Welcome to Getting Curious. I'm Jonathan Venice and every week I sit down for a

40 minute conversation with a brilliant expert to learn all about something

that makes me curious. On today's episode I'm joined by Masha

Gesson, staff writer for the New Yorker and author of the new book, Surviving

Autocracy, where I ask them, is Donald Trump an autocratic basic B? Welcome to

Getting Curious. Welcome back Masha Gesson. I am very and I say air quotes

happy to see you. This is a new time and podcasting. I am in my closet. You're at

your house. I was I'm assuming last time we got to talk. We were face to face

and Manhattan and obviously times have changed. So if you hear my cats in the

closet or a video game in the background, that's all that is everyone and that

is not a big deal because what is a big deal is what we are here to talk about. So your

11th book just came out. I mean first of all congratulations you are. Thank you. Yes.

You're a prolific writer and first of all welcome back after all that talking. Thank you.

It's so good to be here. I mean here sort of be. Yes. All operative words, which is

actually some of the things that you talk about in surviving autocracy. And so first of

all first question pulling out a bit is what is autocracy? So autocracy is simply the

rule of one person. Right. It's it's it's top down. It's vertical and it's free of checks

and balances. And you know I use that word because people have used different words to

try to describe Trump. And I think some accurately some a little bit less accurately. A lot

of the time with throw around the word authoritarian, which in political science has specific definitions,

but you know we just throw it around to sort of say you know not democratic or we use the word

fascist, which I think is sometimes justified. In other words I've been using the word autocrat

...