Ruth Ben-Ghiat

Mussolini did it, Hitler.

And so they're reinforcing his sense that he knows what he's doing, and they genuflect to him.

They praise him.

So instead of making him more secure, this makes him more insecure.

And so they end up with these, like Putin had his palaces, they have bunkers.

Gaddafi had a huge compound underneath which he had sex slaves.

They have these spaces where they feel safe.

so the ballroom i've been watching this for a develop uh for a long time and the washington post just did like a they analyzed all his speeches for the last months so we're at war like americans are are you know american lives are being lost right but the thing he's talked the most about is the ballroom because his ego is is he's projected like the the ballroom is and the white house which is his personally right he doesn't see it as the public's home

that he's occupying temporarily.

It's his.

So his ego is fused with the White House and the ballroom.

And so underneath the bunker is going to be a safe space so that when all of the mistakes he's making come back to haunt him, he has a place to be.

It's really incredible.

It's like his baby blanket.

Yeah.

And so Putin had Putin's palace.

And one of the reasons that Putin went after Alexei Navalny is that he was an anti-corruption researcher, but he took it upon himself, Navalny, to research and document Putin's palace.

And he made a film about it.

that showed the corruption, showed the gold-plated toilets.

Some of it is actually the same aesthetic, the gold, the marble, and Putin felt exposed.