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Eric Levai:
Welcome to counterintelligence. This is Eric Levai.. Today's guest is Professor Ruth Ben Ghiat an expert in authoritarianism at New York University forensic news. Thanks our patrons Angela J. Craig P and GMR support forensic news and counterintelligence unpatriotic. Without further ado here's the show.

Eric Levai:
Professor Ruth Ben Ghiat welcome to counter intelligence..

Ruth Ben-Ghiat:
Thank you for having me.

Eric Levai:
Thank you so much for doing this. So Professor you're an expert in history and your professor in history and authoritarianism.

Eric Levai:
I was wondering I want to ask you the big picture question first which is in your professional opinion what about Donald Trump what authoritarian kind of qualities to see have for lack of a better phrase Donald Trump in his personality and his methods.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat:
He pretty much maps on to the authoritarian personality 100 percent. He doesn't have the control of the government that past people had or somebody like Putin or even Orban but he his attitudes toward the press his use of violent language causing calling depressed traders his demand for absolute loyalty from everyone who is around him and his bullying. Many things are his distrust of his own intelligence services and attitude toward anyone who doesn't agree with him. All of this maps on to authoritarian leaders.

Eric Levai:
So and I'm just curious when you when all this started let's say as an expert in this did you see this coming from the minute he came down the escalator or when did you I mean when did when did he first jump out as that type of person to you.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat:
I started writing about him pretty early in 2015 the fall of 2015 and the first thing I noticed was I saw some video of one of his rallies and he was having people do the loyalty oath. And it was very clear to me that he was cultivating a kind of personality cult so so his behavior at rallies the way he was rallying them up to have enemies all of this seemed very familiar to me. And then when he started retweeting neo-Nazi you know anti-Semitic anti-immigrant propaganda basically racist propaganda from right wing sources this was also a big sign. So I started doing some op ed for CNN already in the fall of 2015.

Yeah I remember that propaganda well and I mean I'm Jewish and when I saw that I just you know like the alarm bells start going off. I was like wait a minute like the whole one with the quote unquote Sheriff star and. I guess it's just still shocking that this whole thing even happened. I mean that you know we can all remember times where it would have been Howard Dean spoke too loudly and his campaign was over. Whatever happened to that.

Yeah. What. What happens in history is sometimes there are these moments and they're usually moments of some kind of transition in society where certain people feel threatened. Often white males especially white Christian males and these characters come up in into politics often they come from outside of politics. They're not professional politicians and they kind of coalesce all of these anxieties dissatisfactions and hatreds that were in the culture and a they have this charisma and this ability to kind of have everything swirl around them and that's why they coalesce and once they get into power they have great great ability to harness and direct people's hatreds which is what we're seeing in our country and one of the most telling things is that lots of Americans were already anti-immigrant.

Lots of Americans were anti Semitic anti-Muslim but one hatred that Trump has been able to kind of whip up not out of nowhere but certainly in an unprecedented manner is hatred toward the press because there was always the kind of Fox News conservative shading into right wing radio that that didn't trust the liberal media.

But there was no no level of hatred with threats and T-shirts that say you know let's hang journalists this is all Donald Trump's doing so that's very notable that he has been able to have this power over people to marshal the feelings and that's the scariest thing.

In other examples in history was have other authoritarian style leaders then that's successful at demonizing the press or do you think that this is different in that respect.

Oh all of the authoritarian leaders demonize the press and they have very good reasons for doing so in their minds because when they're still getting power or until they kind of domesticate the press like Putin has been able to do attacking and trying to delegitimize and discredit the press as a kind of insurance policy for them because most of them are very corrupt and they know very well that they are had they have lots of secrets they don't want uncovered. So when those things come to light because of investigative journalists for example they need people to already be indoctrinated to hate the press. Right. So Trump's been extraordinarily successful with the full support of Rupert Murdoch and Fox who has he has a very symbiotic relationship with Fox unlike anything I've seen even in regimes.

