Anne Applebaum: Nihilism in Sudan & Orbanism in the USA

Impolitic with John Heilemann

Audacy | Puck

News, Politics

4.8 • 4.2K Ratings

🗓️ 8 August 2025

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

John welcomes Atlantic staff writer Anne Applebaum back to the show to discuss her new cover story in The Atlantic on the devastating civil war in Sudan. Applebaum—whose 2004 tome “Gulag: A History” won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction and whose most recent book, “Autocracy, Inc.” comes out in paperback this month—explains how anarchy, greed, and nihilism have replaced the liberal world order in Sudan; the role that Donald Trump and Elon Musk played in the country’s downward spiral; and why the same forces are coming for the countries of the rich world next. She also lays out the evidence that Trump is bent on turning the U.S. into a bigger, badder, more authoritarian version of Viktor Orban’s Hungary. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:15.7	that'll make your squirrel for real. Neil. My name's not Neil. I know, but it rhymed Listen to Harry and make your best bet on the football at BetVictor. 18 plus opt in and bet on any football marketing at odds of evens or greater no, cash out seven-day expiry terms and conditions apply. Gambleaware.org. It's so funny because when you look at the guys, that's never a topic of conversation. Yeah. What you look like.
0:38.1	Did you watch the football last night? It's never about, I'll watch your skincare routine.
0:42.4	Whereas women walk into a room and because we've been taught to be pitted against each other,
0:47.7	not always, but sometimes there's, oh my God, you know, I can't.
0:51.2	It's a bit of a barrier. Yeah, yeah. And it shouldn't be there. We should be trying to change that stereotype,
0:56.6	believing that there is space for everybody.
1:04.6	Aloha and namaste, everyone, and welcome to Impolitic with John Heilman,
1:07.8	a puck and Odyssey Joint, featuring lively in-depth conversations
1:11.7	with the people who cruise the corridors of power in America, sculpting and shaping the
1:15.6	ebb and flow of our politics and culture.
1:19.7	With everything that is going on in U.S. government, policy, economics, immigration, child sex trafficking cold cases that are suddenly
1:30.2	piping hot, it might seem a little discordant or even just plain odd that the cover story
1:37.2	of the September issue of the Atlantic is a 10,000-plus word magnum opus by Ann Applebaum on the
1:43.6	unfolding, ever-deepening nightmare in Sudan as a result of that
1:48.2	country's ongoing civil war. No doubt, the sheer humanitarian scale of that nightmare is staggering
1:54.1	and undeniable. As Applebaum lays it out, quote, about 14 million people have been displaced by
2:00.0	years of fighting in Sudan,
2:01.6	more than in Ukraine and Gaza combined. Some four million of them have fled across borders,
2:06.7	many to arid, impoverished places, Chad, Ethiopia, South Sudan, where there are few resources
	...

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