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Donald Trump has vowed to remove a whole bunch of staff throughout federal businesses if he turns into president once more. Consolidating energy and putting pals in key roles are textbook autocratic maneuvers, however additionally they will not be new in the US. This episode revisits the story of Louisiana Governor Huey Lengthy, who sought to take over the equipment of presidency in his state, simply as intolerant leaders have carried out in different nations.
That is the third episode of Autocracy in America, a brand new five-part collection about authoritarian techniques already at work in the US and the place to search for them.
The next is a transcript of the episode:
Pomerantsev: Anne, one of many foremost options that I skilled once I lived underneath authoritarian regimes is that this sense that the establishments of the state, the police, the tax providers, the paperwork—they’re primarily these harmful animals that aren’t working for you however working within the pursuits of the highly effective.
Applebaum: Proper. As if they might come after you if you happen to get in the way in which.
Pomerantsev: So you have got all these establishments, which in a democracy are supposed to serve you, the individuals, however in an authoritarian regime, they’re, nicely—they’re captured.
Applebaum: In actual fact, “state seize” is the time period that political scientists use to explain this, and I watched it occur in Poland between 2015 and final yr. An autocratic, populist get together gained a reliable election however then started to behave like they owned the whole lot. They fired civil servants. They changed them with individuals’s pals and get together loyalists. They allegedly organized for state establishments to present cash to foundations, which ultimately wound up enriching get together members or else funding their election campaigns—that’s being investigated proper now.
They used the tax workplace and the prosecutor’s workplace to research their enemies, their political rivals— together with me. My husband and I needed to rent attorneys and spend plenty of time going via paperwork with a view to counter false accusations. And it was not amusing. It was a type of state-backed political harassment. Now, I assume it’s the form of factor People can’t think about they might ever need to take care of, as a result of, I don’t know, Our custom of checks and balances is just too lengthy. People would by no means stand for that. We might protest and wrestle. No means.
Pomerantsev:Sure means is what I came upon. (Laughs.) There’s the pervasive sense in America that it’s distinctive. And, clearly, America may be very, very particular. However since I began researching this present, I’ve discovered that possibly America isn’t fairly as distinctive as typically individuals really feel, as a result of a frontrunner did rise to energy right here and manipulate the levers of energy to his wishes.
[Music]
Richard D. White Jr.: Huey Lengthy did extra good for any American state than any politician in historical past. The paradox is that Huey Lengthy did extra hurt than any politician in any state in American historical past.
Applebaum: I’m Anne Applebaum, a workers author at The Atlantic.
Pomerantsev: I’m Peter Pomerantsev, a senior fellow on the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins College.
Applebaum: That is Autocracy in America.
Pomerantsev: On this podcast, we’re not speaking about some distant, dystopian totalitarian state.
Applebaum: This isn’t a present about the way forward for America. There are authoritarian techniques already at work right here.
Pomerantsev: And we’re going to point out you the place.
Applebaum: Psychological corruption, widening apathy, maybe the start of kleptocracy.
Pomerantsev: And on this episode: the takeover.
Huey P. Lengthy: What number of males ever went to a BBQ and would let one man take off the desk what’s meant for nine-tenths of the individuals to eat? The one means you’ll ever be capable of feed the stability of the individuals is to make that man come again and produce again a few of that grub he ain’t received no enterprise with.
[Crowd applause]
White: Huey appreciated to brag that he grew up barefoot and hungry, however actually, he didn’t. He grew up in a big, middle-class household, a two-story body home. They’d electrical energy. They’d water.
Pomerantsev: Richard White is the writer of Kingfish, a biography of Huey Lengthy.
White: When he was up north Louisiana, he would brag to the viewers that when he was a child, he’d hook up the horse and buggy and take his grandmother to a Baptist church on Sunday. When he was down south, he would brag to the viewers that on Sunday, he would hook up in a horse and buggy and take his grandmother to Catholic mass.
