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Because the earliest days of the republic, America’s worldwide friendships have formed home politics. And a few of these friendships helped America strengthen its democratic rules. So what occurs if America’s new pals are autocrats? John Bolton, former nationwide safety adviser for President Donald Trump, and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island argue that if America now not leads the democratic world and as a substitute imports secrecy and kleptocracy from the autocratic world, Americans will really feel much more powerless, apathetic, disengaged, and cynical.
That is the fourth episode of Autocracy in America, a five-part collection about authoritarian techniques already at work in the US and the place to search for them.
The next is a transcript of the episode:
John Bolton: It began as we have been going out to the NATO headquarters for the summit. He had spent the evening earlier than within the ambassador’s residence, as presidents usually do. I used to be coming over from the delegation the place we had stayed, and he referred to as me on the automobile telephone and stated, You able to make historical past immediately?
Anne Applebaum: That is John Bolton, the previous nationwide safety advisor for President Donald Trump.
Bolton: And I stated, Pardon me, or one thing like that. And he stated, I believe we have to get out. So I stated, Let’s speak about it as quickly as I get there.
And shortly thereafter, Mike Pompeo, secretary of state, got here by. It was very clear what Trump wished to do. And all of us rode out to the NATO headquarters. I referred to as Jim Mattis, the protection secretary. I referred to as John Kelly, the chief of workers. I stated, It’s all arms on deck.
[Music]
Peter Pomerantsev: Anne, even the concept America would possibly go away NATO was in and of itself fairly destabilizing for international safety.
Applebaum: Proper. NATO was created to be a deterrent—to stop wars, to cease a Soviet invasion of Europe previously, a Russian invasion now—and it was constructed round a promise of collective protection, that if one of many allies is attacked, the others will come to their support.
However over the previous 75 years, it additionally got here to signify one thing else. The alliance helped cement the deep financial, cultural, and political ties between the US, Canada, and Europe. And it labored, largely as a result of a lot of the members shared the identical values. However as Secretary Bolton advised me, essentially the most profitable alliance in historical past nearly didn’t make it via the primary Trump administration.
Bolton: Proper up till the second when Trump spoke at that massive desk, within the NATO headquarters, we didn’t know what he was going to do. And I believe he was inside an inch of withdrawing. I imagine that, and I imagine that’s nonetheless what he desires to do.
Applebaum: Trump’s risk implied that he wouldn’t honor the promise of collective protection. It additionally created discomfort as a result of everybody understood that it mirrored one thing deeper: The emergence of a unique form of America, an America that might flip away from its democratic companions and, as a substitute, draw nearer to the autocracies—a very totally different imaginative and prescient of America’s function on the earth.
[Music]
Pomerantsev: Nicely, regardless that it was new to the U.S., it’s a transfer straight out of the autocratic handbook.
Applebaum: I’m Anne Applebaum, a workers author at The Atlantic.
Pomerantsev: I’m Peter Pomerantsev, a senior fellow on the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins College.
Applebaum: That is Autocracy in America.
Pomerantsev: This isn’t a present about America’s future. There are authoritarian techniques already at work, and we’re displaying you the place. There’s the rise of conspiracy theories, widening public apathy, politicized investigations, the takeover of the state.
Applebaum: And on this episode: America becoming a member of the kleptocracy membership.
Peter, I’ve at all times considered the US as a rustic that leads an alliance of like-minded democracies. And I by no means questioned our promise to defend them, in Europe in addition to Asia. Now we have navy bases in Germany, Italy, Japan, extra not too long ago in Poland for precisely that goal. However these days, I began excited about how our alliances and our friendships around the globe and our guarantees to assist defend individuals additionally assist strengthen our democracy right here at residence.
Pomerantsev: Traditionally, it’s form of true. Britain is one in all America’s oldest allies. And one of many nations America has this lengthy, supposedly particular relationship with, Britain, has had a giant affect in America. The British abolished slavery earlier than America did, for instance, and plenty of British abolitionists impressed the rise of American abolitionism. Frederick Douglass frolicked in Britain, as did many different abolitionists. And American and British campaigners in opposition to slavery supported each other. I believe that mattered.
Applebaum: Yeah, we additionally neglect how, much more not too long ago, American considering has been affected by our consciousness of our worldwide function and status. Think about what the Justice Division was saying on the Supreme Courtroom throughout the 1954 Brown v. Board of Schooling case.
