Anne Applebaum is a strong woman with strong opinions.
To begin with, Donald Trump does not predict a good future after what happened last Wednesday the 6th in the Capitol: "He will spend the rest of his life in court," he says.
If she did not demonstrate that integrity, it would be impossible for this 56-year-old Washington-born American journalist and historian to address the issues she decides to write about.
In 2004 he won the Pulitzer Prize for his research on the Gulag, he continued with
The Iron Curtain
.
The destruction of Eastern Europe 1944-1956
, followed with
Red Famine
.
Stalin's war against Ukraine
and has now addressed the crisis of the
rule
of law in
Twilight of Democra
cy (The decline of democracy)
, which will appear in its Spanish edition by Debate in March.
The book includes chapters referring to Spain in that drift that has led to the rise of far-right populisms with techniques typical of disinformation dominated by Russia.
It is a terrain that Applebaum has studied in depth.
It has become a globally recognized authority in Eastern Europe and the former USSR.
She lives between the United States and Poland, where she married MEP Radoslaw Sikorski.
In recent times, the couple have not stopped worrying about the retreat of their respective countries, rocked by similar authoritarian fevers.
The United States has escaped — for the moment — its own, with Trump defeated at the polls.
But Poland persists in its course under the acronym of Law and Justice and the presidency of Andrzej Duda, an accomplice of the Hungarian Viktor Orbán, the new stone in the EU's shoe after the trauma of Brexit.
Applebaum observes and writes about both cases with his accurate clairvoyance and informed and forceful judgment.
A vision that has made her one of the leading global political analysts in recent years.
We spoke to her three weeks ago via video conference.
There had been no assault on Washunton.
But this Friday he answered a few more questions by email about what happened.
Do you think that what happened last Wednesday the 6th in Washington represents the end of Trump's career or the evidence that the phenomenon he unleashed conserves enough energy to represent something in the future?
Trump's adventure is over.
He will spend the rest of his life in court.
It may be his end as a political figure, but not that of Trumpism, which remains, in fact, an apolitical phenomenon.
Its essence lies in the fact that it makes an alternative to reality, one in which any difficulties or nuanced issues are erased and allow people to inhabit this fictitious construction.
This would be impossible without various media and social networks, without that echo chamber created by Fox News and other extreme right-wing networks, or without the conspiracy theories promoted there.
All that will continue to exist, the question is who will take care of leading this world of worship that he leaves behind.
We could see similarities with the coup in Spain in 1981. If we change the props and instead of some geeks from deep America we put upset civil guards, it seems. The interesting thing was that the next day, the citizens, from left to right, repudiated him. Do you think that there, a good part of the Republicans will say: this far we have come with this clown?
Several have made that comparison.
Yes, I see a possible closure of ranks against that way of doing politics.
But I am concerned that a group of Republicans - including Ted Cruz or Josh Hawley, two of the senators who opposed recognizing Joe Biden as president - still believe that votes are at stake among those millions who agree with the belief of alternative realities. .
It has not been your case. In fact, in his work, he dives for very stark realities. I am worried about you. If we analyze his work, we see years dedicated to the Gulag, to the famines in Stalin times or to the way in which totalitarian regimes destroyed the countries of the Iron Curtain ... How does he resist?
If you are someone with a tendency to melancholy, it helps to confront that the worst can happen.
For personal and political reasons, you get involved and also begin to appreciate your surroundings and how lucky you are to live in relatively prosperous and free democracies.
Illuminate the good and accentuate its virtues.
For that they have served me and I think my readers as well.
Why do you think, in this sense, that countries like Hungary and Poland show authoritarian tendencies more typical of the past that they had than of the future that they could achieve?
“Being pessimistic about the idea of Europe is irresponsible.
You cannot paint a depressing future for young people "
In Poland, for example, it may have to do with how history has been misunderstood and misinterpreted.
If we look at how they study it at school, from the experience I have had with my children, they spend a lot of time in the 19th century and hardly reach the closest era.
I don't know if those under 40 understand what happened.
They are not taught well and they do not understand it.
They stay in World War II.
They ignore the communist era, what the Solidarity union entailed, joining the EU, how they came to have a new Constitution ... Until very recently they were unaware of how important it is to have a supreme court.
When the government began to undermine it, and that has had effects, then they wanted to find out.
Before they believed that it was a technical issue and that it did not concern them, but since it has had an impact on their rights, such as abortion, they have realized that an Executive that controls the judges is a problem.
And is it already late? Why did it get there?
Partly out of ignorance and because those who carried it out used a clever propaganda system.
And these holes in education, do you think they are due to a strategy of the authorities or to the irresponsibility of educators and civil society?
Education in Poland has changed since the 1990s.
But with history there is a certain victimhood that is detrimental to patriotism in a positive sense.
