The MeidasTouch Podcast - How Democracies Die with Ruth Ben-Ghiat

Episode Date: June 11, 2021

On today’s episode, the brothers speak with NYU professor, historian, author and expert on authoritarianism & dictatorships, Ruth Ben-Ghiat. During the interview, the team discusses Ruth’s take on the January 6 insurrection, deprogramming the GQP cult and tangible solutions to stop the fascist tactics of the Republican Party. The brothers go on to talk about the need for a living wage, ludicrous QAnon/insurrectionist court defenses and much, much more. Jordy (me) writes these recaps, so I’d also like to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRETT - I LOVE YOU BROTHA!! Tune in every Tuesday and Friday for NEW episodes of ‘The MeidasTouch Podcast!!! Right now, Freshly is offering our listeners $40 off your first two orders when you go to freshly.com/meidas! Do not miss out on this incredible offer. Buy Meidas Merch at store.meidastouch.com. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/meidastouch/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/meidastouch/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Ben Micellis with Brett Micellus and Jordy Micellus. We have a great show for you today. Our guest is Ruth Ben-Ghiat, professor of history at NYU, an author and expert on authoritarianism. And her latest book, Strong Men from Mussolini to the present, it came out while the election was taking place, but it was predictive of what has occurred with the insurrection and since the insurrection. And it's always funny in a, actually, it's not that funny. In a not funny way? Funny in a not funny way, that anytime Ruth is all over the news,

you know that things are incredibly screwed up in the country. Yeah, it's like a direct relationship. If you were drawing a graph to like, how scary are things right now? How many times is Ruth appearing on MSNBC and CNN? It's a direct line. Total direct correlation. We're excited to have her.

Absolutely. And she's incredible. She's absolutely incredible. And I love speaking with her. But then it's just the topics that we speak to her about are scary. There's no doubt about it. And those topics we want to discuss throughout our podcast today. And I want to talk on our podcast today truly about the survival of our democracy, number one. Two, I want to talk about bipartisanship and what bipartisanship should really mean. And what it should really mean, I'll just tell you right now, I won't bury the lead, should be what the bipartisanship of the people. And right now we have this incongruity where one political party that represents democracy represents the bipartisanship of the people, what the people want. For example, I saw this chart the other day when it talked about whether West Virginia was in favor of certain pieces of legislation that the Democrats supported,

like the For the People Act. And overwhelmingly, you see these charts with 65, 70 percent or more approval in a state where Joe Manchin is the senator who is trying to make, quote unquote, compromise and try to save the, quote unquote, filibuster with another party that literally is against what his own constituents want. So we'll get there in a bit. Before we get there, this is Brett Mycelis's birthday weekend. Let's go. Happy birthday, Brett. Happy birthday, B. We love you, man. Some incredible videos online, I see, Brett, and some great messages I see about your birthday. I mean, look, here's what I just want to say about Brett.

And we joke with Brett when he tries to take credit for all of the videos and all of the editing that we all do together. I'm just joking. Brett's the Brett is the editor. Brett's always been a savant at editing. The truth is, is that, though, when we go back, I used to be the editor in the editor. Brett's always been a savant at editing. The truth is, is that though, when we go back, I used to be the editor in the family. You always find a way to make it about you.

This is Brett's birthday. Go on, go on. I used to be the editor in the family and I would make these videos on Adobe video editing softwares that were probably exactly what you would expect of a somewhat advanced middle schooler or high schooler. And then Brett would watch me do that when Brett was like nine or 10 years old. And Brett quickly became a savant in the area and has been making

the most incredible videos really since the age of 11, 11 and 12. And so Brett, Brett is truly the video engine behind Midas Touch. The way Brett commands social media accounts is like a stealth fighter. Like Brett is the Navy SEALs of social media accounts. I don't even know sometimes how he could run. Like, you know, when people are playing eight different pianos at the same time, you don't even know sometimes how he could run. You know when people are playing eight different pianos at the same time? You don't. Yes. That's a great example. No one can play eight pianos at the same time. But Brett manages, all of a sudden,

I'll see things that are up. And Jordy, correct me if I'm wrong, I'll see a TikTok post, four Twitter posts, two things somehow show up on Instagram, videos made all within an hour. And I'm like, how in the world? I know it's only Brett, but sometimes I think Brett's hiding people underneath that desk. I think he's also probably like an alien from Men in Black who actually has like four other hands, too, that just like kind of go all over the place. Oh, man. I'm liking this episode. We should do more episodes where you just throw compliments on me. What about the entire episode?

I'm all for it. I think, and I think, I think the people are for it because it's about time team Brett gets some respect. Well, look, let me tell you just a few quick my cellist birthday stories.

So one of the my cellist tricks of course, is to always, no matter when you're at a restaurant and when people were pre COVID going to restaurants, you'd always want to say it was somebody's birthday, no matter what restaurant you were at, so that they could sing to somebody. And the more off guard you caught the person, the better the birthday prank. We do that at every restaurant. Absolutely. There was one time that we went to Benihana

and Pops told me that we're going to do the joke on Brett that it's Brett's birthday. This is just like a random, I think like an October night or whatever. And he tells Brett that we're doing the joke on me that it's my birthday.

And they come with like the little ice cream balls at the end of the night. And Brett and I both start pointing laughing at each other. And he said that we were twins. And so it was both of our birthdays. Got us both in the one.

That was a good one. And no, but in all seriousness, guys, thanks so much for the kind words. I don't know though, Brett, I know you want to move on to talking about the podcast and I do too, but I want to say this one thing. I don't know if the jokes that we did as a family truly translate to the public

because I remember when I was in college and my freshman year, and I just had all my new roommates and we were going to Fridays. And Fridays was one of the main places where we had people sing happy birthday. Because on Fridays, they send out their whole staff of like 20 people who sing happy birthday.

