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Demonstrators hold Portuguese flags as they wait for the start of a May Day demonstration in Lisbon, Portugal May 1, 2018.
(Rafael Marchante/Reuters)
Dictator António Salazar was not a ‘model’ leader, despite the claims of a bizarre effort to whitewash his history.
Last weekend, Michael Warren Davis sang the praises of the Portuguese dictator Antonio Salazar in a piece for
The American Conservative. It’s called “Waiting For Our Salazar” and, per the subheading, it suggests that “Portugal’s 20th-century philosopher-king may be the ideal model of a leader for our times.” (At least it did before the subhead was changed to something slightly less fawning.) The piece — ostensibly a review of a new biography by Tom Gallagher — is ahistorical and amoral in equal measure. It elides and airbrushes the brutality of Salazar’s Estado Novo regime by playing fast and loose with the historical record. I’m not familiar with Mr. Davis or his work, but I find it puzzling that TAC would publish a piece like this given that the author is so clearly unacquainted with facts that any Portuguese schoolchild would know. It’s rather embarrassing to read.