Host Mimi Rosenberg speaks with historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present, to analyze the authoritarian playbook and its manifestation in Donald Trump. The conversation explores how Trumpism has deeply embedded itself in American politics, the historical precedents for authoritarian rule, and the role of propaganda, violence, corruption, and hyper-masculinity in maintaining power. Ben-Ghiat situates Trump within a long lineage of strongmen, from Mussolini and Hitler to Bolsonaro and Berlusconi, and warns of the lasting dangers posed by his movement even as he leaves office. The discussion also touches on McCarthyism, white supremacy, and the political polarization that fuels authoritarian movements, offering insights into how democracy can be safeguarded in the years ahead.
Timestamps:
00:00 – Introduction and Overview
00:45 – The Trump Phenomenon: Strongman or Fascist?
03:12 – The Evolution of Authoritarian Rule: Mussolini to Trump
06:58 – The Role of Social Progress in Sparking Authoritarian Backlash
09:21 – How Trumpism Normalized Extremism and Conspiracy Theories
13:45 – QAnon, Political Violence, and the Erosion of Truth
18:20 – The GOP’s Shift Toward Authoritarianism
23:15 – The Role of Gender and Hyper-Masculinity in Authoritarian Leadership
28:04 – Media Manipulation, Propaganda, and Psychological Warfare
32:40 – White Supremacy as a Core Tenet of Authoritarianism
38:12 – The Cycle of Political Corruption and Pardons in Strongman Rule
43:30 – Global Parallels: Bolsonaro, Erdogan, and the Rise of Right-Wing Populism
49:05 – McCarthyism, Political Persecution, and Historical Lessons for Today
54:11 – The Future of Trumpism and the Fight for Democracy
58:45 – Final Thoughts: How to Resist Authoritarianism in America
Rough TRANSCRIPT:
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org on the web. Coming up next, Equal Rights and Justice with Mimi Rosenberg. Everyone is crying out for peace. None is crying out for justice. I don't want no This is Equal Rights and Justice, where we educate, educate, and organize to empower we the people. For another world is possible, and we are the ones who must make it so.
I'm Mimi Rosenberg. Trump leaves behind a nation deranged, as New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg opined. The post-modern blood libel of QAnon will have adherence in Congress. Kyle Rittenhouse, the youth charged with killing Black Lives Matter protesters, is a right-wing folk hero. The Republican Party has become more hostile to democracy than ever, and with the Bush and Trump presidencies concluded with America. A smoking rune. But only Trump, only Trump has ensured that nearly half the country doesn't see it.
Within this context, I'm pleased to speak with the author of Strongman, Mussolini to the present, Professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat, to grapple with the Trump phenomena and Trumpism. Professor Ruth Benguet, author of Strongman Mussolini to the Present. Thank you for joining us. It actually seemed to me to be a really well-done piece in the editorial section of the New York Times by Michelle Goldberg. She starts by saying that Trump leaves behind a nation deranged.
The postmodern blood libel of QAnon will have adherence in Congress. Kyle Rittenhouse, a youth charged with killing Black Lives Matter protesters, has become a right-wing folk hero. The Republican Party has become hostile to democracy more so now than ever. Both Trump and the Bush presidencies concluded with America's in a smoking room. Only Trump, only Trump has ensured that nearly half the country doesn't see it. And with that, Professor, we have 75 million people who voted for Donald Trump. And we certainly have in its wake a base that I would call Trumpist and begin to
see as I hope it's a moment, but it looks like it's a movement. In relationship to your very important book, Strong Men, Mussolini to the Present, how do you evaluate Trump? Donald Trump within that context, strongman, fascist. That's certainly been some of the debate. And is there a distinction? That's an important question.
So my book is divided into three eras. The first is the fascist era. The second is military coups. The third is own times. Authoritarians are leaders who destroy or damage the judiciary, they exert executive power. And so that's a blanket term I'm using for this style of rule that goes over 100 years. Within that, you have fascists like Mussolini and Hitler. But one of the points of the book is to show what recurs over a century. And one of the dynamics is what you pointed out. Over and over, you have these leaders come
sometimes from outside politics, they energize and channel and give focus to all these existing anti democratic and extremist tendencies. They tend to have success when there's a lot of disenchantment with establishment politics, or when there's been a lot of progress in social emancipation, be it racial equity, gender equity, workers rights. And so this makes some people very angry and these can become the kind of people who get
radicalized so the one thing they always do and trump has done this like by like a textbook example the extremes get more normalized and they're doing this on purpose so this is what we've seen and they damage you know truth and so you have now it's very It's very fitting in that way that we have adherents of conspiracy theory, QAnon, who are going to serve in our government now. And this is very scary, but this is what happens when these kinds of leaders are on the scene. And there's been some debate within the left liberal movement. Donald Trump's as to the level of threat he poses.
