Recently, former President Donald Trump abruptly ended an interview with NPR (United States Public Radio) after being asked about his “big lie”, that the 2020 election was “rigged” against him, which he didn’t do. nothing but amplifying its propaganda.
This demonstrates the risk for journalists, especially those doing live interviews, of interviewing Trump and these types of populist politicians who so closely equate to fascism.
Historically, the media has struggled with fascist leaders for control of information to offer other perspectives.
However, totalitarian leaders manipulate the independent media to seize power and then eliminate it. In this framework, independent journalists must understand that they are dishonest players who seek to promote their lies rather than answering questions honestly.
Adolf Hitler understood the centrality of propaganda and the importance of controlling the press to maintain power.
In “Mein Kampf”, he wrote that, “propaganda must adapt itself to the broad masses in content and form, and its solidity must be measured exclusively by its effective result”.
For this reason, he also argued that the State “must exercise especially strict control over the press. (…) It must not be confused by the absurdities about the so-called freedom of the press”.
Once in power, the Nazis destroyed independent media, closed over 200 newspapers and sent thousands of journalists to jail.
As historian Richard Evans explains, “The Publishers Act of October 4, 1933, gave the Nazis complete control over the press.” Once in power,”[Joseph] Goebbels [o ministro da propaganda nazista] gave instructions to newspapers every day, describing what they could and could not publish”.
Fascists especially hated journalists because their role was supposed to represent the opposite of what fascism represented. Truth, transparency and freedom of thought are the antithesis of fascism and the new aspirants to fascism such as Trump, Jair Bolsonaro and Narendra Modi.
In 1932, Hans Kaltenborn, one of the few American journalists who interviewed Hitler, explained that “Adolf Hitler has an intense instinctive aversion to interviews. This man, whose hunches about what to do and whose strange sense of when to do it haunt the world, thinks better and decides more astutely when alone. He does not like to talk to strangers because they intimidate him. He compensates for his shyness with strident self-assertion in their presence. Instead of answering an interviewer’s questions, he makes emotional speeches, thus seeking to create for himself the atmosphere of the public meeting when, in fact, he is at home”.
Kaltenborn hoped his interview with the German dictator would shed light on Nazi operations, in particular the racist and anti-democratic mindset of its leaders.
But his questions about Hitler’s anti-Semitism and his views on dictatorship clashed with a central element of the fascist script, the “führerprinzip,” the idea that leaders are right about everything and that everyone else, including journalists, must accept their explanations without question.
Hence, as Kaltenborn explained, “From the beginning of his public career, Hitler has avoided personal contact with men who do not agree with him. He is as conscious of his inability to persuade individuals as he is sure of his ability to attract the masses.” .
Kaltenborn felt he could ask critical questions of Hitler. However, dissatisfied with the questioning, Hitler limited himself to affirming his anti-Semitism, his fascist identification with Benito Mussolini and his dictatorial vocation.
In other words, he simply focused on repeating his big lies.
This is why dictators like Hitler preferred to do interviews with those who idolized them, not serious, independent journalists, in order to extend their cult by avoiding critical questions.
The first Argentine dictator, José Félix Uriburu, for example, was “interviewed” to legitimize the 1930 coup, falsely framing it as a heroic revolution.
The interview helped to reinforce the myth of the leader, crystallizing a fictional narrative that became part of the long history of authoritarianism in Argentina.
In 1931, German Jewish writer Emil Ludwig interviewed Mussolini at the height of his dictatorship.
Initially, Mussolini saw this as an opportunity to spread his lies abroad, while Ludwig saw it as an opportunity to distance Mussolini from Hitler and criticize Nazi racism and anti-Semitism.
Perhaps it was Ludwig’s approving and even admiring tone that led Mussolini to let his guard down and openly deride Nazi anti-Semitism.
But Mussolini soon changed his mind, finally blocked the circulation of the interview published as a book and allowed it to be republished only after major changes, for fear of appearing weak in front of journalists and to avoid damaging relations with Hitler.
Finally, Mussolini passed his own racial laws in the autumn of 1938 and, as the Italian historian Simon Levis Sullam has shown, a few years later and under Nazi occupation, the Fascists became key executioners of the Holocaust in Italy.
The published interview with Mussolini appeared around the world in several languages, which helped to normalize Mussolini’s image abroad, while being silenced within Italy itself.
As a result, the interview did not yield any positive results, either within Italy or internationally, despite Ludwig’s good intentions.
In short, fascists and populists historically did not favor debate or open access to ideas, but always sought to minimize the relevance of democratic institutions such as the free press.
Fascist wannabes like Trump and Bolsonaro often demonize independent media, but they also often do so on those same media platforms, and all too often without facing critical questions.
This is why extreme populists like Trump and Bolsonaro have come to see the independent press as a key adversary of their own politics, as well as a tool of manipulation.
The notion of hearing “the two bells” often adopted by independent media makes it vulnerable to being used to amplify lies.
As history shows, fascist dictators always understood that the role of free media was incompatible with their anti-democratic propaganda, and yet they manipulated those same media whenever they could.
