Jun 2, 2017
Ruth Ben-Ghiat
is the guest on this week's episode of The Chauncey DeVega
Show. She is a historian at New York University who
specializes in authoritarianism, aesthetics, cultural politics, and
Italian history. She is the author of numerous books including an
upcoming project on authoritarianism and political strongmen.
Ben-Ghiat is also a regular contributor to CNN, The Atlantic, and
The Huffington Post.
During this week's show, Professor
Ben-Ghiat and Chauncey discuss Donald Trump's rise to power,
authoritarianism and American politics, the global color line,
masculinity, and how violence is a central component of Donald
Trump's appeal for his voters.
In this week's episode Chauncey
DeVega offers some thoughts on the recent white supremacist murders
in Portland as well as Trump's withdrawal from the Paris climate
agreement. Chauncey also gives out a special prize for the "prank monkeys" who fell for Trump's "covfefe"
foolishness. For this special fundraising episode of the
podcast Chauncey responds to some questions sent in by listeners
about white privilege and white supremacy as well as how best to
resist Trump's fascist foot soldiers. Chauncey also has fun reading
hate mail from a white supremacist.
This thought came to mind while you were discussing the Antifa concept. This isn't our father's civil right's movement, this is authoritarian mission creep and we can't expect the same reality to ensue, or the same response. This woman is putting herself in a zero sum martyrdom game. If you go into these things, you are begging to be a casualty of war for no purpose other than add a body to the pile for some future statistics and footnote. Now is not the time to imagine our government will come to it's senses, it's time to plan for the worst and take lessons from the Preppers and understand the near future will be ugly and it won't be a time of plenty, it's time to take stock of resources, family, friends and those in our midst we can trust and predict with experience the realities of their intent or response.