Trump’s Final Act Takes a Dark Turn as Expert Sounds The Alarm

Professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat explains the enormity of the midterm election results. Get Jennifer’s new book Not Today, Fascists, join our Substack, shop our merch, and more by clicking here: https://linktr.ee/ivehaditpodcast Follow Us: I've Had It Podcast: @Ivehaditpodcast Jennifer Welch: @mizzwelch Ruth Ben-Ghiat: @ruthbenghiat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

08/11/202653:44

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Résumé de l'épisode

Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat analyzes the psychological behavior of autocratic figures following electoral setbacks, highlighting the risks of building rage and paranoia. The discussion focuses on the importance of political accountability, the role of elite collaborators, and the need for a national moral renewal to move past a fascist trajectory.

À retenir 1Strongmen often become more dangerous after their egos are offended by rejection, leading to a build-up of rage and paranoia.

À retenir 2Autocrats frequently resort to purging their inner circle and blaming media or collaborators to regain a sense of power after setbacks.

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Transcribed from “Trump’s Final Act Takes a Dark Turn as Expert Sounds The Alarm” by Jennifer Welch & Angie Sullivan, who holds all rights to the original and has not licensed or reviewed this page. Rights holders can request removal.

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He's not even contesting the election results. The personalities of these guys, they brood and as time goes on, they get more and more upset and they get enraged. But we should not underestimate how the rage will build. He will become more dangerous.

We are in for a treat, our favorite guest of the show, my friend, America's top historian on strongmen, the best Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who has been fighting in the trenches, sounding alarm bells from day one, that fateful uh escalator descent. You have been sounding the alarms, Ruth. What a happy day to be together, you and me right now after the blue tsunami. I I'm thrilled, um and it was beyond everyone's expectations, and this is what happens at certain windows in history. People don't expect things happen that people don't expect.

Um and this is why I always say never underestimate the American people. You did say that. I It's one of my sayings. Because authoritarians want us to feel helpless and hopeless and just detach and feel like nothing we do is going to make a difference or it's all too exhausting and people came forth, and look what happened. Like people have power. Um in the Philippines, they got rid of their dictator and they called it people power. There's a reason. And that's what we did. And so as we now have this strongman who has been ubiquitous in all of our lives for entirely too long, and he is officially a lame duck or as I refer to him, a dementia duck.

And so he is officially the lamest duck I've ever seen in my lifetime. And uh he's not even contesting the election results. The biggest sore loser I've ever seen in my entire life. I've not seen one temper tantrum. He's moved on just talking about the ballroom and his interior design projects. You study the personalities of these strongmen. What is your take on how he is coping? And is he going to be more dangerous? What are your predictions and your assessment of this? So our system is a little different um because when we have elections, there's months before the people get seated, and we saw what Donald Trump did in 2021 with those months, right?

Uh with January 6. So it was almost to me the fact he was so like malleable, accepting the results uh in part historically, that's when you have like a massive voter turnout and big margins for your wins. We saw Orbán concede, and people were like, "Wow, he conceded." and and and then we saw Vučić in Serbia concede. But I felt like Donald Trump was almost in shock because his first thing was to be, "Oh yeah, I'm going to accept the results." But the personalities of these guys, they brood.

And this is where like all night he has Natalie Harp sending his crazy things. They don't sleep. They brood, and as time goes on, they get more and more upset and they get enraged. And so I've often said there's nothing more dangerous than a strongman whose ego, a narcissistic strongman whose ego has been offended. Because he said, "Make this about me." And then and then people made it about him, and look what happened. So and and they personalize everything. That's why he's like, "I'm going to go back in my ballroom, my safe space."

But we should not uh underestimate how the rage will build. So he will become more dangerous, um and the question will be what do his collaborators do with that now? Right. So let's talk about two different sets of collaborators. Number one, the Republicans in the Senate that picture themselves as serious people. And let's take as an example uh uh the Senate current Senate majority leader uh uh Thune. Let's take him. How does this election impact because he's been a fascist collaborator, and he's been an adult in the room, and he's chosen to uh collaborate and endorse all of the things that Trump has done.

That's the first one. Does this give those people political power to break away from the cult? And the second one is the people in the room, the cabinet, the chief of staff, the Stephen Millers, do the people that are in the inner working or inner workings around the dictator, does the cannibalism start? So uh autocrats who were who have had uh an ego injury or a setback, they obviously take out they they hate their people. And they become paranoid. They don't trust anyone. Everyone has to serve them and adulate them.

That's why we had all these cabinet meetings and they all went round like like in dictatorships of of today and yesterday praising him. So um so he takes it out on obviously the people um and he goes after his enemies, but he also takes it out on those who are near and not dear to him. And so often you see purges. Um heads will roll like in dictatorships, people actually get put in jail or they get killed. But I would expect him to start he's already started blaming Fox News, which is his you know de facto state propaganda arm.

