Authoritarianism expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat on Wednesday warned that “one of the most alarming things” in the right-wing Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025” handbook is the admission that Donald Trump didn’t accomplish all he wanted to in his first administration.
“They got a slow start […] so their codeword is ‘day one,’” Ben-Ghiat told MSNBC’s Katie Phang of the think-tank’s proposal document that is widely expected to form the basis of a potential second Trump term’s policies.
“Already politically-vetted people” are in place and will immediately implement the plans if Trump wins the 2024 election, said the history professor at New York University who authored “Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present.”
Ben-Ghiat cited the handbook’s proposal — which has been echoed by Trump himself — to mass deport millions of undocumented immigrants.
“One thing that’s very important for people to realize,” she said, is that undocumented immigrants won’t be the only ones who end up being targeted.
“It’s always more people,” said Ben-Ghiat.
“They use one group to have the justification to build the repressive infrastructure like the camps, the transit camps, whatever they’re going to do,” she added. “But be assured, and this is the history of authoritarianism, many groups of people will be targeted to be in that.”