They filed a quick arguing that desegregation was within the U.S. curiosity, not merely for home causes and never just because it was proper, but in addition as a result of racist legal guidelines prompted, and I quote, “doubts even amongst pleasant nations as to the depth of our devotion to the democratic religion.”
Pomerantsev: That’s fairly a phrase: “our devotion to the democratic religion.”
Applebaum: That’s what I imply by the affect of our allies. America put democracy on the heart of its international coverage, but it surely was additionally part of our nationwide identification: That is who we have been. That is who we wish to be. That is how we wish to be seen. These are the nations that we’ve got the closest relationships with. Different democracies, different republics—they are often constitutional monarchies. They’ll have parliaments as a substitute of congresses. However these are our pals, and that is our world. And I believe Individuals felt it was essential to stay in that group, and that had penalties for home coverage as effectively.
Pomerantsev: However simply as there’s a community of nations who push one another in direction of ever extra democracy, there’s additionally a community of autocratic nations whose leaders are kleptocrats, primarily. They’re governments who share the identical curiosity in stealing and hiding cash—
Applebaum: —and oppressing or arresting anyone who tries to cease them.
Pomerantsev: Proper. I imply, they aren’t related to at least one one other by ideology. They’re not all—I don’t know—theocracies or communist regimes, however they’re united of their have to undermine the rule of legislation and repress their very own individuals, because of desirous to steal cash.
Applebaum: Completely, and nations have moved from one camp to the opposite previously. Take a look at Venezuela.
[Music]
Leopoldo López: Chavez created shut relations with Putin.
Applebaum: Leopoldo López is a former mayor of Chacao, a municipality of Caracas. He noticed issues start to vary there in 2006.
López: It began when Chavez determined to vary the assault rifle of the armed forces of Venezuela from a Belgian FAL rifle to an AK-103 and altering the F-16s [aircrafts] to the Sukhois.
Applebaum: Venezuela was as soon as probably the most profitable democracies in our hemisphere. It was the richest nation in South America and on a trajectory to turn into even richer. However when Hugo Chavez was elected chief—democratically elected—he went on to slowly dismantle Venezuelan courts, to interrupt up the media, and, ultimately, to undermine the financial system. And Venezuela aligned itself with the group that I prefer to name Autocracy, Inc., or Autocracy, Integrated.
López: The extent of funding that went from Venezuela to purchase Russian tools was big—billions of {dollars} have been reported within the arms—
Applebaum: They usually have been shopping for Russian arms as a result of the Individuals wouldn’t promote them arms, or others?
López: Nicely, it began due to that, however then it simply turned extra comfy. After which Chavez invested billions of {dollars} within the air protection.
[Music]
Applebaum: López not solely witnessed the decline of Venezuela, the top of Venezuelan democracy, however as a long-time distinguished chief of the Venezuelan opposition, he skilled it as a political prisoner in solitary confinement—as a frontrunner behind bars. He now lives in exile, the place he writes and speaks concerning the rise of the fashionable autocratic, kleptocratic community and likewise about how Venezuela turned a part of it. He advised me that Russia wasn’t the one nation that Chávez made offers with.
López: The Chinese language got here in with investments, and that is the observe of China in Africa. It’s very well-known what they do when it comes to locking in investments, that then they mainly take possession of crucial infrastructure. And that occurred in Venezuela.
Applebaum: Peter, López is speaking about billions of {dollars} pouring into Venezuela, however though it was described as a Chinese language funding within the nation, it didn’t ever actually translate into enhancing the well-being of the Venezuelan individuals.
López: Simply to provide you an instance, one of many flagship tasks of this relation between China and Venezuela was a practice system.
Applebaum: Sure, that practice system, which was solely partially constructed and even now, 15 years later, reportedly lower than 1 % operational—
López: However billions of {dollars} have been channeled into this. Then billions of {dollars} went into packages for housing of the Venezuelan individuals, and that’s nowhere to be seen.
Applebaum: All of it simply vanished.
López: All of it simply vanished. The Chinese language don’t ask questions. Mainly, it’s about utilizing these funding engagements to create tighter relations and to lock in governments.
In order that’s Russia. That’s China. After which there’s Iran.
