Part One: Antonio Salazar: The Smartest Fascist Dictator

Summary

Behind the Bastards: Part One – Antonio Salazar: The Smartest Fascist Dictator

Released July 15, 2025 | Produced by Cool Zone Media and iHeartPodcasts

---

Introduction

In the premiere episode of Behind the Bastards, host Robert Evans and co-host Jeff May delve into the life and regime of Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, Portugal's longest-serving dictator. Characterizing Salazar as "the smartest fascist dictator," the hosts explore his rise to power, his unique approach to governance, and the enduring impact of his authoritarian rule.

---

Early Life and Family Background

Antonio Salazar was born on April 28, 1889, in Vimiro, a small village in Portugal. His parents were unusual for their time—marrying late in life at ages 40 and 35—and were among the few literate individuals in their rural community. This educational advantage allowed his mother to establish a successful tavern business, elevating the family's social status. Salazar, the only son and youngest child, was pampered by his parents, receiving more lenient treatment compared to his sisters who bore the brunt of parental discipline.

“Antonio Salazar is the Tom Brady of dictators,” Jeff May quips at [06:52], highlighting Salazar's remarkable longevity in power compared to his contemporaries.

---

Education and Early Political Engagement

Salazar's academic prowess led him to the prestigious University of Coimbra, where he pursued law. Initially contemplating a life in the clergy, Salazar left the seminary in 1908, influenced by personal relationships and a growing disillusionment with religious life. This period coincided with significant political turmoil in Portugal, notably the Lisbon Regicide of 1908, where King Carlos and Crown Prince Luís Filipe were assassinated by radical Republicans. The instability fueled Salazar's burgeoning political consciousness.

At [32:33], Evans references the influence of French proto-fascist Charles Maurras and the Action Française movement on Salazar's ideological development, shaping his views on democracy and the role of the Catholic Church in state affairs.

---

The Lisbon Regicide and Its Impact

The assassination of King Carlos and his heir plunged Portugal into chaos, destabilizing the nascent Republic. Salazar, witnessing the fragility of the Republican government, began to articulate his vision for a more orderly and authoritarian state. His early writings, such as the column titled "She" [44:33], revealed personal indiscretions that nearly derailed his academic and political ambitions. However, mentorship from Catholic clergy steered him back onto a path of political engagement, emphasizing the need for stability over democratic ideals.

“What a triumph. You know, a rifle, a couple of small pieces of lead gets you to the game,” May jokes at [34:09], referencing the ease with which radical elements could seize power.

---

Rise in Academia and Political Influence

By the early 1920s, Salazar had established himself as a respected economist and intellectual. His consulting firm thrived, allowing him to network with Portugal's elite and expand his influence. Despite personal struggles, including panic attacks and psychosomatic illnesses [58:13], Salazar's expertise made him indispensable to a country grappling with economic instability and political fragmentation.

In [52:38], Evans quotes an article praising Salazar, noting his appearance in Catholic Illustrated as a burgeoning thinker, albeit with a humorous take on his photo shoot.

---

The Military Coup and Salazar's Ascension to Power

The persistent instability culminated in a military coup in May 1926, overthrowing the beleaguered Republican government. Recognizing his expertise, General Antonio de Oliveira Salazar was appointed Minister of Finance. His adept financial reforms quickly stabilized Portugal's economy, balancing the budget and restoring the escudo's value [60:45].

“He’s a great man,” May humorously asserts at [61:49], juxtaposing Salazar's economic acumen with his authoritarian rule.

---

Establishing Estado Novo

By 1933, Salazar had consolidated power, establishing the Estado Novo (New State), a corporatist and authoritarian regime. Unlike contemporaries like Hitler and Mussolini, Salazar's rise was less populist and more technocratic, focusing on economic stability and gradual control rather than mass rallies and charismatic dictatorship.

At [63:00], May jokes about Salazar's understated approach: “He’s just using the Hitler stuff as like flourishes.” Despite superficial similarities to fascist regimes, Salazar maintained a different style of governance, emphasizing efficiency and economic management over ideological fanaticism.

---

Policies and Reforms under Estado Novo

Under Salazar's rule, Estado Novo saw significant social and political reforms:

• Economic Stabilization: Salazar's policies eradicated excessive public spending and foreign debt, fostering a period of relative economic stability.

• Suppression of Dissent: The establishment of the PVDE (State Surveillance and Defense Police) led to the institutionalization of political repression. Torture methods, such as the "statue" [72:03], were employed to silence opposition without provoking widespread rebellion.

• Women's Rights: The regime curtailed women's rights, restricting their access to certain professions, requiring husbands' consent for various activities, and maintaining strict control over reproductive rights. Salazar paradoxically maintained close relationships with influential women, balancing personal indulgences with public restrictions.

“He never tries. This is not a totalitarian state in the same way that is attempted in, like, Germany,” Evans explains at [68:43], emphasizing Salazar's preference for a controlled and less overtly oppressive regime.

---

Comparison with Other Fascist Dictators

Salazar's approach diverged from other European dictators in several key ways:

• Technocratic Governance: Unlike Hitler's ideological extremism or Mussolini's charismatic nationalism, Salazar prioritized economic expertise and pragmatic administration.

• Limited Cult of Personality: Salazar avoided the excessive glorification of self, maintaining a more reserved public persona.

• Focus on Stability: His primary goal was to ensure Portugal's economic and social stability rather than territorial expansion or mass mobilization.

“He's probably the smartest of these kind of right-wing dictators in Europe in this period,” May observes at [66:09], underscoring Salazar's unique blend of intellect and authoritarianism.

---

Conclusion and Insights

Antonio Salazar's dictatorship presents a distinct model of authoritarian rule, blending economic competence with systematic repression. His ability to stabilize Portugal's economy earned him longevity in power, while his cautious approach to repression prevented the emergence of violent mass resistance. Salazar's legacy is a testament to the complex interplay between economic management and political control in authoritarian regimes.

---

Notable Quotes

• “Antonio Salazar is the Tom Brady of dictators.” – Jeff May [06:52]

• “He never tries. This is not a totalitarian state in the same way that is attempted in, like, Germany.” – Robert Evans [68:43]

• “He's probably the smartest of these kind of right-wing dictators in Europe in this period.” – Jeff May [66:09]

• “He’s a great man.” – Jeff May [61:49]

---

Final Thoughts

Behind the Bastards offers an engaging and insightful exploration of one of Europe's lesser-known authoritarian figures. Through a blend of historical analysis and the hosts' signature humor, listeners gain a nuanced understanding of Salazar's rise to power and the intricacies of his regime.

---

Stay Tuned

Don't miss Part Two, where Robert Evans and Jeff May continue their deep dive into Antonio Salazar's reign, uncovering more about his policies, personal life, and the lasting effects of Estado Novo on Portugal.

---

Note: This summary excludes advertisements and non-content sections from the original podcast transcript to provide a focused and coherent overview of the episode's main discussions.

Transcript

[Robert Evans]

Call Zone Media. Oh, it's behind the Bastards. A podcast that gets behind the Bastards. You know what this is? You know what it means? We talk about bad people. The worst in all of history. And today. Did we start this with a very Tony Soprano? Oh, oh, is that a Tony Soprano? I never watched the Sopranos. Here to be angry at me about that is both Sophie Lichterman, my producer, and Jeff May.

[Jeff May]

Haven't you had Matt Lieb on this.

[Robert Evans]

Show and yet you've have not seen the Sopranos. What's wrong with you?

[Jeff May]

That's an act of aggression.

[Robert Evans]

Can you. Can you spend this weekend at least watching the island? I'm sorry. I'm an Italian American. I was raised in the Sopranos. You know, like I've got mobbed up family. You need somewhere down the line. All right, all right. You need to change our last name. You need to watch the Sopranos this year. That is your goal for the cursed year of 2025.

[Sophie Lichterman]

I'm disgusted with you right now.

[Robert Evans]

It's okay. I can use the Italian slurs. You can't. Sophie, I'm horrified by your behavior.

[Jeff May]

I can use those slurs too.

[Robert Evans]

You can? You absolutely can't.

[Jeff May]

I'm not Italian, but I.

[Robert Evans]

No, but you were a boxer, so it counts. Robert, what the fuck? Yeah, Jeff. How are you doing? Jeff May.

[Jeff May]

I'm good. It's been a while.

[Robert Evans]

It's been a while. It's been a while.

[Jeff May]

It's been a while since I visited. The embargo is lifted, which is nice.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, thank you. After those crimes committed, I am so.

[Jeff May]

Sorry for saying all those. Really a horrible thing. I don't even know what I was thinking about it.

[Robert Evans]

It's okay. It's okay. DEI is over. We can say those things.

[Jeff May]

Oh, finally.

[Robert Evans]

The woke mob, they came for Jeff May. No, Jeff, you're one of our. I mean, you are my old friend from back in the day, by which I mean the time when I worked at Cracked and lived in Los Angeles. And you're also one of our favorite guests. And this is fun. You and I have both seen the movie Ghost Dog featuring the magnificent Forest.

[Jeff May]

Whitaker, the American samurai himself.

[Robert Evans]

You know that's in the Criterion Collection now.

[Jeff May]

It should be. It's great.

[Robert Evans]

It should be. It's perfect. It's a beautiful movie.

[Jeff May]

I will say I have bonded over my love of Ghost Dog Wave Warrior with more than just you.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it's an incredible film. I've been bringing it up. Now that Andor is out and everybody's talking about Sagar. I'm like, you guys need a motherfucking see Ghost Dog. Yeah, like, if you liked that, you need to see Ghost Dog.

[Jeff May]

Yeah. Yeah, you kind of do. You should anyway.

[Robert Evans]

You should anyway in the Criterion closet.

[Jeff May]

So like Mark Hamill could grab it on an Instagram reel or something. You don't know.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it's perfect.

