Ruth Ben-Ghiat is interested in authoritarianism. She is an expert on the rise of fascists in Italy and has written a book about the erosion of democracy in Russia and the US.
When those in power lose control, she is focused on what happens.
In November 2020, Ben-Ghiat wrote for The Washington Post. The ruler's charisma will be weakened until his own people turn against him.
Ben-Ghiat was not surprised when Donald Trump urged his supporters to go to the US Capitol to try to overturn the election. She argued that the rage that will grow in Trump may make for a rocky transition to Biden's presidency. Americans should be prepared.
She told CNN that one of the lies Trump said as they prepared to march on Congress was that he would be with them.
He wouldn't show.
Ben-Ghiat talked about why she thinks January 6 was an attempted coup, why it didn't work, and what the future holds.
What do you think about what you've seen so far? Have you been shocked by anything?
The fact that we are having these hearings is very hopeful and moving to me because in many places around the world these hearings would not be possible. If you couldn't have them, the investigators would be locked up. We should not take these hearings for granted since they remind us of how close we came to losing our democracy and how many people are in the inner circle of Trump.
The scope and gravity of January 6th are coming out, beyond the terrible events that day, when the police officer said she was slipping in people's blood. These are the details that are important to cut through the distraction of the Republican Party. The fact that this was a multi-pronged effort that stretched back months to overturn democracy is coming out very clearly.
You wrote that we should not dismiss this as an amateur operation. I want you to reply to those who think it was. Sidney Powell is the CEO of a mail-order pillow company. Is it possible to see his actions in the lead up to January 6th, as reckless, but also at the same time view him as someone who lacks the discipline to ever succeed?
I don't think it's that way. A lot of the people around him are easy to laugh at. The idea that these were not serious people and we have nothing to worry about is reinforced by the fact that Giuliani was drunk. They end up having a lot of incompetent people around them because they are threatened by people who are competent and what they really need around them are lackeys. Giuliani was listened to because Trump didn't listen to anyone. One of the big revelations is that. Everyone told him that he had lost.
Donald Trump doesn't care about the facts. Staying in power is the most important thing for them. I study autocrats who think they're going down and then they dream up their next moves. One thing that is haunting me, a lot, is if you put the pieces together, which is what these hearings are allowing us to do, is when the temporary Senate president, ChuckGrassley, on January 5th, said that he would be doing the Electoral College count, not Vice
It went out of the news cycle after getting attention. Chuck is in charge. These are important details if we believe that this is a coup attempt. One of the people above him was Nancy Pelosi. We were reminded once again that the mob was looking for Nancy Pelosi. If we think of January 6th in the frame of a coup attempt, and coup attempts are violent, this could have had a very different outcome than what we've seen in other countries.
It's easy to laugh at people who work hard, but it's not funny because we narrowly escaped an authoritarian takeover.
The idea that Trump lacked the discipline to be an effective authoritarian leader was one of the arguments against him.
"Make the trains run on time" was said of Mussolini, but I'm not sure if that is based on a misunderstanding. Is it correct that an autocrat cannot be an incompetent buffoon?
Part one and part two of this. One of the reasons autocrats invest huge amounts of propaganda and time in creating an image of themselves as infallible is that they can fix this on their own. This is the reason why Putin takes his shirt off and shows that he is competent and capable.
If you look at how their cabinets and their governments function, it's complete chaos. We had a small taste of that, even though we were still a democracy, because it was like a constant movement of people in and out. They argue that Pinochet brought order to the country, even though he shuffled his government almost 50 times. There is a lot of confusion in these governments. That's something. The trains do not run on time. When we're in a dictatorship, they forbid strikes so we don't really know what happens with the trains.
The other thing is that Trump was very focused on what he cared about. The money is an important finding and I'm very happy about it. The money should be followed. The congressman said the big lie was a ripoff. The aims of the president were completely different than those of any other president. He wanted to turn public office into a way of making money for himself, and to have private profit off of it.
The Washington Post had an excellent study. He spent one third of his time in office visiting Trump properties. He was funneling money from his followers to his loyalists in the form of a political action committee, but there was no fund to do that. There was a lot of anger going on. He was very disciplined in how he used the presidency to make money.
He was well-disciplined and capable of propaganda. He was a prolific user of the social media platform. He spent a great deal of time at that. I think the idea that he had no discipline is based on what other American heads of state have done. That framework isn't the right one. If we looked at what autocrats cared about, Trump was very disciplined at doing those things.
Is it possible to see January 6th as less of an attempted coup and more of a protest? Losing an election is not on-brand for a leader like this who can never admit fault. He just has to keep on believing. Maybe he believes it or he doesn't. Things just got out of hand.
That doesn't account for the violence that the Republicans would like you to believe. The hearings are centered on Trump's position on inciting violence. I've been looking at this for a long time. He started to encourage violence as soon as he arrived. He told people at rallies that they used to be able to rough people up. He tells people that it's okay to be violent for five years in a row. He created extremists from the Proud Boys to the neo-Nazis in Virginia. He knew that violence was part of the way that these people viewed life.
