Interview with Anne Applebaum

The best analysis I've seen Trump's nominees so far.

I’ve been traveling the last couple days, so I haven’t had the chance to write you anything (though I have so many topics I want to hit!).

This interview with Anne Applebaum was outstanding—but painful and scary too. Anne has always so clearly articulated the patterns and dangers of autocracy in general and the specifics of the Eastern European and Russian sorts in particular. She is singularly up to the task of helping us understand the ugly moment we find ourselves in. Her analysis of Trump’s early picks seem spot on, and set off serious alarm bells.

If you don’t have the appetite for bleak at the moment, save this one for later.

In addition to Anne’s many trenchant observations, there is one other highlight I’d like to bring out from the interviewer (Ezra Klein). In Klein’s intro, he forcefully pushes back on some of the magical thinking about Trump’s cabinet nominees that many, including myself, have leaned on in recent days. The truth is, we’ve seen this film before, and we know this plot, and my hopeful fantasies about how this plays out are an unlikely twist in this story. Ugh.

I’ve heard some people say that the saving grace of these appointments is that these people, at least in the agencies they are trying to run, they’re inexperienced. They’re ridiculous. They’re incompetent. They won’t get anything done. They might even fail to win confirmation.

That is not a saving grace. That is a signal. In other countries, and at other times, when would-be authoritarians try to consolidate power, they do so by placing fools and jesters into positions of extraordinary power.

The absurdity is a cloak. The fact that they are underestimated is a feature. The loyalty they have to the strongman is the thing. And no one is more loyal than someone that the rest of society looks down on. No one is more loyal than someone who would never get this kind of chance, this opportunity, this power under any other person.

Pretty much all the other great stuff comes from Anne, and I suggest a careful listen.

Here again is the interview.