An area politician mentioned, you already know, Huey, how will you inform these lies? And he mentioned, Hell, we didn’t actually have a horse.
Pomerantsev: White has chronicled how Lengthy mainly invented a playbook for a way one man might take over the establishments of a spot—on this case, Louisiana—for his personal personal achieve.
White: It was a state that was break up, and both you had been completely for Huey Lengthy or violently towards him. There was little or no in between.
Pomerantsev: Anne, what I discover so fascinating about Huey Lengthy is that, in a means, he grew to become a basic and really recognizable autocrat however on the identical time a very, actually American one.
Applebaum: In what means?
Pomerantsev: Effectively, look—he was an entertainer and a salesman, actually. You recognize, one in every of his early jobs was as a salesman going round Louisiana, and he at all times continued being an entertainer and a salesman, at the same time as he took away individuals’s rights.
Applebaum: Hmm.
Pomerantsev: He had a really dramatic story. He died unexpectedly. He was killed within the Louisiana state capitol. He was assassinated by the son-in-law of a political rival. Although, once more, it’s a complicated story. There was some query about whether or not that man merely punched him, after which Lengthy was shot by a deflected bullet when his personal safety element opened hearth. What’s for positive is that he was reduce down on the peak of his powers. However his life in politics truly began with a loss.
[Music]
White: In 1924, he ran for governor. He didn’t do nicely. He ran in third, however as quickly as he misplaced in 1924, he by no means stopped campaigning. And for the subsequent 4 years, he did nothing however marketing campaign for governor.
Pomerantsev: What was Louisiana like at the moment?
White: At the moment, the nation was going via the Despair. Everybody was on the lookout for a solution, and each excessive group you’ll be able to give you, whether or not it’s far proper or far left, was very energetic throughout that point.
Pomerantsev: What was his pitch to the voters? What made him distinctive?
White: Oh, he promised them the whole lot.
Pomerantsev: (Chuckles.)
White: And I don’t suppose they actually cared whether or not he was truthful or not. He was the one one giving them any hope, whether or not it’s false or not.
Applebaum: What number of instances have we heard that earlier than—I’ll clear up all of your issues; solely I can do it—from somebody who craves energy?
Pomerantsev: Proper, Anne. And sometimes they promise issues to individuals who have little or no, after which they don’t ship. However truly, to start with, when Lengthy was lastly elected, he did ship on a few of his massive objectives. Louisiana was one of many poorest states in the usA., and there was so much to enhance.
White: He constructed 1000’s of miles of latest roads. He introduced Louisiana out of the horse-and-buggy days. He gave the farmers a homestead exemption. He gave the schoolchildren free schoolbooks so they might lastly go to highschool.
Pomerantsev: So, Anne, these had been in style insurance policies, however they weren’t low-cost. Lengthy, first as governor and later as a U.S. senator from Louisiana, dove headfirst into spending. One of many issues he wished to do was impose a tax on the large oil corporations in Louisiana to lift funds. Some legislators pushed again, so Lengthy form of went at them. He would smear them with pretend tales, for instance.
White: Loopy, loopy stuff. He was very inventive.
Pomerantsev: He accused a warfare hero of getting syphilis. Others he simply known as names.
White: Certainly one of his opponents had a beard, and he was “Previous Feather Duster,” for instance.
Pomerantsev: A block of legislators opened up an impeachment towards Lengthy for 19 fees, which included corruption, favoritism, oppression in workplace, gross misconduct, and simply basic incompetence.
White: It got here right down to the final minute. He purchased off a few senators. He gave them cash and ladies and something he might, and eventually he survived impeachment. After that, he was a distinct individual. There have been two Hueys: the Huey earlier than the impeachment, who did all these good issues, and the Huey after the impeachment, the place he grew to become vengeful. He wished to crush each one in every of his enemies, and he did.
[Music]
Pomerantsev: In Louisiana within the Nineteen Thirties, the governor of the state, Huey Lengthy, grew to become, within the phrases of a recent, “the primary true dictator out of the soil of America.”
