In a recent pulse-check on the health of our democracy by Bright Line Watch, hundreds of scholars warned that the U.S. is heading swiftly toward authoritarianism. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a professor of history at New York University who specializes in the subject, explains how we got here. Plus, setbacks for Trump in court, pregnant people in states with abortion bans are almost twice as likely to die during pregnancy or soon after giving birth, and the hidden costs of being polite to a chatbot. Today’s episode was hosted by Shumita Basu.
Chapter 1: Who are the hosts and experts featured in this episode?
Hey there, it's Shamita. I've got a quick request for you. If Apple News Today is an essential part of your morning routine, follow the show in Apple Podcasts. And if you have another 30 seconds, leave us a rating and a review too. It helps other people find our show and it helps us know what you like about it. Thanks. Good morning. It's Friday, April 25th. I'm Shamita Basu.
This is Apple News Today. On today's show, a stark warning about the state of democracy in the United States, a number of setbacks for President Trump in court, and why you might want to stop saying please and thank you to ChatGPT. Let's start with the warning about democratic norms in the U.S.
As we approach President Trump's 100th day in office for the second time, a survey of more than 500 political scientists found the vast majority believe the United States is quickly swinging from a liberal democracy to some form of authoritarianism.
It's an assessment that depending on who you stop on the street in any town USA, someone might completely agree with and share the alarm of these academics. Or someone might disagree entirely, even say that President Trump is saving our country. I decided to call up NYU professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat.
She's a historian and expert on authoritarianism and the author of the New York Times bestseller, Strongmen, Mussolini to the Present, which tells the history of authoritarianism over the last 100 years. And I asked her to start, what would she say to these two groups of people, the people who deeply believe that we're already in the throes of an autocracy and the people who say the opposite?
Authoritarianism is an evolution. And so if you're a historian, you can pick up these patterns over 100 years. So, for example, autocrats go after the same groups over 100 years. They go after the opposition politicians. They go after judges, prosecutors, journalists, anybody who can expose their corruption and is a threat to them. They go after LGBTQ people, religious minorities.
So we can look at who is being targeted today, such as immigrants. And this is a through line, even in my book, this idea that the strongman arrives to save the nation from unacceptable people coming over the border. to have too many babies because they have the wrong skin color, or to spread anarchy through crime.
This is one of the oldest themes in authoritarianism, and it started with Mussolini. And I would say that today it can become more difficult to diagnose and recognize autocracy. Because in the old days, you had these one-party states with dictators. So it's very clear. There's no opposition media. There's no other parties involved.
Today we have something called electoral autocracy, where even in Russia, in Turkey, in Hungary, you keep other parties going. Your parliament or your legislator is kind of a rubber stamp, but it still exists. And you also have some independent media. And so you hold elections, but you game the system so the elections are neither free nor fair. But you still hold elections.
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Chapter 2: What is the current state of American democracy according to Bright Line Watch?
One of the things that's different, if you look, I focus very closely on when leaders try and stay in office illegally. And this is, if they're in office and they don't want to leave, it's called a self-coup. It's an awkward term, but it's a self-coup. And it happened most recently in South Korea, but it didn't go well for President Yoon, and he's now been impeached and has to stand trial.
Bolsonaro did it in Brazil in 2023, literally copying January 6th's playbook, and Steve Bannon was an advisor. And he now has to stand trial. It didn't work. One of the differences is many of the countries where it doesn't work and that leader becomes toxic is because they had kind of dictatorships in their past. So this is one reason everybody mobilized. They knew the stakes, is what I'm saying.
And so Americans are different, as you rightly point out. And if you look at these things comparatively, we're completely unique in voting back in somebody who tried to overthrow the government. That just doesn't happen. And so we have to accept that our democracy has been quite degraded.
In the months ahead... What are two or three things that you think the American public should be really paying close attention to as we think about the health of our democracy?
Accountability and is government working for the people or are our rights and our entitlements that we worked hard for being taken away? If mistakes are made, as they always are, what is the attitude toward those mistakes? What is the value given to human life and human dignity?
Ruth Bengiat, thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following. In the past 24 hours, a number of President Trump's policy initiatives were dealt setbacks by courts. First, a federal court rejected his attempt to require documented proof of citizenship from people who are registering to vote.
In another case, federal judges temporarily blocked his administration from enforcing its demands that public schools eliminate anything related to diversity, equity and inclusion. Another federal judge ordered the administration to bring back yet another man who was wrongly deported to El Salvador.
And the judge in the Kilmar Abrego-Garcia case agreed to give the DOJ one more week to fulfill her order to provide information on their efforts to bring him back, but wrote, quote, their refusal to do so can only be viewed as willful and intentional noncompliance.
A new report says pregnant people in states that have enacted abortion bans are twice as likely to die during pregnancy or soon after giving birth. Conversely, pregnancy-related deaths dropped in states that have enacted measures to protect access to abortion.
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