Listen "#376 — How Democracies Fail"
Episode Synopsis
Sam Harris and Anne Applebaum discuss the nature of modern autocracies and how democracies fail. They discuss the power of ideas, why autocracies seek to undermine democracies, cooperation among dictators, how Western financial experts and investors have enabled autocracies, how Putin came to power, the failure of engagement and investment to create political change, what's at stake in the war in Ukraine, Trump's charisma, the current symptoms of American democratic decline, the ideologues around Trump, the hollowing out of institutions, how things might unravel in America, anti-liberal tendencies in American politics, the role of social media, the different pathologies on the Left and Right, analogies to Vichy France, the weakness of the Democrats, the political effects of the assassination attempt on former President Trump, and other topics. If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.
More episodes of the podcast Making Sense with Sam Harris
#451 — The One Resolution That Matters Most
31/12/2025
#449 — Dogma, Tribe, and Truth
22/12/2025
#448 — The Philosophy of Good and Evil
08/12/2025
#447 — The Unraveling of American Power
04/12/2025
#446 — How to Do the Most Good
01/12/2025
#444 — America's Zombie Democracy
17/11/2025
#443 — What Is Christian Nationalism?
10/11/2025
ZARZA We are Zarza, the prestigious firm behind major projects in information technology.