Start 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, realized 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 inconceivable 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 the US 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 gaggle of George Washington’s officers are placing on a play. It’s known as Cato, A Tragedy.

Peter Pomerantsev: In order that they placed on togas in the course of a warfare?

Applebaum: Historical past doesn’t report what costumes they wore nor why, precisely, they had been placing on a play at that individual second. We do comprehend it was considered one of Washington’s favourite performs. It was extremely popular 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, —their imaginative and prescient of the tip of democracy was to be a dictator taking the capital by storm and grabbing energy.

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

Pomerantsev: I imply, right now after I’m in America, I hear numerous, like, references to: The Nazis are coming. The fascists are coming.

Applebaum: You and I’ve each lived in international locations that turned extra autocratic over time, that means that the chief or the ruling get together usurped increasingly more energy, eliminating checks and balances. And we each know that this doesn’t essentially seem like stormtroopers marching within the streets.

Pomerantsev: And it occurs type of slowly, nearly imperceptibly, like mildew consuming away a constructing. And it’s like these little issues that truly present you that you just’re going within the improper path.

Applebaum: Issues develop into much more harmful when persons are sick of the political dialog and simply need it to finish, and so they need somebody to return 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 in regards to the current.

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

Applebaum: Have a look at what we’ve 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 the US shift—shift away from a democratic tradition?

Pomerantsev: Look, it’s a barely private difficulty for me. My mother and father had been Soviet dissidents in Soviet Ukraine, the place I used to be born. They had been arrested by the KGB. We had 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 very rotten democracy to a very aggressive dictatorship.

And I really keep in mind one second fairly clearly: This should have been nonetheless through the Obama period. I used to be visiting the U.S. on vacation or for a piece journey or one thing, and I all of the sudden 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 best way they had 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 had 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 mentioned issues I heard in Russia when it was fading into dictatorship. They’d say, I don’t know. The reality is unknowable. There aren’t any things like actual details 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 idea—an enormous lie—capabilities in an autocratic political system. It helps the chief, the autocrat, set up who’s loyal, who’s on our aspect, and who’s not. , when you promise to imagine within the made-up story, then you possibly can work for the federal government or the get together or no matter, and when you don’t, you’re out. And so this then, not benefit or exhausting work, determines who will get promoted and who runs issues.

Pomerantsev: To point out that you just belonged to the Putin system, you needed to repeat absurd lies that individuals Putin was arresting had been responsible of completely absurd prices. You needed to agree that Nazis had been taking on Ukraine. , that might be socially very awkward at first, and other people might get fairly aggressive, particularly once they had been drunk. And after some time, it simply turned harmful as a result of when you disagreed with these absurd statements, with these conspiracy theories, you then had been primarily an enemy of the state. And that may develop into extremely harmful.

Applebaum: Once I first noticed birtherism unfolding within the U.S., my first response was, No means is that this taking place right here. People can’t fall for this sort of rubbish.

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

Applebaum: Wrongly, I imagined our political system is simply too large, and our democracy is simply too properly anchored, and other people don’t imagine in conspiracy theories. And clearly I used to be improper.

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

[Music]

Applebaum: Japanese Europeans are acquainted with the thought of ruling by conspiracy. However in modern America, that is new. And it’s so new, in actual fact, 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 inconceivable 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 inconceivable for Richer to take this sort of accusation severely. He knew it wasn’t true. He might see all of the recordsdata on the county computer systems daily he went to work. They hadn’t disappeared in any respect.

Applebaum: After which these claims began to take maintain with different large 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 Japanese Europe, the place the regime is utilizing completely nonsensical prices in opposition to you, and their very absurdity exhibits that you just’re type of powerless to struggle again. As a result of how do you struggle again in opposition to any individual 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’d be accused of one thing ludicrous or ridiculous, and there could be no technique to defend your self. However the entire system would one way or the other take it extremely severely.

Pomerantsev: You possibly can’t really struggle again in opposition to absurdity. It’s really very—properly, 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, similar to you probably did with birtherism and with conspiracy theories, that within the U.S., false accusations could 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 individual like Stephen Richer—who, properly, let’s put it very mainly, is a white election official, not a very weak member of society—that they might be capable to defend themselves fairly simply in opposition to blatant lies. However that’s not what was taking place in any respect.

Applebaum: No, in Maricopa County, which is a totally peculiar a part of America, we see not simply accusations of fraud however ridiculous accusations of fraud, and so they had been being taken severely.

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 an announcement from then-President Trump. Then there’s pilgrimages from nationwide figures to Maricopa County.

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

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 Get together?

Applebaum: There are lots of people, together with numerous Republicans, who’re attempting 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 numerous 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 modifications within the get together as they had been taking place, and he performed together with them slightly bit himself, not less than for some time, earlier than altering his thoughts utterly.

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

Applebaum: Kinzinger’s potential to talk for the get together on TV and elsewhere obtained extra sophisticated 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 images confirmed that it wasn’t a really large crowd on the market. So, , 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 can present that you just’re considered one of us.

