Anne Applebaum: “Peace is war, freedom is slavery” (Substack)

 Anne Applebaum:

“Peace is war, freedom is slavery”
Substack, August 20, 2025

Forgive me for using an Orwellian cliche in this headline (The full quote is “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.” It’s from the novel 1984, if you don’t recognize it, and it is an example of doublethink, the Party’s propaganda). But unfortunately we are entering that territory. I wound up writing on that theme in two different ways this past week.
Let me first note that in the days before and during Trump’s meeting with Putin in Alaska, I contracted a mystery virus. Because it initially seemed like it could be something worse, I spent a few days in a hospital. From that more distant perspective the absurdity of the meeting, the Kabuki theater element, was perhaps clearer. Everyone was playing their roles for the camera. Putin was there so that he could show his audience at home that he is the leader of a great superpower. Trump was there to fulfill the demands of his own ego, to prove that Putin really is his friend. American soldiers literally kneeled and rolled out a red carpet for a war criminal. The American president stood on the carpet clapping like a seal as the war criminal arrived. 
Trump also looked weak because he is. In a burst of antibiotic-inspired energy, I did write something for the Atlantic on Saturday: Trump Has No Cards. I started by listing all of the ways in which Trump has already dismantled all forms of American pressure on Russia: 
President Donald Trump berated President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office. He allowed the Pentagon twice to halt prearranged military shipments to Ukraine. He promised that when the current tranche of armaments runs out, there will be no more. He has cut or threatened to cut the U.S. funds that previously supported independent Russian-language media and opposition. His administration is slowly, quietly easing sanctions on Russia, ending “basic sanctions and export control actions that had maintained and increased U.S. pressure,” according to a Senate-minority report. 

Given all of that, it’s hardly surprising that Putin now thinks he can win the war. Instead of agreeing to a ceasefire, he can enter prolonged “negotiations.” Instead of feeling pressure to stop fighting, he is convinced that the US, at least, will do nothing to stop him. The Anchorage meeting encouraged that perspective. 
Certainly the Europeans, who are now providing Ukraine with more money and weapons than the United States, understood the PR catastrophe of Alaska very well. They flew to Washington, on short notice, because they wanted to prevent the Alaska disaster from morphing into something worse. But quite a lot of damage has already been done: 

The better way to understand Anchorage is not as the start of something new, but as the culmination of a longer process. As the U.S. dismantles its foreign-policy tools, as this administration fires the people who know how to use them, our ability to act with any agility will diminish. From the Treasury Department to the U.S. Agency for Global Media, from the State Department to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, agency after agency is being undermined, deliberately or accidentally, by political appointees who are unqualified, craven, or hostile to their own mission.
Many of these changes have gone almost unremarked on in the United States. But they are widely known in Russia. The administration’s attacks on Zelensky, Europeans, and Voice of America have been celebrated on Russian television. Of course Vladimir Putin knows about the slow lifting of sanctions. As a result, the Russian president has clearly made a calculation: Trump, to use the language he once hurled at Zelensky, has no cards.

O Grande Realinhamento (de Trump para Putin) e o significado do 4 de julho para os americanos - Anne Applebaum

 Anne Applebaum escreve sobre o Grande Realinhamento (de Trump para Putin) e sobre o significado do 4 de Julho, e tudo o que Trump vem fazendo contrariamente à Declaração da Independência americana:

The Great Realignment
Also: the Declaration of Independence makes interesting reading this July 4th
ANNE APPLEBAUM
JUL 4, 2025

Slowly, and not exactly imperceptibly, the United States of America is changing its geopolitical orientation. The Trump administration has made clear that it can no longer automatically be considered a strategic partner to Ukraine, or a reliable ally to Europe. Perhaps the president is not yet fully aligned with his Russian counterpart, but he is moving in that direction, much faster than many realize.

This shift has already had devastating consequences. In very clear ways, Trump’s policies are encouraging Putin’s war. For the Atlantic, I connected some of the dots:

Trump occasionally berates Putin, or makes sympathetic noises toward Ukrainians, as he did last week when he seemed to express interest in a Ukrainian journalist who said that her husband was in the military. Trump also appeared to enjoy being flattered at the NATO summit, where European leaders made a decision, hailed as historic, to further raise defense spending. But thanks to quieter decisions by members of his own administration, people whom he has appointed, the American realignment with Russia and against Ukraine and Europe is gathering pace—not merely in rhetoric but in reality.

