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- [00:00]
Ryan Reynolds
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Garry Kasparov
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Ryan Reynolds
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Mint Mobile Announcer
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- [01:05]
Anne Applebaum
From the Atlantic. This is Autocracy in America. I'm Anne Applebaum. Last summer I made the first series of this podcast together with my friend and colleague Peter Pomerentsev. We were not trying to predict the future. Instead, we looked at some of the ways in which the United States had already adopted practices common in the autocratic world.
- [01:28]
Reverse Auctioneer
My nightmare is that fascism comes to America, but it's marching under the banner of freedom.
- [01:35]
Anne Applebaum
We talked about the use of violence and intimidation in politics.
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Ryan Reynolds
It's a little bit like the Eye of Sauron, that when it's turned on you, you feel it. You get a lot of ugliness directed your way.
- [01:47]
Anne Applebaum
About older American traditions of state capture.
- [01:50]
Peter Pomerantsev
He would choose all the boards and commissions. He packed the courts. And once you have the courts in the legislature and you've already got the executive, you have all three branches of government now.
- [02:02]
Anne Applebaum
In Donald Trump's second presidency, all of those autocratic behaviors are being accelerated, amplified, even promoted by the federal government. He's fired civil servants, breaking overnight. First paid leave, then buyouts, now firings. He seeks to replace them with loyalists and seeks to intimidate enemies and political rivals.
- [02:23]
Unknown Speaker
He he wants loyalty across the board with little to no resistance. That is his top goal.
- [02:29]
Anne Applebaum
Above all, Trump has adopted the practices of kleptocracy on a Scale no previous American president ever imagined.
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Reverse Auctioneer
I think we're essentially become a kleptocracy that would make Putin blush.
- [02:42]
Anne Applebaum
But while brand new in the history of America, Trump's actions are very familiar to those who have studied the rise of autocracy in other places. Garry Kasparov, who has not merely studied the rise of Putinism in Russia, but lived through it and fought against it, is now joining autocracy in America to host our new season. Some of you will know Gary as a former world chess champion, indeed one of the greatest chess players who ever lived. But Gary also has a long record opposing the rise of Putinism well before it was fashionable. So at a moment when Western companies were still piling into Russia west, when democratic leaders allowed Russia to host the G8 summit in St. Petersburg, Gary told a really different story. I looked up something that I wrote about him in 2007, and I found this quote. This is something he wrote in the Wall Street Journal. He said, russia is in a moment of crisis, and every decent person must stand up and resist the rise of the Putin dictatorship. As I noted at the time, this was a pretty lonely view. It was not shared in London, where I lived at the time, and there wasn't even that much reaction in Russia, although an angry fan did hit him over the head with a chessboard. And Gary, who's now with us, said, I'm lucky the national sport of the Soviet Union is chess, not baseball. Gary, welcome.
- [04:04]
Garry Kasparov
Thank you very much, Anne, for reminding me about this very precarious moment, because this angry fan was, of course, on Kremlin's payroll, since the moment when he hit me with a chessboard immediately appeared online. So the videos were made from two different angles. So somebody was waiting for the moment. I guess they wanted me just to get crazy and just to hit him and ask my bodyguard to attack him. But I decided to keep my calm, which was not easy. But again, thanks God it was not baseball bat. So I'm really, really happy just to continue the program. And I think it's probably worth, you know, just reminding the audience that, you know, first time we met and worked together, it was 10 years ago, and it was not in America, but in Canada.
- [04:49]
Anne Applebaum
Yep.
- [04:49]
Garry Kasparov
We joined forces at a debate, the Mung debate. It's probably the largest public debate in Canada, Oxford style. So we faced 3,000 people, and the opposition was Stephen Cohen, a pro Putin US Scholar, very famous, and Vladimir Pozner, who has been working for Soviet propaganda since, I think, 1961, before we were born. And we had to deal with a very, very difficult task because the House motion was whether west should engage, not isolate Russia.
- [05:18]
Anne Applebaum
Yeah, yeah, it was be it resolved that the west should engage and not isolate Russia. Which, of course, was what the Canadian audience wanted.
- [05:25]
Garry Kasparov
Exactly. It was one year after Crimea's annexation and the beginning of the war in Ukraine, but still the mood of the audience was not in our favor. But we proved to be a very good team and we won, which I think was quite a shock for our opponents and for many in the audience, because, again, it was Canada. So that was the beginning of our cooperation. But I'm just wondering, could you, in your worst nightmares, imagine that 10 years since this debate in Canada, we would be talking about the real threat to America shifting sides and no longer being a beacon of hope, the guardian of democracy, but becoming a potential ally for Autocracy Inc. Worldwide?
