The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present by Ruth Ben-Ghiat

Episode Date: December 1, 2020

Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present by Ruth Ben-Ghiat What modern authoritarian leaders have in common (and how they can be stopped). Ruth Ben-Ghiat is the expert on the "strongman" playbook employed by authoritarian demagogues from Mussolini to Putin―enabling her to predict with uncanny accuracy the recent experience in America. In Strongmen, she lays bare the blueprint these leaders have followed over the past 100 years, and empowers us to recognize, resist, and prevent their disastrous rule in the future. For ours is the age of authoritarian rulers: self-proclaimed saviors of the nation who evade accountability while robbing their people of truth, treasure, and the protections of democracy. They promise law and order, then legitimize lawbreaking by financial, sexual, and other predators. They use masculinity as a symbol of strength and a political weapon. Taking what you want, and getting away with it, becomes proof of male authority. They use propaganda, corruption, and violence to stay in power. Vladimir Putin and Mobutu Sese Seko’s kleptocracies, Augusto Pinochet’s torture sites, Benito Mussolini and Muammar Gaddafi’s systems of sexual exploitation, and Silvio Berlusconi and Donald Trump’s relentless misinformation: all show how authoritarian rule, far from ensuring stability, is marked by destructive chaos. No other type of leader is so transparent about prioritizing self-interest over the public good. As one country after another has discovered, the strongman is at his worst when true guidance is most needed by his country. Recounting the acts of solidarity and dignity that have undone strongmen over the past 100 years, Ben-Ghiat makes vividly clear that only by seeing the strongman for what he is―and by valuing one another as he is unable to do―can we stop him, now and in the future. Ruth Ben-Ghiat is a historian and political commentator on fascism, authoritarian leaders, propaganda, and threats to democracy in America and around the world. Growing up in Pacific Palisades, California, where Thomas Mann and other well-known exiles from Nazism relocated, sparked her interest in these subjects. The recipient of Guggenheim, Fulbright, and other fellowships, she is author or editor of seven books and over 100 op-eds and essays in CNN, The Atlantic, the Washington Post, and other outlets. She's Professor of History and Italian Studies at New York University, and Advisor to Protect Democracy. Follow her on Twitter @ruthbenghiat

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You've got to hit that as well. And you can see the video version of this discussion we're going to have with this brilliant author today. And then you can go to facebook.com fortune us the chris faust show and follow the show there and of course there's i think three or four groups that we have on there on facebook too you can follow as well just search the chris faust show and this episode is brought to you by ifi audio and their new neo id s d the neo is the new wave of digital sound listening for your desktop, music, gaming, and bleeding-edge Bluetooth, even MQA audio file decoding. We're using it in the studio right now.

I've loved my experience with it so far. It just makes everything sound so much more richer and better and takes things to the next level. an award-winning audio tech company with one aim in mind to improve your music enjoyment of quality sound eradicate noise distortion and hiss from your listening experience check out their new incredible lineup of dax and audio enhancement devices at ifi-audio.com today i have a most prolific author on she She has blown my mind. There is a book that I wanted written because I wanted to sit down after what we just went through the last four years and understand Trump's closeness to his fascist authoritarian tendencies to Pinochet and all these other different people around the world that we've seen over all these years

and how close we really came to losing democracy and also to make sure we prevent it again. And I was just floored when I saw the book that she has written. The book is called Strong Men from Mussolini to the Present. Her name is Ruth Ben-Ghiat. She is a historian, educator, and commenter on fascism and authoritarian leaders and propaganda and the threats these present to democracies around the world. She's a professor of history and Italian studies at New York University. She is the author and editor of seven books and many essays and op-eds in media outlets,

including CNN, The New Yorker, and Washington Post. Her newest book is out. You want to take and pick this baby up. Welcome to the show, Ruth. How are you? I'm fine. Thanks for having me on. Awesome sauce.

Ruth, give us your plugs so people can find you on the interwebs. Yep. So you can follow me on Twitter, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, or my author page on Facebook and my website, www.ruthbenghiat.com, where all my writings are and all my videos I'm making, everything is there. And you can buy my book at all the usual places and indie bound amazon bnn wherever you'd like to buy it and it has a very snazzy cover which is right behind me so there you go there you go pick it up guys this is i think one of the most important books that we need to have in this in this area and we'll get into it and talk through it through the show. So Ruth, what motivated you to write this book? So a couple of things. One was certainly being an American child of immigrants,

my mom's from Scotland, my dad's from Israel, and first generation and being really worried at seeing Trump come on the scene and having studied fascism for so long, he started having his rallies and lying to the public and retweeting neo-Nazi propaganda. So all of these things were red flags. And I had already started writing for CNN, and I realized there's probably a book in this to do. Yeah. So right away, you knew we were in trouble right yeah and far before he got elected when when there were a couple of red flags you know when he started talking about violence and um when he you know he comes on and he started insulting the other candidates and

uh i started writing about him for cnn in november. So it's very early when he started talking about like, you know, Jeb Bush in a sombrero and we shouldn't speak Spanish. And then, of course, his famous January 2016, he started talking about like shooting someone on Fifth Avenue. So that's that's when they start talking about violence. And Duterte had done that in the Philippines, and Bolsonaro was starting to do that. So this was a sign that he was not going to be following a democratic playbook with a small d. He was going to be doing something else, which was authoritarian playbook. There you go. So give us a broad overview of the book, and then we'll get into some of the details.