My reading is that he was throwing things at the wall. He was trying to get Michael Flynn to do something. That means violence. He was trying to manipulate the election in Georgia. That didn't work. He called everyone in and told them to attack the Capitol. He thinks that violence can change history. It was definitely a grift, but that's not the whole story. Today's autocrats are corrupt but also violent. All of these tools are being used at the same time. We can't say that January 6th was just about this or that, because we don't know. The thing was everything. It took a long time and ended in violence.
Let's acknowledge that January 6th was an attempted coup based on your research and knowledge. A successful coup is different from an attempted coup. How do countries that have experienced attempted coups make sure that it doesn't lead to a successful one?
That is a really interesting question. First of all, we are a democracy. Even though the Democrats are in power, and it was the Republicans who tried to overthrow them, they are not killed or in jail. We have hearings instead. It would be dealt with differently in other places. The Republicans in general and Fox News in particular are unrepentant and unremorseful about what occurred. They are still spouting the big lie and the election denial; it is now called "election integrity." They are still saying that it was a tourist visit.
If you studied coups, you would say, "Well, okay, they may try again", because one of the major parties is unrepentant about what happened. The history of coups shows that failed coups are learning experiences for the next coup. There are a lot of coups and they can look different.
It's hard for Americans to think about military coups because we think of them. The defense secretary was fired because General Milley wouldn't go along with it. That was looked at. The lesson of these things is that we shouldn't think it can't happen here, even if it's only in a film or a political thriller. Many countries that had coups and authoritarian takeovers thought it couldn't happen there. Then it happened.
The United States is still a democratic country. These hearings are the first on prime time television. When it seems like most people have already reached a conclusion about the partisan nature of these hearings, or that it's just a distraction from the problems we are facing, what is the point?
If you're concerned about preserving democracy, what else can you do other than hold these hearings in public and hope that you don't see that happening? People aren't going to be able to get it through partisan channels. Is there anything else that can be done?
There is a question of protecting democracy and then there is a question of having justice brought to the people who tried to overturn it. One is larger and the other is smaller. If you don't have rights, they're not a distraction because Trump was different than any other president in that he wasn't going to be the president of all Americans. He would be the leader of his supporters. Many autocrats were negligent about the swine flu. We had a lot of loss of life and economic hardship because of the way the epidemic was handled.
The sad thing is that autocrats are very popular with their fans. People are really fond of Trump. He has a group of people. They don't like their followers and use them. He grifted off of his followers. He is bilking his own followers because he isn't grifting off of Democrats. He has done that in business as well. He was under investigation when he was running for office. His model is that one. The economy is not advantaged if someone is authoritarian minded. They are not there to help the public. They aren't there for the public's well-being. They are there to make money for themselves and their family.
Despite the fact that half of the elected Republicans voted to overturn the election results, the party is poised to take one or both houses of Congress this fall. There is no political price to be paid for what happened two years ago.
It's correct. It's another example of the effectiveness of propaganda. One of the most effective propaganda campaigns in modern history will be studied for decades. It did a lot of things. It allowed Trump to convince people that he was not a loser and that he actually won the election. It's for his followers, who may think he won the election. He made them believe he did it. All of the Congress people who are supporting the big lie are aware that Trump lost the election. They are going along with this fantasy for political reasons.
The GOP is becoming authoritarian. It is similar to a far-right party. One of the biggest signs that you're going in this direction is that you eat your own. No dissent is allowed within the Republican Party. Exhibit A is what happened to Mike Biden. I am haunted by the fact that people were trying to kill Pence and that Trump said that he deserved to be put to death. It's not democracy if you follow the leader or you deserve to die. That doesn't have anything to do with democracy. The challenge in the future will be that one of our two parties is leaving democracy in favor of authoritarianism. I don't know where this will lead us, but it's not a good place to be.
I spoke to a historian who thought that American democracy wouldn't survive another Trump campaign. What do you think is happening? Do you believe that the step of a former president being indicted and criminally prosecuted could prevent an authoritarian opponent of democracy from winning in the future? If he became a martyr, we would have someone like a Ron DeSantis or a Tucker Carlson running on his legacy and the idea of him as a political prisoner.
That is a possibility. The history of these situations shows that prosecution creates martyrs and the idea of a witch hunt. Some people say that they cannot do that because of civil unrest. We already had a lot of trouble. 140 Capitol police were injured and some died on January 6. That isn't a deterrent because we already had that. In the long term, prosecution is one of the only things that deflates these guys' personality cults because they are built on the idea that they are impervious to change.
The personality cult starts to deflate when people are prosecuted for corruption or something like that. It has happened in a number of countries around the world. That is an argument for doing that.
The lessons of Trump have already been absorbed by the man. Whether it's in 2024 or later, he's ready to run a national campaign. He is a very dangerous person. Several essays on him have been written by me. He doesn't have the baggage of Trump and is dangerous. It is difficult to have the baggage of a man like Trump. Nobody else is like Trump because of his criminal past. It's possible that all of those things will happen.
We had 80 million people who did not vote. There are Republicans who do not approve of Trump. He is not good for the party. Brit began to talk about this, which was a bit of a breakthrough. It is possible that we get a different result and that nobody wants Trump back in because he won't be good for the country or the GOP. We will look at it.
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