[Music]
Applebaum: Peter, Iran got here for enterprise agreements, for financial exchanges, even some involving nuclear vitality. And Iran wasn’t simply funding Venezuela. The Venezuelans additionally started serving to the Iranians.
López: They have been giving Venezuelan passports to Iranian nationals, to folks that ended up being members of Hezbollah.
Applebaum: If America continues down an identical path, away from democracy and in direction of one thing totally different, what does that imply for nations like Venezuela?
López: Nicely, that may imply—I wouldn’t say the top. However that may imply that the chances to transition for democracy in Venezuela can be significantly affected, for sure.
NBC Information journalist: 1000’s protesting Venezuela’s contested election, the demand for freedom and democracy enjoying out in cities all through Venezuela as effectively, condemning chief Nicolás Maduro, who insists he received re-election over opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia.
[Crowd chanting]
López: Individuals hate Maduro.
Applebaum: Venezuelans voted in big numbers in opposition to Maduro in July’s elections, regardless of his monumental marketing campaign of propaganda and harassment. When López and I talked, I had requested him how Maduro managed to remain in energy for thus lengthy.
López: Despite the fact that there are lots of methods to reply this query, I actually imagine that the primary purpose why Maduro remains to be in energy is due to the assist he will get from Russia, from China, from Iran, from Cuba. So the wrestle for a transition to democracy in Venezuela, as a lot as we wish it to be a sovereign challenge, it’s not true, as a result of we’re preventing a worldwide struggle. We’re preventing actually in opposition to Maduro but in addition in opposition to Putin, in opposition to Xi Jinping, in opposition to the mullahs from Iran, as a result of they’re the lifeline of Maduro.
Srdja Popovic: We found out that authoritarianism, dictatorships are very totally different animals than they have been 20, 30 years in the past.
Pomerantsev: Anne, you recognize Srdja Popovic. He’s an activist. He helped overthrow Serbia’s dictator Slobodan Milošević in 2000.
Listening to you communicate with Leopoldo López and his descriptions of the modifications in Venezuela during the last 20 years made me consider the work Popovic has been doing. He research how dictators perform within the Center East, Latin America, and Asia. And, Anne, Popovic’s analysis helps the thesis of your new e book Autocracy, Inc., and the way you’ve described this membership of autocratic leaders.
Popovic: Finding out the sphere, working with individuals from authoritarian nations—20, 30 years in the past, they’d at all times require some form of ideological element. Whether or not you’re speaking concerning the Soviet Union, whether or not you’re speaking concerning the Nazi Germany, it’s a unique ideology that’s within the core of it.
Trendy autocracies—take Russia, for instance—they appear to be companies. You may have the boss of the company, after which you may have, in Russia’s case, tycoons that personal all the businesses. After which you may have instruments of sustaining the company, like navy, media. These are all of the instruments. Mainly, a part of being integrated means that you’re cooperating with different elements and legs within the company.
[Music]
Pomerantsev: So what Popovich describes right here, Anne, is an authoritarian community that features as a corrupt company, mainly.
It’s humorous—I noticed this for myself after I was dwelling in Moscow. It was within the mid-2000s. I bear in mind strolling down the excessive avenue, down Tverskaya, and it was full of those glitzy retailers all over the place, and everyone was wearing a really glamorous method, and the town was form of bankers and attorneys, just like the monetary district of many Western capitals.
And each couple of meters, there was a financial institution. And I used to be like, What on earth are all these banks doing? I bear in mind going into one and attempting to open, like, a private checking account. They usually simply stared at me like an absolute moron, like, Why would you open a private account on this financial institution?
So I began asking folks that I knew, Russians, What are all these banks doing? They usually simply began laughing, going, Nicely, they’re not banks the way in which you perceive banks; they’re money-laundering autos. They’re autos tied to this minister or that businessman, and so they open a great deal of these banks, or pseudo banks, and transfer their cash via them after which transfer them overseas.
However they have been all over the place. This wasn’t like one little money-laundering train. You understand, the entire metropolis was mainly one huge money-laundering train. And I bear in mind considering, I don’t perceive the mannequin of this regime very effectively in any respect.
Applebaum: And also you didn’t perceive it for a purpose. You didn’t perceive it as a result of it was intentionally made extremely difficult. Unusual residents, bizarre individuals aren’t meant to know the place the cash is or what the financial institution does. They’re not meant to have any affect or understanding or information of politics in any respect as a result of the essence of recent autocracy and trendy dictatorships is secrecy.