He put in place a playbook that confirmed how a wannabe American dictator can seize the state, can overcome checks and balances, could make the highly effective unaccountable to the reality.
The first step: seize the legislature so it succumbs to your each whim.
White: He began with the legislature. He would purchase off the sheriff, purchase off the massive wheels. One after the other, he conquered the legislature.
He would stroll onto the home ground, and off the highest of his head, he would dictate legislation after legislation after legislation.
He would gerrymander political divisions. He would change election dates. He would change the size of workplace. He would select the individuals who counted the votes. In a single election, for instance, in St. Bernard Parish, you go to the information, and also you’ll see that the voters of that election voted in alphabetical order. Can you work that out?
Pomerantsev: That’s fairly sloppy dishonest.
White: No, it’s not sloppy. It’s blatant. They let him do it!
Pomerantsev: So, Anne, a lot of these items is acquainted to me from Jap Europe. When an autocrat like Putin fakes an election, he desires everybody to know that he’s faked the election, with a view to present his energy.
It’s not about kidding individuals. It’s not like, A ha ha, I cheated on the election. It’s extra like saying, I’m dishonest on the election, and there’s nothing you are able to do about it.
Applebaum: Sure, as a result of typically whenever you lie, the purpose isn’t to persuade individuals. It’s to point out how highly effective you’re.
Pomerantsev: Proper. And with a view to wield that energy, there’s a second step Lengthy took. So first he received the legislature underneath his thumb. Second, supposedly impartial our bodies had been dominated by Huey Lengthy too.
White: He would select all of the boards and commissions. Each schoolteacher needed to get permission from Baton Rouge for his or her job. And in the event that they had been from a household that opposed him, they misplaced their job.
Pomerantsev: Lengthy continued along with his playbook, together with steps three and 4: You seize the courts and intimidate the media.
White: He packed the courts. He removed the few judges who opposed him. And after getting the courts and the legislature, and also you’ve already received the chief, you have got all three branches of presidency, together with passing a gag legislation on newspapers that prohibit them from criticizing him. In order that’s the fourth department, be it might.
Pomerantsev: So mainly censorship.
White: Sure. Completely.
[Music]
Pomerantsev: And eventually step 5: violence.
White: Throughout an election, when individuals would get kidnapped and disappear for some time, Huey was doing it. I imply, his individuals had been doing it. He used each the state police drive and the Nationwide Guard as his personal private police drive. He would arrest his enemies. He arrange machine gun nests across the capitol. He declared martial legislation in a number of cities that opposed him.
There was nothing off the books for Huey.
Pomerantsev: If I had been to reach to Louisiana in, I don’t know, 1933, would I notice that I used to be in a quasi dictatorship, or would it not appear like another American state?
White: Effectively, you’d acknowledge proper from the start you both needed to be for Huey or towards him. Huey Lengthy was not a politician. He was a demagogue.
[Music]
Pomerantsev: So there you have got Lengthy’s playbook for state seize: Seize the legislature, take over impartial establishments, intimidate the media, after which make use of violence. And the entire is made attainable with a propaganda that strategically divides the state, the place you have got blind loyalty out of your voters, who will at all times assist you for something—and I imply something—you wish to do.
Applebaum: And it’s a must to ask, what was the long-term impact of all that? His tenure didn’t lay out a system designed to maintain the state out of arduous instances indefinitely. And fast-forward to immediately: It’s nonetheless an extremely poor place.
Pomerantsev: It’s nonetheless close to the underside of the record for poverty, life expectancy, literacy, general well being.
Applebaum: Probably the most wonderful factor that I’ve discovered just lately about Louisiana is that this sort of politics continues to today. There are nonetheless makes an attempt to seize Louisiana’s establishments. Simply this summer time, the governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, made a transfer that Huey Lengthy himself may need been impressed with.
[Music]
Applebaum: He known as for a constitutional conference, making it attainable, in idea, to rewrite all the Louisiana state structure, with all of its checks and balances, altering all the guidelines with none public session within the house of a few weeks.
