Dear Thinkers,
This afternoon, Tim sat down with Ruth Ben-Ghiat for a conversation I think many of you will want to watch with a notebook in hand.
Ruth is one of the foremost scholars of strongmen and authoritarianism — she teaches at NYU and has spent her career studying exactly the kind of moment we find ourselves in now. Together, she and Tim covered a lot of ground, from strongmen to oligarchs, to fascism, but the heart of the conversation was about how to make sense of what’s happening around us.
One concept that stood out to me: the distinction between Superpower Suicide and Superpower Murder — a framework Tim has written about before, but which takes on new dimensions in conversation with Ruth. They also explored other ways of naming and framing this moment, and, crucially, what each of us can practically do in response.
As Tim put it near the end, getting the language right isn’t just an intellectual exercise. It’s clarifying. It’s even enabling.
Hope you find it as illuminating as I did.
More Thinking Live conversations are on the way — stay tuned!
— Victor
