Thread by @MMBrussell

Most of us have no real idea of what it means to live under an authoritarian regime.

But because no matter the variant it always ends the same, we can look back through history.

1/ Thread. What was life like under Mussolini?

2/ Getting Detained Was Common.

No exceptions, it didn't matter if you were a banker, a well connected political lobbyist, a butcher, a soldier or a student. It wasn't pretty either, though Italian prisons at the time were slightly better than our modern day privatised prisons.

3/ Leadership was simply eliminated.

It didn't matter if you had been or were a captain of industry, media figure, union man, local civic leader, student council member - any type of leadership other than the tiny party core was removed.

4/ Enablers were simply eliminated.

It did not matter if in any position or appearance of leadership you had helped them to gain power. Any potential of competing leaders was intolerable.

5/ When the Leader made an appearance, fear and admiration became indistinguishable.

The admiration which had enabled him, became a standard of fear. The distinction between the two disappeared.

6/ The trains really did run on time, sort of

Cause no one dared to report it when they were late.
That went for every promise of making things great again. Nothing was done, unless it was made worse.

7/ Phones were tapped, so people had to screen their conversations.

The mail as well. Privacy didn't exist. And as everyone lived in a state of fear. Mostly of each other, because everyone reported everyone else.

8/ School wasn't about education, but about indoctrination.

Even after-school youth programs were propaganda seminars for children. Businesses weren't happy about it, qualified employees became harder and harder to find, innovation disappeared.

9/ Families were supposed to have at least five children.

The continued importance of children was paramount. Authoritarianism needs obedience, and soldiers. Women received praise as baby factories, submission was the standard. Being single was really, really, bad.

10/ Anyone "too liberal" was considered mentally ill.

Yes, you read that correctly. It was darn easy to be "too liberal". Anything not conform was too liberal. Men were sent off to prison or the army, women to mental asylums. Surprising numbers of supporters were too liberal.

11/ Censorship and propaganda was everywhere.

Press was propaganda, and everything was subject to censorship. Social control is paramount under authoritarianism, neighbours reported neighbours for not standing up while listening to news.

12/ Gay men were expelled to an island in the Adriatic Sea.

Well, until 1939, the men were sent back to Italy to be placed on house arrest. After which they disappeared.

13/ Religion was as political as everything else for Mussolini.

Sensitive to this day, but the church was essential to authoritarianism, and vice versa. Support was foundational to Mussolini's methods of "boiling frogs", slow and measured policies to instigate authoritarianism.

14/ Doing business was far from self-evident.

While early on many businessmen supported Mussolini, over the years most of them lost their businesses. To party grift, to corruption, to big business - which in turn got the same treatment.

15/ Ask yourself how you will live in a world where the authoritarian playbook reigns.

Ask how your #friends and #family will do in a system of #abuse enabled by those seeking a license to abuse.

Too many of us still don’t know these questions. Spread word. Talk about it.