[Sophie Lichterman]

This is an iHeart podcast. Every business has an ambition. PayPal open is the platform designed to help you grow into yours with business loans so you can expand and access to hundreds of millions of PayPal customers worldwide. And your customers can pay all the ways they want want with PayPal, Venmo pay later and all major cards so you can focus on scaling up when it's time to get growing. There's one platform for all business PayPal Open grow today at PayPalOpen.com loans subject to approval in available locations.

[Robert Evans]

Season two of Sniffy's Cruising Confessions is here. Hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso are going deeper than ever with bold new conversations, fresh guests and unfiltered takes on queer sex and cruising. This season they're also looking out for the community covering smart cruising in a chaotic world, including information on prep and yes, they've even added a brand new call in segment for your wildest Cruising Confessions. Tune in to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Healthy Sexual from Gilead Sciences, with new episodes every Thursday on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Welcome to the W where elite athletes are redefining the game of basketball. From buzzer beating shots, jaw dropping defense and logo threes, the WNBA delivers nonstop action and world class talent every game. These athletes don't just play the game, they elevate it. The biggest stars, The Brightest Age AT&T WNBA All Star 2025 comes to Indianapolis July 18th through 19th. Tune into the game July 19th at 8:30pm Eastern Time on ABC. This is Danielle Fishel from Pod Meets World. Parents, quick question. When is the last time you won snack time? The other day I handed my son a perfectly portioned Pinterest level snack and he traded it for a Mott's Applesauce pouch. I'm not mad, just impressed. And that's why Mott's no Sugar added Applesauce pouches are perfect to keep on hand. They're made with real apples packed in a super easy pouch. Perfect for tossing in a lunchbox, keeping in the car or grabbing as you're running out the door. Plus, they're a good source of vitamin C and kids love them. Win Win make sure your kid wins snack time with MOTs. Real apples make real good applesauce. Learn [e-mail].

[Robert Evans]

So today we're talking about a dictator who is unfortunately, maybe the best at being a dictator on like a technical level, right? Like if we're giving technical awards on the actual, like, craft of dictatoring.

[Jeff May]

So like the dictator Oscars that they don't show on television.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The dictator Oscars that don't make. Cause they're kind of boring, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jeff May]

They did it like last night we had the dictator Oscars.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, this is the dictator Oscar for like. Yes. Set dressing or whatever. It goes to Antonio.

[Jeff May]

Sound editing is crazy here.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great, great audio editor we're talking about. Did you know that Portugal had a dictator at the same time that, like, Germany and Italy had dictators in Spain?

[Jeff May]

I mean, I have to say yes because of my history degree and all that, but like, you know, I forget. Shit.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So Antonio Salazar was the dictator of Portugal from like the 30s up to the 70s, right? So he is. He has a very long run.

[Jeff May]

It's a short reign.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. Like, he's got. He's like two. He's like more than two Hitlers. Like three Hitlers, right? Three, almost four Hitlers.

[Jeff May]

Oh, look at this guy. He's like for Hitler.

[Robert Evans]

He's got like a. He's like a four Hitler run. Yeah, exactly.

[Jeff May]

I got to be honest though, he was.

[Robert Evans]

Did he.

[Jeff May]

Did he put up Hitler numbers?

[Robert Evans]

That's why he lasted. Yeah.

[Jeff May]

It's like, I guess Hitler would be like the Bo Jackson of dictators. Like, it's like. It's like a very, very bright burn. You don't mind me saying such a terrible way to describe that.

[Robert Evans]

No.

[Jeff May]

But then a fizzle out after he had that hip injury.

[Robert Evans]

Right. And Salazar has a hip injury in like 68. That takes him out.

[Jeff May]

You know, Salazar just gets long. He's got the longevity, but he's in a long time.

[Robert Evans]

He's like that guy who was with the Patriots. Fuck, what's his name? Everybody hates him. Tom Brady.

[Jeff May]

Tom Brady.

[Robert Evans]

Antonio Salazar is the Tom Brady of dictators.

[Jeff May]

Tom Brady is single handedly responsible for stopping a lot of domestic violence in New England. So I'm going to actually say, you know, if you really think about it, it's a garbage fan base full of terrible people.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it is. It is the Patriots the worst.

[Jeff May]

And. And when he came in, we were like, I don't know about. Okay, we love this guy.

[Robert Evans]

He's keeping things safe. Yeah, yeah. I'm not gonna say that about Antonio Salazar, but he does have the staying power, right? And he's one of these guys. He gets called a fascist a lot. And there's an argument to be made for that. He gets called a fascist generally because, you know, he comes up around the same time Hitler does, around the same time Franco does a little bit after Mussolini, and they're all kind of simpatico for a while. So there's this argument that, like. Well, Salazar was like a fascist dictator as well, and you can kind of debate that. But, you know, I think if we want to put it in, like, Beatles terms, right. Hitler's the John Lennon of fascism and Mussolini's the George Harrison. And, you know, they kind of clock out first, which leaves Franco as the Ringo. And I think we've got to say that maybe Salazar is the Paul McCartney. Fascism. I don't know.

[Jeff May]

I mean, that's. That's pretty good. Also, Europe was a vibe, huh?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. They were not doing well right after that World War.

[Jeff May]

They were certainly going for it. You know, I got it. You got a hand.

[Robert Evans]

Like, we are guys.

[Jeff May]

They took big swings.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Jeff May]

You know, like.

[Robert Evans]

Well, we're in our big swing period today, and we didn't even have a World War I over it. Right. So who are we to judge? We can judge a little.

[Jeff May]

I mean, to be fair, we've had. We've had. We've had a few.

[Robert Evans]

We've had a couple. Yeah, we've taken our swings. This isn't our first set. So as we'll discuss, you know, there's a lot of debate as to whether or not you should call Salazar a fascist. He certainly uses a lot of fascism tools. Like there's aspects of it that he utilized. And he has good relationships with all of the fascist powers during his days. He's going to intervene to help Franco win his civil war in Spain. But ideologically, he's not someone who's, like, super on board, especially with all the weird Hitler stuff. Like, he's not a cult of personality guy. He's not a big ideology of fascism guy. Like, he thinks that stuff's kind of weird. And he's above all, like an economics professor and a Catholic conservative who's just kind of like, I'm the only guy smart enough to run Portugal and I'll torture as many people as I have to do in order to keep the economy running. Right. Like, he has a balance, the budget, no matter who has to die, kind.

[Jeff May]

Of motherfucker I guess it really depends on, like, if fascism is decided on at the start of the journey.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Jeff May]

Or just summed up at the end of the journey. Right. Like, I'm not doing a fascism. And then at the end you're like, kind of seems like you might have been.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. With him it would be. I think it looks at the start a lot like a fascism. And then at the end it's like, well, you were just kind of a garden variety dictator, like, maybe. But you never did any of the weird cult of personality shit. Like, you were never. Like, that kind of stuff was sort of absent. But we'll talk about it at the end. We could kind of say, where do we want to. Where do we want to land on this motherfucker?

[Jeff May]

On the fash scale.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, on the fash scale. But either way, he sucked. Right. We're not debating that part of it. So. Antonio de Oliveira Salazar was born on April 28, 1889, in a small house in the village of Vimiro. His parents were kind of odd ducks for their era. His father, Antonio, married his mom in 1881 when they were 40 and 35. And this is a lot older than people tend to. It's older than. It's like, pretty old for getting married now. Like, back in the 1880s, the average lifespan in Portugal for men is 46.5 years. Right. Now, that doesn't mean people died at 47, but it means that, you know, infant mortality was so high that those averages are low a lot. And this is still pretty weird for you to wait this long to get married. And it's also. It's hard to conceive. Right. When you're. When you both parties are over 35 years old. It's relatively difficult, especially with 1880s, you know, obstetrics technology. The other thing that makes his mom and dad weird is that they can read, which is not normal for Portuguese.

[Jeff May]

Peasants or modern Americans, if you know what I mean.

[Robert Evans]

Modern Americans, yes. Thanks to ChatGPT.

[Jeff May]

Yeah, right, sorry.

[Robert Evans]

And how we ruined education. Yeah.

[Jeff May]

Can we just say that the least surprising piece of news just dropped and that people that use ChatGPT are morons.

[Robert Evans]

Right, right, right. That it breaks their brains, that it's like atrophying you because you're not thinking about how to put words together. Bad for you.

[Sophie Lichterman]

That story this week about the guy.

[Robert Evans]

That proposed to his AI girlfriend and then cried when she said yes. And then it breaks out that he's got, like his. He's got a human partner. I don't Think they're married, but they have a kid together. They have a child. I just. Yeah. Oh, fuck. So that's not Salazar's parents.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Yeah, we're cooked.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. All the other Portuguese peasants are using 1880s chat, which I guess is just being too busy to learn how to read. But his mom and dad know how to read. Now, everyone else in their village, most of the people living in this village who are. Because these are again, like all peasants, even though it's the 1880s, outside of a couple of maybe aspects of modernity that have crept in, most of the people in these villages are living lives that, like, if you go back three or 400 years, there's more in common than there is different. Right. Which we can't say about nobody. Even like, the poorest rural people in the US today do not live lives that are similar to rural Americans in the 17 in a lot of ways. But that is kind of the case in Portugal in this period, a lot more so than it's going to be in any later period. His village does have kind of one thing going for it, which is that Vimiro, when he is kind of like a little kid, is chosen to be the site of a railway station. Right. Which is going to ensure that while a lot of small rural towns kind of die out as modernity comes to Portugal, Vero is going to continue to be, like, relevant, you know, because there's this connection to the rest of the world.

[Jeff May]

It's gonna become the tombstone.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it's a tombstone. A Portugal type situation. Right.

[Jeff May]

It's gonna be dressed like undertakers with big black mustaches and stuff. It's gonna be awful.

[Robert Evans]

That's right. That's right. And yeah, Doc Holliday's gonna show up with fucking consumption. It's gonna be incredible. Val Kilmer. Oh, my God.