Not for the first time, Trump’s Pentagon has abruptly blocked transfers of weapons to Ukraine. The most shocking decision concerns air defense:

Just this week, in the middle of the worst aerial-bombing campaign since the war began, the Trump administration confirmed that a large shipment of weapons, which had already been funded by the Biden administration, will not be sent to Ukraine. The weapons, some of which are already in Poland, include artillery shells, missiles, rockets, and, most important, interceptors for Patriot air-defense systems, the ammunition that Ukrainians need to protect civilians from missile attacks. Trump had suggested that he would supply Ukraine with more Patriot ammunition, which is an American product. “We’re going to see if we can make some available,” he said after meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week. But what he says and what his administration actually does are very different.

Within days of receiving the news that Ukraine will have less air defense, Putin hit Kyiv, on Thursday night, with the largest air attack of the entire war. This morning, parts of the city were burning. This is what it looked like (with thanks to @kateinkharkiv.bsky.social‬):


But the realignment is not only military. In practice, the US is reducing sanctions on Russia, easing pressure on the economy and helping the Russians acquire the components they need to build the missiles that kill civilians. The Trump administration has also stopped fighting any kind of narrative war with Russia, dropping efforts to identify Russian propaganda, and blocking independent Russian-language media of all kinds, including our own Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty:

During the Biden administration, the State Department’s Global Engagement Center regularly identified Russian disinformation operations around the world—exposing misleading websites or campaigns secretly run or directed by Russian operatives in Latin America and Africa, as well as in Europe. Trump appointees have not only dissolved the center; they also baselessly and bizarrely accused it of somehow harming American conservatives, even of having “actively silenced and censored the voices of Americans,” although the GEC had no operations inside the U.S.

At the same time, cuts to USAID and other programs have abruptly reduced funding for some independent media and Russian-opposition media. The planned cuts to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, if not stopped by the courts, will destroy one of the few outside sources of information that reaches Russians with real news about the war. Should all of these changes become permanent, the U.S. will no longer have any tools available to communicate with the Russian public or counter Russian propaganda, either inside Russia or around the world.

The result? Putin, who might otherwise have been running into real trouble right now, in his third year of an unsucceesful and costly conflict, has been encouraged and inspired to keep going. Trump has given him and his war a new lease on life.

Add all of these things together, and they are something more than just a pattern. They are a set of incentives that help persuade Putin to keep fighting. Sanctions are disappearing, weapons are diminishing, counterpropaganda is harder to hear. All of that will encourage Putin to go further—not just to try to defeat Ukraine but to divide Europe, mortally damage NATO, and reduce the power and influence of the United States around the world.

I am no longer interested in speculating about why Trump is helping Putin. But I will continue to demonstrate, over and over again, that he does.

===========

When in the course of human events… (July 4th, 1776)

I re-read the Declaration of Independence a few weeks ago, just to remind myself of what it contains. If you are lucky enough to live in an American town or neighborhood that stages annual readings on the 4th of July, then pay close attention this year. If you don’t, then read it yourself. (Check out the National Archives website, which has a transcription as well as photographs of the original). In essence, the Declaration was a list of things the colonists hated about the King. Here are a few which now sound familiar once again.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures (and now Trump plans, in times of peace, to create a massive, heavily armed ICE army)

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power (as when Trump moblized the marines against the will of the government of California)

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world ( aren’t tariffs the same thing?)

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences (reminds me of the deportation of people to El Salvador)

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance (The Trump administration has also taken over budgets and government programs without consent of the legislature)

We didn’t want a king in 1776 - will we tolerate one now?

NINGUÉM NA UCRÂNIA ACREDITA QUE A GUERRA VAI TERMINAR EM BREVE - Anne Applebaum (The Atlantic)

NINGUÉM NA UCRÂNIA ACREDITA QUE A GUERRA VAI TERMINAR EM BREVE

Os ucranianos estão confiantes de que podem continuar lutando, mesmo sem o mesmo nível de apoio americano.

