Ruth Ben-Ghiat Answers Dictator Questions
March 19, 2025 3:10 PM Subscribe
This is riffing on authoritarianism and our current moment rather than responding specifically to the linked video (to which I fell asleep last night; no wonder my dreams were unsettling).
A thing I’m finding really tough is understanding the line between “taking reasonable precautions” and “complying in advance.” Here’s a case in point: Little eirias is traveling internationally this summer. She is a US citizen but is in another targeted group, as are some others she will be traveling with, including adults. Is she at risk of unlawful detention? I don’t want to back out of the trip, because that’s definitely complying in advance, but I’m trying to figure out what precautions are reasonable. Do I ask if there is a need for a chaperone and try to go myself, as someone not at personal risk? Is it safer or less safe to tell her to leave her phone at home? Maybe we buy her a burner?
It’s hard to talk about this too because even though she’s at a risky spot on a couple of axes of “demographic risk,” so to speak, I know that worse things are happening to people who are not White, and I risk looking naive or selfish by making it about me. But she’s my kid and it’s my job to protect her. Likewise with my work: I don’t work for USAID or other existentially threatened agencies, AND the threats being levied against extramural research are also grave. How do we take responsibility for protecting small areas that are close to home for us without damaging solidarity? I’ve never had to do this before.
posted by eirias at 6:15 AM on March 20 [3 favorites]
A thing I’m finding really tough is understanding the line between “taking reasonable precautions” and “complying in advance.” Here’s a case in point: Little eirias is traveling internationally this summer. She is a US citizen but is in another targeted group, as are some others she will be traveling with, including adults. Is she at risk of unlawful detention? I don’t want to back out of the trip, because that’s definitely complying in advance, but I’m trying to figure out what precautions are reasonable. Do I ask if there is a need for a chaperone and try to go myself, as someone not at personal risk? Is it safer or less safe to tell her to leave her phone at home? Maybe we buy her a burner?
It’s hard to talk about this too because even though she’s at a risky spot on a couple of axes of “demographic risk,” so to speak, I know that worse things are happening to people who are not White, and I risk looking naive or selfish by making it about me. But she’s my kid and it’s my job to protect her. Likewise with my work: I don’t work for USAID or other existentially threatened agencies, AND the threats being levied against extramural research are also grave. How do we take responsibility for protecting small areas that are close to home for us without damaging solidarity? I’ve never had to do this before.
posted by eirias at 6:15 AM on March 20 [3 favorites]
Maybe we buy her a burner?
“good news and bad news,” according to the Army member. The agent said they were free to go, but they would not be getting the phone back anytime soon [vice]posted by HearHere at 6:27 AM on March 20
The question about whether there are dictators that reduce the size of the government had an okay answer (Pinochet), but if it was about Trump, it's important to point out that he isn't reducing the size of the government at all... The cuts to federal services are directly offset by more money to military contractors (musk) and more money to ICE.
He's shifting what government does away from providing services and towards the machinery of ICE which will soon become the machinery of suppressing internal dissent; and away from soft power and economic power and towards military power; and increasing and accelerating the already existing trend of increased government surveillance (in this case carried out by private corporations allied with government, like musk's Starlink and twitter, and Facebook). But he's not shrinking the government in the sense of making the government less involved in people's lives, he's just shifting the KIND of involvement the government has.
posted by subdee at 7:53 AM on March 20 [8 favorites]
He's shifting what government does away from providing services and towards the machinery of ICE which will soon become the machinery of suppressing internal dissent; and away from soft power and economic power and towards military power; and increasing and accelerating the already existing trend of increased government surveillance (in this case carried out by private corporations allied with government, like musk's Starlink and twitter, and Facebook). But he's not shrinking the government in the sense of making the government less involved in people's lives, he's just shifting the KIND of involvement the government has.
posted by subdee at 7:53 AM on March 20 [8 favorites]
This was an excellent (disturbing) explanation of fascism.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:07 AM on March 20 [1 favorite]
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:07 AM on March 20 [1 favorite]
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posted by HearHere at 11:52 PM on March 19 [2 favorites]