Some saw Trump as an authoritarian who could, if reelected, destroy American pretensions of democracy for good. While others view Trump's fascististic. gestures as almost purely just performative and believed his clumsiness in marshalling state power made him less dangerous and let's say George Bush again your thoughts Trump I don't call him a fascist although he uses a lot of things he celebrates neo-fascists like neo-nazis and he uses a lot of tools that all of these guys use that date from fascism like you know the propaganda and corruption and violence and
That's why I call him an authoritarian. He is out to destroy democracy. And what does that mean today? One of the reasons I don't use the term fascist is that we have expectations that are from the 20th century that fascism was a one-party dictatorship. That's how authoritarianism looked back then, where you destroy all opposition. My book couldn't have been published. You'd have many, many thousands of people killed and a whole other thing. And today that's less common outside of China and North Korea. So today it works differently, although the tools of fascism continue on.
There is a school of people who think that we shouldn't use any of these terms, not even authoritarian. for Trump and some of them like Masha Gessen, who is associated with this idea of performative fascist, performative implies that it's not really serious. She's coming from Putin's Russia. So this is a valid viewpoint because Trump is no Putin. Putin's done many, many far graver things. He's also been there for 20 years. So my answer to that is that everybody started somewhere.
authoritarianism is about evolution today, not revolution as much. There's fewer military coups, people take their time to destroy democracy. Sometimes there are events like in Erdogan's Turkey, where he had a huge crackdown after they there was a coup attempt against him. But normally, it comes over time, and it's always going to look different in every country. So just because it's not looking like Putin's Russia, or Erdogan's Turkey doesn't mean it's a severe danger to our democracy. How can we decouple the legacy of Trump from the 75 million people who voted for him, whose hardcore base has demonstrated a proclivity for violence and is firmly rooted in white supremacist ideology and the practice of discrimination,
racism, xenophobia, homophobia, certainly misogyny. Is this absolutely the kind of condition in which fascism is nevertheless bred? Yes, there are two big preconditions. One I mentioned before is that these people. . . find favor after there's been a lot of social progress for non-whites, for women.
Obama's presidency was a perfect petri dish of this because many people never accepted an African American president. But there was also same sex marriage was legalized, full gender integration in the military. Countless things happened that set off a reaction. And that's one thing. The other is polarization. And of course, these men, as they come up, they do everything to exacerbate polarization. But we have to look beyond Trump because the reason that Trump and the GOP have worked so well together is that the GOP was already moving toward authoritarianism. They had largely given up the idea of bipartisan governance,
like these values that are bedrock, democratic values, like mutual tolerance. You may have an opponent who's in a different party, or you may disagree with someone. But you still respect their point of view, the GOP and helped by this right wing media universe had given that up, which is why when Trump came around and his reaction to having a serious political opponent would lock her up. Locking your opponent up is something Putin does to go. We'll use him as a foil.
It's not something that you do in a democracy. So the GOP had already, it already had like a foot out of democracy, and it was headed toward this kind of authoritarian political culture. And so that has been hugely accelerated by Trump. The reason it's so important is that he may be leaving. And I think he'll, you know, continue to be like a shadow president for his, his followers,
but he's leaving, but the party is staying. And the party has learned that far from being penalize it did lose the election. But if Trump got more votes in 2020 than 2016. So the party doesn't have that much incentive to decouple, let's say. The party has every incentive to keep on having racism as a brand because it's done well. One of the personal criticisms that you and your book suffered in conjunction with something that, of course,
occurred with Dr. Jill Biden. The Wall Street Journal had went about defending the controversial editorial it had published criticizing Incoming First Lady, Dr. Jill Biden, for using the title doctor in front of her name. And the piece was written by Joseph Epstein, who argued that only medical doctors should use the title doctor and minimize doctor by academic work, which many readers fortunately did criticize as misogynistic.
I mentioned this horrible offense against Dr. Biden, this terrible misogynist response. And then again, it's defense by the Wall Street Journal in relationship to your book, because one of the criticisms was that you use as a characteristic of of strong men the concept of virility and talk about that and i thought what a horribly unfair and also misogynist critique it was of your work but i do want you to elaborate on why this becomes such a strong component of the the growth and evolution and characteristics of strongmen I wrote the book for a couple of reasons.
One was as an American to situate Trump. What is happening to us? Where do, how do we interpret this? And it's the first book to put Trump in historical perspective of a hundred years. I also wrote it because I felt that I used a lot of political science literature, learned a lot from it, but it didn't really account for the full working of how these men over and over again have an appeal. So I decided, along with the tools of corruption and violence and the myth of national greatness
and propaganda, I decided to elevate machismo or virility, as I call it, to a tool of rule. Because it is so important in the way that 100 years of these rulers have interacted with their public, have become idols. to their public and also how they conduct their foreign policy. Verility is, it's not just that Mussolini and Putin strip off their shirts. And so they become sex symbols, but they're also family men.