[Jeff May]

Oh, my God. So good.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. Especially if you've seen that movie Val, he filmed as he was dying. Incredible stuff. Great movie. So his mom is kind of the Val Kilmer of Vimero. And like Val Kilmer, she's a small business owner. I don't actually know if that's true of Val, but it's true of his mom.

[Jeff May]

She was rolling.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, she's doing great. She's going to become an entrepreneur. She's going to open, like a tavern in this town with, like, some rooms to rent, and that's going to help the family rise up to what's effectively the Portuguese middle class. While Antonio Salazar is like a kid to an adolescent. Right. His family is going from we're kind of near the bottom rung to. We're actually doing pretty well because there's this railway station picked for our town, and my mom knows how to capitalize on it. Right. His mom gets the money to start this business because his dad also does okay for himself. He's an estate manager. Which means you've got these rich families who have, like, generational wealth because their ancestors 400 years ago plundered the New World. And they have big estates, but they don't. They're not going to take care. They don't want to garden, they don't want to farm, they don't want to do anything with them. So they hire a guy like Aunt Antonio, our Antonio's dad, to take care of the properties while they're away being rich, hanging out in their other houses in Lisbon or whatever, you know.

[Jeff May]

Hell yeah, man. Capitalist feudalism, right?

[Robert Evans]

Right. That's kind of what's going on here. And that's the world his parents inhabit, and that's the world Antonio kind of comes up in. Portugal is not a healthy country as Salazar is growing up. Right. If you remember the early period of colonialism, right after Columbus, you know, quote unquote, discovers the New World. The two powers that are first, like, really expanding around the world and taking a lot of colonies and taking advantage of, you know, Europe beginning this colonialization process are Spain and Portugal. And Portugal is, for a couple of hundred years, a major world power. They have colonies all over the planet because they're just very early successful in the age of sale. And they rapidly take a lot of colonies, which is, you know, Portugal's not a big country. So in very short order, their colonial possessions are dozens of times the size of the actual country itself. And this does pretty well for them for a while. But like Spain, they kind of also burn out quickly, right? Like, as the British Empire is starting to really pick up steam as King Shit. Portugal's kind of the sick man of colonialism. Or at least Portugal and Spain are both kind of the sick men of colonialism.

[Jeff May]

It's actually really funny because one of the three dates that I told my students they would have to know was 1492. And it's. And I'm like, it's not for who you think, yeah, it's not Columbus, but it is his bosses, because one of the reasons that they really flopped super hard was they basically were like, we're going to make a Christo state, basically like an entirely. And they kicked out all the. All the Jews and the Muslims.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Jeff May]

And so that basically means they kicked out their most educated and wealthy members of their society. And we're just like, we'll do it normally.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, we'll figure it out.

[Jeff May]

You kicked out the banks and the universities, basically. And so they just started crumbling, they started building, and then they were just. They couldn't keep going, so they just fell apart. It's very funny.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. And there's a lot to say about, like, taking all of these, you know, suddenly flooding their market with precious metals, too, and, like, what that does with the value of these things. Like, there's a lot that goes on, but Portugal is, like, not a wildly dissimilar story in that kind of. By the time the 1700s are creeping around, things are starting to, like, look kind of shitty. Even though they still have massive overseas possessions, which they're going to maintain until the middle, late, middle of last century. So the fact that they've got all these colonial territories. Portugal is going to come in handy when Napoleon invades in 1807 and the royal family of Portugal has to flee to Brazil, which declares its independence not long after this fact. So that's no longer going to be a case for Portugal kind of after this period. As is often the case with royal families, Portugal's royal family, not good at ruling. The Catholic Church, which held tremendous power, coveted its position as the sole provider of social services and the cultural power that. That brought. Very similar to Spain. You get a lot of similar things with, like, basically Carlists, like, people who believe in the Catholic Church as the sole, like, legitimate sort of, you know, authority, you know, pushing against these kind of republican ideals in the 1800s, 1900s, as modernity comes in, I mean, it's.

[Jeff May]

It is funny how much plague beat the shit out of the church. Oh, yeah. After people came out, they're like, these guys weren't doing shit.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Wow. Turns out they were wrong about a lot.

[Jeff May]

Turns out the. The Pope in France surrounded himself in a wall of fire. That doesn't seem good.

[Robert Evans]

We do that. I've done that before. It's not the worst thing to do, but, yeah, I mean, it's cool. It's cool. It looks great.

[Jeff May]

It is cool.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Also check out the movie, the new Paul Verhoeven movie, Bernadotta, or something like that. It's about this nun in Italy during the plague years. Fucking wild shit.

[Jeff May]

She becomes a robot cop.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, exactly.

[Jeff May]

It is cool.

[Robert Evans]

Classic Paul Verhoeven movie. So, as a result, very little changes in Portugal and almost nothing gets better until the King is ousted during a civil war in the 1830s. This is not going to last super long, but for a period of time there's this like, liberal kind of party backed by Great Britain. And they win and they seize some property from the church and from the nobility. But they also don't do much to fix the larger issues the country has. And most Portuguese people still can't read. The country is bent over under the weight of these titanic debts that have been accrued from generations of overspending. And the country kind of continues to hobble along. Monarchists are able to get like a weak king, you know, in there, and they quarrel with Republicans who are trying to support like a new electoral system that also isn't very sturdy. And it's into this kind of fucked up and failing nation that Salazar grows up. Right. So this is also what's happening is he's watching both this increasingly, like, sclerotic and ineffective, like royal family fail to hold power. And he's also watching these gasps of republicanism that aren't really fixing things either.

[Jeff May]

And we've never seen this in the background of a dictator.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, this never happens.

[Jeff May]

We've seen them grow up in a failing place and learn how to, how to play certain chords in order to get what they want.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, no, never before. But, yeah, nothing's working for him except for he sees his parents, like, succeeding, right, because they're unusually educated and ambitious and they want more for their kids. His older sister Marta becomes a schoolteacher. His parents seem to have been the normal amount of strict for their era. But a biographer, Tom Gallagher, notes that as the youngest child and only boy, Antonio Salazar was babied and received none of the punishments that his mother occasionally meted out. Right. So he's kind of. By the time he comes along, his sisters have sort of gotten all of the spankings, Right? Not an uncommon youngest kid story where, yeah, my parents were way bigger dicks when I was a kid. What happened?

[Jeff May]

What you need, though, is you need that gap. You need a bigger gap between the siblings, the top sibling and the oldest, because if it's too close, you just get the beatings anyway.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, you just get the beatings, but if it's long enough, your parents are tired, their arms don't work as well, especially when they're as old as Antonio's.

[Jeff May]

My brother and I were two years apart, so he would beat me and then I would get something.

[Robert Evans]

There you go, there you go.

[Jeff May]

But then, like, I know people, my little brother's 15 years younger than Me, it's like, well, that kid's not getting hit.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, you're not going to hit your 15 years yet. Then it's, then you're just beating a child. Right.

[Jeff May]

We're all perfect.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. As opposed to kids beating each other the way God intended.

[Jeff May]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

So he's the favorite of the family, not just of his parents, but of his sisters too. His mom's going to become obsessed with setting him up for success. For his part, Antonio never seems to have sought the limelight. He is a quiet kid. Gallagher's biographer posits that he was kind of overwhelmed by his mother's personality, but also kind of in awe of her capabilities because she's just this very competent woman. She's, you know, raising her kids. She's helping to farm, you know, because they have to grow food for their own survival. And she's a small business owner. Right. And is kind of single handedly raising the family's position in society. While he's not helping her at the family business or helping in the fields, young Antonio spends his time alone with his dog in the woods. He wouldn't have had a lot of free time by our standards. And much of his learning had to be self directed. Right. Because the Portuguese education system is not good. His parents kind of help him learn to read and then he's on his own for a lot of his early education outside of that. By the time he's 10, his mother had convinced his father that he's not getting enough attention or challenge in what education he is receiving. So he is enrolled in a seminary in the north of the country. Right. And this is the normal story. If you grow up in a very Catholic place in this time, and you're a really smart kid, but your family's poor, basically your only option is we'll enroll you in seminary and they will teach you stuff on the expectation that you'll become a priest. Right.

[Jeff May]

Which is like half the time.

[Robert Evans]

They were like, psych, yeah, I'm not doing that. No, thank you.

[Jeff May]

I'm just kidding. And then there's like nine monks left that they're like, I guess I'll write all the books then.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, I guess I'll be the one who keeps remembering how to read for this town.

[Jeff May]

Time to illuminate some more fucking manuscripts, I guess.

[Robert Evans]

Great. I'm not tired of that at all. So he is, as you stated, it's one of those things where he's technically training to be a priest, but you don't have to. You're not like locked in and Salazar, he's a good little Catholic boy and he initially seems to have adopted this as an ambition for himself where he's like, well, yeah, I guess being a priest is the thing I'm going to do that's not gonna last super long. And he's going to stop wanting to be a priest. Probably we don't know this perfectly, but the likeliest reason why he stops wanting to be a priest is the normal reason young boys stop wanting to become priests.

[Jeff May]

Started J and O.

[Robert Evans]

He starts fucking, right? He starts fucking, you know, he's like, oh, you know what? Being a priest might suck ass.

[Jeff May]

Actually, heaven sounds cool, but is as good as busting a nut.

[Robert Evans]

Is it as cool, yeah. Cool as getting laid? Absolutely not.

[Jeff May]

I can give myself heaven whenever I want.

[Robert Evans]

Right, right, right. As long as I'm able to.

