Ruth Ben-Ghiat on how ICE’s low-level buzz of terror recalls the methods of autocrats and colonial powers, how to reclaim patriotism, and why Americans are still what they eat
Why does a repressive secret police state not upset more people? i ask myself this in disbelief every day. I am postwar German born. Right now there should be no celebrating of America, because the culture is also NOT well, not healthy. More people need to wake up, show that they have moral conscience and courage. Protesting is not the same as offering protection for our laborers. Otherwise they are as guilty as the Germans in Nazi times. My generation had to deeply question our history and culture – it was not just Hitler and his henchmen – in order to create a more humane society. So we could feel again that we were part of the human family. Choosing to look away is rampant in America even in progressive liberal circles. There is much to celebrate about America, i agree. But the sickness of the culture has to also be named. I was naturalized last September, i cried and felt i experienced the best of America in that room of people from all over the world, and a wonderful ceremony speech. The whole room cried. But now these American rights are partially taken from us already. Let's also reflect on our willingness to be courageous not just upset. True Protectors in our neighborhood. In some communities this is happening. Often done by ordinary people with little education, they put their bodies on the line. They show courage without much attention from the press, they have little public voice. Most people sit on the couch. Protecting those who are other than us, vulnerable, needs to be taught from young age on. Feeling their fear even if we don't need to be in fear ourselves! I won't write here what i am doing since that could get me in trouble as a newly naturalized public artist. Sigh. Thanks for what you are doing :)
Thank you. It's a natural psychological response. When I confront the enormity and gravity of this problem, I find focus in what I want, which is simply just to live my life peacefully. Yes, the freedom that we all are taught in this country. I just want to tend my garden, raise my family, do my work, be me. And it's easier to think that I'm protected in my sapphire blue city in a blue state than to actually try to make sense of this. Which is why these chats are so important.
I love your honesty! so important. it's the first step. The least we can do is being awake witnesses, this make those affected less alone in their fear and misery. Because this is another effect of terror, it makes those of us targeted more lonely... i always suggest people to read the diaries of Victor Klemperer, day by day account of Nazi Germany evolving, the change of the culture, and people – a must read! "I Shall Bear Witness" till the last. He did and survived. I read it 28 years ago in German and English, astounding, and hard...
Thank you for the reference- I know that I should read that, but it seems too much like the present, and I feel I wouldn't be able to bear it. (The "before Gilead" scenes in the show The Handmaiden's Tale can be far more difficult to watch than scenes of Gilead itself. The latter seems sufficiently foreign to be firmly fictional; the former, much too much like today, frankly).
I think I'd rather read how joy was used to overturn Pinochet, nonviolent civil disobedience in India (and South Africa?)... I'd love to read positive examples of successful resistance.
Wow - thank you Karina -- you are speaking such truth -- I am hearing a lot today about how do we find our courage? what are we willing to do? -- stand up at least and speak out; for those of us who can we should get involved and take that next important step to help the most vulnerable.
Thank you Anand and Ruth for a motivating discussion.
Triumph of the Will is a classic Nazi propaganda movie by Leni Riefenstahl. It was a documentary of the first Nazi Congress in a huge stadium in Nuremberg and it was made soon after Hitler took power, so it was kind of introducing Germans to the new Nazi regime. It starts with Hitler flying through the clouds and landing in Nuremberg. Next there is the construction of a huge tent camp for the week-long Congress. And then comes the food.
Enormous pots of food cooked by burly, smiling Nazi workers. Happy people eating to their hearts’ content. The message is that the Nazis are your friends and providers of shelter and food. In Depression-era Germany that must have been a very powerful image.
It’s so odd to contrast that with the MAGA budget stripping away SNAP benefits and other social benefits. The cruelty of depriving poor people of food is about as basically repugnant as human behavior gets. What the hell are they trying to accomplish? Even Hitler knew you win more people with honey than vinegar.
Everyone should see Triumph of the Will once. It is a masterpiece of propaganda and constantly reminds you of current events, right down to the finale: a nighttime speech by torchlight by Hitler that could be by Trump.
