What happened to Rudy Guiliani?

[nebo113]

He did so well after 9/11.  What happened?

[Langue_doc]

Combination of arrogance, ignorance, and senility?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/19/rudy-giuliani-dye-my-cousin-vinny-press-conference

[Parasaurolophus]

Buzzfeed: Rudy Giuliani Was Always This Bad

[lightning]

Every man has a price where they will sell out. For Mayor Rudy, the price seems to be $20,000/day. Of course, he's an even bigger idiot, if he thinks that Trump will actually pay him.

[nebo113]

Buzzfeed: Rudy Giuliani Was Always This Bad

At least back in the day, he wasn't publicly crazy.

[histchick]

Buzzfeed: Rudy Giuliani Was Always This Bad

At least back in the day, he wasn't publicly crazy.

My husband and I have been talking about this for weeks.  For years, we liked and respected (though didn't always agree with) Giuliani.  He's certainly not well.

[Sun_Worshiper]

We have a tendency to assume that authoritarians in the US are crazy, as opposed to just being authoritarians who weaponize lies to maintain power when legitimate means fail. Trump is not that different from Putin, it is just that the US has better institutional guard rails, and Rudy is not that different from Putin's propagandist henchmen. 

[dr_codex]

We have a tendency to assume that authoritarians in the US are crazy, as opposed to just being authoritarians who weaponize lies to maintain power when legitimate means fail. Trump is not that different from Putin, it is just that the US has better institutional guard rails, and Rudy is not that different from Putin's propagandist henchmen.

It's not just an American idea. Plato thought that tyrants were crazy, too. Run a quick Alphabet search and you'll see how many pundits have already made the connection.

[Sun_Worshiper]

We have a tendency to assume that authoritarians in the US are crazy, as opposed to just being authoritarians who weaponize lies to maintain power when legitimate means fail. Trump is not that different from Putin, it is just that the US has better institutional guard rails, and Rudy is not that different from Putin's propagandist henchmen.

It's not just an American idea. Plato thought that tyrants were crazy, too. Run a quick Alphabet search and you'll see how many pundits have already made the connection.

Fair enough, but when Americans look at authoritarians in foreign countries they see calculating thugs. When they look at those same sorts of figures in the US they see bumbling fools, and therefore fail to take authoritarian threats seriously.

[AmLitHist]

I saw the title and came here hoping for news he'd been hauled off in cuffs or a straitjacket.  Dang.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

I saw the title and came here hoping for news he'd been hauled off in cuffs or a straitjacket.  Dang.

:D Hee hee.

[nebo113]

And now he is hospitalized with Covid, and the AZ legislature shut down since he hung out with so many of them recently. 

[Langue_doc]

His personal life is like a soap opera. He was cavorting around with his mistress while still married to his second wife. The mistress and not the wife would accompany him to official events. I think (not sure about this) he got rid of wife #1 by realizing (gasp, the horror!) after 10 years of marriage that he was living in an incestuous marriage and had the marriage annulled, just because a divorce would have been expensive and he was in a hurry to marry his mistress who became wife #2. The above-mentioned mistress became wife #3, now divorced. Wife #1 ended up as president of one of the community colleges.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/third-time-was-not-the-charm-rudy-giulianis-latest-divorce-is-bitter-expensive-and-very-public/2019/10/14/2e028b8a-ec3c-11e9-85c0-85a098e47b37_story.html

He did make the city cleaner safer after the Dinkins era. Subway cars would be washed down first thing in the morning, and the streets and subways were much safer. However, the 9/11-related fame got to his head with dire results.

[ciao_yall]

The sequence of headlines seems to imply that he was admitted to the hospital and then tested positive for COVID-19.

So, was he ill enough, whether with COVID-19 symptoms or something else, to be admitted to the hospital where they discovered the COVID-19? He says he was taking hydroxychloroquine, which is not advised outside of hospital settings so perhaps it was a reaction to that?

Or did they test for COVID-19, then as a precautionary measure bring him in for super duper treatment such as with Trump?

[nebo113]

Perhaps it was a psychological intervention and he was on a psych eval?