So I want to look back on 100 years of this authoritarianism. And so it goes through three periods of history. It's very much written for the public, a lot of stories. I interviewed people. I used memoirs. So it's the fascist era and then military coups. So I have Pinochet in Chile and Gaddafi in Libya. And then we get to our own century where people come to power through elections and then they have to manipulate elections to stay there. So I have Trump, of course, I have Putin and Erdogan, Turkey comes in and out. But the core of it is these kind of tools of rule that they use. And the idea is

so people can see what's changed and what stays the same. So I have propaganda, corruption, violence, and like virility. So think of, you know, Mussolini and Putin taking their shirt off. And I wanted to take that seriously, this kind of masculinity. So it was really interesting discovery into things like personality cults that actually haven't changed that much. But the media, obviously, is very different. So that's the way it's structured. And then, of course, it was a relief to get to the last part, which is resistance, chapter of resistance and a chapter on endings. Like, how do you get rid of them? Yeah. Do you think we're going to be able to get rid of Trump? Do you think he's going to do you think he's going to leave here by January 20th?

I think he will leave now. I think that every day I say to myself what a strange period we're in where the GOP hasn't really recognized the results of the election, even though like very illiberal leaders like Modi in India and Erdogan in Turkey, they called Biden a long time ago. But the GOP, our own GOP, won't recognize the results. So that doesn't bode well at all. But I think that Trump did everything he could to, he explored every option, which is terrifying. He explored the military option, which is why General Milley came out and said, oh, you know, for no reason whatsoever, he said, oh, well, the, you know, the armed forces is going to obey the constitution and not an

individual. So that was closed off. And then he tried, of course, what's still going on the election manipulation, recounts, all of this makes him feel very powerful, but it's not working. So he's going to have to leave. And you explore in your book, how, you know, really to pull off a coup like this, he needs the backing of the military. I mean, the, the, the U S government is, is far too big for anyone, man, but he would need the backing of the military i mean the the the u.s government is is far too big for any one man but he would need the backing of the military and that's unlikely to happen in this

case but but you're right it's it's it's just extraordinary how far he's gone should we be more alarmed what he's doing we seem to be pretty passive about like yeah okay crazy guys doing the crazy stuff shouldn't we be like in the streets going this is really messed up i think right now um we right now i'm not sure we need to be in the streets because it looks like what he's doing is failing and there are more signs that he's accepting uh the inevitability he'll never concede he'll never say he lost. He's constitutionally unable. I was very, very worried all along. And it's, I think we have to, we should never forget that he wanted to try the military option. And all the stuff he did in the summer against Black Lives Matter protests, when he brought out the military, all those unmarked ghouls, stuffing people into unmarked

cars, all that stuff. I was really glad that I had put a chapter in military coups in the book, because this is like, I thought, oh my God, what's going on again? You know, this is like Pinochet tactics. But so he explored that and then, you know, but it didn't fly. And Millet was used as a prop in Lafayette Square, and he didn't like it at all. So we should be terrified at what we narrowly missed. And until he's gone, we should be extremely vigilant because there's still a long time until he leaves. And you talk in your book about how William Barr is also, you know, very authoritarian in his outlook and stuff. Of course, you know, if, if people study what he did with, uh, I believe it was Reagan, um, was it Reagan

or, or it was under Bush, I think of Bush, um, you know, some of the different things he encouraged and stuff and some of his outlook and things of that nature. Um, uh, just the fact that he supported a lot of that and some of the things that he said you reference in your book. Yeah. So, you know, one of the rules of these things is that no matter how dangerous they are, there are nobody without their enablers. So it's been really distressing slash interesting to see how Trump has assembled. It took some trial and error with the attorney general. Like he had Jeff Sessions and then Sessions like found a conscience and got fired and blah, blah, blah. But he found the perfect collaborators in Mike Pompeo at State and, of course, William Barr. And William Barr is, you know, really somebody who wants to wanted to explore an authoritarian option of the presidency,

and also really strike at the separation of church and state. And the things that he says to the police, I have some quotes in there, which really, they look, they sound very similar to things that like Pinochet said, about, you know, the intruder and the, you know, the danger is always there. He's trying to kind of radicalize the police. And one of the things we learned in the summer is how much the armed forces, and especially law enforcement, can be infiltrated by extremist ideologies.

So I was pretty worried that Trump would use them, plus all the militias. But it didn't work out that way yet. And, and I think Trump, correct me if I'm wrong, I think Trump and Stephen Miller did that a lot with the, uh, uh, the, uh, Homeland security, uh, you know, early on they, they courted them for their, for their union vote, uh, in 2016. Uh, they were one of the, I think they're the unions of, for immigration services were one of the first to endorse Donald Trump, I think back in the day. Um, and so, and so a lot of that became radicalized,

especially when we saw the forums on Facebook and stuff. Yeah. And, and ice and, uh, customs and border patrol. And what's, that's a really good example because all the camps and the militarization of these, you know, DHS didn't start with Trump. So it's a good example, like what changed, right? It started with Bush and then Obama. There were abuses under Obama. But what Trump did was to infuse it with true extremists like Stephen Miller. I grew up right close to where he grew up and it's it's a very liberal area. And so he he's he's quite a he's he's a real zealot. And I call him in the book a quiet extremist, the most dangerous kind.

He works in the back rooms with a suit on, but he's a thug and he radicalizes other thugs. So one thing they did is, you know, you didn't have to be, have a criminal record anymore to get picked up, which was different than under Obama. So anybody could be a criminal now for the state. And this is what Barr was trying to do with a different population of protesters at DOJ. He was looking into having people held indefinitely, you know, without trial, which so they were trying to do, they're trying to do things that are more typical of authoritarian states. And so the more you know, if you read the book, the more you will feel truly blessed that we, we managed to defeat him and are sending him out of office, because I have no doubt that had he stayed there,