[Jeff May]

Yeah, we have heaven at home.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, we've got heaven at home. Or at least in my next door neighbor's house. So he meets a girl. He actually meets several girls. His first is, you know, she's 16. So is he. And she'll remain Maria de Figuerito. She'll remain a friend and a political advisor for the rest of their lives. Right. This kind of first girl that he hits it off with is going to be. She'll be influential politically in Portugal while he's the ruler, because she'll send him letters about like, how this is, how this is working, this how this is working, and he'll kind of continue to trust her. The second girl he falls for is Felismina d' Oliveira and she's two years older than him, Right. The two meet at a railway station and according to some accounts, begin a love affair. That is what primarily derail Salazar's ambitions of priesthood. There's some dispute in this. Tom Gallagher argues that Salazar kind of keeps true to his vows for a while and then gives up the seminary later for another reason. But there are other arguments that I find really credible that it's probably a liaison with this girl, even though it takes a while, that makes young Antonia realize, oh fuck, I'm not going to take a vow of celibacy. Peter Booker, who's co founder of the Algarve History association, writes an article about Salazar's alleged romantic history for Portugal Residential. And he noted Salazar was studying to be a priest at the time and attended the seminary. But that fact did not prevent him from beginning a love affair. She was a friend of Marta, one of Salazar's sisters. And during the young holidays, Felismena would stay at the Salazar family home. They exchanged innumerable letters. Felismena began to have problems of conscience regarding her relationship with Salazar. She was a devout Catholic and did not want him to renounce the priesthood because of her. Little did she know that not only was Salazar already thinking about abandoning his career, but he was also about to dump her. And it seems kind of plausible, right? It's not just this girl, but it's in general. He's starting to get laid and he's like, I don't need to stay with this lady. But also the priesthood's clearly not for me because I kind of like fooling around. Right, okay.

[Jeff May]

So we are sort of avoiding the 500 pound gorilla in the room, which is that those vows have never mattered among the Catholic clergy. If you want to know how many popes had illegitimate children.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, man, Google nearly all of them.

[Jeff May]

Oh, you can get up to Pope and still be fucking.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So the norm is for Popes to get laid, which is part of the problem, right? One of many, but yeah, it's, it's. That's kind of what's happening with him. But he's also like, it's very important.

[Jeff May]

To note that this is the church and this is the steeple, right? Open it up and fuck all the people, right?

[Robert Evans]

That's kind of where Salazar's got to take it. Except for like, I don't even need the church. I don't need the steeple. I've just got to fucking.

[Jeff May]

I'm just going to be fucking all the people.

[Robert Evans]

I'm just going to fucking become an economist. So he's a bookish Catholic boy and he like. Yeah, he starts figuring out like, this is not the future for me. So he leaves the seminary in 1908. This is a big year for Portugal. It's the same year King Carlos and the crown prince Louis Philippe are assassinated while they drive through Lisbon in an open coach. So this is like a daring. It's called the Lisbon Regicide and it's a very famous like, moment in the early 20th century. There's a lot going on behind this assassination. It gets blamed by some people. Tom Gallagher, who's kind of a more conservative guy. This biographer whose book I read on Salazar blames it on anarchists. Much as I'd like to take credit, or anarchists take credit for killing a king, that's not really what's happening here. These guys are like radical Republicans, right? I don't mean in the modern term. I mean like people who support a republic.

[Jeff May]

Concept of a republic.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jeff May]

Like, I think we. I mean, I know we conflate them, but the difference between Republicans and Democrats and then liberal and conservative, like, it all depends on labeling, Right.

[Robert Evans]

And these guys are, like, radical. Like, we want to be able to vote and fuck having a royal family. Right. That's the kind of radicals they are. As opposed to, like, being radical in favor of the abolition of the state, which is more of an anarchist thing. That's not really what's going on with these guys. There's a lot else that's happening behind this regicide. Right. That kind of helps inspire it. The Portuguese government has just conducted negotiations with Great Brit over the extent of Portugal's African territory. And Portugal makes a lot of compromises in how much of Africa they're going to continue to hold. And this is seen as disastrous by many nationalists. And there's a lot of republican nationalists who are like, well, the Crown just gave up a lot of our overseas empire. Another thing that's going on in the background is that, as is often the case with Portugal, they're terrified that Spain is going to invade. Right. Cause if you look at a map, Spain is a lot of Iberia, and Portugal's pretty small.

[Jeff May]

So how did they avoid unification in that in the late 1400s? Because Granada, Navarre, Castile and Aragon. I mean, Aragon and Castile were obviously the marriage, but then they sucked in Navarre and Granada. Just go get Portugal, man.

[Robert Evans]

There's a period of time where they are occupied by Spain. Right. But there's also, like, reasons of natural defensiveness and just like the power of the Portuguese state in that period that Portugal. But Portugal doesn't wind up obviously unified. But that is constantly a fear going on in the background. And it's one of those things. It's not really a thing in modern Portuguese politics, I don't think, but it's a huge factor in everybody's thinking right now is that Spain is right next to us and they're much bigger.

[Jeff May]

And they were gobbling shit up, and.

[Robert Evans]

They'Re gobbling shit up. And there's this broader fear that Portugal. We used to be great, and we're being sidelined by greater powers because we've kind of slid into senescence. Right. We're old and we're tired and we don't juice we used to have. And we're going to get eaten up entirely if we're not careful. Right. Like, that's a major political factor in everything that's going on here anyway. You know what else is a major political factor? Advertising. This is an ad sponsored by BetterHelp. Workplace stress is now one of the top causes of declining mental health, with 61% of the global workforce experiencing higher than normal levels of stress. To battle stress, most of us can't wave goodbye to work, but we can start small with a focus on wellness. A holiday is a great way to start, but it's not a long term solution to stress or burnout. Don't forget that therapy can help you navigate whatever challenges the workday or any day might bring. And if you're looking for therapy, BetterHelp could be a good solution. With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 5 million people globally. And it works with an App store rating of 4.9 out of 5 based on over 1.7 million client reviews. It's convenient too. You can join a session with the click of a button, helping you fit therapy into your busy life. And you can switch therapists at any time. As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of experience. Our listeners get 10% off their first [e-mail] behind. That's betterhelp.com behind. And we're back. So the Republican movement is starting to pick up steam in Portugal, kind of in the period when the king was assassinated. Yeah. Cause the railways, there's steam. Now. The king gets kind of politically active in politics, which makes things even more chaotic and inefficient because it's like, it's not great. He's not good at it. The king's not really good at much. And the king who gets assassinated has appointed this guy to act as his minister, who's widely seen as like a dictatorial figure. And eventually two Republicans with rifles decide, like, enough of this bullshit, we're going to take matters into our own hands. And yeah, these guys are kind of radical Republicans. And one of them has some history of anarchist sympathy. He's part of an anarcho syndicalist organization in his youth. But they're militant, like Republican activists with rifles. One of them's in the army and yeah, they shoot and kill the king and his heir. And the Lisbon regicide becomes kind of a seminal moment for right wing politics in Portugal. Salazar, who's a young man at this point, he's leaving the seminary this year. He's livid when he finds out what's happened. Now he is starting to get political at this point. He's been elected the president of his student body association. And in the spring of 1908, he publishes a column attacking his fellow Catholic. Because they become so politically separated from the shocking violence in the Capitol that like we Catholics need to get more political in order to save our country from, you know, this sort of radical Republican sentiment that's going to destroy, like force us into anarchy. Salazar's thinking here is probably influenced by the writing of a far right propagandist from France named Charles Morris, who wrote for France's most popular proto fascist newspaper, Action Francais. Salazar's argument is that democracy cannot maintain order and separation of church and state is a calamity for stability and public order. Right. Which is very much like taken from Morris, the stuff that Morris is writing in France at the time.

[Jeff May]

I would like to also add that Action Francais is my favorite rapper.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Probably politically different than the original newspaper. These are the guys like Action Francaise and Maris are gonna have a big role in like the far right French coup attempt that's gonna happen kind of right before World War II. Kind of a major inciting factor to it. And these are the guys that Salazar. So that's part. One of the reasons why people are like, is this guy fascist? Is like, he's definitely very influenced by some proto fascist thinkers.

[Jeff May]

Could you imagine de Gaulle of trying to run France?

[Robert Evans]

Oh my God.

[Jeff May]

Could you imagine.

[Robert Evans]

I mean, yeah, in the post war period it sure. It doesn't go great.

[Jeff May]

Could you imagine de Gaulle? It's just, we got. We like that. It's a history pun.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it's a good history pun. It's also just his last name.

[Jeff May]

I'm sorry. Hey, I'm going to go. I'm sorry about that guys. I'm going to take off.

[Robert Evans]

It's okay. We can, we can forgive like one French pun, but that's all. No more. So Salazar, he starts making some stabs at politics, right. You know, kind of in this post regicide period. But he's not fully committed to it. Part of this is that the wind is kind of blowing against the right wing. You know, after that king gets assassinated, the sort of left is looking like they've got the wind behind their sails. So he's like, I don't want to.

[Jeff May]

It's a pretty big move.

[Robert Evans]

It's a pretty big move. Shooting the king and his son, quite literally a coup. Yeah. Try it in your own monarchy.

[Jeff May]

What a triumph. You know, a rifle, a couple of small pieces of lead gets you to the game.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Gets you right in. Really changes the ground. So he's Like, I don't feel like this is a safe time to be like a far right Catholic activist. So I'm just going to take a teaching job and like lecture talking about the economy. He graduates from his secondary education in 1910. He opts to leave the church. And, you know, one of the practical reasons behind this is that the church is kind of losing power. So Salazar winds up attending the prestigious University of Coimbra as a law student in October of 1910, thanks to the financial support of a family that his dad works for. This is like the family his dad is, you know, taking care of their grounds. And Salazar tutors, like the mistress of this wealthy family. Like, he tutors her kids in exchange for financial support. So he teaches her kids to be less stupid and they pay for him to go to this fancy college, this university, which is going to really change his life. It's going to give him an opportunity to become someone in politics. And this change in his life where he starts going to the school and his options start to open up, accompanies another dramatic change in Portuguese government because the Republicans revolt and they force the monarchy entirely out of the country. Right. They'd killed the king and his heir, but you've still got kind of a weak monarchy in there. And then there's a revolt a little while later and now Portugal is just a straight up Republic for a little while. Right. Salazar bides his time as the Republic tries to consolidate his power and he works towards an advanced degree. He gets into academic tutoring as a side business and it proves to be very lucrative. Like, he's teaching a lot of kids, he's making good money and he's investing it. And he proves to be very good investing money. Right. He's just one of these guys that understands how to turn a dollar into a couple of dollars and then a couple of more dollars and so on and so forth.

