Notices by Anne Applebaum (anneapplebaum@journa.host)

Americans who think they might be targets for retribution are "bracing for criminal investigations, tax audits, congressional or state legislative scrutiny, arrests, online harassment and physical threats"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/01/28/trump-retribution-preparation-election-officials/

American social media companies write the algorithms that determine what voters read; moderation systems are opaque; political advertising cannot always be tracked. Do European democracies, or any democracies, really have sovereign elections anymore?
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/03/musk-tech-oligarch-european-election-influence/681453/?gift=hVZeG3M9DnxL4CekrWGK3zd9JdZYQ1qXmZ-Tzbyq_Go&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

Forget the division of left and right. We now live in the grip of a completely different kind of politics. This is the age of Obscurantism: politics fused with magical solutions, superstition and the cultivation of fear https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/02/trump-populist-conspiracism-autocracy-rfk-jr/681088/?gift=hVZeG3M9DnxL4CekrWGK3zko9x4JRKwzJUHDjeYMn24&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

If you missed it - start your new year with this excellent Wall Street Journal description of the Russian sleeper agents unmasked last year https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/sleeper-agents-putin-global-hunt-a7978f84?st=BBMjiw&reflink=share_mobilewebshare

Maria Corina Machado is in hiding. Although her movement won the election, Venezuela's dictatorial president has not left office. Still, she told me, she's an optimist:
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2024/12/venezuela-opposition-machado-optimism/681148/

Did Musk tank a spending bill because it would have harmed his business in China?
From The American Prospect
https://prospect.org/politics/2024-12-20-government-shutting-down-elon-musk-factories-china/

"As Hemingway once wrote of bankruptcy, the collapse of autocratic regimes tends to happen gradually and then suddenly—slowly, and then all at once." https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2024/12/sudden-collapse-bashar-assad/680917/?gift=hVZeG3M9DnxL4CekrWGK3ztZ_XKRcZaOT8cFQEZBbLw

And there it is: Assad in Moscow.
Maybe he can move in next to Yanukovych

https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/syria-civil-war-12-08-2024/index.html#cm4fwaag2001u3b6uizxnlgs8

In my book, Twilight of Democracy, I described how autocratic regimes use conspiracy theories as loyalty tests...
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/07/us/politics/trump-administration-loyalty-test.html?smid=nytcore-android-share

Why dictatorships fail gradually, and then suddenly, all at once
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2024/12/sudden-collapse-bashar-assad/680917/

In which I discuss patterns of "state capture" with Ezra Klein

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/19/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-anne-applebaum.html

Yes. He's a crank.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2024/11/rfk-jr-hhs-sanewashing/680663/?gift=hVZeG3M9DnxL4CekrWGK3-z8QcWNs4NTh20aH6uhb2U&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

And until then? Biden should send all of the allocated weapons, let the Ukrainians hit targets in Russia with American and European missiles, and above all pressure the Europeans, finally, to release the $300 billion in frozen Russian assets. No time to lose. Gift link, from the Atlantic:
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2024/11/biden-trump-ukraine/680632/?gift=hVZeG3M9DnxL4CekrWGK3-1_K7E1RdOWOBSJN46wpFA&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

“Land for peace” sounds nice, but the president of Russia isn’t fighting for land. Putin is fighting to destroy Ukraine as a nation. When the next U.S. president takes office he will therefore face the same choices : help Putin win, or help him lose.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2024/11/biden-trump-ukraine/680632/?gift=hVZeG3M9DnxL4CekrWGK3-1_K7E1RdOWOBSJN46wpFA&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

OK, this is funny

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qI0LTmSr38

One final thing to read today, from @Noupside: why we are going into this election ill-prepared to counter bogus narratives about voter fraud

https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/the-maga-propaganda-machine-has-successfully

On Vermin. Some closing thoughts

https://anneapplebaum.substack.com/p/on-vermin?r=177tk

With five days to go before the election, take the time to listen to my five-part podcast series, Autocracy in America. There are authoritarian tactics already at work in the United States - and we can stop them.
Also on Spotify, Apple, YouTube

https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/autocracy-in-america/

"He spoke of “a million Rambos.” “Turnarounds” and “gotaways” and “dead-head spending.” He mixed up Iran with North Korea and strained to pronounce United Arab Emirates. He marveled at Hurricane Helene coming so late in the storm season, which typically runs through November. He falsely claimed government agencies can’t name the U.S. population, and he compared the conflict between Israel and Iran to “two kids fighting in the schoolyard.”

how is this not dementia?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/10/01/trump-wisconsin-swerves-subjects/

The fifth and final episode of AUTOCRACY IN AMERICA has dropped! The subject: Freedom, a word that is fundamental to democracy - but which also, in American history, has sometimes meant freedom for some people and the repression of others.

Apple podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/autocracy-in-america/id1763234285

Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/0ujIGO5bvCO6NkevvgsWTL

The Atlantic:
https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2024/10/the-danger-of-politicizing-freedom/680117/