In Grand Rapids, NYU historian examines US authoritarianism and ways to push back

New York University Professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat answers questions at an event in Grand Rapids organized by Democracy SENTRY and democracyFIRST on Sept. 5, 2024. | Kyle Davidson

Calvin College professor emeritus Doug Koopman sat down with New York University professor and historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat Thursday in Grand Rapids to discuss her studies on fascism and the threat of authoritarianism in the United States. 

In their discussion, Koopman and Ben-Ghiat reviewed, “Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present,” Ben-Ghiat’s 2020 book comparing former President Donald Trump to previous authoritarian leaders alongside contemporaries like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

Scholars and political activists have repeatedly raised alarms about Trump’s authoritarian leanings, with the former President saying he would not abuse his power or seek retribution if granted a second term “except for day one.” Trump has also praised authoritarian leaders including Putin, Orbán and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un. 

“I think this discussion tonight is important and timely, and this is a wonderful place to have it. We’re already in West Michigan, inundated with the fact that we are a swing state and a swing region or a swing county,” Koopman said. 

“One way for a community to talk about that is to become more divided and have sort of lower-quality conversations. The other way to do this is to come together across differences and have more elevated conversations about things that matter. And I believe this evening is in that tradition of an elevated conversation about things that matter, where there will be disagreement here and there will be disagreement in the room, but we do that well with grace and with civility,” Koopman said. 

In writing the book, Ben-Ghiat said she felt it was time to look back on 100 years of authoritarianism and the damage it has caused. 

“I chose to do a book about right-wing authoritarians, not because I’m like a commie, and I think that, you know, we shouldn’t talk about [USSR leader Joseph] Stalin, but because I did not see a book that that talked about fascism and then talked about what happens to fascist ideologies and all that culture after fascism is gone,” Ben-Ghiat said. 

“Once these guys come in, it’s very difficult to get rid of them,” Ben-Ghiat said, in reference to fascist leaders like Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and Spanish Caudillo Francisco Franco. 

She also pointed to the revival of fascism in Italy under Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. 

“I was living in Italy, and part of the time he was there, and I saw how fascism got reawakened. .… Before he came in, people would say, ‘Oh, your Italian is so good.’ And they’d say, ‘What are you studying?’ and I would say, fascism. And then people would be embarrassed,” Ben-Ghiat said.

“After Berlusconi brought in fascists and governed with them and normalized them, people would say stuff like, ‘[Benito] Mussolini did great things, the only people who suffered were subversives and the Jews,’” she said. 

In addition to drawing from her experiences in Italy, Ben-Ghiat said she also wrote the book from her own concerns as an American, as she saw similar dynamics of extremism popping up in the states including the normalization of dangerous political beliefs and personality cults forming around certain political figures. 

Ben-Ghiat noted she is not a U.S. historian but instead looks at the United States through the lens of foreign experiences. 

“In the past, the fact that we were a bipartisan system was supposed to be all good. We’re so stable all these other countries like Italy they’re constantly, you know, governments are falling. We’re better,” Ben-Ghiat said.

“But if you only have two giant parties and one of them undergoes a transformation in which many of the leadership no longer seems to believe in democracy anymore and won’t accept election results, and there’s been a leader cult and certain authoritarian directions can take hold. If you only have two parties, it’s an enormous problem,” Ben-Ghiat said. 

Ben-Ghiat noted that she has Republican friends who no longer feel they have a home with the party after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. capitol, in which a mob of Trump supporters sought to disrupt the certification of the 2020 election, which Trump lost to President Joe Biden.

When looking at the conditions that allow authoritarian leaders to appeal to the people, Ben-Ghiat pointed to perceptions of rapid change within society, such as worker’s rights, racial equity or gender equity, where people feel their authority is threatened. 

“In the Euro-American context, that’s been white men and also sometimes white women, but it plays out all over the world like this,” Ben-Ghiat said. 

When these conditions are present, figures reading the marketplace, including those coming from outsider politics like Trump, can make themselves into a vessel of what is wanted in the culture, Ben-Ghiat said. 

These figures are able to appeal to a broad base because they’re charismatic and lack morals, Ben-Ghiat said. 

“They’ll say what you want to hear in the morning, and then they say what you want to hear totally opposite in the afternoon,” she said. 

