Autocracy in America podcast artwork
News

Autocracy in America

by The Atlantic
Trending

Chart positions today · India

Not on the India charts we track today.

If you like Autocracy in America, try…

Latest episodes

  • A New Season is Coming

    October 20, 2026 · 1 min

    The midterms will mark the beginning of the end of Donald Trump’s second presidency. This season, the podcast asks, “What happens next?” Host Anne Applebaum sits down with leaders in politics, technology, and culture to discuss what can be…

  • American Democracy Under Occupation

    February 6, 2026 · 28 min

    When heavily armed agents of the federal government arrived in Minneapolis, the people of the Twin Cities responded with surprising strength.  In this episode, residents describe what drove them to act, and host Anne Applebaum speaks with…

  • Elections Distorted

    February 6, 2026 · 33 min

    The Trump White House is changing the rules of our political system through intimidation, the distortion of information, financial corruption, and the dismantling of government offices. In the final episode of this season, we examine…

  • Rise of the Trump Loyalist

    January 30, 2026 · 32 min

    Kathleen Walters was only 23 days away from qualifying for early retirement at the IRS when she decided to quit, rather than acquiesce to a Trump-administration request that she break the law and compromise millions of people’s privacy…

  • Reality Reshaped

    January 23, 2026 · 30 min

    Joan Brugge has worked for nearly 50 years as a cancer scientist, studying the earliest signs that someone might become sick. Then the Trump administration canceled her lab’s funding. The administration’s attacks on medicine, culture, and…

Show 7 more episodesShow fewer episodes
  • Crypto Corruption

    January 16, 2026 · 31 min

    Brandon LaRoque kept his life savings in a cryptocurrency account. One morning, as he went to check his balance, he discovered that it was all missing. LaRoque is one of many victims of the unregulated crypto industry. President Donald…

  • ICE and the National Guard Are Acting with Impunity

    January 9, 2026 · 29 min

    The transformation of ICE into a type of national police force, backed, in some cases, by soldiers from the National Guard, has been covered as immigration story—but these forces are reshaping democracy for all of us. This shift was…

  • The Ambassador

    August 1, 2025 · 42 min

    How should American power be deployed in the world? Since the Cold War, America’s role as a global leader has been up for debate.  Host Garry Kasparov and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton dissect the state of the…

  • The Dissident

    July 25, 2025 · 40 min

    What is a dissident? In an autocracy, standing against the rulers could mean harassment, prison, torture, even death. Dissidents stand up anyway.  Host Garry Kasparov is joined by Masih Alinejad, whose work for women’s rights against the…

  • The Pollster

    July 18, 2025 · 39 min

    Have Americans grown complacent, thinking nothing can shake the United States’ democracy? Host Garry Kasparov is joined by Frank Luntz, someone well versed in taking the temperature of the American public.  Luntz is perhaps best known as…

  • The Return

    July 11, 2025 · 30 min

    Since The Atlantic first released the podcast Autocracy in America last fall, Donald Trump was elected president again. Staff writer Anne Applebaum describes how Trump’s return to the White House fits into the changing geopolitical…

  • Coming Soon: A New Season of Autocracy in America

    June 27, 2025 · 3 min

    The former world chess champion and lifelong democracy activist Garry Kasparov guides a new series of conversations about society’s complacency with liberal values and how this carelessness has fueled a democratic retreat—and a new…

Full episode archive on Apple Podcasts →

About the show

Reporting on the sweeping changes unfolding in the United States, and preparing you to think about what might happen next.