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Trump has changed the entire nature of the GOP into an “authoritarian far-right party” that’s as hard on its own members as on foes, said historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat.
A successful criminal prosecution of former President Donald Trump for illegal actions is the one sure way to deflate the power of his “personality cult,” declared a historian who’s an expert on authoritarian leaders.
Election defeats alone don’t stop wanna-be autocrats — but the law can, historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat told Politico in a lengthy interview published Saturday. “It takes prosecution and conviction to deflate their personality cults,” Ben-Ghiat said. “That’s what it takes.”
Ben-Ghiat pointed to Italy’s strongman Silvio Berlusconi, who finally retreated from the political scene when he was convicted of corruption, fraud, and tax evasion.
Trump checks all the boxes for history’s authoritarians, noted Ben-Ghiat, who last year published the book “Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present.” For one thing, they never leave the stage gracefully.
“I just predicted that he [Trump] wouldn’t leave in a quiet manner” after he lost the election, said Ben-Ghiat, a professor of history and Italian studies at New York University. “He’s an authoritarian, and they can’t leave office. They don’t have good endings and they don’t leave properly.”
Trump’s “Big Lie” lie that the election he definitely lost was rigged protected his brainwashed followers from “having to reckon with the fact that he lost,” said Ben-Ghiat. The tale “maintains him as their hero, as their winner, as the invincible Trump — but also as the wronged Trump, the victim. Victimhood is extremely important for all autocrats,” she noted. “They always have to be the biggest victim.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ruth...nviction-far-right_n_625cb4efe4b06c2ea32bf491
A successful criminal prosecution of former President Donald Trump for illegal actions is the one sure way to deflate the power of his “personality cult,” declared a historian who’s an expert on authoritarian leaders.
Election defeats alone don’t stop wanna-be autocrats — but the law can, historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat told Politico in a lengthy interview published Saturday. “It takes prosecution and conviction to deflate their personality cults,” Ben-Ghiat said. “That’s what it takes.”
Ben-Ghiat pointed to Italy’s strongman Silvio Berlusconi, who finally retreated from the political scene when he was convicted of corruption, fraud, and tax evasion.
Trump checks all the boxes for history’s authoritarians, noted Ben-Ghiat, who last year published the book “Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present.” For one thing, they never leave the stage gracefully.
“I just predicted that he [Trump] wouldn’t leave in a quiet manner” after he lost the election, said Ben-Ghiat, a professor of history and Italian studies at New York University. “He’s an authoritarian, and they can’t leave office. They don’t have good endings and they don’t leave properly.”
Trump’s “Big Lie” lie that the election he definitely lost was rigged protected his brainwashed followers from “having to reckon with the fact that he lost,” said Ben-Ghiat. The tale “maintains him as their hero, as their winner, as the invincible Trump — but also as the wronged Trump, the victim. Victimhood is extremely important for all autocrats,” she noted. “They always have to be the biggest victim.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ruth...nviction-far-right_n_625cb4efe4b06c2ea32bf491