M. Gessen
Appearances
Consider This from NPR
Is the U.S. headed for autocracy?
Bad ideas as such actually do a lot of the work of building autocracy.
Consider This from NPR
Is the U.S. headed for autocracy?
We imagine autocracy as extreme repression, as the usurpation of power, and all of that is true. For some people, living under autocracy is terrifying because they're direct political targets. But for most people, from my experience, or most of the time, living under autocracy is just dumb. We are engaged now with things like, should the United States buy Greenland?
Consider This from NPR
Is the U.S. headed for autocracy?
It seemed completely absurd when Putin started centering LGBT people as the root of all evil and a threat to Russian sovereignty. Tiny minority, not that visible in Russia.
Consider This from NPR
Is the U.S. headed for autocracy?
Did DI cause the plane and helicopter collision? These are absurd propositions, and yet intelligent people start asking stupid questions like, can the United States take over Gaza and redevelop it as a seaside resort? The idea that people have obligations to one another that there's a law-based world order, at least we aspire to having one. All of this is being delegitimized with these bad ideas.
Consider This from NPR
Is the U.S. headed for autocracy?
You know, a couple of things. One is that I think that Americans voted for Donald Trump because there's some really major problems with the system of government as it's constituted. And I think that basically the Democratic Party for at least three election cycles has now insisted that things are fine just the way they are, that we just have to live in some sort of imaginary normal
Consider This from NPR
Is the U.S. headed for autocracy?
Really refusing to hear that the normal, whatever that is, isn't working for a lot of people. That they are anxious and miserable and they would rather throw a grenade at the way things are in the form of Donald Trump. than continue living the way they've been living.
Consider This from NPR
Is the U.S. headed for autocracy?
And the reason it's important to think about that now is that it's still the same sort of dynamic, where Trump is taking a sledgehammer to the world as we've known it, and the Democrats are saying, well, you can't do that. That's not how the rules are written. Americans have said that the way that the rules are written and the way that the system functions doesn't work for them.
Consider This from NPR
Is the U.S. headed for autocracy?
So there has to be a bigger idea. The rules were written for a reason. They were there to perform certain functions. They were there to make sure that our obligations to one another are in fact fulfilled. And they haven't been.
Consider This from NPR
Is the U.S. headed for autocracy?
I think that these decisions are rational, each one of them taken separately. And they are rational, even if you contrast them to Trump's first term. The threat wasn't as real. I think that whoever makes these decisions at businesses or at nonprofits or at universities eight years ago thought quite reasonably that Trump was an anomalous political event in this country's history.
Consider This from NPR
Is the U.S. headed for autocracy?
You know, I thought it was almost quaint. And I certainly didn't realize that it was a personal threat and that within a couple of years I'd have to flee the country.
Consider This from NPR
Is the U.S. headed for autocracy?
With Trump's second election, we can no longer claim that this is what this country is. And I think that rationally, People are settling in for the long haul and making decisions about their organizations that will benefit them or at least keep them safer in the short term.
Consider This from NPR
Is the U.S. headed for autocracy?
And that's really the problem with this kind of abeyance is that it is reasonable, it is well thought through, and it is sometimes even values-based. People are thinking, I'm protecting my employees. I'm protecting my organization. The problem is that when everyone does that, That is exactly how autocracy is built. It cannot be built without people's cooperation.
Consider This from NPR
Is the U.S. headed for autocracy?
That is the push and pull of democracy. Or rather, it's the push of democracy. And if all that is exercised is the push... And there's no real political opposition. By political opposition, I don't just mean casting votes, although that would really help if Democrats were a little bit less willing to confirm Trump's nominees for cabinet posts.
Consider This from NPR
Is the U.S. headed for autocracy?
But if there's no real politics coming from the other side, then we will watch democracy destroy itself, which is one of its fundamental design flaws. We've always known that.