If you hang out around Twitter long enough you'll eventually encounter Ruth Ben-Ghiat. Ruth, a professor of history and Italian studies at NYU, often fashions herself a 'fascism expert' or an 'authoritarianism expert' and likes to wander around talking about the looming threat of fascism that overshadows America... and somehow that looming threat of fascism is always looming from the general direction of the Republican Party and, more specifically, Donald Trump! Wouldn't you just know it? Democrats can overstep or entirely ignore their Constitutional authorities and duties all day long and Ruth doesn't make a peep but let Donald Trump say something that Ruth Ben-Ghiat finds distasteful and hoo boy, that's fascism for sure buddy!
Today it seems that Ruth is heaving a sigh of relief because the Libertarians, in booing Donald Trump at their convention, have struck a 'lethal blow' to the Trump campaign and from the telling of Ruth Ben-Ghiat... those walls are finally closing in!
Authoritarianism Expert Explains Why Libertarian Boos Will Be 'Lethal Blow' For Trump https://t.co/MIQDzv0Pfm
— HuffPost (@HuffPost) May 27, 2024
According to Ruth speaking to MSNBC's 'The Weekend',
...the booing is also a kind of lethal blow to the kind of ego that the strongman has, because the secret of the strongman is that they’re very weak and they’re very brittle.
We're sure that Donald Trump is losing sleep every night remembering all of that booing and jeering from the weirdo Libertarians.
Also, you know, consider the source.
First, the Libertarians just nominated a candidate that supports open borders, gender transition for kids, mask & vax mandates, and drag queen story hours for kids. If they didn’t boo Trump I’d be worried. Second, do you guys just invent titles like ‘authoritarian expert’?
— @amuse (@amuse) May 27, 2024
"Authoritarian expert"
— The True Clochard (@TheTrueClochard) May 27, 2024
Lol
“Authoritarianism Expert” 🙄
— Kate Johnson (@kaideejay) May 27, 2024
There's this weird habit in academia where people who have studied some historical event or movement begin to believe that their expertise in that one small area gives them an almost supernatural insight into the future, an inversion of George Santayana's famous quote 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it' into meaning that if you've learned history you can predict exactly what will happen, although unsurprisingly what will happen always seems to mean that the people you don't like are evil in the long run in some way. Funny how that works.
🤣🤣🤣🤣 his poll numbers just keep getting better! Please continue
— 🇺🇸ColonelMAGAMark🇺🇸 (@ColonelMark4) May 27, 2024
LP going woke is only helping Trump.
— ᓍᗷᒚᘿᑢᖶᓰᐺᘿ ᖇᘿᗩᒪᓰᖶᖻ (@object_reality) May 27, 2024
We can now count on thier 3% to go to MAGA.
"Authoritarianism Expert" Meaning a partisan Progressive Academic
— Michael Theochares (@TheoSaurus9) May 27, 2024
Well yes but it sounds bad when you put it like that.
No one truly likes them so they all give themselves titles.
— B Husker (@blittle47) May 27, 2024
Signed by me
Expert X replier
Anyone that agrees with their pre conceived notions is an expert.
— The Great Election Heist 2020 NUCLEAR ULTRA MAGA! (@Timestwo13) May 27, 2024
I dunno how to break this to you... You know the Babylon Bee? Well you just quoted their main market competition.
— DementedMindOfJac (@FrizzenNflint) May 27, 2024
HuffPo often unintentionally writes some of the best satire around.
You don't have to even particularly like Donald Trump to see that all of the hyperventilating about him being a Benito Mussolini-esque strongman fascist in waiting is absurd if only because these are the exact same things that these same people said endlessly in the runup to Trump's election to the White House in 2016 and yet here we are, apparently not living in a fascist dystopia. Given that she's a 'historian' Ruth Ben-Ghiat sure doesn't seem to be interested in looking at the past incorrect predications like this that she and her ilk have been screaming about for years... but honestly we wouldn't want to talk about it either if we were so wrong so often. They probably wouldn't invite her on to talk on MSNBC anymore if she did.
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