I'm Ann Applebaum.
Over the past year, as I watched Donald Trump demand unprecedented new powers, I wondered,
don't he and his team fear that these same powers could one day be used by a different administration and a different president to achieve very different goals?
Well, maybe they are afraid.
And maybe that's why they're using their new tools to change our institutions,
even to alter the playing field in advance of midterm elections later this year.
to make sure their opponents can't win.
Ultimately, destroying trust is the currency of autocrats.
We could win, but we are very, very,
very likely to lose if we keep treating this as business as usual.
Reporting on the sweeping changes unfolding in our country and preparing you to think about what might happen next.
The new season of Autocracy in America, available now.
Minneapolis remains tense this week.
People are out on the streets clashing with ICE agents.
Social media is full of a new kind of video.
Federal agents not out arresting undocumented immigrants,
but getting into physical confrontations with American citizens,
sometimes on otherwise quiet suburban streets.
One video circulating this week showed a masked ICE agent shoving a Minneapolis city councilman into the street.
The protests come, of course,