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- [00:01]
Shemitah Basu
Hey there, it's shemitha. I've got a quick request for you. If Apple News Today is an essential part of your morning routine, follow the show in Apple Podcasts. And if you have another 30 seconds, leave us a rating and a review, too. It helps other people find our show and it helps us know what you like about it. Thanks. Good morning. It's Friday, April 25th. I'm Shemitah Basu. This is Apple News Today. On today's show, a stark warning about the state of democracy in the United States, a number of setbacks for President Trump in court, and why you might want to stop saying please and thank you to ChatGPT. Let's start with the warning about democratic norms in the US as we approach President Trump's 100th day in office for the second time, a survey of more than 500 political scientists found the vast majority of the majority believe the United States is quickly swinging from a liberal democracy to some form of authoritarianism. It's an assessment that depending on who you stop on the street in any town, usa, someone might completely agree with and share the alarm of these academics, or someone might disagree entirely, even say that President Trump is saving our country. I decided to call up NYU professor Ruth Ben Gut. She's a historian, an expert on authoritarianism, and the author of the New York Times bestseller Strongmen Mussolini to the Present, which tells the history of authoritarianism over the last 100 years. And I asked her to start what would she say to these two groups of people, the people who deeply believe that we're already in the throes of an autocracy and the people who say the opposite.
- [01:55]
Ruth Ben Ghiat
Authoritarianism is an evolution. And so if you're a historian, you can pick up these patterns over a hundred years. So, for example, autocrats go after the same groups over a hundred years. They go after the opposition politicians. They go after judges, prosecutors, journalists, anybody who can expose their corruption and is a threat to them. They go after LGBTQ people, religious minorities, so we can look at who is being targeted today, such as immigrants. And this is a through line. Even in my book. This idea that the strongman arrives to save the nation from unacceptable people coming over the border to have too many babies because they have the wrong skin color or to spread anarchy through crime. This is one of the oldest themes in authoritarianism, and it started with Mussolini. And I would say that today it can become more difficult to diagnose and recognize autocracy because in the old days you had these one party states with dictators. So it's very clear. There's no opposition media, there's no other parties. Today we have something called electoral autocracy, where even in Russia, in Turkey, in Hungary, you keep other parties going. Your parliament or your legislator is kind of a rubber stamp, but it still exists. And you also have some independent media. And so you hold elections, but you game the system. So the elections are neither free nor fair, but you still hold elections. So we have to keep that in mind, that it doesn't look like the old days. Things are happening extremely fast. And this will sound dramatic, but it is dramatic. There is no parallel even in early Putin or Orban for the speed at which this transition to autocracy is happening. And the reason that could happen so fast is that while Trump was out of office during the Joe Biden years, they developed with Project 2025, a whole plan of governance. And he consolidated his control over his partners, so Consol his control over the gop. The Supreme Court, which is supposed to be a major check in the checks and balance system, gave the office of the president immunity for official acts. So he came in with an incredibly strong autocratic style of power.
- [04:22]
Shemitah Basu
So let me ask you, as we approach the 100 day mark of Trump's second term here, what specific actions are you observing that concern you?
- [04:33]
Ruth Ben Ghiat
Many. There's a few structural things that correspond to authoritarianism, where you make the government into a place for loyalists and your cabinet, your inner circle is chosen less for competence or experience. And we could think of Tulsi Gabbard, who had not much experience in intelligence, Pete Hegseth, who's been in the news for Signal Gates. And so the leader's personal power is the most important thing to the leader. They're not interested so much in public welfare or serving the people. They believe that government should serve them. The other is really sadly disappearing people without due process to, in this case El Salvador and not caring if you've made a mistake. Autocrats truly believe that they should not be held accountable, that they are above the law, that they have the right to ignore judges rulings. And that is why they go after also prosecutors. They purge institutions and civil servants and put loyalists in. So I see all of that happening.
- [05:41]
Shemitah Basu
A lot of people are quick to pin this to Trump and characterize this as a Trump v. Democrats or even Trump v. Democracy issue. But to what extent is the deterioration of democratic norms in the US something that can be tied directly to Trump? And to what extent is it connected to other longer standing trends that we've seen in our Politics?
- [06:11]
Ruth Ben Ghiat
That's an excellent question because I study autocrats and the damage they do. However, we cannot blame autocrats who are very, very good at sensing what people are dissatisfied with and making themselves into the answer. In 2016, Trump arrived on the scene and he saw that there was a lot of disaffection, there was a lot of hurt from the opioid epidemic, and in particular, the white working class was not being tended to by the Democrats or really anybody else. So he came in there and he is a superb communicator and he said, you were forgotten, but you are forgotten no longer, and I will take care of you. And this is why Trump, like those before him, has been able to have these incredible bonds with people. The other part is that democracy all over the world is a bit in trouble because where there's been gross inequality, there's been a lot of loneliness generated. It's made them feel unprotected. The history of autocracy, and this is whether it's left wing or right wing, and this is very important, it's the removing or rolling back the rights of the many. And this could be, you know, workers rights, meaning right to fair wage and safe conditions that you get with unions protecting you, reproductive rights, the right to free speech, right to assembly. So you rolled back those which are mass rights for everyone, and instead you give the very, very few, the oligarchs, the billionaires, the cronies, unheard of liberties to plunder.