They insist on teaching how the powers mistreated them, how they betrayed and occupied them.
There is an element of grievance that is very much in tune with the ruling party now.
They do not focus long enough on teaching their achievements, the positive aspects of change, or simply what a democracy is or should be.
A common pattern in populist tendencies.
Yes, right, Trump has done the same in the United States.
Something very aimed at those who feel aggrieved, and is used within populism on both the right and the left.
But going back to Poland, as for the victimhood, we must remember that it was occupied.
Since 1945 everything could be the fault of the Russians and before the Germans.
That excuse worked for them.
But in the present, not anymore.
In the first 20 years of democracy, that burden was not a problem.
If they had told me 10 years ago that the government was going to go this far, even since Kaczynski's time, I would not have believed it.
Even knowing them for a long time.
In fact, her husband was a member of various governments in Poland as Minister of Foreign and Defense and is now an MEP.
He belongs to a center-right liberal party that has a support of 49%, a lot, but not enough.
Anne Applebaum, at her home in Poland, where she lives part of the year.
She is married to the Polish MEP Radoslaw Sikorski.
Mateusz Skwarczek Agencja Gazeta
Concern about Poland in the EU should be a topic of conversation at home.
It is, and my husband feels especially committed to the idea of a united Europe.
He defends that Poland is part of it.
I think being pessimistic on this matter is irresponsible.
There are other bad things to worry about.
You cannot paint a depressing future, especially to young people.
How do you see the health of democracy in the midst of a populist offensive?
Complicated.
There is a deficit and a certain crisis that affects many of them internally and externally.
Russia and China are very active in promoting the cause of authoritarianism around the world.
Russia does it with its disinformation campaigns, and China, buying companies or pressuring certain countries.
Democratic systems, for the first time in years, are being called into question and face authoritarian competition.
We are experiencing the greatest transformation in the information age since the days of the printing press.
A transformation that affects facts and promotes misinformation.
True.
And that change affects politics and communication, how citizens vote and perceive problems.
That has caused great trauma and change.
It does not mean that democracy will not overcome them.
He still has great strength to succeed.
What role does Russia play there as a power?
He is a small actor in economic terms.
Much less than the EU and China, but very focused and overturned in undermining the opposition within and the democratic systems outside, especially in Europe.
As we have been caught off guard and we did not expect it, they have been very successful in this strategy, promoting parties of the extreme right and left to destabilize systems.
Therefore, Russia knows its limitations.
It is not a power in the terms of the United States, the EU or China, but it knows how to act as a weakening power with its own weapons.
They employ huge security departments bent on promoting crises around, destroying the EU or NATO… With tactics in which a lot of energy and money are spent on their part.
They are very good at it.
I don't want to exaggerate how much because a lot of what they do is truly absurd, but they keep trying.
Judging by what they mounted in the US in favor of Trump, nonsense, few. How do they act in Spain?
In Spain, perhaps, without Vox admitting it, the tactics that the Russians use benefit them.
The European Union has found two fronts to stop this: one is the anti-biology department that reports to Borrell as High Commissioner for Foreign Affairs and Security, and another, more spontaneous but crucial, which has been
the rule of law
: Parliament has determined what to defend democratic principles is an indispensable condition.
Which will give the best result?
I think the latter is the best weapon.
I think politics should put together positive narratives and programs that people can support to defend themselves from those negative attacks that misinformation brings.
And
the rule of law
is one of them.
There are a series of initiatives that would form a strong consensus to combat the misinformation messages that Russia spreads.
In
The Iron Curtain
, you focus your study heavily on Hungary.
What happens there so that it has become the great problem of the EU?
I don't think there is anything special that makes them different from other countries where the division works.
Viktor Orbán, its president, has worked hard on polarization for years.
You create it, you build it and people are very sensitive to it.
That has given him success, although now his support is being lowered.
Divide is profitable everywhere.
Compare the situation now in Spain with that of the 1990s.
It has nothing to do with that.
In the United States, Joe Biden has won the elections and, let's say, regained some normality, but he must unite a very polarized country. Where would you recommend starting?
Now that we have regained our sanity, for trying to shift focus from addressing certain overriding issues.
Stop talking about culture wars that lead nowhere, about issues that divide people and enrage them, focus on real issues that we have to fix that affect people's lives.
Surveys show that when you make public opinion aware of certain urgent matters, it agrees that they must be resolved and the citizens involved in doing so.
When Americans are aware that the principles that define them in the world have to do with the defense of democracy, that not only helps them, it also strengthens the rest of the democracies, even, although it seems strange what I am about to say, to the EU.
Anne Applebaum.
Mateusz Skwarczek Agencja Gazeta
It does not seem strange to me, on the contrary.
One of the things Trump did was sever those ties.
He treated NATO like a mobster does.
With a president in those terms it was all very negative.