things would have gotten really, really bad. I would agree with you. I think if we would have gotten another four years of Trump, I mean, we would have, you know, fallen to fascism, authoritarianism. So what's really great about the book is you take, you know, all these different fascist authoritarian leaders and you weave the pattern of their similarities all together and show how there is like a personality trait, almost like, you know, an FBI profile of these guys. Is that correct? Yeah. And in fact, I drew on everything from firsthand testimonies of diplomats that knew them to CIA profiles, you know, psychological profilers. And this is where I really grew much more alarmed as I wrote it, because I didn't expect to find such a similarity of Trump's personality to all of them. And of course, each one has some individual traits, but they all have a similar profile. They're all impulsive. They're all, you know, have anger issues. They all like to humiliate other people. Many of them came into office with a criminal record or under investigation. They're amoral, they're ruthless, they'll do anything to

stay in power, and they don't take defeat well. So the final chapter where I look at like, what happens when they have to leave office one way or the other, that is consistent with their personalities. So it was truly distressing to find that Trump doesn't just check one or two boxes, he checks all the boxes. Even though the outcome is different, we don't have fascist dictatorships today. But he's his, his mentality, the way he thinks about people like use and discard people, like look what he did even with Fox News you know with these types of people if if you if you submit to them and they can use you you're in the minute you go against them you're out so even fox news which he is like the co-producer of his presidency he turns on them so he ends up

turning on almost everybody it's like rick wil it, you know, everything Trump touches dies. And sadly, sadly, Rick has commented that I didn't mean it literally. But in the age of coronavirus, it is become a literal reference. have a frame of reference for Trump, even if they hate him, because all we've had is democracy here and we haven't had any dictatorship. So if you try to interpret what he's doing, even with coronavirus, through a democratic lens, it doesn't quite make sense. But instead, his goals were never those of Democratic presidents with a small d. His goals were to make money for Trump organizations. So he turns the public office into a machine to make profit for himself and his family. And he wants to build his personality cult so he can monopolize everybody's attention 24-7. They all like that.

And he wants to keep people hating each other. So public welfare and caring for people, even in a pandemic, he truly doesn't care if you live or die. And people, I've been saying this since March, and people are horrified. Like, how can I be so cynical? But I'm not the cynic. He's the cynic. He really doesn't care because it doesn't enter into his idea of governance. I think I was like 20 years old and I was like, Oh, I want to be like him. When I grew up, you know, back then I was studying to be a stockbroker or, or be CEO of my own companies, which I later went on to run. And, and so I, you know, I just, I just, he appealed to me at the time, you know, you, you back then we didn't quite have the internet. We didn't have the internet. And so you, you believed a lot of the media hype.

And then as I followed him, I saw his failings in the 90s, 89, 90s. He even wrote a book that he's pulled off the shelves that talked about how he renegotiated the banks and talked about his failings. And I believe you can't even get that thing anymore. But so I started thinking he was a you know some sort of business god and then following him just ever since then i'm always kind of watched him and gone uh what does he lose the money and now and and and failing it but i i also in my business uh things knew two people who were very like him that were narcissists and there were pathological liars which i think is the same thing almost um but

and so i knew what sort of monster he was i was crying on you know the next morning and in uh when he was elected because i'm just like we we have no idea where this thing goes um is as you profiled all these different guys actually i'm sorry let me let me jump back to a question that i had for you um is is is our exceptionalism our belief that you know well we we can't fall to fascism we can't fall to authority this is a democracy we're we're untouchable is our belief in that sort of um bs one of the problems as to why we have hard time seeing Trump. Like I've had a lot of friends that have, I've had countries that fell to fascism, that they were screaming on medium and other things. And they're like, you don't understand. We're seeing how it goes down. Even my friends in Germany were just like, this is exactly the way it works. And we're just over here going,

yeah, we're going to be fine. Yeah. He's kind of weird, but you know, whatever. Is that really a blind spot for us? It is. That's why I was, I think I've written about 80 op-eds now, which is a lot, but I was so concerned because people were not getting it. And they call you an alarmist or hysterical or whatever. But this is what's really sad is when you do, when you go back and you look at at 100 years, you see these patterns, not only with leaders, but with the people. And over and over again, people didn't really want to see what was in front of them. So okay, the first ones, you know, Italians, that's they didn't know because Mussolini was doing it for the first time. But he was called a clown. And nobody did. There was a lot of violence. He had tons of violence before he became prime minister. But he was a prime minister of a democracy for three years. And during that time, he joked about being dictator. But there you can say, well, they didn't know because there hadn't really been a dictator before. the Germans come and some of the retaliants who were trying to warn the Germans in the early 30s,

because by then Mussolini had been in, he had declared dictatorship, but they didn't listen. People thought, well, Germans, they're so cultured, and Hitler's crazy, he screams at his rallies. And so over and over again, people haven't seen what's in front of them because they think that their culture is exceptional in some way. So American exceptionalism is more of because of the role America's played in the world. And it's done a ton of damage, like in Chile and other Cold War coups and other ways. But it's also been this beacon of freedom and immigrants. So it's been very hard to have people accept that this happened here. And there's still some people today who won't accept it. And they think, yes, he's not so bad. And so now people

are starting to say, well, Trump's not so bad, but maybe we'll have somebody in the future who's bad. But that's like totally short sighted, because he's actually been far worse than we even have begun to digest. We don't even understand the scope of what he's done because we've been like in the thick of it every day. Yeah. And you talk about this in the book, and this is what I really love. You talk about how the personality kind of cult is designed, how it's built's how it's made from the fabric uh what was interesting to me you talk about how a lot of these people how they play the media and how they're good at media you know trump has spent uh all of his life bsing us through the media you know even you know calling

into uh pretending he's on press agent crap and and selling this image of of whatever and that i think your book is like this this should be like standard reading in history classes from here on out to understand how this happens i i'm not sure who wrote it but i think it was the new york times did an article uh recently saying you know we may trump may be out uh and he may have been one of the dumbest coups we ever had but the next guy who gets set up yeah isn't gonna be as dumb we got lucky on this one and so uh when you look at uh silvio uh brosconi he's he he lost and you you talk about this in the book he lost and you got thrown from power and he comes back in the next round and wins and i don't know if Trump will be with it at that point, but like, you know, Ivanka could be the next tear in line.

