♪♪ ♪♪ >> Hello, and welcome to "GZERO World."

I'm Ian Bremmer.

Donald Trump's presidency may be over, but the populist wave that helped him win the White House in 2016 still with us and not just in the United States.

Around the world, it's leading to a rise in authoritarianism.

We're talking about that today with a woman who wrote the book on it.

Anne Applebaum is a staff writer at The Atlantic and author of "Twilight of Democracy."

Later, Facebook takes a side on Myanmar's latest military coup.

And, of course, I've got your "Puppet Regime."

>> Welcome to new episode of "Putin' It Out There."

>> But first, a word from the folks who help us keep the lights on.

>> Major corporate funding provided by founding sponsor First Republic.

At First Republic, our clients come first.

Taking the time to listen helps us provide customized banking and wealth-management solutions.

More on our clients at firstrepublic.com.

Additional funding provided by... And by... [ Rumbling ] >> Orwellian -- that's a good word.

It refers to dystopian reality, depicted by George Orwell in his novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four."

We all read it in high school, but that classic was first published in 1949, as the Cold War was heating up between the United States and the Soviet Union.

In fact, Orwell directly borrows some language from real events in Joseph Stalin's regime.

Here's a famous line from the novel.

"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four."

It's a play on a Stalin propaganda campaign -- 2 + 2 = 5.

It was a plan to push workers to complete five years of production, a five-year plan, in just four.

But it became a symbol of misinformation and the abuse of power of a dictator that could distort facts for political gain.

Let's fast-forward that to 2017.

It's the first few days of the Trump administration.

A dispute over the size of the crowd at the inauguration.

You remember that.

It was the first "scandal" of the new Trump administration.

Led to this quotable moment.

>> You're saying it's a falsehood, and they're giving -- Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts to that.

But the point turn remains -- >> Wait a minute.

Alternative facts?

[ Explosions ] >> Downright Orwellian.

And sales of "Nineteen Eighty-Four" spiked the day after that interview, making the 70-year-old book number one on Amazon.

I'm not saying Trump was a dictator.

Whatever his inclinations, the United States today remains a democracy, however flawed.

But President Trump certainly admired his strongmen, like Russia's Vladimir Putin, China's Xi Jinping, even Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines.

And there's a growing number of global leaders who lean that way.

Hungary's Viktor Orbán, Poland's Andrzej Duda, Turkey's Recep Erdogan -- all of them have sought to plow down the kind of democracy that seemed triumphant after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, with populist supporters holding the door open for them.

A 2019 Pew poll of people across 34 nations found that a majority -- 52% -- were dissatisfied with democracy.

Trends in jobs, the economy and immigration, all contributing to a sense that the system doesn't work for the average citizen.

Support for authoritarianism was already growing before the coronavirus pandemic, and autocrats have seized the opportunity to further curb freedoms.

The nonprofit group Freedom House reported that democracy deteriorated in 80 countries over the past year on issues like media suppression, transparency -- lack thereof -- and human rights.

Filipina journalist Maria Ressa described to me the experience in her own country under Duterte's control.

>> President Duterte, in late-night ramblings, has told the police that if Filipinos break quarantine that they should -- and these are his words -- "shoot them dead."

"Shoot them dead."

>> The other side of this global crisis could bring even further gains for autocrats.

Toward the end of her book, "Twilight of Democracy," Anne Applebaum writes, "Maybe fear of disease will create fear of freedom.

Or maybe the coronavirus will inspire a new sense of global solidarity.

We have to accept that both futures are possible."

What is the future of democracy?

That's the topic of today's conversation.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author and columnist at The Atlantic, Anne Applebaum.

Great to be with you today, Anne.

>> Thanks for having me.

>> Why is authoritarianism so seductive in this environment today?

>> Authoritarianism and the drive towards authoritarianism have, for the last 100 years, resulted from people who feel some kind of disappointment with democracy.

Sometimes it's a personal disappointment, people who feel their political systems haven't delivered to them something that they want.