Since World War One, real long-time hunger had been a constant in Germany in 20's and 30's, not comparable to here, that's why it worked so well to dangle food in front of a majority hungry population! We forget it was a not a rich country, and only the very rich or farmers had food. But that's also why communism had a good base in Germany – socialists, communist etc were ruthlessly "exterminated" early on (imprisoned, tortured and killed, sometimes released to spread the terror), before the Jewish people. Our Führer here has studied H and adores the spectacles and methods.... Americans would do good to look at how it all evolved, yes exactly like here!
I was surprised to learn how quickly the camp at Dachau was built after Hitler came to power—just a few months. It was first used to imprison his political enemies as you said. It was not on German soil so it was out of the way. It’s very much like the concentration camp in El Salvador that we are sending people to. (A concentration camp is defined by the Holocaust Museum as a prison outside the judicial system.). The authoritarian regimes all are basically the same.
slight correction: Dachau is on German ground, back then and now. But other camps were built on occupied territory. Yes the similarity is eerie. And horrific, unbearable... we need to be honest and not just intellectual about it all, so we are moved to true courageous resistance.
We the people need to create a new march! It should be named MAC FOR "MARCH AGAINST CORRUPTION". And the five million people who marched on the NO KING march day, should absolutely take cars, planes buses or walk, fly or ride straight to our nation's capitol!
Until the evil menace is faced up close and in person with evidence that we will no longer tolerate what is happening, he will never believe he is NOT A KING WHO CAN DO WHATEVER HE WANTS. I feel so strongly this is what needs to happen.
I am 78 years old and only have social security to depend on. I'm also a former radio news reporter and want everyone in our country to realize the importance of what's happening! We have to go directly to the source and confront him in person.
My name is Tena Bunnell, and I live in Wilton, NY My phone number is 513.477.7654. Let's all get off our asses and defend our unalienable rights!!!
Really loved this conversation. Especially the food aspect of it. I am looking forward to reading your piece on food Anand. Also, I appreciate the discussion of ICE and especially the point that it is run differently under Trump.
Thank you for this discussion. Not gonna lie, I had sunk into a bit of a pit of despair and self-loathing over the weekend. Between working in health care (whose services, let’s be honest, are about to become even stingier and painful to access across the board, in anticipation of and along with the revenue loss that entails from cuts to insurance) and reading James Baldwin as an answer to what do I still admire and love about America (we produce artists like that!), who is always mesmerizing and never comforting, I have been in a bit of a place. A place approximating the place of your friend. So I felt that remonstration personally. Appreciate your perspective always.
Love, love, love the discussion on food. I grew up in north FL and had only 2 Chinese restaurants, and it was such a big deal with the first Thai place came out. We would have to make our own dumplings for parties with the other Chinese students at UF. Nowadays, we can choose places (in the Bay Area) where we can get northern style vs southern style dumplings, or go to even a place like South SF (not usually on people's short list of cosmopolitan cities) that specializes just in Shanghainese xiao long bao (aka "soup dumplings" in some quarters), and compare them to the many kinds we can get frozen at 99 Ranch, or at Trader Joe's!!!
And it's amazing that you can go to Sat school for Tamil now on the Peninsula. Not just Hindi.
This is getting to the joy and connection part of the resistance and we must keep pointing it out.
Lastly, about Hungary: I wish there were some way resisters and democracy advocates could all connect on this, the way the autocrats do (as Anne Applebaum writes). Is there a Democracy, Inc., as well? Or make that, democracy dot org. Are there 50501 and Indivisible organizers connecting with the anti-racism marchers in the UK, the pride people in Hungary, etc.?
🌄 Transcendentalism vs. Transhumanism ⚖️ The rule of law has lost its soul. 🌿 The human soul once sovereign, now scored by software.🤖 Now, AI governs medicine, courts, & conscience. 🔥 A cultural civil war has begun for the soul of America.
Thank you- very helpful analysis and context as usual. I always look forward these conversations. It seems the only way out of this, save an actual armed conflict, is massive peaceful civil disobedience. So how do we get people to that point? How do we accelerate people to get through their denial and to actual reckoning?
