Why is the US far right finding its savior in Spanish dictator Francisco Franco?

Some US far-right figures have made renewed attempts to rehabilitate the 20th century Spanish dictator Gen Francisco Franco in recent months, praising him as an avatar of religious authoritarianism, and praising his actions during and after the Spanish civil war as a model for confronting the left in the US.

But historians say that this Franco fandom is based on partial or revisionist accounts of the 1936-1939 civil war and Franco’s ensuing 37-year dictatorship and continues a long-term hostility to democracy on the American right.

It also comes as fears of authoritarianism and Christian nationalism in the US are on the rise with Donald Trump almost certain to win the Republican party nomination amid fears he would misuse his powers in any second term to erode or dismantle American democracy.

Franco, a general in the Spanish army, led a nationalist revolt against Spain’s democratic second Republic in 1936, and won by 1939 with the support of fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Some 500,000 Spaniards died as a result of the war, with 150,000 of Franco’s opponents being executed during or after the conflict and half a million held in concentration camps by 1940.

Nevertheless, in October, Josh Abbotoy asked in an article at religious-conservative outlet First Things: “Is a Protestant Franco inevitable?” The article was a development from a May post on X, formerly Twitter, in which Abbotoy had more affirmatively claimed that “Basically, America is going to need a Protestant Franco”.

Abbotoy is a former Claremont Institute Lincoln Fellow, and executive director of American Reformer, a far-right Christian website. The article did draw some criticism from others on the right: James M Patterson wrote that “There is nothing in 1930s Spain that can instruct Americans about their Constitutional order.”