“You have people who have, in theory, nothing in common — housewives, gangsters, just like the most eclectic people — and they all praise the leader, because he manages to appeal to all of them in a different way. And that is a true talent. These guys they’re incredibly successful communicators,” Ben-Ghiat said, pointing to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Instagram account as an example. 

Additionally, social media has souped up propaganda for these leaders, as propaganda thrives not only on repetition, but in delivering these messages with tiny variations to appeal to different constituencies, which social media allows leaders to do more effectively, Ben-Ghiat said.

You can tell if a political party is becoming authoritarian if dissent is no longer allowed, and pluralistic viewpoints are no longer welcome, Ben-Ghiat said. 

The most effective propagandists teach people to make associations between certain groups and certain qualities, Ben-Ghiat said, pointing to Nazi Germany. 

“Most Germans didn’t know any Jews, and Jews then became instantly associated with race polluters, you know, thieves, criminals, and that was so successful that it got buy-in for persecution,” Ben-Ghiat said.

When propaganda is effective, it teaches people to see the world differently and lasts a long time, she said. 

“Many of you may have relatives — I do — who you can’t talk to graciously now. .… I call it the disinformation tunnel,” Ben-Ghiat said. 

She later discussed how her mother, who lives in England, was radicalized by the Russian state-controlled news network Russia Today (RT) during the pandemic. 

“She became like a Putin fan. And so at first she would rant about immigrants, and yes, I hung up on her sometimes. That’s not what you’re supposed to do,” Ben-Ghiat said. 

“You have to persevere and have these conversations. …. They’re not fun, not easy, but if you pass them off, then they just go further into their other world,” Ben-Ghiat said. 

Speaking with the Advance after the Q&A, Ben-Ghiat pointed to the success of discussions about patriotism drawing from big abstract categories in countering messages pushed by fascist figures.

“Each person will have their way in. It could be faith, it could be the military, but you have to, you have to find that way in,” Ben-Ghiat said. 

“What you can’t do is tell them they’re wrong and criticize them, because then they just get more defensive,” Ben-Ghiat said. 

While looking to elections, the authoritarian playbook there is an extension of a wider strategy, where figures seeking to damage democracy begin by discrediting institutions, with elections being just one of those institutions, Ben-Ghiat said. 

Authoritarian figures begin by undermining the nation’s judiciary system, building up to something called autocratic capture, where authoritarian leaders take control of those institutions by intimidating or forcing out those who are not loyal, Ben-Ghiat said. 

“The reason the judiciary is important for elections is, I’ll give you an example from our country. In 2020, over 60 judges, many of them appointed by Trump, turned back the claims of false or rigged or improper elections. Had autocratic capture advanced, those judges wouldn’t have been there anymore,” Ben-Ghiat said. 

As authoritarian leaders deride and push propaganda around elections, people will begin to question and lose faith in the system and ultimately not vote, Ben-Ghiat said. 

“A lot of these people don’t want you to vote. They want you to just stay home, be quiet, not make trouble, and people live in sadness for years that way,” Ben-Ghiat said. 

While discussing Trump’s efforts to paint the criminal cases against him as politically motivated, Ben-Ghiat pointed to the former president’s efforts to politicize the charges. In May, Trump was convicted of 34 felonies in a New York hush money trial tied to the 2016 election and he faces dozens of charges in other cases.

“They’re not discrediting all justice, they’re discrediting justice that might harm them, right? And they’re making nonpartisan things seem partisan, because it’s targeting them. It’s part of Trump’s personalization of politics, everything’s about him,” Ben-Ghiat told the Advance.

And it’s not just Trump pushing back against a democratic notion of justice, but his enablers as well, she said. 

Ben-Ghiat also stressed the importance of hope in combating the threat of authoritarianism, pointing to the surge in morale among Democrats following President Joe Biden’s decision to suspend his reelection campaign and the launch of Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign. 

“Things can change, and what we all say in this line of work is things change slowly and then suddenly,” Ben-Ghiat said.

“We have to have hope, because that allows us to think that change is possible and that we can have a hand in that change.”

“The Supreme Court in granting him immunity, that is not a democratic notion of justice. You have to take away impartiality, accountability,” Ben-Ghiat said.

“You discredit that and that helps you get into power. And then you build your own system that is not democratic justice,” She said, noting that authoritarianism begins with a leader who is untouchable.