The book is detailed and complete and there’s no way to do it justice in a Twitter thread, but (after I fill my ☕️) I'll try to hit a few main points.
Ben-Ghiat, a historian, tells the stories of an impressive list of strongmen👇 Patterns emerge.
🔹They all use their public office to enrich themselves.
🔹Most come to power with a history of lawbreaking.
🔹They act like gangsters.
🔹They encourage violence.
No matter which strongman Ben-Ghiat is describing, she could also be describing aspects of Trump
An example👇 , sons in law.
(Someone should warn Kushner! Mussolini's son-in-law did not come to a good end.)
Their sex lives are generally disgusting. Mussolini used Italy as his harem. "When you're a star they let you do it," was par for the course.
After Trump’s strong-arming of the Ukraine president, “I’d like you to do us a favor, though,” and the way he incited the Jan. 6th riot without explicitly saying what he wanted to happen, I was struck by this Mussolini incident.
See how Mussolini has deniability?
Not long ago, strongmen often came to power through military coups.
More commonly they come to power through elections or other democratic means, and then they find ways to stay in power.
This is key: They retain power with the support of conservative "elites."
This explains what we're seeing with people like McConnell. It's part of the pattern.
Germans conservatives thought Hitler would be their tool.
In the early 1930s, powerful conservatives courted Hitler, thinking he could help them subvert the left's growing electoral strength.
Here’s what conservative industrialist Thyssen, who helped prop up Hitler, said later👇(Screenshot #1)
Ben-Ghiat offers this chilling warning👇(Screenshot #2)
Another thing that is striking: The extent to which right-wing America influenced the rise of far-right-wing European parties and dictators across the globe.
Ben-Ghiat marches through a head-spinning number of examples. Is it any wonder that they are in love with Trump?
I knew (of course) that Kissinger helped propped up Pinochet. But I didn't know this 👇(Screenshot #1)
There you go. William F. Buckley.
Here’s a chilling comment from a member of the Nixon administration (Screenshot #2)
For the record. Pinochet wasn’t “terrific” in 1973 when he pulled off a military coup that left the legitimate president dead.
But evidently, 10 years later, Pinochet "outlived his usefulness."
Which brings me to this point: Strongmen retain their power backing of conservative elites, and they lose power when they lose the backing of conservative elites.
Levitsky (author of How Democracies Die) says the greatest danger to democracy is the government slipping into dysfunction because when the government is dysfunctional, people are more vulnerable to the appeal of strongman tactics to get things done.
What Biden needs to do (and what he is doing) is make government work, which includes strengthening institutions like the DOJ.
The judges Biden will appoint in the next four years will help.
The idea is to strengthen our institutions to withstand another Trump.
Criminal prosecutions can help, but it’s not like these guys are going to say, “Trump was prosecuted so we'll fold up shop and learn to play nice.”
Remember that most strongmen come to power with criminal backgrounds. People who like strongmen like the fact that they break laws.
It's hard to run for office from prison, but that won’t deter another Trump-like figure from stepping up.
In fact, right now we see lots of elected Republican leaders trying to position themselves as the next Trump.
And opportunists like McConnell will shield them.
Pressure campaigns work. From Ben-Ghiat 👇
Big corporations like the tax cuts they get from the Trump Party, but if their sales drop off and people stop using their services, what good are tax cuts?
We need to show these corporations that it’s in their financial interests to support democracy, not autocracy.
Let them whine about cancel culture (cry me a river).
I think this is partly how they get trapped. When they do anything to support the "strongman" they lose credibility with most of the population. They can either give up politics (power and all that goes with it) or get behind the strongman, which entraps him forever.
Max Weber calls such leaders "charismatic," which is sort of worse. @ruthbenghiat is so thorough, she even has a passage in her book addressing that "strongman" or "charismatic" is in the eye of the beholder. (I'll put a link in the next tweet.)
The idea is there are 3 forms of authority for government:
Traditional (monarchies)
Rule of Law (democracies)
Charismatic leader (fascism/autocracies)
The 3rd is less stable because authority is the force of personality . . .
. . . so when the strongman starts to lose, or seem weak it's over. That's why Trump can't admit defeat.
"Charismatic leader" is the more fragile of the three forms of government, which is why Strongmen need the backing of elites, and why pressure campaigns work.
I think the answer is in psychology.
These strongmen all suffer the same disorders.
But without their followers and enablers, they would just be pathetic, delusional madmen.
Political psychology (and opportunism) explains their followers and enablers.
The prosecution has everyone confused because they are framing the case as "election fraud" and "election interference" so everyone is trying to connect the crimes we know about to "election fraud."
This would be clear: "It is election fraud. Here is how the evidence will support a charge of election fraud." Then show how the behavior supports election fraud.
For years I was perplexed by what I was seeing on left-leaning Twitter, political blogs, and partisan reporting.
I had the feeling that, in its way, what I was seeing was comparable to Fox: Lots of bad information and even unhinged conspiracy theories.
2terikanefield.com/invented-narra…
Of course, if I suggested that, I was blasted for "both-sidesing."
Then I discovered an area of scholarship: Communications and the overlap between communications and political science.
Another contradiction: when people demanded indictments RIGHT NOW (in 2021 and early 2022) the reason was, "Everyone knows he's guilty! Look at all the evidence!"
We saw the J6 committee findings.
Trump isn't saying "I didn't do it." He's saying, "I had the right to do it."
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We all know what he did. The question is, "Do people want a president who acts like Trump?"
A lot of people do.
People show me polls that a guilty finding would change minds.
I say rubbish. Use common sense. He lost in 2020 and he lost the popular vote in 2016. . .
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. . . because it is designed to keep people hooked. People need to stay glued to the screen for hour after hour.
But to hook people, you need to scare them. The Facebook whistleblower testified that content that produces strong emotions like anger gets more engagement.
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Fox does the same thing. There is a few minutes of news, but the facts get lost as commentators and TV personalities speculate and scare their audiences.
Before you yell at me for comparing MSNBC to FOX, read all of this:
If I write another blog post addressing the outrage cycle here on Twitter and in the MSNBC ecosystem, it will be to explore why so many people who believe they are liberal or progressive actually want a police state.
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Today alone, a handful of people who consider themselves liberal or progressive told me that the "traitors need to be arrested and prosecuted."
In 2019, back when I wore myself out tamping down misinformation, I explained the legal meaning of treason.
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Back then, I now realize, people asked politely: "Can Trump be prosecuted for treason (over the Russia election stuff).
I explained that wouldn't happen.
Now it's different. It's more like fascist chants.
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