Anne Applebaum
Anne Applebaum is a clear and unwavering voice warning of the dangers democracy faces from the rising tide of autocratic rule, at home and abroad. In her recent book, Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World, she argues that modern authoritarian regimes cooperate across borders—politically, financially, and technologically - to weaken democratic societies.
She studied Soviet history at Yale and spent a formative summer in Leningrad in 1985, an experience that shaped her understanding of authoritarian life. A staff writer at The Atlantic and former Washington Post columnist, she won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Gulag: A History.
Applebaum is recognized for her historical scholarship and willingness to confront menacing political realities. She has consistently warned of the fragility of democratic institutions in an era of right-wing populism.
Applebaum contends that unlike the ideologically driven alliances of the Cold War, today’s autocracies are united by a shared commitment to regime survival and personal enrichment. Their methods are strikingly similar: censorship, repression of dissent, the capture of courts and civil services, and the hollowing out of independent institutions. State resources are siphoned off to loyalists and hidden in shell companies and offshore accounts, often flowing through financial systems operated in democratic nations.
Her research demonstrates that these regimes also weaponize disinformation, set up troll farms, and create cyber operations to sow confusion and distrust. The goal is not just persuasion, but paralysis—eroding public faith in elections, journalism, and even objective truth. In an atmosphere of cynicism, democratic norms and social cohesion rupture.
Echoing Abraham Lincoln’s warning that America’s downfall would come from within, Applebaum contends that democratic decline is more likely to result from polarization, institutional decay, politicized courts, and the dismantling of a nonpartisan civil service than from foreign invasion. The danger, she argues, lies in normalization - in citizens becoming inured to corruption and the weakening of institutional guardrails.
Anne Applebaum’s most admirable quality is civic courage: the willingness to recognize an uncomfortable truth and state it plainly and often when others would prefer not to hear it.
“Pessimism is irresponsible. Authoritarians want people to believe they have no influence and can’t do anything.”
WASHINGTON DC - APRIL 16, 2025