Ruth Ben-Ghiat

“With a white nationalist in the White House stoking hatred and 400+ million guns in circulation, America is in uncharted terrain.”

“Trump does nothing by accident. The use of repetition – a propaganda mainstay – points to an intention by Trump to impose a way of thinking about his designated targets.”

“Trump’s history of public admiration for Xi Jinping as a repressive ruler who may stay in office indefinitely sends a clear signal of approval for anything Xi does to show his strength, including any military action in Hong Kong.”

“Trump is turning American military might…,into a way to glorify himself and further an agenda which is seen as authoritarian.”

“Trump has to colonize everything…Any holiday, any civic ritual, becomes a Trump ritual.”

“Trump has created a corps of supporters fanatically loyal to him who turn his latest racist messages into group rituals (chants, slogans) and who hate the people he tells them to.”

“The military has been domesticated. I think the will to resist him has evaporated.”

“War evokes our sense of national identity, establishes an “us vs. them” framework and forces us to choose sides.”

“Trump is a marketing master…he’s very dangerous because he knows exactly how to communicate.”

“… authoritarians are continually testing the boundaries to see what they can get away with, and everything he does is a challenge to Democrats to mount some response against him,”