Nov 8, 2026 · 54 min · 14 segments
Professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat explains the enormity of the midterm election results. Get Jennifer’s new book Not Today, Fascists, join our Substack, shop our merch, and more by clicking here…
Ruth Ben-GhiatGuest
Jennifer WelchHost
You're the one that really helped me understand this, that a strong man comes to power.
But when the elites, when the financial elites come and prop him up, it really allows the untethered strong man to go bananas, as we all saw.
I know what companies they worked for because the betrayal I felt as a customer to them, that they would sit there and prop up this man who was a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist, a compulsive liar who tried to overthrow a free and fair election, wherein his supporters said, hang Mike Pence, was unforgivable, unacceptable.
What happens to the elites? Are they so transactional? Now they go off and try to buy off the Democrats.
How do they manage when their free pass has lost this embarrassingly? I mean, Mississippi, Iowa, Texas is blue, Ruth.
And in dictatorships, it can cause the fall of regimes, like the soldiers won't fight for you anymore.
And so people talk about these pillars that prop up the strongmen, and it's often the media, the military, but business is one of them.
If we look at what happened in Minneapolis during the popular opposition to Operation Metro Surge, I keep thinking of this fact that 60 local businesses, including Best Buy and Target, signed a letter.
As for the billionaires who were lined up, I mean, they were – look what Meta was doing to Indivisible, like blocking their account.
You're the one that really helped me understand this, that a strong man comes to power.
But when the elites, when the financial elites come and prop him up, it really allows the untethered strong man to go bananas, as we all saw.
I know what companies they worked for because the betrayal I felt as a customer to them, that they would sit there and prop up this man who was a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist, a compulsive liar who tried to overthrow a free and fair election, wherein his supporters said, hang Mike Pence, was unforgivable, unacceptable.
What happens to the elites? Are they so transactional? Now they go off and try to buy off the Democrats.
How do they manage when their free pass has lost this embarrassingly? I mean, Mississippi, Iowa, Texas is blue, Ruth.
And in dictatorships, it can cause the fall of regimes, like the soldiers won't fight for you anymore.
And so people talk about these pillars that prop up the strongmen, and it's often the media, the military, but business is one of them.
If we look at what happened in Minneapolis during the popular opposition to Operation Metro Surge, I keep thinking of this fact that 60 local businesses, including Best Buy and Target, signed a letter.
As for the billionaires who were lined up, I mean, they were – look what Meta was doing to Indivisible, like blocking their account.
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