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Part 3
Kruse: Is it fair to see DeSantis as a very capable, committed student, whereas Trump is more of an instinctual autocrat?
Ben-Ghiat: There are limits to the comparison because Trump truly is an autocratic individual. He was as a businessman and he has surrounded himself with people from [Paul] Manafort and [Roger] Stone to [Steve] Bannon who have decades of experience helping and working for dictators. They’re on a crusade to ruin democracy. And DeSantis had a very different career path. And so what’s notable about him is he has sensed, like all smart politicians, what you need to get ahead in today’s America, in today’s GOP, what kind of leader you need to seem to be, what policies, what talking points, [such as] election fraud. What you need to do is turn citizens against each other, which he does with the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. His election security office has a hotline where you can call and tip off your fellow Floridians doing bad things. These are in themselves all things that match up with autocratic policies. Yes, he’s a very capable student of what is going to have success in today’s GOP and with today’s electorate.
Kruse: Is Ron DeSantis the non-Donald Trump politician doing this in the most stark, arguably most effective way, or are there others that you are paying attention to?
Ben-Ghiat: There are lots of others. In terms of his policies and his aggression, Greg Abbott stands out, of course. I’ll never forget that he posed smiling with his target practice sheet and joked about shooting journalists during the Trump years. But Ron DeSantis stands out because, one, he has made clear his aspirations to national leadership, and two, he’s smooth. Just as [Viktor] Orbán is a more palatable Putin — you don’t hear about poisoning [enemies], you don’t hear about people falling out of windows — DeSantis doesn’t have all that baggage Trump has. He’s younger and he’s smoother. He’s more measured in what he says. He’s trained as a lawyer. Trump is a much more outrageous personality and that’s the source of Trump’s charisma, but DeSantis is extremely popular. And so he has his own form of relating to audiences that people like.
Kruse: Given Trump, DeSantis, Abbott and so on, is the United States of America still a full democracy?
Ben-Ghiat: It’s deceptive because Trump did an enormous amount of damage. And that was why he was there. He was there to wreck our democracy. And then he was voted out. We can never forget that in the middle of a pandemic, 80 plus million people turned out to get rid of him. And that’s very rare in history where you interrupt an autocratic personality who’s in the middle of his project. And now the individual states are continuing this. And what’s so worrying is that they’re continuing it in a very accelerated fashion.
Kruse: Is it fair to see DeSantis as a very capable, committed student, whereas Trump is more of an instinctual autocrat?
Ben-Ghiat: There are limits to the comparison because Trump truly is an autocratic individual. He was as a businessman and he has surrounded himself with people from [Paul] Manafort and [Roger] Stone to [Steve] Bannon who have decades of experience helping and working for dictators. They’re on a crusade to ruin democracy. And DeSantis had a very different career path. And so what’s notable about him is he has sensed, like all smart politicians, what you need to get ahead in today’s America, in today’s GOP, what kind of leader you need to seem to be, what policies, what talking points, [such as] election fraud. What you need to do is turn citizens against each other, which he does with the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. His election security office has a hotline where you can call and tip off your fellow Floridians doing bad things. These are in themselves all things that match up with autocratic policies. Yes, he’s a very capable student of what is going to have success in today’s GOP and with today’s electorate.
Kruse: Is Ron DeSantis the non-Donald Trump politician doing this in the most stark, arguably most effective way, or are there others that you are paying attention to?
Ben-Ghiat: There are lots of others. In terms of his policies and his aggression, Greg Abbott stands out, of course. I’ll never forget that he posed smiling with his target practice sheet and joked about shooting journalists during the Trump years. But Ron DeSantis stands out because, one, he has made clear his aspirations to national leadership, and two, he’s smooth. Just as [Viktor] Orbán is a more palatable Putin — you don’t hear about poisoning [enemies], you don’t hear about people falling out of windows — DeSantis doesn’t have all that baggage Trump has. He’s younger and he’s smoother. He’s more measured in what he says. He’s trained as a lawyer. Trump is a much more outrageous personality and that’s the source of Trump’s charisma, but DeSantis is extremely popular. And so he has his own form of relating to audiences that people like.
Kruse: Given Trump, DeSantis, Abbott and so on, is the United States of America still a full democracy?
Ben-Ghiat: It’s deceptive because Trump did an enormous amount of damage. And that was why he was there. He was there to wreck our democracy. And then he was voted out. We can never forget that in the middle of a pandemic, 80 plus million people turned out to get rid of him. And that’s very rare in history where you interrupt an autocratic personality who’s in the middle of his project. And now the individual states are continuing this. And what’s so worrying is that they’re continuing it in a very accelerated fashion.
The One Way History Shows Trump’s Personality Cult Will End
An expert on autocracy assesses how far America has slipped away from democracy, and what it will take to get it back.
www.politico.com