- [06:07]
Anne Applebaum
I have to say that I did not imagine it. I mean, it's funny, round about 2014, 2015, that was when I started following the rise of Russian propaganda and influence campaigns, mostly in Europe. I saw them in Poland, I saw them in the Czech Republic, I saw them in Hungary, and I even wrote something about it at the time. And I remember talking to people about it in Washington and people said, well, this is all very terrible for Slovenia and we feel really bad. But again, it felt like a very distant problem. And really, just a year or Two later in 2016, we saw the Russian influence campaign being conducted in the United States. And since then, the gradual accumulation of, as I said, these authoritarian practices and behavior in American politics. And we are now at a point where it doesn't sound crazy to talk about the Putinization of America or the rise of Russian style kleptocracy in America. Been a really extraordinary decade. I mean, it's really been one in which the United States has gone from one polar opposite, from a symbol of. It's not just democracy might even be the wrong word. I mean, it's about the rule of law, it's about transparency, it's about accountability, it's about Americans believing in freedom and Americans having allies and being part of this network of other rule of law countries in the world. And we've gone from that to being a really rogue power which seeks to break up all of our alliances and maybe instead do deals with dictatorships. You know, as I said at the beginning, you were an early observer of the changes in Russia that created the system that we saw today. Tell me, when you look at the first months of the second Trump administration, do you See something similar. What's setting off alarm bells in your head?
- [07:56]
Garry Kasparov
The similarities are really frightening. It's creation of classical oligarchy. And I think that these many Americans, they got confused because they believe that any rich person who is buying influence is an oligarch. But by my classification, when you look at Putin's Russia, you should disregard the simple spread of this word for any rich man. Rockefeller, Carnegie, in the past, J.P. morgan, or now we just have Bezos, Zuckerberg, I still wouldn't call them oligarchs because while they buying influence, clearly. So that's what happens in any representative democracy. They are not involved in decision making process. What we saw with Musk and Trump, it's basically creating money and power. It's like Centaur in the same hands. That's what Putin did. So it's a gradual merge or synergy between those who control money and those who directly making decisions. It's not about trying to find, you know, buying favors from Democrats or Republicans. It's basically sticking to one group of people that are under your control and making decisions. Also, Trump's statements, to my trained ear, this is loud and clear. It's he disregarded the Democratic opposition, basically saying, I can rule only relying on Republican votes. That's a proclamation of one party system. I mean, we can definitely give Trump credit for being very consistent. He has been pushing through his agenda, ignoring the laws of the land and always, you know, just trying to bully people. That's also a typical sign of this early oligarchy where, you know, you don't have resources to go against everybody, but you pick up few, few best targets and you go after them. And the rest has no choice but to obey unless they want to feel the power of your of dictator's wrath.
- [09:43]
Anne Applebaum
Yeah, and then I was gonna say, in the case of Putin's Russia, it was even more brutal. So.
- [09:47]
Garry Kasparov
Oh yeah, it was brutal.
- [09:48]
Anne Applebaum
If you kill one journalist, then all the other journalists are afraid.
- [09:52]
Garry Kasparov
Yeah, but you, exactly, you kill journalists, you start closing TV stations and then you go after the richest man in the country. So you basically confiscate his company, put him in jail, and the rest recognizes that it's time to play by the new rules. So again, Trump is facing much tougher challenge because American democracy has 250 years, even if we do not count the colonial years that also had the rule of law as a basis for society. Russia, it's never experienced the long period of a law and order in its normal democratic terms. But still, certain things are just have to ring the bell, it's an alarm when they say, oh, it's urgent. There's a mandate. The president had a mandate. We have to push through. And if judiciary is standing on the way, hell with them. So the moment you hear urgency, that should go over, or should Trump, pun intended, should Trump the rule of law. That's another sign that they are aiming at the very center of America's. America's democracy. It's a separation of powers.
- [10:51]
Anne Applebaum
Yeah, it's exactly what Putin does. I mean, Putin, because of the war, it's an emergency. Therefore, he has special powers.
- [10:58]
Garry Kasparov
But it was always emergency. It was always emergency in 2004, after this, the tragedy in Beslan when the terrorists took over the school, and then Putin used it immediately to gain more power by canceling the direct elections of the governors. So that's again, every crisis is always used to enlarge the portfolio of autocrat. And again, Trump is facing much more formidable opposition. But he's trying. I mean, we can't deny that he's trying. And unlike his first presidency, seems that again, Trump already succeeded in creating, I wouldn't say political class, but it's a cluster in American politics that is just following him obediently, without any questions, repeating even the most outrageous lies and statements that even by the first Trump administration would be unheard.
