Autocracy in America

The midterms will mark the beginning of the end of Donald Trump’s second presidency. This season, the podcast asks, “What happens next?” Host Anne Applebaum sits down with leaders in politics, technology, and culture to discuss what can be done now to reverse the slide toward autocracy. 

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When heavily armed agents of the federal government arrived in Minneapolis, the people of the Twin Cities responded with surprising strength. 

In this episode, residents describe what drove them to act, and host Anne Applebaum speaks with Atlantic contributing writer Robert Worth about what he learned when he observed the tactics of the federal agents and the response of Minnesotans.

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The Trump White House is changing the rules of our political system through intimidation, the distortion of information, financial corruption, and the dismantling of government offices. In the final episode of this season, we examine whether the administration is also trying to change the rules of our elections. Dawn Baldwin Gibson, a North Carolina pastor, tells us about how, in 2024, her vote was challenged for reasons that still aren’t clear to her. Host Anne Applebaum interviews Stacey Abrams, who has spent years fighting voter-suppression tactics. Abrams argues that Gibson’s story is one of many attempts to change how people vote and how their votes are counted. 

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Kathleen Walters was only 23 days away from qualifying for early retirement at the IRS when she decided to quit, rather than acquiesce to a Trump-administration request that she break the law and compromise millions of people’s privacy. She’s one of hundreds of thousands of civil servants who have left or been fired from their federal-government jobs in the past year. In this episode, host Anne Applebaum speaks with Don Moynihan, an expert in the history of public policy from the University of Michigan. He explains how the destruction of America’s civil service is part of the administration’s greater effort to create a government that derives its power through unprecedented means and fundamentally disrupts democracy as we know it. 

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Joan Brugge has worked for nearly 50 years as a cancer scientist, studying the earliest signs that someone might become sick. Then the Trump administration canceled her lab’s funding. The administration’s attacks on medicine, culture, and education—which include funding cuts and verbal threats—are about more than just budgeting and bravado. Our host, Anne Applebaum, speaks with Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a professor of history and Italian studies at New York University and the author of Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present, who argues that this effort is part of a larger autocratic project to maintain power.

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Brandon LaRoque kept his life savings in a cryptocurrency account. One morning, as he went to check his balance, he discovered that it was all missing. LaRoque is one of many victims of the unregulated crypto industry. President Donald Trump has rolled back regulation of the industry, while he and his family have earned untold billions of dollars from new crypto ventures. Host Anne Applebaum talks with Molly White, a writer focused on the intersections of tech and finance. They discuss whether more people are bound to befall the same fate as LaRoque and how this new financial industry is shaping our politics and facilitating corruption within our government. 

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The transformation of ICE into a type of national police force, backed, in some cases, by soldiers from the National Guard, has been covered as immigration story—but these forces are reshaping democracy for all of us. This shift was evident even before the shootings in Minneapolis and Portland this week. In this episode, George Retes, a U.S. citizen and an Army veteran, recounts how he was detained by ICE and held for three days without explanation. The Atlantic staff writer Anne Applebaum returns as host of Autocracy in America and talks with Margy O’Herron and Liza Goitein from the Liberty & National Security Program at NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice about the potential impact of these forces on elections in November.

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The Trump administration is making radical, unprecedented changes to American institutions. By doing so, it is seeking to transform the American political system as well. To explain Donald Trump’s project, and to talk about where it might be going, The Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum is returning to host a new season of Autocracy in America. She’ll introduce listeners to Americans whose lives were changed during the administration’s first year, and will ask historians, analysts, and political scientists how new laws and policies might affect the midterm elections in November. 

Coming January 2026.

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Despite growing up in the Soviet Union, host Garry Kasparov admired American values—believing America was one of the good guys. But is that still the case? 

In the final episode of the second season of Autocracy in America, Garry is joined by Admiral Bill McRaven, perhaps best known as the military commander who oversaw the SEAL Team Six raid that killed Osama Bin Laden in 2011. Recently, he’s been speaking out about the changing nature of the military’s historically apolitical role in American democracy. Together, Garry and Bill discuss the history of the American military, and what role it should play in protecting democracy. 

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Garry chairs the Renew Democracy Initiative, publisher of The Next Move.

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Michael McFaul witnessed Vladimir Putin’s crackdown on dissent as U.S. ambassador to Russia. He has a warning for Americans.

McFaul and host Garry Kasparov discuss how recent moves by the Trump administration mirror the consolidation of power that McFaul saw after Putin was re-elected Russian president in 2012.

Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/listener.

Garry chairs the Renew Democracy Initiative, publisher of The Next Move.

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