Betty Hanna too, they do a whole song and like dance. They make you get up on the seat. I know the Betty Hanna song. Oh my God. Say may Hanna, Hanna go. Say may Hanna, no, honey, no. That's how they, of course I know we do it every time. But they probably got it a little wrong, but generally that's the flow of what it is.

And then in Benihana is you get a photo with the whole family, a free photo and free ice cream by saying it's someone's birthday, regardless of if it's true. And so you can walk away with lots of birthday photos. So I did it to somebody in college in my freshman year, my new roommate, and I had all the people sing happy birthday to him. And he got really pissed off at me for doing that. And he's like, who the fuck does this? Didn't translate outside of the house. The Micellus brothers. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. One more, one more, one more.

I was in college, right? And I had a great buddy at the time. Oh, I remember calling my, hi mom. I remember calling mom about this too when it had happened. I had a great buddy of mine and I would just do all the pranks that you guys used to do to me. The Benihana is just literally everything we would just do, I would do to him. And there's one day where he's really mad at me and like upset with me. And I'm like, what's up, man? He's like, hey, we got to talk. He's like, you got to stop. I'm like, stop what? He's like, you got to stop with all these pranks,

man. I just can't take it anymore. I'm like, I'm not doing anything different than you guys did, but it really impacted him. When you're used to just doing the pranks all the time, you don't realize that other people don't do that. But you could let us know, guys, what do you think at home? Do we go too far when we do these pranks? Not far enough. Do you find them funny? But just honestly, though, I just want to take a moment to thank everybody for the kind birthday messages, the videos, everything Ben talked about.

Honestly, I am so blown away. A year ago at this time, we were just getting this whole endeavor off the ground with Midas Touch. And I'm just now turning 31. I would say my year of 30 has been a tough year with everything that we faced in the country, but has been an incredibly productive year and one that I'm going to look back on fondly as we all grew this Midas Touch together. And I am just so humbled and appreciative for all your support. And if I could ask for anything from everybody out there, it just please stay with us in this fight and stay committed because we need your help out there.

And my hair may have turned a little grayer by my 30th year going on to 31. And I may have gotten probably the least amount of sleep I've gotten in the past year, but it's all worth it. And I'm so thankful for everybody. Yeah. We saw Brett recently in the bag that's under his eyes. He looked really tired. Well, you were saying that. I don't know how this happens and that happens. It's because I don't really sleep at this point. You probably wake up some mornings and see that there are tweets that were sent out at like three in the morning and things like that. And then I'm responding to things and that's kind of the operation. So it is very tiring. All right. Don't get carried away there,

Brad. Yeah, yeah. Relax, relax. Let's get into it. Relax. All right. Let's move. Let's move on. I want to talk about the new Senate report on January 6th. This is on the topic of bipartisanship or quote unquote bipartisanship and the flaws of it. So the Senate reports being prepared on January 6th, it has to be apparently negotiated between Democrats and Republicans because apparently Democrats believe that there's an advantage to having this be a bipartisan support. But the issue here, of course, is that the Republicans who are now known as the GQP, and despite the fact that I saw some person comment saying,

I love you, I'd give you five stars, except for the fact that you say GQP enough. It's repetition. You know the exact one I'm talking about. I read every one of those reviews. I'm going to call him the GQP, okay? But the report does not sufficiently or doesn't at all describe what took place as an insurrection. Instead, it used words like attack, and it also avoids any role or significantly

minimizes the role Donald Trump has played in it. So here we have GQP members who have refused to investigate. And here we have Democrats who control the Senate, who are allowing themselves to have this quote unquote bipartisan discussion over something that should the bipartisanship here should be an insurrection is an insurrection. An attack on the Capitol, an attack on the law enforcement, the attack on the Capitol police officers is despicable. It's an insurrection and it needs to be called out for what it is. The people, vast majorities of people believe it, bipartisanship of what it is. Yet we're doing bipartisanship of these GQP members who are all in bed with an authoritarian Donald Trump and who all believe in authoritarianism. And so, Brett, this report,

this is one of the things recently that just angered me, the Senate, the Democratic Senate. Well, it goes back to the whole notion of both sides. And the news media likes to talk about both sides. Our politicians like to talk about both sides. But the fact is, some things aren't both sides. Sometimes those sides are right versus wrong. And in this case, there is a truth and there is a lie.

There is the truth of January 6th, that there was an insurrection and an attack on our Capitol. And there is the lie that it was not an insurrection, the lie that Fox News is pumping out every day, the lie that causes Fox News to be still terrified to play our ad on their network, the lie that Republicans and the blogger in Bedminster or Florida or wherever he is right now taking cover is spreading and is uplifting. And we need to be able to address this issue seriously, because if we don't, attacks like this are going to continue to happen if we don't take them seriously. And this is why this whole notion of bipartisanship can be so frustrating when you have most of the population agreeing with reality that this was an insurrection against the government.

And then you have to include these voices from the Republican Party that are denying that reality. We should not give credence to both sides. And this is why I would like either some sort of special counsel or a select committee. Why do you think we haven't seen a select committee run by the Democrats yet or anything kind of like that? I think that the Democrats have, again, miscalculated here in trying to believe that Manchin and Sinema could be won over, two Democrats. And that's where the last few months have been spent. I mean, we know that President Biden met with Manchin. We know that he's been trying to court Sinema and try to persuade her.