I have a white Jewish American friend who, at least as of earlier this month, apologetically, doesn't believe this regime will come after her. I know someone else who considers herself a "moderate" Dem who sends me pieces from the NYT, the latest dissecting how the Dems have failed on immigration. I think the denial and the search for reasons for our current predicament is akin to a natural response to an abusive relationship. Maybe you've covered this, or will, but, not being an expert or experience with abusive relationships, I think there's something instructive.
The tl;DR: we paralyze ourselves with denial or flailing around to find a reason for why we're here. What do we can we do to get to a tipping point where a critical mass of the population wakes up so we can stop this all, nonviolently?
I swear, people with big... guts, should rip these "agents" masks off while they film these thugs - maybe doing that a bunch would cause a bit of fear in their ranks...? It should be more costly to join the Gestapo!
I may not always agree with your thoughts but you always motivate me to look at things differently. I love your perspective! I think it is so valuable to your reporting and writing that you are not a white American. I say this as a white woman who gets very tired of white male opinions.
With all of this food bridging talk, you need an exchange with Mark Bittman.
Separately, regarding the diversity that makes a "world nation" & is a hallmark, whether accepted or not, of modern, forward, cosmopolitan societies, this our "fountain of youth:" continual renewal. The Right, as epitomized by the white Christian Nationalist Project 2025, is totally freaked out by this.
It feels like a no brainer that we have not seen this happening. I feel it is indicative of our denial that this is all happening. I am not a specialist, nor an academic, am just okay intelligent and this was clear with the first appearance of ICE. An armed civil militia under a separate branch of the government. WHAT DO WE DO????? We are in denial.
MAGA owns the flag, for now, wearing and using it as their brand. Now if we protest with the flag upside down we project our rejection of MAGA. We DON'T respect America in its current state and do not want to be perceived as MAGA.
Why does a repressive secret police state not upset more people? i ask myself this in disbelief every day. I am postwar German born. Right now there should be no celebrating of America, because the culture is also NOT well, not healthy. More people need to wake up, show that they have moral conscience and courage. Protesting is not the same as offering protection for our laborers. Otherwise they are as guilty as the Germans in Nazi times. My generation had to deeply question our history and culture – it was not just Hitler and his henchmen – in order to create a more humane society. So we could feel again that we were part of the human family. Choosing to look away is rampant in America even in progressive liberal circles. There is much to celebrate about America, i agree. But the sickness of the culture has to also be named. I was naturalized last September, i cried and felt i experienced the best of America in that room of people from all over the world, and a wonderful ceremony speech. The whole room cried. But now these American rights are partially taken from us already. Let's also reflect on our willingness to be courageous not just upset. True Protectors in our neighborhood. In some communities this is happening. Often done by ordinary people with little education, they put their bodies on the line. They show courage without much attention from the press, they have little public voice. Most people sit on the couch. Protecting those who are other than us, vulnerable, needs to be taught from young age on. Feeling their fear even if we don't need to be in fear ourselves! I won't write here what i am doing since that could get me in trouble as a newly naturalized public artist. Sigh. Thanks for what you are doing :)
I agree that people are looking away. With financial and racial security, they see themselves as above the fray. Sadly, not looking at all.
Thank you. It's a natural psychological response. When I confront the enormity and gravity of this problem, I find focus in what I want, which is simply just to live my life peacefully. Yes, the freedom that we all are taught in this country. I just want to tend my garden, raise my family, do my work, be me. And it's easier to think that I'm protected in my sapphire blue city in a blue state than to actually try to make sense of this. Which is why these chats are so important.
I love your honesty! so important. it's the first step. The least we can do is being awake witnesses, this make those affected less alone in their fear and misery. Because this is another effect of terror, it makes those of us targeted more lonely... i always suggest people to read the diaries of Victor Klemperer, day by day account of Nazi Germany evolving, the change of the culture, and people – a must read! "I Shall Bear Witness" till the last. He did and survived. I read it 28 years ago in German and English, astounding, and hard...