Por Anne Applebaum

The Atlantic, 19 de maio de 2025

No sábado, perguntei a Andriy Sadovyi, prefeito de Lviv, no oeste da Ucrânia, se ele esperava que as negociações russo-ucranianas em Istambul levassem a um cessar-fogo. “Não”, ele me respondeu. Mais tarde, perguntei à plateia do Fórum de Mídia de Lviv se alguém esperava um cessar-fogo em breve. Havia cerca de 200 jornalistas e editores na sala. Ninguém levantou a mão. Muitos riram.

Durante vários dias em Lviv, não conheci uma única pessoa que acreditasse que o presidente russo quer encerrar a guerra, ou que ele vá negociar para isso em Istambul. O raciocínio ucraniano é direto: Vladimir Putin nunca disse que quer encerrar a guerra. Os propagandistas da televisão estatal russa nunca disseram que querem encerrar a guerra. A equipe de negociação russa em Istambul não disse que queria encerrar a guerra. Pelo contrário, o chefe da delegação russa, Vladimir Medinsky, disse aos ucranianos: “Lutamos contra a Suécia por 21 anos. Quanto tempo vocês estão dispostos a lutar?” (A Grande Guerra do Norte, à qual Medinsky se referia, terminou em 1721. Além disso, Medinsky é mais conhecido não por feitos heroicos em batalhas, mas por reescrever livros escolares).

Na mesma reunião, os russos exigiram que a Ucrânia se retirasse de terras que controla; ameaçaram anexar mais províncias — algo que tentam e falham em fazer há três anos; e insultaram um membro da delegação ucraniana que perdeu um sobrinho nos combates. “Talvez alguns aqui sentados à mesa percam mais entes queridos”, zombou Medinsky.

Os ucranianos não acham nada disso surpreendente, pois ouvem esse tipo de discurso há três anos. O que os surpreende é a tolerância do presidente americano diante do que lhes parece uma zombaria aberta. O presidente Donald Trump diz que quer uma negociação de paz. O presidente ucraniano Volodymyr Zelensky preparou-se para uma negociação de paz. O presidente russo a transformou em uma farsa — e provavelmente continuará com essa farsa, enrolando Trump o máximo possível, aceitando mais telefonemas e reuniões para evitar novas sanções, desviar a atenção dos crimes de guerra em curso e fazer os EUA parecerem fracos.

Não vou aqui oferecer uma explicação completa sobre por que Trump não entende o jogo que Putin está jogando — um jogo óbvio para todos os demais. Apenas observo que Trump continuamente interpreta mal Putin, superestima sua suposta amizade com ele e frequentemente atribui a Putin motivos que, na verdade, são seus próprios. “Putin está cansado de tudo isso”, disse Trump à Fox News. “Ele não está com boa aparência. E quer parecer bem.” Na realidade, é Trump quem está cansado “de tudo isso”, é Trump quem não está com boa aparência — e é Trump quem quer parecer bem.

Putin, por sua vez, redirecionou toda sua economia para a produção militar, ao estilo da União Soviética ou da Alemanha nazista. Criou um regime tão repressivo que as pessoas têm medo até de usar a palavra “guerra” em público. Sacrifica regularmente centenas ou até milhares de homens para conquistar 100 metros de território. O que os outros pensam disso pouco lhe importa.

Por todas essas razões, os ucranianos acreditam que a guerra vai continuar — e essa perspectiva já não os assusta. Em parte, porque não têm outra escolha. Ao contrário dos russos, que podem abandonar o campo de batalha e voltar para casa a qualquer momento, os ucranianos não podem se retirar. Se o fizerem, perderão sua civilização, sua língua e sua liberdade. Sob ocupação russa, o prefeito de Lviv e os jornalistas do Fórum de Mídia estariam presos ou mortos — assim como seus colegas assassinados ou presos nas regiões ocupadas da Ucrânia.