They're also they become like the every man and the man who is above all other men. And many of them are said to rule with the divine benediction, including Trump. He's embraced by evangelicals. But the virility is also important because it interacts with other tools. So for example, The glamour of this brand of male power is also about men who get away with doing things that others can't, whether it's corruption or in some place other countries murder. There's a glamour attached to this macho lawlessness, and that's been very important all through the century.
And you see it with Trump where what other political candidate in America came up and said, oh, guess what? I could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose any followers. he was testing the system about like being brutal and violent from the very beginning. He did this in January 2016. If you're thinking as an authoritarian, that's what they all do. Duterte did the same in the Philippines. He boasts about loving four women at once and killing people.
And he said, Don't vote for me because if I win, it's going to be bloody. I looked at this and I wanted to take it all very seriously because it is deadly serious. And it meant that I ended up having a chapter on this kind of machismo. And I think that that doesn't sit well with certain people who see that as a Me as a female historian writing about this, it touched a nerve. I also looked at it as I was reading your book as much more the concept of virility and machismo as a retrograde cultural aspiration that still predominates. particularly when they are in a reactionary period overall, which is what I think we are typically in now.
And it didn't start with Trump, but it certainly has reached critical proportions. So I also just want to clarify the whole concept of virility as you understand it, because there's nothing to me in your book that would suggest that we couldn't or wouldn't have And I would dare say that somebody like Ivanka Trump very much aspires and would be, to me, part of the virility and macho, albeit in the gender-based form of a woman. So the reason that I don't have female leaders in the book, there have been plenty of tyrants in history.
There have also been women who, like Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir, who. . . who did illiberal things, although they didn't wreck democracy. But I wanted to isolate this cocktail of the virility and the way it interacts with the corruption and the propaganda in this strain of leader, partly because I think it's not going to stay like this forever. At the end of the book, I say that I think there'll be a female authoritarian leader. There's a lot of women who are prominent in the far right in Europe, And Ivanka Trump has been marketed by her father as a world leader for some years now.
We will have someone like that female perpetrators in my book. They're torturers, collaborators. So what often happens under authoritarian governments is that women help the leader to do harm to other women. Because although women can be mobilized by like certainly the fascist mobilized women and Some of them had new roles. They, you know, in social welfare network, they became very important,
but women were also the victims of fascism. So this is this dynamic, which is very complex. So some of the premise of your book deals with the violence and propaganda and corruption as a major set of characteristics. That defines strongmen. But I'm also looking at or interested in your thoughts on how those characteristics implant themselves and are not considered offensive to the populace. Indeed, what attracts the populace? Why? Are we drawn to those characteristics of violence and propaganda,
the MAGA hats and the like, and disregard entirely the corruption that seems to be emblematic of strongmen, of vicious autocratic leaders? When you've truly destroyed democracy, you can't see the corruption because the media is totally controlled. There's censorship. One of the myths I wanted to combat is that these leaders are pure, that they're efficient, that authoritarianism is good for business. And all of these myths are only possible because you have censorship and you have a
controlled press and you have, you know, dissident journalists in jail like Erdogan has, has arrested. So, you know, dozens and dozens of journalists sit in jail because they, They won't, you know, follow his party line. So some of the most, you know, profane individuals like Trump and Mussolini and others, they are the ones that claimed as saviors of the nation and,
and religious institutions, institutions become their best partners. That starts off the, the idea that these leaders are pure and selfless individuals. So you, so Trump supporters will say, well, look, he gave up his, he's not even taking a salary. And he gave up his cushy business life for us. And if you're not one of this group who believes this, it seems like crazy, especially if we're in a situation where we still have the free press, so we hear the other side. In other situations,
nobody heard the other side unless they were able to travel or they were anti-fascist somehow. So you have that. And all of them did this. So Hitler was considered to be, you know, the slogan was he was the Fuhrer without sin. And the dynamic is because they set up these governing systems where they're constantly hiring and firing people and who are not loyal enough, their inner circle, everybody else gets blamed for any failings and any corruption that's uncovered by the populace,
but they're never blamed. That goes back to the, they're a man above all other man. Right. They are untouchable. And this is also why, you know, we can say and people said it of Berlusconi also or they say Bolsonaro. Why do people believe in them no matter what they say or do? You know, corruption comes out, but people don't want to, they see them as pure. You go through various periods in your book.
You look at the military coups roughly from 1950 to 1990 that it stalled, Kenosha and Chile, etc. And then there's later periods. Now, I was wondering about your thoughts on what seems to me to be a mainstay of authoritarianism, of strongmen, of fascism, etc. And that is the issue of certainly white supremacy,
the issues of discrimination, whether it's xenophobic, homophobic, and the like. But certainly white supremacy and white nationalism would seem in all instances to be a mainstay and imperative for the evolution of any one of these three. And I'm wondering about your thoughts on that. It's astounding how these demographic anxieties, these racial anxieties, they go back to the very heart of authoritarianism.
Now, I should say that I'm a historian of fascism. So most of the people. . . my book are white right-wing authoritarians and Gaddafi is in there and he was very much a man on the left because he's connected to Mussolini and Berlusconi this doesn't mean that a lot of these same dynamics didn't happen on the left I mean Stalin was you know just as much a mass murderer as Mao was more so but I chose to focus on the connections between this kind of right-wing fears of of the dilution or the decadence of the white race.
So you start with Mussolini, who way before Hitler came to power, because Mussolini was in power a whole decade before Hitler, he starts talking about, you know, these are his words, black and yellow peoples are at our door, the white race could be submerged by fertile non white peoples. So this is at the very heart of fascism. And it's broader than anti Semitism.
It's about And antisemitism is one huge part of it, and it becomes Hitler's obsession. But Mussolini is an interesting case, and Hitler really admired him and studied him and copied him. For Mussolini, who didn't persecute the Jews until much later, it was about white supremacy, saving the white race. So you start with these kind of social welfare campaigns, and Orban is doing this in Hungary,
where you have maternal assistance. you try and promote, you know, the family, you promote women having babies. And so this often means they have to take a step back in society. And there we go back to the, you know, the sexism. And this is a through line all the way through the century. And LGBTQ people are also a category that is persecuted throughout the century, in part because they are seen as holders of sexualities that won't bear fruit in babies. That's certainly in the fascist period, one reason that they were persecuted. They ended up even in Italy being during after the late 1930s, they were in like penal colonies.
So, so this is a very good through line and you see it after the fascists die, you have versions of it and you know, right wing juntas and the military juntas. where they're interested in protecting white Christian civilization, all the way up to Bolsonaro in Brazil, who's made himself the fan of white Christianity, and people like Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon, who are active in Trumpism. And the rhetoric is shockingly similar.
I have quotes in my book, if you played the game of who said it, you wouldn't know if it was somebody from the 40s or somebody from you know Stephen Miller the white white Christian civilization rhetoric and the fear of trying to get people afraid of the apocalypse that will come if whites decline is a hundred year old scam let's say it's a hundred year old scare tactic continue to talk about what you think are some of the characteristics or some of that which makes people follow these demagogues and again you go from people like Mussolini it's to talk about Berlusconi and Erdogan what are those kind of characteristics and are they just a manifestation do they change during a particular cultural
period or have they remained really pretty consistent from really tracing back from Mussolini forward some of the dynamics are very consistent so part of it is what we what we see from newsreels or you know visions of fascism where everybody looks like an automaton and they're saluting and that's certainly part of it sometimes people like to have a strong defender to to look up to and there's there's where the maleness comes in usually who they also are attached to sometimes you know as a sex symbol or sometimes as whatever these men know how to make themselves to be the emblem of maleness as is understood in that time and place so that's part of it but the other part uh
that it's not just about following orders it's also the thrill of being permitted to be lawless and here's where the violence comes in whether it's paramilitaries you know or state persecution of Jews and gay people and all kinds of categories the categories are different everywhere but the when criminals come to power and many of these men had came in came to power already with a criminal record or like berlusconi and putin and trump they were already under investigation many of them have connections to organized crime berlusconi's right-hand man marcello del utri was convicted of mafia association he was his closest collaborator during his first term in the 2000s if he had three terms so so the lawlessness that they encourage
And again this though, let's just take that one category lawlessness can be violent So you have permission to bash the heads of the person the people who you're told are the enemies could be Muslims could be Jews could be migrants the lawlessness also translates into corruption and look at how the habits of government officials have changed under Trump where it's okay to violate the Hatch Act it's okay to to like Michael Flynn to be a foreign agent for Turkey at the same time your NSA. But and then you get pardoned so you can be more lawless. And this is something I show in the book that a lot. And we should also say,
of course, Michael Flynn is actually called for the implementation of martial law or encouraged Trump in that direction, which is. But that's so stark. But this is why he was pardoned. and what one so one thing that was very interesting to go with a lot of work to go back over 100 years with all these different people but these patterns that emerge incredible so let's take the pardons keeping on the lawless be a lot of these leaders they pardon people at strategic moments so that for example Mussolini right
after he declared dictatorship because he was a leader of a democracy and for three years and then he declared dictatorship He pardoned all political criminals, meaning all the thugs and murderers who helped him to get to power were suddenly pardoned. And that meant that they were released from prison and and available to serve him. So when I saw and Pinochet did the same, he would release people who were accused of torture. So when Trump keeps pardoning all these people, and of course, I was not at all surprised that Flynn promptly called for martial law, because that's why he was pardoned.