And of course, this is what he was building, this whole family, this fascist sort of family dynasty in some way that wouldn't have been democracy at all. No, so I've been tracking the Ivanka thing for a long time. Actually, since the day before he was elected, where they sat her at a desk with hardly any makeup on and a big flag. And she was supposed to be looking like presidential. And she was, of course, asking for money. So I've been tracking her.

And she's so this is a family that's superbly really good at optics, really good at propaganda. And the most heinous things they've gotten away with is she's been presented several times as a world leader already. Just like, you know how Trump used to, these stories that are true that he used to rent a limo when he didn't have that, you know, he had money from his father, but he wasn't like Trump yet. And he would go around in a limo to make people think he was already a self-made man. In the same way, it's very suspicious to me that in 2019, Trump got Ivanka put into the G20 world leader photo. I was like, I was so upset at that. I was upset at the other world leaders like Justin Trudeudeau what what are they doing they're they're appeasing but she's been inserted several times as a world leader already so that's on my radar um why are they doing that if they're not trying to present her for the future and i totally agree

with you so they're laying that foundation she sat at one point at the table right she sat at the table and then trump they they do these stage-managed things. He left, you know, so she could be at the table. And then the cameras clicked, and she was already a world leader. So the rule is, you know, once they come in, you can't get rid of them very easily. And they surround themselves with families, their family members and flatterers. And I have a paragraph that readers might find funny, funny, not funny, about sons-in-law

that all from Mussolini, who appointed his son-in-law as foreign minister and then ended up executing him, to, you know, Orban and Erdogan today, their sons-in-law and Pinochet's sons-in-law was in charge of privatizations, which was like total corruption um down to our own Gerald Kushner so this the what they do is to surround

themselves with safe people who are equally corrupt and will keep their secrets that's like really important for the style of rule yeah and we'll see that with the pardons already and and what we're doing now uh one thing that's interesting you you lay out how the cult of personality is developed and i think this is why this makes this is one of the reasons it makes it important reading for people that are uh kids and understanding you know the future of fascism and how to defend ourselves against this in the future you know one of my sayings, it's my quote, is the one thing man can learn from his history is that man never learns from his history. There goes in the circle of nature that.

But you also show how building the personality cults and what they do and how they lay it down so thick and and it comes from a perceived victimhood that they that they dig into society and i've been telling people for so long even before trump this is the oldest trick in the book this is the oldest politicians thing blame the immigrant blame the person who's coming in the country it's it's the other guy who's stealing from you as they're pickpocketing you. And you lay that foundation and show how blaming the immigrant and persecuting the immigrant has always been one of the things they do, how they consolidate power and silo it unto themselves and everything else, and some of those different examples in society, but also how people are

grieved in victimhood and how they appeal to that. And one of the things you talk about is the sexism, the virality of the, of the, you know, the pounding of the chest, the, the, you know, the, the small hands, I think is probably a good example of what he was implying there. The Putin, the shirt, the shirtless, et cetera, et cetera. If you want to talk a little bit bit maybe about that. Yeah. One of the interesting things about the research on the personality cults is that the rules of them don't really change. They're actually exactly the same. So on one hand, you have to be a man of the people. So you have to be relatable. So a lot of these leaders, they know how to talk to people. They're very good with media. They make themselves to be like everyday people. And so they can pose as the champions of the downtrodden and all this stuff.

So on one hand, man of the people. On the other hand, they're a man above all other men. And they're special. And so here comes in both the alpha male stuff, where look at Trump with COVID. He beat COVID and lesser men couldn't beat COVID, right? Or they strip their shirts off. And so they're stronger and they are protectors. And so they're above all other men. So that has not changed at all for a hundred years, even though the media is different. So Mussolini used newsreels and Hitler used mostly radio. And then we have today, you know, Twitter and Modi in India uses Instagram.

That's his big thing. He's Mr. Instagram. He even has his own app. There's an app, like a Modi app. When I saw that, I was really afraid that Trump would get an app. I wouldn't be surprised if he does in the future. So the virility is very important in it.

It's a good example of how all their tools work together. So I already said they're the man above all other men. And so they use propaganda to communicate directly. But it works with corruption because they're also the men who get away with things that ordinary men can't. They're rule breakers, they're transgressors. So men and women look up to them, like, I wish I could be like that. And Trump's always had that, right? I have so many women. Breaking the rules is thrilling for people. So then, so it goes into corruption. And then in old fashioned dictatorships, or even with Putin, who poisons people, the violence, they have the ability to take life and get away with it. Right. So, so that's very scary part of this. And so the virility, I wanted to take it really seriously beyond just laughing at, you know, like when Trump photoshopped his head onto Sylvester Stallone's body. Do you remember he did that?

Oh yeah. And all those flags, they do that on the truck. Cause he doesn't, he's not going to show his own cause he's older and he's not very fit. He's not going to show his own body. I wanted to use it in the book, but they wouldn't let me for copyright reasons. Um, but this was from Trump's, uh, own, he didn't, it wasn't a retweet. Some, like, I don't know who made it, but he tweeted it directly from his personal account where his head was photoshopped onto Rocky's body. So you could laugh at that, and we do, but I also wanted to take it really seriously because it has deathly outcomes. So that's how the virility kind of factors in. And I saw you mention this in one of the other interviews you did, and I think this is really important for us to understand.