I thought that was interesting. Um they were supposed to do a better job because it can never be them. And I have lines in strongmen in the endings chapter, which we should all reread. I'm going to reread it even though I wrote it. Um because they they start blaming other people, and it's easiest to fire somebody, and then you feel powerful again. So I would expect perhaps Pete Hegseth or it does I don't know who it will be, but I expect some kind of shakeup. Um and and as far as the collaborators, the Republicans, I mean they didn't get it together on January 7th, 2021 when they could have defended Mike Pence, who was targeted for physical harm if they'd just gotten it together then, and kept their word, we wouldn't be in this mess.

So it's not clear if they're going to get it together now, but all they would have to do is have unity, real unity, and say, "We're not going to take this crap anymore." And he would become a different kind of lame duck. Because now he still has his veto power, Trump. And so he's going to use that to try and muck up anything that Democrats want to do. But he's been able to have all this power because of his collaborators in the GOP. So we have to watch what they're doing now.

All right. Now let's move on to the elites. You're the one that that really helped me understand this. That a strongman comes to power, and it's fine. He can come to power. But when the elites, when the financial elites come and prop him up, it really allows the untethered strongman to go bananas, as we all saw. So I will never forget, and it will be etched into my brain forever, all of the billionaires sitting front row at the inauguration. I know the order that they sent in.

I know what companies they work for because the betrayer betrayal I felt as a customer to them, that they would sit there and prop up this man who was a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist, a compulsive liar, who tried to overthrow a free and fair election wherein his supporters said "Hang Mike Pence" was unforgivable, unacceptable. You don't play in the sandbox with that man. What happens to the elites? Are they so transactional now they go off and try to buy off the Democrats? How how do they manage when their free pass um has lost this embarrassingly?

I mean Mississippi, uh Iowa, Texas is blue, Ruth. Texas is blue. So um people who study autocracies call this elite defection. And in dictatorships, um it can cause the fall of regimes. Like the soldiers won't fight for you anymore. Businesses start defecting. And and so people talk about these pillars that prop up the strongmen, and it's often you know the media, um the military, but business is one of them. So it's very interesting if we look at what happened in Minneapolis during the popular opposition to operation metro surge.

I keep thinking of this fact that 60 local businesses, including Best Buy and Target, signed a letter, the CEOs signed a letter saying that this has to stop. So there are these precedents recently for a business coming forth. As for the the billionaires who were lined up, I mean they were look what Meta was doing to Indivisible, like blocking their account, you know. Right. Right. And in Brazil. So I don't think they're going to switch sides just yet because he's still in power for two years.

And the whole point of these they're called authoritarian bargains, where these big elites they make uh a pact with the leader. And he doesn't come after them, and he makes them rich. In return, they have to stay quiet no matter what happens. So he's still there. Yes, he's a lame duck, but he's still in power for two years. So I wouldn't expect the bad actors like Zuckerberg and Bezos and these people to change sides. What's will be interesting is to see what happens at the lower levels.

What and there is a lot of business. Uh there's leadership now, which is a business and democracy organization, um and hundreds of CEOs come to their annual conferences. There's a whole democracy and business movement. We just don't hear about it. Yeah. You don't hear about it. And it's really important. Uh you know, I was speaking about another podcast how I went to buy a new iPhone. And I was in the Apple Store in the Meatpacking District, and I looked at all the workers in the Apple Store.

You know, people who work in Apple Stores are cool. You know, you can tell they're kind of hip, and they have cool tattoos, and I all different skin colors, all these cool young people. And I just felt this disgust at the company treating their employees, treating their country this way. And I envisioned Tim Cook making that ridiculous trophy for Trump and humiliating himself by giving him that. And I just thought, "I hate that I've spent my money here." You know, because I that's the phone I wanted, and and it you know we're all embedded into all of we're on YouTube right now, you know, which those are Trump's sycophants as well.

But it's just it's so depressing to have to deal with these people on top of Donald Trump. So before we move on from this, I want to get back to his personality. So you said he's going to be brooding. He's going to get angry. It's the blame game. And we've already heard there's rumors that he wants to fire Mark Short, that he wants to fire Susie Wiles because she picked all of the candidates, helped him pick the candidates that all lost. All of his handpicked candidates lost.

Um Pete Hegseth, I think that's going to happen imminently. I mean maybe but even before this airs, Pete Hegseth could be gone. Um but what about the paranoia? Last time you were on, you taught us that these strongmen become so consumed with their paranoia, they start fantasizing about their safe spaces. And you were the one who informed all of us that the ballroom isn't just for parties. This is a security blanket for him. That all autocrats fantasize about these safe spaces because of their paranoia. So we know he's going to get angrier, and we know heads are going to roll.