It caused the allied countries to start thinking about reinforcing security on their own. Ginger up. Do you think that, in that sense, a phenomenon as destabilizing as Trump could be helpful to the rest to seek other ties?
It scared the Europeans so much that they decided to come up with a plan B. They realized that Atlantic ties might not last forever.
It also made EU leaders aware that they should adopt their own position and voice in terms of security and also as sole defenders of democratic values.
Let's go to the Gulag and the book with which you won the Pulitzer Prize in 2004. You insisted on somehow changing our point of view about them by giving importance to the economic factor with which they were built, as important as the political factor or the repression. Why do you think that argument has been undervalued?
All those factors were fundamental.
But it is that the economic helps to better understand Stalin's own mentality.
It was purely utilitarian.
He used and threw away whatever was necessary for his purposes.
Human beings became mere objects for his project.
This is also related to how many people accepted and supported him, convinced that they should build communism with whatever forces were necessary.
That was the argument.
Those who conceived the Gulag did it as an economic project and spoke of it in those terms as well.
That book affected you too. When she commented on what she was doing in her university circle, they tried to separate her from it. Why? Machismo? Ideological issues?
Many people did not believe me capable.
Some were trying to be patronizing, others were just trying to convince me that I was wasting my time.
They told me why would I waste part of my life on something so disgusting.
Also, for a time I was pregnant and had to travel to Russia.
Many looked at me strangely and, as some are superstitious, they were convinced that it would bring me bad luck.
I already told you at the beginning that I was worried about you and the issues you are dealing with, but now I am even more worried to see in what conditions you face them.
“Orbán in Hungary has been working hard on polarization for years.
You create it, you build it and people are very sensitive to it "
OK OK.
The fact is, the book took me 10 years to work.
More than I thought.
But I learned a lot.
It was the first that I wrote about history and I began to develop myself in archives and academic environment.
I thought it would be the first of many others.
But I was wrong.
There is no longer access to those archives and the university environment on this matter has completely changed, it has become more secretive in Russia.
I don't think I would have managed to write it now: today I would not have access or documents, people would prevent me from entering and, of course, there are fewer survivors.
Emmanuel Carrère tells in his book
Limonov
how he once heard Putin say that he rationally understood the rejection of Stalinism, but that those who did so had no heart.
What do you mean by it?
Do you think it is possible to understand who the Russian president is with such a phrase?
I think Putin is a direct product of what the KGB was and of the dominant mentality in the secret services.
Someone trained to be paranoid, to constantly detect conspiracies around him.
That leads him to change the terms and ensure that there is no opposition in Russia, but rather a conspiracy of other powers against him.
That it must control all those who meet, argue and oppose.
Therefore, there is nothing spontaneously articulated or a trace of honesty, everyone lies, nobody trusts anyone and there is a mixture of deep cynicism with paranoia.
This is how I see it.
In this way it was taught and trained against the enemy in the KGB.
And so it has largely transferred it to the rest of the country: a lot of cynicism, a lot of immorality and a tremendously conspiratorial environment.
You explain it very well with regard to the Eastern countries in
The Iron Curtain
... How they destroyed the soul of those societies.
Does it last in many fields?
That darkness or attachment to certain behaviors and practices that come from totalitarianism.
Yes, I don't think they have evaporated.
Those ideas with which they were brought up and that governed their lives are still there.
It occurs in any country that has suffered a dictatorship.
Those who reactivate it find them, as we have seen.
Look at the case of Vox with the Franco regime.
When in America you think that the Confederates have disappeared — the Confederates! —They come back, even when they are not part of the prevailing current of thought.
My new book,
Twilight of Democracy
, talks about it.
There I argue that democracy is circular.
For a time after 1945 we thought that progress, growth, and increased freedom were unstoppable, but no.
The truth is that there are setbacks.
Ideas come and go: from anti-scientific approaches to the most retrograde.
And what is the reason for them to return? Fear, ignorance or evil?
Well, I don't know if I have managed to answer that question, but I have written the new book to give it a try.
I try to explain why those ideas are there.
For one thing, they were successful at one time.
On the other, there are people who know it and reactivate them for their own political benefit.
In that case it would be evil.
The human condition can be very cynical.
There are people who are scared by obvious and rapid changes, who detest feminism, social transformation, the fall of certain hierarchies, and want to see them restored.
We could understand that in the case that it affects certain ages, but among young people? Where does this appeal of the most obtuse populisms come from for certain layers of the youth, as occurs in Spain with Vox?
They may see it as heroic.
I met some of their leaders and have included a part in the book about that.
They are people who do not like aspects of modern Spain, convinced that they have lost parts of power and represent something authentic that they must recover.
Just like here, in Poland or in the southern United States: the real ones, the whites, that victimhood.
Who are the true patriots and who are the traitors.