Trump Is Doing The Precise Identical Factor That Led To The Downfall Of Dictators, In accordance To This Historical past Professor

Authoritarianism professional Ruth Ben-Ghiat says Donald Trump is falling into the identical lure that has undone authoritarian-minded leaders all through historical past.

Regardless of declining approval rankings, Ben-Ghiat argued in a guest essay for the New York Times that the president is making the age-old error of believing his personal hype.

Learn the complete essay on the New York Times.

“I’ve seen this model of strongman megalomania and the opposed results it may finally have on leaders and their governments,” wrote Ben-Ghiat, the writer of Strongmen: Mussolini to the Current.

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Ben-Ghiat, a professor of historical past at New York College, described the phenomenon as “autocratic backfire.” It happens when leaders “reduce themselves off from professional recommendation and goal suggestions,” “promulgate unscrutinized insurance policies that fail” after which “double down and interact in even riskier habits,” she mentioned.

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“The consequence: a disillusioned inhabitants that loses religion within the chief and elites who start to rethink their help,” she wrote, citing Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and Russian President Vladimir Putin as historic examples of the sample she sees rising round Trump.

Ben-Ghiat has lengthy drawn parallels between Trump and previous dictators.