Mais do que isso, os ucranianos estão confiantes de que podem continuar lutando, mesmo sem o mesmo nível de apoio americano. O exército ucraniano não está reconquistando território, como fez no outono de 2022, nem planeja uma nova grande contraofensiva. Mas também não está perdendo. Os tanques e equipamentos pesados que a Ucrânia precisava de outros países já não importam tanto como há dois anos. Os ucranianos ainda precisam da inteligência americana e das defesas antimísseis para proteger civis nas cidades. Ainda recebem armas e munição da Europa. Mas na linha de frente, o conflito se tornou uma guerra de drones — e a Ucrânia tanto produz drones (mais de 2 milhões no ano passado, provavelmente o dobro neste ano) quanto desenvolve o software e os sistemas para operá-los. Em fevereiro, uma unidade ucraniana implantou o primeiro de uma série de robôs de combate. No mês passado, um drone naval ucraniano derrubou um avião russo. Uma brigada projetou um drone que consegue neutralizar com eficácia um Shahed, os drones iranianos usados para matar civis ucranianos.

Os russos também aumentaram sua produção de drones, e nesse sentido, esta guerra é realmente uma corrida armamentista. Mas, por ora, os ucranianos estão compensando seus recursos mais escassos com maior precisão. Em abril, brigadas de drones ucranianas relataram ter atingido 83 mil alvos russos — veículos, pessoas, artilharia, radares e outros —, o que representa 5% a mais do que em março. O exército agora realiza concursos, premiando as brigadas que atingem mais alvos com maior precisão. Mais recursos vão para os vencedores, criando mais incentivos para inovar.

Os resultados são visíveis no terreno. Lembre-se, se puder, do pânico causado pelas notícias de nove meses atrás: a cidade de Pokrovsk estava prestes a cair, o que muitos acreditavam que poderia provocar o colapso de toda a linha de frente. Mas Pokrovsk não caiu. Os russos continuam a atacar a região: só em 15 de maio, soldados ucranianos na linha de frente de Pokrovsk repeliram 74 ataques e ações ofensivas diferentes. Mas, nos últimos meses, a linha de frente mal se moveu.

Tudo isso ajuda a explicar a naturalidade, até o humor, com que muitos ucranianos agora falam sobre a guerra — bem como sua suposição de que continuarão lutando, aconteça o que acontecer. Enquanto estava em Lviv, visitei também o Superhumans, um dos dois centros de reabilitação para veteranos e vítimas da guerra na cidade. Tal como a linha de frente, este também é um lugar de inovação e ambição. Talvez soe estranho, mas também achei um lugar de otimismo e esperança: uma instalação nova, bem projetada, onde técnicos produzem próteses sob medida, cirurgiões restauram audição e visão, e especialistas em movimento e psicologia ajudam pessoas gravemente feridas a se readaptar.

O restante da sociedade ucraniana também se readaptou. Até os guardas de fronteira se readaptaram. Três anos atrás, na primavera de 2022, a viagem de trem de Varsóvia a Kyiv era longa e estressante. O trem parava e arrancava, fazendo um trajeto em zigue-zague para evitar trilhos bombardeados. Oficiais da alfândega falavam de forma seca e tensa, fazendo perguntas sobre passaportes e propósito. Na volta, voluntários aguardavam para ajudar a processar refugiados ucranianos, alguns entrando nos vagões para distribuir sanduíches.

Na semana passada, cruzei novamente a fronteira polaco-ucraniana duas vezes, desta vez de carro. Na entrada na Ucrânia, esperamos alguns minutos para que os guardas verificassem os passaportes e seus computadores. Eles contaram piadas, sorriram e nos deixaram passar. Ninguém foi seco ou tenso, porque ninguém está ansioso ou com medo. Na volta, não havia refugiados nem voluntários. Ninguém ofereceu sanduíches.

Anne Applebaum returning from Munich: farewell to America

 End of an Era 

After Munich 

ANNE APPLEBAUM FEB 20

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The first Munich Security Conference was held in 1963, on the initiative of Ewald Von Kleist, a member of the anti-Nazi resistance. The original purpose was to bring together Germans, Americans and other Europeans for an annual discussion of security, and an annual reinforcement of the shared transatlantic commitment to democratic values and the rule of law. Von Kleist hoped, by doing so, to prevent a return of the fascist regime he hated. 

Over the years the conference grew bigger. Senator John McCain famously brought a a planeload of Americans every year - other Senators, members of Congress, journalists, security analysts. The American Vice-President and the German Chancellor usually make speeches. Foreign and defense ministers from across the NATO alliance come too. At some point it grew too big: at the height of the conference, on Saturday morning, it can be too crowded to walk across the lobby of the hotel that hosts the event. 

