Though all these dictators were brutal thugs and ruled their unfortunate nations with iron fists, none lasted as long at the pinnacle of power as Francisco Franco — not even Mao.

Yet Franco was a mediocrity, a non-entity who proved himself brutal but incompetent as a military officer; as a politician he had no ideology except that of his own survival. Like all dictators he was cunning and could scent the weaknesses of others, but his IQ was at best average-to-low. So how did such a little man (in every sense of the word) end up being the world’s longest-lasting dictator, beating Mao’s record by over three years?

Like J.D.Vance and so many other US Republican politicians today, Franco was prepared to espouse…