Anne Applebaum: The Loss of 'Democratic Faith'
00:12:
(Tim Miller)
Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast.
00:14:
(Tim Miller)
I'm your host, Tim Miller.
00:15:
(Tim Miller)
Delighted to welcome back one of our favorite and most uplifting guests.
00:19:
(Tim Miller)
She's a staff writer at The Atlantic.
00:20:
(Tim Miller)
Her most recent books include Twilight of Democracy and Autocracy, Inc.
00:23:
(Tim Miller)
It's Ann Applebaum.
00:24:
(Ann Applebaum)
Hey, Ann.
00:25:
(Ann Applebaum)
Hi there.
00:26:
(Tim Miller)
Let's do it.
00:27:
(Tim Miller)
We have quite the outline for today.
00:29:
(Tim Miller)
Lots happening.
00:31:
(Tim Miller)
You've been on a heater.
00:32:
(Tim Miller)
There's some news that Governor Pritzker made $1.4 million gambling out yesterday, according to his tax returns.
00:39:
(Tim Miller)
And that is a real heater in gambling.
00:41:
(Tim Miller)
And I'm upset I didn't get to ask him about it and see what his gambling of choice was on Tuesday.
00:46:
(Tim Miller)
But you've been on a writing heater.
00:47:
(Tim Miller)
And I want to go through some of your recent articles.
00:49:
(Tim Miller)
But we have, unfortunately, some other news first I want to start with.
00:52:
(Tim Miller)
I guess we'll start with the overseas stuff.
00:54:
(Tim Miller)
The AP had this story earlier this week that I haven't got a chance to mention that is just brutal about USAID.
01:01:
(Tim Miller)
Its title is Starving Children Screaming for Food as USAID Cuts Unleash Devastation and Death Across Myanmar.
01:08:
(Tim Miller)
I just want to read a little bit from the lead here.
01:09:
(Tim Miller)
Mohammed clutched the lifeless body of his two-year-old son and wept ever since his family's food ration stopped arriving at their internment camp in Myanmar in April.
01:17:
(Tim Miller)
The father had watched helplessly as his once vibrant baby boy suffering from diarrhea and begging for food.
01:23:
(Tim Miller)
On May 21st, exactly two weeks after the little boy died, Marco Rubio sat before Congress and said no one has died because of his government's decision to gut the foreign aid program.
01:32:
(Tim Miller)
That, Muhammad said, is a lie.
01:34:
(Tim Miller)
I lost my son because of the funding cuts, and it's not only me.
01:37:
(Ann Applebaum)
Yes, obviously, when a program that sent hundreds of millions of dollars in food aid around the world is abruptly cut,
01:45:
(Ann Applebaum)
without making any provision for the consequences.
01:49:
(Ann Applebaum)
Yes, obviously, people died.
01:51:
(Ann Applebaum)
People didn't get their food.
01:52:
(Ann Applebaum)
They didn't get their medical treatment.
01:54:
(Ann Applebaum)
They didn't get their AIDS treatment.
01:57:
(Ann Applebaum)
And that's, of course, not just in Myanmar, but all over the world.
02:00:
(Ann Applebaum)
I was in Sudan earlier this year.
02:02:
(Ann Applebaum)
I think we talked about it before.
02:03:
(Ann Applebaum)
And I met people who were very directly aware that USAID had been cut, and they were beginning to
02:11:
(Ann Applebaum)
be very careful how they use the resources that they had.
02:15:
(Ann Applebaum)
And this is an extremely poor country that's in the middle of the civil war.
02:18:
(Ann Applebaum)
And they were rationing what was available because they knew what was coming.
02:23:
(Ann Applebaum)
So, I mean, it's absurd to imagine that that would have no impact.
02:28:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, it was a
02:29:
(Ann Applebaum)
It was a monumental decision.
02:31:
(Ann Applebaum)
And I think, as we also said at the time, it had all these knock-on consequences because, you know, the USAID was responsible for something like 40% of the world's humanitarian aid, but a larger proportion of logistics.
02:43:
(Ann Applebaum)
And so others who were delivering aid also suddenly found themselves, you know, blocked and the ships weren't running or the trucks weren't driving.
02:52:
(Ann Applebaum)
And it was a real disaster in a lot of places.
02:55:
(Ann Applebaum)
Yeah.
02:55:
(Tim Miller)
In addition to the aid not going out, people that are suffering around the world are not coming in, which has been the American tradition.
03:03:
(Tim Miller)
This is a New York Times story yesterday.
03:05:
(Tim Miller)
The Trump administration is considering a radical overhaul of the U.S. refugee system that would slash the program to its bare bones while giving preference to English speakers, white South Africans, and Europeans who oppose migration to the continent.
03:20:
(Tim Miller)
according to documents obtained by the Times.
03:24:
(Tim Miller)
This is another thing that doesn't get a ton of attention because of all the other horrors and acute issues coming to the country, but the degree to which the incoming refugee program has just been slashed to zero is pretty notable.
03:37:
(Ann Applebaum)
It was probably true that the refugee system needed to be changed, but it looks to me like what the Trump administration did was take that need for change or that need for reform and to radically reverse it and change it into something completely different altogether.
03:54:
(Ann Applebaum)
defining white South Africans and Europeans who disagree with their government's migration policies as being somehow victims of human rights abuse or political repression is a bizarre...
04:10:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, I guess it's a kind of troll.
04:12:
(Ann Applebaum)
It's a way of mocking the entire system of refugee protection and also of a whole long tradition of American support for people who are victims of real political repression.
04:23:
(Ann Applebaum)
And, you know, it's just a way of redefining who we are and what we do.
04:28:
(Tim Miller)
Troll is an interesting word because it brings to mind the text chain from Politico.
04:32:
(Tim Miller)
People were reporting about the young Republicans that were texting each other a lot of racist stuff.
04:38:
(Tim Miller)
And, you know, some of the pushback to that that you saw publicly from people on the right was like, these things were obviously a joke and everything.
04:44:
(Tim Miller)
Everybody needs to chill out up to including the vice president took that position.
04:49:
(Tim Miller)
And like,
04:50:
(Tim Miller)
This policy is an interesting way where the troll overlaps with reality.
04:56:
(Tim Miller)
Okay.
04:57:
(Tim Miller)
Maybe you're not really racist in your heart.
04:58:
(Tim Miller)
I can't judge.
04:59:
(Tim Miller)
But if you're making jokes about Nazis, making jokes about white nationalism, and then the people that are making those jokes get hired into the government, and then they get into the government and they do another troll, I guess, and the net effect of that troll is that only white people can come into the country –
05:15:
(Tim Miller)
That kind of doesn't matter what word you use to describe it.
05:17:
(Tim Miller)
Like in effect, like they're putting in place, you know, white race based policies.
05:24:
(Ann Applebaum)
Yeah.
05:25:
(Ann Applebaum)
I suppose the thing that makes it hard for people to understand is exactly this, is the tone these things are done in.
05:31:
(Ann Applebaum)
There is a weird, jokey, underground tone that you now find in a lot of online conversation.
05:39:
(Ann Applebaum)
And that for people who are used to a different way of speaking, where people say what they think and they stand behind what they say,
05:47:
(Ann Applebaum)
It's hard to understand.
05:49:
(Ann Applebaum)
But as it as it merges into policy and becomes U.S. government policy, then, yeah, I think it's time to take it really seriously.
05:56:
(Ann Applebaum)
This is not the only example, of course.
05:59:
(Tim Miller)
I want to kind of lump together a couple other topics here domestically under, I guess I'd call authoritarianism at home and the progress that's been made since we've last chatted with each other.
06:09:
(Tim Miller)
Three things jump out to me in particular that I want to talk about what's happening with ICE.
06:14:
(Tim Miller)
And this sort of show your papers culture is something I talked about with Pritzker on Tuesday.
