Anne Applebaum: Everything the Founders Feared Is Happening | The Bulwark Podcast

Aug 7, 2025 | The United States, through USAID, not only supplied a big chunk of the world's humanitarian aid, it also provided almost all of the logistical support for other aid organizations to deliver relief as well. Now in Sudan, where the state has disintegrated and millions of people are trying to flee anarchy and civil war, virtually no Western organization is there to provide food and shelter. And no American is working on trying to end the conflict. Plus, Tim Cook joins the CEO suck-up to Trump, a top well-regarded FBI official who was trying to hold the line under Kash has been pushed out, and Putin may be trying to pause Ukraine's punishing air war on Russia—but he's not showing any sign that he wants peace. Anne Applebaum joins Tim Miller.

‘He’s Moving at a Truly Alarming Speed’: Trump Propels US into Authoritarianism

THE GUARDIAN: A senator handcuffed, people snatched in public, military deployed – Trump’s slide towards autocracy has come quicker than critics feared

It reads like a checklist of milestones on the road to autocracy.

A succession of opposition politicians, including Alex Padilla, a US senator, are handcuffed and arrested by heavy-handed law enforcement for little more than questioning authority or voicing dissent.

A judge is arrested in her own courthouse and charged with helping a defendant evade arrest.

Masked snatch squads arrest and spirit people away in public in what seem to be consciously intimidating scenes.

The president deploys the military on a dubious legal premise to confront protesters contesting his mass roundups of undocumented migrants.

A senior presidential aide announces that habeas corpus – a vital legal defence for detainees – could be suspended.

The sobering catalogue reflects the actions not of an entrenched dictatorship, but of Donald Trump’s administration as the president’s sternest critics struggle to process what they say has been a much swifter descent into authoritarianism than they imagined even a few weeks ago. » | Robert Tait in Washington | Thursday, June 19, 2025