Thank you for the reference- I know that I should read that, but it seems too much like the present, and I feel I wouldn't be able to bear it. (The "before Gilead" scenes in the show The Handmaiden's Tale can be far more difficult to watch than scenes of Gilead itself. The latter seems sufficiently foreign to be firmly fictional; the former, much too much like today, frankly).
I think I'd rather read how joy was used to overturn Pinochet, nonviolent civil disobedience in India (and South Africa?)... I'd love to read positive examples of successful resistance.
Wow - thank you Karina -- you are speaking such truth -- I am hearing a lot today about how do we find our courage? what are we willing to do? -- stand up at least and speak out; for those of us who can we should get involved and take that next important step to help the most vulnerable.
Thank you Anand and Ruth for a motivating discussion.
So glad to hear you defending patriotism as something we all should own!
Apropos how authoritarians use food:
Triumph of the Will is a classic Nazi propaganda movie by Leni Riefenstahl. It was a documentary of the first Nazi Congress in a huge stadium in Nuremberg and it was made soon after Hitler took power, so it was kind of introducing Germans to the new Nazi regime. It starts with Hitler flying through the clouds and landing in Nuremberg. Next there is the construction of a huge tent camp for the week-long Congress. And then comes the food.
Enormous pots of food cooked by burly, smiling Nazi workers. Happy people eating to their hearts’ content. The message is that the Nazis are your friends and providers of shelter and food. In Depression-era Germany that must have been a very powerful image.
It’s so odd to contrast that with the MAGA budget stripping away SNAP benefits and other social benefits. The cruelty of depriving poor people of food is about as basically repugnant as human behavior gets. What the hell are they trying to accomplish? Even Hitler knew you win more people with honey than vinegar.
Everyone should see Triumph of the Will once. It is a masterpiece of propaganda and constantly reminds you of current events, right down to the finale: a nighttime speech by torchlight by Hitler that could be by Trump.
Since World War One, real long-time hunger had been a constant in Germany in 20's and 30's, not comparable to here, that's why it worked so well to dangle food in front of a majority hungry population! We forget it was a not a rich country, and only the very rich or farmers had food. But that's also why communism had a good base in Germany – socialists, communist etc were ruthlessly "exterminated" early on (imprisoned, tortured and killed, sometimes released to spread the terror), before the Jewish people. Our Führer here has studied H and adores the spectacles and methods.... Americans would do good to look at how it all evolved, yes exactly like here!
I was surprised to learn how quickly the camp at Dachau was built after Hitler came to power—just a few months. It was first used to imprison his political enemies as you said. It was not on German soil so it was out of the way. It’s very much like the concentration camp in El Salvador that we are sending people to. (A concentration camp is defined by the Holocaust Museum as a prison outside the judicial system.). The authoritarian regimes all are basically the same.
slight correction: Dachau is on German ground, back then and now. But other camps were built on occupied territory. Yes the similarity is eerie. And horrific, unbearable... we need to be honest and not just intellectual about it all, so we are moved to true courageous resistance.
My bad. I thought it was in Poland; confused it with Auschwitz.
The picture of Kristi Noem at CECOT was truly disgusting.
We the people need to create a new march! It should be named MAC FOR "MARCH AGAINST CORRUPTION". And the five million people who marched on the NO KING march day, should absolutely take cars, planes buses or walk, fly or ride straight to our nation's capitol!
Until the evil menace is faced up close and in person with evidence that we will no longer tolerate what is happening, he will never believe he is NOT A KING WHO CAN DO WHATEVER HE WANTS. I feel so strongly this is what needs to happen.
I am 78 years old and only have social security to depend on. I'm also a former radio news reporter and want everyone in our country to realize the importance of what's happening! We have to go directly to the source and confront him in person.
My name is Tena Bunnell, and I live in Wilton, NY My phone number is 513.477.7654. Let's all get off our asses and defend our unalienable rights!!!
Really loved this conversation. Especially the food aspect of it. I am looking forward to reading your piece on food Anand. Also, I appreciate the discussion of ICE and especially the point that it is run differently under Trump.
Thanks very much!
