FORMER MAO POLITICAL PRISONER SCHOOLS PBS HOST ON TRUMP AND AUTHORITARIANISM (Video):

In preparing for this interview, Margaret Hoover came across a reference to a Trump tweet that she was unable to resist. It led her to ask Ai Weiwei directly if he saw the former President as an authoritarian.

If she was hoping to have her guest help her take a swipe at Trump, she was sadly mistaken, instead, he knocked the intolerant left.

When asked if Trump was an authoritarian Ai Weiwei said:

“In many ways, you are already in the authoritarian state. You just don’t know it . Certainly the United States, with today’s condition, you can easily have an authoritarian.”

He implied that Trump couldn’t be an authoritarian because

  “If you are authoritarian, you have to have a system supporting you. You cannot just be an authoritarian by yourself.

“Many things happening today in U.S. can be compared to the Cultural Revolution in China. Like people trying to be unified in a certain political correctness. That is very dangerous.”

Ah, cancel culture and wokism. I don’t think that’s what Margaret Hoover expected to hear.

If Trump was an authoritarian, he certainly did a lousy job of it, as Rod Dreher notes in “Michael Pack Vs. The Baizuocracy.”