Pulitzer Prize Historian: You Won't Notice Until It's Too Late!

**Steven Bartlett** (0:00)
I love when a company takes something that everyone has accepted as being fixed and completely redesigns it, which is exactly what Lufthansa, today's sponsor, has done with its Lufthansa Allegris Business Class cabin. It is stunning. Instead of having just one type of seat, Lufthansa Allegris Business Class has five completely different seats, each engineered around a specific need. So there's one built purely around privacy, another with a bed that's over seven feet long, and one designed around having even more space to work, eat, and think. You're essentially getting to choose what your journey needs to be before you even board the plane. And that level of thinking runs throughout the entire Lufthansa Allegris experience. An airline actually asking you, what does this traveler need from their flight? This idea that your seat should fit how you travel, not the other way around, is a surprisingly simple fix to something that the industry has never bothered to solve before. Anyway, it's called Lufthansa Allegris, and if you fly a lot, it's worth looking up. Visit lufthansa.com and search for Allegris to learn more. That's spelled A-L-L-E-G-R-I-S, Lufthansa Allegris.
All it takes is a yes. Limited availability on selected routes with more routes coming soon. This was Trump's net worth when he went into office, $2.3 billion, and this is his net worth now, just two years later.
$6.5 billion.

**Anne Applebaum** (1:24)
So we've never had a president running businesses while in office. And so decisions are being made not based on what's good for Americans, but what's good for his company. For example, why did the Saudi government invest $2 billion in Jared Kushner's fund? It wasn't because they just liked Jared Kushner. It was because Kushner is Trump's son-in-law. And so my biggest concern is the deterioration of American democracy. I mean, it's already happening. And most people think democracies end with tanks in the street or somebody shooting up the presidential palace. But actually in the modern world, they mostly end because someone who is legitimately elected begins to take apart the system. Trump, he has never cared much one way or the other for American democracy. He admires foreign leaders who have no constraints. And I have a goal that is to remind people of why democracy is important and to pay attention to the ways in which it's declining so that we can fight back. So we're just at the beginning of what could be quite a big change.

**Steven Bartlett** (2:20)
So there's five core tactics that autocratic leaders use to dismantle a democracy. Would you walk me through the five tactics? So first of all, Guys, I've got a favour to ask before this episode begins. The algorithm, if you follow a show, will deliver you the best episodes from that show very prominently in your feed. So when we have our best episodes on this show, the most shared episodes, the most rated episodes, I would love you to know. And the simple way for you to know that is to hit that follow button. But also, it's the simple, easy, free thing that you can do to help us make the show better. I would be hugely grateful if you could take a minute on the app you're listening to this on right now and hit that follow button. Thank you so, so, so much.
What is it you've spent the last couple of decades of your life doing, understanding, studying and sharing with the world?

**Anne Applebaum** (3:13)
I started out as somebody who was fascinated by the Soviet Union.
I went there when it still existed as a student. I was lucky enough to watch it fall apart. I was a journalist based in Warsaw at the time the Warsaw Pact came to an end. Then I spent some years writing history books, trying to explain how control was maintained over such a large space, by so few people. But all that time, I thought that what I was doing was writing stories about the distant past. I was analyzing a system that didn't exist anymore.
What's happened to me in the last decade is that I've discovered that a lot of what I thought was over and done and belonged to some other era has come back. Most people think democracies end with a coup d'etat or, you know, tanks in the street or somebody shooting up the presidential palace. But actually, in the modern world, they mostly end because someone who is legitimately elected begins to take apart the system and take away the things that ensure free elections can continue. And I started watching that happen in multiple countries at the same time. And I saw this authoritarian instinct start to come back. And that's what I write about now.