Governor Jeff Landry: It’s form of like possibly cleansing up your yard in springtime, proper? Raking the leaves, taking a number of the weeds out of the panorama, making the place lovely and extra enticing.
[Music]
Ashley Kennedy Shelton: This was completely about, you already know, making a situation the place there’s absolute energy.
Applebaum: Ashley Kennedy Shelton is the founder, president, and CEO of the Energy Coalition for Fairness and Justice, a voter-engagement group in Louisiana.
Shelton: Jeff Landry ran on desirous to have a constitutional conference. It is a, you already know, conservative governor with a conservative home and senate. He’s not been clear with anyone precisely why he desires to open the structure. When you open it, it’s open, they usually can do no matter they need.
Pomerantsev: So, Anne, why is that this an enormous deal? Does this by no means occur within the U.S.?
Applebaum: To be clear, a constitutional conference in and of itself, although uncommon as of late, will not be extraordinary. The final one to happen in Louisiana was again within the Nineteen Seventies. However that one happened with some actually totally different preparations.
Shelton: So in 1974, once we had the final constitutional conference, you already know, it was a course of to truly start planning the constitutional conference years prior. The residents of the state truly voted on delegates to take part within the constitutional conference and created an actual course of via which they might consider and tackle, you already know, the problems throughout the structure that they felt had been essential and essential.
Applebaum: However this time round, issues had been approached in a different way.
Shelton: We’re attempting to do one in two weeks, which doesn’t make any sense. And no one’s disagreeing that our structure most likely must be tidied up. However what doesn’t make sense is that there’s completely no citizen enter and that there’s this two-week interval.
Applebaum: And the custom of autocracy—how does this match into that?
Shelton: You recognize, I believe whenever you take a look at Louisiana traditionally, we’ve had so many vigorous characters, proper? From Huey P. Lengthy to Edwin Edwards to our present governor, Jeff Landry. You recognize, like, everyone places their spin on it.
Applebaum: Peter, I can see the skeptics kind of turning away from this story, shrugging this off as an area quirk.
Pomerantsev: It does really feel fairly attractive to chalk this as much as some kind of Louisiana custom.
Applebaum: Proper, besides that you just and I do know from finding out how democracies diminish that this may very well be an indication of one thing larger. And I requested Ashley Kennedy Shelton what she considered that concept.
Applebaum: Are you seeing this taking place somewhere else? You suppose this can be a nationwide plan?
Shelton: (Chuckles.) Very similar to most dangerous coverage, it will get seeded within the Deep South— Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama—after which form of despatched wholesale to the remainder of the nation. Now we have talked to our of us in Alabama. You recognize, it’s occurred there just lately. It’s been possibly a yr.
However I believe that this constitutional conference was about normalizing this concept of opening up state constitutions, with the last word aim of opening the US Structure.
[Music]
Pomerantsev: So, Anne, what occurred in the long run?
Applebaum: Primarily, time ran out. The Louisiana legislators didn’t take up the governor’s request. Shelton and others organized a form of statewide marketing campaign towards it. They put everyone on excessive alert that this may very well be harmful, this might undermine rights, this might undermine different kinds of establishments. However it doesn’t imply the thought gained’t come again.
Pomerantsev: However so how probably is that this on the federal stage?
Applebaum: We’ll get to that after the break.
[Break]
Pomerantsev: Anne, listening to you discuss with Ashley Kennedy Shelton and considering again to the story of Huey Lengthy, it kind of makes me marvel: If this might occur in Louisiana, might a takeover by one individual actually occur on the nationwide stage?
Applebaum: Effectively, theoretically, it’s not supposed to have the ability to occur within the U.S., due to our system of checks and balances. In different phrases, if we had an government who overreached, then he could be blocked by the courts or blocked by Congress.
If Congress grew to become too grasping for energy, then the opposite establishments would examine them too. That’s the character of the system. It’s alleged to make precisely this sort of state seize unimaginable.
