In one sense, it does not matter what political ideology Donald Trump partakes in – which label is applied to it, what historians later might call it. Trump’s recent attempts to undermine the election results in Arizona and Florida served two purposes, said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a professor of history at New York University specializing in fascism. “On power, as opposed to truth.”The rejections of Trump in the midterm elections, Ben-Ghiat said, amounted to the strongest kind of counterargument to Trump’s assertion of incontestable power. “Because when we believe that it’s not worth voting, which is what Trump is trying to subtly or not-so-subtly have us believe, then we give up. And authoritarians want us to be hopeless, to be depoliticized and to feel it’s not worth our while to even try.”

Source: The Guardian November 18, 2018 06:01 UTC