Francisco Franco and Donald J. Trump: Two of a Kind?

In my articles about Spain, you may have noticed that I ignored a major player in Spain's 20th Century history, Francisco Franco, who remains a divisive figure in Spain despite being condemned throughout most of the world.

Our Barcelona guide Marta said she moved to Spain as a teenager while Franco still ruled.  Her father had suddenly uprooted her family from their home in Peru and transplanted them to Barcelona after a job transfer. It was quite a culture shock, moving from South America, where she for the most part acted like a fully grown woman despite being in high school, to Franco's ultra-Catholic Spain, where girls her age dressed conservatively, including long skirts with bobby socks instead of shorts with bare legs or stockings.  Dating required a chaperone.  Let's just say as a teenager in the wake of Woodstock, she wasn't digging it.

A facebook friend who read my blog about Madrid told me about her visit to Madrid in the early 1970's with the Golden West College band.

"Franco was still in power then, and at one concert, we were playing at the Parque de Attraciones (amusement park).  Our director just cut us off, told us to quickly pack up our instruments and get on the bus as quickly as possible. Seems that the pieces we were playing, like the Spanish National Anthem and other stirring Spanish numbers, were getting the crowd in too much of a patriotic mood for the liking of the powers that be (were) at the time. Continuing the performance could have resulted in arrest."

By that time, Franco was reportedly semi-retired, spending most of his time hunting and fishing, but the bureaucracy carried out what they imagined he would want, I presume.  In any case, Franco is the type of strong man that many Americans seem to project President Donald Trump to be, even if Trump allows his critics to have open license to take their best shots and never showed any fascist tendencies during decades in the public eye as a flamboyant New York City real estate developer, playboy and TV star.

The differences between Franco and Trump couldn't be greater.  Franco was a military man, becoming the youngest general in Europe at age 33 due to his meritorious service in Morocco.  Trump was an athletic star and team captain in military school, but he went directly into the private sector after receiving a degree in Economics from the prestigious Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania.  Then, of course, Trump unexpectedly became a politician for two years, which as a quick study was long enough for him to win the highest political office in the world as a novice.  He didn't take leadership from behind the barrel of a gun like Franco.

Obviously not a business man or TV star, Franco might have stayed in his lane as a military leader had the military not fallen out of favor in 1931, when a democratic election deposed the monarchy and replaced it with the far more egalitarian Second Republic.

Two years later, elections brought center-right elitists back into control, and then that reversed two years later when rule returned to a more left-of-center government.

On its face, this seemed to be a functioning democracy, where the pendulum of public opinion moves back and forth to limit the extremes, but in 1936, the military decided to stage a coup, launching the Spanish Civil War that would rage until 1939.

The Nationalists, as the military side became known, found backing from Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, while the Soviet Union and international brigades backed the Republicans, making them the good guys for most of the world, including readers of Ernest Hemingway.

It should be noted that Hemingway was on what would probably be called the populist side against the elitists.  Trump is also a populist, which is another major difference between our President and Franco.

By the end of the war, Francisco Franco had emerged as “El Caudillo” (the leader).

It must also be noted that Franco admitted imprisoning 26,000 political opponents, and it is believed that he probably killed one hundred thousand-plus political enemies, while Trump simply calls his critics jocular names like "Fake News" or "Slippery James Comey."

To this day, Trump tries to negotiate with his political enemies, even when they come at him with daggers.

Trump is famous for "The Art of the Deal," whereas you might say Franco retained power with "The Art of the Kill."

Nonetheless, Franco ruled until his death by congestive heart failure in 1975 at age 83, and Trump will face the inevitable term limits if his opponents don't destroy him first.

Franco had promised that he would one day turn rule back over to the monarch, and he did just that, naming Prince Juan Carlos, the grandson of King Alfonso XIII who had ruled through 1930, as his successor.

To his credit, Juan Carlos immediately returned a great deal of freedom and power to the Spanish people, including truly free elections with diverse political parties, and the constitutional monarchy of Spain is now a fantastic place to live or visit.  Spain's current monarch, who is more of a ceremonial head of state than actual ruler, is a direct descendant of Juan Carlos.  You may recall that King Felipe VI and his family had lunch with Michelle Obama in 2009.

Getting back to the comparison between Franco and Trump, it is fascinating to watch how both neo-cons and the usually anti-war contingent of the Democrat coalition are currently in full melt-down mode over Trump declaring mission accomplished and withdrawing US troops from harm's way in Syria and Afghanistan.  That's hardly the move of a military strong man.  It's more something that would have been cheered at Woodstock.

It is true that Trump tapped General James "Mad Dog" Mattis as Secretary of Defense to oversee wiping out ISIS in those Middle East hot spots and making our military so strong that no one would dare challenge us, as Trump likes to say?  That move itself, along with choosing other former Generals for his cabinet, initially led to unfounded consternation about Trump building a military junta of sorts.

But Trump's vision, which I think the majority of Americans share, is that we should defend our own country and not be entangled unnecessarily overseas.

This principle led to the resignation of Mattis, once again causing faux panic among the establishment.

Somehow, even that is interpreted as showing Trump is a fascist.  Interestingly, it was projected that we would spend $15.3 billion in Syria in 2019, so we might ask those Senators who can't find $5 billion for construction of a wall to protect America why unspent Syria-defense funds don't count as money found for that homeland defense purpose?

By the way, Syria just announced that their entire government budget for 2019 is $9 billion.  How can we spend more money there than Syria does to run their own country, while refugees from their "paradise" flood into Europe?

If you haven't guessed, the accompanying photos are from the heartland of the USA, not the Spanish Pyrenees.  It is, however, possible to ski in Spain, if you visit in winter months.

We've been enjoying a Christmas stay with my sister's family in the Rocky Mountains, where we still practice free speech that would've been too libertarian to have been allowed by Franco, if a bit too conservative to be acceptable to Lyin' Leakin' James Comey.