But these people are unpersuadable and, again, believe because of their indebtedness to corporate donors and to big money that they can both sides this issue as our democracy is destroyed. I want to tell you another story quickly. You know about Douglas Jensen, 41 years old of Iowa. He's the QAnon supporter who was accused of, and I used accused, but we saw a video of him, chasing a Capitol Police officer up the stairs during the January 6th insurrection. Well, he's seeking release from prison in connection with the insurrection, saying that this is his defense. I was deceived and I was brought into all of these lies. And Jensen's attorney, Christopher Davis, says that he is the victim of numerous conspiracy theories that were being fed to him over the Internet by a number of very clever people who are uniquely equipped with slight, if any, moral, social conscious. And so here we have a former QAnon supporter who is now realizing through this experience, confronted now with years and years, decade or more in prison, but coming to terms in public filings with the fact that he was deceived and the very clever

people they're talking about, Roger Stone, Donald Trump, Don Jr. He's talking about, as the cult leaders, he's talking about Trump. That is who he means. And Jensen had a pocket knife as well on him as well when he was entering the Capitol. If they got to anyone in there that was just wearing a suit, I don't care if they're Democrat or Republican, that person would be dead today. That's terrifying thought. They were going for blood. And Brian Williams had a funny take on this. And Ben, I'm curious to get your legal take on this. Brian Williams said, you could claim an insanity defense in court, but you can't claim a stupidity defense. And what this guy Jensen is doing and he's trying to claim a stupidity defense.

I think that's very apt. I mean, that is the insanity defense, though, is a very, very, very narrow defense. And exactly the fact that he espoused this cult ideology does not meet the definition of someone who's legally insane. You could be brainwashed and commit the crime, but you don't get to go back and say, hey, these cult killers were insane because they fell victim to the cult. But that's why what Fox is doing by preventing these messages of truth that Midas Touch and others are trying to tell its audience, Fox is radicalizing its audience to be Douglas Jensen's. When Douglas Jensen says that very clever people fed him these conspiracy theories in legal papers, it's also referring to Fox News. And so we, as Midas Touch, are trying to break into that echo chamber and show a mirror of what took place to avoid future violence, to avoid another insurrection. And Fox is saying, we're going to keep having Tucker. We're going to keep having Hannity. We're going to keep having

Laura Ingraham. Feed these people the most disgusting and despicable malicious conspiracies in the world right into their veins. And they're going to storm the Capitol again. Don't think for a minute that when Donald Trump and these people who Fox elevates are talking about Trump being reinstated, these fuckers want to do it again. These fuckers want to do exactly what they did on January 6th again because of this bullshit claim that we're supposed to somehow be bipartisan with the Republican Party that supports fascism and that has given up on all of democracy. And we're supposed to just sit back and let that happen. That's not bipartisanship. And this is the same Fox News that for an entire year spread one big lie, which was that COVID was

a hoax and that it wasn't dangerous. Everybody's seen the famous image from Hannity's show where he was mocking the coronavirus coming to the U.S. saying, and there was zero deaths here. Flash cut to the election, they move on to a bigger lie, which is that the election was rigged. Then they get sued by the Dominions and the smart maddox of the world. Now they are keeping up this big lie and they are continuing to radicalize people because they saw that the second, if you remember, there was like a 48 hour window after the insurrection where they tried to detach just a little bit from it. And they had a lot of viewers get very mad at Tucker and get

very mad at their people. And they quickly came around and they realized, oh shit, like our audience are these conspiracy theorists. And their audience is, there was a poll that recently came out that said three out of 10 Republicans believe Trump is actually going to be reinstated as president. That's the Fox News based. Jesus, that's deranged. And that's from the Politico morning Consult poll. It's like a real poll that says that. But does that shock you? We see what these people at the rallies are saying. Honestly, I wouldn't have been shocked if it was more like six of 10. or Ted Cruz, you know, when you were to approach them at one of these rallies or events that they hold the same way, sometimes some of the kind of Democratic reporters kind of sneak into these events and asking questions. And you were to ask him, do you think Trump's going to get reinstated? They would go, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just wait. Just wait a little longer. It's just such a level

of irresponsibility. family that thought after Brian got killed that there would be some sympathy, some anything for his life because he supported Trump at the end of the day. The senators, the GQP refused to meet with Sicknick, with Sicknick's parents, refused to meet with Sicknick's family members. Okay. And recently, Sandra Garza, who was Sicknick's partner, said that she holds Donald Trump 100% accountable for the events that happened on the January 6th insurrection. It just shocks me to even think that the GQP senators wouldn't even meet with this family. And by the way, I watched this live the other day. She's also a Trump supporter, and she went on MSNBC to talk about this. Yeah, I mean, that's a pattern with Trump,

though, right? I mean, at the end of the day, everybody is disposable to Trump, and you're good with him, and the Republican Party is good for him as long as they are on his side. It's a one way street. And by the way, going back to the three and 10 Republicans that believe Trump will be reinstated. I mean, this is literally why we call them the GQP. It's literally QAnon philosophy. It's fucking terrifying. I want to talk more about bipartisanship. I want to talk about the GQP efforts to thwart a bill for equal pay for women. I want to talk about a GQP economist who talked about how there are human beings who are not worth a living wage and individuals who should have a living wage still would apparently support this GQP economist. And I want to talk about that. But before we do that, I want to talk about one of our sponsors who has really been helpful in my life.

And that's Freshly. Yo, Freshly's the best. Freshly actually legitimately is the best because the food is really good. And for the three of us who are out there making our videos every day, and particularly Brett, three of us who are making our videos and working 20 hours a day, we're all working 20 hours a day, Brett. For us, dinnertime can be very chaotic, but Freshly makes it very easy. See, Freshly has chefs that take care of your meals a few nights a week and take the pressure off of you. We're all trying to get into shape. We really are. We're all trying to eat right. And with my Freshly meals, which are these

chef-made, nutrient-packed, delicious meals that are delivered to my door and will be delivered to your door. There's absolutely no cooking that is required. One of the tricks that I did the other day, I made a freshly meal in like two minutes and 30 seconds. When my girlfriend came home, I pretended that I cooked it. And so that I made an incredible, yeah, I made an incredible dish and she, you know, I got a lot of props the whole day, but that is how good Freshly is. Ordering is incredibly easy. Visit Freshly.com and choose from over 30 delicious, satisfying, better for you meals like steak, peppercorn, sausage, baked penne, or their chicken pesto ball. Brett, what's your favorite Freshly dish? I'm getting hungry just thinking about those. I got a chicken

parmesan last week. Oh, that's what I was going to say. No, I took your answer. So you got to say your second favorite, I think now. Oh, my second favorite? That's an easy one. It's definitely the steak peppercorn. It's like a gourmet meal. It's like steak in like three minutes. It's like a gourmet meal. A steak peppercorn. A steak in like three minutes. It's unbelievable. Right now, Freshly is offering our listeners $40 off of your first two orders when you go to Freshly.com slash Midas, spelled M-E-I-D-A-S. That's Freshly.com slash Midas. Stop stressing about dinner.