What happens to his paranoia in this two-year period? Well, it's going to escalate because he he's he's been injured um not just his ego, but people have rejected him. And so he's going to be feeling like people are out to get him. And so uh you know the Washington Post had done an investigation about the things that Trump talked about the most in preceding months. Well, guess what? The ballroom uh was at the top. And the ballroom is so the actual ballroom is his ego, where he's going to have donors, and they can pay him money and all of that like corruption stuff.

But it's what's underneath is the real focus, the military bunker. And the things he says about it are really psychologically interesting. He says it's going to have anti-sniper you know protections, it's going to have a hospital because you know Trump is a germaphobe, and he's very worried about his body, although he doesn't say so. Yeah, he doesn't take care of it. Right. McDonald's diet. Right. He clearly has cognitive and physical issues. But so he's very worried about his safety. And they all have these bunkers. And as they go down, I mean Hitler literally retreated to his bunker and said, "Let Germany perish.

It wasn't worthy of me." And I have a quote in strongmen. These are these quotes that are in the endings chapter of strongmen. And Mussolini started saying, "Italians were just sheep. They didn't deserve me." And so we're not in a one-party state with World War going on, but Trump has his bunker. And so I found it really interesting that he's like, "Yeah, I'll accept the results. Oh, but my ballroom." Because he has to cling to that ballroom slash bunker even more. And this the sad thing is no matter how many people they purge, um they're never going to feel safe because they are um they have egos that that need a claim.

That's where the narcissist stuff comes up. So I always think, "Who would the strongman be if no one showed up for his rallies?" And and that's also why Trump was canceling rallies. I mean, he's 80, and he was tired. But they can't stand that they can't they if their personality cult starts to fragment and shrink, they don't have anything left. They're empty inside. How painful do you think it was for him that in the tail-end days of campaigning for these primaries, um he was I mean for the midterm, he was filling up barely filling up high school gymnasiums, and Barack Obama filled up 10,000 seat stadiums.

And he's very I mean one thing I know about him, he's very jealous of Barack. And he is very into size, crowd size, all sorts of things. So um a couple things. So a lot of these guys are have an obsession, these leaders, with another man who's more popular. And or and they're often younger. Right. Better-looking. And so um and they have popularity. Because Trump is a man of media. He's a man of reality TV. He's very savvy about appeal and popularity. And he just can't have what Obama has.

So he's obsessed with Obama, right? So that's his obsession. But the other thing I've noticed, um is as he knows he is losing his appeal, he's losing his personality cult, he he also knows he's degrading physically. And again, he's 80. He's obsessed with other men's bodies. Oh, yeah. And he's talking about other men's bodies. And there're various theories about why he's doing this. But from my point of view, it's that he he knows he can't have that, and yet he wants to associate himself with the winners, with the strongmen with in in a small S.

And that's also why like game recognizes game, and he's trying to stay in the game. That's why when that crazy meeting with Mamdani, uh remember Mamdani came to the White House, and Trump was looking at him like he he never looks at anyone. Like very unguarded admiration. He's like, "Yeah, you can call me a fascist. If it's you, I don't care." And that's because he was recognizing that Mamdani is a star. He's young, he's handsome. Yes, he's a star. So there's something going on with the obsession with talking about men's behinds and all of that.

So that we we can look at these as clues to his mentality. And let's so let's just say it doesn' bode well for the next two years. I think it's a great theory. I I also have one that he's in his deathbed confession era stage. Like you go to visit your grandmother, and she's like, "I never really liked your little sister. You're my favorite." And so I think he's kind of like, "Look at this hot guy." And I then I remember Roy Cohn was his mentor, who you've taught us Roy Cohn taught Trump get uh blackmail evidence on everybody and use it so you know for control.

But I want to I I was dying when this happened. I want your opinion on this. Trump's closing message. He trots out to the reflecting pool. Literally tens of people. I mean, I'm talking 20 or so. And he's standing there doing a show-and-tell presentation, rambling on, you know, like "And here's a photograph. Here's here it is with algae and then Barack Hussein Obama and Sleepy Joe." As you watched that, a person who has written a book Strongmen, and you study not only what they do, but their personalities, their egos, the cult of personalities, when you watched that, what went through your head?

Last chapter of your book? Really how sad it is that um his enablers and his bad-faith collaborators have allowed him him to to uh uh stay stay in in power power. like this who backed him an adjudicated rapist who had a coup attempt all the things he's done to come back to power for their own power-hungry means and and he's brought down the United States. I he's in office to solve Putin's problems and a mighty America was a big Putin problem. So he's trying to wreck America putting people like Kennedy in charge of public health, wrecking science and all of this is connected.

