And if he wins, what do you suspect the next four years look like?So those are two different questions. Cotton, by contrast, is calling for what would almost certainly amount to massive violence against his fellow citizens: an “overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain and ultimately deter lawbreakers.”In a racist inversion, he equates his fantasy of soldiers putting down an uprising triggered by police brutality against black people with previous presidents using the military to enforce desegregation.His argument is frequently slippery and dishonest. As the Rome bureau chief, I reported on the Vatican; as a staff writer for The Times’s Sunday magazine, I wrote many celebrity profiles. I just hope that excavation begins sooner rather than later. And it’s now sort of forgotten because so many things have happened, that this was the moment when he really broke into national politics was by being the kind of the loudest spokesman for birtherism. And it’s now sort of forgotten because so many things have happened, that this was the moment when he really broke into national politics was by being the kind of the loudest spokesman for birtherism. I mean, I really believe that it is that conviction of inevitability which was the big mistake, I should say, of my entourage or my milieu, my friends in the ‘90s. I mean, that happens all the time. Now, think about what that means. I almost never agree with anything NY Times’ columnist Michelle Goldberg writes but today is the exception. In some cases she was really brave and in some cases she was really, really wrong.”Goldberg is one of the Times’ strongest left-wing voices on the editorial page. That it would have been hard enough for me to imagine maybe being on the same side as Anne Applebaum in 2000 or 2003, never mind David Frum and Bill Kristol. Her views about the world have certainly changed. We’re talking about educated sophisticated people who were not damaged by Poland’s post-communist resurgence. And one of the things that I trace in the book is this idea that that coalition over time break up. And even though we have some disagreements about the nature of pre-Trump conservatism, it was a pleasure to read “The Twilight of Democracy.” It’s a fascinating book, and I’m thrilled that you came on the show. I just think — and I think that this comes out in your book — that the segment of that coalition that was genuinely concerned about human rights and democracy is smaller than, I think, people would have admitted at the time.I mean, depends on which country, and it depends which time we’re talking about. I don’t remember the exact thing. The Bolsheviks were great conspiracy theorists. Analysis from David Brooks, Maureen Dowd, Charles Blow, Paul Krugman and others. And they’ve sacrificed more than I’ve had to or more than people on the left have had to just in terms of the fissuring of personal relationships, professional networks, right? In both cases, I’m pretty sure the liberal inclination to hear all sides would have smacked up against sheer moral abhorrence.It’s important to understand what the people around the president are thinking. And in fact, the authoritarian government barely won. He’s said so already. Because that is wrong.
[BOTH LAUGH]So, I mean, actually, you can see elements of both. That I disagree with. And I understand why Obama, facing all these interlocking crises, thought that it was the time to sort of look forward rather than backward. And that, as I say, is one of the enemies of good politics.But where would you put Trump, Anne? She has a different analysis of American history than she once had. And it’s often funny when you disagree with someone on Twitter in a column, and then you end up talking and you find out you agree more than you might have thought. He’s drummed out of the party, drummed out of the university.