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What Ruth Ben-Ghiat has forgotten about authoritarianism, most of us haven’t even learned yet. And we just talked to her — and 4,250 Ink and Lucid readers — about how why Elon Musk’s role in the Trump regime is something that has proved befuddling even to her: a power-sharing agreement between two strongmen.

Does Trump see Musk just as a wrecking ball?

Does Musk — an even more extreme far-right ideologue — see Trump as a useful tool?

Meanwhile, Democrats may want to seem normal as the Republicans plunge into even more extreme far-right weirdness, but decorum won’t win victories — nor will working across the aisle to pass a budget. They’ll be blamed anyway — so why help?

Can Democrats find the courage to fight the two-headed Trump-Musk monster? Can they follow Bernie Sanders’s lead, be there for people, pay attention to how they experience Trump’s and Musk’s attacks in their everyday lives, and lead them from individual pain to a real understanding of what the threat of authoritarianism means to everyone. Freedom is still the assignment.

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Alston Chase

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