You understand, they’ve methods of stealing and extracting cash. They cover the cash elsewhere around the globe: It’s finished via nameless firms. It’s finished via shell firms which are in a position to transfer cash in a short time from one jurisdiction to a different—so from Cyprus to the Virgin Islands to the Bahamas to Delaware and again once more in a blink of a watch.
It’s very, very tough to hint this cash. It’s very exhausting for civil servants or cops or white-collar-crime investigators to search out it. It’s very, very exhausting for journalists to search out it and perceive it. And also you aren’t meant to know, and also you’re meant to be confused by it.
[Music]
Pomerantsev: Up till now, Anne, we’ve been speaking about how these items work in different places, but it surely’s right here within the U.S., too.
Applebaum: Sure. Darkish cash, hidden wealth, untransparent purchases, nameless firms—these aren’t simply issues that exist overseas on palm-fringed Caribbean islands or in some distant dictatorship.
Extra on that after the break.
[Break]
Applebaum: Peter, if you have been speaking concerning the empty banks that weren’t actually banks, I instantly thought: American actual property.
[Music]
Applebaum: Till not too long ago, realtors right here weren’t required to carefully look at the supply of the funds getting used to purchase property, and it was completely authorized for nameless firms to amass actual property offering no details about the house owners, in any respect. And that’s why the sector turned a magnet for international wealth.
Casey Michel: There has by no means been a determine in American political historical past fairly like Trump that opened up himself, his administration, his companies to a lot international entry, a lot international lobbying, a lot international wealth. We’ve actually simply scratched the floor. A lot of that’s as a result of Trump rose from one of many key industries in trendy kleptocracy: the real-estate—and particularly the posh real-estate—sector.
Applebaum: Casey Michel is the writer of American Kleptocracy.
Michel: I’ve little doubt in my thoughts that Donald Trump as president would job his administration with rolling again all the progress we’ve got seen in the previous couple of years, not solely when it comes to the transparency necessities for shell firms that we’ve lastly seen imposed. I’ve little doubt that he would say, Don’t implement this laws in anyway. However that is only one ingredient.
If he’s again within the White Home and aligns himself extra absolutely with Russia, what we’re going to finish up seeing is the trajectory that Russia has undergone possibly 20, 25, 30 years in the past or maybe what nations like Hungary have undergone 10, 15 years in the past.
Applebaum: Peter, that’s how trendy autocracies start: not with a coup d’état however by the sluggish emergence of a secretive elite who’re in a position to management monetary assets and who can then cover their wealth, take it in another country, do what they need with it with out anyone else realizing.
Pomerantsev: They’re not restricted by the identical forces that you simply and I are.
Applebaum: Yeah, plenty of journalists have tried to give you names for it— Moneyland or Kleptopia. You understand, this alternate world wherein the conventional guidelines that apply to the financial system that you simply and I stay in don’t apply to them.
Pomerantsev: I believe we underestimate how a lot that degrades democracy.
Sheldon Whitehouse: Secrecy and democracy are antithetical.
Applebaum: Sheldon Whitehouse is a Democratic senator from Rhode Island and a senior member of the Senate Finance Committee.
Whitehouse: If Americans aren’t allowed to grasp who’s who on the political enjoying subject—who’s enjoying for what staff, who they are surely, who they’re representing—you may have disabled maybe essentially the most elementary basis of democracy.
Steve Scully, host of Washington Journal: Let’s get proper to the difficulty of tremendous PACs and the direct results of the Residents United case, in 2010.
Whitehouse: I first ran for the Senate again in 2006, and I obtained elected and sworn in in 2007. There have been no things like tremendous PACs then. They didn’t exist.
This can be a new beast that’s stalking America’s political panorama, and it has no purpose for being, besides that you should use the tremendous PAC to cover who you’re giving cash. The tremendous PAC solely has to report the final display screen via which the cash got here, not the precise donor, and you may dump limitless quantities of cash into politics via it.
Sheila Krumholz, government director of Heart for Responsive Politics: Teams that derive their funds from secret sources have spent greater than $21 million up to now, in contrast with simply $6 million at this level in 2012.
Amna Nawaz, anchor for PBS NewsHour: By all accounts, the 2020 election would be the costliest in historical past. It’s a part of a development that sees every election extra expensive than the final.