[Jeff May]

I'm always weirdly jealous of those people.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Jeff May]

That they're just really good at making money.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Jeff May]

And also I'm just like, yeah, but that must be like a. If you care about money, that must be miserable.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. I mean, and he's not like a super happy person. It doesn't seem like he doesn't have, outside of, like constantly sleeping around and investing his money and writing economic treatises. That's pretty much his whole life at this point. And being really angry that the Catholic Church isn't more powerful. Those are his hobbies. Right?

[Jeff May]

I mean, some of those hobbies are cool.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. One of those hobbies is Cool.

[Jeff May]

One of those hobbies is just cool, man.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. The other hobbies kind of lame.

[Jeff May]

Yeah. Then dudes rock. And then sometimes dudes do not rock.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. And he's more on the dudes not rocking side of things. But he does accept for a while that, like, I can't fight democracy right now and the monarchy's too weak, so it's not really worth me fighting for. So he kind of pivots and he starts coming up with his own theories about how to reform things. His attitude is that the republic is going to fail. And so he's trying to figure out, like, what system should replace it. And he does a lot of reading on the encyclicals of Pope Leo viii, who had encouraged Catholic organization and power under a democratic system. Right. Which had. Leo VIII had been like, hey, democracy, probably here to stay. We shouldn't fight to have, like, kings under the Catholic Church anymore. We should. We should organize instead to gain legislative power in democratic systems for Catholicism.

[Jeff May]

That was like a millennium afterwards. Right? Like Leo VIII.

[Robert Evans]

That's.

[Jeff May]

But if I recall, he's from, like before 1000, isn't he?

[Robert Evans]

There's an anti pope named Pope Leo VIII who is around the 1000s. But this pope Leo VIII that we're talking about was head of the Catholic Church from February 1878 until 1903. Oh.

[Jeff May]

Oh.

[Robert Evans]

So it's like, recent population. It's complicated. There's another earlier Leo VIII, you're right. Who's around nine. Yeah. He's an anti pope from 963 to 965 whose election debated.

[Jeff May]

Wasn't he the one that was like, they were all excommunicating each other during the great Sailing.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, he was during the anti pope period. But there's another Leo VIII who's the head of. And who's an official pope from like 1878 to 1903. Right, man. Yeah. Popes, Right.

[Jeff May]

Why would you take that name?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. I'm not familiar enough with papistry to give you a whole, like, why he decided to take that kind of cursed name. But he's the pope who, like, writes an encyclical being like, we Catholics should just find a way to kind of make democr. Democracy work for Catholicism. Right. We should organize and find ways to gain power in democracies. You know, that's kind of like one of the things he writes. And this has a really big impact on Salazar, but no, good point. This is not that the pope from the 960s. That guy was debatably not the Real Pope.

[Jeff May]

I didn't mean to derail the pod, but I'm just like, wait, I know.

[Robert Evans]

It'S always hard with the anti popes. Right? There's a lot of names where you're like, wait a second. Yeah. No, no, no.

[Jeff May]

And I'm sure you guys have talked about it before, but just this idea that there was like, at one point, like, just a bunch of popes excommunic.

[Robert Evans]

And we could get there again. That's my dream for Catholicism. Yeah, fuck it. Are you not happy with the current pope? Go to Avignon and have a new pope made. You know, I mean, I do like a Chicago Pope fighting. Yeah, it's nice to have a Chicago Pope, but I think we could get a Boston Pope and really just have a battle of the accents, you know.

[Jeff May]

I gotta be 100% honest. We. We don't have a great track record.

[Robert Evans]

We probably shouldn't have a Boston Pope.

[Jeff May]

The cardinals have done some stuff. I mean, to be fair, most, if not all cardinals have done some stuff.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. Very few, Very few clean cardinals out there. You know what?

[Jeff May]

I like the idea of a Boston Pope, though, because, like, that's the first pope that would be willing to fight you in a toll booth.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, let's just give it to Ben Affleck, see if he could take it.

[Jeff May]

So he can do a bad accent of his own town.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, Pope Affleck, the first. Let's. Let's let it happen. Yeah.

[Jeff May]

Pope Benedick, kids.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. So Salazar, who's starting to accept, like, okay, maybe we should find a way to organize under democracy. He joins a school association while he's in college, the center for Christian Democracy, which, when the Republicans had come to power, they'd like banned for a couple of years, but ultimately allowed to reform in 1912. And it was for this group that Salazar gives his first public speech where he describes himself as a Christian Democratic soldier. Two years later, he leads a delegation to Lisbon, which protests an attempt to turn a local church building into a museum. His academic career flourishes around this time. He receives awards from his liberal and conservative teachers alike because his economic papers are, in their eyes, like, so brilliant and well thought out. And he opens a consulting firm that gives out financial and legal advice to, like, companies and whatnot that are, you know, trying to figure out how to get by in this very chaotic time in which the Portuguese economy is not doing well. And he's good enough at this, per Tom Gallagher quote, he now had enough money to augment his wardrobe with elegant clothes. He attended Soirees and receptions and his circle of friends widened. Catholics and conservatives predominated, but not all of them were from such backgrounds. So he's making money, he's starting to enter high society. He's becoming a known man. And he's becoming a known like kind of firebrand, right wing intellectual type of Right. He's a little bit of like a Jordan Peterson figure. If Jordan Peterson had been good at something. He continues to work as a tutor, which seems to still have been his kind of bread and butter. He would later claimed tutoring did two things for me. It kept me in the university and it kept me out of trouble. But this is not exactly true. Right.

[Jeff May]

I was like sleeping around.

[Robert Evans]

He's still fucking. Right. And he's kind of noteworthy as a figure in this period. Most of his earliest friends are women and girls, including 16 year old Julia Perestrello, who's the daughter of his godmother and the wealthy benefactors of his family. Right. So this is the daughter of the family that's like paying for him to go to college. That like his dad is employed by. He falls.

[Jeff May]

Quick reminder, how old is this man again?

[Robert Evans]

Very good point. She is 16 and he is 23 years old. So that's a bit of an age gap. It is. And that's kind of an uncomfortable period.

[Jeff May]

Bad for the era.

[Robert Evans]

It's not like it wouldn't have been if he had have been from the same social strata as she. It wouldn't have been noticed in the era. Right?

[Jeff May]

Yeah. It's kind of one of those things where like you're looking back and you're like, you know what? Yeah, that's age appropriate for the time.

[Robert Evans]

It would. It wouldn't have been wild. Like people wouldn't. If he'd been rich. If he'd been rich, it wouldn't have been weird. But because he's from a poor background, her parents are like, absolutely not. And we look at the age gap and go like, oh yeah, that's inappropriate. But they're just being like, well, but his parents aren't rich so this is an inappropriate match. Right. That's the only real issue they have.

[Jeff May]

He's like, don't worry. Yeah, I'll take care of that. It's sort of like the Dr. Pepper guy named Dr. Pepper after the dad that said he'd never amount to anything.

[Robert Evans]

That's that. Is that the story of Dr. Pepper?

[Jeff May]

I. It might be apocryphal, but I'm pretty sure it's Dr. Pepper was the guy that wouldn't allow a dude to marry the creator wanted to marry the guy's daughter and he said no.

[Robert Evans]

That sounds accurate as the. For the official soda of Texas, that, that sounds like the kind of con man origin story, I would say.

[Jeff May]

I don't like that the official soda of Texas is my favorite soda.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, it is, unfortunately. But let's turn to a more comfortable subject than Texas. This 23 year old hitting on a teenager.

[Jeff May]

Much better.

[Robert Evans]

He decides to hit on her in the most appropriate manner for the time, which is he writes an article about how hot he is for this girl in a Catholic magazine. He had contributed to this publication before, but he'd mostly written like serious articles about Catholicism in democracy and like scholarly studies about like how what the Catholic Church, what role it should have in a modern society. And so he kind of changes up on his normal publication by writing a column that's just titled she. And in it he describes it as like, it's kind of written as a fictional piece. And he's writing as sort of like an anonymous author who's in love with a girl who lives in a wealthy manor but is financially out of his league. And it's written in such a way that the subject of his affections is anonymized. And he can argue like, this is not a literally true article. It's like I'm writing, you know, he's.

[Jeff May]

Like, I'm plagiarizing Lady and the Tramp.

[Robert Evans]

But it's very clear that like, oh, this is Salazar writing about a teenager that he's hot for. Right? That's from a family that's too rich for him. And I can't imagine what must have been going through his head to make him write this thing, let alone like his editor is like, well, you mostly write about the Pope, but yeah, this article about how you've got a Crush on a 13 year old girl sounds great. Man, I thought she was 16.

[Jeff May]

Wait, is she 13 or 16?

[Robert Evans]

Sorry, sorry. 16 year old girl. He's like, yeah, why not? Let's publish this fucker.

[Jeff May]

Yeah, I did need to clarify specifically because I previously had gone on on record and be it saying that wasn't that bad for the time.

[Robert Evans]

No, no, no, this is, it's 16 and 23. Okay, so I can't get into the head of this editor who's like, yeah, this sounds like a good article for you to publish, Antonio. And I can't get into Antonio who is like, yeah, this will clearly work for me, right? And unfortunately for him, fortunately probably for that girl like her mom, who's, again, the patron of Salazar's family, she catches on to this. Like, she reads this magazine because she is from a rich, conservative Catholic family. And she sees, oh, this tutor we've hired to tutor our teenage daughter is writing an article about how he's got a crush on a teenage girl who lives in a manor and who's much richer than him. I wonder if it's Antonio. We should probably start watching them, right? Like, we should keep an eye on these two. This does not sound good.

[Jeff May]

That seems pretty chill. Yeah, Just be like, hey, should we. Should we pay attention to this?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, we should probably keep an eye on what's happening with this kid and our daughter.