06:19:
(Tim Miller)
Like you're seeing this more and more, particularly in Chicago now in this country where people, if they're brown, just have to show their papers or they're menaced by the government agents.
06:27:
(Tim Miller)
You've got that.
06:28:
(Tim Miller)
There's another time story out of the IRS and how they're reorganizing that to use it to target political foes.
06:35:
(Tim Miller)
Then you have the DOD, which is essentially every major media organization in America is no longer badged to go into the Pentagon because of their new rules as of today.
06:45:
(Tim Miller)
I want to talk about all of them.
06:47:
(Tim Miller)
At the biggest level, I was just kind of interested in your view on all of those things taken together, like this attack on the press, what we're seeing with immigration enforcement and the IRS.
06:58:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah.
06:58:
(Ann Applebaum)
So I think what we're seeing is the United States moving away from a rule of law culture, meaning that the law is something that is enforced by courts and is written into the constitution and all government officials are obliged to abide by it, to a rule by law culture, which is what authoritarian countries have, which means the law is what the government decides it is.
07:23:
(Ann Applebaum)
And, you know, in that world, the IRS is not a neutral agency with very actually a
07:28:
(Ann Applebaum)
historically extremely strict controls over its data and who can have access to it and how it can be used into something like a tool of the government or, you know, yet another thing the government can use to investigate you.
07:43:
(Ann Applebaum)
And that's, I mean, actually, that is really, you know, I don't always like these direct comparisons, but that's really reminiscent of the beginning of Putinism.
07:51:
(Ann Applebaum)
That was how Putin would get rid of his rivals.
07:54:
(Ann Applebaum)
He would
07:54:
(Ann Applebaum)
had, you know, launched tax investigations of companies.
07:58:
(Ann Applebaum)
And this was in a year in Russia when a lot of people had violated all kinds of laws.
08:02:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, it was a real free-for-all, which is not the case in the US.
08:05:
(Ann Applebaum)
But even so, the threat of an investigation, you know, against you makes you behave differently.
08:11:
(Ann Applebaum)
differently.
08:12:
(Tim Miller)
The story is really shocking.
08:15:
(Tim Miller)
It says in here, a senior IRS official involved in the effort has drawn up a list of potential targets that include major Democratic donors, some of the people said.
08:23:
(Tim Miller)
The fact that they leaked to that, it's an intentional effort to try to chill donors to Democrats.
08:29:
(Tim Miller)
One other related element is
08:31:
(Tim Miller)
Scott Bessent was on Charlie Kirk's podcast, I guess, on Tuesday and called Kirk's assassination at domestic 9-11 and said that he wanted to use the Treasury Department to kind of root out the political opponents of Kirk and use the Treasury Department to do investigations of their finances.
08:51:
(Tim Miller)
And you take all that stuff together.
08:53:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, it's it's overt what they're doing.
08:55:
(Ann Applebaum)
Yes, this is a threat to use the power of the government, which can investigate you and can look at your finances and can use the FBI to surveil you and can use all kinds of tools that have been historically really bound and constricted by law to use them against targeted political opponents.
09:14:
(Ann Applebaum)
In other words, not criminals, not anybody who's broken the law, simply people that they don't like.
09:20:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, this business of renaming people
09:22:
(Ann Applebaum)
normal political groups and organizations, you know, talking about the demonstrators who will be coming out this weekend as Hamas, you know, or as terrorists.
09:31:
(Ann Applebaum)
I think that was Mike Johnson who said that.
09:33:
(Ann Applebaum)
But Scott Besson also said something along those lines.
09:36:
(Ann Applebaum)
Renaming them as somehow threats or insurrectionists
09:39:
(Ann Applebaum)
As long as there have been dictatorships, this is what they do.
09:43:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, again, they haven't done it yet.
09:45:
(Ann Applebaum)
And we have, you know, we still have a legal system that will fight back against it and so on.
09:49:
(Ann Applebaum)
I don't want to give people this feeling of hopelessness.
09:51:
(Ann Applebaum)
But I mean, this is a absolutely textbook way of working.
09:56:
(Ann Applebaum)
abusing the arms and the powers of the state that were set up by all of us to benefit all of us.
10:02:
(Ann Applebaum)
The IRS collects money so that we can have a federal government and an army and social security system.
10:11:
(Ann Applebaum)
It's not set up to terrorize Americans.
10:13:
(Ann Applebaum)
And the FBI exists to protect all of us and the people who go to work for it swear an oath to the Constitution, not to the MAGA Republicans and not to Donald Trump.
10:22:
(Ann Applebaum)
And so all these things were set up to protect us and keep our society safe.
10:27:
(Ann Applebaum)
And it looks like what they're trying to do is reverse them and
10:31:
(Ann Applebaum)
Use them deliberately.
10:32:
(Ann Applebaum)
And actually, as you're right, one of the weird things very publicly, they are leaking this stuff or talking about it against their so-called enemies.
10:41:
(Ann Applebaum)
And the point is to make Democratic donors afraid to give money, make people afraid to protest, make people afraid to engage in lawsuits.
10:49:
(Ann Applebaum)
make journalists afraid to write.
10:51:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, on and on and on.
10:52:
(Ann Applebaum)
The idea is to create a kind of chill, an atmosphere in which people were, you know, are anxious about doing anything political.
10:59:
(Ann Applebaum)
And that's very ugly and it's very un-American.
11:03:
(Tim Miller)
I'm not going to be chilled.
11:03:
(Tim Miller)
We all did see it coming.
11:04:
(Tim Miller)
It was about seven minutes into the Biden debate that I texted my husband and I said, we're going to have to upgrade our tax accounting services for 2025.
11:14:
(Tim Miller)
So we've done that.
11:15:
(Tim Miller)
Is your sense talking to people in these circles that the chilling effect is working?
11:19:
(Ann Applebaum)
Maybe you and I are lucky.
11:20:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, we work for institutions that are going to protect us.
11:23:
(Ann Applebaum)
And so I'm surrounded by people who are very happy to continue talking and working and writing and so on.
11:29:
(Ann Applebaum)
I'm here at the offices of the Atlantic Magazine in Washington, D.C. And we're not hiding in a bunker.
11:37:
(Ann Applebaum)
It's all pretty open.
11:38:
(Ann Applebaum)
I hear from a lot of people who want to do things.
11:40:
(Ann Applebaum)
I'm constantly being asked by people, how can I be more engaged?
11:43:
(Ann Applebaum)
What can I do?
11:44:
(Ann Applebaum)
What do you think?
11:45:
(Ann Applebaum)
I pass out suggestions all the time.
11:47:
(Ann Applebaum)
So the speed with which they're moving and the aggression they're using is creating kind of backlash.
11:53:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, what we need, of course, is for their supporters or even just the people who voted for them to begin to see this.
12:00:
(Ann Applebaum)
And I don't have any way of measuring how effective the backlash is in that area.
12:06:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah.
12:06:
(Tim Miller)
I do think it's kind of effective with Democratic donors.
12:08:
(Tim Miller)
The donor thing is interesting that they said that by name because I had Chris Murphy on about two or three months ago now, and he said he was alarmed about it at the time.
12:17:
(Tim Miller)
And my understanding is it's gotten kind of worse since then as far as to chill among big donors, not people giving 10 bucks.
12:22:
(Tim Miller)
There are a lot of people out there doing that, but it's concerning.
12:25:
(Ann Applebaum)
I don't know.
12:25:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, I wouldn't be surprised.
12:27:
(Ann Applebaum)
A lot of those people, if they have a lot of money, then they have some kind of dealings with the government.
12:31:
(Ann Applebaum)
Maybe they're nervous in a way they didn't ever have to be before.
12:34:
(Tim Miller)
Back to the DOD.