Go to Freshly.com slash Midas for Stop stressing about dinner. Go to Freshly.com slash Midas for $40 off your first two orders. That's Freshly.com slash Midas for $40 off of your first two orders from Freshly. I promise you, you will not regret that purchase. Brothers, I now want to go back and I want to talk about this economist who the GQP senators are relying on. For those people, Sandra, who are coming into the labor force brand fresh, not old timers who've been around for a while. The poor, the minorities, the disenfranchised, those with less education, young people who haven't had the job experience. These people aren't worth fifteen15 an hour in most cases. Oh my gosh. I just want to repeat what he said because, and by the way, nobody on this Fox News set,

of course, bats an eye at this comment he makes. Art Laffer, conservative economist, goes on Fox News. He says, for those coming into the labor force fresh, not the old timers, but the poor, the minorities, the disenfranchised, those with less education and young people who haven't had the job experience, these people aren't worth $15 an hour in most cases. So let's repeat. Who are the these people aren't worth $15 an hour in most cases? The poor, the minorities, the disenfranchised, the people with less education and young people. No one bats an eye on the set. And it's my view, and this is why Democrats need to step up, okay? People want to live. So defending a living wage and making that an important priority is a winning issue with

lots of people who are not making a living wage. That is why the message that we had in Georgia, our main message, and of course Midas Touch is known for our attack ads, but our message in Georgia was slightly different. Yes, we did the Grinches of Georgia, but it was also vote yourself a raise. By voting for Democrats, you will vote yourself a raise and you deserve it. And Democrats are trying to fight for that. But the problem is, as people like mansion, as people like cinema are so protective of the filibuster and the GQP buys into that, that human beings, humans are not worth $15 an hour? What are we doing as a country? What is the purpose of government, business, if life of people who are on the earth and walking around, particularly in our country, are suffering so much unnecessarily? And it's not that there isn't enough money. It's just that we believe people should have 18 summer homes, not even just 17. I believe you should have 18 summer homes. We believe that you should have yachts and go for it. Get a gigantic yacht. Get two,

get three. But do you need eight gigantic yachts? And that's oftentimes what it is that the incredibly excessively wealthy are fighting for. And I'm never hating on people whatsoever to get rich. Get rich. But we also have to remember where you're getting rich from. You're getting rich from labor. And most people who are listening to this, most people out there are labor. And the GQP has hypnotized people to forget that they are labor. It shocks me so much sometimes when I see labor fighting against labor for billionaires. And I'm all for, I want to defend the right of someone who is labor to become a billionaire. But for me to help defend your right, you have to have an opportunity. And to have an opportunity, you have to be treated with decency. You have to be treated

with compassion. You have to have the opportunity to go home and to be able to eat a meal so that the next day you can think and achieve all of those results. If we do that, all of us will be richer. Every single one of us will collectively make more money. That is what we need to do. And that argument I just made needs to be talked about every single day. If you're a Democrat, get out there, go to your districts and say everything I just said right there. I also want everybody to be extremely careful and discerning when they read news about things like raising the minimum wage, because all these mainstream news media outlets have an agenda. And I'll give you an example right here. Chipotle recently announced they were raising their wages to $15 an hour,

minimum wage. Sounds great. But the news, when they reported on this, almost sounded like an anti-living wage press release. What they said is Chipotle Mexican Grill has hiked prices to cover the cost of raising its workers' wages. And you might read that, and that's from NBC News, and you might go, oh my God, prices at Chipotle are going up. And then you click into the article and you start reading about it, and you see that while a burrito at Chipotle may have cost $7.30 last year, next year it's going to cost $7.50. So don't take from the headline and go, holy shit, this minimum wage, this living wage is going to kill us all. For an extra 20 cents, you're able to get workers paid $15 an hour. And by the way, that's not including all the other things that

are going on in the economy in which there is generally inflation anyway, and prices do rise. I just think it's incredibly disingenuous. And you need to be careful that you're not being deceived by the media's framing of raising the minimum wage, of giving people a living wage. Preach. You guys both just fucking crushed that segment. And that's not just the living wage. I mean, you had this week every single Senate Republican voting against equal pay for women and for the status

quo that robs their daughters, sisters and friends of $400,000 over a lifetime is what Nancy Pelosi tweeted. And that's specifically what happened. The Republicans are filibustering and preventing a bill that would ensure a equal pay for women. That's also what's going on out there. And Democrats need to keep fighting, as Pelosi said, for H.R. 7 to become the law of the land to have equal pay. Hey, Joe Manchin, how is this going? How is this bipartisanship going? We don't believe that people should live in living wages. We don't believe that men and women should be paid equally. And we don't even believe in investigating the insurrection. to negotiate with your friends over there. Oh, and by the way, they've already told you that their professed ideology is irrespective of what you believe. They will disagree with you. Even if you said we are going to pass the bill that says, you know, that is a Republican agenda,

they will vote against your bill. And that's what we said about the infrastructure was that the infrastructure plan right now is what Trump actually talked about, but was such an idiot that he couldn't actually write the words to implement the infrastructure plan. Instead, he said, I'm going to do infrastructure week every week. So we have literally the plan that all Democrats previously said, put on our desks, Donald Trump. And he couldn't write it despite having hundreds of thousands of people in federal government who works for him. He couldn't even write it the same way he can't even operate a fucking blog at the end of his presidency. And the Republicans won't support essentially their own plan. That is where we are. And that is why this idea of bipartisanship, when one party rejects bipartisan views of the people and another political party, the Democrats, kowtows to that other political party, is problematic.

