Ruth Ben-Ghiat is a professor of history and Italian studies at New York University. She writes frequently about authoritarianism and Donald Trump for the media.
Posted on 01/04/2021 4:47:13 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
Adolf Hitler retreated to his Führerbunker as the Allies advanced into Germany in the spring of 1945, leaving Germans to their fates. Moammar Gadhafi holed up in his fortress on the outskirts of Tripoli, refusing to surrender when Libyans took up arms against him. And President Donald Trump has turned the White House into his own refuge as he desperately seeks to remain in power despite having lost the presidential election.
Trump has followed an authoritarian, rather than a democratic, playbook as president. It is fitting that he would end up like some of history's best-known autocrats: hunkered down in his safe space, surrounded by his latest crop of unhinged loyalists, trying pathetically to escape the reality of his defeat.
On Saturday, Trump literally begged Georgia's secretary of state to overturn the election results. "The people of Georgia are angry. The people in the country are angry," Trump said in the call, a recording of which was obtained by NBC News.
Yet because Trump did not succeed in destroying democracy, the media and the political opposition have left a public record of the kinds of authoritarian dynamics we normally hear about only from exiles or dissenters. Large news outlets invested in new investigative teams to cover Trump's corruption, and their fact-checkers were kept busy calling out his lies.
It is rare in history that a process of authoritarian capture is interrupted, but that's what happened when Americans voted Trump out. Many members of the GOP, still loyal to Trump, are likely to wage war on the Biden administration. The dangers to our republic from illiberal forces are far from over. Yet a new vigilance and activism have gained ground. We will need them, and a robust free media, to protect our democracy in the turbulent years to come.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
Ruth Ben-Ghiat is a professor of history and Italian studies at New York University. She writes frequently about authoritarianism and Donald Trump for the media.
No.....Trump set up a brilliant sting operation, getting everything on record. Can’t wait for the Project Veritas videos to drop this morning as confirmation.
“Hilter” == you lost the argument
How queer she brings up Hiltery Rotten Clinton’s coup/murder of Gadaffi...
NBC - You lost the reader.
These people are clinically insane.
She regularly writes for cnn.com, The Atlantic and The Huffington Post.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Ben-Ghiat
Nothing
But
Crap
They are paid propaganda prostitutes.
Real prostitutes would also the dog out of them.
Cautionary tale.
When you meet someone and introductions are being presented and someone or many someone’s start presenting their name with the words “ I identify as xi they, they, so xyz etc etc.”
Smile, turn and walk away, you will save humanity.
Another anti Trump article posted by the old Econ buyer? Beginning to wonder about you dude.
Funny thing. When you look over your head and see nothing but incoming missiles for four years, you start to think you need the protection of a bunker...
On the other hand, look at frequent appearances among throngs of supporters and availability to the hostile press that this president has subjected himself to.
That’s hardly isolationism or ‘bunker mentality’, in my mind.
Idiots.
Wow. Talk about projection.
The Left has been doing nothing but lies for five years.
They are the ones actively destroying democracy and the Republic.
academia is lost. couldn’t resist checking how she views Biden/Harris. sycophantically, of course. video of Biden has circle behind him as a HALO, just as FakeNewsMSM used to do for Obama:
25 Nov: CNN: How Biden and Harris can overturn Trump’s misogynistic agenda
Opinion by Ruth Ben-Ghiat
Editor’s note: Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a frequent contributor to CNN Opinion, is professor of history at New York University and the author of “Strongmen: From Mussolini to the Present.”
The Biden-Harris administration’s first tasks will be to tame the raging pandemic and mitigate its effects on the economy so that a nation exhausted by illness, loss of loved ones, and increased caregiving responsibilities can start to heal. Yet four years of having a brutal misogynist in the White House also shows the urgency of addressing structural racial and gender inequities in society and tracing a path that encourages rather than punishes female autonomy and power...
Given this history, the number of White women who voted for Trump in 2020 as in 2016, may seem puzzling. Yet today’s illiberal leaders often enjoy popularity among women. Some grant maternal assistance and other social welfare benefits (like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán) and women of the “right” skin color, sexual orientation and religion certainly fare better than women and men of marginalized groups who are often the target of the strongman’s autocratic rhetoric and policies...
Biden’s first decisions as a leader, along with his calm communications, and his own evident respect for his wife, professor Jill Biden, will provide a needed counter-example, as will the vision and words of Harris, a seasoned prosecutor and a woman of color whose charisma resides not in her skill at dominating others but in her desire for connection and collaboration. Together, they can model a different kind of leadership, one that Americans need and deserve.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/25/opinions/biden-harris-overturn-trump-strongman-misogyny-ben-ghiat/index.html
An NBC opinion is about as valuable as the toilet it was broadcast from.
F NBC, which I do not watch anymore.
If this was ABC News we could say “A Mickey Mouse Operation”.
Ruthie darling...
at this point its pretty obvious we’ve had a foreign coup disguised as a US Presidential election
it was “beautifully” and precisely timed. In fact it is about the ONLY POSSIBLE way to have taken down the USA
NBC is comcast
Comcast is an existential American enemy, more dangerous than Russia or China or Iran
Anyone who makes the Hitler comparison should be forced to watch the Holocaust series on Amazon Prime.
Do these people even know what they are saying???
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