And so we have this person who's not nobody would hire someone like Trump. No no small business person ever would ever hire him. He wouldn't last as a teacher in a university, no job that anyone does. This is why the election results, the midterms, people want care and they want competency. So I thought about how sad it is. I love this country, right? I'm first generation, I love it. And um I thought how sad this was that the power structure has allowed this person who is is just incompetent and losing his mind in some ways to just and they all pretend that nothing's wrong.

And I've seen this with dictators, like with Idi Amin, I'm not trying to say he's Idi Amin, but psychologically that it's about the collaborators pretending nothing is wrong. Remember these scenes when Trump would fall asleep Yes. and there was a famous picture where the cabinet was standing behind him and they were just deciding to ignore the fact he was asleep. And this is symptomatic. You ignore the elephant in the room and this is also why Vance and others are saying and it's on Fox News now talking point, oh it was it was the war that did us in.

And it was partly the war, but by focusing on the war against Iran, they don't have to re they don't have to talk about the elephant in the room that Trump is completely incompetent. He's also corrupt, but they're part of the corruption, so they don't mind that. Right. Right. Right. But the incompetence and the ra- ravings and the the lack of dignity, lack of respect for the office, if they just keep talking about Iran and the war, they don't have to deal with any of that.

All right, the election happened and it was better than any of us could have imagined. I mean, it was when I've had you on before, you spoke, you said, never underestimate the power of the American people and that you were right. You called it. You called it several months ago on this podcast and I remember you're saying that. So your prediction that people value a multi-faith multicultural secular democracy and that that would prevail um and this right now it has. How important is it for our country that we deliver accountability, that there is accountability for the um the foreign policy that has been privatized, privatized diplomacy where Jared Kushner and Witkoff and Donald Trump are making all this money.

Trump has a PAC called MAGA Inc and you know, Musk can say here's 50 million and then that Trump gets that money and then he goes boom, here's a multi-billion-dollar government contract. All of these things plus the shooting of American citizens, denying people habeas corpus, potential war crimes in my my opinion uh shooting uh fishermen in Venezuela. Uh how important is it that this incoming Democratic Congress holds this fascist regime to account? It it's everything. And because it didn't happen after January 6, um there was the amazing commission, but but Donald Trump is allowed to be back in office and I always compare it to what happened in Brazil where uh Bolsonaro senior, Jair Bolsonaro, did his copycat January 8th, 2023 coup attempt.

And because the Brazilians had a national dictatorship that only last it only ended in 1985. It's really important because people like Lula da Silva and the jurist who investigated, they did such a broad investigation of this coup attempt of a type that wasn't done here. Like who were the rich people who were paying for the thugs to come? And who who bought them food? Who delivered them food? All the chain of collaboration. They investigated that because they lived under this dictatorship. Again, it only ended in 1985.

So they knew the stakes of accountability. And so they had a trial and Jair Bolsonaro is under house arrest for 27 year sentence. Um and then we narrowly missed so his son Flavio tried to come back to power and was going to pardon him and that didn't fly. Yeah, and now he lives in Florida, right? He he was allowed to come in the country with like no the cancelled passport. That's a whole other story. But we didn't do that. And I think about that all the time.

So we have a chance now. We control the House and the Senate and we have a chance to to fulfill the wishes of the American people for um you know, to to re- to reckon with this corruption, to reckon with this arrogance and to show care for the American people. So many people are suffering and it it's it's it's devastating to see your country being taken over by billionaires and mafia-connected people. And so we need accountability and it's a chance that the Democrats have and um I thought it was great that uh Representative Garcia did that post saying, you know, lawyer up.

Because they need to lawyer up. They've been using the justice system with Todd Blanche as attorney general and he's there because he was Trump's personal lawyer. They've been using the justice system as Trump's personal vehicle. That has to stop. And so I'm hopeful that they recognize they have this historic window to address these wrongs and if it's not done properly, then they will continue in the future. So taking personalities out of the next question I'm asking you. I'm asking you this as a historian. We have two people on the Democratic side in leadership.

Um uh Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries that take money, corporate PAC money, from the same fascist collaborators that have funded MAGA. Um and I I see this as problematic. I see that the mandate from this election is that people, we the people saved us. Strongly worded letters did not save us. We saved us. And you see this these sta- these seats getting flipped all over the place. I mentioned Texas is blue and not just kind of blue, it's a blue state now. They won a trifecta.