We are going to take a brief break, and when we come back from these messages, we are going to have Ruth Ben-Ghiat on this podcast. We'll be right back after these messages. Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast. We are joined by Ruth Ben-Ghiat. Ruth is a professor of history and Italian studies at New York University. She writes frequently for CNN and other media outlets on threats to democracy around the world. Her latest book, Strong Men from Mussolini to the Present, examines how illiberal leaders use corruption, violence, propaganda, and other machismo tactics to stay in power and how resistance to them has been unfolded for over a century. So a perfect person to talk to now. Ruth, welcome back to them has been unfolded for over a century. So a perfect person to talk to now.

Ruth, welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast. Thanks. Thanks for having me back. And Ruth, we connected quite some time ago. So in, I guess, in real years, we connected probably, what, nine months ago. But in the fascist years of what we've lived through, it feels like I've known you now for my entire life. Yeah, when there's fateful periods in history

and we're living through one of them in our country, time kind of expands. And it has like a different quality, you know, and so much is going on every day. And you I just I feel like everything that is done now is is very important for our country's future. It's a really kind of dramatic time. And yet we're living our everyday lives at the same time. So it's this interesting, interesting double track in a way. And Ruth, at my law firm, we both have a civil practice and a criminal practice. And the criminal lawyers like to say that when our clients reach out to them, they're never really the person that

the client wants to talk to or hear about or something's always wrong. And Ruth, you're an incredible person, but whenever I see you do a ton of appearances on authoritarianism, it's kind of a litmus test to know that some shit's going down in our country, you know, calling Ruth to save the day. So it's both a blessing to have you out there, but it also is indicative of things are going down. It is. And I know when when I'm in demand, it means things are bad. And when I write things, I really don't want to be right, which is, you know, may be a strange thing to say, especially as a professor or a scholar. You you need to be right. But when I look back on all my forecasts, like starting in 2016 about what Trump would do, and now I'm really looking ahead to what the GOP is doing, I'm hoping that I'm wrong. And that's why we all need to be listening to you, Ruth. I remember when we were speaking, oh, eight, nine months ago, you said what you see now is truly just the beginning.

When an authoritarian like Donald Trump is backed into the corner, he's going to engage in far worse conduct. And though you didn't use the specific words insurrection, and I don't think we knew it was going to look the way it did on January 6th, specifically the optics of that, what you were saying then was basically warning us that there was going to be an insurrection. Yeah. And so I had to turn in my book in the summer of 2020. So I didn't know how the election would go. I had time to, you know, get in the government response to Black Lives Matter. And I kind of saw that that was a rehearsal with all the military and the unmarked soldiers for something around the election. And I was able to say, based on history and what I knew about Trump, that he was not going to go quietly, that something he would do something to try and gain power because this kind of ruler leader, it's a psychological death for them to have to leave office. And they also are very concerned, you're a lawyer. So with immunity from prosecution,

and even now, it's been very interesting that Donald Trump's election fraud rhetoric are very concerned, you're a lawyer, so with immunity from prosecution. And even now, it's been very interesting that Donald Trump's election fraud rhetoric has risen in conjunction with how panicked he is at the opening of a criminal investigation. So it's always about self-preservation, and they will go to any lengths. There's nothing off the table when they need to stay in power. So I didn't know, as you said, what it would look like, but I had a feeling that he would do something. You know, there are a lot of people, even right now, who like to say, you know, you were all just being alarmists when you said that Donald Trump would literally have to be pried from the White House and literally dragged out by the Secret Service. Like anyone who said that, look, he walked out on his own.

I think they missed the fundamental aspect of what happened on January 6th. That January 6th was far worse. I think there's a silly image, obviously, that we all had of the Secret Service literally dragging Donald out by his diaper. And that was like a funny image to think about, but far worse. He inspired and incited an insurrection. And now we are in a point where you have a whole party. When I read your book, it kind of is the way Hitler coalesced the movement of anti-democracy and pro-fascism. First, it was a crazy person ranting, and then it was actually institutionalized and embraced. And now we have a whole party that has institutionalized and legitimized QAnon and fascism. And that's what the whole party represents.

Yeah. And we don't know what will happen to Trump. We don't know how his investigations will go. We don't know if he'll run again. Who knows? But what we do know is that his role in history was similar to other strongmen, where he came along and he coalesced and channeled and gave momentum to these existing anti-democratic tendencies, extremists. You know, he valorized these people. He made them feel special as he told them after January 6th, I love you, you're special, which he said in the video and hours after they had assaulted, you know, and done the crimes that your ad shows.

And so whatever happens to him, he set off this transformation of the GOP into an authoritarian party. And that can't be stopped now and in fact after january 6th this is very interesting to me because they were they by then they were radicalized and january 6th is like one of these shock events in history which becomes a catalyst everything accelerates so it's really sad that they could have disowned trump because he's now like super toxic, right? Look what happened to Mike Pence, who was Mr. Straight and Narrow Republican. And they would have had some firm ground to kind of move back and say, oh, we went too far. Let's reverse course.

