Immunity, impunity, victimhood, and the enabling of dictators
Or, What the Supreme Court should be reading
Today the Supreme Court is hearing arguments about whether former President Donald Trump should be immune from prosecution because he happened to be president while committing the alleged crime of trying to remain president illegitimately.
The case is important for a number of reasons both practical and philosophical. High among them is that there is a long history of wannabe (and well-established) autocrats testing their legal impunity and immunity as a way to develop and perform their imperviousness to restraint. In other words, immunity is not just something America’s wannabe autocrat is seeking. It is part and parcel of his pursuit of autocracy.
Today, we have three of our best past interviews on this subject with the brilliant scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat. They dig in to this present and in to history. This is what we wish some of the justices were reading.
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[A]ll authoritarians are victims. They have victimhood cults. It's extremely important because their aggression must always be presented as self-defense, and any prosecution of their corruption must be presented as persecution. That’s a theme of strongmen.
[T]he secret of the strongman is that he dreads losing everything. Even as his personality cult proclaims his infallibility, he is pursued by the demon of fear. He’s wary of the people he represses; of individuals who might prosecute him; of elites who can turn on him; and of enemies real and imagined. Fear is why such rulers use blackmail and clientelism to tie people to them, why they throw on a cloak of masculine invincibility, and why they seek out other strongmen as partners who will legitimate their authoritarian worldview.
It's not just Trump who does this. It's Mussolini, Putin to some extent, Berlusconi, Erdogan. This victimhood is really important because it elicits a protectiveness. So you go to Trump rallies, and people will say, “He's been through so much, we've got to be there to support him.” Even to the point of being an army that sacks the Capitol.
