Ruth Ben-Ghiat on how Trump turned the GOP into a personality cult

I’m putting the Aaron Rupar Show on indefinite hiatus, and this brief episode explains some of the reasons why. Thank you for listening, and please subscribe to my Public Notice newsletter to follow my work. Cheers! Get full access to Public Notice at www.publicnotice.co/subscribe

This week's episode of the Aaron Rupar Show features Melissa Hortman, speaker of the Minnesota House, reflecting on her two decades in the legislature, the state’s Democratic trifecta and this year’s historic legislative session, and much more.Speaker Hortman and I touched upon everything from lessons she took from losing her first two legislative campaigns in resounding fashion to Jesse Ventura's legacy to why Trumpism is such a bad fit for Minnesota Republicans. Get full access to Public Notice at www.publicnotice.co/subscribe

This week’s episode of the Aaron Rupar Show features Ruth Ben-Ghiat, one of America’s foremost authoritarianism scholars and author of Strongmen and the Lucid Substack. We discuss the factors that contributed to Trump’s rise and MAGA’s parallels to other authoritarian movements, the bizarre GOP primary as a reflection of Trump’s personality cult, the current state of the global struggle been authoritarianism and democracy, and much more. Get full access to Public Notice at www.publicnotice.co/subscribe

This week's episode of the Aaron Rupar Show features lawyer and political commentator David Lurie. Topics include a premortem of the DeSantis campaign that David just wrote for Public Notice, the Trump indictments as well as the legal defenses and delaying tactics David expects from Trump's attorneys, why Hunter Biden is actually being treated unfairly by the DOJ, and more. Get full access to Public Notice at www.publicnotice.co/subscribe

This week’s episode of the Aaron Rupar Show features Justin Higgins, host of the Politics+Media 101 podcast, on his remarkable political biography and the insight it provides into today’s Trumpified GOP. Higgins is a former RNC staffer who did opposition research during the 2016 cycle, but was so turned off by the reality of President Trump that he became a Democrat and ended up working for the Democratic governor of Puerto Rico.We talk about what working for the RNC during Trump’s rise was like, the factors that led to Higgins leaving the GOP, the demise of John Boehner’s speakership and how similar dynamics could take down Kevin McCarthy, why Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign is floundering, and much more. Get full access to Public Notice at www.publicnotice.co/subscribe

This week’s episode of the Aaron Rupar Show features Liz Dye, who needs no introduction for readers of this newsletter. Liz has done fantastic work here in recent weeks documenting Trump’s mounting legal problems and nonsensical defenses. Now, she joins my podcast to unpack Trump’s January 6-related indictment, including the specific laws he’s accused of breaking, important scenes from Jack Smith’s charging document, the identities and roles of his six co-conspirators, and much more. Get full access to Public Notice at www.publicnotice.co/subscribe

This week’s episode of the Aaron Rupar Show features comedian Jay Black on his stand-up and the state of political comedy more broadly. Topics include how rising authoritarianism has made joking about politics more challenging, conservatives’ one joke and why Jay is so turned off by it, right-wingers’ difficulty to grasp what censorship is and isn’t, and much more. (“If you start screaming about your diarrhea at a Starbucks and they remove from the Starbucks, you’re not being censored.”)We had a lot of laughs, and I think you will too! Get full access to Public Notice at www.publicnotice.co/subscribe

This week's edition of the Aaron Rupar Show features Simon Rosenberg, author of the Hopium Chronicles and a longtime Democratic strategist, on the political state of play as we head toward 2024. We discuss the stakes of this election cycle and the importance of MAGA suffering a decisive defeat, Biden's strong record and why Simon isn’t especially worried about it not yet showing up in polling, how Trump's legal problems are an albatross for the whole Republican Party, and much more. Get full access to Public Notice at www.publicnotice.co/subscribe

This week’s episode of the Aaron Rupar Show features returning guest Juliet Jeske, author of the Decoding Fox News newsletter. We discuss Tucker Carlson’s fading star, Fox News’s new Tucker-free primetime lineup, Ray Epps, Hunter Biden, and more. Get full access to Public Notice at www.publicnotice.co/subscribe

This week’s episode of the Aaron Rupar Show features Tim Mak, founder and author of The Counteroffensive, discussing what it’s like to do independent human interest journalism from a warzone. We talk about the Ukrainian counteroffensive and what we know about its early progress, how Kyiv residents handle near-nightly missile strikes, the challenges involved in traveling around Ukraine to report these days, what Ukrainians are thinking and saying about US politics, and much more (including, briefly, Ukrainian McDonald’s). Get full access to Public Notice at www.publicnotice.co/subscribe