Ruth Ben-Ghiat

Why are no headlines focusing on the unconstitutional and dictatorial nature of this action?

Fake emergencies to justify crackdowns-not very original

So do we get why I was banned from speaking about Pinochet at the Naval Academy now?

My latest essay is about how President Trump and his MAGA accomplices use violent acts, speech, and spectacles to politically and emotionally re-educate Americans and transform institutions into vehicles of his authoritarian goals. lucid.substack.com/p/violence-i...

For more analysis, I hope you’ll consider subscribing to and following my Substack, Lucid.Substack.com!

One thing to tell anyone you know who’s part of MAGA: When you have people like Trump in office, you are paying for your own repression. It’s important for all of us to help people to connect the dots. More of my conversation with Wajahat Ali at Lucid.substack.com.

@zeit.de interviewed me about American autocracy. It was published on Sept. 23, 2026.

Trump’s banning of entire media outlines is part and parcel of what authoritarians do to a free press. Authoritarians simply do not like a free press — and the latest escalation from Trump is a dangerous moment for a functioning democracy.

Trump's ban on MSNOW, CNN, and Politico is not only part of the autocratic playbook, but the timing is no coincidence. Trump is well in the autocratic backfire process, thus, entire media outlets he sees as threats must be banished. This is a moment of reckoning for America.

Judges are targets in the United States, a backsliding and damaged democracy, because they have repeatedly stood up for democratic notions of justice. We are in a fight for the soul of the judiciary and the future of what law will mean while Trump retains power.

In authoritarian states, “law” upholds lawlessness, and its first duty is to keep the leader safe from domestic or outside accountability processes. Judicial capture is the means, and the conversion of the law into what the leader and his enablers need it to be is the end.

In my latest essay, I write about the deeply dangerous threats being made against U.S. Judges — and how, despite this, U.S. judges are displaying the courage to stand up to authoritarian threats and attacks on Democratic notions of the law. More at my Substack at Lucid.Substack.com.