How Democracies Fail A Conversation with Anne Applebaum (Episode

Watch: youtube.com/watch?v=E1GROJPCPV4

🌍📚 Dive into Anne Applebaum's "Autocracy Inc." to uncover how modern dictatorships are undermining democracies! 💰🕵️‍♂️

Welcome to the Making Sense podcast. This is Sam Harris. Just a note to say that if you're hearing this, you're not currently on our subscriber feed and will only be hearing the first part of this conversation. In order to access full episodes of The Making Sense podcast, you'll need to subscribe at samharris.org. Today, I'm speaking with Anne Applebaum. Anne was a columnist for the Washington Post for 17 years and now she's been a staff writer at the Atlantic since 2020. She's the author of five critically acclaimed books: Twilight of Democracy, Red Famine, Iron Curtain, Between East and West, and Gulag, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize. She divides her time between Poland, where her husband is foreign minister, and Washington DC. Her newest book out this coming Tuesday but available for pre-order now is Autocracy Inc. We discuss the nature of modern autocracies and the vulnerabilities of democracies. Anne explains that she's both a historian and a journalist, having written several history books mostly about the Soviet Union and Communism in Eastern Europe. More recently, her journalism focuses on democracy and how it may decline. Anne also has a special focus on propaganda, which stems from her interest in the history of Soviet propaganda, how it worked, and why it was sometimes effective. Talking about her new book, Autocracy Inc., Anne describes it as not just about an autocracy but really a network—a group of dictatorships who share common interests, especially in money. They are very interested in protecting and hiding their money, often using Western financial institutions to do so. Modern autocracies are also keen on undermining liberal democracy, pushing back against its ideas and ideals to serve their own power and domestic interests. They believe part of their strategy must involve discrediting liberal democracy in its own strongholds. To achieve this, autocracies use various methods, including funding or supporting far-right and occasionally far-left movements that also seek to undermine liberal democracy. This strategy is essential to their foreign policy and defines who they are and what they do.

🚨 Dictators fear democracy's power because it threatens their control! 💬🗣️

To undermine us and discredit liberal democracy in its own strongholds, that's the essence and the basis of their foreign policy. These autocracies don't see the world parceled into geographic divisions; they see it as a battle against people who use the language that threatens their particular form of oligarchic and kleptocratic power. The instinctive reaction of people who don't have rights is to demand them, and the language they leap to almost immediately is about free speech—why can't we say what we want, why can't we make the decisions that we want? This conflict between democracy and autocracy is not new; it goes all the way back to Mussolini, who is reported to have said that between democracy and totalitarianism there can be no compromise. Orwell, writing during the war, noted that even a successful Third Reich couldn't afford to have England be the funnel through which deadly ideas from beyond the Atlantic flow into the police states of Europe. Modern examples are abundant; why did Russia invade Ukraine? Putin saw that if Ukraine succeeded as a democracy, then why wouldn't someone try it in Russia? Every time a dictator falls, a tyrant is defeated, or a civic movement wins, it makes them nervous. We in Western democracies also have a lot to answer for in how we have enabled these modern autocracies. Our financial experts and investors, the system we've built to build and maintain wealth in the West, have not just been gamed by these autocracies—we've really offered our services with both hands.

🌍💰 Western wealth-building has fueled autocrats—time to clean up our act! 💸🚫

The contagion of ideas goes both ways. It's striking how Kremlin talking points seem to magically come out of the mouths of not just Trump himself but also big tech investors, who are now his most potent enablers. Sergey Lavrov even said that "it's a battle over what the world order will look like; it's not just about Ukraine, it's about who wins in the end over a much larger chessboard." We nevertheless still have a lot to answer for in how we have enabled these modern autocracies. Our own financial experts and investors, and the system we've built to build and maintain wealth in the West, have not just been gamed by these autocracies; we've really offered our services with both hands. Putin, for instance, began as the deputy mayor of St. Petersburg. In that era, he started stealing, took the money out of the country, sent it abroad where it was laundered, and then slowly brought it back into the country to acquire property, buildings, and companies. They did this with the full knowledge and assistance of Western bankers, Western accountants, the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, and, in some cases, Western governments. Many people knew this was how he and others in Russia were getting rich and were happy to help them.