Instead, they've doubled down and become even more radical and lawless. And this is the legacy of Trump, basically. And one of the things, too, is, and this is something that comes Trump basically. And one of the things too is, and this is something that comes up in your book, is so you now have this whole apparatus of fascism building. You have institutionalization of it within the Republican Party as an anti-democratic force and now you also have truly at an institutionalized level, a arm, a media propaganda arm that's purely focused on projecting and amplifying the anti-democracy message. And now we see serving as a gatekeeper for the echo chamber they created. And we're the example, right? We created an ad and

we actually tried to reach them and speak to people with the message that we thought was uncontroversial. And they blocked our ability to even reach out and have what should be a fairly non-controversial conversation that insurrections are bad and we need to support the Capitol Police officers who were injured that day. Yeah. And what's so tragic is, you know, because January 6th was a huge optics problem for this law enforcement, pro-law enforcement party, always on the side of the police, no matter how brutal they were to all kinds of people, especially people of color, to journalists. And here we have this event where 140 Capitol Police were injured, several died, and that created a problem for them. But their response has been to just deny the violence. But we know that once you deny violence, you create the conditions for it to happen again. And it's very hard to watch

that footage, but it's absolutely essential. But it's exactly what they can't afford to be shown because this goes against everything they supposedly stood for. So your ad was extremely hard hitting and people don't want to deal with all kinds of people. I can't really digest January 6th, the brutality of it. I wrote a piece for CNN on the video footage and I felt sick to my stomach hearing the audio, the kind of sounds of violence. And then the creepy, very creepy rioters calling for pelosi like out of a horror film and i'm used to tough stuff and i found it really hard so what you did was just right on and very shouldn't have to be called courageous because it's just showing the truth

but we're in a moment where that's the truth the truth is very dangerous for the GOP and its allies. The footage is extremely harrowing. And as the editor of these ads, I've sifted now through hours and hours and hours of it. And let me tell you, that was no tourist visit. That was no peaceful protest. That was no peaceful protest. That was not Antifa. That was not Black Lives Matter. These were Trump supporters inspired, aided, and abetted by Trump and the Republican Party. And I think one of your points is so true.

It's really just the truth. There's nothing courageous about our ad. And I think one of the reasons I was surprised that Fox rejected it is because to me, it was such a straightforward message. And it was really just showing what happened using the words of law enforcement. And the fact that that truth, they just, that is what scared them so much. What happens if truth gets into the Fox News ecosystem? Do you think their house of cards just collapses? What do you make of Laura Ingraham going on TV every night and kind of mocking people and going, oh, they call it an insurrection. It wasn't an insurrection and other sort of statements like that. Not only their whole law and order pro-police

collapses as well as so that the larger, very scary playbook, that's a right-wing authoritarian playbook here that I had kind of started writing about in December, is they need the Biden administration to be seen as anarchist. That's why Fox News kept playing the footage of the few episodes that occurred during the Black Lives Matter protests and professional looters were there. And so they got some footage and they played it months and months after. And that started, you know, that started this prep. And now when Biden got in, they need to show Biden as an anarchist, Marxist. And Putin's in Russia, the Russian news is constantly showing America is falling apart. So if you show that the actual murderous rioters and ruiners of everything are right wing extremists, and that Trump is their head, you lose everything you're trying to, to build, because they are trying to build this

narrative that the country has to be saved from Biden's tyranny. And this is a very dangerous narrative. And it usually it often ends in episodes of violence like January 6. But, you know, whatever will come in the future. What do you make of that, that Russia, their propaganda is lining up pretty much exactly with the messaging of the Republican Party. It's they've been in a symbiosis for a while. And, you know, there's all kinds of quite apart from election interference. There's long many people in GOP have long been invested. But Putin, Putin is Putin's Russia is superb at propaganda and they use RT, which is Russia today, which is their foreign arm. My own mother, who lives in England and is almost 90, has been radicalized during the pandemic from watching RT.

And now I'm not even speaking to her right now because she goes on rants against Biden and she says that he's not helping Putin. And I'm like, mom, why should Biden be helping Putin? Putin is trying to ruin America. But this, this, she, she repeats all of the Kremlin talking points, which are the same as the GOP. And she's a very intelligent woman, but this is, this is the power of Kremlin and Fox and disinformation. So one of your predictions that unfortunately has come true, as we were speaking about earlier, was in May 2019, you said, one day it will become clear that Trump and company, including a radicalized GOP, are playing by a different set of rules, the authoritarian playbook. Direct confrontation and bold actions are the only ways

to prevail. Are you seeing the direct confrontation and bold action that we need from the Democrats, from the media, from activists to overcome this authoritarian bent? I am seeing it. I wish the media would talk about all the things that are going on because people need inspiration. They need role models. You're doing you're doing so many things. You're a prime driver. the GOP voter suppression legislation in court, the legal pushback. There are many different entities that are pursuing this, including a group I advise called Protect Democracy. But I wish that the media would do profiles and show us we need heroes, we need role models, because otherwise, if we only focus on the, we do need to focus on all the repressive things going on, on the long-term picture to take our rights away. And I do that. But we also have to, just also to mobilize more people, we have to inform people about all the

pushback that's going on so they don't feel resigned and don't feel hopeless. And they also know where to volunteer because we are going to need a massive mobilization for voter registration, for all kinds of things to do with the elections, but also social justice in order to get through this. What do you make of these news reports, these leaks? I don't know what you would call them about Trump going to be reinstated, which is obviously, you know, a completely ridiculous concept. That's not a thing. That's what you call a coup. But how does this know, the authoritarian playbook, they can't really leave office. They can't be irrelevant. Being irrelevant and being deprived of their platforms and their adulation is worse than death. In Trump's case, he also uses the rallies and the supporters. He fleeces people of their money. Basically, basically all those things have always been a funnel for money and he

cares about money and power that's all he cares about and he cares about stringing them along because if they lose if he becomes irrelevant and they think he's really not coming back and then this goes into the q anon because the q anon uh you, disinformation says that he is going to be restored and that he has to also keep up the myth that he is the savior of America and only he can make America great again. Nobody else. And that's also why he has been typically authoritarian in ways managed the Republicans so that no rivals can emerge. None of these other people from Pence to younger people, when you have a kind of mafia type boss, they don't let anybody challenge that. So that, too, is part of why he has to string people along and say he might come back. Ruth, are we in trouble? All things considered, American democracy is relatively new. I mean, do you think our democratic institutions can really withstand another 5,