I have been to many Munich conferences, including the remarkable one that took place in 2022, on the eve of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when everyone present vowed to help Ukraine (and yet Zelensky went home to fight alone). This one was different. Vice President JD Vance arrived intending not to express solidarity, or even to solve common problems. He wanted to blow up the transatlantic alliance, and he succeeded. 

In a way, this was helpful: Vance clarified the Trump administration’s position on alliances, especially in Eurpe. It took me a few days to process what had happened, but I wrote about this dramatic shift today: 

For eight decades, America’s alliances with other democracies have been the bedrock of American foreign policy, trade policy, and cultural influence. American investments in allies’ security helped keep the peace in formerly unstable parts of the world, allowing democratic societies from Germany to Japan to prosper, by preventing predatory autocracies from destroying them. We prospered too. Thanks to its allies, the U.S. obtained unprecedented political and economic influence in Europe and Asia, and unprecedented power everywhere else.

The Trump administration is now bringing the post–World War II era to an end.

Vance’s speech was followed by revelations of the extraordinary “deal” that the U.S. Treasury Secretary offered to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, a few days ago. Several people in Munich had seen it: 

It calls for the U.S. to take 50 percent of all “economic value associated with resources of Ukraine,” including “mineral resources, oil and gas resources, ports, other infrastructure,” not just now but forever, as the British newspaper The Telegraphreported and others confirmed: “For all future licenses the U.S. will have a right of first refusal for the purchase of exportable minerals,” the document says.

Having offered Ukraine more or less what the Versailles Treaty offered a defeated Germany, President Trump then launched an extraordinary, dishonest attack on Zelensky. I corrected a few of his points: 

No, Ukraine did not start the war; Russia launched the invasion, Russia is still attacking Ukraine, and Russia could end the war today if it stopped attacking Ukraine. No, the U.S. did not spend “$350 billion” in Ukraine. No, Volodymyr Zelensky does not have “four percent” popularity; the real number is more than 50 percent, higher than Trump’s. No, Zelensky is not a “dictator”; Ukrainians, unlike Russians, freely debate and argue about politics. But because they are under daily threat of attack, the Ukrainian government has declared martial law and postponed elections until a ceasefire. With so many people displaced and so many soldiers at the front line, Ukrainians fear an election would be dangerous, unfair, and an obvious target for Russian manipulation, as even Zelensky’s harshest critics agree.

I cannot emphasize enough the dramatic nature of this change. America has switched side, not only in Ukraine, but also more broadly in the war of ideas. Read the whole article (it’s a gift link) and my recommendations for Europe, right here:

Textos mais acessados na página Paulo Roberto de Almeida em Academia.edu: Anne Applebaum em primeiro lugar

 Uma pequena visita ao Analytics de minha página em Academia.edu: 

O arquivo mais requisitado, no mundo anglo-saxão, foi o de Anne Applebaum, que remonta ainda ao fatídico ataque à democracia americana pelos trumpistas revoltados (e incitados pelo "seu" presidente) pela derrota de Trump. Na verdade, são dois os artigos, uma versão resumida, que aparece em primeiro lugar, e a versão original, que aparece em sétimo lugar. Conjuntamente, tiveram mais de 1.300 acessos, mas a versão reduzida teve 365 acessos nos últimos 30 dias, ou seja, no mês de janeiro (que corresponde à segunda posse do presidente criminoso).

Anne Applebaum se pergunta: "Why have Republican leaders abandoned their principles in support of an immoral and dangerous president?"

Mas, isso foi em 2020, quando ela se perguntava por que os representantes republicanos não se revoltavam contra a tentativa de golpe. Acho que Anne Applebaum precisa fazer um novo artigo sobre as loucuras comerciais de Trump, que atingem prejudicialmente o próprio povo americano. 

O outro mais acessado, também no exterior (e não sei porque acessaram pela minha página) foi o arquivo sobre o potencial militar das grandes potências, e dos países em geral, tanto na versão de 2024, quando na de 2023. Depois vem o "declínio do Ocidente", tema angustiante, ao que parece.

Outro, tema da moda, é meu capítulo sobre "assédio no Itamaraty", numa obra coletiva sobre o mesmo tema no serviço público.