I would say well so he's been very successful at doing this. And and that's whatever happens to Trump that's going to be a big problem for our country.

You know just purely on the I mean it just my brain always kind of works on the comedic level even even knowing what's going on. You reference the these people at these Trump rallies who are wearing these shirts demonizing journalists and I just called the comedian and he thinks. Like why would you spend that much of your day upset over. Look I feel like we all have so much going on in our lives I'm just like why would so much of your energy be directed towards hating somebody you don't even know. Like I just it just seems a strange way to go about your life. I guess that's my personal commentary on that.

Well because what these leaders do is they make people feel included by giving them a common Yemeni enemy to hate and in the case of Trump and the journalists all successful rulers have rituals and their rallies. If you listen to people who go to Trump's rallies they have a really good time.

They enjoy themselves. It's fun.

And they they love to Trump can't lock her up. So for example something I found really revealing is obviously Trump needed to have the whole locker up thing during the campaign because this was his political opponent Hillary Clinton after he won. There was a little period where he would go to rallies and he would say we don't need to do that chant anymore because it's over. But he found that because remember he's a marketer and everything he does the rallies are like a focus group. So he found that it was really popular that people needed to chant I hate to press. CNN and lock her up so that that's why it seems absurd to everybody. Why. You know the campaign is over. It's been over for years and yet people are still chanting that.

Yeah it's interesting. And I remember I used to work with some folks who I'm sure became this was a while ago but I'm sure they became rabid Trump supporters and I just remember once or do you know it's like a office environment. And I remember just making a remark once a critical remark of President Bush and I was shocked by the reaction I got.

It was a it was like a rabid type of reaction like I had not only I had not criticized I had attacked them personally and our country. I mean it really took me aback. I mean that's what it's not an attack on. It's it's like it's really something emotional with these people is it not.

It is. And and in the case of Bush you he wasn't trying on purpose to whip people up into a frenzy. What's different about Trump is he really does use the method of authoritarian leaders. Yes and that's why I focused on the loyalty and I only I can fix it only I am right. This kind of thing has rarely been seen in presidents even corrupt ones like Nixon who had you know some some similar personality traits but Trump goes way beyond it. And there's a reason you know his first wife Ivana said once that you know in his bedroom he only had two books and one was of course the art of the deal and the other was Hitler's speeches.

Well that's that's almost too on the nose like if I wrote that as a screenwriter they would just the producer would just be like now.

But it's there's a lot of almost every single day now and I am one of these people who you know looks to Twitter for the first round of my news gathering every day. Sure. And I see things that I think are the onion.

They're satire and then they turn out not to be. There was one today was I mean it was The Onion. But you can't tell it was Bolton tells Iran you know to stop bucking under him like he was basically pumping up Iran to feel better. And I was like oh I could see him doing that to antagonize them.

Yeah. And the other thing that's really disturbing that happens when you have rulers like Trump is they are not the most honest people.

And so they end up populating government with people who are dishonest like them. And so corruption becomes much more common.

You also tend to have even like felons in fact in 2000 18 several convicted felons ran for office with the GOP. You have an awful lot of people who cycled to his cabinet who have accusations of domestic violence sexual assault including on the Supreme Court now. So this is a very unfortunate effect of having somebody in office who has so much so much baggage and just just today New York Magazine has a cover story of someone else who was assaulted by him years ago I read the oh I'm sorry go yeah no.

So this is this is a byproduct. And in my work I'm doing which is this historical comparative work for this book I'm writing called strong man. This is something that happens every time you get you get a lot of kind of criminals in office.

That's absolutely fascinating. Is the book going to be coming out sooner when can we read this.

Will be coming out sometime in 2020. Not not before the summer.

Good. Good. And hopefully maybe by then will I care. I'm really looking forward to reading it and I hope maybe by then we'll have some kind of well. Who am I kidding we won't have any resolution on this situation. But I would. Oh I would like to believe that. I did want to go back to the press for a sec. I'm sure you saw as a as a frequent Twitter user and so my that some members of the press are throwing a little after work drinks for Sarah Huckabee.

