Dr. Ruth Ben-Ghiat is professor of history and Italian studies at New York University. She is the author of Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present. She exposes the blueprint of leaders from Mussolini to Trump. She points out that as of 2022, half of the world’s population lives under the illiberal rule, including countries such as Poland, Hungary, India, China, and Russia.

Alpha males lead all of these countries. Republicans have two alpha males, each living in Flordia and expressing their ideas in Fascist style. DeSantis is trying to outdo Donald Trump and so portends that Republicans will only support extremist ideology. Ben-Ghiat’s protagonists include 17 authoritarian leaders, some dead, but many are walking on the earth as corrupt, brutal, sexist, delusional, and violent.

I subscribe to her newsletter, Lucid and I want to share it with you. She describes Lucid as a newsletter for big-picture thinking about autocracy and threats to democracy worldwide.

In today’s edition of Lucid, she talks about DeSantis’s fascist-style macho joining Donald Trump as our twin macho Republican politicians. They are autocrats.

She starts with these comments by our protagonists:

“I will win and I will serve two terms,” Florida Governor and GOP presidential contender Ron DeSantis declared in June, indicating his intention to bring about long-lasting change in America. “Why does he need eight years? Why should we wait eight years?” responded his rival for the nomination, former president Donald Trump. “I will get everything done in six months.” Coming from an individual who staged a violent coup to stay in power illegally, this allusion to a Blitzkrieg of executive orders upon his return to the White House is alarming.

Lucid, July 7, 2023.

You can read the complete article by following this link.