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Thursday, August 22, 2024

STRONGMEN (chapter 3) author Ruth Ben-Ghiat

 That's some weird s/h/*/t

former POTUS George W. Bush said

of the 2017 Inaugural Address #DJT

delivered on Jan. 20.  It cast America

as a desolate place of 

"rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones

across the landscape of our nation. . .its wealth,

strength, and confidence" gone until #DJT

advocate for AMERICA FIRST entered the

scene.  .  .The crisis rhetoric and positioning

of the male leader as savior also followed

a formula used by every strongman from 

Mussolini onward.

What Bush saw as strange in the context of 

American democracy was normal in the

authoritarian tradition.   So was the tactic

of leaving your audience uneasy and uncertain

of what you will do next. . .#DJT intoned:

"Now arrives the hour of action" (page 58)

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