Applebaum: Precisely. On this case, it was ridiculous. I imply, who cares how many individuals had 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 by way of forcing folks to lie, forcing establishments to lie, might he show their loyalty. And that is one other traditional piece of authoritarian habits.

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

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.

[Music]

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

Applebaum: And he continued to try to discover that stability, however he discovered much less and fewer camaraderie amongst members of his get together, 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 those who I knew who labored in state media and the forms—who’d all the time been so cynical, type of smirking once they repeated the federal government’s strains, signaling that they knew that every one the propaganda was a silly sport, that they had been simply enjoying alongside—all of the sudden, when the warfare began, they’d this utterly clean look and this whole 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 saved on searching for their previous smirk—the little glint within the eye—however all of the sudden they had 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 had been going to outlive in a brand new paradigm.

Applebaum: And this vulnerability to psychological corruption could be very human. It’s similar to what occurred in 2015 when the plane-crash conspiracy idea 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 numerous army and political leaders as properly. And the airplane crash was an accident. It was extensively investigated. The black packing containers had 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 get together was in control of the federal government, the conspiratorial get together—then all types of individuals all of the sudden thought, Properly, , they received. 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: “Fact,” 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 imagine in all of the lies that Putin’s propaganda says?

Applebaum: And it’s utterly the improper query. Fully improper.

Pomerantsev: Precisely. It’s the improper query. As a result of, , if you concentrate on perception as, , a set of beliefs that you just’ve thought of and also you’ve labored out and also you’ve determined that represents you—, 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 means round. You say that which marks your belonging with a view to really feel some type of psychological consolation. However tomorrow if the road modifications, properly, you then’ll imagine that.

[Music]

Pomerantsev: For me, I discover it considerably petrifying as a result of mainly this implies a political system the place reality and details 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 distinct type of political dialog. Then all you’ve got is anger and emotion and other people expressing themselves with a view to affirm their identities or to assault any individual else’s id.

And you then’re not speaking about well being care or roads or find out how to construct bridges, the place the following funding needs to be or how excessive taxes are. As a substitute, you’re in a distinct type of politics. And I do assume that America crossed into that world.

Pomerantsev: There is likely to be one thing else happening as properly, as a result of at some stage, , people who find themselves inhabiting this anti-fact, anti-truth id—at some stage, they have to all the time know that that’s not fairly them. , even when they’re now performing it very severely, 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 once 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 aspect. But in addition, he’s in a position to say issues in a freer means, and there’s a type of jealousy there as properly. 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 entire life turned way 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 the US 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 in regards to the 2020 election and the assault on the Capitol. And, , one has to really feel for Kinzinger and type of admire him. However he was experiencing these threats at a very excessive stage.

And I can’t neglect in regards to the story we began with in Maricopa County in Arizona: Stephen Richer. In a way, he was much more weak there, and he and his workforce had been having the complete 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’ve the tried homicide of Congressman Steve Scalise in 2017; the plot to kidnap Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, in 2020; a gunman exterior the house of Supreme Court docket Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2022. And likewise, in that very same yr, a person broke into Nancy Pelosi’s home aspiring to kidnap her and wound up smashing her husband’s head with a hammer as an alternative.

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 large names—congressmen, Supreme Court docket justices. In Arizona, we’re speaking about native authorities employees. This can be a county election workplace. And but, Richer and his workforce in 2021 are being questioned and harassed and threatened and even investigated by the state’s lawyer basic, beneath strain from the president of the US. And this was actually exhausting 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 power it onto different folks. Folks begin feeling actually awkward and responsible and begin internalizing the guilt. I imply, a little bit of your mind begins going, Properly, did I do it? What in the event that they’re proper? What if two plus two equals 5? What’s happening right here?

Applebaum: It’s unsettling, and other people discuss it years later and don’t all the time get better. I imply, the second once they had been afraid of being arrested for some absurd political declare, the second once they had been compelled to say one thing or do one thing they didn’t imagine—these are moments if you all of the sudden 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: Folks get accused of murders they haven’t dedicated. I imply, there’s all types of horrible issues that occur, even in probably the most, , superior democracies. So this stuff occur.

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

Applebaum: Properly, the infrastructure of purpose remains to be standing in Maricopa County. The Kafkaesque investigation into Richer ended, and the lawyer basic 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 peculiar 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 as of late with a view 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, combined by Rob Smierciak. Claudine Ebeid is the manager producer of Atlantic audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.

Pomerantsev: Autocracy in America is produced by The Atlantic and made attainable with assist from the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins College, a tutorial and public discussion board devoted to strengthening international democracy by way of highly effective civic engagement and knowledgeable, inclusive dialogue.

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

Pomerantsev: What occurs if the courts are undermined and are keen to go together with that conspiracy? What if the psychological corruption turns into political corruption? What if the web 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.