State government, their Supreme Court is now Democrats won there, the governor, the Senate. The lone remaining Republican in Texas is Ted Cruz. So this is this is a massive massive massive people-powered mandate for these politicians to work for the people. And both of the individuals that I mentioned earlier have been on the news since the victory and have said, Americans aren't interested in getting even and some people on Morning Joe were mad at Robert Garcia about the lawyer up and they said nobody wants that. And I'm like, I don't know what planet these people are on but everybody I know wants that.

As we build this anti-fascist coalition moving forward, how important is it that the leaders of this coalition not be beholden to fascist collaborator interests? It's it's key because there's you know, yes, we have we have a bipartisan system. And there have been some, you know, remnants of bipartisan feeling, but most of it has been this BS where Republicans complained their Democrat colleagues behind the scenes, but then in public they still prop up the cult. And and again, propping up the cult means being party to to murder, to execution-style killings in the streets of Minneapolis, to all the things you mentioned before, to massive corruption and oh, propping up autocrats around the world, murderers, dictators, mafia states, bad stuff.

So we need a new paradigm. Um of course we're going to need bipartisanship, but the Republican Party is an autocratic entity. They are not a Democratic Party anymore and haven't been for some time. They don't play in the same sandbox. They have different rules. That's why so many of them are pro-Putin. And so until you know, so you can't pretend things are uh normal. They haven't been normal for some time. And so it's really important to send a message not just to Trump, but to the American people saying our party is taking accountability seriously.

And if we have to refuse money from certain sources, that's a sacrifice we're willing to do because again, we have a window. Window is opened. We opened the window. I won't use the passive voice. We opened the window. Yeah. And many politicians uh got it and there's a new leadership that reflects who we are as Americans. The first Muslim senator, there's so many firsts that came out of this. Cuz we you know the beautiful thing about democracy, it's very moving. We elect our leaders who represent us and and they they enact laws and propose things that are fulfilling our wishes and that's why we elected them.

But they also represent us. Now we have this we'll have a Congress and a Senate who that looks like who we are as a nation. And we've had this it's a rebuke to this ideological project which is the core of MAGA to turn our multi-faith multi-racial democracy into a white Christian ethno-state. That's been the plan. And this was refused. And so the corruption and everything else that goes with it has to be refused too. All right, and so when I look forward um to the country and you say a window has been opened and as you say that it it doesn't sound permanent.

It sounds like the window's been opened and we have a moment to get through it. And I feel that this is existential that we get through this window and get to the other side. What's on the other side? And in your study of the aftermath of autocracies and the takedown of strongmen, how bold are the following governments? Mhm. Like I'm feeling right now that this mandate we have and the the the financial contributions that Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries have received, I feel this is my personal opinion, that they're somewhat compromised, that they have a foot in that in that pot that funded this fascism.

And I feel like we have a mandate to do something really really bold. The people you talk about, all of these new Dems that were elected that look like all of us, that sound like all of us, that aren't taking this corporate PAC money, that took on the billionaires and won. Elon Musk spent half a billion dollars and he lost every race he invested in. It's just so empowering, right? So I feel like we need to my personal desire is that we need politicians that are beholden to only the people to truly heal and get off of this fascist trajectory.

What is your take on that? Yeah, we need healing. We need um I feel like the my again, personal opinion, that it would be very wise of the Democrats when they start thinking about 2028 candidates to have have new people, have people who have come up more recently. I agree. To not have the establishment. In fact, when we look around the world at a we are living through this global renaissance of protest, mostly nonviolent. I I feel it's very important to stay nonviolent unless you have a foreign occupation, like in Ukraine or World War II Europe, that's different.

Right. But when we look around the world, we see that people because of corruption, because of economic hardship and a government that doesn't care about them, when people realize there's this trifecta and we have this, they want entrenched elites who have colluded with the system to go. And this has happened all over the world that Thailand, in India, and so many places and most recently in Serbia, they have managed to to get rid of these people, but not just the figurehead of the leader, but also entrenched elites.

So it's a system. So we need people who are going to defend us our our climate, climate-conscious people, people who want our economic well-being, you know, it has to be a holistic thing. And so when I look around, I'm going to hope that the Democratic Party will have this renewal because that's where the window we opened, it continues through 2028 and then we retake the White House and we can now implement these things. So this is like an incubation period. That's what yes. That's how I'm seeing it.

Um and we started this. We should all feel very proud. Are you surprised there was this moment Ruth when I woke up on Wednesday and it was like, oh my god, the election survived. He tore down so much, but that survived. And we had that one little nugget and I just take so much pride that their incompetence prevented them from tearing down. They tried, the gerrymandering and all of those things. And they tried to cheat, but they still lost and I was just I felt so much hope and pride in being an American that the elections held.