12:35:
(Tim Miller)
So this is a statement from the Pentagon Press Association yesterday.
12:38:
(Tim Miller)
The defense department has confiscated the badges of the Pentagon reporters from virtually every major media organization in America today.
12:46:
(Tim Miller)
Today is a dark day for the press.
12:48:
(Tim Miller)
This is all about having their accreditation revoked because they refused to agree to the defense department's new restrictions on news gathering.
12:57:
(Tim Miller)
Crazy.
12:57:
(Ann Applebaum)
What's interesting is that as far as I know, as of yesterday, every single news organization refused to sign this, you know, this document that the Pentagon handed them.
13:08:
(Tim Miller)
I think OAN and The Federalist were the two.
13:10:
(Tim Miller)
One American News, which is platforming the Matt Gaetz podcast.
13:13:
(Tim Miller)
He's a competitor in the podcast space now.
13:15:
(Tim Miller)
And The Federalist, which was just a right wing, you know, mega online outlet.
13:21:
(Tim Miller)
Those are the two that I've seen.
13:22:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah.
13:22:
(Ann Applebaum)
Yeah, but that meant a lot of, I mean, Fox didn't sign it.
13:25:
(Tim Miller)
Right, yeah.
13:26:
(Tim Miller)
Newsmax even.
13:27:
(Ann Applebaum)
Newsmax didn't sign it.
13:28:
(Ann Applebaum)
So a bunch of others didn't sign it.
13:30:
(Ann Applebaum)
Even for Fox, it's dangerous to sign a piece of paper that says your journalist could be investigated or prosecuted if they asked the wrong questions.
13:37:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, that's how some people interpreted what that said.
13:40:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, what's disturbing to me is I'm worried that the purpose of this exercise was to get everybody out of the building.
13:48:
(Ann Applebaum)
In other words, they didn't expect people to sign it.
13:50:
(Ann Applebaum)
It's a little bit like these documents they give universities that no university can possibly sign.
13:55:
(Ann Applebaum)
You know, they wanted everybody gone, and that will make, you know, One America News Network and the Federalist, in effect, state media.
14:03:
(Ann Applebaum)
All of the Pentagon press conferences will be just directed at them.
14:07:
(Ann Applebaum)
And so for official government statements, you'll have to go on to One America News Network.
14:12:
(Ann Applebaum)
I think that might be the intention.
14:15:
(Ann Applebaum)
Of course, it doesn't mean that Pentagon reporting will stop and people will just do it from somewhere else and they'll, you know, they'll use different kind of sources.
14:22:
(Ann Applebaum)
Sure.
14:22:
(Ann Applebaum)
I know, you know, the Atlantic has somebody who's going to continue, you know, what she was doing from somewhere else.
14:27:
(Ann Applebaum)
But I do think that the purpose was narrow it down, you know, make everyone use...
14:33:
(Ann Applebaum)
state media, and then that reduces the ability to report and use the news of others.
14:38:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, it's very strange, actually, because actually the U.S. military has mostly, I mean, there are exceptions, find plenty of exceptions, has usually benefited from its relationships with the press.
14:48:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, you know, all the journalists who've been brought into battalions during wars to fight alongside the soldiers and
14:55:
(Ann Applebaum)
take pictures of what was going on.
14:56:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, that's something that has always been, I mean, the army's worked with journalists for decades, you know, forever, really.
15:04:
(Ann Applebaum)
And I'm sure there are people in that building who are really upset about what's happening.
15:07:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah, I think another possible reason here is just simply Pete Hegg says paranoia.
15:12:
(Tim Miller)
That circle has kind of shrunk, but early in the administration, there were a lot of those kind of leaks and stories going out profiles of how paranoid he was and how he's freaking out at people and how he's giving people polygraphs and stuff.
15:23:
(Tim Miller)
I don't really have any reason to believe that that has ended in the subsequent period of time, right?
15:29:
(Tim Miller)
And so this might be motivated by that.
15:32:
(Tim Miller)
Like he wants these people out of the buildings because he's so paranoid.
15:35:
(Ann Applebaum)
Maybe, but it doesn't mean they won't report.
15:38:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah, right.
15:39:
(Ann Applebaum)
You know, and it doesn't mean people won't leak.
15:40:
(Ann Applebaum)
So it's a very strange way to be paranoid.
15:44:
(Ann Applebaum)
I guess if you're paranoid, you're paranoid.
15:45:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah.
15:46:
(Tim Miller)
That's what you do.
15:47:
(Tim Miller)
Paranoid people do paranoid weird stuff.
15:48:
(Ann Applebaum)
You make mistakes.
15:49:
(Ann Applebaum)
I don't know Pete Hexas, so I don't know whether, you know, I can't make any judgments about it.
15:53:
(Tim Miller)
And then the ice, the show your papers stuff.
15:56:
(Tim Miller)
And just the parallels are pretty striking.
15:58:
(Tim Miller)
I know you just said earlier, you don't want to always make the parallels, but like, how can you not?
16:02:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, this was, you know, another time story out this morning.
16:05:
(Tim Miller)
I saw that just that reporter just witnessed this.
16:08:
(Tim Miller)
This was not like one of the things got put out by a group.
16:10:
(Tim Miller)
It was like an unmarked black car.
16:13:
(Tim Miller)
Two people are running next to the lake.
16:16:
(Tim Miller)
Agents jump out, ask them what their legal status is.
16:18:
(Tim Miller)
They say they have H1Bs.
16:20:
(Tim Miller)
They're detained for a little bit and they're like, they're let go.
16:22:
(Tim Miller)
And like that, that's just a one tiny example, but this stuff is happening.
16:26:
(Ann Applebaum)
all over the city i mean all over the country really but particularly in chicago look i mean it's a violation of how we've done law enforcement forever
16:35:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, at least in modern times.
16:38:
(Ann Applebaum)
Approaching people without cause, people who clearly aren't criminals.
16:42:
(Ann Applebaum)
It's also this use of civilian cars and people wearing masks.
16:47:
(Ann Applebaum)
And there's no tradition of that, again, in contemporary American history.
16:51:
(Tim Miller)
East Germany.
16:53:
(Ann Applebaum)
East Germany.
16:54:
(Ann Applebaum)
Our soldiers wear name tags.
16:56:
(Ann Applebaum)
And our policemen wear name tags.
16:59:
(Ann Applebaum)
And that's on purpose because that's part of how you build trust in the police.
17:03:
(Ann Applebaum)
And the idea of having...
17:05:
(Ann Applebaum)
some kind of paramilitary force that wears face masks.
17:09:
(Ann Applebaum)
I've talked a lot about, you know, other democracies that have declined and so on.
17:13:
(Ann Applebaum)
And, you know, Viktor Orban's Hungary.
17:15:
(Ann Applebaum)
I don't remember that happening there.
17:17:
(Tim Miller)
What is the view on that?
17:18:
(Tim Miller)
Is that the thing that is maybe the most striking in your conversations with people in Europe, people in Poland and elsewhere?
17:25:
(Tim Miller)
Like, is the masked domestic agents the thing?
17:29:
(Tim Miller)
Obviously, they have more acute interests about NATO, etc.
17:32:
(Tim Miller)
But just kind of watching America from afar, you know, what is the reaction to that?
17:37:
(Ann Applebaum)
Remember that they hear news very selectively.
17:40:
(Ann Applebaum)
You know, they don't follow it day to day.
17:42:
(Ann Applebaum)
They don't follow anybody on social media.
17:44:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, they just hear the big news stories.
17:46:
(Ann Applebaum)
And they have all heard the stories about Chicago.
17:49:
(Ann Applebaum)
And they all know who Governor Pritzker is.
17:51:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, if they read the newspapers.
17:52:
(Ann Applebaum)
And they all know about National Guard troops being sent there and so on.
