Begin With a Lie – The Atlantic

The corruption of democracy begins with the corruption of thought—and with the deliberate undermining of actuality. Stephen Richer, an election official in Arizona, and Adam Kinzinger, a former Republican congressman, discovered firsthand how simply false tales and conspiracy theories might disorient their colleagues. They discuss with hosts Anne Applebaum and Peter Pomerantsev about how conformism and worry made it unimaginable to do their jobs.

That is the primary episode of Autocracy in America, a brand new five-part sequence about authoritarian techniques already at work in america and the place to search for them.

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The next is a transcript of the episode:

[Music]

Anne Applebaum: Peter, image this: A harsh winter has lastly come to an finish. Exhausted and ragged, America’s Revolutionary Military troopers are huddled in tents. It’s Valley Forge. It’s 1778. And on a makeshift stage, a bunch of George Washington’s officers are placing on a play. It’s known as Cato, A Tragedy.

Peter Pomerantsev: So that they placed on togas in the course of a battle?

Applebaum: Historical past doesn’t file what costumes they wore nor why, precisely, they have been placing on a play at that exact second. We do comprehend it was one in all Washington’s favourite performs. It was very talked-about in colonial America. It tells the story of the tip of the Roman Republic, a democracy in its time, which was destroyed by a dictator, Julius Caesar.

Pomerantsev: So mainly, Washington and the founders, you recognize—their imaginative and prescient of the tip of democracy was to be a dictator taking the capital by storm and grabbing energy.

Applebaum: Each technology has a imaginative and prescient of how democracy dies, and this was theirs.

Pomerantsev: I imply, as we speak after I’m in America, I hear a number of, like, references to: The Nazis are coming. The fascists are coming.

Applebaum: You and I’ve each lived in international locations that grew to become extra autocratic over time, that means that the chief or the ruling celebration usurped increasingly energy, eliminating checks and balances. And we each know that this doesn’t essentially appear to be stormtroopers marching within the streets.

Pomerantsev: And it occurs type of slowly, virtually imperceptibly, like mould consuming away a constructing. And it’s like these little issues that really present you that you just’re going within the flawed path.

Applebaum: Issues develop into much more harmful when individuals are sick of the political dialog and simply need it to finish, and so they need somebody to come back alongside and finish it.

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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 America’s future. It’s concerning the current.

Pomerantsev: There are authoritarian techniques already at work in America, consuming away on the guardrails that stop a frontrunner from usurping energy, and we’re going to present you the place.

Applebaum: Have a look at what we have now already: widening apathy, politicized investigations, the embrace of the strongman cult.

Pomerantsev: And on this episode: psychological corruption.

Applebaum: Peter, when did you begin to see issues in america shift—shift away from a democratic tradition?

Pomerantsev: Look, it’s a barely private subject for me. My dad and mom have been Soviet dissidents in Soviet Ukraine, the place I used to be born. They have been arrested by the KGB. We have been exiled within the late Seventies (I used to be nonetheless a child on the time), and after the autumn of the united statesS.R., I went and lived in Russia and Moscow from 2001 to 2010. That was the primary 10 years of the Putin period and, in that point, I noticed Russia degrade from a extremely rotten democracy to a extremely aggressive dictatorship.

And I really keep in mind one second fairly clearly: This will need to have been nonetheless throughout the Obama period. I used to be visiting the U.S. on vacation or for a piece journey or one thing, and I immediately discovered myself amongst teams of people that subscribed to this concept of birtherism, that Obama had not been born in America.

Applebaum: Precisely. And if he wasn’t born in America, then he’s not certified to be president.

Pomerantsev: Nevertheless it was the way in which they have been speaking about it. I imply, the proof was not necessary to them. I imply, you could possibly present a great deal of proof that Obama had been born in America—that wasn’t the purpose. The best way they have been utilizing this conspiracy was type of an actual warning signal.