And so this reigniting a feeling for me, I didn't feel patriotic at all. And I'm not like one of these people that like that's not my identity, but there are moments where you feel national pride and I think more than anything camaraderie and kinship with your fellow Americans. Solidarity. Yes, solidarity. And so seeing that our elections held and that we all showed up, how powerful is that that the people-powered movement in defeating these horrible fascists? It it's key, but I want to recognize they tried every trick in the book before the elections.

Remember, we were fearing all kinds of things. And there's been an enormous legal pushback that's happened. There activists, organizers, lawyers uh who are pro-democracy have been working around the clock for many months and then we had judges who were not compromised to believe that that they should be independent arbiters. That's a democratic notion. And they turned back over and over again these schemes that MAGA and Trump tried to rig the elections because they have a whole bag of tricks, autocrats. And they tried all these things and they all failed.

They all failed, which is why the elections proceeded as they did and then they didn't bring out ICE to the polls and there were lawsuits about that. So a lot of what we were hearing, we needed to take it seriously, but it was also intimidating measures. It was psychological warfare. Um and Bannon was big in this. He's a big psychological warrior. To to make people so afraid that they wouldn't turn out and that didn't work either. So I just want to recognize that behind this smooth You're right.

um unfolding of our elections around the country was a fight, hours and hours of work and lawsuits. So although we do have Todd Blanche and the DOJ is a personal vehicle of Trump, there are many judges and many legal professionals who are doing their job to protect our democracy. Okay, what happens to the cult of personality? We've spoken about the elites, we've spoken about the people in the room with them and we've spoken about the collaborators in Congress and the Senate. What's going on to just your average MAGA cultist, a true believer watching him in front of the reflecting pond watching this election happen happen?

Do they finally start to deconstruct a little bit? I think there's going to be a core of people and I haven't seen all of the the data points about how people voted. Maybe it's too early to have them. There's going to be a core of people including your favorite group of Christian nationalists who are are just in it for the long run. Yeah. And there's always that's how it is in dictatorships. In fact, in Italy and Germany, it literally took being bombed by the Allies to get people to wake up and start saying, hey, maybe Mussolini isn't our savior after all.

And I have that in my book. Wow. Like people waking up, coming out of bomb shelters and being angry in public at Hitler for the first time. So that's what it took in those extreme cases. Okay. So there's always going to be people who are the loyalists, but it the reason we have this result in the elections is that more people are waking up that Trump Trump, isn't isn't? he He doesn't doesn't love love them. them Like like he told them. He doesn't care about them and they were willing to take a risk on somebody else.

So his personality cult is shrinking and this is where we go back to this is having very destabilizing effects on him because he's nothing without his personality cult. And we may have a thing where in the country more and more people turn away from him. In fact, I saw an article that said that stores across the country that in MAGA areas that sell Trump merchandise, they're doing really badly. And then we know that viewership of Fox News is down. Yes. So these are signs of the fragmenting of a personality cult.

So this is why though, will his sycophants he's arrayed around him keep praising him in meetings? So he's going to purge some people, but new sycophants will come in. And the kinds of people who end up around him during these last two years is going to be really interesting because often I mean we they don't get better higher quality people. They get worse. So I'm I'm we're going to keep our eye on that. I'm sure we'll talk again. You're saying this is could possibly not be rock bottom as to the people surrounding him.

He can go lower. Well, think about if he gets rid of whoever who's who's going to come in their place. In the sense in the case of the military a miracle could happen and somebody actually competent could come in. But in the other places, I mean there's a lot at stake though like with foreign policy. There's a too much money and deals with other autocrats at stake. So I don't know what will happen, but he's not going to have an epiphany and all of a sudden people should not think just because he said, oh yeah, I'm going to accept the elections that everything is fine.

He's burping. That's really important information because Yeah. I because you know these personality types. Okay, let me ask you this. How does the strong man handle the situation that's unfolding currently? J.D. Vance has his sights set on 28 and they had a meeting in the you know, Oval or wherever. After that meeting, J.D. Vance went rogue. Mhm. And he's being disloyal and on Fox News somebody's like J.D. Vance is not being loyal and basically J.D. Vance is saying going to war with Iran was wrong and insiders are predicting that he is already separating himself from Trump while being his vice president and saying he's going to start this you know like New America Party or something and he is said we shouldn't be fighting the war in Iran Iran and Israel's wars.

What does that type of loyalty a disloyalty do to the the the autocrat? How how is that I mean he's mad that he lost. He feels exposed, but that disloyalty how does that trigger him? Well, that creates more paranoia because so the reason that Vance is just almost compartmentalizing saying it's all about the war in Iran and we fought for Israel because remember Trump just recently said we're not going to give Israel any more money. Yeah, a Hail Mary yeah. Right? But in doing that, they're not addressing the domestic stuff because what they want to do is keep all the repressive domestic stuff the ICE they want to keep the white Christian nationalism.