17:56:
(Ann Applebaum)
And so, yes, the ICE stories and the police stories are having a huge play there.
18:02:
(Ann Applebaum)
Right.
18:02:
(Ann Applebaum)
But, you know, it's not really separable.
18:04:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, the idea of the U.S. as the leader of the democratic world, this is the article that I just wrote that I know you want to talk about, as the leader of the democratic world was connected to also what America was at home.
18:20:
(Ann Applebaum)
America was often hypocritical and we often broke our own laws and so on, and that long tradition of that going back to the very beginning.
18:27:
(Ann Applebaum)
But America was, especially in Europe, and I think especially in the Asian allies in Japan, South Korea, America stood for a certain way of behavior and a certain kind of political leadership.
18:40:
(Ann Applebaum)
The American language about rule of law, we've gone all over the world and talked about why rule of law is important for many, many years.
18:48:
(Ann Applebaum)
Other people bought it and they tried to bring it to their own countries if they didn't have it before.
18:53:
(Ann Applebaum)
And they tried to
18:54:
(Ann Applebaum)
They created constitutional democracies, not necessarily exactly modeled on ours, but with the idea of ours as a kind of lodestone, you know, kind of not a precise model, but an inspiration.
19:05:
(Ann Applebaum)
And the idea that we are suddenly going back on that, or we are suddenly creating all these institutions that they've all tried to get rid of.
19:12:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, if you come from a formerly communist country or a formalist fascist country, which is almost everybody, then you remember these kinds of
19:20:
(Ann Applebaum)
paramilitary forces from your past and you also remember that your country got out of that or escaped from that partly by aspiring to be more like America and by wanting to be part of an alliance with America.
19:35:
(Ann Applebaum)
And so those things aren't really separable for people.
19:37:
(Ann Applebaum)
And so the U.S. is doing a lot of damage.
19:39:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, obviously, it's more important what happens in America to Americans, but it's also doing a lot of damage to its standing and its image and its influence in the world by assaulting its own institutions.
19:55:
(Tim Miller)
The title of the article you're referencing is Beacon of Democracy Goes Dark.
19:58:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, the idea of the U.S. as a leader of the free world just feels kind of silly at this point.
20:02:
(Tim Miller)
It's just over.
20:04:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, just functionally speaking.
20:06:
(Tim Miller)
And a part of that is the abdication.
20:08:
(Tim Miller)
And you get into this in the piece, not just of the policies, because, you know, we always had some, you know, you can just ask black Americans.
20:16:
(Tim Miller)
We always had people that were, you know, victims of our government's anti-rule of law, anti-democratic policies.
20:22:
(Tim Miller)
moves domestically but but there was always like this kind of aspiration you know a goal to reach right then these guys just have basically stopped that part right they're like it is not as if oh we're being hypocritical at home it's like their stated message to the world is basically that the u.s is now open for business we can do corrupt deals and like that's fine now like that it is
20:47:
(Tim Miller)
silly or boomerish or eye rolly to even talk about, you know, advancing democracy.
20:54:
(Tim Miller)
Like that's some kind of neocon thing from the past.
20:57:
(Tim Miller)
And just the premise that we're trying to promote democracy rule of law is over.
21:05:
(Ann Applebaum)
I don't know if it's over forever, but it's definitely over for the moment.
21:08:
(Ann Applebaum)
And let me, if I can have one second to go back a little in time.
21:13:
(Ann Applebaum)
That the U.S. was a model for other democracies has been true since 1776.
21:17:
(Ann Applebaum)
And the Declaration of Independence was passed around and reprinted in all kinds of places.
21:22:
(Ann Applebaum)
It was an inspiration for the French Revolution, inspiration for the Haitian Revolution not that long afterwards.
21:28:
(Ann Applebaum)
That language has always been used and copied, even despite what good or bad we were doing at home or abroad.
21:34:
(Ann Applebaum)
Since 1945, certainly since the Second World War, the language of democracy has definitely been part of our foreign policy, going through, you know, many, many administrations which were not neocon or neoliberal.
21:49:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, you know,
21:50:
(Ann Applebaum)
Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, you know, everybody, Teddy Roosevelt, a little earlier, but everybody certainly in the last 80 years has used that language for 70 years.
22:03:
(Ann Applebaum)
And one of the mistakes I think we made in thinking about that, this is one of the arguments I've come to actually over time, was that, you know, we always thought that by promoting democracy abroad or having troops in Europe or in South Korea, that we were doing a favor to those countries.
22:20:
(Ann Applebaum)
that we were somehow, you know, defending Europe, you know, to help the Europeans.
22:25:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, in retrospect, by putting that language, the defense of democracy at the center of our foreign policy for a long time, I think it had a unifying effect at home.
22:37:
(Ann Applebaum)
It was a thing that people could be linked to that could inspire people, even in times when bad things were happening here.
22:47:
(Ann Applebaum)
The idea that this is what America stood for, this is our national identity, and this is our international identity, I think it was really important for Americans.
22:56:
(Ann Applebaum)
There's a famous moment during arguments about segregation where there's an amicus brief filed by the U.S. Department of Justice for the Supreme Court case in Brown v. Board of Education where they make an explicit reference to this.
23:10:
(Ann Applebaum)
They say, I don't remember, I don't have the exact quote in front of me, but it's something like, people abroad will question our devotion to the democratic faith.
23:18:
(Ann Applebaum)
They use the expression democratic faith.
23:20:
(Ann Applebaum)
if we aren't treating all American citizens equally.
23:24:
(Ann Applebaum)
And this idea that there was a thing called the democratic faith was really important for unifying a really diverse and very heterogeneous, very enormous country with people from all different places, with all different ideas and all different religions.
23:42:
(Ann Applebaum)
And that was the thing that we were unified.
23:44:
(Ann Applebaum)
That's the thing that kept us together.
23:46:
(Ann Applebaum)
And it feels at the moment like the administration wants to
23:49:
(Ann Applebaum)
destroy that abroad, obviously, and no longer have the US be the center of a big series of democratic alliances.
23:56:
(Ann Applebaum)
But the impact of that at home is also pretty big.
23:59:
(Ann Applebaum)
You know, if that's not what we are anymore, what are we unified around?
24:04:
(Ann Applebaum)
You know, what is the national identity?
24:05:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, is it white people?
24:07:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, I don't think so.
24:09:
(Ann Applebaum)
I don't think that's going to work for everybody.
24:11:
(Tim Miller)
Seems like J.D.
24:11:
(Tim Miller)
Vance thinks so.
24:12:
(Tim Miller)
You're pretty good on this quote here.
24:14:
(Tim Miller)
This was Dean Acheson in the Department of Justice had filed the amicus brief, and it said, racial discrimination raises doubts even among friendly nations as to the intensity of our devotion to the democratic faith in that brief.
24:26:
(Ann Applebaum)
It's a famous note.
24:27:
(Ann Applebaum)
And I know that behind the scenes in that era, that was part of the argument in favor of civil rights.
24:32:
(Ann Applebaum)
The idea was that our failure to treat our citizens equally at home is damaging for us, you know, because people felt this, you know, this contradiction between what we stood for, what we said we stood for and what we were doing.
24:46:
(Ann Applebaum)
And that was part of how we got the Civil Rights Act and the civil rights, you know, changes to rights for all Americans.
24:53:
(Tim Miller)
All right.
24:53:
(Tim Miller)
So this is where I go just dark for a second on you, because this is why I do think it's kind of over is doesn't it have to be a bipartisan commitment to the democratic faith in a country that's basically a two party system, right?
25:05:
(Tim Miller)
Sure.
25:06:
(Tim Miller)
Like the Democrats could win in 2028 and there could be an internationalist Democrat that talks about the ideals of democracy and rule of law.
25:13:
(Tim Miller)
It's a president in 2029.