William Brangham, anchor for PBS NewsHour: The 2024 marketing campaign was already shaping as much as be the most costly election of all time. However now a number of high-profile billionaires are dumping large quantities of cash into the presidential race.
Whitehouse: It shifts energy to these huge particular pursuits and away from bizarre voters. It shifts the eye of Congress away from bizarre voters and to these huge particular pursuits, who can ship that form of cash secretly.
[Music]
Pomerantsev: Once you stay on this world the place you don’t know which cash, which highly effective figures are behind which political choices which are being made round you and affect you—when it’s all form of wrapped on this form of mist—then you definitely really feel form of helpless. You are feeling you don’t have any company. You are feeling you don’t matter. You are feeling as when you’ve got no say.
Whitehouse: Realizing who’s chatting with you is a reasonably essential proposition in a democracy.
[Music]
Applebaum: And it’s an issue that’s solely getting worse.
Whitehouse: There’s an entire infrastructure that creates this political secrecy proper now. So, there’s a big transformation that has taken place, that’s represented by a completely new bestiary of company entities designed to deprave American elections. That’s new, and that’s terrible, and we should always not get used to it.
Applebaum: And, Peter, it in all probability shouldn’t be stunning that what’s, in impact, a brand new political system has additionally given rise to a brand new form of politician.
Bolton: I believe he has bother distinguishing between the nation’s nationwide curiosity and his personal private curiosity. He sees them as basically the identical factor.
Applebaum: That’s John Bolton once more speaking about his outdated boss Donald Trump.
Bolton: So if he may have, for instance, with Xi Jinping: If he may have good private relations by making a gift of one thing that offended Xi however had been determined as a result of it was regarded as in our curiosity, he would do it.
So in a single dialog, a telephone dialog with Xi Jinping—and I listened in to all these; that’s one of many nationwide safety advisor’s jobs, is to be in all these conversations—Xi complained about sanctions that Wilbur Ross, the secretary of commerce, had imposed on Chinese language telecommunications. And I’d say: for superb and ample purpose.
And so in the middle of the dialog, Trump stated, I’m going to carry the sanctions. And he tweeted about it the following day, saying it might assist preserve Chinese language jobs, as if that’s the job of the American president.
[Music]
Applebaum: Trump has been a sympathetic ear for complaints like these. He’s appeared eager to be pals, for instance, with the dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong Un. Kim Jong Un, as we all know, repeatedly holds navy workouts designed to intimidate South Korea. The U.S. leads joint workouts with South Korea to speak energy and navy readiness again at North Korea. However when Kim Jong Un allegedly expressed frustration over these workouts—
Bolton: Trump stated, You understand, you’re proper. And apart from, they’re costly. I’m going to cancel them.
Simply stated it proper there. None of us knew what he was going to say it. Jim Mattis, the protection secretary, referred to as me after he heard about this on the radio again in Washington and stated, What did you do? Why didn’t you inform me? I stated, Jim, I might have been glad to inform you if I had recognized what he was going to do.
[Music]
Pomerantsev: Anne, the factor is, when governments begin to act like these self-interested companies, it doesn’t simply make these governments much less environment friendly and fewer constructive for the individuals; it additionally results in a basically totally different kind of presidency.
I imply, give it some thought: After you have individuals operating the nation who use it to counterpoint themselves, then they don’t wish to let go of that useful resource ever once more. They usually discover methods to ensure they, primarily, by no means go away energy. They rig elections. They curtail rights of anybody who desires to problem them. They wish to repress individuals who ask too many questions on the place their cash comes from. After which they institute a system of surveillance and management to be sure that repression succeeds.
Daria Kaleniuk: So kleptocracy is when the state is being owned by a small group of individuals. Like, in Russia, there’s kleptocracy, which really become the whole totalitarianism.
Pomerantsev: Daria Kaleniuk is the manager director of Ukraine’s Anti-corruption Motion Centre.
Kaleniuk: And the identical small quantity of individuals are within the political management of the state. That’s extraordinarily harmful. That signifies that kleptocracy is definitely the bridge between democracy, authoritarianism—in direction of the totalitarianism. And that is what has occurred in Russia.
Applebaum: Peter, what Kaleniuk is describing in Russia, it feels like precisely the identical factor that Ukrainians have been preventing in opposition to in their very own nation during the last decade.
