Francisco Franco: The Fascist Ego

In 2026, the United States is being ruled by an administration led by a wannabe dictator named Trump. His ego seems to dominate his decisions, while his paranoia encourages him to surround himself with authoritarian individuals eager to prove a strength they have always doubted existed in their persona. Not an intellectual by any measure, Trump’s position in the world of finance and politics is a testimony to the power of ego, cruelty and bombast in the sectors of society he has existed in his entire life. Often compared to Hitler, Mussolini, and other authoritarians familiar to the western media, a recent book titled El Generalísimo: A Biography of Francisco Franco and authored by Giles Tremlett on the life of the Spanish fascist Francisco Franco convinced me that Trump’s closest historical model could well be the man who liked to be called El Generalísimo. A professor of economics, a journalist and historian, Tremlett has provided the public with a comprehensive exploration of El Generalísimo’s life and politics well situated in the history of the historical moments Franco lived, ruled and died.

It’s a story of a man who believed he represented the one true Spain—a Spain that was Catholic and extremely conservative, with anyone not of that makeup fair game for detention and even death as enemies of Spain. This was especially true as regards leftists, anarchists, Catalan, Basque and other separatist groups and liberals. Not only were these people considered enemies of Spain, they were also enemies of Franco; in his mind the two were synonymous. Like other fascist rulers, Franco’s personal idiosyncrasies often frustrated his advisors, occasionally ruining military and political campaigns that would otherwise have succeeded. It’s clear from reading the biography that Franco needed to be in control.

Tremlett discusses Franco’s traits early on in the text, providing the reader with a biography of the man’s youth and family life. His philandering father left the home when Franco was still in school; his mother—already quite religious—turned even more to the Church after her husband’s departure. It is reasonably suggested that this helps explain Franco’s hatred of any type of sexual relationship outside of traditional monogamy in the Catholic tradition. The influence of the Catholic and military education he received (even desired) explains Franco’s fear of and loathing of the arts and politics of Spain’s leftist and liberal classes; a loathing that was publicly quite deep. Like most conservative Catholics then and now, Franco’s moral outrage focused more on sex and sexuality than on war and conquest.

In fact, Franco’s love of military action was deeply influenced by this belief that it was blessed by his God, from his colonial exploits in Morocco to his war on those Spanish people fighting for the Republic and against the fascist Falange. More grotesquely, Franco believed the killing of his Spanish opponents in the civil war were ordained by God and the Catholic Church, which had provided Franco with its approval. One can also assume from reading this biography that the corruption that ran rampant during Franco’s decades-long reign was part of God’s reward for his victory. Despite the corruption of Franco’s government, the author Tremlett makes it a point in stating that Franco was not much of a participant in it if at all. In other words, his moral beliefs forbade him from thieving, but not from killing.

The life told in these pages is of a man who reveled in violence, seeing it as a statement of and a testing of his virility. The history that is the foundation of the text is similarly violent, with the colonial campaigns described at the onset of Franco’s military career echoing throughout the civil war and its eventual dissolution into the bloody madness of World War Two. It is also the biography of a man whose conceit convinced him that his fate was Spain’s fate and that any other concept of Spain was treasonous and had to be neutralized by extermination, if he considered it necessary. The fact of his survival (and of the survival of his rule) is instructive. Once in power, Franco never intended to leave it, except via his death. Previous governmental norms and laws were ignored, overturned or reinterpreted to serve the agenda put forth by Franco. In his mind and the mind of most of his followers, Francisco Franco was not quite of this earth. I could not help but be reminded of the ongoing catastrophe emanating from the White House since January 2025, both in the executive assumptions employed by Trump and his administration and in their plans for the future.

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