We just talked live to our regular Monday guest, the scholar of authoritarianism Ruth Ben-Ghiat, and 2,600 of you. We dug into Trump’s war on reality itself, as evidenced in his lies about the success of his bombings of Iran’s nuclear sites, and the gaslighting of calling Trump’s cruel budget “beautiful.”
Ruth explained how Trump has been able to achieve many of the goals of dictators even as the United States remains a largely free society. The ends may be the same, but Trump is adapting the means to what is legally possible in the United States.
We also talked about how Zohran Mamdani’s victory as an unabashed progressive in New York City may point the way toward beating Trumpism — if the Democratic Party can be pressured to learn any lessons.
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Tomorrow, Tuesday, July 1, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern, we’ll be talking to foreign policy expert Matt Duss.
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