Live Q&A with Ruth Ben-Ghiat and Olga Lautman

This is an excerpt of Gaslit Nation's bonus show. To get access to this, our episodes ad free, our archives, live events, and more, support our independent journalism by subscribing at Patreon.com/Gaslit! Thank you to everyone who supports the show -- we could not make Gaslit Nation without you!

Thank you to everyone who braved a stormy night of torrential rain to attend the recent live taping of Gaslit Nation featuring historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of the bestselling book Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present, and Russian mafia expert Olga Lautman of the Kremlin Files podcast. This week's bonus episode includes the live Q&A with our audience, kicking off with Olga's theory...what if Prigozhin is still alive?

In the introduction, Andrea shares two powerful films that are essential viewing, especially heading into 2024. Disinformation aims to divide and dehumanize. The anecdote to that is to stay human and center the human beings caught in the middle of powerful forces. So be sure to check out these two powerful films. One is a drama, The Swimmers, about two Syrian girls who dream of swimming in the Olympics for Syria, and instead have to escape the war, taking the dangerous journey to Europe by sea where they use their swimming training to pull their raft full of refugees for hours to shore after the boat's motor fails. It's an extraordinary story of resilience and gives important insight into the refugee crisis politically dividing Europe, inflaming the Russian-backed far-right. The second film is a Peabody Award-winning documentary called Missing in Brooks County. Like Ava DuVernay's 13th exposes the white supremacy cult of political and legal violence that built the prison industrial complex, Missing in Brooks County lifts the veil on the dystopian nightmare of the U.S. Southern Border, deliberately engineered for mass murder.

And of course Elon Musk, Apartheid Barbie, made headlines this week in relation to both refugee crises. First, he was slapped on Twitter by the German government which clapped back at him for calling out their rescue efforts of refugees who take the perilous journey by sea to escape unimaginable danger and hardship at home. Then he pulled a disinformation stunt by visiting the U.S. border, called by a recent United Nations report the deadliest border crossing in the world. Musk, Trump, and Putin are all part of a global far-right movement to consolidate the world's racists, to chip away at democracy, to scapegoat victims of fascism and mafia state greed, and bring autocrats to power through incitement of political violence. We're seeing that same KKK terror on Staten Island where mobs of people continue to terrorize refugees by blasting intrusive lights and blaring car horns and more at a refugee center.

We're not going to let them win. We're fighting back by building political power and growing our community beyond Apartheid Barbie's Twitter. You can join Andrea, J. Smith-Cameron and people across the country by supporting all important state races like the upcoming Virginia state elections -- more info here: https://www.grapevine.org/giving-circle/zjrhpjw/State-Fair And be sure to follow Gaslit Nation on the new socials we're building as we ramp up for 2024 and reclaim our democracy.

Finally, on Thursday October 5th at 4pm EST, Andrea will spill some tea on Fox News after speaking with a former insider, and record that in a special live stream available both on Patreon for our supporters and also Instagram Live. Look out for a Patreon post sent straight to your inbox for how to watch that stream as it goes live this coming Thursday. Thank you to everyone who supports the show – we could not make Gaslit Nation without you!

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