Masha Gessen, a renowned Staff writer at The New Yorker and author of 'Surviving Autocracy', shares their insights on the fragility of American political institutions. They discuss the eerie parallels between Trump's presidency and the rise of authoritarianism, emphasizing the need for vigilance against normalized extremism. Gessen explores how language influences political discourse and the collective nature of leadership. With a unique perspective shaped by their experience in Russia, they reflect on the declining state of democracy and the unsettling dynamics within American politics.
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insights INSIGHT
Language in Autocracy
Masha Gessen's book "Surviving Autocracy" explores language's power in politics.
Trump's linguistic talent undermines shared reality, hindering political discourse.
insights INSIGHT
Misapplication of Language
Applying liberal democracy language to non-democratic systems obscures their true nature.
This hinders understanding of autocracies, like using irrelevant metrics for a different phenomenon.
insights INSIGHT
Fragility of Institutions
American institutions are not self-repairing or independent.
They are fallible and function based on context and those in power.
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The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be
Katy Milkman
In this ground-breaking book, Katy Milkman reveals a proven path to help readers move from where they are to where they want to be. Drawing on her original research and the work of her world-renowned scientific collaborators, Milkman shares strategic methods for identifying and overcoming common barriers to change, such as impulsivity, procrastination, and forgetfulness. The book offers innovative approaches like 'temptation bundling,' using timely reminders, and creating 'set-it-and-forget-it systems' to make change more achievable. It emphasizes the importance of tailoring solutions to specific roadblocks and using science to stack the deck in favor of successful change.
Surviving Autocracy
Masha Gessen
This incisive book provides an essential guide to understanding and recovering from the calamitous corrosion of American democracy over the past few years. Thanks to the special perspective that is the legacy of a Soviet childhood and two decades covering the resurgence of totalitarianism in Russia, Masha Gessen has a sixth sense for the manifestations of autocracy—and the unique cross-cultural fluency to delineate their emergence to Americans. Gessen not only anatomizes the corrosion of the institutions and cultural norms we hoped would save us but also tells us the story of how a short few years changed us from a people who saw ourselves as a nation of immigrants to a populace haggling over a border wall, heirs to a degraded sense of truth, meaning, and possibility. 'Surviving Autocracy' is an inventory of ravages and a call to account but also a beacon to recovery—and to the hope of what comes next.
Masha Gessen grew up in the Soviet Union and spent two decades covering the resurgence of totalitarianism in Russia, before being driven from the country by policies targeting LGBT people. Watching Donald Trump win in 2016, Gessen felt like they had seen this movie before. Within forty-eight hours of Trump’s victory, Gessen’s essay “Autocracy: Rules for Survival” had gone viral, including lessons that in hindsight read as prophetic: Believe the autocrat. Do not be taken in by small signs of normality. Institutions will not save you.
Now, Gessen is back with a new book, Surviving Autocracy, that is a collection of ideas they have been building over the course of the Trump presidency. We discuss the inherent fragility of American political institutions, Donald Trump’s autocratic aesthetic, how the language of liberal democracy paradoxically undermines genuine liberal democracy, what lessons Gessen learned from covering the rise of Vladamir Putin, why Gessen believes the US is currently in the first stage of the three part descent to autocracy, whether George W. Bush was a more damaging president than Donald Trump, the counterintuitive roots of Trumpian post-truthism, and much more.
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