There was an idea in the 1990s that business with autocratic states was not only politically acceptable but might even be good. Engagement with the former totalitarian or Soviet world, or with China, was seen as a way to integrate them into the world economy, with the hope that our ideas might spread to them. However, the privatization process in Russia was deeply flawed. While legitimate forms of privatization exist, in Russia, the assets were stolen. Ordinary people didn't benefit; the state was impoverished, and a few individuals became billionaires or multi-billionaires. One of the ways to fight these new regimes is to clean up our own act. Why do there need to be any anonymous companies for any reason? Why is it legal to hide billions of dollars in tax havens? We've created these systems, and we could uncreate them. Engagement seems intrinsically good. How could China and Russia withstand both barrels of our abundance of ideas and material wealth aimed at them decade after decade? How could they not want to moderate their politics in the face of all those good things? There was an enormous amount of optimism and faith in the early 1990s that our ideas were so much better, so persuasive, and that openness was so attractive.

🛠️ We built the systems, we can dismantle them! 💥👊

We've created these systems and these are man-made systems. We could uncreate them. If we abolished them, we would at least cut off that part of the ability of those regimes to do that. There was this notion that engagement seems intrinsically good. How could China and Russia withstand both barrels of our abundance of ideas and our material abundance aimed at them decade after decade? There is an enormous amount of optimism and faith that our ideas are so much better and our ideas are so persuasive that this will defeat whatever remains of the Soviet system or whatever remains of the Chinese Communist system. Bill Clinton famously said the Chinese will never be able to control the internet; that's like nailing Jell-O to the wall. The optimism of that moment blinded us both to the possibilities that the internet had of being used as a tool of control and also to the possibility that if we weren't careful, we would empower the dictators.

Transitioning to modern politics and the war in Ukraine, Vance at this point is famous for saying that he simply doesn't care about what happens to Ukraine. Putin invaded Ukraine because Ukraine represented an ideological problem for him because it was a democracy. He did that partly to say, "I don't care about your rules; I'm going to intervene wherever and however I want." He did it believing that we wouldn't stop him. I think he was very surprised when not just the United States but a consortium of countries—NATO, but others also like South Korea, Australia, Japan—have come together to block that Russian invasion. If Putin's idea of how the world should work holds, then it's not just Russia that will be able to do what it wants wherever it wants. If he can prove that you pay no price for invading your neighbor, then why shouldn't China invade Taiwan and take over the international semiconductor market?

If America is just a transactional power run by people who conduct foreign policy in their own personal interest like the Russians do, ordinary Russians don't benefit from his war in Ukraine; he benefits, and it's all about him. We begin to take on the character of these other oligarchies, these other kleptocracies. We begin to lose some of what makes us unique. Eventually, I think we begin to lose some of our rights and freedoms.

🇺🇸 America's strength lies in its values, not just its power. Let's guard our freedoms! ✨🗽

There will be military consequences in many parts of the world and economic consequences, but I think there's also an important psychological conquest if America is just a transactional power run by people who conduct foreign policy in their own personal interest. If America is led by people like that, then I think America begins to suffer in many different ways. We begin to take on the character of these other oligarchies, and we begin to lose some of what makes us unique. Eventually, I think we begin to lose some of our rights and freedoms. A Ukrainian friend of mine notes that kleptocracy almost always precedes autocracy. Leaders who use their political power to make themselves personally rich by stealing the assets of the state, by changing the rules so that their friends and family get wealthy—once you have a kleptocracy, you need to defend it. There will always be a transparency movement or an anti-corruption movement or a movement for more justice, and then the leadership needs to clamp down on this, erect walls, get rid of gatekeepers and ethics monitors, and undermine the court system.

