Ruth Ben-Ghiat: Strongmen, Trump's Future, Predicting Path of American Authoritarianism

That Trippi Show

Joe Trippi

Politics, News Commentary, Government, News

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 9 November 2021

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

As the Jan. 6 investigation in the House unfolds, historian and professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat joins the show to put America's authoritarian impulses in historical and global context. She contrasts Trump to historical autocrats, puts some of his skills and tendencies under the microscope, and helps diagnose the temperature of the movement in the country today. She offers some hopeful reasons for why Trump could fade in future elections, but also warnings about what has or hasn't been addressed since Jan. 6. Check out Ruth's Substack here: https://lucid.substack.com/ And buy her book, Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present, here: https://www.amazon.com/Strongmen-Mussolini-Present-Ruth-Ben-Ghiat/dp/0393868419/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=strongman+ruth+benghiat&qid=1636399469&sr=8-1Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/that-trippi-show/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey everybody it's Joe Trippy and welcome back to that Trippy show.
0:11.8	Today we welcome a guest I've been excited about talking to for a while.
0:15.7	Her perspective on defending democracy
0:18.0	and the fight versus authoritarianism is really unique.
0:22.2	Ruth Ben Giat is the author of Strongman, Mussolini to the
0:26.2	president and she has a newsletter called Lucid on Threats to Democracy.
0:30.4	We'll put a link to that in our show notes.
0:33.4	Welcome, Ruth.
0:34.6	Thank you.
0:35.3	Glad to be here.
0:36.6	Look, I wanted to ask.
0:38.9	Look, I think your book is a must read.
0:41.7	It really illustrates quite a bit about where we are, how we got here.
0:46.4	This has been an emotion for a long time and that Trump learned a lot of lessons from previous authoritarians out there.
0:55.0	And one of the biggest points you make in your book
0:58.2	is how close we came to the edge in 2020
1:02.1	and that Republicans haven't stopped pushing towards authoritarianism.
1:06.0	I want to get your take on sort of the big news infrastructure and in what's been going on
1:12.0	with bills passing in Congress. We will get to that a little later
1:15.0	but I do want you to talk a bit about where we are where you see us right now in this crisis.
1:27.0	Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned 2020 because if you look at it, so Strongman is the first book that places Trump in the context of
1:32.0	100 years of authoritarian history.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Joe Trippi, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Joe Trippi and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.