So I'll ask you to clarify if I heard it wrong. areas in history around the world where women's rights have risen, LGBTQ rights have risen, immigrants' rights have risen, and this is a slap back to those sort of giving more rights to people and people who feel that they're victimized or bereaved, a lot of male toxicity here, masculine stuff going on. And, and, and that's not a new feature, right? That's been something that's kind of around these different things. Yeah, that, in every case, this is like one of the cardinal things. It's after there's been a lot of change, where, I mean, obviously, fascism came out out of World War I and there was, you know,

mass unemployment and the men were injured and couldn't work. So that's like a major example, but it repeats. So it's either when there's been more racial equity, workers' rights, indigenous rights, like in Brazil or in Chile, or Allende, the socialist they had killed was, you know, going against multinationals and was anti-imperial. So it's when elites feel that their rights and their privileges are threatened. So it could be gender, it could be race, sometimes it's a mix of all of these, like, and then in our country, all these the eight years of Obama and some people never accepted that an African-American was even president. They refused to accept it as legitimate. Among them, Trump, who did the birther thing. Right. Conspiracy theory. So we had all the conditions for somebody to come along because there are men like Trump all over the place, but when do they

get traction? It's when there's been all this progress and they come up and who's better than Trump? He's a sexual assaulter. So that takes care of the gender. He's been racist forever. He kind of checks all the boxes in terms of, and then making America great again is going back to some mythical time when everybody knew their place, right? And white males didn't have to worry about their authority. So he was very compelling the way that these people have been compelling in other places and other times. One of the things I've been using, the term I've been using more in the last four to six months is male toxicity. And that's what I've really realized that brand of Trumpism is. I mean, I think I always kind of was like, yeah, he appeals more to men.

But I started tuning into what you talk about in the book, that virility. What's interesting, too, is how, especially we saw this with the recent vote, how much white women have have stuck with the patriarchy and they've supported that. There was a lot of different articles I read back on the main senator, Susan Collins, when she supported Kavanaugh's appointment. And they talked about how this is what white women do. They support the the patriarchy. You know, hey, everyone's you know, everyone's in the money. So you got to protect the money and the assets and stuff um and it's really interesting to me how you know the like

you say the being of the chest the virility the you know even even the different winks and nods that he did like the i've you know the small hands i think it was a ruby or something and and you know he he does these sort of inlays and when a lot of people when they watch it they don't listen to the to the subconscious coding you know like even now they're doing coding when they go well you shouldn't count the illegal votes well that's a wink and a nod that's another dog whistle right yeah and so people don't get it and i think this is really important too that people understand this i mean, we saw women who are non-white are actually, I think, the ones, to my understanding so far, are the ones that saved us in this election. But we've got to stay awake for that in the future.

Yeah, and actually women have been one of the biggest constituencies for all these guys. And both, I mean, to hear it, like whether it's, you know, 100 years ago, fascism, there's very different situations. But fascism, like they mobilized women and they had a lot of like maternal assistance and family assistance. And that's what Orban does. And even Putin was supported by a lot of women. And so when you look at that, and here it depends where you are, in the case of America or other times when you have a racial enemy, white women or in Germany, the Aryan women, it makes them feel superior to enemy men as well. So they are better off than a lot of the men who are targeted men. So there's that going on. Then another thing that is part of the particular virility and

masculinity of these guys is their victimhood. And this attracts women and men because if they're always the victim, they're always whining that someone's out to get them. It makes a lot of people feel protective of them. And this is part of the appeal. So on the one hand, they're like alpha male, they're brutes, all of. So on the one hand, they're like alpha male, they're brutes, all of this. On the other hand, they're constantly saying, protect me. I'm the victim. Everyone's out to get me. I'm going to disappear. Like Trump said in September, I don't know what I'll do at a rally. He's like, I don't know what I'll do. I'm going to have to disappear altogether. You'll never see me again. So people respond to this with feelings of protectiveness. So you have these women at

Trump rallies who have a collection of quotes. One said, I'd walk through a sea of COVID to protect Trump, or I'd take a bullet for Trump. So strangely, victim victimization stuff also helps women to be on their side, even though they're like abusers and violent and all of that. Yeah, we're leading up to the election. We started really seeing comparisons to ISIS, especially with the truck convoys and trying to run the Biden bus off the road. And it never really, you know, I would make those, you know, they'd be like ISIS and stuff, but it never really struck me until one of my friends on a comment stream, this was after the election, they wrote, Chris, you need to understand these people are radicalized, just like ISIS and different things.

And I think that's one other important way people need to get and read your book is you explain how these people are radicalized. And it's not just like, hey, let's all go be radicalized tomorrow and go to that party. This is a death of a thousand cuts where we slowly go down this decline and you slowly just give up one thing after another. And you're like, yeah, we don't need that freedom. Yeah, just go ahead. And there you are. And I think that's that's the really important thing and and hopefully that's why a lot of women came forth and vote but you know once again like when obama was elected we can't sit back and go yeah we're gonna be fine we got that democracy thing in the bag let's all

go back to not paying attention and and asleep at the wheel and i and that's the other great lesson of your book is teaching that these monsters can come back. They can lie in wait and there can be the next one coming. And unless we learn from this history, one question I have for you, how much is narcissism in all these guys? This may be an obvious question, I guess. But as you study each one of these people you cite in the book, are they all narcissists completely? They are. I don't use that term in the book. Um, but they, they, they are, uh, to the extent that they be, they become, they need to humiliate others to make themselves feel grand. They become, they're very needy of attention. So they organize their governments

around them, you know, having these personality cults, having constant adulation, and then they become addicted to having the power and the adulation. So they can't leave easily. And so one thing I observe a lot is democratic leaders or who don't have this personality, when they're going to leave, it's a chance to think about their legacy or in the States, they're going to plan their library, presidential library. For men like Trump, it's a psychological annihilation to leave. They can't conceive of a time when they don't have this power and adulation anymore. So they become very dangerous when it's time for them to go. So you have, you know, that's where they all end up like in these crazy ways, like Saddam Hussein in the hole in the ground pulled out and Gaddafi also ended up

