Take Spain, for instance.
Franco Died 50 Years Ago, but He’s Still Winning New Fans in Spain
Young Spaniards are increasingly drawn to the dictator Francisco Franco. So the government is designing apps, games and T-shirts to promote democracy.
By Jason Horowitz
This week, a pilgrim to the tomb of the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco wheeled a camouflage duffel bag of plastic flowers and flags to a shrine of banners and busts, crowns and crosses.
“I would like the regime to come back,” said José Luis Ortiz, 50, who was born weeks after Franco died and who used a vacation from his job as a janitor on Spain’s eastern coast to tend to Franco’s crypt outside Madrid. A supporter of the fascist Falange party, Mr. Ortiz talked about dictatorial glory days and “all that Franco gave the Spanish.”
Thursday is the 50th anniversary of the death of Franco, who has now been gone longer than the 39 years that he ruled as the Generalísimo lording over Spain’s military dictatorship. In 1936, Franco, an ally of Mussolini and Hitler, staged a military coup that turned into a bloody three-year civil war in which Communist-backed forces were defeated and Franco began a four-decade autocracy. Over that time, he suppressed free speech, imprisoned dissidents and repressed the country’s linguistic and cultural minorities — while pleasing his supporters by improving infrastructure and the economy.
Since Franco’s death, his legacy has been fiercely contested by the left and the right and everyone in between. But instead of just fading away, that debate has intensified recently as young conservatives, many of whom back Spain’s surging hard-right party, join the calls to revive the dictator’s image. In recent days, the country has been wrestling with a national survey showing that 20 percent of Spain’s youth have a positive view of the Franco dictatorship. Social media channels of young voters teem with pro-Franco content.
The left-wing government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has responded with “Spain in Freedom,” a yearlong campaign that is timed to the anniversary and urges Spaniards to appreciate all their freedoms. The government’s Ministry of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, responsible for recognizing and addressing the legacy of Franco’s dictatorship, will be holding events and talks and handing out T-shirts promoting free speech, even for awful opinions...
“When you know what a dictatorship is, you can really appreciate what you have now,” said Carmina Gustrán, a historian who is running the ministry’s campaign. She said the efforts were more about the post-Franco transition to democracy than about Franco’s regime but also served as a reminder of “why we don’t want to go back there.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/20/world/europe/spain-franco-dictator-memory-video-game.html
https://dnyuz.com/2025/11/20/franco-died-50-years-ago-but-hes-still-winning-new-fans-in-spain/