Analytics em 3/02/2025 (30 dias de acessos)

 

Title	30 Day Views	All-Time Views
History Will Judge the Complicit - Anne Applebaum (Abridged version)	365	658
The Military Balance 2024	287	454
The Military Balance 2023 International Institute for Strategic Studies	271	4,929
4688) Emmanuel Todd: La Defaite de l'Occident: notas de leitura (2024)	104	321
2784) Academia.edu: uma plataforma de informação e colaboração entre acadêmicos (2014)	97	2,641
4051) Assedio institucional no Itamaraty: breve abordagem e depoimento pessoal (2021)	92	92
History Will Judge the Complicit - Anne Applebaum (The Atlantic, June 2020)	67	675

 

 Visitem minhas páginas: 

https://unb.academia.edu/PauloRobertodeAlmeida
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Paulo_Almeida2

E meu blog: diplomatizzando.blogspot.com

A linguagem de Trump, como a de Hitler, de Stalin e outros ditadores - Anne Applebaum

 

On vermin 

Some closing thoughts 

ANNE APPLEBAUM NOV 1

READ IN APP

A couple of weeks ago, I downloaded a collection of Hitler’s speeches and started going through them. I also searched my own files, especially the notes I took when working years ago in Russian archives. I was looking for the word “vermin.” Also “parasite.” And, in the Hitler speeches, references to “blood.” 

The result was an article that mostly just quoted Donald Trump, noting that some of language he uses comes directly from the 1930s. Not just Hitler but Stalin, Mao and the East German Stasi liked to talk about their enemies as vermin and parasites who “poison the blood” of the nation: 

The word vermin, as a political term, dates from the 1930s and ’40s, when both fascists and communists liked to describe their political enemies as vermin, parasites, and blood infections, as well as insects, weeds, dirt, and animals. The term has been revived and reanimated, in an American presidential campaign, with Donald Trump’s description of his opponentsas “radical-left thugs” who “live like vermin.”

This language isn’t merely ugly or repellent: These words belong to a particular tradition. Adolf Hitler used these kinds of terms often. In 1938, he praised his compatriots who had helped “cleanse Germany of all those parasites who drank at the well of the despair of the Fatherland and the People.” In occupied Warsaw, a 1941 poster displayed a drawing of a louse with a caricature of a Jewish face. The slogan: “Jews are lice: they cause typhus.” Germans, by contrast, were clean, pure, healthy, and vermin-free. Hitler once described the Nazi flag as “the victorious sign of freedom and the purity of our blood.”

Stalin used the same kind of language at about the same time. He called his opponents the “enemies of the people,” implying that they were not citizens and that they enjoyed no rights. He portrayed them as vermin, pollution, filth that had to be “subjected to ongoing purification,” and he inspired his fellow communists to employ similar rhetoric. In my files, I have the notes from a 1955 meeting of the leaders of the Stasi, the East German secret police, during which one of them called for a struggle against “vermin activities” (there is, inevitably, a German word for this:Schädlingstätigkeiten), by which he meant the purge and arrest of the regime’s critics. In this same era, the Stasi forcibly moved suspicious people away from the border with West Germany, a project nicknamed “Operation Vermin.”

This kind of language was not limited to Europe. Mao Zedong also described his political opponents as “poisonous weeds.” Pol Pot spoke of “cleansing” hundreds of thousands of his compatriots so that Cambodia would be “purified.”

In each of these very different societies, the purpose of this kind of rhetoric was the same. If you connect your opponents with disease, illness, and poisoned blood, if you dehumanize them as insects or animals, if you speak of squashing them or cleansing them as if they were pests or bacteria, then you can much more easily arrest them, deprive them of rights, exclude them, or even kill them. If they are parasites, they aren’t human. If they are vermin, they don’t get to enjoy freedom of speech, or freedoms of any kind. And if you squash them, you won’t be held accountable.

I also tried to find previous examples US presidents or presidential candidates over the past century talking like this. But I found that even the most openly racist figures did not.

George Wallace’s notorious, racist, neo-Confederate 1963 speech, his inaugural speech as Alabama governor and the prelude to his first presidential campaign, avoided such language. Wallace called for “segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” But he did not speak of his political opponents as “vermin” or talk about them poisoning the nation’s blood. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, which ordered Japanese Americans into internment camps following the outbreak of World War II, spoke of “alien enemies” but not parasites.

