Ruth Ben-Ghiat

Think about the Russian Orthodox Church, which backs up Putin and backed him up even more when he went into Ukraine.

that's their part of the bargain right and we have the evangelical church and orthodox jews no matter what happens they're there so that's the religious and and so this is part of how autocracy works these these elites that prop up so what you want to do if you're trying to um un unseat through elections you need something called elite defection

you need elites to wake up and they only do this sometimes in the old days if there was like being bombed by the allies or the economy starts to collapse yeah and then they finally decide to come out of their cowardice and venal um you know posture and they will retract their support

right for the state and for the leader um and and sometimes they can put it to someone else in power and then you have what like a palace coup right but when there's a well-developed party system because today autocrats don't kill off all the other parties and they keep elections you want the elites to go over to the opposition and that's very hard to do but eventually it can happen

So J.D.

Yes, I agree.

And that is in line with the autocratic playbook because autocrats don't really have successors, with the exception if it's a family dynasty like in North Korea.

Or they can have some kind, like in Brazil, Bolsonaro is sitting in jail for having done something similar to what Trump did, but now his sons, who are right-wing politicians, they're thinking they'll come back.

In the Philippines, you had the Marcos dictator, and now Marcos Jr., Bongbong, is there, so that can happen.

But otherwise, they're terrified of successors.

Do you hear Putin talking about a successor?

Never.

No.

And in Turkey, Erdogan, he's president, and he used to be prime minister, and now he's gotten rid of the office of prime minister because he doesn't want anybody close to him.

It's him and the people, right?

And so they do these tricks.

They're not really fooling anyone.

because they can't stand to have anyone getting too much power.

Now, luckily for Trump, Vance is a uniquely unlikable person with terrible instincts, a hypocrite, because he's evolved.

We all know what he used to say about Trump.