Thank you for this discussion. Not gonna lie, I had sunk into a bit of a pit of despair and self-loathing over the weekend. Between working in health care (whose services, let’s be honest, are about to become even stingier and painful to access across the board, in anticipation of and along with the revenue loss that entails from cuts to insurance) and reading James Baldwin as an answer to what do I still admire and love about America (we produce artists like that!), who is always mesmerizing and never comforting, I have been in a bit of a place. A place approximating the place of your friend. So I felt that remonstration personally. Appreciate your perspective always.
Love, love, love the discussion on food. I grew up in north FL and had only 2 Chinese restaurants, and it was such a big deal with the first Thai place came out. We would have to make our own dumplings for parties with the other Chinese students at UF. Nowadays, we can choose places (in the Bay Area) where we can get northern style vs southern style dumplings, or go to even a place like South SF (not usually on people's short list of cosmopolitan cities) that specializes just in Shanghainese xiao long bao (aka "soup dumplings" in some quarters), and compare them to the many kinds we can get frozen at 99 Ranch, or at Trader Joe's!!!
And it's amazing that you can go to Sat school for Tamil now on the Peninsula. Not just Hindi.
This is getting to the joy and connection part of the resistance and we must keep pointing it out.
Lastly, about Hungary: I wish there were some way resisters and democracy advocates could all connect on this, the way the autocrats do (as Anne Applebaum writes). Is there a Democracy, Inc., as well? Or make that, democracy dot org. Are there 50501 and Indivisible organizers connecting with the anti-racism marchers in the UK, the pride people in Hungary, etc.?
🌄 Transcendentalism vs. Transhumanism ⚖️ The rule of law has lost its soul. 🌿 The human soul once sovereign, now scored by software.🤖 Now, AI governs medicine, courts, & conscience. 🔥 A cultural civil war has begun for the soul of America.
https://doctorsofcourage.org/new-england-transcendentalism-vs-silicon-valley-transhumanism/
Thank you- very helpful analysis and context as usual. I always look forward these conversations. It seems the only way out of this, save an actual armed conflict, is massive peaceful civil disobedience. So how do we get people to that point? How do we accelerate people to get through their denial and to actual reckoning?
I have a white Jewish American friend who, at least as of earlier this month, apologetically, doesn't believe this regime will come after her. I know someone else who considers herself a "moderate" Dem who sends me pieces from the NYT, the latest dissecting how the Dems have failed on immigration. I think the denial and the search for reasons for our current predicament is akin to a natural response to an abusive relationship. Maybe you've covered this, or will, but, not being an expert or experience with abusive relationships, I think there's something instructive.
The tl;DR: we paralyze ourselves with denial or flailing around to find a reason for why we're here. What do we can we do to get to a tipping point where a critical mass of the population wakes up so we can stop this all, nonviolently?
I swear, people with big... guts, should rip these "agents" masks off while they film these thugs - maybe doing that a bunch would cause a bit of fear in their ranks...? It should be more costly to join the Gestapo!
I may not always agree with your thoughts but you always motivate me to look at things differently. I love your perspective! I think it is so valuable to your reporting and writing that you are not a white American. I say this as a white woman who gets very tired of white male opinions.
With all of this food bridging talk, you need an exchange with Mark Bittman.
Separately, regarding the diversity that makes a "world nation" & is a hallmark, whether accepted or not, of modern, forward, cosmopolitan societies, this our "fountain of youth:" continual renewal. The Right, as epitomized by the white Christian Nationalist Project 2025, is totally freaked out by this.
I am patriotic for my planet. I think it’s the BEST planet in the whole Solar system. I want to protect it from anyone who threatens it
It feels like a no brainer that we have not seen this happening. I feel it is indicative of our denial that this is all happening. I am not a specialist, nor an academic, am just okay intelligent and this was clear with the first appearance of ICE. An armed civil militia under a separate branch of the government. WHAT DO WE DO????? We are in denial.
MAGA owns the flag, for now, wearing and using it as their brand. Now if we protest with the flag upside down we project our rejection of MAGA. We DON'T respect America in its current state and do not want to be perceived as MAGA.
I don't see Anand or Ruth with flag-ware.
Diana Jenkins Los Angeles