"Bone chilling": Authoritarianism expert alarmed at RNC crowd reaction to bandaged Trump appearance

An authoritarianism expert expressed alarm Monday at the aggressive reactions from the crowd at the Republican National Convention when a bandaged Donald Trump entered the arena on Monday.

Just days after Saturday's assassination attempt, Trump entered the convention with a bandaged ear as people in the crowd chanted “fight” and pumped their fists in unison.

The scene was captured on video by radio host Dean Obeidallah and shared on X. “Bone chilling to see at #RNCConvention people chanting ‘Fight’ in unison with one arm punching in the air. Instantly conjures up rallies from 1930s Germany. There is no other way to put it,” he wrote.

The "fight” chant and fist pump is the same gesture Trump made to the crowd while being ushered off-stage by the Secret Service after last Saturday's assassination attempt.

Authoritarian expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor at New York University, was quick to condemn the scene.

“You know what to do, Americans. We can avoid this nightmare. Never become resigned or fatalistic. That’s what they want,” she wrote on X.

Ben-Ghiat is the author of “Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present,” and has previously warned of the threat to democracy should Trump be elected for a second term.

In an interview with The Guardian on Saturday, Ben-Ghiat compared Trump’s rise to that of both Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. She said that almost all authoritarians present democracy as “the real tyranny” and they their own, inimitable platform “as the way to free the people.”

“Any aggression that Trump does is because he’s the defender of freedom, and the Democrat represents real tyranny,” Ben-Ghiat said. “So it’s very seductive rhetoric, but it’s an inversion, so that democracy becomes the threat and tyranny and fascism, or whatever we’re calling Trumpism, becomes freedom, and that is how in history, we’ve gotten into situations where mass repression is hailed as something positive."

After Saturday’s rally, politicians across Washington, including President Joe Biden, have called on Americans to “cool the political temperature.”

On Sunday, Trump called on people to “stand united” and show “our true character as Americans” in a Truth Social post.

But Ben-Ghiat says such rhetoric from the former president is also concerning.

“The pivot delusion/propaganda point has returned! Sorry but Trump’s idea of unity is everyone behind him or else,” Ben-Ghiat commented on X. “He tells his own supporters that if they vote for him and die ‘it will be worth it.’ No pivoting out of that.”