Professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat is a historian and expert on authoritarianism, propaganda, abuse of power and threats to democracy. A prolific media commentator, Ruth brings a historical perspective to current events across major media outlets on TV, print and online. A regular CNN contributor, and one of the few academics to accurately predict the insurrection of January 6th 2021, she joined New York University in 2000, and her work is supported by Fulbright, Guggenheim and other fellowships. In this in-depth interview, Ruth discusses her best-selling book, ‘Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present,’ which examines the methods that authoritarian leaders past and present use to stay in power – “corruption, violence, propaganda and outright machismo,” and why (with a few exceptions) this leadership style usually results in failure; shares her blistering analysis of former President Trump as a “dictator in the classic vein” with both “hoarder” and “victim” traits and a “manic desire to control everyone and everything;” and discusses the launch of ‘Lucid’ – a subscription publication which shines a light on, among many other things, sexual harassment – “a common factor among these types of abusive leaderships.”