Authoritarianism expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat said this weekend that President Donald Trump’s use of billionaire Elon Musk to dismantle government through the non-official Department of Government Efficiency represents a disturbing new strategy in the push toward autocracy.
In an interview on MSNBC, host Jonathan Capehart asked, “Is the chaos that we have seen since inauguration day part of the playbook? The chaos, firing, taking a wrecking ball to the federal government but also the on-again, off-again tariffs, no tariffs, tariffs, no tariffs. Is that part of the strongman’s playbook? The chaos, keeping everyone feeling unstable?”
Ben-Ghiat, the author of “Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present,” responded, “It is to a certain extent.”
“But we have something new going on,” she continued. “There is no comparison in the authoritarian playbook for what Elon Musk is doing, essentially a very ambiguous position, a private citizen going in and having almost like a new style of coup.”
Ben-Ghiat previously warned it looks as if the U.S. is “certainly headed toward” autocracy, emphasizing that Trump “acts as though he’s an autocrat,” pointing to tactics like purging institutions, firing civil servants and intimidating political opponents.
She added, “There’s a lot of death threats to members of Congress,” calling it all part of the strategy used by “the authoritarian bully.”
Watch the interview here: