Authoritarian expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat: It's time to take our country back from Trump/Musk—and here is how.

Resistance is not futile!

When I’ve spoken to authoritarian expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat in the past—as I have for the last decade—I expect to leave the conversation more concerned about our democratic Republic than we began our chat. But at this point, it’s just about impossible to be more worried for our democracy since Donald Trump has been sworn in and has unleashed Elon Musk and the Project 2025 agenda.

But in our discussion on Friday, Ben-Ghiat inspiringly laid out how we can and must take our nation back from Trump and MAGA. Now, the best-selling author of the book, Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present, did of course begin with highlighting her concerns given the first month of Trump’s regime.

For starters, she explained that Trump is not an “isolationist” but rather an “imperialist”—like Vladimir Putin—and is currently “realigning and reorienting our nation to engage with autocracies.” She ticked off examples such as Trump “going after Greenland,” seeking to acquire Canada and Gaza as well as renaming the Gulf of Mexico into the Gulf of America. These--as Ben-Ghiat--noted are all imperialist acts.

Ben-Ghiat—who writes the Substack newsletter, Lucid, that I wholeheartedly recommend—also flagged Trump’s effort to overwhelm us as something seen after coups. Trump is “taking a wrecking ball to the government agencies and seeking to tear down the very building blocks of our governance.” She described it alarmingly as “a laboratory for the destruction of government and making it into something else.” That something else being Trump elevating himself to in essence a dictator.

The NYU professor also raised very bright red flags about Elon Musk’s role in the government, dubbing it a “new form of coup.” Ben-Ghiat noted that on some level Trump has become a “figurehead” who simply signs executive orders placed in front of him—but Musk is increasingly the one with the power. She explained that Musk’s goal is to gain control of the government from the inside to financially reward himself and his fellow billionaires.

I know you must be thinking: But where is the uplifting part of Ben-Ghiat’s comments?! Here you go. First, the expert on all things autocracy made it clear that the individual acts of resistance we are seeing are vital.

She explained, “This is really important and because right now people are demoralized and they feel that they've been let down by all kinds of institutions.” Ben-Ghiat noted, “They don't see the Democratic party stepping up sufficiently. There are people who are being really heroic like Rep. Maxwell Frost and Sen. Chris Murphy, who are speaking out, but as a party they don't see an adequate response.” Overall, as she summed up, people “feel undefended.”

That is why to Ben-Ghiat the profiles in courage and resistance are so significant—be it protests to federal judges to media organizations. The goal of Trump--like all autocrats and dictators--is to make you feel that “resistance is futile,” but as she explained, history shows us that people standing up to that leader has inspired others to do the same. (This is the very reason I’ve written weekly articles since Trump was sworn in of “profiles in resistance.”)

She then added what we need to do collectively: “It's time for us to take back our country.” Ben-Ghiat recommended we steal that term from the right and make it our own rallying cry. In addition, she gave concrete examples of what more we can do—such as getting involved in grassroots activist groups so you have a support network.

Another approach she championed was “investing time in your local government, your school boards.” Ben-Ghiat explained this is in essence “reversing the precinct strategy of Steve Bannon where he said, ‘yeah, we're gonna we're gonna conquer it from the ground up.’” She added, “Well, guess what: we can reconquer it.”

There is no sugar coating where we find ourselves. As Ben-Ghiat explained, Trump is identical to the “Strongmen” she wrote about in her book. Their common denominator was “corruption, violence, propaganda and personality cults.”

But there is something else they all had in common: Their time in power came to an end--often very badly for them--when the people rose up. How that will manifest in the United States is still an open question. But there is no doubt that day is coming.

You can listen to my entire interview with Ruth Ben-Ghiat below:

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If you want something lighter, here is the weekly segment on my show “What Just Happened?!” where I’m joined by three comedians to break down the news of the week. Joining me this week are well-known political comic Jimmy Tingle, comedian/disability activist Maysoon Zayid and comedian/host Brian Wohl.

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