the ground pulled out and he would never surrender. He would rather have his whole country go into civil war, which is what happened, than surrender peacefully, because it really is an annihilation. So those are lessons that I'm not going to sleep easy until he's out. and even then we have to be very watchful because the the the type of extremism and this radicalization that he didn't trump didn't create it he just like channeled it and focused it and gave it a presidential authority but it was it's it's been around before he came and it's going to be around when he leaves and that's one of the things we talked about on the on the on the chris faust show we've had a lot lot of great authors that have shown how this has been molded, you know, through Betsy DeVos' Council on National Policy and different things and all the outreach that it has and the organizations and the radio stations and, you know, everything they've done to mount us to this moment, if you will but uh i think it's extraordinary uh let me ask you this so is is there's so many people you profile in the book is is there and you do show or uh with mussolini and hitler and and the influences and all the cross-referencing the putin cross-referencing

of erdogan and everything um is trump is trump really and maybe maybe some of this comes from the design of bannon but is trump really this good where he's sitting around with the with the fascist playbook going yeah we should do this this and this or is he just or is this just a result of the monstrosity of narcissism um more the latter because in the case i mean none of them are really i mean they do study each other um and Trump has these vague, you know, feelings of admiration for Putin. He wishes he had the power that Putin or Erdogan did do. Right. But and so certain things I'm sure he could copy. But that's more like specific things. But none of them, they're all kind of act in the same way because they're amoral and they'll do anything possible to get to power. And they're very good at manipulating people. So it's not that there's a checklist they follow. It's that they have similar personalities and human psychology is what it is that people never understand. They always underestimate them.

So they themselves are shocked that it worked so well to get themselves so much power. Trump didn't even expect to win the election. And before that, he didn't expect the GOP to just kneel in front of him the way they do and are still doing. So that's also sad that they themselves are surprised at their success. And it's true with Putin. It's true with apparently Erdogan and also Trump. And I've seen a lot of people in the media that have really started this discussion, which is really healthy, where they're like, we really, and part of it is that American exceptionalism,

and we all kind of are like, yeah, he'll fall into the, you know, the semblance of the office and it will change him. And really, I think Obama or his wife has said, no, it just amplifies, you know, just how good or horrible person you are. And the media has talked about how we really didn't, you know, trying to handle him with good gloves, like we've handled, you know, a lot of other politicians who respect the Constitution and respect our democracy. I mean, right now, Nixon looks like a really good guy. Yeah, I mean, pushback is the only thing he should have been the minute he started, you know, talking about violence and stuff in 2015, 16. He should have been out.

He shouldn't have been led in the system. And that was the mistake. And then the GOP mainstreamed him. And then he intimidated and bullied everyone. And people kept thinking that they could control him. This is the classic story, right? You can control them once they get in, and instead they control you. And you profile this in the book, these people are shameless, so you can't shame them. There's no conscious where they go, oh, well, that's bad. One of the things I realized is that, and you talk about this in the book, Trump is not going to leave. He's used to being in the paper like every day. Like if he's not, he he'll tweet he'll do something extreme i think at

one point him and bannon and steve miller they had a plan of like a hundred different items i think your references in the book they had a plan of at least 100 different items where they could just just throw and part of that you describe in the book is the shock and awe of that fallout where we get shocked and go okay and it's the overwhelming nature of it does the media just need to dump him like twitter needs to probably dump him we all just need to quit talking about him because even now i'm kind of alarmed at how i keep talking about trump and no one's triumphing biden like we're not talking about biden and some of his yeah no people get the you know the media has done he's he's been very dangerous for the media And we don't talk because the journalists don't

talk about their private security threats enough. But he's been very good. He's click, he generates clicks. And these habits have formed over four years that place him at the center of people say, what's he going to do today? What's he going to tweet this minute, right? And the sheer volume of his tweets, and declarations and the Facebook ads and everything, it's quite overwhelming and we've never been subjected to anything like it. So my colleague at NYU is a press critic, Jay Rosen calls it, it's time to de-center Trump, like put him off to the side. And right now, I think it's still hard. It's hard to do that because he's still a danger. But he's not going to go quietly. He can't just, some people who think he's just going to go down

to Mar-a-Lago and be in private life, that's just, he had 70 million votes, more than that. And it's not in his, he's never been a quiet private life and he craves attention. So there's no reason to think he's going to have some kind of retirement into private life. That's not who he is. Yeah. And I mean, he got 11. I think it's 11 million more votes than he got last time, which is through me chair. chair and then on top of that he's talking about having a an opposing uh i guess rally or whatever with with biden's uh you know when when biden's uh uh put into office on the 20th oh definitely he like cannot lose that spotlight no and and he's going to have to siphon off that crowd and be

and be and this tells you a lot about what role that he with the GOP's blessing. You know, what I'm worried about, they're going to have a kind of shadow presidency and make things as difficult as possible for Biden. Harris sabotaged them every way they can and radicalized more people, make America less safe, more civil strife, and there's going to be more economic unrest and difficulty, right? Because so many foreclosures, because COVID caused. And so all of this is music to their ears, because these are the conditions that benefit strongmen like Trump. So we haven't seen the last of him. And I would agree with you. Like one of the things I was seeing in this run-up where they haven't been

throwing out more funding to coronavirus, you know, they're reading the polls and the polls were inaccurate, but still, I think the GOP, Mitch McConnell, you know, the most evil, he's like the emperor of Star Wars. Yes. And I can see that they're not going to give us coronavirus anymore coronavirus bailout they want to run this thing into the ditch because that will give them the the foment to to come back in 2024 with something else and and of course that maybe

the senate races in two more years and then how yeah um it's going to be how it's going to be difficult. It's going to be difficult times. You never can underestimate the vindictiveness of these people. And that brings me to a question that I missed that I wanted for you. You'd mentioned this term and this really struck me is how these fascists feed the inner selfishness of people. And that's why we've seen this selfishness, this hatefulness, this destruction of decency from Trump voters. I don't know if you want to comment on that a little bit. Yeah, it's really sad. They make you be your worst self, right?

