As Dylan Riley pointed out on Twitter, the better analogy for the present might be to Mussolini’s Italy and the Matteotti crisis. It’s not well known that for the first few years, Mussolini ruled more or less within constitutional strictures, although his movement was lawless and violent, directing a stream of terror against his opponents. In parliament, the socialist deputy Giacomo Matteotti rose to denounce the brutality and corruption of the regime. He was subsequently kidnapped and murdered by blackshirts, perhaps on the explicit orders of Mussolini but also perhaps not. We know his book that outlined the crimes of the fascists had outraged Il Duce, who ranted and raved about Matteotti to his deputies. It appears that Matteotti was going to deliver a speech about a corrupt deal between the fascists and the Sinclair Oil company. The assassination of Matteotti and the subsequent investigation and trial of the dimwitted blackshirts who carried it out created a national scandal that nearly brought down the fascist government. Moderates and conservatives who Mussolini relied on for support wavered. Mussolini was in a state of near panic. Eventually, he took the advice—in effect, a threat of a coup—from the blackshirt chiefs that he had to institute a dictatorship now or else all would be lost. And so Italy tipped from what we call today “competitive authoritarianism” into the sole rule of the fascists. It was not foreordained; the mistakes and disorganization of the opposition, the cowardice and cynicism of conservatives, and the extraordinary pressure from Mussolini’s radicals all contributed to the result.
Still, the analogy has its problems. While there are some similar dynamics in play in the wake of the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, the crisis is not nearly as severe—either for the incipient regime or the constitutional order. It in no way minimizes the deaths of Good and Pretti to note that the kidnapping and murder of a sitting member of parliament shows an advanced state of political decay. The relevant example would be if, say, AOC or another member of the Squad were killed. The radical wing of MAGA is pressuring Trump to take ever more drastic action and “to complete the revolution,” just as the blackshirt chieftains did to Mussolini, but they are online influencers: they are presumably not gonna show up in the Oval Office and threaten to unleash violence if he doesn’t crush the opposition, which is what Mussolini’s ras did.