They have no intention of backing down on immigration or anything. And so they they're so Vance's thing is like okay well I'll come out on Iran, but he's not criticizing any of the other policies. Note that. Right? And you know, people have talked about Vance you know having a different party or going ahead and also Tucker Carlson Yes. And luckily Vance is so unlikable Yes. and has actually very bad political timing. Remember when he converted he when it came out about being a Catholic and then he insulted the pope.

Yeah. The same week. Yes. This is why I've endorsed J.D. Vance as the Republican nominee. Yes. I've given him my full endorsement because I want that's a fight we need. Yeah and and he's just again he's unlikable personally. He's he's openly hypocritical. Yeah. So he doesn't I don't see him as much future and he's propped up and people are knowing this more now by Peter Thiel one of the you know and Palantir. He was created he's a creation full of that billionaire who backed both his Senate race and his private businesses.

Yep. And so he he is the representative of the bad billionaires. And so he doesn't have any future and and we'll see what happens. Um but it's very interesting people talk about founding another party and Tucker Carlson has done the same. But we we don't treat third parties very kindly. Right. Now the GOP though I remember I wrote a piece for the Atlantic in 2016 about Trump being you know like Mussolini and I ended it saying that the GOP should take a lesson from what happened to the parties that backed Mussolini in Italy.

They no longer existed after World War II. They just died. Now we only have two parties and it's too big to die, but I was sending a message that the GOP it's what Lindsey Graham said right? Remember that in 16 he said if we back Trump we're going to get what was it? We're going to Yeah, we're going to get whipped and we'll deserve it or something like that. So I was sending a message to the GOP saying that if you do this with Trump you're not going to come out very well and here we are 10 years later.

I don't know what will happen to the GOP. It's interesting because I think leaning into my theory my armchair historian psychiatrist theory that he's in his death bed confession era. I think you know he loves to grandstand on camera and that's not going to go anywhere. He loves it. He's in his happy space and I can just see it getting worse and him getting crazier and it's going to be like and J.D. J.D. sucks and he's just going to start just throwing them all under the bus and just get more and more erratic and instead of him blaming the you know the the socialist wild libtard maniacs you know how he goes on we're communist terrorists all of this stuff.

I see it shifting towards him starting to publicly blame the people around him which is a full circle moment because what what brought Trump up was he did something that was refreshing and and I can't believe I'm saying it but I remember experiencing this and it was in 2015 before when he was campaigning he called Ted Cruz a liar. Mhm. Lying Ted Cruz and I remember and I'm a Democrat I can't stand Republicans. I hope I hope that your prediction of what happened after Mussolini I hope that happens to the Republican party because I've lived in a state where I see the destruction of Republican policies.

But um I remember him calling them all out. Mhm. Low energy Jeb lying Ted little little Marco and I and it was refreshing to him say they're all full of it and he said they're all full of it. They tell you what you want to hear and then they take all this money and he called the game out. Then of course he ended up playing the game. He's a pathological liar and all that stuff. But I think it would be a beautiful book for you to write at this full circle moment.

He came he rose up criticizing Republicans and then he killed the Republican party criticizing them all the way until biology took care of him. And humiliating them and we see for example Tim Scott has been publicly humiliated on national television by Trump while standing next to Trump and he's out there being more loyal than ever. And so these humiliations are they all do it. It's crazy. Like a lot of like old old school dictators they they have these sadistic games because they have they have a sense of humor but it's sadistic humor.

Right. They used to have a big rally and have all their cabinet people there and then he would they would fire them in front of everybody. And or they would fire them on television or people would learn by reading the paper that they were fired. Trump did that. Yeah. The tweets Rex Tillerson Rex Tillerson and others. Yeah he I think Kristi Noem found out Yeah. while she was giving a speech. Yes, that's what they do. The humiliation let's talk about this because this is fascinating to me.

This party of you know we're so masculine, but if anything it's just a very uh stunted form of masculinity. Emotionally stunted unevolved form of masculinity, but nonetheless they run on the veneer that we're so masculine. And time and time and time and time and time again these people within the Republican party and the elites to an extent the humiliation rituals which they engage in fascinate me and here's the most recent one that fascinated me. It's about Ted lying Ted Cruz. So Trump's on the stop in Texas and they're trying to get Ken Paxton.