Pomerantsev: Proper. However just lately I’ve discovered that the methods of presidency meant to guard the U.S. are extra malleable and spongy than I assumed. I talked to Amanda Carpenter. She’s the previous communications director for a Republican senator, Ted Cruz, and now she works at Shield Democracy. That’s an NGO that brings court docket instances to defend democratic values and rights.
Carpenter: Trendy-day authoritarians don’t come into energy by brute drive. Trendy-day authoritarians sometimes come to energy competing in and profitable democratic elections, however then as soon as they get into energy, tilting the levers of presidency, tilting all of the levers of energy of their favor.
Pomerantsev: The levers of energy she’s speaking about—seems they will have a big effect relating to how federal businesses are run.
[Music]
Donald Trump: Right here’s my plan to dismantle the deep state and reclaim our democracy from Washington corruption as soon as and for all.
Carpenter: Donald Trump has mentioned explicitly: On day one in every of his presidency, he’s going to implement an order referred to as Schedule F.
Trump: —restoring the president’s authority to take away rogue bureaucrats. And I’ll wield that energy very aggressively.
Carpenter: That would offer the premise for him to purge as much as tens of 1000’s of profession civil servants, then creating openings during which he can exchange these positions with loyalists.
Trump: We’ll clear out all the corrupt actors in our national-security and intelligence equipment, and there are many them.
The departments and businesses which were weaponized might be fully overhauled in order that faceless bureaucrats won’t ever once more be capable of goal and persecute conservatives, Christians, or the left’s political enemies, which they’re doing now at a stage that no one can consider.
Applebaum: Peter, each U.S. president frequently chooses 1000’s of individuals to work for them: company heads and cupboard members. However what’s being described right here is a little more critical than that.
Pomerantsev: Sure. The risk is to fireplace consultants—eliminate individuals who have labored of their job for years, individuals who perceive methods to make the system work for the general public. To me, it undoubtedly feels like Huey Lengthy.
Applebaum: It’s precisely the form of factor that the Polish far proper or the Venezuelan left or the Hungarian authorities has tried to do with a view to seize the state—to make use of that time period once more—take it over, and stuff it with loyalists.
Carpenter: Within the years that Donald Trump has been out of energy, his allies have been intently finding out the federal government and making a kind of mental framework that might permit Donald Trump to behave on all his authoritarian impulses.
A number of it facilities on the concept that there’s no such factor as any impartial authorities company. You recognize, right here in America, we do kind of function underneath the norm that the Division of Justice, the FCC, the EPA, all these authorities businesses function with some quantity of independence, that means that the president can not immediately intrude with their day-to-day actions. That may be a norm.
Applebaum: And a norm will not be a legislation. A norm is a conference. It’s a factor that all of us agree about, but it surely’s not written down anyplace. It’s not within the Structure. It’s not in another form of legislation. If it’s damaged, there isn’t a authorized solution to repair it.
Pomerantsev: Proper, and it’s not arduous to think about, is it—how this would possibly play out with an company that’s linked to an trade {that a} wannabe autocrat brazenly despises?
[Music]
Pomerantsev: So take the Federal Communications Fee. That’s the one which regulates media. Upon getting loyalists all all through an company like that, the agenda of a frontrunner with autocratic tendencies may very well be extra effectively pursued.
Carpenter: Ought to Donald Trump achieve success in implementing his concepts to remove many of those profession civil servants and exchange them along with his loyalists, what’s to cease him from withholding the FCC license from sure broadcast retailers? What’s to cease him from tripling the postage charges to punish Jeff Bezos?
There are such a lot of instruments out there in our authorities if there may be somebody who actively seeks out to abuse these powers, and that’s one thing that authoritarians explicitly do.
Pomerantsev: It seems that identical to Lengthy used the tax authorities to assault his enemies in Louisiana, a wannabe authoritarian on the federal stage can weaponize the IRS.