So he could be of service. So the lawlessness, you get more and more corrupt and unscrupulous people in government, and then the whole level goes down. Because corruption is a form of contagion. And the more others around you are doing something illicit, the more you're likely to do it because you won't be punished. So it so I say at one point in the book that they Men like Trump encourage people to be their worst self. And this is a very sad fact.
And it always has the outcomes are very different here versus but the psychological dynamic of being encouraged to be your worst self is the same. You know, one of the things that I was thinking as I read your book, and I also looked at that period of the military coups from the 50s to 1990 that installed Pinochet in Chile. we began to see in Latin America a pink revolution, if you will. And now the swing back towards people like Bolsonaro in Brazil. And how are we to understand what perhaps Latin America didn't quite get about Penelope, how is it possible that so soon after the devastation
Granted, it was Chile and we're talking about Brazil, but it's a tendency now towards the oligarchs, perhaps the ultimate strongmen, being reestablished in Latin America. The lesson for us, the characteristics that maybe we have with short memory forgotten about Pinochet, that. . .
allows for Brazil to respond to a liberal administration, if you will, like Lula's with a Bolsonaro. That was really interesting because Bolsonaro was able to come to power. It was a classic cocktail. He posed as an anti-corruption reformer because Lula and some of the other leaders had been involved in corruption scandals. So here he comes and he's Mr. Rectitude. He's from the military.
And so he's able to pose as a reformer. And, of course, Trump, one of the most corrupt individuals ever, posed as a drain the swamps, right? So there's that dynamic that goes on. And then Bolsonaro was also, because he's from the military,
became the voice of this mythic better past that Brazil had when it was, quote, law and order. And Brazil had a military dictatorship. So it's very interesting when you compare Trump and Bolsonaro, it's a huge difference because Brazil had this long dictatorship which used torture and disappeared people and they had that in their past and only ended in 1985. And so he was able to instantly kind of appropriate that as part of his law and order brand. And the other things he did were part of this cultural revolution that all of these men want to bring in and I'm sticking to right wing ones where he's very openly
anti gay he is a misogynist and it's a badge of honor that he is these things so it's a whole formula of law and order anti gay anti women pro violence and yet you are at the same time going to clean up the country you're going to put all these degenerates in jail And he was very open in promising that he was very violent in his speech when he was running for office. And this is that that's what scared me about this. And again, so there's a commonality when they they they pose as victims, and they make themselves the voice of a country that's been humiliated and ruined,
they're going to clean it up. But they also very openly talk about violence. So Trump's, you know, I could shoot someone was a huge red flag. And it's very similar to what Bolsonaro was doing. When I look at periods of fascism or strongmen that may have eventually evolved into a fascist role, in this country, one of the people that I look at is certainly Joe McCarthy and the advent of McCarthyism. And I wonder if you can just place that period of fascism prominence of McCarthy,
which so much harm was done in this whole texture that you've created for us of trying to understand the evolution and creation and characteristics of strongmen who become direct attackers of democracy. We're not talking enough about the McCarthy era because it's a direct example of When people who don't agree with you became suspect as political enemies, there were very clear consequences of getting, you know, blacklisted, of getting fired from your job. If you were in that category,
people would, you know, avoid you on the street, you were a pariah. The point of these tactics is to keep society mobilized around the enemy. This is the Cold War. But you always have to have the internal enemy. right? And this was the communist or the crypto communists. That's,
that's a word that all right wing authoritarians use because you, they you may not know who they are, but they're there and you have to find them. And whenever society is organized around mistrust, and the enemy, it's good for authoritarian mindsets and people who exist in democracy. And what's very interesting about Trump is that there's always been this, these illiberal strains, and they've had different manifestations at different points in time,
they've all been encouraged to celebrate themselves under Trump. So all the anti anti left rhetoric that dates back to this, it came around before that, but McCarthyism gave it political form in a very concentrated way. It's part Williams bar. William Barr's everyday rhetoric is about the radical left. And we hear anybody who doesn't agree with you. I'm a liberal, but I get labeled as the radical left sometimes. And the point of doing that is that you must polarize the nation. You're not allowed to have a center because when there's a center,
it takes away from the scare tactics. So everybody, the liberal, even a pearl wearing, you know, person like Nancy Pelosi becomes radical left. And this has been happening under Trump very in a very concert, concentrated way. Do we have to have that polarity also for the advent of strongmen? I was thinking about this as I glued myself, forced myself to what Kelly Loeffler,
who of course is running in Georgia against Reverend Raphael Warnock. Every other word that she introduced, the rather mild-mannered Reverend Warnock, it was a culmination of what would seem to be somewhere between you're a leftist, you're a liberal, and you're a radical, and you're a socialist. And she would introduce every statement with my instead of my opponent, et cetera. Is this an imperative and a characteristic of every one of these strongmen that they set up this bugaboo where they have to characterize actually movements of the
left or socialist or anti-communist, et cetera, in order to take root? yeah they must give those people collective a collective power to rail against yeah what Loeffler is doing is repetition because propaganda works through repetition and saturation the same message has to be given by many people through many different medium so we've undergone a barrage of psychological warfare and propaganda that has been highly effective. That's how he kept all those 70 million people.