- [11:50]
Anne Applebaum
You know, this is the thing that surprises Europeans the most. You know, Europeans who've been dealing with Americans for years and years in security context, economic context, business, and so on, is discovering that there is this group of Americans who are sycophants, because nobody ever thought of Americans being like that. But it turns out that you can win them over. You can bully them in such a way that they do exactly as you say. They provide a kind of echo chamber even to lies. I mean, it's funny talking about lies. What's also surprising to me is the way in which the Trump administration, Trump himself, use lies in the way that dictators use them. In other words, Trump isn't trying to. As, for example, as the Soviet Union once did. He's not trying to create a false story about reality that, you know, if we all work together and cooperate, then eventually we're gonna build communism. You know, it's a really different.
- [12:40]
Garry Kasparov
Yes. No narrative. No fixed narrative.
- [12:43]
Anne Applebaum
Absolutely. Exactly. Instead, the idea is just to lie constantly, all the time, about almost everything. You know, whether it's the price of eggs or the price of gas or what he said to Putin yesterday or who he, you know, whatever it is, he's lying. And this has Another effect. I mean, what it does is it makes people doubt whether anything is true. I mean, how are you supposed to know what's true if the president lies all the time? And that is, of course, exactly the same tactic that Putin used in Russia. I mean, if you lie or your propagandists lie nonstop, then the reaction of the public is to say, right, politics is a dirty game. I have no idea what's true or what's not true. I better just stay home.
- [13:20]
Garry Kasparov
Absolutely. Constant lie becomes a very important test for loyalty because you want to make sure that your sycophants, your administration, your appointees, they follow you without asking questions, and you want to test them. So they have to repeat the same lies. They have to defend these lies, and they know Trump was lying and they still had no choice. Okay, yeah, they have a choice. Either you leave or you keep lying. And so far, I didn't see anyone leaving. So it seems that again, Trump still has his hold over new American bureaucracy that is just, again, willing to do whatever just to stay in power.
- [13:59]
Anne Applebaum
More on that after the break.
- [14:09]
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- [15:10]
Anne Applebaum
You know, there's something you wrote in the Atlantic this spring and you were calling on the opposition to Trump to defend the value system that has made America great. You know, this question of values underlines. I know a lot of what you want to tackle in this season of the show. Say more about it. What's this value system that you, as an outsider, identify with America?
- [15:31]
Garry Kasparov
I think now we just have to identify that's the threat to American democracy. And it's, I believe, it's existential threat. And that means to defend it. We have to abandon some conflicts that separated American society. It's normal. We have many issues where we can argue, we can disagree, but the key is that we always relied on the framework, framework created by founding fathers that allowed us to debate these issues. One day we win, one day we lose. But again, it was a healthy process, sometimes maybe just too hot. The arguments just were fierce, but it was a debate. So it seems now that this framework is in great danger. Now it's time to get together to fight for these constitutional values. That's something that made America America. And recognizing that Trump's actions, though they look very spontaneous and sporadic, they are aimed at this very system to make sure that the balance that has been working for two and a half centuries, the balance between the executive, legislation and judiciary, this balance will be tilted forever in favor of the executive, and not just executive as an office, but just executive as one person. Again, here is Trump very consistent, demanding that president has all powers and anything that stands on his way, even if it's guaranteed by Constitution, should be removed because it prevents him from executing his mandate. Which is, again, it's a funny trick, because at the end of the day, Trump acquired his powers going through the system that created this mandate, and now trying to use this mandate acquired within the system, he's trying to destroy the system and to make sure that he and his cronies, his successors, could rule the country without any restrictions that have been provided by this very constitutional framework that made him win in the first place.
- [17:23]
Anne Applebaum
So the values are separation of powers, really, and the rule of law.
- [17:27]
Garry Kasparov
Look, absolutely, absolutely. This is the rule of law, separation of powers, and recognizing that there's always a balance that keeps America very complicated. American system, republican system, Republican with small R, of course, to function and to be so successful, because there are always forces and counter forces, whether it's the federal level, state level, whether judiciary, legislation. So it's any attempt to spread unanimity. So that what is a real existential threat to American republic? Just. Yeah, quite ironic. It's. Next year will be the 25th anniversary of declaration of Independence. And if you just read through the Declaration of Independence, almost every claim there, all the grievances of the colonies, again, King George and British monarchy, have been simply resurrected in Trump's behavior.