[Jeff May]

If a Facebook dad saw this, he'd be like, touch my family. And there'll be two hits. Me hitting you and you hitting the ground.

[Robert Evans]

But they don't have Facebook, so their only option is to, like, keep an eye on her homework. So they're, like, paying attention to the homework he's giving her. And Antonio gives Julia some suspicious homework, right? He tells her to write an essay on love. And so this really gets their guard up, and they're like, okay, yeah, he's definitely hitting on our daughter. And then her mom finds, like, they start monitoring Julia's mail, and they find a letter that Salazar sends Julia, which is, to be blunt, very inappropriate. Right? And the perestrellos, again, their primary problem is that he's poor and she's rich. And so after they catch this letter, they just make sure he's not going to be tutoring her anymore, and he's never going to get any unobserved access to their daughter again. Right? So they lock this down because she's supposed to marry a rich guy, right? That's their reasoning.

[Jeff May]

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[Robert Evans]

Absolutely.

[Jeff May]

We heard the song.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Now, one of Salazar's mentors in the church, who's, like one of these fathers who's kind of. Of taking this kid under his wing, finds out about this. I think Julia's mom comes to him and is like, you need to talk to this boy. And so he sits down with Salazar, and they have, like, a literal come to Jesus moment where he's basically like, hey, you're one of the best minds that the Catholic conservative movement has. What the fuck are you doing pining over a teenager in the goddamn newspaper? Are you out of your mind? Right? Like, this is not smart behavior. And this warning, Salazar never stops socializing with women and girls, Right? He will continue to do that. For most of the rest of his life. But he is going to get a lot more careful about it, and he's going to learn how to, like, hide this in a much better way than writing newspaper articles about his crushes. So he takes that warning. And you know what else our listeners should take is the advice of these products and services.

[Jeff May]

They should take note of what we're about to say.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, take note. And give some companies your credit card information. It never works out badly.

[Jeff May]

No breaches.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it's never happened. And we're back. Ah. So Salazar is kind of establishing himself as an intellectual. He's learning how to flirt sometimes even with adults. And while this is going on.

[Jeff May]

Yeah, if he had a nickname, can we call him the sexual intellectual?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, you could call him that.

[Jeff May]

Because I'm going to for the rest of the show.

[Robert Evans]

You sure shouldn't. But that's. Yeah, that's what he's doing. Right. And the new Republican government of Portugal is kind of shitting the bed as he is coming up and becoming more prominent and learning how to kind of keep a lid on some of his proclivities. And part of why the Republican government shits the bed in this period is that World War I happens and Portugal does not have a dog in that fight. Right. They shouldn't have. There is no. Re. You just look at the map. There's no fucking reason for Portugal to get involved in World War Goddamn one. Like, we're gonna go sw. Yeah, you go swimming. You live in Portugal. Enjoy the beach. What is wrong with you? Don't send soldiers to die on the Western Front.

[Jeff May]

You don't want some teenager to get wrapped up in barbed wire waiting to kill Kaiser. Get out of here.

[Robert Evans]

Come on. What are you doing?

[Jeff May]

Got a couple of Frisbees, some scotch balls.

[Robert Evans]

You know, there's a lot of smaller European countries like this that are like, you have no reason to get involved. And they do. And it goes badly for everyone who's like, well, maybe if we get involved in World War I, we can help tip things and we can get some shit in the. In the peace negotiations after. And the Republican government, they largely get involved in World War I because they've got all these African colonies, and they're worried that if there's, like, a negotiated peace, England might give away some of Portugal's African possessions to the Kaiser in exchange for, like, a better peace deal. And so we don't really want to risk that. So we'll send some men off to die in the Western Front. And fighting in Africa, and they wind up losing, like, 10,000 soldiers. And just pointless battles, right? And In World War I terms, they get off pretty light. Like, that's not a lot of guys to lose in World War I.

[Jeff May]

By the standards, 10,000 people, right?

[Robert Evans]

It's still 10,000 people who absolutely didn't need to be involved in that stupid fucking war. And it costs a shitload of money. And just the fact that they've gotten involved in this disastrous war and they don't get really shit in the peace, it rattles the new regime's public support. People are like, well, fuck, this Republican government doesn't seem a whole lot better than the one that it replaced, right? Pointless wars, wasting money on stupid bullshit. Did we just replace one set of assholes with another set of assholes? And Salazar.

[Jeff May]

That's pretty much America politics as well.

[Robert Evans]

That's the world, right? It's like, yeah, which set of assholes? Maybe they suck a little less.

[Jeff May]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, I wouldn't mind an asshole that's not trying to destroy the lives of every person in the country.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Maybe we could get a slightly better asshole who's just corrupt and incompetent.

[Jeff May]

And if we got to throw some adrenochrome at him to keep it going, let's do it.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Jeff May]

Keep the peace, you know?

[Robert Evans]

Keep the peace and keep the adrenochrome flowing. I don't know, man.

[Jeff May]

I gotta try that stuff.

[Robert Evans]

Because it sounds good. It's great. You gotta get it from the brain of somebody who's had it really harvested, you know, before they.

[Jeff May]

Oh, yeah. You don't want, like, the fake.

[Robert Evans]

No, no, no.

[Jeff May]

True blood adrenochroma.

[Robert Evans]

No, no. You want the really good shit from the source.

[Jeff May]

Tap directly from the source.

[Robert Evans]

That's right. That's right.

[Jeff May]

This episode brought to you by Adrena Croft.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, exactly. Use a promo code. No, I'm not gonna make a Jeffrey Epstein joke here. What I am gonna say is that Antonio Salazar, in this period when people are starting to get angry at the Republic, he becomes a very popular lecturer. And he's working as an economics professor right now. So he's lecturing about how fucked up the system is, how the right and the conservative Catholics need to come into power. And he's also writing studies on, like, wheat reform and the role of gold in finance. And he's repeatedly arguing Portugal's government is spending too much money, which it is like, he's not wrong about his fundamental economic conclusions. And his economic work is widely Applauded. And In July of 1918, he appears on the color of Catholic Illustrated as an up and coming thinker.

[Jeff May]

Swimsuit Edition.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, the Swimsuit Edition. He's naked. He's got one of those, you know, Italian banana hammocks. Tasteful. Yeah, it's very tasteful. But, you know, they're like, Portugal, you.

[Jeff May]

Know, he's right there on the water.

[Robert Evans]

Like it's natural. Yeah, yeah, the lighting's perfect. So by this point, a new group of anti government rebels is ascendant. They're called the Integralists, and these are members of the wealthier classes who had sought a break from the republic and returned to a more authoritarian government, if not a monarchy. You know, so they're like. Like, we probably can't go all the way back to the way things used to be, but we should have a system where the rabble have less power, where regular people have less ability to influence the government. And a lot of folks in Portugal, especially in the middle class and upper middle class, are more sympathetic to these aims because in the aftermath of the war, Portugal is in chaos. The new government is running up tremendous debts, and even though they're on the winning side of the war, they're not spared the unrest that hits in places like Germany. There's an open civil war in the north of the country and a monarchist coup in 1919 that gets suppressed. And in that same year, as there's this civil war and this coup, four different governments come and go in Lisbon. Right. This is like a parliamentary system where, you know, if the government can't form a coalition, it gets dissolved. And so there's just constant turnover and chaos.

[Jeff May]

I like the idea that they attempted a coup in 1919. It's like, where'd you get that idea, guys?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Jeff May]

Wow.

[Robert Evans]

No one else was doing coups in 1919. Creative of Portugal. Wow.

[Jeff May]

Really going for it.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. So the same year that that's all going on, 1919, Salazar gets suspended from his job for spreading monarchist propaganda. Although he argues in court that he's not political, his only involvement in politics is voting. And he publishes an article defending himself widely in which he argues. I am convinced that politics alone can never solve the great problems that demand solution, and that it is a grave mistake to expect everything from their evolution or from an arbitrary departure from their normal course. I am sure that the solution is to be found more in each one of us than in the political color of a ministry. So far as I can, I try to make my students men, men in the best sense of the word and good Portuguese of the type which Portugal needs to make her great. Right?

[Jeff May]

Now let me tell you about this girl I love.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Now let me tell you about this teenager that I got the hots for. Yeah. Now, the reality is that Salazar is very political, all right? He gets his PhD after the war ends. And he is actively, as a teacher, trying to cultivate this, like, new generation of conservative activists. He helps found the Catholic center party, and in 1921, he's one of three of their members to be elected to the Parliament. He actually only gets to go to work at the Parliament for two days. And he hates it, right, because there's these. All these constant debates over what to do. And he can't just like, tell people, this is what you're going to do to fix the economy. This is what we're going to do to like, get things on the right course. He gets really angry and he's like, I don't want to do this fucking job. Even though he gets elected to several important financial committees. But he starts whining to his mentors in the Catholic clergy and the university that he doesn't want to do this job he campaigned to get. It's too hard. He's stuck in the mud. And his mentors are like, but you're in power and you have a chance to put your theory into practice. And they accuse him of not taking the work seriously.

[Jeff May]

I would like to add that this is the most relatable man we have ever covered on this show.

[Robert Evans]

Right, right. And just the terms like, yeah, it sucks to be in politics.

[Jeff May]

Yeah, it's guy that wanted a job and then he's immediately like, I immediately regret wanting this job. Oh, my God, you have this job you wanted. Yeah, I fucking hate it.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it's terrible. And he gets really lucky that in October, like, he only ever does like two days actually doing this job in parliament. And in October, the Conservative government and coalition collapses because left wing militants assassinate the Prime Minister and a number of their other conservative political enemies. So he's like, well, I guess I'm not gonna continue trying to be in the government. Seems dangerous right now. I'm gonna go back to being a teacher. And all this violence, which isn't limited to the assassinations or to the left. There's just a lot of political violence, largely in Lisbon. And it's happening as they're going through multiple governments every single year. There's all this conflict. The economy is in the shitter. The currency is worth nothing. The Republic is obviously weak. And people are tired of just this constant turnover of nothing working. And as they're continuing to be exhausted in 1922, they watch fascism come to Italy and they also watch this right wing military dictatorship take over in Spain under Primo de Rivera the following year. And they're like, well, maybe, you know, maybe it's not exactly Italian fascism, maybe it's not exactly the Spanish are doing, but some sort of like authoritarian right wing regiment. Maybe that'll fix all of our problems. Right.