We haven't digested just how effective it's been. The scale of the Trump world propaganda is staggering from the minute he ran his campaign in 2016. And he took millions upon millions of Facebook ads out. And the Hillary Clinton campaign only took 65,000. And she won the popular vote. But he came out of, quote, nowhere, which is not exactly true,
but to hammer home the enemy, to hammer home the threat, because they feed on this politics of fear. So you have to do that. It's not enough to have the enemy. You have to use every type of media, including social media today, to give the message in different ways at different hours of the day. And that's how it gets. imprinted and I think it's so important people really need to pick up strongman
muscle we need to the present very important work and as we kind of open by saying that Trump really leaves behind the nation deranged a nation that where we again have a 75 million people that voted for Trump, a man that has still refused to concede and I think has tried to effectuate a series of coups. And I would say but for his poor relationship with the security state and the military might well have affected a coup. Your thoughts on the takeaway for this period from your studies and research that you want to leave us with?
One is that no society is immune that, you know, just like in Chile and America, they said it can't happen here. You know, America is not like that. You know, we have our, our racial problems. I'm speaking of the voice of the common person that it's, we're not going to have that happen here. And so when Trump came on, people dismissed him and they did this for a very long time as a clown.
as you know, reality TV, he's not serious, it's very hard to get people to really look seriously at what is going on and be able to evaluate it. And in our case, we didn't have anything but democracy as flawed as our democracy is, we never had a dictatorship. So nobody had the frame of reference, including the media,
which then made a lot of errors about this both sides coverage, and nobody knew how to cover Trump. That's one lesson is that these cherished myths about quote, who we are, have to be reexamined. And another is that democracy is can be taken for granted very easily, especially in a place like America, where again, we haven't had a dictatorship. So democracy protection has to be something that you integrate into your life, really every day,
I think that's the only way we're going to survive the next four years. is to because they're going to be more incentivized to be extreme and do all these things we've described because they need to get back in power so we we need to actively cultivate democracy not take it for granted and that's going to be at the terrain of combating voter suppression getting people to register and also having reforms i think it's important to have reforms anti-corruption reforms And Trump has left us a roadmap of all the weaknesses in our institutions. And if we don't follow up on that, then the future Trumps will benefit. Thank you for that frightening legacy. I think the only thing that I didn't mention is while I was talking about rereading
Theodore Reich's The Mass Ecology of Fascism, I also went back and read Machiavelli, which I didn't think was all that appropriate to this, but I did read Mein Kampf and was really struck by by, it's not profound, it's not even as guttural as I had remembered it, but it certainly was a kind of propagandistic roadmap, the words you used a moment ago,
for what I see subconsciously as the evolution of Trump and really found that reading your book helped me understand how Trump as a strong man evolved and the common characteristics throughout history that have defined the Mussolini's, the Hitler's, and many other. And I want to thank you for bringing that to our attention and helping us to have a deepening and deeper knowledge of these phenomena so that we can better safeguard and attempt to absolutely realize finally the promise of democracy. Professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of Strongman Mussolini to the Present. Thank you for joining us. It can happen here.
As American electors gathered, with police offering armed guards and Michigan's capital closed by credible threats of violence, it can happen here. with General Flynn opining on martial rule, no doubt, to secure his pardon from Trump. It can happen here. Trump failed to capture America, but he may have irrevocably broken it with Trumpism rooted amongst 75 million voters. It can happen here. Now actor James Earl Jones and Ed Asner reenact the House Un-American Committee
hearing where Paul Rube's All-American football player, recipient of a Phi Beta Kappa Key at Rutgers, who received a law degree at Columbia and was an internationally acclaimed concert performer and actor, as well as a persuasive political speaker, reminds us that hard-won civil rights must be defended at all costs because it can happen here. Now, Mr. Robson.
Do I have the privilege of asking who's addressing me? I'm Richard Aaron. What is your position? I'm director of the staff. Did you file a passport application in July 2, 1954? I filed about 25 in the last few months. In July of 1954, were you requested to submit a non-communist affidavit? Under no conditions would I think of signing such an affidavit. It is a contradiction of the rights of American citizens. Are you now a member of the Communist Party?
Oh, please, please. Please answer, will you, Mr. Robeson? What is the Communist Party? What do you mean by that? Are you now a member of the Communist Party? Would you like to come to the ballot box when I vote and take off the ballot and see? Mr. Chairman, I respectfully suggest the witness be directed to answer the question. You are directed to answer the question.