And the book I published recently, I talk about people at the very high end of a number of societies and journalists and political analysts and philosophers who -- you know, who felt that their systems weren't delivering something for them.

But often it comes from a disappointment that's broader.

"My society isn't what I thought it would be.

It's changed in directions that I don't like.

I don't see myself represented in it."

Of course, there are also -- you know, in every country there are specific economic or political circumstances that drive people away from democracy or turn them against the system.

But because this is now a pattern we can see across so many countries around the world, I think we can also make some broader generalizations about it.

I mean, look, we live in a time when things are changing very, very fast.

The economic situation is changing.

There's sociological change.

The role of women is changing.

The role of marriage is changing.

Families are changing.

Demographics are changing.

And for some people, that means that something has been left behind or lost, and very often those are the people who are becoming disillusioned with their political systems.

>> You mentioned that a lot of things are changing.

And the one that is kind of noteworthy you didn't mention is the role of government.

I mean, is that part of the problem, that so many things affecting people's lives are so different and yet government doesn't seem to be able to respond adequately to the pace of change?

>> Absolutely.

I mean, of course, one of the greatest changes is the change in the nature of information, the kind of interactions that we're used to having, the way in which we can now respond quickly to so many things.

You know, in a world when, you know, you can express your like or dislike for something by clicking a button online, or you can order a pair of shoes and they'll arrive tomorrow or maybe even this afternoon, the idea that, you know, it takes months for the government to decide anything, that it takes weeks to form a government coalition, that issue after issue -- and this is particularly a problem in the United States -- is blocked in Congress because of procedural rules, because of the filibuster, because of the 50-50 split, that creates a huge amount of frustration and this sense that we're not going anywhere.

Everything else happens so rapidly.

Democracy requires all these compromises and changes, and it's very slow.

And so, yes, the failure in many systems sometimes is about constitutional change.

More often, it's about change in the way -- you know, in the way government operates and its effectiveness and also in the way that government uses new technology.

Very few governments have used the possibilities of online debate or consensus-building software or other alternatives to social media to find ways to get their citizens to talk.

And that means that, you know, the nature of conversation online and the nature of public debate are somehow out of joint, and I think that's a problem for most democracies.

>> People could think we're talking about the United States primarily, but of course, we're not.

Some of the countries that have disappointed the most in their trajectories have been in Eastern Europe.

You look at Poland today, you look at Hungary today, could we even call those democracies in today's environment?

>> So, as you know, I live part of the time in Poland, and my husband is Polish, and you're writing about, you know, the region and also about Russia for many years.

I actually don't like the idea that what's happening in Eastern Europe is that different from what's happening in Western Europe.

I mean, some of the -- some of the argumentation that people make and so on is different.

But it's more similar than you think.

In Poland and Hungary, you have autocratic, authoritarian, populist political parties that have made arguments about, again, not so much about economic loss, because, you know, the story of Poland since 1989 is one of unbelievable success.

I mean, Poland never had a recession, and yet there was a feeling of some that they were -- that they had lost something or that something traditional about Poland was disappearing or that demographic change, which in this case meant people emigrating rather than people immigrating, that young people were leaving.

You know, "My town isn't the same kind of place that it used to be."

This created a sense of discontent.

But I still think that the biggest difference between Poland and Hungary, on the one hand, and, say, the kinds of authoritarian populist parties you find in Germany, France, Austria, and Italy is simply one of scale.

I mean, they've won elections in Poland and Hungary.

They haven't won them yet in Italy or Austria, but they might, and if they did, we might find the trajectory was quite similar.

So, again, in Eastern Europe, you can certainly point to countries where you do have a sense that -- of something being missing.

But I think it's -- I think it's a broader problem.

I mean, actually, this will sound very bizarre, but the trajectory of events and the nature of political debate in Poland is amazingly similar in a lot of ways to the United States, the kinds of arguments that people make, the level of polarization.