25:14:
(Tim Miller)
But if you get into a place where countries abroad, leaders abroad think, well, this is only a commitment that they have as long as these guys are in charge.
25:23:
(Tim Miller)
If the other guys gets back in charge, they won't care about that anymore and they'll go back to whatever you want to call it, real politique, the nicest way you could call it, like a divorce from those values.
25:36:
(Tim Miller)
That doesn't work, right?
25:38:
(Tim Miller)
Because we can't be relied upon to care about that.
25:40:
(Tim Miller)
So other countries will change their actions, right?
25:43:
(Tim Miller)
to meet that new instability, right?
25:47:
(Ann Applebaum)
Yeah.
25:48:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, that's happening.
25:50:
(Ann Applebaum)
Yeah.
25:50:
(Ann Applebaum)
You know, although nobody says so in public, I mean, almost every European country is now looking at how to reconfigure their security in the event that the United States is no longer an ally, how to think differently about economics and trade and
26:07:
(Ann Applebaum)
There were a lot of decisions, a lot of investments were made on the assumption that the relationship, this is about Europe, which I know the best, although I'm sure it's true of other countries, on the assumption that the presumption the United States was a very stable ally and that there was a predictable long-term relationship.
26:25:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, if you're a
26:26:
(Ann Applebaum)
I know you're a Dutch company or you're a Danish company.
26:29:
(Ann Applebaum)
You want to make a huge investment in America.
26:31:
(Ann Applebaum)
You do that because you feel like, well, the legal system is compatible and the trade rules are going to be predictable.
26:37:
(Ann Applebaum)
And so I can trust it.
26:39:
(Ann Applebaum)
And that has now gone.
26:41:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, and you're, and you're right, that's not coming back.
26:43:
(Ann Applebaum)
And so it just doesn't mean people won't make investments, but they will do so differently and at a different pace and with different kinds of safeguards.
26:51:
(Ann Applebaum)
And yeah,
26:52:
(Ann Applebaum)
The assumptions that were almost unspoken about how America and Europe work together are all being questioned right now.
27:02:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, I talk to a lot of different kinds of European audiences at different times, and this is what everybody says.
27:09:
(Tim Miller)
You know, I think about kind of the younger generation coming up again, kind of harkening back to that text chain, even though some of those guys aren't that young on the Republican, young Republican chat.
27:19:
(Tim Miller)
But, you know, I go to TPSA things and hear from those young people about their worldview.
27:24:
(Tim Miller)
I think you think about kind of the worldview of the types of college student that was showing up to the protests about Gaza happening.
27:32:
(Tim Miller)
I think a lot of them would listen to this conversation and roll their eyes a little bit.
27:36:
(Tim Miller)
And just be like, this is all stupid boomer stuff.
27:39:
(Tim Miller)
It's out of date.
27:41:
(Tim Miller)
This democracy promotion.
27:42:
(Tim Miller)
On the left, people would say, well, this obviously was this huge failure.
27:46:
(Tim Miller)
If you look at the Iraq War and stuff, we need to go a different route.
27:48:
(Tim Miller)
And on the right, you'd hear that.
27:50:
(Tim Miller)
Iraq War was a failure.
27:51:
(Tim Miller)
But as I was reading your article...
27:53:
(Tim Miller)
It's striking, and you kind of go through all the countries that joined the democratic world over the past 70 years, Greece and Spain and South Korea and Taiwan and countries in Central Europe, and imagining the counterfactual world, right?
28:12:
(Tim Miller)
All those countries are varying degrees of authoritarian kleptocracies.
28:17:
(Tim Miller)
That is bad for the world.
28:19:
(Tim Miller)
It's bad for individuals that live in those countries.
28:20:
(Tim Miller)
It's bad for us in America.
28:22:
(Tim Miller)
But that argument feels like it's losing right now.
28:25:
(Tim Miller)
Do you sense that?
28:27:
(Ann Applebaum)
So Iraq is a very bad example.
28:29:
(Ann Applebaum)
You know, we invaded Iraq for a lot of different reasons, and later somebody got the idea that this was about democracy, but that was not, you know, that was actually atypical of the post-war period.
28:41:
(Ann Applebaum)
You know, most of the countries that became democracies and aspired to be part of an alliance with the United States did so peacefully or relatively peacefully.
28:51:
(Ann Applebaum)
And there was a huge expansion of the democratic world after the Second World War, and it was led or inspired
28:57:
(Ann Applebaum)
or somehow encouraged by us.
28:59:
(Ann Applebaum)
And so there is a long list of huge successes.
29:02:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, as you know, I lived part of the time in Poland, and Poland is actually by any measure a success, economically, politically, and every other way.
29:11:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, it was a basket case.
29:13:
(Ann Applebaum)
It was a victim of other countries for 100 years, and now it's not.
29:18:
(Ann Applebaum)
So we had this long experience of success.
29:23:
(Ann Applebaum)
We are at a moment where
29:25:
(Ann Applebaum)
the pendulum is swung the other way.
29:27:
(Ann Applebaum)
And the forces of doubt and cynicism and also corruption and secrecy is a big inspiration for a lot of autocrats.
29:40:
(Ann Applebaum)
And money and corruption are pushing a lot of countries in the opposite direction.
29:45:
(Ann Applebaum)
So I don't know how broad you want to look at it, but I mean, there is a, my other book topic, I mean, there is a coalition of autocratic states who have spent the last decade trying to push back, trying to find the propaganda and the tools to push back against the democratic world because our language, that language that the 35 year olds or however old they are, young Republicans make fun of, our language was such a big threat to them.
30:08:
(Ann Applebaum)
Since, you know, 2010, the Russians have been trying to find ways to find language that undermined democracy, that made fun of NATO, that reduced the power and influence of America and culminating in the invasion of Ukraine, which was designed to show that America is helpless and NATO is worthless.
30:25:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, they haven't succeeded in that yet, but it's not a plot and it's not a, you know, it's not a conspiracy, but there has been a lot of pressure put on
30:36:
(Ann Applebaum)
on the scale from the other side.
30:38:
(Ann Applebaum)
There are a lot of people in the world who don't like transparency and don't like the rule of law and want to have different kinds of political systems.
30:45:
(Ann Applebaum)
And of course, they're threatened by their own protesters, by Navalny in Russia or Hong Kong
30:54:
(Tim Miller)
And the political memory of this stuff starts to fade, right?
30:56:
(Tim Miller)
Like the people that lived through the greatest period of successes and where a lot of these countries became democracies are getting old or dying.
31:05:
(Ann Applebaum)
Yeah, I hate to say it, but no, I was in Poland in 1989 when communism fell.
31:09:
(Ann Applebaum)
And so that I guess I'm one of the group of old people that...
31:13:
(Tim Miller)
Me too.
31:14:
(Tim Miller)
I'm on the younger side of it.
31:16:
(Tim Miller)
I don't know.
31:17:
(Tim Miller)
It's just something I think about a lot.
31:18:
(Tim Miller)
You mentioned Ukraine.
31:20:
(Tim Miller)
You had another article about that recently, talking about how Ukraine is targeting Russian oil and gas.
31:25:
(Tim Miller)
You visited a company called Firepoint, talked about what they were doing.
31:29:
(Tim Miller)
Since then, since you've written that, our...
31:31:
(Tim Miller)
president has had maybe a temporary, maybe permanent, who knows, change of hearts, it seems, on the war a little bit.
31:38:
(Tim Miller)
And there's some discussion that more offensive weapons will be sent to Ukraine.
31:43:
(Tim Miller)
What's your sense of the state of play?
31:45:
(Ann Applebaum)
So Ukrainians are very sanguine.
31:48:
(Ann Applebaum)
Of course, they would like the American president to give them more offensive weapons.
31:52:
(Ann Applebaum)
And if he does, they will use them and they will be very happy.