This was a fairly straightforward argument, mostly just quotations. Read the whole thing here:

Trump's language, from The Atlantic

I was not the only person to hear these historical echoes in Trump’s speech. General John Kelly, the former chief of staff in Trump’s White House, has also described, on the record, in both the New York Times and the Atlantic, how Trump would frequently praise Hitler’s generals. Not only did Kelly use the word ‘fascist’ to describe Trump, thirteen former Trump White House officials signed a statement agreeing with him. 

But not everybody agreed. Normally I wouldn’t write about reactions to my writing: I have opinions and others have them too. But this time, the response of Trump supporters - or rather, people who are going to vote for Trump because he might lower their taxes – interested me, because it reminded me of things I’ve seen in other places.  Other than the usual suspects – posters on 4chan, the website of Russia Today, and Elon Musk - I also got a response from the Wall Street Journal editorial page. Under the headline “the fascist meme re-emerges,” the editorial board dismissed my article and others as “hyperbole,” said that there’s nothing to worry about and, tellingly, threw some insults at Joe Biden. A couple of weeks later the historian Niall Ferguson, writing in the Daily Mail, dismissed the whole conversation about “fascism” and then attacked Kamala Harris as undemocratic on the grounds that some people around her have argued for constitutional change. This is a phenomenon that the Poles call symmetrism: whenever something ugly emerges about  someone in your political camp, search immediately for something ugly to say about your opponents, whether or not it is equivalent. 

Something else was going on too. These are intelligent, well-read Trump supporters; they also hear the echoes from history, but they don’t want to draw conclusions from what they are hearing. They belittle, undermine, excuse and ignore his language, his scorn for the rule of law, his allusions to violence and his constant predictions of chaos because if they were to take this language seriously, then they would also have to draw uncomfortable conclusions about themselves. 

With just a few days to go, let me step back and make the case, once again, for why Trump’s language, and Trump’s propaganda, matter so much. Do note that, despite the criticism, it has not stopped. Right up until the final moments of the campaign, Trump was still casting his opponents as “enemies,” as was everyone around him. At his Madison Square Garden rally, one speaker after the next described Puerto Rico as “garbage,” Harris as “the anti-Christ” and Hillary Clinton as a “sick son of a bitch.” At an event with Tucker Carlson on Thursday, he called for violence against Liz Cheney: "Let's put her with a rifle standing there with 9 barrels shooting at her. Let's see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face."

Trump will not personally try to kill Cheney. But he wants us to get used to the idea that someone might, and that would be ok. Also, he wants us to get used to the idea that he might transgress, break the law - or try, once again, to steal the election. 

As I wrote, again in the Atlantic, 

You are meant to accept this language and behavior, to consider this kind of rhetoric ‘baked in’ to any Trump campaign. You are supposed to just get used to the idea that Trump wishes he had ‘Hitler’s generals’ or that he uses the Stalinist phrase ‘enemies of the people’ to describe his opponents. Because once you think that’s normal, then you’ll accept the next step. Even when that next step is an assault on democracy and the rule of law.’”

This campaign has had a purpose. It has prepared Americans - even serious, establishment historians, or members of the Wall Street Journal editorial board - to accept what comes next. If Harris wins on Tuesday, you can expect a massive campaign to change the result. Accusations that “illegal immigrants” are voting, for which there is absolutely no evidence; shenanigans with vote certification; maybe even games played by the House of Representatives. 

Again, read the whole article here: 

Trump Wants You To Think This is Normal

And if Trump wins? He and the people around him have already told us what they will do. They will seek to transform the federal government into a loyalty machine that serves the interests of himself and his cronies. This was the essence of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, and it will become reality. The Justice Department, the FBI, the IRS and maybe others will focus on harassing Trump’s enemies in the media and in politics. Whole branches of the federal government will be farmed out to cronies who will build kleptocracy on a new scale. 

These changes will not come overnight. They will happen slowly, over time, as they did in Hungary, Venezuela or Turkey. And at each stage, there will be people arguing that we should accept or ignore them. 

Don’t listen to them. And do vote. 

