Republican Florida state Rep. Anthony Sabatini confidently quoted Spanish dictator Francisco Franco in a Thursday tweet.
The state representative quoted the dictator, who rose to power in 1939 after leading nationalist forces to victory in the Spanish Civil War with the help of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy.
“‘I answer only to God and History.’ -Francisco Franco,” Sabatini tweeted.
“I answer only to God and to History.”
-Francisco Franco
— Rep. Anthony Sabatini (@AnthonySabatini) October 20, 2022
When the Caller asked Sabatini if he liked the quote or the man who said it, the state representative replied “both.”
“Franco saved Western Europe from Communism,” Sabatini told the Daily Caller.
Franco is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Spaniards who opposed his rule, History.com reports. In the mid-1940s, the dictator admitted to arresting 26,000 political prisoners. (RELATED: House Democrats Block Resolution Condemning Bernie Sanders’s Praise Of Fidel Castro)
The dictator, who ruled Spain until his death in 1975, suppressed non-Catholic religions in Spain and restricted the use of regional languages Catalan and Basque, according to History.com. His regime also established a secret police to spy on citizens.
Despite his reputation as an authoritarian, Franco had his defenders. “Lord of the Rings” author J.R.R. Tolkien supported Franco, viewing him as the defender of Spanish Catholics against the Soviet-backed Republicans, who frequently burned churches and murdered thousands of priests, monks and nuns. American conservative Catholic intellectual L. Brent Bozell Jr. moved his family to Franco’s Spain, which he viewed as a bastion of traditionalism. In a 2019 piece for The American Conservative, author Rod Dreher wrote that he “would have 100 percent supported the Nationalists” if he had been alive during the Spanish Civil War.
Politicians on the left have also come under fire in recent years for their positive comments about brutal dictators, most notably Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who celebrated Cuban dictator Fidel Castro’s literacy program. The self-described democratic socialist appeared hesitant to criticize Castro during a 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper in Feb. 2020.
“We’re very opposed to the authoritarian nature of Cuba, but, you know, it’s unfair to simply say everything is bad,” the Vermont senator said in the interview. “You know? When Fidel Castro came into office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing even though Fidel Castro did it?”