Pomerantsev: Precisely. At the moment, Ukraine was additionally beginning to head within the course of kleptocracy.
Kaleniuk: And that is what has occurred in 2013. Eleven years in the past, there was a revolution of dignity in Ukraine, the place Ukrainians have been pissed off—our president controlling all of the pure assets, controlling all legislation enforcement, all of the judiciary, and we have been pissed off him being supported by Russia.
[Protest sounds]
Pomerantsev: Anne, as you recognize, the revolution turned lethal. About 100 individuals died—a few of them from corrupt, Russian-allied police, who opened hearth on protestors. However the revolution of dignity succeeded.
[Music]
Kaleniuk: We wish to have freedom. We wish to have dignity. We wish to have belief in our establishments. We wish to have the ability to go to the court docket and shield our rights. We wish to have justice.
Applebaum: So for Kaleniuk, preventing for democracy and preventing in opposition to corruption was the identical factor?
Pomerantsev: For her and for a lot of in Ukraine.
Kaleniuk: Completely. And it’s nonetheless the case.
Pomerantsev: So, Anne, fast-forward to the beginning of the warfare: In revenge, and in its need to remove Ukraine’s freedom and impose a corrupt, puppet authorities managed by Moscow, Russia invaded, first in 2014 after which at a fair grander scale in February 2022. I’m undecided Ukraine would have been in a position to survive these invasions with out America’s assist.
And so that is the central query and one I requested Kaleniuk: What occurs if America decides it now not cares about preventing corrupt, authoritarian regimes?
Kaleniuk: I wish to imagine that America has robust establishments and American democracy will survive any shake-up. But when it was simply as much as American individuals, that may be very simple. Nonetheless, if America is uncovered to all these exterior influences of authoritarian techniques and soiled cash, that’s a lot more durable as a result of generally you don’t perceive, really, who’s doing a little operations in your floor, who’s manipulating you. And that may be a very harmful scenario.
Pomerantsev: What would it not imply to you if America switched sides? What if America was a part of an alliance of kleptocracies?
Kaleniuk: Nicely, if there’s alliance between America and Russia, between America and China, there can be finish of democracy in America. It’s so simple as that.
Applebaum: Peter, Ukraine’s two-decades-long flirtation with grand-scale corruption left it actually weak. Lots of the nation’s elite businessmen have been concerned about themselves and their earnings, and never the nation. And that opened the door each for the hollowing out of the establishments of presidency and of the state but in addition the weakening of the navy and the safety equipment. And that was what made Ukraine so weak to Russian invasion.
Pomerantsev: However as you recognize, Ukraine is preventing heroically in opposition to this invasion. I form of really feel that Ukraine is preventing and dying for beliefs that Individuals appear prepared—in a roundabout way—to stroll away from.
There’s two interlinked tales right here. There’s Ukraine’s battle for freedom, for democracy, and in opposition to strategic corruption. And you’ve got America, which, for the second, remains to be supporting Ukraine on this trigger however can also be form of preventing the temptation to turn into extra corrupt and fewer democratic. And if America loses that battle inside, then Ukraine and, maybe, different weak democracies would doubtless lose their battles as effectively.
[Music]
Applebaum: Autocracy in America is hosted by Peter Pomerantsev and me, Anne Applebaum. It’s produced by Natalie Brennan and Jocelyn Frank, edited by Dave Shaw, blended by Rob Smierciak fact-check by Yvonne Kim. Claudine Ebeid is the manager producer of Atlantic audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.
Pomerantsev: Autocracy in America is a podcast from The Atlantic. It’s made potential with assist from the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins College, an educational and public discussion board devoted to strengthening international democracy via highly effective civic engagement and knowledgeable, inclusive dialogue.
Applebaum: Peter, the issues the Ukrainians have finished to struggle again, to protect their freedom, they’re proof of the work it takes to construct a democracy and to maintain it.
Pomerantsev: However in America, freedom is definitely a double-edged sword.
Jefferson Cowie: My nightmare is that fascism involves America, but it surely’s marching underneath the banner of freedom.
Pomerantsev: Subsequent time on Autocracy in America: how “freedom” might be the enemy of democracy.
Applebaum: We’ll be again with extra on that subsequent week.
https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2024/09/kleptocracy-club/680022/?utm_source=feed
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