What Happens When a Megalomaniac Begins to Fail
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The New Yorker
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 14 February 2026
⏱️ 36 minutes
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Summary
The Washington Roundtable discusses Donald Trump’s recent “explosion of the ego” and tendency toward megalomania, and they consider how the evolution of autocratic regimes in history can help us to predict how the rest of his Presidency may unfold. They are joined by Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a professor of history and Italian studies at New York University, who is the author of “Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present.” The group looks at how, as autocrats’ popularity decreases—as Trump’s has recently in the polls—these figures develop paranoia and entrench themselves in untenable positions, a phenomenon called “autocratic backfire.” “The key is that they end up constructing a kind of echo chamber. And so they overestimate their own abilities,” Ben-Ghiat says. “They start to believe their own propaganda.”
This week’s reading:
- “ ‘If We Don’t Have Free Speech, Then We Just Don’t Have a Free Country,’ ” by Susan B. Glasser
- “Pam Bondi’s Contempt for Congress,” by Ruth Marcus
- “Is There a Remedy for Presidential Profiteering?,” by David D. Kirkpatrick
- “What Does Xi Jinping Want?” by Isaac Chotiner
- “Bad Bunny’s All-American Super Bowl Halftime Show,” by Kelefa Sanneh
- “Jeffrey Epstein’s Bonfire of the Élites,” by John Cassidy
The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week.
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| 0:00.0 | In a world of insanity and insane headlines, the story about what is going on inside DHS right now, the bizarre relationship between Christy Noem and Corey Lewandeschi. |
| 0:13.0 | Oh, we're talking about that Wall Street Journal story. |
| 0:15.9 | I mean, the blanket? |
| 0:17.4 | The blanket. |
| 0:18.9 | I know. |
| 0:19.6 | But who doesn't fire their pilot over, you know, misplacing a blanket? |
| 0:23.4 | Listen, we all know that losing a binky is a really sad thing. |
| 0:29.1 | It's hard when your security blanket disappears. |
| 0:32.4 | Particularly under the age of sex. |
| 0:34.0 | Yeah. |
| 0:34.6 | I mean, especially when you're 54, as she is. I mean, part of the reason it's so gruesome is that DHS is the, of course, the agency |
| 0:41.7 | responsible for so much of what is happening in front of our faces in Minneapolis and elsewhere. |
| 0:47.4 | And the idea that this agency itself is convulsing around some of the most, according |
| 0:52.3 | to this Wall Street Journal piece, the most extraordinary abuses and corrupt abuses of power and privilege, allegedly using that 737 to go |
| 1:00.2 | around like it's their private plane is really wild. Well, that's the thing. It's the juxtaposition, |
| 1:05.1 | right? That's so horrible. I want to call out an incredible piece of reporting, in fact, that |
| 1:09.9 | ProPublica did this week of, you know, getting accounts from children who are being held in one of these facilities in Texas and the conditions there. |
| 1:21.1 | Whatever your position on immigration, every American ought to be ashamed that this is what we're doing to people who came to this country. |
| 1:28.1 | If you want to deport them fine, but to keep them in conditions like this is a scar and a shame upon the country. |
| 1:34.3 | And so to have her flying around with her alleged boyfriend, Corey Lewandowski, and, you know, behaving like, you know, sort of Marie Antoinette is really all the more horrifying. |
| 1:48.0 | Well, like, you know, sort of Marie Antoinette is really all the more horrifying. Welcome to the political scene from The New Yorker, a weekly discussion about the big |
| 1:52.0 | questions in American politics. I'm Evan Osnos, and I'm joined as ever by my colleagues, Jane, |
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