The GOP is 'enthralled to cult leader' Trump as part of 'authoritarian discipline': expert
Ayman Mohyeldin spoke to historian and fascism expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat and walked through the ways in which the Republican Party has submitted itself to an "authoritarian discipline" while being led by a cult leader like Donald Trump.
Speaking Sunday, she explained the "authoritarian bargain" adopted by other Republican leaders.
"What strikes me the most is that they are enthralled to this cult leader and that he has been able to subject the party to a kind of authoritarian discipline where it's all about loyalty," Ben-Ghiat explained. "And the other thing that strikes me is you, and I talk about Middle Eastern and other dictators. If you have any subordination in those contexts, you go to jail or get killed. Here these people are willingly being complicit in the attempt to destroy our justice system and our democracy, and they are not going to be killed or jailed. They would maybe lose their political career like Jeff Sessions when he refused to perjure himself for Trump as attorney general. So, that's a very sad commentary on the level of cowardice and the level of opportunism among the GOP."
In her substack, Ben-Ghiat writes: "Trump is an expert manipulator of people, and the GOP lawmakers who engage in public displays of fealty know that opposing him could mean the end of their political careers."
Mohyeldin wondered what was compelling the Republicans to buy into that kind of ideology.
"Is it safe to say that a large swath of the GOP today puts power over country, and that's what's compelling them?" Mohyeldin asked. "They simply just don't want to lose power or the access to power that comes with the positions through Donald Trump?"
She explained it as a combination of power and fear.
It's "fear of howling having their secrets, whatever they are, revealed. Donald Trump is a decades-old blackmailer. An expert in what the Russians call kompromat. So, there's that kind of fear, as well as opportunism. And this idea that is very compelling that you could have as much power as possible, but then for the fanatics like Jim Jordan and Ron DeSantis, they do buy into this idea of an authoritarian vision of power which is limitless. It's a fantasy, but it's very compelling in those who have that temperament."
See the full discussion in the video below or at the link here.
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