Ruth Ben-Ghiat

And so February 1st, I published an op-ed in the New York Times on autocratic backfire, and I had Mussolini, Putin, and Trump

and i said that i felt like i get these instincts that trump was getting into the zone where he was going to do something to distract from all the messes he was creating at home and i said we should you know we should be prepared for some kind of military engagement

So there's patterns in the way that these people behave and think and the tragedies that they create for the nations they're supposed to be governing.

It's pretty incredible and it starts actually with way before they get into office because regular politicians, if you're under investigation or you have like problems of whatever sort, you don't wanna run for office because journalists will start poking around

But if you're an autocrat type and you wanna be further an autocrat, if you are under investigation, you feel compelled to run for office because the whole point is to get into power and then take over government to fix your problems.

So here's a list, it's partial, of the people who were under investigation when they ran for office.

Netanyahu, several times.

Berlusconi, three times.

Trump, three times.

um putin was under investigation and they got into office and look what happened and immediately like in netanyahu tried to do this judicial reform and they always go for the judiciary because they need to get rid of their problems it could be financial problems could be legal problems so it starts there with actually how they even get into attack on the rule of law yeah yeah because they are they have legal problems or they're corrupt

It's bizarre, but it's predictable.

So that's the next stage of the self-preservation.

So they get into power and then they start doing things that cause problems at home.

Look at Orban.

He impoverished the nation while he became a billionaire and his cronies.

And so discontent builds, hardship falls upon the nation.

And so the more they create problems, because remember, they never backtrack because the thing to understand is that autocrats are not in office for the

the same reasons as other politicians.

They don't care about public welfare.

They don't care if the population has hardship.