This wasn’t like, I don’t know, the Kennedy assassination, the place folks attempt to discover the reality out. Right here, folks I met who signed as much as the birther conspiracy didn’t care about proof. They stated issues I heard in Russia when it was fading into dictatorship. They’d say, I don’t know. The reality is unknowable. There are not any things like actual info and even proof. However what did matter was the way you signaled your political affiliation by making a conspiratorial assertion.

Applebaum: Yep, and that is precisely how a conspiracy principle—a giant lie—features in an autocratic political system. It helps the chief, the autocrat, set up who’s loyal, who’s on our facet, and who’s not. , in the event you promise to consider within the made-up story, then you’ll be able to work for the federal government or the celebration or no matter, and in the event you don’t, you’re out. And so this then, not advantage or laborious work, determines who will get promoted and who runs issues.

Pomerantsev: To indicate that you just belonged to the Putin system, you needed to repeat absurd lies that individuals Putin was arresting have been responsible of completely absurd costs. You needed to agree that Nazis have been taking on Ukraine. , that could possibly be socially very awkward at first, and other people might get fairly aggressive, particularly after they have been drunk. And after some time, it simply grew to become harmful as a result of in the event you disagreed with these absurd statements, with these conspiracy theories, you then have been primarily an enemy of the state. And that will develop into extremely harmful.

Applebaum: After I first noticed birtherism unfolding within the U.S., my first response was, No manner is that this occurring right here. People can’t fall for this type of rubbish.

Pomerantsev: Sorry—why did you suppose People have been immune, simply out of curiosity?

Applebaum: Wrongly, I imagined our political system is just too huge, and our democracy is just too effectively anchored, and other people don’t consider in conspiracy theories. And clearly I used to be flawed.

Pomerantsev: , when you get into this world the place fact is a subset of energy, it mainly means you can’t have democratic debate anymore.

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Applebaum: Jap Europeans are accustomed to the thought of ruling by conspiracy. However in up to date America, that is new. And it’s so new, in reality, that I’m unsure People notice the importance of it.

Applebaum: Stephen Richer is an election official in Maricopa County, Arizona. And this disorienting accusation started, at first, as one thing utterly unimaginable for him to think about: that the president knew his title and was releasing statements directed at his workplace.

Applebaum: At first, it felt considerably unimaginable for Richer to take this type of accusation significantly. He knew it wasn’t true. He might see all of the information on the county computer systems day-after-day he went to work. They hadn’t disappeared in any respect.

Applebaum: After which these claims began to take maintain with different huge gamers within the Trump circle.

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Pomerantsev: It’s one thing proper out of the type of absurdist tales that you just hear about politics in Jap Europe, the place the regime is utilizing completely nonsensical costs towards you, and their very absurdity reveals that you just’re type of powerless to combat again. As a result of how do you combat again towards any person accusing you of feeding chickens with election ballots?

Applebaum: Proper. This was the type of archetypic, absurdist factor that occurred in communist Poland or communist Czechoslovakia. , you’ll be accused of one thing ludicrous or ridiculous, and there can be no strategy to defend your self. However the entire system would one way or the other take it extremely significantly.

Pomerantsev: You possibly can’t really combat again towards absurdity. It’s really very—effectively, let me put it in another way: It begins off humorous, after which it turns into actually creepy.

I type of all the time thought, identical to you probably did with birtherism and with conspiracy theories, that within the U.S., false accusations can be rapidly knocked down by the press—simply by the system that’s, on the finish of the day, grounded in some type of rationality. Or on the very least, I type of thought that any person like Stephen Richer—who, effectively, let’s put it very mainly, is a white election official, not a very susceptible member of society—that they might be capable to defend themselves fairly simply towards blatant lies. However that’s not what was occurring in any respect.

Applebaum: No, in Maricopa County, which is a very strange a part of America, we see not simply accusations of fraud however ridiculous accusations of fraud, and so they have been being taken significantly.

Applebaum: It obtained private, and it obtained a lot worse from there.

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Pomerantsev: So, Anne, how did we really get right here? There’s a press release from then-President Trump. Then there’s pilgrimages from nationwide figures to Maricopa County.

