America has inched closer than ever to authoritarianism, historian says

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00:00Let's get more analysis.

00:01Rick Perlstein joins us.

00:02He's a historian and author of the book Regenland, America's Right Turn.

00:06Rick, thank you for being with us here in France 24.

00:09We appreciate your time.

00:10What are your thoughts at this stage?

00:13It is obviously incredibly close.

00:16It's been an extraordinary campaign.

00:19I dissent from the consensus that it's close.

00:25I don't think we know if it's close or not.

00:28People don't answer their phones for polls anymore.

00:30The pollsters are basing their things on models that are very abstract and opaque.

00:36We have a history in American presidential polling of very, very bad misses, for example,

00:42in 2016.

00:44We're really only going to know maybe not even tomorrow, but in the weeks to come.

00:50We do have the ability to say with certainty that America has inched closer to authoritarian

00:58governance than it has at any time in its history, with the possible exception of the

01:03states in the South during the era of slavery and segregation.

01:07That is an interesting thing you say.

01:10You corrected me in a very nice way.

01:11I thank you for that, because I said it's close to you.

01:14You put me back in my box.

01:15Maybe it is.

01:16You did it very politely, and I appreciate that.

01:18Thank you so much.

01:19The point you just made there is really important, because you wrote a book about the right turn

01:22under Reagan.

01:23That's right.

01:24I can recall, as a younger, aspiring journalist at the time, thinking Reagan was very extreme

01:29and very right-wing, but this is a whole new definition of what we're seeing now from Donald

01:33Trump, isn't it?

01:34Right.

01:35As I write the history of this conservative movement in the Republican Party, what I see

01:41is an increasing ratchet towards authoritarianism that's really only ever gone in one direction.

01:47There's been a story that Democrats tell themselves that when Republicans lose, the

01:54scales will right themselves, and we'll return to this broadly consensual nation.

02:00Conservatives don't think of the world that way.

02:02They see the world in apocalyptic terms.

02:05They see themselves standing at Armageddon.

02:07A lot of them, in fact, are fundamentalist Christians who see the stakes as existential

02:14for humanity itself.

02:16They see Democrats as the enemy.

02:19Many of them literally use language, for example, that Democrats are demonic, that they have

02:25nothing less than the severing of the bonds of civilization itself on their minds.

02:32There are so many things that Donald Trump says, which for many people just do not add

02:36up, but for his supporters, it seems to make no difference whatsoever.

02:41Right.

02:42Because this is not a logical argument.

02:45It's not kind of the Enlightenment way of thinking where you take evidence and logic

02:50and you conclude based on those ways of cogitating.

02:56It's about feeling, right?

02:57I mean, a lot of us have been using the word fascist to describe it, and there's some debate

03:02about that.

03:03But for me, the most important reason to use this word is that the kind of campaigning

03:10Republicans do now completely encloses their voters in a information bubble.

03:17And just a great example, during the acceptance speech, Donald Trump said he was going to

03:22build an iron dome over America, kind of like Israel has.

03:25Of course, America is like a thousand times bigger than Israel.

03:30And the weapons that we would face in a war would be intercontinental ballistic missiles,

03:34not these kind of cheap rockets.

03:36So it's just a complete fantasy that he's going to protect you from everything that

03:40vexes you, that he's going to wreak vengeance on anything that harms you.

03:46And it's not a matter of spreadsheets and adding up which candidate has which position.

03:53They see the world in terms of good and evil.

03:56And we know from history that that is a very dangerous development.

04:00And we find ourselves in America on the precipice of something that could be very, very dire

04:05for our future and the world's future.

04:06Rick, thank you very much indeed.

04:08We need to leave it there.

04:09But you've given us some real food for thought as we enter the, well, obviously, we're into

04:14the final day of campaigning.

04:16Rick, I'll stand there with that analysis, a story, a man who wrote a book about Ronald

04:21Reagan, of course.

04:22At the time, many thought he was hard right, but totally redefined in terms of the position

04:29of Donald Trump on many of the issues that we are facing today.

04:33Rick, thanks again for your contribution.

04:35Great to have you on France 24.

04:36Good to be here.

04:37Bye bye.

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