The billionaires rushing to get on board with Trump, and contributing millions for his inauguration, may have missed this key detail: Enhancing the power of a leader—to bend the rules and undermine the rule of law—is often very bad for business. Meanwhile, Team Trump is distracting the media and the public with the firehose of nominations. Plus, election laws v TikTok and Elon, how brutal regimes can quickly die, and the impact of Israel's campaigns on international law during wartime. Anne Applebaum joins Tim Miller. Show notes: Anne's recent piece on Syria, and potentially other brutal regimes, falling quickly Video of Clarissa Ward finding a Syrian prisoner who didn't know about the fall of Assad Tim's playlist
Full Episode
Hello and welcome to the Bullard Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Couldn't be more delighted to be here today with a staff writer at The Atlantic. Her books include Autocracy, Inc., The Dictators Who Want to Run the World, and Twilight of Democracy, The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism, as well as the Pulitzer Prize-winning Gulag, A History. It's Anne Applebaum. Welcome back, Anne.
How are you doing?
Fine. Thanks for having me back.
Fine. Fine. We're fine. We're here. We're doing fine. I've got to be more precise in the opening greetings, I think, given the nature of affairs. I want to start with the seductive lure of authoritarianism. Because it's more seductive than maybe I'd even anticipate it. Domestically, we've got a series of rich people who have pre-surrendered to the incoming regime.
Bezos and Zuck have donated a million to the inauguration. Mark Benioff, who was a resistance CEO for the first time around at Salesforce, went on Maria Bartiromo's show, Maria Bartiromo's Coup Hour, and said, I feel that when we elect a new politician, we have to absolutely support them. This is a moment where we are turning the page. It's an opportunity for a new chapter.
You have covered all of this from the European perspective. What's happening with our domestic oligarchs here?
One of the things that's happening is that this is the second time that Trump has won. And when you look at the pattern, whether it's Hugo Chavez or whether it's Viktor Orban, it's a loss and then a return that changes the politics.
Having overcome the fact that he assaulted the Constitution, broke the law multiple times, you know, whichever piece of it bothers you the most, he stole documents, you know, he was a corrupt businessman, all those things we now know. And yet he's been reelected anyway. People are going to say, right, this guy has...
It's not exactly magical powers, but he has some kind of staying ability that I didn't account for the first time. And, you know, I better get along with him or else I'm in trouble. And that's actually, I mean, it's not unique to the United States. You can see it in other places.
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