31:55:
(Ann Applebaum)
There's no question about that.
31:57:
(Ann Applebaum)
But they have also focused for the last year on building their own weapons.
32:02:
(Ann Applebaum)
And the thing that they built, and this is them, not us, the thing they built that has been unusually successful are the
32:10:
(Ann Applebaum)
different kinds of long-range drones.
32:13:
(Ann Applebaum)
And so the factory I went to makes these drones that are like little airplanes.
32:17:
(Ann Applebaum)
They look like planes.
32:18:
(Ann Applebaum)
They're much bigger than what you think of as a drone.
32:21:
(Ann Applebaum)
They can fly for seven hours.
32:22:
(Ann Applebaum)
They carry warheads.
32:24:
(Ann Applebaum)
The factory I went to, it's one of many, but it's one of the more advanced ones.
32:28:
(Ann Applebaum)
And they make 100 of these huge drones every day.
32:31:
(Ann Applebaum)
And I was told that they launch 100 of them every day.
32:34:
(Ann Applebaum)
So as soon as they're made, they go up in the air.
32:36:
(Ann Applebaum)
And there are several dozen drone attacks on Russian military facilities and in the last few months on Russian oil refineries and other pieces of equipment to do with the oil industry.
32:49:
(Ann Applebaum)
And the goal is to deprive the Russians of money so that they can't keep the war going so that the oligarchs suffer.
32:55:
(Ann Applebaum)
One of the effects of it has been that there's been this massive gas shortage across Russia, people queuing for gasoline and diesel.
33:05:
(Ann Applebaum)
So it's having an effect.
33:07:
(Ann Applebaum)
Of course, what the Ukrainians want is a U.S. contribution, but they don't
33:12:
(Ann Applebaum)
count on it.
33:13:
(Ann Applebaum)
The idea that the Ukraine war can only be won by the U.S. is one, I think, is an idea they want to fight back against.
33:20:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, I suppose there is one important element were Trump to make this decision.
33:25:
(Ann Applebaum)
This is also, like all wars, this one has a psychological element.
33:30:
(Ann Applebaum)
And one of the things that Trump did when he first came to office and he attacked Zelensky in the Oval Office and he had the meeting with Putin in Alaska was he gave the Russian leadership this belief that they could still win.
33:41:
(Ann Applebaum)
It sort of reinforced their confidence.
33:44:
(Ann Applebaum)
Right.
33:44:
(Ann Applebaum)
We can keep going.
33:45:
(Ann Applebaum)
You know, we don't need to have a ceasefire.
33:47:
(Ann Applebaum)
You know, the American president is not going to do anything.
33:49:
(Ann Applebaum)
Nobody's going to do anything.
33:50:
(Ann Applebaum)
So it was a it was a reinforcement of their strategy, which remains the same as it always was.
33:55:
(Ann Applebaum)
They've never changed their language.
33:57:
(Ann Applebaum)
They're always their goal is to destroy Ukraine as a nation and to remove Zelensky and to expand the Russian Empire.
34:04:
(Ann Applebaum)
And it's never they've never dropped that.
34:06:
(Ann Applebaum)
Despite all this talk about ceasefire, they never they never promised one.
34:10:
(Ann Applebaum)
You know, were Trump to start using different language in a consistent way, you know, that would help the inevitable process of the Russians coming to understand that they can't win the war.
34:22:
(Ann Applebaum)
You know, had he done that in January, you know, we might be closer to the end of the war now, but instead we've lost, you know, six months, eight months.
34:29:
(Ann Applebaum)
It would be useful if he did that, but it's not like the Ukrainians are desperate for American weapons and they'll, you know, the front line will collapse if they don't have them.
34:37:
(Tim Miller)
What's your sense for how dire the straits are in Russia and all this incident?
34:40:
(Tim Miller)
It's hard to kind of to kind of break through all the messaging and counter messaging on all this about the Russian economy.
34:46:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, there have been some people saying the Russian economy is on its last legs for years now.
34:50:
(Tim Miller)
And, you know, you have others that, you know, are like Tucker Carlson or whatever that spread misinformation about how great things are in Russia.
34:57:
(Tim Miller)
They got the best grocery stores.
34:58:
(Tim Miller)
Like what's your sense, like the actual situation with their economic economic threat?
35:05:
(Ann Applebaum)
This is partly an unserious answer.
35:06:
(Ann Applebaum)
I was in a very large American grocery store recently, and I thought of that Tucker Carlson comment.
35:10:
(Ann Applebaum)
And I wondered actually whether he had ever been in an American grocery store.
35:14:
(Ann Applebaum)
Maybe he hasn't.
35:15:
(Tim Miller)
Maybe not.
35:16:
(Tim Miller)
Not for a while.
35:16:
(Ann Applebaum)
Maybe he hadn't for a while and then didn't know how big and large they are.
35:21:
(Ann Applebaum)
So the Russian economy is very hard.
35:23:
(Ann Applebaum)
It's very hard to measure because we don't know how good the statistics are.
35:26:
(Ann Applebaum)
There are some things we know.
35:27:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, their oil imports are low.
35:28:
(Ann Applebaum)
They're beginning to drop.
35:31:
(Ann Applebaum)
This is because of the Ukrainian attacks.
35:33:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, we know there have been gas shortages because we've seen the pictures and I think even the Russian media was forced to report on them.
35:39:
(Ann Applebaum)
We know that inflation is very high.
35:41:
(Ann Applebaum)
We know there's all kinds of dislocations in the economy.
35:44:
(Ann Applebaum)
You know, I think the piece that is missing and is really unknowable is...
35:49:
(Ann Applebaum)
what impact these kinds of things can have on the leadership.
35:54:
(Ann Applebaum)
So in our country, when there's inflation or when the price of eggs is high, that can have an immediate political result, right?
36:02:
(Ann Applebaum)
Because it changes the way people vote.
36:04:
(Ann Applebaum)
In Russia, people don't really get to vote.
36:06:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, they vote, but it doesn't count.
36:07:
(Ann Applebaum)
So
36:08:
(Ann Applebaum)
There's only one candidate.
36:09:
(Ann Applebaum)
So there isn't a mechanism that translates economic hardship into policy change in any way.
36:16:
(Ann Applebaum)
But there will come a point eventually in Moscow, and maybe we're close to it, and we could be closer depending on the actions of this administration, when enough people will say this war isn't worth it and it's costing too much and too many people have died and we don't want to fight anymore.
36:33:
(Ann Applebaum)
You know, this is a colonial war.
36:35:
(Ann Applebaum)
And so you can compare it, for example, to the French war in Algeria or the Portuguese wars in Africa.
36:40:
(Ann Applebaum)
You know, eventually the colonial power says, right, you know, it's not worth it.
36:44:
(Ann Applebaum)
And very often that decision brings with it a lot of political turmoil.
36:49:
(Ann Applebaum)
And so it may be that, you know, Putin is hanging on because he's afraid of the consequences of that decision.
36:55:
(Ann Applebaum)
But, you know, it will be made sooner or later.
36:58:
(Tim Miller)
I want to go to Venezuela.
36:59:
(Tim Miller)
You wrote about Maria Machado and the priest prize that she won to Donald Chagrin.
37:04:
(Tim Miller)
And the Venezuela situation is so interesting.
37:07:
(Tim Miller)
And on the one hand, I'm obviously extremely sympathetic to getting rid of Maduro and bringing freedom to Venezuela.
37:16:
(Tim Miller)
And I want to hear more about Maria Machado and her work.
37:20:
(Tim Miller)
Then simultaneously, it feels kind of crazy.
37:23:
(Tim Miller)
I guess Donald Trump said that he approved CIA agents going into Venezuela.