Read my book, Autocracy Inc

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Autocracy Inc. de Anne Applebaum, Introdução (Inteligência Democrática)

 Autocracy Inc. de Anne Applebaum

Inteligência Democrática, 4/08/2024

 

Reproduzimos abaixo, numa tradução automática do ChatGPT4, a introdução do mais recente livro de Anne Applebaum (2024), Autocracy Inc. Os ditadores que querem governar o mundo. O PDF com o texto integral pode ser baixado aqui: APPLEBAUM Autocracy, Inc.

 

INTRODUÇÃO

Todos nós temos em nossas mentes uma imagem caricatural de um estado autocrático. Há um homem mau no topo. Ele controla o exército e a polícia. O exército e a polícia ameaçam o povo com violência. Existem colaboradores malignos e, talvez, alguns dissidentes corajosos.

Mas, no século 21, essa caricatura pouco se assemelha à realidade. Hoje em dia, as autocracias não são dirigidas por um único homem mau, mas por redes sofisticadas que dependem de estruturas financeiras cleptocráticas, um complexo de serviços de segurança — militares, paramilitares, policiais — e especialistas tecnológicos que fornecem vigilância, propaganda e desinformação. Os membros dessas redes estão conectados não apenas entre si dentro de uma dada autocracia, mas também a redes em outros países autocráticos, e às vezes em democracias também. Empresas corruptas controladas pelo estado em uma ditadura fazem negócios com empresas corruptas controladas pelo estado em outra. A polícia em um país pode armar, equipar e treinar a polícia em muitos outros. Os propagandistas compartilham recursos — os fazendeiros de trolls e as redes de mídia que promovem a propaganda de um ditador também podem ser usados para promover a de outro — bem como temas: a degeneração da democracia, a estabilidade da autocracia, o mal dos Estados Unidos.

Isso não quer dizer que há uma sala secreta onde os caras maus se encontram, como em um filme de James Bond. Nem nosso conflito com eles é um concurso binário preto-e-branco, uma “Guerra Fria 2.0.” Entre os autocratas modernos estão pessoas que se autodenominam comunistas, monarquistas, nacionalistas e teocratas. Seus regimes têm raízes históricas diferentes, objetivos diferentes, estéticas diferentes. O comunismo chinês e o nacionalismo russo diferem não apenas entre si, mas também do socialismo bolivariano da Venezuela, do Juche da Coreia do Norte ou do radicalismo xiita da República Islâmica do Irã. Todos eles diferem das monarquias árabes e outros — Arábia Saudita, Emirados, Vietnã — que em sua maioria não buscam minar o mundo democrático. Eles também diferem das autocracias mais suaves e democracias híbridas, às vezes chamadas de democracias iliberais —Turquia, Cingapura, Índia, Filipinas, Hungria — que às vezes se alinham com o mundo democrático e às vezes não. Ao contrário de alianças militares ou políticas de outras épocas e lugares, este grupo opera não como um bloco, mas sim como uma aglomeração de empresas, vinculadas não pela ideologia, mas sim por uma determinação implacável e única de preservar sua riqueza e poder pessoal: Autocracia, Inc.

Em vez de ideias, os homens fortes que lideram a Rússia, China, Irã, Coreia do Norte, Venezuela, Nicarágua, Angola, Mianmar, Cuba, Síria, Zimbábue, Mali, Bielorrússia, Sudão, Azerbaijão e talvez outras três dúzias compartilham uma determinação de privar seus cidadãos de qualquer influência ou voz pública reais, de lutar contra todas as formas de transparência ou responsabilidade, e de reprimir qualquer um, em casa ou no exterior, que os desafie. Eles também compartilham uma abordagem brutalmente pragmática da riqueza. Ao contrário dos líderes fascistas e comunistas do passado, que tinham máquinas partidárias atrás deles e não exibiam sua ganância, os líderes da Autocracia, Inc., muitas vezes mantêm residências opulentas e estruturam grande parte de sua colaboração como empreendimentos lucrativos. Seus vínculos entre si e com seus amigos no mundo democrático são cimentados não por ideais, mas por negócios — negócios projetados para atenuar as sanções, trocar tecnologia de vigilância, ajudar uns aos outros a enriquecer.

(...) 

(+ 11 páginas)

Leia a íntegra neste link: 

https://www.academia.edu/122602843/Autocracy_Inc_Anne_Applebaum_Introdu%C3%A7%C3%A3o_2024_