{"id":2629,"date":"2026-07-02T15:09:03","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T15:09:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=2629"},"modified":"2026-07-02T15:09:03","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T15:09:03","slug":"fear-and-obey-historian-warns-trump-and-accomplices-are-pushing-us-to-the-brink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=2629","title":{"rendered":"‘Fear and obey’: Historian warns Trump and accomplices are pushing US to the brink"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

According to the renowned fascism historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat<\/u>, the Supreme Court has become President Donald Trump\u2019s \u201cpartner in corruption,\u201d not only working to enrich those who are in on the scam, but reshaping the U.S. as an authoritarian state in which one must \u201cfear and obey\u201d Trump.<\/p>\n

Read more Trump underwater in 6 key states GOP needs to keep the Senate: CNN analyst<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the summer of corruption,\u201d wrote Ben-Ghiat on Thursday. \u201cDefined as the abuse of power for private gain, corruption can happen in any kind of organization and government, but under authoritarianism it attains a new status: it is how the executive branch operates, expands its power, and recruits elite and grassroots partners. The Supreme Court is one of these partners, as we\u2019ll see below.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Trump administration and its enablers on the Court, argues Ben-Ghiat, \u201care providing Americans and the world with a lesson in how corruption can become systemic.\u201d This, she says, is the goal of all authoritarians: they \u201cseek to retool government and the culture to create the conditions to lie, steal and repress people with impunity. That means going after journalists, judges, investigators, opposition politicians and others who expose official wrongdoing. It also means puffing up the leader\u2019s personality cult and inventing narratives, backed by complicit religious institutions, about his selflessness and purity.\u201d<\/p>\n

She raises the example of Justice Clarence Thomas, who has a well-documented history of \u201caccepting luxury gifts and travel from billionaire GOP donor Harlan Crow,\u201d who in turn \u201chas a garden full of statues of dictators<\/u>, and collects Adolf Hitler and Nazi memorabilia.\u201d And, according to Ben-Ghiat, \u201cAs per the sacred laws of corruption, these \u2018gifts\u2019 were likely supposed to be repaid whenever Thomas put on his robes. No matter that the Court, which has no ethical oversight mechanism, finally instituted a in November 2023, which states that justices must \u2018uphold the integrity and independence of the judiciary\u2019 and avoid actual and apparent impropriety.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thomas has paid no attention to this code, refusing to recuse himself in cases involving Trump\u2019s election lies, even though Thomas\u2019s wife Ginny was directly engaged in those lies. As Ben-Ghiat muses, \u201cWhat good would Thomas be as a link in the chain of corruption if he took himself out of the game just when he was most needed?\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cAnd here we arrive at the Supreme Court as a partner in Trump administration corruption, first by giving the President immunity for official acts, and now by upholding his right to dismiss an official on political grounds,\u201d writes Ben-Ghiat. \u201cA landmark ruling in July 2024 gave the president \u2018the power of a king,\u2019 as the Brennan Center termed it<\/u>, conferring upon him absolute immunity (for the exercise of core constitutional powers) and presumptive immunity (for all other official acts). This created the legal space for a lawless individual such as Trump to feel even more emboldened to use corruption and violence to destroy our democracy and make money doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, while the Supreme Court has for 100 years upheld that the president does not have the authority to fire heads of independent agencies without cause, Trump\u2019s allies on the court have overturned that precedent<\/u>, creating conditions for further \u201csystematic corruption.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to see this decision through autocratic eyes,\u201d explains Ben-Ghiat. \u201cNot obeying the Leader, refusing to participate in his corruption, and politicizing the practice of government are acts of negligence and malfeasance in office in the authoritarian world. Such people must be removed from public service, lest they influence others with their moral stances.\u201d<\/p>\n

The power to fire agency officials at will is exactly what the president needs to shape government to his private agenda. According to Ben-Ghiat, proof of this intention was revealed by the words of Solicitor General John Sauer, who represented the Trump administration in the case, arguing before the court that the president needs to be able to remove officials in the agencies because \u201cthe President must have the power to control and\u2026the one who has the power to remove is the one who\u2026is the person that they have to fear and obey.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Florida MAGA voters angry they\u2019re struggling while the Trumps gets richer and richer<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to the renowned fascism historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat, the Supreme Court has become President Donald Trump\u2019s \u201cpartner in corruption,\u201d not only working to enrich those who are in on the scam, but reshaping the U.S. as an authoritarian state in which one must \u201cfear and obey\u201d Trump.\u201cThis is the su…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2628,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n'Fear and obey': Historian warns Trump and accomplices are pushing US to the brink - Next Address America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=2629\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"'Fear and obey': Historian warns Trump and accomplices are pushing US to the brink - 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