37:27:
(Tim Miller)
It seems like a strange target for the U.S. as far as regime change is concerned, especially given what we were talking about earlier about the broader rhetoric that the administration is using in other parts of the globe.
37:39:
(Tim Miller)
So I guess just give us a sense for what exactly is the state of play there.
37:43:
(Ann Applebaum)
So it's really important when you think about Venezuela to be able to keep two ideas in your mind at the same time.
37:49:
(Ann Applebaum)
And I know that's very difficult for all of us.
37:51:
(Tim Miller)
I'm good at that.
37:52:
(Tim Miller)
I got that.
37:53:
(Tim Miller)
You can do it.
37:53:
(Tim Miller)
I've got a lot of flaws, but that one I can handle.
37:56:
(Ann Applebaum)
Okay.
37:56:
(Ann Applebaum)
On the one hand, it is a brutal and ugly regime in Venezuela.
38:01:
(Ann Applebaum)
Maduro held a presidential election last year, which he lost.
38:04:
(Ann Applebaum)
He lost it following a really extraordinary election campaign in which the Venezuelan opposition, which had been notoriously divided for a long time, managed to unite.
38:14:
(Ann Applebaum)
They united around a single figure, and that was Maria Carina Machado.
38:19:
(Ann Applebaum)
The regime barred her from running, and so the actual presidential candidate was someone else.
38:24:
(Ann Applebaum)
It was a retired diplomat called Edmundo Gonzalez, who's now in Spain.
38:29:
(Ann Applebaum)
And they came together.
38:31:
(Ann Applebaum)
People voted.
38:32:
(Ann Applebaum)
There was enormous pressure on the opposition.
38:34:
(Ann Applebaum)
People were arrested.
38:35:
(Ann Applebaum)
People were killed during the election campaign.
38:36:
(Ann Applebaum)
And yet people still voted.
38:38:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, we think voter suppression is bad here.
38:42:
(Ann Applebaum)
This is at a different level.
38:44:
(Ann Applebaum)
And then not only did they win, but they had constructed a system before the election of a way of keeping track of the tallies, the sort of bits of paper that
38:54:
(Ann Applebaum)
You know, produced by each or the computers produced at each polling station.
39:00:
(Ann Applebaum)
So then not only did they win, they could prove they won.
39:02:
(Ann Applebaum)
Nevertheless, the regime announced, you know, we're staying in power.
39:06:
(Ann Applebaum)
They never just they never produced their own tally sheets.
39:09:
(Ann Applebaum)
They never produced their alternative numbers, but they but Maduro refused to leave.
39:14:
(Ann Applebaum)
A lot of people wound up leaving the country.
39:16:
(Ann Applebaum)
Machado herself is in hiding.
39:17:
(Ann Applebaum)
I've actually spoken to her twice, but I don't know where she is.
39:20:
(Ann Applebaum)
The people are at a very high level repression.
39:23:
(Ann Applebaum)
I actually met a group of Venezuelans who were here in Washington a couple of days ago, and one of them had a mother in prison and one of them had a boyfriend in prison.
39:31:
(Ann Applebaum)
So it's very, very, very repressive and ugly regime.
39:35:
(Ann Applebaum)
And I think the Venezuelan opposition would do pretty much anything to see it gone.
39:40:
(Ann Applebaum)
And some people have been offended by Machado saying on receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, she mentioned Donald Trump and her acceptance and dedicated it partly to him.
39:51:
(Ann Applebaum)
And that bothered a lot of Americans.
39:52:
(Ann Applebaum)
But of course, their concern is Venezuela.
39:56:
(Ann Applebaum)
And if Trump can do any, I mean, I put her in the same category as the NATO leaders who say obsequious things to
40:03:
(Ann Applebaum)
to Trump or the British prime minister inviting Trump to London.
40:07:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah.
40:07:
(Tim Miller)
It's not their fault.
40:08:
(Tim Miller)
We elected this fucking moron twice, you know?
40:11:
(Ann Applebaum)
Yeah.
40:12:
(Ann Applebaum)
I'm glad you put it that way.
40:12:
(Tim Miller)
They got to live in the real world.
40:13:
(Tim Miller)
It's our, it's our problem.
40:15:
(Tim Miller)
We can't get mad at them.
40:16:
(Ann Applebaum)
And I'm just, I'm not imposing purity tests about what she said and difference to say on somebody who's in exile, not in exile, excuse me, in hiding.
40:24:
(Ann Applebaum)
So that's, that's one story.
40:25:
(Ann Applebaum)
Then the second story is what the administration plans to do in Venezuela and
40:30:
(Ann Applebaum)
I'm not sure exactly what they're going to do, but there is talk of so-called kinetic actions.
40:35:
(Ann Applebaum)
So some, it's not just the CIA, but maybe some
40:39:
(Ann Applebaum)
strikes, I don't know, on Venezuela.
40:41:
(Ann Applebaum)
There's a lot of US military assets being gathered in Puerto Rico and around the area.
40:46:
(Ann Applebaum)
There's clearly some planning going on.
40:49:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, I would be amazed if there hadn't been CIA people in Venezuela for a long time.
40:54:
(Ann Applebaum)
I doubt they showed up this week.
40:57:
(Ann Applebaum)
But there's clearly some military action planning.
40:59:
(Ann Applebaum)
You know, there have been these strikes on boats, which, by the way, whether those were drug dealers or fishermen are
41:05:
(Ann Applebaum)
those were extrajudicial murders.
41:07:
(Ann Applebaum)
You know, we're already in the realm of war crimes.
41:09:
(Tim Miller)
Which does cut against the whole Peace Prize desire, right?
41:12:
(Tim Miller)
It's doing the war crimes.
41:13:
(Ann Applebaum)
It cuts against the Peace Prize desire.
41:15:
(Ann Applebaum)
It does.
41:16:
(Ann Applebaum)
It does.
41:16:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, I have another fear about the action.
41:19:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, obviously it could backfire in different ways.
41:21:
(Ann Applebaum)
It could create a backlash or, you know, I mean, the Venezuelans don't think this would happen, but maybe, you know, nobody likes to be invaded by America and Latin America.
41:30:
(Ann Applebaum)
So there, there might be a, you know,
41:33:
(Ann Applebaum)
rally to the flag.
41:34:
(Ann Applebaum)
Again, my opposition doesn't think that would happen, but who knows?
41:38:
(Tim Miller)
We did give him a PR win.
41:39:
(Tim Miller)
It's just worth saying with the El Salvador prison camp.
41:42:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, Maduro did get a nice little PR victory there, bringing back the people that we had interned in El Salvador.
41:51:
(Tim Miller)
And he got that deal, which maybe we were involved in with Bukele.
41:56:
(Tim Miller)
And those Venezuelans came home and there's a lot of coverage of that.
41:59:
(Tim Miller)
So it's possible that it could backfire.
42:02:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah.
42:02:
(Ann Applebaum)
And believe me that the Venezuelans in Venezuela know that their relatives and countrymen are targets in the U.S. and they're targets of ICE.
42:11:
(Ann Applebaum)
And that's also, you know, that's horrible.
42:13:
(Ann Applebaum)
I mean, these are people who escaped this very vicious and brutal dictatorship, and then they become targets inside the United States.
42:20:
(Ann Applebaum)
So that's created a huge amount of desperation and fear.
42:23:
(Ann Applebaum)
So I don't think they have any illusions about Trump.
42:26:
(Ann Applebaum)
There's one thing that worries me, and this is maybe, I don't have any...
42:31:
(Ann Applebaum)
proof of this.
42:32:
(Ann Applebaum)
What I'm worried about is that, I don't know if it's going to be an invasion or some kind of military action, some kind of something, attack on Venezuela.
42:42:
(Ann Applebaum)
I worry about how it will be used in the U.S. as part of the domestic narrative.