Carpenter: The IRS is actually a vector for abuse of energy. I believe President Nixon focused political enemies. After which even within the first Trump administration, you’ve had his former chief of workers, John Kelly, inform the press President Trump wished to make use of the IRS to harass former FBI Director James Comey.
Applebaum: Amanda Carpenter makes all of it sound fairly straightforward. One might comply with in Lengthy’s footsteps and seize the courts, the paperwork, the tax authorities; assault media and no one would cease you.
Pomerantsev: Yeah, however look—attacking the media is one stage of menace, however Lengthy used violence as nicely, and he employed the safety providers for his personal achieve. Amanda Carpenter thinks even that form of direct violence may very well be, nicely, fairly attainable.
Carpenter: One scary means that this kind of comes into focus is President Trump, throughout his first time period—and that is nicely reported—has requested his safety officers, Effectively, how come you’ll be able to’t simply shoot immigrants coming over the border? How come we will’t simply shoot protesters? And the reply is: As a result of that may be a violation of the legislation.
I imply, Not solely is it immoral, however we won’t do that for you. The thought of stamping out independence at these businesses is in order that nobody truly tells the president no.
President Trump has mentioned many instances, in true authoritarian style, I’ve Article II energy to do no matter I would like.
[Music]
Nichols: We’ve been fortunate. I shouldn’t say fortunate. We’ve had a superb system of civil-military relations.
Pomerantsev: Anne, you already know Tom Nichols. He’s your colleague at The Atlantic, however he’s additionally a professor emeritus on the Naval Struggle Faculty.
Nichols: Now we have imbued our women and men in uniform with the concept that interfering in politics is repulsive to them, that it violates their sense of their very own identification.
Pomerantsev: We’ve been speaking about an entire number of levers of energy and kinds of management, however I wished to speak with Nichols concerning the navy.
Applebaum: The imaginative and prescient of these boots on the bottom may be very arduous to shake, however, on the identical time, it appears tremendous far-fetched.
Pomerantsev: Effectively, that is what I assumed, too. However in speaking with Nichols, I grew to become more and more and alarmingly conscious of how rather more inside attain it is likely to be.
Nichols: Every part on this nation operates on the purposeful equal of a handshake. And that’s good. Let me simply be actually clear: That’s good.
I had a beautiful philosophy professor in faculty who was attempting to elucidate to, you already know, a bunch of single children the way you don’t wish to have a legislation and a contract for the whole lot, proper? In case you’re married, and you’ve got a contract that claims, “I’ll take out the rubbish. You’ll do the dishes. I’ll inform you as soon as a day that I really like you. You agree no less than as soon as a day to hug our youngsters,” and so forth, then you definitely don’t have a wedding. You recognize, marriage, like plenty of social relationships, capabilities on belief and cooperation and love, and democracies perform on belief.
International locations which have, like, actually lengthy, detailed constitutions are inclined to have issues (Chuckles.) as a result of they felt the necessity—
Pomerantsev: (Laughs.)
Nichols: —you already know, they felt the necessity to write each single factor down that you would presumably do fallacious.
Pomerantsev: It’s like a really dangerous marriage. We’re going to place the whole lot into a listing now, yeah?
Nichols: Proper. It’s like having a 57-page prenup.
Pomerantsev: (Laughs.)
Nichols: You recognize, possibly if it’s a must to have 100 pages of a prenup, possibly this marriage wasn’t an awesome thought to start with, you already know.
Pomerantsev: (Laughs.)
Pomerantsev: So, Anne, Tom Nichols laid out for me a considerably horrifying—okay, truly, a really horrifying situation about how an aspiring autocrat might seize the navy. It begins with appointing “sure males” and “sure girls” within the high spots. And whenever you’re unable to try this, you simply go away the workplace empty.
Nichols: Let’s take a look at what occurred on the finish of the Trump presidency, the place, as one in every of my pals within the navy—a retired navy officer—mentioned to me, The 2 most typical names on doorways on the Pentagon had been vacant and appearing.
