October 5, 2025

Recently, I sat down with Ruth Ben-Ghiat — one of the leading scholars on authoritarianism. I always enjoy my conversations with guests, but after my chat with Ruth, I walked away having learned something new. 

We spoke about Trump’s similarities to Mussolini, the rapid erosion of our democracy, and her correct prediction that Trump wouldn’t leave office peacefully in 2020. I hope this conversation answers some of your questions and helps you better understand what’s happening to our country — as it helped me. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Marc Elias: Professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat, welcome to Defending Democracy.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat: Thank you, I'm delighted to be speaking with you.

Marc Elias: All right, so in your book, Strongmen, you actually predicted that Donald Trump would not willingly or easily or peacefully, pick your term, leave office after he lost in 2020. And boy, if that wasn't the prediction of a lifetime. Tell me why you were so right when so few people, frankly, called this in advance.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat: I think my study of autocrats for years, which is distilled in that book, made me very aware of what they most fear, which is losing the protections of the Office of Head of State so they can be prosecuted or just have the shame of having to leave office before they want to. That's why they enact the playbook we're living through now and have been since 2020. I also turned in the book at the end of the summer of 2020, and I saw how the Trump administration was reacting to the social movement of Black Lives Matter and starting to try and activate the military. And so I concluded that there was pretty much no way that he was going to leave office without trying something. In subsequent interviews during the fall through December, I continued to feel that way. At one point I said to, I think it was Business Insider, "It's going to be a rocky road; we should prepare."

Marc Elias: It's funny, I view the presidential immunity decision as entirely terrible, right? The idea that presidents can't be prosecuted for anything has made Donald Trump more reckless. But is there a silver lining in your study that maybe he's not afraid of criminal prosecution this time and therefore is more likely to leave?

Ruth Ben-Ghiat: No, I think that the longer they are in office and the more corrupt they become. There's never been a strongman who gets into office and feels comfortable and says, "I'm going to be less corrupt now." Because what people need to understand is the whole purpose of governance for autocrats is...