I did see that.

I think this is this is the most misguided thing possible because I've said from the very start the first time that Trump insulted the press and he told I believe it was Jim Acosta to sit down. I tweeted that based on you know my knowledge of these guys these kinds of rulers and what everyone needed to do was show solidarity and stand up and I guarantee you it is very at the very beginning if the press had been aggressively in solidarity with one another he would be acting in slightly different manner.

So to to give a party for a professional propaganda which is what Sanders and Kellyanne Conway. These are professional paid propaganda to give a party for someone like that is normalising all of their lies.

Do you have as a as an expert in this topic. Giovanni insight into the psychology of those particular press members or is it the same as the psychology of any enabler of a third term.

It me somebody like Sanders or like the her friends in the president.

Yeah the ones in the. I'm just curious like are they. Is there any. I'm curious about their personal psychology of why they would want to let's say throw a party for someone who has spent two years or a year whatever insulting them to their face. I mean what is that.

Yeah. It's an interesting question I think. I think that there's always a lot of denial. I think that it's very threatening. What is happening in our country now is very upsetting. It's very frightening. It's threatening so a lot of people especially if they depend on access to the White House for their doing their jobs and distinguishing themselves you know versus their colleagues. They can be the most in denial of all right because they want to make nice. They want to feel that Sarah Sanders is not really. I see these people as subversive of democracy. I see them. I'm very hardcore about the exam and that's not an attitude a lot of people like to take and easier to pretend that everything's OK and raise a glass of champagne together and personal life is that one thing you know business is another. But the problem is in these in these times when you have an authoritarian trying to take over the personal versus the business is is very blurred.

Yeah it's very strange. I mean I watch this as as you have in real time and like you said it's just at the beginning. They just stood together and said You know what. No. Maybe you can give us some historical perspective. But in other examples of authoritarianism or let's say in other you know examples in the world where those were those people the leaders they just they don't seem like very smart people yet so many people are unable to fight them is it usually like that it's just not.

It is one of the one of the things that you see over and over again is that the opposition does not unite against them. And the other thing that you see is that these people are bullies and everything they do is testing and challenging. This is why Trump said before he even had the nomination that he could stand on Fifth Avenue and shoot someone which was like a very bizarre thing. Who in their right mind would say such a violent thing when they're trying to get the nomination right. But what he was doing was telling people he was violent and he is capable of you know already he's capable of ordering violence and he's above the law. So it's so that it's a very smart strategy and what happens is over and over again it's people get intimidated. But what I'm very sad about is that a lot of the cases I study you have people who have taken over with paramilitaries. You have military coups and there are huge physical consequences for speaking out. You go to jail you get beaten up here. We there are no real consequences yet in that way. Right. And yet people are very cowardly and they don't want to speak up. They don't wanted to sit down when he insults someone or stand up they don't want to do the big gesture. And that bothers me and I also think that Americans don't have any idea what it's like because they can take their democracy for granted. And the mail allow the mail I get especially early on when I was one of the first people to you know be very outspoken. I used to get a lot of mail from people who fled regimes well who fled like either communist regimes or military coups and they would write to me and say why or what I think. Thank you for seeing this. But why is no one else seeing it.

Yeah it's amazing you think of like like it. I can imagine like like ghosts of my ancestors who met very unfortunate ends with you know regimes like that and you're I mean they would just be like apoplectic like you know.

Yes. So we go back to the denial which again you know people say and I'm not comparing what we're going through now to the 1930s Germany Sure. But people say well why didn't the Jews leave when it was clear what was going on. You know even in the mid 30s and there there is denial. People want to believe that it's just going to be fine. Some people can't leave. They don't have the means to leave. But we we should know better because we have the benefit of history.

