Authoritarianism expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat on Monday addressed the moment at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee when Republicans chanted the word “fight” soon after GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump walked into the auditorium.
The chant referenced the former president saying the word — while pumping his fist — immediately after surviving an assassination attempt during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, over the weekend.
Ben-Ghiat, a history professor at New York University and the author of “Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present,” who has frequently warned of the authoritarian aspects of a potential second Trump presidency, wrote on social media: “You know what to do, Americans. We can avoid this nightmare. Never become resigned or fatalistic. That’s what they want.”
Following the attempt on Trump’s life, there have been bipartisan calls to tone down political rhetoric (which Republicans didn’t really adhere to during the first day of the convention).
Ben-Ghiat, however, commented: “The pivot delusion/propaganda point has returned! Sorry but Trump’s idea of unity is everyone behind him or else. He tells his own supporters that if they vote for him and die ‘it will be worth it.’ No pivoting out of that.”
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It’s a sobering thought to know that these are the people who will be leading in the next administration, one that has all of its fascist bonafides democratically validated.
The only thing that would have changed this was an immediate, unwavering, and unambiguous focus on poverty by the Biden Adminstration.
What got Trump elected the first time was the fact that Obama looked at the foreclosure crisis and didn’t do anything meaningful to help the people who were victimized by the big banks.
Now, it’s inflation and cost-of-living that’s victimizing the poor, and precious little’s been done to alleviate it by Joe Biden, so I think it’s inevitable that Trump will be reelected. People don’t care about fascism when the guy in charge has clearly shown he doesn’t care if your family starves.
On this subject, I recently read They Thought They Were Free last year. I keep seeing parallels that are unnerving. I fear we have already gone beyond the tipping point.
