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

The military general led a nationalist revolt against Spain’s democratic republic from 1936-1939, executing 150,000 of his opponents

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 longterm hostility to democracy on the American right.