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Autocracy in America

The Return

Autocracy in America

The Atlantic

News, Society & Culture, Politics

4.8999 Ratings

🗓️ 11 July 2025

⏱️ 30 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Since The Atlantic first released the podcast Autocracy in America last fall, Donald Trump was elected president again. Staff writer Anne Applebaum describes how Trump’s return to the White House fits into the changing geopolitical landscape as she hands the show over to its new host: Garry Kasparov. The former world chess champion and lifelong democracy activist will guide a series of conversations about society’s complacency with liberal values and how this carelessness has fueled a democratic retreat—and a new belligerence among dictators.  Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/listener. Garry chairs the Renew Democracy Initiative, publisher of The Next Move. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

I had the absolute pleasure of speaking to Pamela Anderson.

0:04.2

All thanks to the Dove Self-Eesteem Project.

0:07.1

We speak about the impact Y2K has had on women's body confidence and how Pamela has regained control.

0:12.9

The Dove Self-Esteen project is an amazing initiative supported by science-backed methodology

0:17.8

to help us improve our relationship with our bodies.

0:20.8

To find more

0:21.4

body confidence-building exercises, go to dove.com forward slash Y2K. That's Y2K spelled W.H.Y.2K.

0:34.1

From the Atlantic, this is Autocracy in America.

0:38.4

I'm Anne Applebaum.

0:40.7

Last summer, I made the first series of this podcast, together with my friend and colleague, Peter Pomerantsev.

0:47.3

We were not trying to predict the future.

0:50.0

Instead, we looked at some of the ways in which the United States had already adopted practices common in the autocratic world.

0:57.9

My nightmare is that fascism comes to America, but it's marching under the banner of freedom.

1:04.7

We talked about the use of violence and intimidation in politics.

1:08.0

It's a little bit like the eye of saron with that when it's turned on you, you feel

1:13.1

it.

1:14.1

You get a lot of ugliness directed your way.

1:17.3

About older American traditions of state capture.

1:19.9

He would choose all the boards and commissions.

1:22.3

He packed the courts and once you have the courts in the legislature and you've already

1:27.0

got the executive, you have all three branches of government.

1:31.0

Now, in Donald Trump's second presidency, all of those autocratic behaviors are being accelerated, amplified, even promoted by the federal government.

...

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