Reflecting on Ukraine's history, the thing that the Ukrainians stopped in that year with their Maidan Revolution was the decline of their country into dictatorship. By the time they did it, a lot of institutions had been undermined, and a lot of money had been stolen. Regarding David Sachs' claims about Biden and Ukraine, first of all, it's not true. The original expansion of NATO to Eastern Europe was tolerated by Russia; there was no plan to expand NATO to Ukraine. Only later did Putin change his mind. Biden himself, in his first year in office, made a big outreach to Russia; there was no desire to provoke Russia. NATO is a defensive alliance; it doesn't invade other countries. It's there to protect and defend countries. The Russians know that. These are just Russian talking points that are part of their justification for the war.

Questioning Sachs' motives, why David Sachs, who really has no interest in foreign policy, no stake in this conflict, why he's so interested in the subject—my guess is that he or others around him have business interests in Russia that they would like to pursue. In summary, when leaders prioritize personal gain over national interest, it leads to a natural progression from kleptocracy to autocracy. It's crucial to understand the true motivations behind public figures' stances on foreign policy issues.

Trump's humor masks his true ambitions, making him a dangerous distraction. 🤡💼

Transitioning from the discussion of America's potential slide into kleptocracy and the influence of self-serving leaders, it's worth noting how Trump managed to captivate figures like Elon Musk and David Sachs. Trump did something that appealed to Musk again, which is intriguing considering these are individuals who previously had no intellectual interest or prior involvement in this part of the world. We have a president who is famously transactional and uninterested in the idea of America as a democracy or as the center of an alliance of values. So, you have to ask, what does influence him? He's very interested in money.

In the cases of Sachs and Elon, you're talking about two guys who are just far beyond the end of their rope with respect to the kind of social justice moral panic that has happened on the left. There are other variables here that account for the fact that many smart people, who you would think would be allergic to Trump, nevertheless support him at this moment. One of the reasons is that Trump is just funny, and that covers for a lot. His fans recognize that he is joking, and this moment destroys the credibility of mainstream institutions and political opponents who just aren't in on the joke. For instance, he said at one point in an interview that he would be a dictator for a day. This was taken to be a shocking disclosure of his real authoritarian ambitions, but most people heard that comment differently.

I'm not comparing Trump to Hitler, as Orwell once noted about Hitler's peculiar appeal. Trump is not ideological and has no apparent grand ambitions beyond his own self-aggrandizement. He has this comedic charisma that causes many people simply not to see or not to care what an aberrant person he is psychologically and ethically. Trump represents a pivot from a conversation about policy, which is hard, nuanced, and difficult, to bombast identity politics, flag-waving, and red hats. That's a lot easier and more fun for people. Nowadays, when democracies fall, they don't fall in the way we think of Nazi Germany. They fall through slow decline, through the hollowing out of institutions—elections that aren't really elections because all the candidates are picked in advance, court systems that aren't really court systems because the judges are so partisan, and media that's not really media anymore because it's part of some kind of big oligarchic game.

Modern autocrats prioritize power over people, turning democracies into hollow shells. 🏛️🔚

Modern democracies often fall through a slow decline, marked by the hollowing out of institutions. Elections become farcical, with candidates pre-selected in advance, and court systems lose their credibility as judges become so partisan that their decisions are predictable. Media, too, devolves into a tool for oligarchic interests, often owned by business colleagues or friends of the president. Trump isn't Hitler, and it's crucial to emphasize that. Unlike Nazi Germany, where the fall of democracy was marked by overt violence and Stormtroopers, modern democracies decline more subtly through the erosion of their core institutions.

For example, Judge Eileen Cannon in Florida has acted in an overtly partisan manner, notably throwing out the Trump documents case, which is indisputable and would have resulted in jail for anyone else. Similarly, Jim Jordan's weaponization of the government committee exemplifies how Congressional hearings can become mere performances rather than truth-seeking endeavors. Trump's primary interest is not the well-being of the country or its citizens but himself, aligning him with modern autocrats like Putin who are primarily interested in maintaining power.

Even mainstream Republicans and election officials are not immune to the consequences. Many are afraid of potential violence from the MAGA cult, with members of Congress who would have voted to impeach Trump fearing for their lives and the lives of their families. Steven Richer, a Maricopa County election official, faced threats and harassment, with people coming to his house. This atmosphere of violence and fear permeates all levels of the political chain, deterring individuals from speaking out.