10, 20 years of this type of assault from the fascist cult members of the Republican Party? I'm very concerned about the election, taking all the dozens and dozens of laws that are designed to make it harder to vote, more complicated to vote. I've been doing some research for a piece I'm going to be publishing. Also, they're trying to make it more threatening to vote, like in military junta and stuff, by using poll watchers. And I'm concerned the intersection between this and gun rights, so that these poll watchers can be armed with, you know, assault rifles. And the Republicans have dozens of bills where they're trying to get them, these poll watchers, to have the right to be as close as three feet from voters. And in Texas, there's a bill that's introduced where if you do curbside voting from your car, they want the poll watcher who again, could have a like an assault rifle to be

able to come in your car. So the more I am very concerned that the way that authoritarianism works today, you don't have as many old fashioned dictatorships. Yes, you've got North Korea and China, but you have these electoral autocracies where you keep elections going, but you make it so difficult and threatening to vote that or you just use fraud like Putin does. And then you get your way. So I am quite concerned about that. And that's why I'm really hoping that the media will be more attentive to all of the amazing people working for democracy and focus on that. And so on that point, Ruth, let's talk about solutions. I think it's important that we raise these alarms, but ultimately we raise the alarms to solve problems. And so one of the things that we've done at Midas Touch is to literally make the videos to deliver the truth however we can.

But look, we have resources because we're fighters and we created this thing, but we're three brothers who don't really have a political background. And now we do. And what always shocks me is I'm like, why is it? Why is it just us three? Sometimes I'm like, what? Like, if we can do it, where are all of these people, you know, who may have billions of dollars, who love democracy, who want to fight for it? Like, where are they? And what do we do? How do we get people

to truly care about this and stop caring about the quarterly profits of whatever their company is so that they don't want to get involved in these discussions, but to tell them there's not going to be quarterly profits if someone like Trump takes over your company. Yeah, this is the liaison with business and corporations. You know, this is it's been a mixed record because there's been some media coverage of at the beginning, many corporations didn't want to. They said they weren't going to give money to people involved in January 6th. And then some of them fell back on their promise. And it's really hard to make people focus on principle over profit.

Now, one place I think there is room for growth is that we citizens, we know how to protest and get out in the streets. But we probably don't do as many economic boycotts and things of that nature using our power as consumers. And that we're probably going to have to do more of because if we accept that these people are only interested in profits, that's where we have to hit them. That's where I think it's important to be blunt. And I try and be blunt, although it's scary to make corporate leaders and people who have great influence and deep pockets understand that the dire nature of the situation now. And the problem with today is that, you know, there are fewer military coups, although there democracy dies over time. It's like evolution, not revolution. And the way that Mussolini at the very beginning started, where he was prime minister of a democracy for three years before he did like his January 6th thing and he declared dictatorship

because he had a crisis. That's more typical of how it happens today. So it's too easy to keep thinking that things are fine. You know, I have people write to me and they say, well, what are you talking about? They usually are much ruder. And they'll say, but you're allowed to speak. You know, you should be in prison. You know, you Marxist, such and such. And so people, they don't see what's going on and they don't follow all the legislation. It's too complicated. Perhaps they're boring. Some people think that, you know, congressional things are very bills. They're boring. But then by the time they wake up, it's too late. And Ruth, did you see that President Biden is doing this tour

across Europe with democracies to celebrate democracies? What do you think about that? Biden's been very good, especially as regards standing up to calling Putin a killer. That's very, very important that he does that prioritizing democracy and he's also tried to do it at home you know his preface to the for the people act says very clearly that this is the big struggle that we are we have to defend democracy and his first press conference i was very pleased he said you know here are the stakes people are going to be writing their doctoral theses, you know, about the current struggle between autocracy and democracy. So he gets it. That's heartening. And I know I've been hearing these reading this book, How Democracies Die, which is a great book by two political

science professors. So the European summit he's having is an outgrowth of that. I'm not thrilled he's having a meeting with Putin. I'm not quite sure what is going to come of that other than fodder. You should see the way that Biden is routinely depicted in Russian television. They have graphics that show him as a kind of devil, a monster. And so I hope whatever benefits he thinks he's going to get from meeting with Putin are not outweighed by the damage. Thank you so much, Ruth, for joining the Midas Touch podcast. I hope we hear from you more as friends, but certainly less in a professional setting. I don't know if that's a rude thing to say, but I think you were prescient. I think people out there need to listen to you. They need to read your book, Strong Men for Mussolini,

to the present. Everything you have said to us from day one when we talked nine months ago has been accurate. And we've studied your work and through our conversations, we try to structure our videos based on some of the intellectual foundations that permeate your work. And so we all want to let you know that we're inspired by what you do. Thank you. And likewise, I'm really, what you're doing and all the different things you're doing are fantastic and essential. That is Ruth Van Geet, friend of Midas Touch and incredible all-around person and professor. We will be right back after this message. What's up, Midas Mighty? Have you been to store.midastouch.com yet?

We got a great sale going on for you right now. And it's going through Sunday, June 20th, 2021, Father's Day weekend. We're offering 15% off select merch. Jordy, what's the code? Pineapple. Pineapple. Pineapple, pineapple, pineapple, pineapple. Use the code pineapple and on select merch and you'll get 15% off the merch. We got some great stuff in there. Really excited for you to check it out. You can get your Vax wristbands, your pride wristbands, your Vax and Relax masks and koozies and the Be Mighty button pack for 15% off. Just use code pineapple at checkout at store.midastouch.com and get your official Midas Touch gear today.

Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast. Always love having Ruth. And I meant what I said to her. I mean, we listened to her and we read her works. You should all read her books as well and read her writings because that's informed a lot of the ways we've done videos. And there's particularly one Midas Touch video that we all edited together. I'm just joking, Brett, that Brett helped make. I'm just joking, Brett,

that Brett made. It was a perfect video that showed all of the other dictators in history. And it went from Hitler to Mussolini and went to Kim Jong-un. And it showed literally how the press secretaries looked like the press secretaries and the waving looked like the waving. And it showed literally how the press secretaries look like the press secretaries and the waving looked like the waving and all of just the kind of braggadocious, ultra machismo, kind of banana Republican-ish kind of despotism is so on brand for Trump. We've made the joke. That's kind of Hugo Chavez. That's the brand of this republicanism. They want not they just don't want a dictator. They want a failed and flawed dictator

where there's going to be food line stretching down the blocks. And only when that happens, they're going to say, oh, shit, we did a good job here. That is exactly what they're looking for. I want to close out the show by talking about I don't want to ignore what's happening here with the DOJ seeming to. You got to explain this. Yeah.

At face value, you need to take on. This is so fucked up. Certain legal positions that seem to be defending Donald Trump. And I shouldn't be laughing. It's incredibly problematic. I'm just laughing as a defense mechanism so I don't start punching myself while talking about it. Before you get into it, I also just want to say one of the things that I don't love, and I don't know your thoughts on this, is that this is often framed of as Biden's DOJ does this. I just think that's an incorrect framing of it in general, because obviously Biden

installed the people at the DOJ, but he has made it clear that he's going to be separate from the Department of Justice, unlike Trump. Like with Trump, it was very much, Bill Barr was Trump's DOJ. That was his lawyer. In many ways, he, him and the Department of Justice were one in the same. Here though, they are, they are separate. So do you ever find it just weird that the media calls it Biden's DOJ to do these things. In other administrations other than Trump, there was a firewall as much as could possibly take place where the DOJ would be its own independent law enforcement and prosecutorial administration that would pursue its own agendas, obviously consistent with the fact that they're appointed by a president who has goals and agendas, obviously consistent with the fact that they're appointed by a president who

has goals and agendas, but that on specific cases, someone like Biden would not interfere with what they did. And here what we have is the DOJ taking very nuanced positions to not support Trump in anything that Trump is doing, but to support the idea of an executive branch. Remember, the DOJ is an arm of the executive branch. It's like they're still there to protect the presidential powers, you know, in some respects. So what we have here, and we saw one of these issues arise in connection with Lafayette Park. Remember, the DOJ took the position that a president should not be sued in kind of his individual capacity, you know, and the DOJ basically said, look, we think everything Donald Trump did was wrong, but you still can't sue the president. And similarly here,

while he is the president, and there are carve outs to this, of course, you know, there are cases that involve conduct that predates the presidency, but where there is a lawsuit that occurs during the presidency, but with conduct outside the scope of when the person actually is the president. And the Supreme Court found that that is an acceptable, you can't claim presidential immunity. That lawsuit is indeed acceptable. But here, especially with this Gene Carroll defamation case, the statements were made by Donald Trump said was right or accurate. We completely are not supportive of that. But you still can't sue a president who speaks out against individuals. Now, I disagree with that interpretation. But you also have to understand that if someone like Gene Carroll is suing essentially the president.

That means the new administration would ultimately have is the defendant. So the moment Biden's administration steps in there, they're being sued by her. Actually, even though Donald Trump is the name defendant, because he's the president in the scope in the course and scope of his employment, It's now like she's also suing Biden, even though the name is Trump. I know that can be confusing. Yeah. So usually when people are sued, their response isn't thank you for suing me. Their response is I shouldn't be sued. And here's why. And remember, there's two issues. There's the claim of sexual assault predating the presidency, which has statute of limitations issues. So the issue is, could that claim still exist today if it happened many years ago? But clearly, if a president sexually assaulted somebody before they were the president, then that would not be subject to any presidential immunity.

The thing here is that this case relates to the president denying the underlying conduct while he was the president and being sued during the presidency. And so, look, I don't think this DOJ defense is valid. I think that they should throw the continuity even over his own personal agenda and his own personal views. So that's how I think we frame it. I'll discuss this more on Legal AF, the new Legal AF, the suits over here. I'm now a suit when I'm on here. We've moved the Legal AF podcast with me and Michael Popock to the weekend. Those podcasts are heard now. Every Sunday, new episodes are released. So check out the new Legal AF. We will go into that. I'm excited to hear the Legal AF this week. And Legal AF stands for, of course, Legal Analysis Friends. Not what you thought. And it's great to get the perspective from you and Popak.

And because the other case that I look forward to hearing you guys discuss is the fact that the Justice Department signaled that it's going to defend a federal law that allows schools to discriminate against LGBTQ plus students. And I'm curious for your take at the dig on that, but I'll let you cover that in Legal AF. Brett, I want to wish you an incredible happy birthday. I truly mean this when I say that there is no Midas Touch without Brett Mycelis. Brett has worked around the clock tirelessly. Brett's quit his job to do this full-time, as did Jordy. And Brett is the heart and soul of Midas Touch. And we wish you a happy birthday, Brett. We love you.

And we hope you have a great birthday week and birthday weekend. So brothers, great podcast. That was great. I think dissecting these issues. I always love doing podcasts that have really big themes and hear the democracy theme, talking about what truly is bipartisanship and then having a perspective from Ruth Van Giet

about fascism. Having all those together is something that's special. I want to, of course, thank our sponsor, Freshly. If you haven't already gone to freshly.com slash Midas, do that immediately. Any final words, Jordy? Shout out to the Midas Mighty!