Your most corrupt and venal self. And a lot of people, so they think, you see newsreels of rallies and people saluting the leader and you think, oh, authoritarianism is just about following orders. That's only half of it. There's a whole other side, which is maybe even more scary, where people feel thrilled at the idea they can break the rules. And whether that's meant in the past, killing, you know, torture, whatever things I write about in the book, or stealing. And think about all the corruption that's gone on in government. And so you hire already corrupt people, because then you

can kind of infect them with your corruption. And that's gone on in the federal bureaucracy under Trump. They've lowered the standards so that there's no ethics in government anymore. So this rule breaking is just as important as this idea of following orders. And you talk about this in your book too, the dehumanization um you know one thing you just uh may pop into my mind is uh when i was a kid there was a study they did after nazism i forget the name and i used to know the name of it but it was where they they did a fake experiment where they brought people in to see if they could replicate the moral decay of people over a very short time and they would they would do shocks to people if they didn't answer the questions. There you go.

And that's what that reminded me of when you were talking about it. Cause I'm like, and that's what he's been doing. And we've seen these, you know, these, you, I don't know if you can throw everybody in the boat, the voted for him, but 70 million Americans who are just like, yeah, I don't care. You know, I don't need to wear a mask. Screw 250,000 Americans. A lack of compassion. No, cause they, he needs people to wear a mask. Screw 250,000 Americans. A lack of compassion. No, because he needs people to hate each other. He's the worst enemy of, I see this in the conclusion,

of authoritarianism is compassion and solidarity and kindness. So over and over again, they create mistrust through an old-style dictatorship, informers, right? Who can you trust? That's also why conspiracy theories are useful. You don't know what the truth is. You don't know who to trust. So when trust breaks down and you have enemies identified,

and the enemies always, they start with maybe one enemy and it becomes many enemies. That's the other lesson. So we had the very beginning migrants, and then, you know, Trump's been, you know, with against Muslims with the travel ban, and then anti-Semitic attacks are up, hate crimes are up, you know, in historic levels. Then African Americans is a constant, right? And so you so the amount of people who are going to be untrustworthy and are to be hated increases over time. And that's something that's very sad, but some people like the comfort of having an enemy and they play on that. And that's,

unfortunately, it's very effective. Yeah. One thing you talk about in the book, too, is the purification of the society. And it was really interesting to me. You know, we've always had this anti-abortion discussion in America, and it used to alarm me when I would see Trump voters going, we can't have immigrants coming in because then they'll vote

and they'll interbreed with us. And I'm like, are you serious? In 2020, this is where we're still at? And I didn't realize how deeply that core went. But when I read your book and seeing how all these other guys like Mussolini, they ban abortion, they talk about the purification of the race and their country's culture and all that sort of stuff. This isn't new at all.

It's crazy. No, the migrants coming over the border, that's like every regime and authoritarian state has this business of the migrants coming over the border or the internal enemies who are going to overpopulate. So demographics is a huge thing. It's like Mussolini in 1927, way before Hitler came, Mussolini starts talking about, this is his quote, are yellow and black people and brown people at our gates? Yes, they are. What are we going to do? So it didn't even start with Hitler. It started with Mussolini and Pinochet in Chile is talking about armed, you know, armed insurgents coming over the

border, migrants. So these are recurring fears and they know how to like weaponize them basically. And what's really great too is in the book, we've had a lot of great authors on that have talked about white nationalism in religion. And they've written, I think we had about 10 authors on who've talked about, you know, warning about how, hey, guys, we're really, we need to address the white nationalist extreme right wing and kind of how that affects the middle of religion. You talk about in the book how religion is, you know, a player in this. I mean, even with Putin's, with the Russian religion and everything

else, how that plays out, how they support, how they're brought to power and how they stay in power with these supports. Yeah, that's, that's another through line where, and some of them are, you know, the least pious people you could think of, right? So they're the least likely people to be embraced by religious institutions, but they're the ones like Mussolini was, you know, a criminal and a total atheist and totally anti-clerical. And he was the one who made peace with the Vatican. And and the same with Trump. Like Trump's the last person you would think to be embraced by Orthodox Jews and evangelicals. I mean, look at his life. But he's the one. So because they will be whoever you need them to be in order to get votes and support, they always partner with institutions. So I learned a lot doing the book. So there's a group of extreme Catholics called Opus Dei, very secretive.

And they have been attached to many, many authoritarians from Franco. They were in Franco's government. They were in Pinochet's. They were very close to Berlusconi's government. And then in Trump world, Larry Kudlow and William Barr and numerous other people in the Trump administration are either members or you don't know exactly who's a member. They keep it secret. But so these are these through lines that you get when you do a book that goes over 100 years. So I myself didn't expect there to be so many so many of those. I mean, you give me some I've made some notes here, so I can go Google that after.

This is why this book is so important to read and how these people come to power, why they stay in power. You know, we almost need to have like a personality test and a drug test, let's put it that way, before they come on. But we've had so many historians on that have talked about a lot of these different through lines and and what i loved about your book was it ties them all together and puts it in there and it's actually there's like a profile there's like a fbi profile that we just need to go look if you fit this profile yeah you don't get near that place uh one last question i have for you is is biden is trying to you know take us back to a more uh middle of the ground zone you know he seems to be trying to let us back to a more middle of the ground zone. You know, he seems to be trying to let's unite us and everything else.