And I'm going to go back to the on the human level. We've now learned that Trump was the basis for the character of Biff in Back To The Future. One of the greatest movies ever. And audiences get so much I don't know if you're a fan of the movies or not but there's so much enjoyment visceral enjoyment in that movie when finally the protagonist knocks that character out. And you know audiences go crazy in it. I don't understand why we have right now the real life version and anybody I don't mean like physically that should happen. But I just mean these like go back to the White House if you're face to face with this guy. I mean why would you not just tell them the truth. You could become an American hero if one reporter just said you know you're a huge liar.

Yeah. This is a source of frustration to many of us including you know critics professional critics of the press like Jay Rosen or Margaret Sullivan. I and some of them say it's the model of journalism which is access journalism. If you do that you'll be you'll be banned basically. And they don't want to risk it because then if Sarah especially if they're a White House correspondent and they he's already revoked a lot of press credentials. Yes. And you can if you work for a big outlet you can get reassigned. But it's there. There again in my book The consequences are very small compared to the things that I studying. But I have been very disappointed that people have these wonderful primetime on air chances to shame him and to stand up to him and they're just not taking they're not taking them.

It's crazy like I literally would I would give anything to be in that situation and just be able to speak freely like do what I do and I don't know maybe maybe forensic news will be able to get a pass in there probably no.

I'm guessing it's not it's hard to get approved at this point they don't know well they don't even have meetings anymore so they don't know and that's a sign of what these authoritarians are deathly afraid of questions and they're actually very weak people and so they wall themselves off. They have they surround themselves with family they hired their family and loyalists and they don't want to be facing the press they all they all do this. And it's we're living through this process in real time which is pretty amazing if you step back and can be objective. But it's also quite frightening.

Yeah. What are they on the opposite front. What are the characteristics of a person let's say even yourself or myself who does not respond to authoritarianism or other qualities in people like like that like us. What do you mean like why does one person respond to someone like Donald Trump and someone else just. You would tell him to f off or whatever.

Well that's interesting. Yeah.

That's like the 64000 dollar question scares.

Yeah. It's it's hard to say. I mean we we we can't just say that all Trump supporters are stupid because that's absolutely not right. So more ignorant that's that's really condescending. They tend to be people who are looking for the they feel threatened. They feel that they want the savior to make things better in their lives. But some of it does have to do with education. But that's that's a quality and then some people are more susceptible to be to respond to these charismatic male leader figures. And it happened over and over again.

Very interesting. Yeah. In the in. Recently in the news. I mean I mean when I say recently I mean in the last week or two or have there been any any stories that stood out to you as a further example of how this country is going down this dark road. Anything that jumped out at you.

No there's so many. Yeah that's true. I know I'm trying to think of just one.

I'm very I'm very worried about the corruption and the way that while we're distracted by the Miller report and the impeachment you know lack of impeachment proceedings his administration is stripping America and selling it for parts of the EPA. There are big big changes taking place at the level of bureaucracy which consume very boring people but are very important. There's been huge purges of bureaucracy where people have either left because of hostile work climates or they've been fired. And he is reshaping the bureaucracy to be able to do the things he wants to do. Think about who has to be working at Homeland Security to process to do all the paperwork of this of these kind of camps where kids are dying.

You have to have the right kind of people there who are going to want to do that work. So that's something that's a story that's behind the scenes a little bit.

And I'm I am I am worried about that right exactly like the footage which has now gone to semi viral of the United States attorney arguing attempting to argue why Kitson be able to be there have toothbrushes which I know you saw.

Yeah yeah. And this because authoritarians need they need bureaucrats to do their evil right work. And what happens after a while is there's a cultural shift and this is part of having crooks come to power but you also have people who are in my book they lack morals. They don't care about human life. And then you get into really bad situations.

Why not know why. Well maybe you could just comment on the Democrats strategy or whatever they're doing. I mean any laxity of yes that's yeah I think we're on the set. Yeah. What do you. Yeah. What's going on there.