[Jeff May]

That's all we. Yeah, that'll fix that. Historically, fix his problem.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, historically seems like the right idea.

[Jeff May]

Yeah, just fascism primavera or whatever the hell he is.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Primo de Rivera. Yeah, we'll take it. So by this point, the right is ascendant across Portugal. Young military officers who had been radicalized during the war link up with youth organizations, a lot of which had been inspired by Morris's movement in France and the writing of guys like Salazar. Right. He's not like leading directly, but he has been the intellectual father of a lot of these kind of right wing youth organizations and they are starting to gain power. Even at the same time as he can barely keep himself together. He is scared by number one, it's dangerous to be a public conservative intellectual in this period. It's dangerous to be anyone who's public and political in this period.

[Jeff May]

Dangerous to be an intellectual in any period.

[Robert Evans]

Right. It's never super safe. And he's kind of crippled by panic attacks and psychosomatic illnesses. Right. Like he can't really keep himself together even though his side of things seems to be doing well. He runs for office in 1925 and he does not do a great job of it. Right. His heart really isn't in it. And then In May of 1926, without Salazar's help, the Republican government falls to a military coup by these like right wing military officers. Now by this point, the economy is in the shitter completely, which is a big part of why the coup succeeds. Like the old government hadn't been keeping things together and they don't have much support. The generals who'd overthrown the Republican government know they can't just sit back and hope for things to get better. Right. They had like the military might to take over, but they don't know how to run an economy. Right. They're generals and they're Portuguese generals, so they barely know how to run a military. Right.

[Jeff May]

I'm gonna quote what a win then, you know.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it's that hard to take over from the guys without guns. Right, yeah. Or without as many of them.

[Jeff May]

I guess that's right. But it's just very funny that they're like, look, they're bad at pretty much everything.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. We don't know how bad the previous guys were.

[Jeff May]

The previous ones were. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And so they're going to be like, we need someone to help us figure out how to actually fix things, otherwise we're just going to get overthrown in short succession. I'm going to quote from an article in the New York Times by Alden Whitman here, the Victorious Generals Act. Salazar, then reputed to be an economic wizard, to take over the Ministry of Finance. He demanded a free hand to execute his reforms. And this being refused, he went back to teaching. And this is what's so interesting to me about Salazar, is he's. He's not in a lot of ways like a guy like Hitler, like a guy like Mussolini. He obviously, he's interested in power or he wouldn't have gotten into politics at all or entertained the idea. But it's not his primary motivating force in life. He actually does have a plan B, and he would have been somewhat content just continuing to be an intellectual. So, like, taking power, being a dictator is an option for him, but it's not his only option, and it's not the one he's putting most of his effort and time into. Right up until.

[Jeff May]

I like the idea that he's just playing hard to get.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. He's like.

[Jeff May]

It's like he's buying a car.

[Robert Evans]

Right, Right.

[Jeff May]

And he's like, this is what I want. And like, well, we can't do that. He's like, well, then I'm gonna walk away.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, then I'll walk away.

[Jeff May]

We can move some numbers around here.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Yeah. And that's kind of what happens here, Right. Is that he shows that, like, I'm not obsessed with taking this position unless I can really get a free hand in things. And the generals are desperate enough that, like, eventually they agree to do that. I'm going to quote from.

[Jeff May]

He learned this from all the fucking.

[Robert Evans]

Right. Yes. This is. That's what taught him how to. How to win the dictatorship of Portugal.

[Jeff May]

There it is. You show too much interest. You say you write an essay about it. That's not going to go great.

[Robert Evans]

You've got to neg the military dictatorship in order to be appointed the dictator. Right. That's how it always works.

[Jeff May]

Yeah. I would be your dictator if you wore makeup or something.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. If you dress up a little bit. Come on. How many medals have you Guys even won here.

[Jeff May]

Are we not even shaving our country's legs anymore?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. What's going on? Portugal military. Yeah, get some better cannons or something. So I'm gonna quote from Whitman's article again here. Two years later, General Antonio Oscar de Fregosa Carmona engineered his election as president of Portugal. And he promptly put Salazar in charge of the nation's purse strings by cutting public spending and by judicious taxation. Salazar succeeded within a year in balancing the budget for the first time since 1910. Shortly, too, he liquidated the foreign debt and lifted the escudo, the monetary unit, to a premium on foreign exchanges.

[Jeff May]

So that's the end.

[Robert Evans]

That's the end of the story.

[Jeff May]

He's a great man.

[Robert Evans]

He. He gets his free hand in managing the economy, and he's really good at it, Right. He manages to do what his predecessors could never do. He bal budget and he takes. The escudo had been like a laughingstock in European finance for years. And he restores stability in a way that just hadn't existed for a long time. His popularity grows, and it becomes very clear to the military that Salazar is indispensable in politics. Right. Like, we have the guns, but we don't know how to manage an economy. We're certainly not any better at it than the people that we deposed.

[Jeff May]

They have the plans, but we have the power.

[Robert Evans]

Right? Right. Yeah. Just like in The Simpsons. In 1932, Salazar becomes the president of the Council of Ministries, which effectively puts him in charge of the country. Right. So he's kind of like. Because he's so good at this, these generals, all they know how to do is, you know, control the guys with guns. But Salazar knows how to make the economy stable, which allows him to keep the wealthy and the powerful on his side and keep the people from rioting too much. And so he just keeps demanding more and more power. And the military's like, I guess, yeah, you can have it. Right. I guess you can have some more. I guess you could have some more.

[Jeff May]

He's like, oh, my God.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, exactly. And kind of bit by bit, he winds up the absolute dictator of Portugal, and he's like, starts to sideline the military and kick guys out who are threats to his power as he gains more. And everyone's too scared of him because they can't keep the economy going on their own. Right. Which is such a different way from these other fascists. He's not brought to power by a populist uprising. He doesn't, like, win mass votes in an election. He's not like Mussolini or like Hitler. He keeps showing results in the economy and demanding more control. And the military is like, well, no one else knows how to steer this thing right? So I guess, sure. I found a write up in the textbook, Portuguese Studies by Paul Santos and Luciano Delarue, and it describes what happens next. Within four short years, Salazar had so enhanced his prestige and developed his political power that he was nominated Prime Minister. The army had no desire to govern and no plan for government anyway, so they handed power back to civilians whom they regarded as trustworthy enough to protect their honor and keep his position secure. Therefore, while the military had brought Salazar to power, the regime that he molded, the Estado Novo, after the return to barracks, was very largely civilian. And the Estado Novo is proclaimed in 1933. It means new state. Right. So Salazar, he's kind of officially in full power in 33, the same year that Hitler rises to power. And he says, like, we've got a new state. Right. And there's a new deal almost for Portugal and her government.

[Jeff May]

That's where FDR got it.

[Robert Evans]

That's where FDR took it from.

[Jeff May]

He should sue fdr.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, or FDR should. Yeah. So Salazar cribs a lot from Hitler and you know, which is part of why he gets funniest. Yeah, but it's just sort of the aesthetics. Right. Like, you can see he sees that, like, okay, there's some value in some of these fascist aesthetics, but that's not how he gains power. Right. He doesn't take power the way that Hitler does. He kind of like almost infects the coup that took power and then like takes over it. He's like one of those bugs that gets inside a wasp's brain. If the wasp is the Portuguese military.

[Jeff May]

Yeah. The makes it like a zombie bug or whatever.

[Robert Evans]

Right, right. That's how he does it. Which is very different from the other fascists.

[Jeff May]

No, it kind of seems like he's just using the Hitler stuff as like flourishes.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. Like, oh, I can dress it up a little. This is working right now. This is the new hotness. Sure, yeah.

[Jeff May]

Shush it up a little bit.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, let's put a sprinkle a little bit of Hitler around the edges.

[Jeff May]

Yeah, Get a little Hitler in there.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, A little bit of Hitler in there for some spice.

[Jeff May]

Just a dash of Hitler. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And he, you know, he uses, he's going. He has a secret police state as we'll talk about, and he's going to use force and violence and he's going to crib from the Nazis very directly in several ways as to how his secret police works. But he doesn't have a cult of personality like Hitler does. And he's actually kind of. He has some respect for Hitler in the early period, but he's also like, he's looking at all these weird esoteric aspects of Hitler's fascism, like his beliefs in race science. And he's like, this guy's just kind of weird. Right.

[Jeff May]

I'll also add that like not calling attention to it is a pretty good way to have a 40 year reign instead of shoot yourself in a bunker rain.

[Robert Evans]

Right? Exactly. Salazar doesn't want to be a shoot himself in the bunker guy.

[Jeff May]

No, man, he's spoiling the frog in the slow way.

[Robert Evans]

You know, like what's interesting about him and the smartest thing about him is he understands there's a limit to how much power you should seek. Salazar's never gonna be a what if I tried to take all of Europe guy. He's like, I'm content with Portugal, you know, and all of her African properties which are much larger than Portugal. Right. But as we'll talk about, that's a big deal. But he's not, he's never going to be a gamble too much to keep power sort of guy. He's smarter than that. He's. He's probably the smartest of these kind of right wing dictators in Europe in this period.

[Jeff May]

I'll add that some of those Hitler Germans are gonna be learning Portuguese, if you know what I mean.

