Fascism expert sounds alarm on Trump’s latest claim: 'I will free you from all decision making'

22 September 2024

Ruth Ben-Ghiat — authoritarian expert and professor of history and Italian studies at New York University — during Sunday's episode of MSNBC's The Weekend, responded to Donald Trump's latest Truth Social rant directed towards women.

The former president declared — in all caps — that if he wins the White House, "WOMEN WILL BE HAPPY, HEALTHY, CONFIDENT AND FREE!"

Trump added, "YOU WILL NO LONGER BE THINKING ABOUT ABORTION, BECAUSE IT IS NOW WHERE IT ALWAYS HAD TO BE, WITH THE STATES, AND A VOTE OF THE PEOPLE."

"When Donald Trump says as we just noted, women will be happy, healthy, confident, and free, you will no longer be thinking about abortion — to me that is dear leader speak," The Weekend co-host and former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele told Ben-Ghiat. "That is nationalism speak."

"How do you interpret and understand the connectiveness of what these stories are saying about a potential future in America?" Steele then asked the NYU professor.

"I'm so glad that you are phrasing it that way. It sends a chill down my spine when Donald Trump says women won't have to think about abortion anymore because he also said something similar about voting when he talked to a group of evangelicals," Ben-Ghiat replied.

"He said after this election, you will not have to vote anymore as if it is a kind of burden. And so this is fascist talk, where the leader says, 'I will free you from all decision making. Just trust in me and you will not have to worry about any problems anymore.'"

She continued, "This goes back to fascism. [A woman's] body becomes a tool of the state — the state has a right to decide what she does with her body. But the woman becomes — and this is part of Great Replacement Theory and demographic schemes — that the woman becomes a tool to make the right kind of babies for the nation. So, this whole constellation of speaking in this way, coupled with the actual tragedies on the individual level goes back to the origins of authoritarianism."

Watch the video below or at this link.

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