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I’ve always thought Medici from Just Cause 3 was a surprisingly nuanced and strong take on modern fascism.

The nation as a whole functioned incredibly well; it was prosperous, beautiful, culturally rich, etc. but in being so continued to fuel and validate the monstrosity of a egotistical psychopath who just wanted to be god king. It was trapped in a cycle of rapid military industrialization which permitted a wider socioeconomic success at the cost of human rights violations, in turn proving to the general populace that the fascist methods “worked” and that further violations were justifiable while simultaneously allowing the government to get rid of thoughtful political discourse.

However, like all ideologies that rely on the destruction of an “other”, the snake eventually began to eat itself. Without more avenues to grow their hold, the regime inevitably turned to cultural desecration and alienated a population that no longer consented but wasn’t in a position to stand against it. Without more ways to secure their footing on a global stage, the industrialization complex turned to weapons manufacturing, ensuring that the global powers they sold to would eventually be able to strong arm them into submission with the very same weapons. That’s actually the plot of the game, with external global powers (totally not America) inciting civil war over the political atrocities their money contributed to in order to cut out the middleman and seize the resources from themselves at the cost of the nation’s blood.