- [18:16]
Anne Applebaum
It's funny, actually. I reread the Declaration of Independence too, recently, and there's even. There's something about tariffs, you know, there's something about sending people abroad to be imprisoned and, you know, very.
- [18:26]
Garry Kasparov
Exactly. Absolutely. Yes, absolutely. This is. It's so Many, so many elements of the Declaration of Independence and of course, the Constitution.
- [18:33]
Anne Applebaum
Yeah.
- [18:34]
Garry Kasparov
So I think by fighting such a powerful enemy, because, again, we know that Trump is not accidental. And that's one of the ideas of the second season, is to talk to different people from different fields, Americans and Europeans, and to give our audience an idea somehow why Trump was inevitable. I mean, what's happened? What were the events that helped Trump to become almost invincible in American politics? And what are the other trends in global politics, in geopolitics that made this overall climate change so friendly, not just to Trump, but to many other would be autocrats, right wing populists across other democracies? Yeah, it's very important to see this big picture because to fight Trump is not, you know, it's just simply go, oh, Trump is bad. Very important to show why it's bad.
- [19:22]
Anne Applebaum
You know, it's interesting, in the first season of this podcast, one of our episodes was about American alliances. And it's actually one of my arguments that I've been making for a long time that that American democracy has also succeeded in the past because of who America's allies were, that it was very important not just for our foreign policy, that we were very close to the European democracies or the Asian democracies, that that also reinforced our domestic politics. In other words, you know, that it matters who your country's friends are. And so I suppose maybe one of the things you'll explore is, does it matter if America's friends are the German far right and the Romanian far right and, you know, autocracies in the Middle East?
- [20:07]
Garry Kasparov
Yes, but it's like chicken and egg. So it's whether these alliances embolden Trump or, you know, the America's change from within helped Trump to build these alliances. So I think it will be wrong to actually oppose Trump without understanding all these underlying currents, you know, all the factors that made Trump and Trump's phenomena, both domestically and internationally, such a powerful threat not just to American democracy, but to democracy worldwide. And of course, Putin, as we know, he's very happy to support whoever, so he's happy with Marine Le Pen in France, but he's also happy with Melanchol with far left. Of course, AfD Alternative for Germany is his biggest bet in German politics. But Russia was not shy of supporting Die Link and the newly built Sarovaging Hecht, also far left groups. So for me, it indicates the collapse of traditional left right balance that has been in place for probably nearly a century. And I will talk about it throughout the New series. But do you think, Anne, it's a legitimate, this issue just to recognize why this right, left, center right, center left equilibrium that served us for so long is no longer protecting us against the rise of authoritarianism?
- [21:24]
Anne Applebaum
Yeah. No, I think it's indicative of something even bigger, which is that politics, which for such a long time was about policy. In other words, what were the center left and the center right fighting about? They were fighting about the size of the state and whether taxes should be high or low and whether we should have state health care or private health care. And those were the subjects of politics and the subjects of political debate. And what's happened over the last decade, partly thanks to the change in the nature of online information, partly thanks to the way that social media has reordered our conversation and made it more emotional and angry and divisive, those things aren't central to politics anymore. And instead, politics is about these very existential issues. Cultural ideas, a national identity, other kinds of identity issues where there's much less area for compromise and where there's much less that the different various parties can do together. I mean, so if you have an argument about taxes, you can find a compromise between the center left and the center right. If your argument is who are Americans and should people of only one skin color get to be Americans? And if people come from another country and they don't come through the border in the right way, they should be expected. I mean, those are much more existential issues, and there's very little area of compromise. You also have the rise of political movements that challenge the system itself. And this is, of course, something that I think happened over the last four years, after January 6th, really, all of the extremists in America, this happened in other countries too, for different reasons, gathered around Trump. So people who believed that there shouldn't be a democracy in America, there should be a kind of CEO who runs politics. That was the kind of democracy tech authoritarian idea. People who believe that America shouldn't be a secular state, it should be a religious state. That's the Christian nationalist idea. And a series of people who were on the extremes of politics were drawn to him and drawn really the center of political life. They have now redefined political debate. And as I said, political debate is not anymore about practical policies that people can understand. Instead, it's about these central, you know, should Harvard exist? Or do we want science and change the nature of debate altogether? And of course, one of the things that has been very slow to happen is that the center, meaning the center left and the center right failed for a long time to understand that the rules of debate had changed. So they went on squabbling with one another. You can actually see it right now in Germany and they're the German coalition, which is the center right, center left coalition. They went on squabbling about the things that divided them, failing to see that there was a threat from people who wanted to change the nature of the system altogether. So what we really have now is the pretty existential argument between liberal democracy, small L, liberal, small D democracy, and an authoritarian system run by an executive who is not controlled by the rule of law. That's actually the real debate we have right now. But it's taken a long time for the rest of the political world to understand that and catch up with it. And to understand that in order to defeat the appeal of the autocratic world, we need different kinds of coalitions.
