With the United States stepping back from its global leadership role, many around Europe and the world are waiting for Germany to step forward. Will it?

Host Garry Kasparov is joined by Mathias Döpfner, CEO of the German multinational media and technology company Axel Springer, who argues that Europe is a “Sleeping Beauty” that must awaken to protect democracy and the open-society model. But can Germany overcome its historical guilt to become a leader in that fight? 

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

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Soviet dissidents have long admired the United States and its Founding Fathers for their attachment to a moral core, the basis for individual human liberty. So what happens when American power is used not for moral interests but for solely pragmatic ones? 

Host Garry Kasparov is joined by George Friedman, the founder and chairman of Geopolitical Futures, a firm that analyzes foreign policy and forecasts global events. George’s view of the world—drawn from the experience of his family fleeing Nazis in Eastern Europe—echoes Henry Kissinger’s geopolitical philosophy: realism, not idealism. Garry and George consider whether realism is realistic, and what the future of American foreign policy means for democracy at home. 

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

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How should American power be deployed in the world? Since the Cold War, America’s role as a global leader has been up for debate. 

Host Garry Kasparov and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton dissect the state of the neoconservative geopolitical worldview. They consider what the latest iteration of the “America First” foreign-policy rationale signals for democracy worldwide and analyze what it means that the new American right sometimes sounds like the old American left.

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

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What is a dissident? In an autocracy, standing against the rulers could mean harassment, prison, torture, even death. Dissidents stand up anyway. 

Host Garry Kasparov is joined by Masih Alinejad, whose work for women’s rights against the Islamic Republic of Iran has led to her exile in the United States. It has not ended her fight, nor has distance made her safe—she was targeted for assassination at her Brooklyn home. Masih and Garry discuss the importance of safeguarding the values of democracy before it’s too late.

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

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Have Americans grown complacent, thinking nothing can shake the United States’ democracy? Host Garry Kasparov is joined by Frank Luntz, someone well versed in taking the temperature of the American public. 

Luntz is perhaps best known as a behind-the-scenes operative in Republican politics. He is the pioneer of an “Instant Response” focus-group technique that lets him understand not just what people think but why. That’s how he began to sense, more than 10 years ago, that something had gone very wrong in American politics. Frank and Garry discuss how the problem started—and what must be done to fix it.

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Since The Atlantic first released the podcast Autocracy in America last fall, Donald Trump was elected president again. Staff writer Anne Applebaum describes how Trump’s return to the White House fits into the changing geopolitical landscape as she hands the show over to its new host: Garry Kasparov. The former world chess champion and lifelong democracy activist will guide a series of conversations about society’s complacency with liberal values and how this carelessness has fueled a democratic retreat—and a new belligerence among dictators. 

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The former world chess champion and lifelong democracy activist Garry Kasparov guides a new series of conversations about society’s complacency with liberal values and how this carelessness has fueled a democratic retreat—and a new belligerence among dictators.

New episodes launch every Friday, starting July 11.

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Anne Applebaum speaks with The Atlantic's editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg about the consequences of the Signal breach. This conversation was recorded live from The New Orleans Book Festival at Tulane University.

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Hosts Anne Applebaum and Peter Pomerantsev talk with Hanna Rosin about the new series We Live Here Now. Rosin, along with her co-host, Lauren Ober, recently found out that their new neighbors moved to Washington, D.C., to support January 6 insurrectionists. They knocked on their door. We Live Here Now is a podcast series about what happened next. Subscribe to We Live Here Now here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | iHeart

Autocracy in America is produced by The Atlantic and made possible with support from the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University, an academic and public forum dedicated to strengthening global democracy through powerful civic engagement and informed, inclusive dialogue.

Music by Rob Smierciak (“Mystery March”). 

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Freedom in the United States is a word that has had more than one meaning. It has meant freedom for some people and the repression of others. In a democracy, freedom also means the right to take part in politics. So how can that freedom best be secured? 

This is the fifth episode of Autocracy in America, a five-part series about authoritarian tactics already at work in the United States and where to look for them.

Autocracy in America is produced by The Atlantic and made possible with support from the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University, an academic and public forum dedicated to strengthening global democracy through powerful civic engagement and informed, inclusive dialogue.

Music by J.F. Gloss (“Mysterious Figures”), Howard Harper-Barnes (“Mysterious Forest”), Luella Gren (“Sleep Forever”), ELFL (“The Flux Beneath It All”), Yinon Muallem “(Oudstock”), and Rob Smierciak (“Mystery March”). 

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