Evidence linking past experiences of worsening health with support for radical political views has generated concerns about the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. The influenza pandemic that began in 1918 had a devastating health impact: 4.1 million Italians contracted influenza and about 500 000 died. We tested the hypothesis that deaths from the 1918 influenza pandemic contributed to the rise of Fascism in Italy. To provide a “thicker” interpretation of these patterns, we applied historical text mining to the newspaper Il Popolo d’Italia (Mussolini’s newspaper). Our observations were consistent with evidence from other contexts that worsening mortality rates can fuel radical politics. Unequal impacts of pandemics may contribute to political polarization.
Click here for events that happened today (August 3).
1912: Fritz Hellwig, Fascist politician, was born.
1936: It was an awkward moment for the Fascists as Afro‐American Jesse Owens won the hundred‐metre dash, defeating Ralph Metcalfe, at the Berlin Olympics.
1940: Fascist forces invaded British Somaliland.
2008: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn died.