I invoke the Fifth Amendment and forget it. I respectfully suggest the witness be directed to answer the question whether, if he gave us a truthful answer, he would be supplying information which might be used against him in a criminal proceeding. You are directed to answer, Mr. Robson. In the first place, wherever I've been in the world, the first to die in the struggle against fascism were the communists. I laid many wreaths upon the graves of communists.
That is not criminal. Chief Justice Warren has been very clear that the Fifth Amendment does not have anything to do with the influence of criminality, and I invoke the Fifth Amendment. Have you ever been known under the name of John Thomas? Oh, please, does somebody here want me to put up a perjury someplace? John Thomas, my name is Paul Robeson, and anything I have to say, I have said in public all over the world,
and that is why I'm here today. Mr. Chairman, I ask that you direct the witness to answer the question he's making. I ask you to affirm or deny the fact that your Communist Party name was John Thomas. I invoke the Fifth Amendment. This is really ridiculous. The witness talks very loud when he makes the speech, but when he invokes the Fifth Amendment, I can't hear him. I have medals for diction.
I can talk plenty loud. Will you talk a little louder? I invoke the Fifth Amendment loudly. Sir, who are Mr. and Mrs. Vladimir? I invoke the Fifth Amendment. Do you know a Manning Johnson? I invoke the Fifth Amendment. Do you know Gregory Keifetz?
I invoke the Fifth Amendment. Do you know a Max Juergen? I invoke the Fifth Amendment. Max Juergen. Why don't you have these people here to be cross-examined? Could I ask whether this is legal? This is not only legal, but usual. By unanimous vote, this committee has been instructed to perform this very distasteful task. To whom am I talking? You're speaking to the chairman of the committee.
Mr. Walter? Yes. The Pennsylvania Walter? That is right. Representative of the steel workers? That is right. And the coal mining workers? That is right. Not United States steel by any chance.
Our great patriot. That is right. You are the author of the bills that are going to keep all kinds of decent people out of the country. No, only your kind. Colored people like myself? and you would let in the Teutonic Anglo-Saxon stock. We are trying to make it easier to get rid of your kind, too. You don't want any colored people to come in. Could I be allowed to read from my statement?
Will you just tell this committee, please, while under oath, Mr. Robson, the communists who participated in the preparation of that statement. . . Oh, please.
The reason I'm here today, from the mouth of the State Department itself, is I should not be allowed to travel because I have struggled for the independence of the colonial peoples of Africa. The other reason I'm here today, again, from the State Department and from the record of the Court of Appeals, is that when I am abroad, I speak out against injustices against the Negro people in this land. That is why I'm here.
I'm not being tried for whether I'm a communist. I'm being tried for fighting for the rights of my people, who are still second-class citizens in this country, in this United States of America. My mother was born in your state, and my mother was a Quaker. My ancestors in the time of Washington baked bread for George Washington's troops when they crossed Delaware. My father was a slave. I stand here struggling for the rights of my people to be full citizens in this country, and they are not
We are not in Mississippi. We are not in Montgomery, Alabama. We are not in Washington. We are nowhere. And that is why I am here today. You want to shut up every Negro who has the courage to stand up and fight for the rights of his people, for the rights of workers. And I have been on many a picket line for the steel workers, too. And that is why I am here today.
Would you tell us whether or not you know Thomas W. Young? I invoke the Fifth Amendment. Thomas W. Young is a Negro president of the Guide Publishing Company. I'd like to read you his testimony. Quote, Paul Robeson has no moral right to place in jeopardy the welfare of the American Negro to advance a foreign cause. In the eyes of the Negro people,
this false prophet is unfaithful to their country, and they repudiate him. Close quote. Do you know the man that said that? I invoke the fifth man. Now, can I read my statement? It is a sad and bitter comment. While you were in Paris in 1949, Mr. Robson,
did you tell an audience the American Negro would never go to war against the Soviet government? May I say that is slightly out of context. May I explain to you what I did say? I remember the speech very well. Two thousand students who came from populations that would range to six or seven hundred million people asked me to say in their name that they did not want war. No part of my speech in Paris says 15 million American Negroes would do anything. I said it was my feeling that the American people would struggle for peace. And that has been since underscored by the President of these United States.
Now in passing, I said. . . Do you know any people who want war? Listen to me. I said it was unthinkable to me that any people could take up arms in the name of a man like Senator Eastman of Mississippi against anybody. Gentlemen, I still say that. This United States government should go to Mississippi. And protect my people.
That is what it should do. I lay before you, sir, an article. Quote, I am looking for full freedom, unquote, by Paul Robeson in The Worker. July 3rd, 1949, quote, I said it was unthinkable that the Negro people of America or elsewhere could be drawn into war with the Soviet Union. I repeat it with a hundredfold emphasis. They will not, close quote.
