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Music Learn more at PMI.com slash progress. Hello and welcome back to the Americano show, where we talk about power, politics and prejudices in American life.

Every week we will talk to at least one or two or possibly three or four American experts, international experts about American affairs.

And you can also catch us on Spectator TV on YouTube as often as you like.

Please keep listening and watching.

Today we are going to be asking the question,

is Donald Trump an authoritarian autocrat?

It's a question that people have posed a lot in the last 10 years.

And frankly, it's been asked so much that it's almost boring.

However, his recent behavior does lead some non-historical commentators to wonder if America

or the Trump presidency is heading in an authoritarian direction. To discuss this, I'm delighted to be joined by Nick Gillespie,

who is editor at large for reason and a great commentator and friend of the spectator. So Nick,

thank you for coming on. Where are you at the moment on your worried about Donald Trump's

authoritarian tendencies scale? Let's mark it out of 10.

Yeah, you know, let's put it in terms of sexually transmitted diseases, because I think that

seems appropriate. But, you know, Trump is kind of like herpes, where you want to, you know,

be checking in with your doctor a couple times of year and have whatever

drugs are used to control herpy outbreaks when they happen. And, you know, he's troubling.

...