42:46:
(Ann Applebaum)
You know, we're fighting a war against terrorism and drugs and crime, and we're doing it in Venezuela, and we're doing it here, and that therefore it requires extra measures of
42:57:
(Ann Applebaum)
And greater crackdown and more police.
43:00:
(Ann Applebaum)
That's my fear about it, is how it will be used inside the United States.
43:06:
(Ann Applebaum)
And of course, that's of no concern to Venezuelans.
43:09:
(Ann Applebaum)
You know, this is our problem, not theirs.
43:12:
(Ann Applebaum)
And I understand why they want their regime gone.
43:15:
(Ann Applebaum)
So those are the two ideas I want you to hold in your head at the same time.
43:19:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah.
43:19:
(Tim Miller)
Okay, I've got that.
43:20:
(Tim Miller)
You know, it's hard sometimes, but I can handle it.
43:24:
(Tim Miller)
We're running out of time.
43:25:
(Tim Miller)
Is there anything else you want to pop off on before I have two non-politics topics for you?
43:30:
(Ann Applebaum)
Ask me the non-politics topics.
43:32:
(Tim Miller)
Okay, we're ready to move on.
43:33:
(Tim Miller)
We have an informal Ann Applebaum book club that's been created.
43:36:
(Tim Miller)
The listeners like it.
43:38:
(Tim Miller)
You suggested The Captive Mind, The Oppermans, and The Director in past podcasts.
43:43:
(Tim Miller)
I want to say I read the first two.
43:45:
(Tim Miller)
People ask me,
43:46:
(Tim Miller)
This is going to be a humble brag, which I didn't mean it to be, but it's already halfway up my mouth, so I'm going to say it.
43:51:
(Tim Miller)
They're like, how are you doing so many podcasts?
43:53:
(Tim Miller)
How are you doing so much stuff?
43:55:
(Tim Miller)
I see you everywhere.
43:56:
(Tim Miller)
And the answer is kind of sad, which is there are things I've cut out of my life, which is I'm not reading.
44:02:
(Tim Miller)
I'm not going to the movies.
44:03:
(Tim Miller)
And so I've not read the director yet, which I feel bad about.
44:07:
(Tim Miller)
And so I'm trying to...
44:08:
(Tim Miller)
you know, do better myself this winter at actually reading and learning things besides reading, you know, the news, besides reading the Atlantic, reading things a little bit more distance.
44:19:
(Tim Miller)
Anyway, some of our listeners don't have that problem, though.
44:21:
(Tim Miller)
So do you have a fourth book for them for the Ann Applebaum Book Club?
44:25:
(Ann Applebaum)
First of all, the director is a really great book.
44:27:
(Ann Applebaum)
It's sitting down there.
44:28:
(Tim Miller)
It's a novel.
44:29:
(Tim Miller)
It's been right on my kitchen counter for about two months now or whenever you're last down here.
44:33:
(Ann Applebaum)
And it has parallels with the current – so the book, I have just read another novel.
44:38:
(Ann Applebaum)
I find novels actually help me a lot because it's –
44:40:
(Ann Applebaum)
You enter a different world and it's like a relief.
44:44:
(Ann Applebaum)
It helps you deal with too many contemporary events.
44:48:
(Ann Applebaum)
This one is called What We Know.
44:49:
(Ann Applebaum)
And it's by Ian McEwen, who's one of the great British novelists writing today.
44:54:
(Ann Applebaum)
It has a lot of different themes.
44:56:
(Ann Applebaum)
And one of the things I like about it is it's written from the vantage point of someone who lives in the future, but not that far in the future, like 100 years from now.
45:04:
(Ann Applebaum)
And it's about the central figure is an academic looking back at our time and
45:08:
(Tim Miller)
This must be going around the Atlantic, the water cooler, because Frank Foer recommended this book as well three days ago.
45:14:
(Tim Miller)
Oh, really?
45:14:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah.
45:15:
(Ann Applebaum)
Oh, really?
45:16:
(Ann Applebaum)
Oh, I didn't know that.
45:17:
(Tim Miller)
No, no, that's great, though.
45:18:
(Tim Miller)
I didn't know that.
45:19:
(Tim Miller)
It validates his – I take your advice a little bit at higher record than his.
45:24:
(Tim Miller)
So it validates that suggestion.
45:26:
(Tim Miller)
Okay.
45:26:
(Ann Applebaum)
No, I wouldn't do that.
45:28:
(Ann Applebaum)
The initial surprise of the book is that he looks back onto our time as this wonderful, amazing, happier era when things were so much better than they are now.
45:38:
(Ann Applebaum)
There's a lot more to the novel than that, but it's a welcome kind of corrective if you think everything is terrible.
45:47:
(Tim Miller)
Okay, great.
45:48:
(Tim Miller)
That's a good one.
45:48:
(Tim Miller)
And also, as per my husband's request, he wants to know what brings you joy.
45:53:
(Tim Miller)
Last night, I saw a Magdalena Bay concert, which brought me joy.
45:58:
(Tim Miller)
So I was able to do that, which maybe I could have been reading during that time instead.
46:01:
(Tim Miller)
So we'll take people out with an uplifting Magdalena Bay song.
46:04:
(Tim Miller)
But you offered your flowers on your Instagram, which we shared so people could see the flowers in Poland.
46:10:
(Tim Miller)
I guess the flowers are probably going down for the winter now.
46:13:
(Tim Miller)
So without flowers, do you have any other joys in your life?
46:17:
(Ann Applebaum)
For me, the real joy is still having dinner with my friends and spending time with people.
46:23:
(Tim Miller)
Do you talk about authoritarian creep with your friends at dinner?
46:27:
(Ann Applebaum)
Sometimes we do.
46:28:
(Ann Applebaum)
Sometimes we talk about other things.
46:30:
(Ann Applebaum)
This is another reading assignment.
46:32:
(Ann Applebaum)
It's a shorter one.
46:33:
(Ann Applebaum)
There's an essay by an Italian novelist called The Choice of Comrades.
46:38:
(Ann Applebaum)
And he's as long as Ignatius Saloni.
46:40:
(Ann Applebaum)
And at the time he wrote it, he was very disillusioned.
46:43:
(Ann Applebaum)
He'd been a communist.
46:44:
(Ann Applebaum)
He had lived through the war.
46:45:
(Ann Applebaum)
You know, all the ideologies had failed.
46:48:
(Ann Applebaum)
And so what is there?
46:50:
(Ann Applebaum)
And it's a long, sort of long essay.
46:52:
(Ann Applebaum)
But the conclusion is the only thing there is, is your friends.
46:57:
(Ann Applebaum)
So find people whose values you admire and who you like and who you care about and stick with them.
47:05:
(Ann Applebaum)
And so when you're choosing, don't choose people because they're right wing or left wing or so that this year that you choose the people who you instinctively know and like, and those are your political comrades and your personal comrades.
47:17:
(Ann Applebaum)
And I, the more I, you know, the more things happen and the more politics changes, the more I think that's true.
47:24:
(Tim Miller)
I love that.
47:25:
(Tim Miller)
What we know, the choice of comrades.
47:27:
(Tim Miller)
I appreciate you.
47:28:
(Tim Miller)
And Alphonse, you always make my job easy.
47:30:
(Tim Miller)
I was going back to your recent articles.
47:32:
(Tim Miller)
I was like, this is great.
47:33:
(Tim Miller)
I'm just going to bring up a country and let you cook for 10 minutes.
47:36:
(Tim Miller)
So I appreciate it very much and hope you can come back again soon.
47:40:
(Tim Miller)
Thanks.
47:41:
(Tim Miller)
Thank you.
47:42:
(Tim Miller)
Everybody else will be back tomorrow for another edition of the podcast.
47:44:
(Tim Miller)
See you all then.
49:06:
(Tim Miller)
The Bulldog Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.