I'm like many. I've been frustrated with the hesitancy of the Democratic leadership to pursue impeachment hearings and my particular reason for being frustrated is knowing the psychology and the methods of authoritarians. They only respond to forceful pushback. Exactly. And the worst thing you can do is it's like the schoolyard bully. But magnified. And with nuclear weapons the worst thing you can do is talk about maybe standing up to him in public and then not do it because he's just going to feel more and more empowered to do the things he wants to do which are not going to be in the national interest. So I've sort of been quite I've been quite upset about that.

I keep I keep saying that we should all chip in for a psychiatrist for not for. Well Trump needs one two but four for the Democrats. I just reading the story today where Nadler Representative Nadler. We're saying that it's actually good that whole picks didn't say anything because he's gonna use that and I mean I was laughing it was like it was like when someone tells you the checks in the mail or the rationalization.

Yeah. And the problem with that is that these people need to be forced to testify in public. Right. This is also about holding them accountable. And it's very different for how to have to be treated with television cameras on her. Or of course you know all all of the the hearings and things they should. And of course the purpose of the impeachment hearings whatever happens is to provide the nation with you know a kind of real time record of people answering questions about their wrongdoing. And this is why people feel so frustrated.

Yeah that's why I ask you two more things. The first is we're. and you're a professional opinion and is of course just you know an American. Where do you see this gone. Where where are we going right now as a country. How really.

Yeah well it could be nowhere good fast if Bolton gets his way and we go to war with Iran. I.

I have you know various scenarios about what could happen in the election. I think it be very important to register as many Democratic voters as possible because it's we're going to need a massive win to counter any manipulation that is happening and is not is being actively encouraged. Right. You have passive encouragement by refusing to hear about Trump doesn't even want to hear about infiltration and manipulation and so. So it's very. And one thing that's very scary is people are starting to accept that oh yes we are going to just have an unfair election so that that's different that's a difficult situation. I feel that if he wins again he's going to move even faster to consolidate his power. And we don't know what that will look like. Exactly. But I also am worried about. I was thinking the military would oppose him more because so many retired generals have been so outspoken. But that was an early period I went through and now I feel that Pentagon is completely domesticated. Well and they've gotten a lot more money. They're in charge of security clearances. They're agreeing to you know be involved with migrant removal. So there's gonna be like a forever war on the border. And that will be their role. And that's not good either. So I wish I could be more optimistic but because I am an optimist by nature about human beings. But but I don't see unless you simply defeated in a fair and free election. I don't see any good scenarios coming out of this.

What jumped out at me is what I thought was a turning point and then everything that's happened was the other day when he told George Stephanopoulos I'm going to do it again I'll commit treason and authoritarians always tell you what they can do.

Oh they oh this is a. Well this. They always tell you what they're going to do and we just don't know what to do with the information or we don't want to believe it.

I was shocked me was I think I said this on another show was not even that that was shocking but what really shocked me was the next day I was like OK this is going to Democrats have to do something nope I'm sort of at a loss for words at this point I guess I'm still trying to figure out how a person who literally looked into an eclipse intimidates people like I keep going back to that. It just it's just.

Yeah. Yeah. He talks a good game and people fall for it. So just one more question of.

What can every American do to fight this in their own way.

I think everyone has their own way that they can get involved to oppose this nonviolent mass protest. Very effective. We're kind of in an exhaustion moment. So there's not much going on of that working for clean elections for voter registration is very very important because all these other things that we debate in the press it really all comes down to who's going to vote. If people don't vote then all the rest all the OP ads all of it doesn't mean anything so that that is that is an important thing to focus on.

We write no matter what happens and then we have to come out in such huge numbers that it'll be much harder to pull any of that nonsense. That's right. Well Professor Ruth Mangia I really want to thank you for talking to counterintelligence and I really hope we can do it again soon.

Yes.

Thank you for having me. Thank you for listening. Follow forensic news on Twitter. Forensic NEWSNIGHT counterintelligence is an Intel pod. My personal account is Eric Levai. support forensic news on Patreon. Sponsors can contact counterpart at Pro Tom Malcolm subscribe to counterintelligence everywhere you listen to podcasts. Take care.

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