Authoritarianism Expert Talks to Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway About Trump and ‘What’s Happened In America’

AP Photo/Paul Sancya

Historia Ruth Ben-Ghiat, joined the most recent episode of the Pivot podcast and spoke to hosts Scott Galloway and Kara Swisher about how Donald Trump mirrors the rise of authoritarian leaders – her area of focus.

“What is it about the atmospherics in the U.S. that has led the populace to support this individual, who we all agree, does not acquit himself as we would want someone who wants to be the president. What’s happened in America? What’s changed here?” Galloway asked Ben-Ghiat.

“There are patterns to these things. When there’s been a perception that there’s been too much social progress and certain people are losing out. Could be conservative elites, who are worried about losing their privileges. It could be people thinking there’s too much gender emancipation, too much, racial emancipation. You get a kind of counterrevolution,” replied Ben-Ghiat, who is the author of the book Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present.

“That’s, that’s a big word, or you get a backlash. And that’s when somebody like a Donald Trump is appealing. But, a Donald Trump also, models himself for that environment,” she continued, adding:

And the thing about these strongmen is that they’re highly sensitive to they read the marketplace and they understand what is wanted. And they model themselves. It will be whatever they need to be to get to power because they have no morals. They’re just about getting control. So Donald Trump comes up and he was the perfect person as the anti-Obama. And he he was the the male brute.

So he addressed the people who felt that, you know, women had too much power. Same-sex marriages were taking over all of the racial stuff. And he also told these people that he loved them, that they were the forgotten. And so there’s a sense that he’s not just going to represent them. He’s going to protect them and take care of them.

“So daddy, a big daddy,” interjected Swisher.

‘He’s daddy, and once they bond to him and they feel protected, but they’re also protective of him because he’s also the victim. It’s highly effective, this manipulation of emotion,” Ben-Ghiat concluded.

Watch the clip above via Pivot.