'This is not an election about policy': Fascism expert warns MAGA would 'impose' dictatorship
Now that both parties' respective nominating conventions have concluded, the D.C. press is urging both candidates to make the remainder of the 2024 election about their competing policy visions. But one expert on global authoritarian regimes around the world is warning that this isn't a typical election, and conventional political rules shouldn't apply.
In a video posted to her X (formerly Twitter) account, New York University professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat — a renowned scholar on fascism and the far right — said that the one thing that has been effective at beating back fascists at the polls is "unity among the opposition." She praised the growing number of Republicans publicly supporting Vice President Kamala Harris and urged Americans to recognize the massively high stakes of the fall election.
"These people deserve our support and our respect," Ben-Ghiat said. "It's not easy for them to be out there giving permission to other Republicans to vote for Democrats for the first time in their lives, when they have also been conditioned by Trump to see Democrats as a political enemy."
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"But it's very necessary to support this, because this is not an election about policy or tax cuts," she continued. "This is a referendum on what kind of political system we want for America. Will it be democracy or autocracy? Trump and MAGA are all too clear about the model of leadership they want to impose on us."
Earlier this week, more than 200 Republican ex-staffers for former President George W. Bush, the late Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) and Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) — all of whom were Republican presidential nominees in 2004, 2008 and 2012, respectively — co-signed an open letter endorsing Harris' candidacy. The staffers acknowledged that while they had "honest, ideological disagreements" with the Democratic nominee, giving Trump a second term in the White House was "simply untenable."
"At home, another four years of Donald Trump’s chaotic leadership, this time focused on advancing the dangerous goals of Project 2025, will hurt real, everyday people and weaken our sacred institutions," the letter read. "Abroad, democratic movements will be irreparably jeopardized as Trump and his acolyte JD Vance kowtow to dictators like Vladimir Putin while turning their backs on our allies. We can’t let that happen."
Like those staffers, Ben-Ghiat also noted that Trump had a propensity for being overly friendly with foreign dictators, saying that the former president is "constantly praising [Chinese president] Xi Jinping, a communist dictator, for ruling with an iron fist."
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"That's not who we are," she said. "So crossing the line is the key to putting country over party and presenting a united front for this election."
As Ben-Ghiat observed, "unity among the opposition" was what prevented France's far-right National Rally from winning a majority in the late June election. Far-right leader Marine Le Pen was expected to coast to victory, but a late strategic decision among centrist and leftist candidates to drop out and support the other in various contested parliamentary elections resulted in her party being denied a win. She added that while the U.S. has a two-party system, anti-Trump Republicans uniting with Democrats could likewise be the linchpin to stopping Trump from having a victory this fall.
Watch Ben-Ghiat's video below, or by clicking this link.
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