I don't know about the GOP. But FDR's early New Deal’ers were very impressed with “El Duce” handling of the Italian economy. People forget that fascism was one of the 2 favorite philosophies for the intellectual elite.
Ramsay Steele recovers the bizarre, hugely favorable reception accorded Mussolini by the glitterati of the day (ardent fans included not just Ezra Pound but also George Bernard Shaw and Sigmund Freud). Those of you familiar only with the ditty about Mussolini biting Hitler's weenie (and now it doesn't work) will be surprised to learn that Il Duce gets a big shout-out from Cole Porter, the subject of De-Lovely, currently flopping in theaters everywhere: "You're the top!," sang Porter in one of his signature tunes. "You're the Great Houdini! You're the top! You are Mussolini!"More seriously--and more on point with the conversation raised below--Ramsay Steele helps explain why, despite being branded as "right-wing," fascism is best understood as a manifestation of a left that set itself against liberalism:
Fascism began as a revision of Marxism by Marxists, a revision which developed in successive stages, so that these Marxists gradually stopped thinking of themselves as Marxists, and eventually stopped thinking of themselves as socialists. They never stopped thinking of themselves as anti-liberal revolutionaries.
Whole thing here. Well worth a read.
Cole Porter Says Mussolini is De-Lovely!