- [24:47]
Garry Kasparov
But that also includes international coalitions because, you know, we use the word existential regularly. But the most existential battle between the force of tyranny and freedom now is happening in Ukraine. This is the like, it's literally the battlefield where the force of Autocracy. Autocracy Inc. Led by Putin's dictatorship, they launched the most blatant invasion of the country. And it's much bigger than just an attempt to redraw the borders. It's a challenge, open challenge to the existing world order. Probably it's no longer existing. It's collapsing the liberal world order that we used to live in for decades. And the outcome of this battle, the outcome of this existential Mortal Kombat will probably most likely will decide the future of humanity and future of freedom worldwide for decades to come. And it's not surprising that the war in Ukraine also divides political forces here. And it's no longer right and left. You can find people on both sides defending Ukraine. And unfortunately you can find people on both sides, mostly of course, on the right now, who are trying to undermine Ukrainian heroic struggle for freedom and sovereignty. And to argue that it's no longer our business to be involved.
- [26:05]
Anne Applebaum
Yeah, I mean, what you've just described, it's one of the arguments of my book Autocracy Inc. Which is that while we've been failing to understand the importance of these new coalitions, the autocratic world has understood it. And you now have a de facto coalition or network that's been created by Russia, by China, by theocratic Iran, by Bolivarian socialist Venezuela, by countries with actually with very different systems. Some of them are one party states, some of them are one man dictatorships, but who've understood that it's very important for them to work together to undermine the idea of democracy. One of Putin's great realizations was that it wasn't enough to undermine the democrats he was fighting at home and it wasn't enough to poison the political debate inside Russia with lies and alternative reality that he had to spread that farther, that really he needed to destroy the appeal of democracy everywhere. And part of the purpose of the invasion of Ukraine was to show that there's no sense or purpose to having a democratic revolution of the kind that took place in Ukraine, that democracies are doomed to failure and that they can be defeated by a much more brutal, a much angrier form of autocratic power.
- [27:23]
Garry Kasparov
So absolutely. So that's why I will do my best throughout episodes of this second season is to show this connection. When you have Ukraine, you have the collapse of the traditional center right centralized coalition. Also the rise of AI and how AI has been playing a role in this fake news industry and these new attempts of the tech Bros to take control of the political system and electoral process. So it's looking at the big picture and hearing the voices from the Baltics to the United States. So people that were experts who have a great experience in their field to go to the roots of this global Trump phenomena and find, you know, just throughout this conversation, find the best way for us to get together and win the battle. And that means voices from all over the political spectrum, people who disagree about many things but have in common the desire to protect democracy. Because again, it is an existential threat which requires just this total mobilization of our forces if we want to preserve what was given to us 250 years ago.
- [28:31]
Anne Applebaum
So it sounds to me like this show is in very capable hands, which I'm delighted to hear. Tell me, what's the first conversation?
- [28:39]
Garry Kasparov
It seems that the best one to begin with to set the table for us about an American electorate gon amok with both apathy and partisanship. And we'll talk with an excellent pollster and someone I know for many years, Frank Luntz.
- [28:54]
Frank Luntz
All the institutions that keep America moving forward are disliked and distrusted.
- [29:01]
Garry Kasparov
Okay, this is very, very important because you said few times the word keyword. In my opinion, yes, that is, by.
- [29:09]
Frank Luntz
The way, let's stop there. That is the key word. It's the number one priority that Americans have trust and truth.
- [29:18]
Anne Applebaum
Well, thank you, Gary. I'm looking forward to hearing the second season of autocracy in America.
- [29:24]
Garry Kasparov
I hope you will not be disappointed thank you. This episode of Photography in America was was produced by Arlene Aurello and Natalie Brennan. Our editor is Dave Shaw. Original music and mix by Rob Smersiak. Fact checking by Ana Alvarada. Special thanks to Paulina Kasparov and Mick Gringott. Claudia Nebaid is the executive producer of Atlantic Audio. Andre Valdes is our managing editor. I'm Garry Kasparov. See you back here next week.