- [07:54]
Shemitah Basu
So from your experience writing about how these moments in history have played out in other countries, can this kind of backsliding be stopped? And if so, who would need to play a role in that?
- [08:10]
Ruth Ben Ghiat
Well, as long as you have elections, you can reverse backsliding. When elections are gone as a functional democratic tool, it becomes much harder. Mass nonviolent accent on nonviolent protest can be very, very effective to get elites who have made these bargains to abandon their support of the leader. We're a very large country, but I believe in that faith can play a role. We're a very religious country, more than many other countries, multi faith. And I think that, for example, during the civil rights movement, faith institutions were very important and kind of thinking about decency and moral values is important now. And I also think finally that we're a very divided, polarized country. There's a lot of sorrow and a lot of loss and people who don't talk to each other anymore. And I believe it's time to have these conversations with people in your community or your family, because that's part of the way forward.
- [09:13]
Shemitah Basu
But you know, Ruth, what I keep thinking about is you're right to point out that the United States is unusual in many ways when comparing to other countries. It's hard to do. But we're also unusual in that President Trump served a first term, was not voted back into office, and was reelected then to come back and serve a second term disjointed from the first. So I don't know. I take value in looking back at history, obviously, and trying to see the parallels and learn the lessons. But at the same time, there's clearly something completely different happening here, too. There's an unprecedented element.
- [09:52]
Ruth Ben Ghiat
One of the things that's different if you look, I focus very closely on when leaders try and stay in office illegally. And this is if they're in office and they don't want to leave. It's called a self coup. It's an awkward term, but it's a self coup. And it happened most recently in South Korea. But it didn't go well for President Yoon, and he's now been impeached and has to stand trial. Bolsonaro did it in Brazil in 2023, literally copying January 6th playbook. And Steve Bannon was an advisor, and he now has to stand trial. It didn't work. One of the differences is many of the countries where it doesn't work and that leader becomes toxic is because they had kind of dictatorships in their past. So this is one reason everybody mobilized. They knew the stakes, is what I'm saying. And so Americans are different, as you rightly point out. And if you look at these things, comparatively, we're completely unique in voting back in somebody who tried to overthrow the government. That just doesn't happen. And so we have to accept that our democracy has been quite degraded in the months ahead.
- [11:10]
Shemitah Basu
What are two or three things that you think the American public should be really paying close attention to as we think about the health of our democracy?
- [11:19]
Ruth Ben Ghiat
Accountability. And is government working for the people? Or are our rights and our entitlements that we worked hard for being taken away? If mistakes are made, as they always are, what is the attitude toward those mistakes? What is the value given to human life and human dignity?
- [11:40]
Shemitah Basu
Ruth Ben Giet, thank you so much for your time.
- [11:42]
Ruth Ben Ghiat
Thank you.
- [11:54]
Shemitah Basu
Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following. In the past 24 hours, a number of President Trump's policy initiatives were dealt setbacks by courts. First, a federal court rejected his attempt to require documented proof of citizenship from people who are registering to vote. In another case, federal judges temporarily blocked his administration from enforcing its demands that public schools eliminate anything related to diversity, equity and inclusion. Another federal judge ordered the administration to bring back yet another man who was wrongly deported to El Salvador. And the judge in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case agreed to give the DOJ one more week to fulfill her order to provide information on their efforts to bring him back, but wrote, quote, their refusal to do so can only be viewed as willful and intentional non compliance. A new report says pregnant people in states that have enacted abortion bans are twice as likely to die during pregnancy or soon after giving birth. Conversely, pregnancy related deaths dropped in states that have enacted measures to protect access to abortion. The 19th reports that for years, health providers have warned that bans on abortion access pose a serious threat to the lives of pregnant patients. And even though some bans provide exceptions in cases where the person's life is at risk, they're often vague and confusing, resulting in late or no care. And finally, do you say please and thank you to your AI chatbot? It turns out all those little interactions add up and end up costing a lot. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says the figure is in the tens of millions of dollars, but perhaps more costly is the impact to the environment. Quartz reports extra words increase the computational load, therefore requiring more electricity and more water, which is used to keep the computer servers cool enough to function. The New York Times points out, from a monetary and environmental standpoint, there really is no good reason to be polite to your AI of choice. But some arg it's good that we have this impulse. Recent studies show how we treat AI translates to how we treat each other. You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening in the News app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up next. Bloomberg Businessweek has a profile of the man they say is the brains behind President Trump's, quote, imperial presidency, Russell Vogt, who is currently the director of the Federal Office of Management and Budget but also a chief architect of Project 2025. If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News plus narrated to find that story. Enjoy the weekend and I'll be back with the news on Monday.