Applebaum: Precisely. That is the place rumors and discuss remodeled but once more, not simply into dramatic pilgrimages and strain campaigns however now into an precise prison investigation by the Arizona lawyer normal.

Pomerantsev: Anne, I simply can’t assist feeling there’s a much bigger story right here. It’s not about simply what occurred in Arizona. It’s about: How did one thing so unhinged, one thing so absurd develop into so normalized within the Republican Social gathering?

Applebaum: There are lots of people, together with a number of Republicans, who’re making an attempt to know that. That’s after the break.

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Applebaum: Peter, Adam Kinzinger is a former Republican congressman in Washington, the place a number of examples are set that then trickle right down to state and native politics. Kinzinger was in workplace from 2011 to 2023, and he noticed the adjustments within the celebration as they have been occurring, and he performed together with them just a little bit himself, a minimum of for some time, earlier than altering his thoughts utterly.

Applebaum: Peter, Kinzinger was very idealistic, like many individuals who be a part of Congress. However then he found that the truth of politics wasn’t all the time so noble and that, to be a part of the celebration, typically you go on TV to say issues that rally the bottom.

Applebaum: Kinzinger’s skill to talk for the celebration on TV and elsewhere obtained extra difficult as a result of proper after Donald Trump’s inauguration—instantly—Trump began saying absurd issues about how he’d had the biggest crowds in historical past. Nobody had ever seen so many individuals on the Nationwide Mall.

Pomerantsev: The photographs confirmed that it wasn’t a really huge crowd on the market. So, you recognize, he was type of saying that to be a part of his group, a part of this new political in-group that guidelines the nation, you’ve obtained to repeat these absurd statements, and that may present that you just’re one in all us.

Applebaum: Precisely. On this case, it was ridiculous. I imply, who cares how many individuals have been on the inauguration? However he insisted that his press spokesman get the Nationwide Park Service to lie about how many individuals there have been, as a result of solely via forcing folks to lie, forcing establishments to lie, might he show their loyalty. And that is one other basic piece of authoritarian habits.

Pomerantsev: Authoritarianism doesn’t begin with one thing big. It’s like taking or giving a tiny, little bribe—5 bucks or one thing. It doesn’t sound like a giant factor. However that’s it. You’re hooked. After which it’s identical to cotton sweet. It reels you in. It simply will get larger and greater and greater and greater.

Applebaum: Proper. So all of the whereas, Adam Kinzinger was more and more compelled right into a type of psychological gymnastics. He did, for some time, proceed to go on TV, talking for the GOP on points that he cared about however with out totally aligning himself with the commander in chief.

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Pomerantsev: You possibly can actually hear Kinzinger looking for a strategy to be loyal to his celebration and but preserve his integrity and criticize the chief.

Applebaum: And he continued to attempt to discover that steadiness, however he discovered much less and fewer camaraderie amongst members of his celebration, particularly because the investigation into President Trump’s ties with Russia started.

Pomerantsev: It’s a harmful second and in addition type of the an infection of psychological corruption spreading. I noticed the identical factor occur in Russia because it tipped into being a full-blown autocracy.

It was round 2014. I keep in mind the second very clearly: Russia had simply invaded Ukraine, and folks that I knew who labored in state media and the forms—who’d all the time been so cynical, type of smirking after they repeated the federal government’s traces, signaling that they knew that each one the propaganda was a silly sport, that they have been simply enjoying alongside—immediately, when the battle began, they’d this utterly clean look and this complete seriousness as they repeated the federal government lies, that the revolution in Ukraine, which was this unbelievable act of heroism by the Ukrainian folks, was, I don’t know, all a CIA plot. I stored on on the lookout for their outdated smirk—the little glint within the eye—however immediately they have been simply delivering it like zombies. One thing had modified. They knew now that they needed to inhabit these lies totally in the event that they have been going to outlive in a brand new paradigm.