[Robert Evans]

They sure are. Salazar is a dyed in the wool corporatist. His charter for the Estado Novo, which is approved by plebiscite in 1933, which is ostensibly a public vote but is not really a free one. This new state is described in the plebiscite as a unitary and corporative state. State. Only one party is allowed in the assembly and the premier who's appointed by the president is unaccountable. Salazar is the premier in the early days as well as the finance minister. And over the years he's going to serve as foreign minister, Minister of War and Minister of the Colonies. Kind of whenever he wants to assert direct control, he'll just have himself made the minister of that thing, right? But he's always the dictator, right? He's always kind of the guy where the buck stops. And one of the first big things he cracks down on once the Estado Novo is declared the law of the land is women's rights. Salazar writes that because women are so key to the structure of the family, they shouldn't be voting as a general rule. Now, because he's this guy, he's got a lot of close female friends who he takes very seriously. He's not completely against women having the vote, so he's letting. He wants rich women to be able to vote. If you've got university education, then you can vote as a woman, which you don't necessarily need as a man, even though nobody's vote really matters all that much. Right. And his argument is that, like, yeah, a few women have the rights to vote, but most women should be forced to maintain a sort of femininity that he argues is conducive to the Catholic norms of family life. Now, this is what he's. Yeah.

[Jeff May]

Is he 20, 25?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. He's modern in that way. Right. And like all of these modern guys we have who say the same shit, he doesn't follow any of these rules in his normal life. He never marries and he never has kids. And he maintains this carousel of powerful women as lovers and advisors. He's willing to make exceptions for women that he personally respects, but he's not willing to live like the idolized Portuguese citizen, nor does he want to have a family of his own.

[Jeff May]

Catherine, the great energy coming off of him, huh?

[Robert Evans]

Very much so. Right. Per an article on Portugal.com, financial Abuse against women was institutionalized. The law allowed husbands to prohibit wives from working outside the home. Women were not allowed to access certain professions, diplomacy, the military, etc. And certain professions, like nursing had limited rights, such as the right to marry. A wife needed the consent of her husband to travel to another country. Contraceptives were only allowed for health reasons, and even so, the husband would need to give consent. Abortion was illegal in all cases, with a prison sentence of up to eight years. And so he cracks down on women's rights. And alongside this comes a crackdown in the white right to dissent in any way that might force a change in the Estado Novo. Salazar never tries. This is not a totalitarian state in the same way that is attempted in, like, Germany. But this is very likely. The fact that he's not trying for complete control is not that he doesn't want it or is a better guy, it's that he's smarter. He knows that, like, you know, if you grasp too tightly, shit slides through your fingers, right? You know, we all know our Star wars, right?

[Jeff May]

We all know Princess Leia Organa talking to Rand Moff Tarkin on the. Yeah, Death Star.

[Robert Evans]

And he's like, yeah, There's. I'm. That's not really worth investing in. Right. There's an amount of force that is worthwhile to deploy against the people, to stop things from getting too far along. But there's an amount of force that is going to, like, be dangerous to me and will drive up, like, support for any kind of, like, rebellious movement. And I'm not going to play into that. So the new constitution makes place for a new secret police force, the pvde, which in English stands for the State Surveillance and Defense Police. And the PVDE is going to go under a couple of different names over the course of the Estado Novo. We're going to call them the PVDE right now for the sake of going forward. And to be fair, he didn't start Portugal having a secret police. This is always the case with these things. This starts in the Republic. The Republic began having a secret police force. And under the Republic, the secret police force starts maintaining a prison called the Al Jubel in Lisbon. I'm going to quote from an article in the newspaper, Portugal resident here. The building is close to the cathedral in the center of Lisbon and has a long history of imprisonment. Firstly until 1820 for those condemned by the ecclesiastical courts, and for the next hundred years for women convicted of common crimes. The word Al Jubeh comes from the Arabic and means either a well or cistern, and by extension, a dungeon. So starting in 1928, the military dictatorship began building a network of informants through the PBDE and started the practice of sending them to Al Udai to be tortured. Salazar turns up to speed on this process, and under his new state, creative new torture methods are introduced.

[Jeff May]

Hell yeah, man. It's called innovation.

[Robert Evans]

It's called innova. We're gonna beat people and we're gonna sleep, deprive them. But we're also gonna introduce something new called the statue, which is where a prisoner is forced to stand with his arms extended without moving for hours or even days at a time. And if you weigh in, I'm tell.

[Jeff May]

You though, that's really great for your shoulders.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, yeah. Incredible shoulder exercise.

[Jeff May]

Because what you're doing is instead of building bulk, you're actually building a more tight, striated muscle. It's really, really good if you're like a fighter.

[Robert Evans]

Now, the downside of this is you get beaten senseless by the guards if you move your arms at all, which is not so good for building up good strength.

[Jeff May]

Okay? It's called coaching.

[Robert Evans]

It's called coaching trying to make you stronger.

[Jeff May]

I'm like, that to me, that I'm like, yeah, that sounds pretty standard.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what brings the regime down is they make too many great boxers.

[Jeff May]

Yeah. Too many powerful, tight fighters, man.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. So the name of the game in this new state is maintaining a sense of quiet respectability and not freaking out the regular citizenry too much. Right. This is while torturing anyone who's, like, too much of a communist or Republican activist so that you're still kind of. It's not. Accountability would be the wrong term. But Salazar is scared of being too publicly brutal. And in fact, once the neighborhood complains about the constant screaming coming from the Al Udai prison, the PVDE moves their torture operations to a more secluded environment. So there's like a. We're not going to be better, but we will be quieter because, again, we don't want to be too over the line here. Otherwise that's going to, like, spark the kind of rebellion we don't want to deal with.

[Jeff May]

I like that. It's just like a noise complaint.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it's like a noise complaint. You gotta be quieter with the torture guys.

[Jeff May]

Can you keep the suffering down a little bit?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. You're freaking out the neighbors. And some of them have real money, like they're taxpayers. Right. We don't want to make them uncomfortable. So the new state has begun at this point by, like, the mid-30s. And for the next four decades, Antonio Salazar will rule Portugal with an iron fist. And we'll talk about what he does in power in Part two. But first, Jeff, we're going to talk about where the audience can find you on the Internet.

[Jeff May]

Oh, God. That's where I live.

[Robert Evans]

That's where you. That's where we all live.

[Jeff May]

I do a lot of stuff, and it's really fun, and it's all very different. So you're welcome to check out any or all of these things. First and foremost, I have a show called Jeff Has Cool Friends where I interview just people that I think are in my life that I find very interesting. Sometimes they are famous celebrities, and sometimes they're people I went to high school with. But I just.

[Robert Evans]

Just.

[Jeff May]

It's really fun. It's a really fun way to sort of learn more about people and stuff like that. I do that show. I also do a show called Nerd on that same network as well, the Jeff Has Cool Friends sort of brand that's with my friend Dre Alvarez. And I also do a monthly show called the Monthly Flow with Andrea Gazetta. You can get those all early, uncensored bonus [e-mail] jeffmay you can get nerd and Jeff has cool friends for free everywhere else.

[Robert Evans]

Later. Hell yeah.

[Jeff May]

I do Tom and Jeff watch Batman with our friend Tom Ryman on Game Flee unemployed. I do lots of great shows with Adam Todd Brown on the you don't even like podcast network. I also open cards on camera and I send them to people on the @ Jeff has cool cards network and you can actually get cards in the mail like a care package from me over on the Patreon. So lots of really cool stuff. And you can find me at hey there, Jeff Row two on Instagram because they booted my last one because they accused me of selling sex, which I did not do. No, I do not have the confidence to do that.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, unlike Antonio Salazar.

[Jeff May]

Oh, he didn't have to sell it.

[Robert Evans]

No, no, he was, he was, he was giving that away.

[Jeff May]

And if you're in, if you're in Burbank or the Southern California area, I do a great comedy show the second Friday of every month at Blast from the past on Magnolia and it is called Mint on card. It's a comedy in a toy store.

[Robert Evans]

Comedy in a toy store. Well, everybody check out Jeff. Find him on the old Internet and find us on Thursday which is like two days from now talking about the rest of Antonio Salazar's life. All right, that's it. Bye bye. Behind the Bastards is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Wherever you get your podcasts. Behind the Bastards is Now available on YouTube.

[Robert Evans]

New episodes every Wednesday and Friday.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Subscribe to our channel YouTube.com behindthebastards. Every business has an ambition. PayPal Open is the platform designed to help you grow into yours with business loans so you can expand and access to hundreds of millions of of PayPal customers worldwide. And your customers can pay all the ways they want with PayPal, Venmo pay later and all major cards. So you can focus on scaling up when it's time to get growing. There's one platform for all business PayPal open grow today at paypalopen.com loans subject to approval in available locations. Welcome to the W where elite athletes are redefining the game of basketball. From buzzer beating shots, jaw dropping defense and logo threes, the WNBA delivers non stop action and world class talent every game. These athletes don't just play the game, they elevate it. The biggest stars, the brightest age at and T WNBA All Star 2025 comes to Indianapolis 7-18-19 tune into the game July 19th at 8:30pm Eastern Time on ABC.

[Robert Evans]

A treasure trove of bananas has been stolen and it's up to Donkey Kong and his buddy Pauline to get them back. This unlikely duo is going on a world smashing adventure, using DK's destructive abilities to explore an underground world and the power of Pauline singing to activate wild transformations. Donkey Kong Bonanza available July 17 rated everyone 10 only on Nintendo Switch 2 game and systems sold separately.

[Sophie Lichterman]

This podcast is supported by BetterHelp, offering licensed therapists you can connect with via video phone or chat. Here's BetterHelp head of clinical operations Hes Yu Jo discussing who can benefit from therapy. I think a lot of people think that you're supposed to be going to therapy once you're like having panic attacks every day. But before you get to that point, I think once you start even noticing that you feel a little bit off and you can't maintain this harmony that you once had in relationships, that could be a sign that maybe you want to go talk to somebody. There's always a benefit in talking to someone because we can all benefit from improved insight about ourselves and who we are and how we behave with other people. So if you're human, that's like a good indicator that you could benefit from talking to somebody. Find out if therapy is right for you. Visit betterhelp.com today. That's betterhelp.

[Robert Evans]

Com.

[Sophie Lichterman]

This is an iHeart podcast.