And gentlemen, they have not. It is clear that no Americans are going to go to war with the Soviet Union. While you were in Stockholm, did you make a little speech? I made all kinds of speeches. Let me read you a quotation. Let me listen. Do so, please. I am a lawyer. It would be a revelation if you would listen to counsel. In good company, I usually listen.
But you know people wander around in such fancy places. You said, Mr. Robson, and I quote, I belong to the American resistance movement, which fights against American imperialism, just as the resistance movement fought against Hitler. Just like Douglass and Harriet Tubman were underground railroaders and fighting for our freedom,
you bet your life. I have to insist that you listen to these questions. I am listening. I quote further, why should the Negroes ever fight against the only nation in the world where racial discrimination is prohibited and where the people can live freely? Never. They will never fight against either the Soviet Union or the People's Democracies, close quote. Did you make that statement? I do not remember,
but what is perfectly clear today is that 900 million people, other colored people, have told you they will not. 400 million in India and millions everywhere have told you that this is that the question doesn't need to make a speed did you write an article that was published in the USSR information bulletins quote I want to emphasize that only here in the Soviet Union did I feel that I was a real man with a capital M close quote I would say What is your name? Arendt.
I am quite willing to answer the question. When I was a singer years ago, and this you will have to listen to. I am listening. I am a bass singer, and so for me, it was Chelyopin, the great Russian bass, not Caruso the tenor. and learn the Russian language to sing their songs. I wish you would listen now.
Mr. Chairman, I ask you to direct the witness to answer the question. Just be fair with me. I ask for order. The great poet of Russia is of African blood. Let us not go so far afield. It is important to explain this. Did you make that statement? When I first went to Russia in 1934. Did you make that statement?
When I first went to Russia in 1934. Did you make that statement? In Russia, I felt for the first time like a full human being. No color prejudice like in Mississippi. No color prejudice like in Washington. It was the first time I felt like a human being. Well, I did not feel the pressure of color as I feel it in this committee today. Why do you not stay in Russia? Because my father was a slave. And my people died to build this country.
And I'm going to stay here and have a part of it just like you. And no fascist-minded people will drive me from it. Is that clear? You are here because you are promoting the communist cause. I am here because I am opposing the neo-fascist cause, which I see arising in these committees. Jemison could be sitting here, and Frederick Douglass could be sitting here. Eugene Debs could be sitting here. Now, what prejudice are you talking about? You were graduated from Rutgers. You were graduated from the University of Pennsylvania.
I remember seeing you play football at Lehigh. There was no prejudice against you. Just a moment. This is something I challenge very deeply, that the success of a few Negroes can make up for $700 a year for thousands of Negro families in the South. My father was a slave, and I have cousins who are sharecroppers. I do not see success in terms of myself. I have sacrificed hundreds of thousands of dollars for what I believe in. While you were in Moscow, Mr.
Robeson, did you make a speech lauding Stalin? I can't remember. Have you recently changed your mind about Stalin? What has happened to Stalin, gentlemen, is a question for the Soviet Union, and I won't argue with a representative of the people who, in building America, wasted the lives of my people. You are responsible,
you and your forebears, for 60 to 100 million black people dying in the slave ships and on the plantations. Don't you ask me about anybody. I'm sure you wouldn't want to discuss with us the slave labor camps in the Soviet Union. Nothing could be built more on slavery than this society I assure you. I would invite your attention to the Daily Worker of June 29, 1949, with reference to a get-together with you and Ben Davis, formerly Communist Councilman in New York.
Do you know Ben Davis? One of my dearest friends. He is as patriotic and American as can be. And you, gentlemen, are the non-patriotic. Just a minute. You are the un-American. The hearing is now adjourned. I think it should be. I've endured all of this, but I can't. Can I read my statement?
No! The meeting is adjourned. It should be. You were listening to James Earl Jones as Paul Robeson reminding it can happen here as he jousted with the House Un-American Activity Committee in a grilling, in a chilling reminder. Again, that hard one, civil rights must be defended. A wake-up call to all of us. I'm Mimi Rosenberg saying, stay strong,
stay well, educate, agitate, and organize for equal rights and justice. On the Harlem Connection, we'll examine the results and reactions to the presidential election We'll ask if New Yorkers can influence the Georgia Senate races, and we'll either be joined by author, professor, and political commentator, Dr.
Melissa Harris-Perry, or you'll be fooled by my uncanny impersonation of her. No, it's really me. Well, in addition to that, we're going to have great music, as always, by Axe with Connections to Harlem, because we're the Harlem Connection, and we're on this Friday at
at 10 p. m. on WBAI New York, 99. 5 FM and on WBAI. org. And the show will also be available on WBAI. org slash archive after the live airing. Thank you.
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