Applebaum: And this vulnerability to psychological corruption could be very human. It’s identical to what occurred in 2015 when the plane-crash conspiracy principle in Poland began to take maintain.

Pomerantsev: That is the plane-crash conspiracy that the previous authorities had really been—what? Introduced down by—

Applebaum: The president’s airplane crashed carrying a number of army and political leaders as effectively. And the airplane crash was an accident. It was extensively investigated. The black containers have been discovered. There had been a pilot error.

However then, the late president’s brother, who was additionally the chief of what was then the political opposition within the parliament, started claiming that the crash was deliberate—perhaps it was attributable to his political rivals, perhaps by the Russians. Lots of people dismissed this. There was no proof for it.

However as soon as there had been a change of energy—as soon as the president’s brother’s celebration was answerable for the federal government, the conspiratorial celebration—then every kind of individuals immediately thought, Nicely, you recognize, they gained. They should be proper. The conspiracy should be true. And even when it’s not true, it’s in my curiosity to repeat it. After which they started to repeat the identical lies because the folks in cost.

Pomerantsev: “Reality,” and I’m saying that in inverted commas, turns into regardless of the highly effective say it’s. I’m typically requested, like, Do Russians consider in all of the lies that Putin’s propaganda says?

Applebaum: And it’s utterly the flawed query. Utterly flawed.

Pomerantsev: Precisely. It’s the flawed query. As a result of, you recognize, if you concentrate on perception as, you recognize, a set of beliefs that you just’ve thought of and also you’ve labored out and also you’ve determined that represents you—you recognize, these are your ideas, what you stand for—I imply, that issues in a society the place your opinion issues.

However right here it’s the opposite manner round. You say that which marks your belonging as a way to really feel some type of psychological consolation. However tomorrow if the road adjustments, effectively, you then’ll consider that.

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Pomerantsev: For me, I discover it considerably petrifying as a result of mainly this implies a political system the place fact and info and proof—they aren’t a forex anymore. You possibly can’t have a democratic debate about something, actually. What Adam Kinzinger is speaking about right here, it’s a really, very anxious second. And I’m not fairly positive the way you return from that second.

Applebaum: And, after all, it’s additionally true that when you aren’t having a dialog about actuality, you’re not speaking about issues which have really occurred, you then’re in a unique type of political dialog. Then all you’ve is anger and emotion and other people expressing themselves as a way to verify their identities or to assault any person else’s identification.

And you then’re not speaking about well being care or roads or methods to construct bridges, the place the subsequent funding ought to be or how excessive taxes are. As a substitute, you’re in a unique type of politics. And I do suppose that America crossed into that world.

Pomerantsev: There is perhaps one thing else occurring as effectively, as a result of at some degree, you recognize, people who find themselves inhabiting this anti-fact, anti-truth identification—at some degree, they have to all the time know that that’s not fairly them. , even when they’re now performing it very significantly, they’re nonetheless performing it.

Applebaum: And so that you’re saying there’s a psychological value to having a type of double life?

Pomerantsev: And after they see somebody like a Kinzinger calling them out, saying, Maintain on. You weren’t like this earlier than. This isn’t true, then that type of simply causes this type of visceral anger.

Applebaum: Yeah, I feel it’s anger as a result of somebody like Kinzinger is letting down the facet. But in addition, he’s in a position to say issues in a freer manner, and there’s a type of jealousy there as effectively. That’s additionally the second when he was ostracized. And for Kinzinger, it lastly occurred when he made his resolution to vote for the impeachment of President Trump.

Applebaum: What Kinzinger discovered when he was talking freely was not solely did his relationships with folks round him change however his complete life grew to become far more harmful.

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Pomerantsev: And, I imply, it’s type of extraordinary in all of the worst attainable methods. A U.S. congressman in america of America who’s afraid that he’ll be murdered as a result of he refused to go together with a set of utter lies concerning the 2020 election and the assault on the Capitol. And, you recognize, one has to really feel for Kinzinger and type of admire him. However he was experiencing these threats at a extremely excessive degree.