He just talked about Ken Paxton not having a great anatomy and it's going to be difficult for him to talk about how hot he is. Ken Paxton stands up and waves to everybody after he just basically said Ken Paxton's ugly AF and I'm not going to I'm not going to thirst trap over him. Then he sets his sights on Ted Cruz and he's like you know, I think I'll nominate Ted to be Supreme Court. All the Democrats will vote for him because they hate him. They can't stand him and the Republicans will vote for him too because they can't stand him.

Ted where are you? Ted stand up and I'm like no he is not there. Ted stands up smiles big and just starts waving. Mhm. Is this common in these dictatorships? Yeah. It's crazy to watch. But the the the tragic part of well it's not tragic it's fortunate in some ways when this happens in like in Mobutu's Congo or like you know Saddam Hussein they would be if they didn't stand up and wave and smile they would be killed. And what's always struck me is all this collaboration all this sycophant stuff without a gun to their head?

They were going to they're they're what would they happen to them? They would be primaried. They their political career would be compromised. And they still did it. But but Trump insulted Ted Cruz's wife Yes. very early on and when Ted Cruz didn't reply and he ended up supporting Trump Trump knew he owned him because you have to it's like it's very similar to organized crime and there's a lot of overlap and so you want to own somebody either through blackmail which the Russians call kompromat right?

And and Trump is an expert at you know through Roy Cohn and Roger Stone let's not forget him of of getting dirt on people. But you also want to own them because if you insult them and humiliate them and they still come back for more they they've lost respect for you. And so they own you now and so Ted Cruz has had this is 10 years of this and it's it's very sad. I don't have particular sympathy for him. Right right. But it's it's sad and and the whole party is been captured and owned in this way.

And that's why accountability is really important and so many of them have now lost. In my book I talk about the first one the Jeff Sessions. Two two weeks less than two weeks after Trump said that I could stand on 5th Avenue and shoot someone which isn't exactly a very good recommendation for leadership. Jeff Sessions was the first he went to the MAGA rally he put on the hat and Trump is like wow I'm being normalized now. And then he made him Attorney General and then he fired him and he backed Tuberville and so he's gone or Tuberville.

Yeah. So Jeff Sessions ended up with no political career in the end. So he's like a microcosm of what happens when you subject yourself and you go along with the humiliation game of Donald Trump. Totally. Okay, final question. We've talked about the aftermath of these elections on the on the strong man the cult the elites. You taught us about the moral collapse and the strong man and the movement displaying and bragging and putting it in our faces the moral collapse. In rebuilding that because that's created a cultural rot that has trickled down and we see that.

In rebuilding after this is the accountability component a part punishing that moral rot showing that we're not okay with that? How do we as the survivors of the strong man's reign rebuild that? So it's the accountability is part of it because it's it's it's you know saying that you can't get away with this. You can't get away with the corruption the lawlessness the violence the cruelty. And I think that you know so often we have like movements of the right to truth or moral renewal after the dictators go, but I think we have to integrate it into the Democratic Party platform and some people did.

Tom Enrico he he actually ran on he kept talking about a politics of love. Yeah. And some of them are coming from a Christian background of Christian piety and love. Some are secular, but we need that moral renewal. Agree. That that has to be part of it because we want to return to fairness to decency to solidarity to caring and and we have these you know so there's Elon Musk is talking about empathy as suicidal. It's not. Well, we don't we don't think that we're better than that.

So I think that's the way to go. Moral renewal. Yeah. I'm going to work on that though that could be somewhat brand damaging for me considering I love bullying fascists, but I would say that bullying the bullies and showing that that is not acceptable is part of moral renewal because we have to be outraged at outrageously cruel crimes that are committed against our fellow citizens. Yes, because it's when we become desensitized to the violence when we decide to turn away when our neighbor gets deported or we see someone in the street getting beaten up by the state, right?

That's when the moral collapse is inhabiting in us and so you know everything can start with us and that's why voting we went out some people were afraid but they went out and they did it. Um and we can model the values we want to see in the world each of us. So that's where calling out and calling out injustice it isn't necessarily bullying. It's it's reminding people that these are bad actors and we deserve better. Yeah. Righteous indignation and the good fight. Yes. It's a good we're picking a good fight by doing that.

Good fight. Yeah. Ruth I could talk to you forever. This is obviously going to be very interesting to study until January and then the final two years. I can imagine this would be like your Super Bowl because you're actually living through and historical moment and what you write and your observations will be in the permanent record forever. Ruth I I cherish our friendship. Thank you for your help on my book. Ruth helped advise on my book and we share just a such a warm friendship. She's one of my first friends in New York and so I just adore you.

We are so lucky to have you on as a guest. I'm so lucky to have you as a friend and the country and the world is so lucky to have you as a historian. Thank you and your passion inspires me and your book is amazing. Thank you. All right, we'll see you all soon.

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