There's been kind of this discussion that started with the media about how should Trump be prosecuted or shouldn't be prosecuted. Is that going to help us in what you've studied in the past with research? Is playing towards the middle and trying to get back to Kumbaya going to keep us from going out? Do we have to prosecute? I mean, Trump's been, normally we're kind of against this in American society. We're like, we don't prosecute presidents, but this is so far over the line. I mean, we're out there. What do you think? Yeah, I think that we don't have, there's such a strong case already built against him, which is why I keep firing people by the Southern District of New York and countless other entities that the mechanisms of justice will go on rather than have a kind of presidential persecution, you know, prosecution. However, it would be, it would be a huge mistake to do nothing. Because that's partly the lesson of Berlusconi, who was voted out,

and people were angry at his corruption, and nothing was done. And then he came back. And he came back partly because people were mad that the center left didn't do anything. But more, more to our position and situation, it sends a very bad message to the GOP, who have been just as lawless as he is. And if he doesn't pay any price, and if we don't, there's him and then there's other kinds of legislation that we need to close loopholes so that there's more accountability or the Hatch Act. Like I think dozens of Trump employees, you know, appointees in the bureaucracy have violated the Hatch Act. So do we close our eyes to that or what do we do about all that?

But if we do nothing, it means that the next people who come in are going to pick up where Trump Trump world left off. And that history shows is no good. And that's one of the things I really loved in your book about how you, about how with Berlusconi, how they didn't do anything. They didn't go after him. They didn't set new laws and he came just back with a vengeance. And that's my biggest fear. That's why I'm going to be watching you over the next four years as you

analyze the Biden administration and go, Hey man, you guys are softballing it and you guys aren't going to see the train coming. Just like, uh, Obama and a lot of people didn't see the train come with Trump. I know one, no one thought he would win. Um, and, and, and putting that together, anything in your book that you want to cover that we haven't covered. We of course want people to go write the, read the book. So we don't want to cover everything, but anything we book that you want to cover that we haven't covered? We, of course, want people to go read the book, so we don't want to cover everything. But anything we missed that you want to plug? I think the resistance chapter is really important to show 100 years of just as these guys recycle their techniques, so do resistors. And so that was very interesting to write 100 years of resistance up through

Trump. There's a lot of, it ends with people like from Sarah Cooper's TikToks to Saturday Night Live to Robin Bell, who projects on Trump International Hotel, so that we see that we're in a continuum of people who have resisted authoritarians, whether it's somebody like Berlusconi who leaves some democracy or somebody like Putin or Hitler. So that's a hopeful chapter, let's say. And I think a lot of people who have bought the book have found that a relief, just like I found it a relief to write it. Yeah, a manual so that we know what to do. In fact, it was interesting how it popped up resistance. In fact, one of the podcasts this will appear on is the Resistance Radio podcast that I have. And it was named aptly after the resistance radio, the resistance, law of resistance.

Yeah. So that's where it comes from. Yeah, and all the ways that people can resist from armed resistance. And the most effective is nonviolent mass protest, which we gave everyone a lesson around the world in the summer. I had to turn in the book this summer, but I was in time to include the Black Lives Matter protests, and I was very happy about that. And fortunately, seeing him do that military walk

and then the Bible hold up as well, that turned away a lot of Christians and that turned away a lot of people to say, Hey, we're kind of moving towards the secret police gulag sort of thing for people that are familiar with that. So I, I think this book should be in like, this should be like reading one-on-one in, in, uh, junior high, high school elementary. I think it's a great book and, and I'm just floored by it. And, and hopefully, like I said, I'll be watching you and a lot of our press members in, in, cause I mean, Biden does have to realize that like you talk about in the book with these other, these other followers, there are 70 million Americans. I don't know how many of them we could say are radicalized or the hardcore Trumpers, but those people are going to feel victimized, dis really important as to whether or not we bring those people back.

I don't know. We all need mental health thing after this, after coronavirus. We need a mental health. We need a mental health collective day or year. There you go. Ruth, give us your plugs so people can look you up on the interwebs and buy your book. Yep.

So the book, you can buy it on Amazon, on IndieBound or Barnes & Noble. You can go to the Norton page and they have all the links there. Definitely follow me on Twitter at Ruth Ben-Ghiat where I post everything there. And my website, ruthbenghiat.com, has everything, all my interviews, all of that stuff. There you go, guys. And you can sign up for my newsletter.

And buy the book. Definitely sign up for our newsletter because you want to, like I said, my biggest thing now is understanding what we went through and making sure it doesn't happen again. I'm going to be probably talking about your book and just trying to get everyone to understand this because I don't want people to fall asleep again like we did with obama we're just like yeah whatever we fix black lives matter and then you know boom air comes back yeah check it out everyone order it up strong men from mussolini to the president uh i i just 100 you've got to read this book you've got to understand it and uh and make sure that we learn from the past so that we don't end up with fascism in the future.

It can fall. We've seen Hungary fall this year, them lose their democracy. It can happen. And by the time it happens, you don't know what's happened and it's over. And the next guy won't be as dumb or probably as obvious as Trump. Thanks, my audience, for tuning in. Be sure to go to YouTube.com forward slash Chris Voss. Hit that bell notification button.

You can see the video version of this or all the different versions that we have on the channel. You can go to thecvpn.com or chrisfosspodcastnetwork.com. See all the online podcasts we have over there. Also go to goodreads.com forward slash Chris Voss. Hit that bell notification. There's no bell notification on Goodreads. Follow me over there.

You can see all the reviews and all that sort of good stuff. And also go to facebook.com forward slash the Chris Voss show. Thanks so much for tuning in. Thanks for Ruth being here. We'll see you guys next time. And I'll take us out with that, Ruth. Did we get everything covered pretty good? Oh, yeah.

Yeah. God, I love this book. I'm so glad you wrote this. Thank you very much. I'll send you a link when it's up, and thank you. Okay, great. Have a good evening. All right, you too.

Bye. Did we, did it go out?