In case you don’t care about Senate affirmation, if you happen to don’t care concerning the guardrails, if you happen to don’t care concerning the norms and the legal guidelines that govern these establishments, then you’ll be able to simply say, You recognize, the president has the ability to simply hearth individuals.
Applebaum: And naturally, the concept that you have got appearing heads of departments or short-term individuals in cost contributes to the concept that there’s one thing plastic and pretend and empty about authorities, that it’s simply not working anymore, that we don’t have actual individuals in actual jobs.
Pomerantsev: As I used to be speaking to Tom, I used to be form of nonetheless left questioning: Virtually, what would a wannabe autocrat do once they managed the navy at house? What would they do with them domestically? How would it not affect democracy right here?
Nichols: In case you have a governor, for instance, or political allies, you would have the navy present as much as their occasions in uniform and make it clear that you just assist them.
You recognize, placing Nationwide Guard items working with Homeland Safety or SWAT groups—there’s all types of mischief that you would do that basically might simply be a means of flexing muscle and attempting to intimidate the civilian inhabitants, particularly if you happen to’re about to do one thing fairly shaky, constitutionally.
If Donald Trump wins, he’s talked about mass deportations. We don’t have a sufficiently big Military to deport 11 million individuals however, you already know, that might get into an unsightly scenario.
There was this sort of harebrained scheme that appears humorous on reflection, however much less humorous now, the place the thought was to grab voting machines to be, you already know—and I’m making little air quotes right here—to be “examined” for fraud. After which, there was even one step additional, the place there was some speak about, Let’s rerun the presidential election underneath the watchful eyes of the navy, so there may very well be no fraud. You’re not betraying the Structure; you’re saving it by defending the sanctity of our elections, by stepping into and being the armed guards round polling machines.
Pomerantsev: The Russians like to do that in locations they’ve occupied. Like, you already know, Jap Ukraine, they’ll have navy troopers come round to—I’ve seen the movies, you already know—the navy will come round and knock on individuals’s doorways. There’ll be some granny who opens the door, they usually’re like, Hiya. We’re right here to get your vote. And there’s, like, a man with a Kalashnikov and a balaclava.
Nichols: Which I believe most People would discover scary and plenty of others would discover—and I’m one in every of them—would discover deeply objectionable and un-American. That’s functionally a navy coup.
[Music]
Pomerantsev: Okay, Tom, we now have a situation to get the navy to guard an election. What number of of your guys would you want within the system? What’s the extent of penetration that you just want?
Nichols: It is determined by the place they’re within the chain of command. I imply, in case you have a few individuals—in case you have a handful, 5, six in the fitting positions, after which they will deftly use the chain of command to subject orders that aren’t clearly unlawful, or no less than unlawful on their face, you would get tens of 1000’s of people who find themselves obeying three or 4 or 5 individuals.
Applebaum: Three, 4, 5 individuals.
Pomerantsev: Mm-hmm.
Applebaum: 5 individuals will not be very many.
[Music]
Pomerantsev:Autocracy in America is hosted by Anne Applebaum and me, Peter Pomerantsev. It’s produced by Natalie Brennan and Jocelyn Frank, edited by Dave Shaw, blended by Rob Smierciak, fact-checked by Yvonne Kim. Our managing producer is Claudine Ebeid is the chief producer of Atlantic audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.
Autocracy in America is a podcast from The Atlantic. It’s made attainable with assist from the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins College, a tutorial and public discussion board devoted to strengthening world democracy via highly effective civic engagement and knowledgeable, inclusive dialogue.
[Music]
Applebaum: Subsequent time on Autocracy in America:
Applebaum: The U.S. is the chief of a global democratic alliance, however there may be one other community of countries who work collectively, too.
Leopoldo López: We’re combating a world combat. We’re combating, actually, towards Maduro but additionally towards Putin, towards Xi Jinping, towards the mullahs from Iran, as a result of they’re the lifeline of Maduro.
Applebaum: We’ll be again with extra on that subsequent week.
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