And I can’t neglect concerning the story we began with in Maricopa County in Arizona: Stephen Richer. In a way, he was way more susceptible there, and he and his staff have been having the total weight of the Republican regulation machine come down on them.

Applebaum: I requested Stephen Richer to speak to me about that.

Applebaum: Not all this anger simply stays in folks’s heads. You could have the tried homicide of Congressman Steve Scalise in 2017; the plot to kidnap Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, in 2020; a gunman outdoors the house of Supreme Courtroom Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2022. And in addition, in that very same yr, a person broke into Nancy Pelosi’s home meaning to kidnap her and wound up smashing her husband’s head with a hammer as a substitute.

Pomerantsev: After which, after all, this summer season, a 20-year-old in Pennsylvania tried to kill Donald Trump at a rally. The bullet grazed his ear.

Applebaum: However all of those examples contain huge names—congressmen, Supreme Courtroom justices. In Arizona, we’re speaking about native authorities employees. It is a county election workplace. And but, Richer and his staff in 2021 are being questioned and harassed and threatened and even investigated by the state’s lawyer normal, below strain from the president of america. And this was actually laborious on Richer’s workers.

Pomerantsev: Anne, this can be a actually necessary second, the place it’s not nearly conspiracists believing their very own actuality. They begin to pressure it onto different folks. Individuals begin feeling actually awkward and responsible and begin internalizing the guilt. I imply, a little bit of your mind begins going, Nicely, did I do it? What in the event that they’re proper? What if two plus two equals 5? What’s occurring right here?

Applebaum: It’s unsettling, and other people speak about it years later and don’t all the time recuperate. I imply, the second after they have been afraid of being arrested for some absurd political declare, the second after they have been compelled to say one thing or do one thing they didn’t consider—these are moments once you immediately really feel a pointy break with what’s presupposed to be regular and what life is meant to be like.

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Pomerantsev: Let’s be frank: Individuals get accused of murders they haven’t dedicated. I imply, there’s all kinds of horrible issues that occur, even in probably the most, you recognize, superior democracies. So this stuff occur.

What’s occurring right here is a political assault on one of many establishments, the electoral fee, that’s meant to ensure the info of our democracy. So it’s a type of strategic assault on the infrastructure of purpose that helps a functioning democracy.

Applebaum: Nicely, the infrastructure of purpose continues to be standing in Maricopa County. The Kafkaesque investigation into Richer ended, and the lawyer normal in Arizona is an elected place. A Democrat now holds the job.

Pomerantsev: This slew of prosecutions and private assaults has a really direct consequence on democracy. It signifies that strange folks simply don’t wish to be a part of it. They don’t wish to work in these jobs with out which democracy doesn’t really occur.

Applebaum: I requested Stephen Richer what he’s doing today as a way to recruit and rehire on the county clerk’s workplace.

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Applebaum: Autocracy in America is hosted by Peter Pomerantsev and me, Anne Applebaum. It’s produced by Natalie Brennan and Jocelyn Frank, edited by Dave Shaw, blended by Rob Smierciak. Claudine Ebeid is the chief producer of Atlantic audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.

Pomerantsev: Autocracy in America is produced by The Atlantic and made attainable with help from the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins College, an instructional and public discussion board devoted to strengthening world democracy via highly effective civic engagement and knowledgeable, inclusive dialogue.

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Applebaum: I suppose that was a cheerful ending of a form. Though, this summer season, Richer misplaced a Republican major. The investigations ended, however many Arizonans proceed to consider that the 2020 election was stolen.

Pomerantsev: What occurs if the courts are undermined and are prepared to go together with that conspiracy? What if the psychological corruption turns into political corruption? What if the net mobs shouting about conspiracy theories and the folks calling congressmen to threaten their kids—what if these folks get management of a congressional committee, a authorities division, or a courthouse?

Applebaum: It’s starting to occur already.

Applebaum: That’s subsequent time on Autocracy in America.