Hello everyone and welcome to the Focus Group podcast.

I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of the bulwark.

And this week we're going to grapple with a central question, often asked about Donald

Trump.

Is he an aspiring authoritarian to be feared or simply a corrupt demagogue looking

to cash in on the presidency? Or a petty, incompetent clown whose focus on retribution over the

health of the economy will ultimately cause a terminal backlash to his movement? Or is he some

combination of all of those things and more?

Trump is closing in on the often politically significant milestone of his first hundred days in office.

Those hundred days have been notable for the speed with which Trump has taken a wrecking ball to the government, the rule of law, and the economy.

Congress has ceased to function as a meaningful check on the executive

branch, and Trump is teetering on the brink of fully ignoring the rulings of the Supreme Court.

So where are we 100 days in? Is there still hope to preserve American liberal democracy in

the face of these unprecedented attacks? Or are we sliding into authoritarianism? My guest today knows something about

aspiring and full-blown autocrats, and Applebaum, staff writer at The Atlantic, an author of

Twilight of Democracy and Autocracy, Inc., the dictators who want to run the world. And thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me. So you're my favorite

person to read when I'm trying to figure out, are we too freaked out? Because people have been

throwing the word authoritarianism around when it comes to Trump for a long time. And I don't know if

that makes it harder for us to know when we're like really there.

Maybe it's not even a point in time where we say, oh, now we're an authoritarian regime versus

we used to be in a democracy.

...