'Donald Trump's fantasy': Authoritarian expert shows what ex-president hopes to do
December 27, 2023
Donald Trump has fully taken over the Republican Party, according to an expert on Wednesday.
NBC News correspondent Vaughn Hillyard claimed that the idea of "revenge" has trickled down from Donald Trump to his supporters. When he interviews the MAGA fans, they are all-in on the campaign of vengeance and they love the rage he is throwing toward Democrats.
Propaganda and authoritarian expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat explained that one thing she and others have said for "a long time is that Trump is superb at propaganda." She said that thus far he has educated Americans on his kind of "leadership" and convinced many that it's positive.
"Now with Sean Hannity, he is a propagandist who asked him the question in the first place about, you know, are you going to be a dictator, that allowed Trump to raise the dictator theme," she said. "And now it's become his thing. I would add that he talks about rooting out the radical left and communists, but many of the leaders he's been pushing and peddling to Americans as the right kind of leader are communists, like Xi Jinping, who he's always talking about how great he is, or the leader of North Korea."
Ben-Ghiat continued, saying that "at the most basic, authoritarianism is when the executive branch overwhelms and politicizes the other sides of the government so the leader is unrestrained. He can do whatever he wants. And this is of course Donald Trump's fantasy."
Host Alicia Menendez asked Protect Democracy director Ian Bassin how to help connect the dots for Americans that more power for Trump means less power for them.
"Well, I think we have to acknowledge that something is driving the support for him," said Bassin. "And part of it is that democracy is an imperfect form of government. It can be slow. It can be frustrating. Certainly, in recent years, it hasn't worked nearly as well as it needs to or should."
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What Americans don't realize, he said, is that most haven't experienced what happens "when you throw out democracy, as many people have done over history, and elect someone who says, I alone can fix this. Empower that person, just give me all the power and I'll cut through the morass and start delivering the things you want. And in the long run, that never works out well for that population, whether it is now in China, whether it is Daniel Ortega with Nicaragua, whether it is Vladimir Putin in Russia."
Bassin said that the people in those countries come to regret empowering their leader to take over. "And what Americans need to realize is don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Yes, democracy is important, but it's the worst form of government except for all the others."
See the conversation below or at the link here.
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