Mark Meadows played key historical role as Trump's enabler: authoritarian expert

The unsealed 41-count indictment in Fulton County, Georgia, reveals text message exchanges between former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and other Trump allies that authorities describe as incriminating.

But Meadows’ mug shot from his surrender to authorities last week speaks volumes about elements of the Donald Trump’s authoritarian tendencies, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an NYU history professor, writes in a post.

The author of “Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present,” writes in a Substack post that Meadows fits a role integral to the authoritarianism as an enabler to the former president.

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She contends that Meadows is at the “center of this story of authoritarian corruption and violence.”

“Every coup has a central figure who has privileged access to the individual or individuals leading the takeover and acts as the liaison of the co-conspirators. Here that person was Meadows,” Ben-Ghiat writes.

She contends that Meadows’ mug shot “displays a mix of anger and exhaustion, is an artifact from a particular tradition: political elites who enabled authoritarians and then found themselves on the wrong side of history.”

“He glares at the camera, likely not quite believing that this is actually happening to him. Although there is a shade of humiliation, there is no visible remorse. Like so many others in the GOP, Meadows would likely do it all again if he knew it would succeed.”

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