And you can see this -- this impulse to destroy and undermine the institutions of democracy everywhere, and you can see a certain amount of popular support for it.

And that, to me, means that we must be talking about a phenomenon that has a broader base.

You know, it's not just the U.S. and its, you know, racist or Civil War legacy, and in Poland, it's not just communism and the legacy of authoritarianism.

There are other things going on that we all have in common that is causing -- you know, that's causing this phenomenon.

>> I mean, you do sound more structurally negative about the trajectory that Europe is on.

Do you think that Europe is on a trajectory towards failure?

>> So, I actually believe that pessimism and formal pessimism is irresponsible.

I don't think someone -- you know, someone like you or me is really in a position to tell lots of younger people that Europe is on a downward trajectory or Western civilization is in decline or American democracy is finished, because that's not really how history works.

You know, history is radically open, and many trajectories are still available to us, depending on what people say.

And there are ways, actually, in which Europe is, in some -- in some ways, is in a better position than the United States.

For example, I genuinely believe that democracies reinforce one another and that being part of tight relationships with other democracies and being forced to negotiate things together and watching closely what one another does solidifies democracy at home.

And there's an example of that.

You know, for many, many years, we always thought of the United States and its involvement in the Transatlantic Alliance as being this kind of act of American generosity.

You know, "We support democracy around the world.

We support it in Europe," and so on.

You know, in retrospect, looking back now over the Cold War, you know, with some advantage of time, it's pretty clear that America's involvement in, you know, and its sense of itself as the leader of the West, or rather the leader of the democratic world, also solidified democracy at home.

You know, it created this kind of civic religion around democracy, you know, that "it's something we need to protect.

This is what our foreign policy is based on.

This is who we are.

This is our identity as a nation.

This is what we're projecting around the world."

That was really important for keeping Americans together and blocking the spread of this kind of, you know, the politics of identity in the United States, that, you know, "What matters is not that I'm American and I share this set of values, but that I'm a white American or I'm a Black American, and, you know, and therefore, I have a different set of views."

So the alliances of democracy is these international organizations that are -- do still function in Europe, I think, will help Europeans over the long term, even when they seem to stumble a lot, you know, from day to day.

>> How much does it matter that the soon-to-be largest economy in the world, that thus far at least seems to be succeeding in terms of economic and political stability with a very different model, is China for the arguments that you're making?

>> Enormously important.

In the long list of reasons why people are disillusioned with democracy, not just in the United States but in other places, is that there is now a successful counter model.

The fact that there is now a Chinese system which can at least point to this record of continuous growth and which, you know, looks at least, you know, for the moment, very stable.

And particularly, it's a model for developing countries, you know, and who -- you know, who seek, you know, similar growth rates.

But it's even a challenge to democrats in, you know, in stable democracies like the United States and in Western Europe simply because of its unquestioned success.

I mean, there's another aspect of this that we haven't touched on yet, which is -- and this is less China and more Russia.

But the degree to which the big autocracies -- and you can maybe throw Iran in there, as well -- now see it as part of their foreign policy the need to undermine Western democracy.

And so Russia has a -- I mean, it's not even a secret anymore.

I mean, it uses disinformation.

It uses corruption.

It uses business deals.

It uses funding for radical political parties, you know, tailored to particular countries, whether it's, you know, support for Catalan separatism or the German far right, Russian -- >> Or Brexit.

>> Or Brexit.

You know, it looks for whatever are the breaks or disagreements in any given country and then seeks to deepen those breaks.

>> I mean, there certainly is this feeling of promoting moral equivalence amongst systems, and in the case of the Russians and Iranians, leaning into that and helping the process along, as it were.

>> Yeah, no, no.

I mean, the Russian argument is even a little more subtle.

I mean, the argument of the Putin regime to its citizens is, "Okay, we're corrupt," you know?

"But look how corrupt they are."

You know, "They're just as corrupt as we are.

Things are just as unfair over there."

And everything -- believe me, everything that goes wrong inside the United States or in Scandinavia or in Southern Europe is immediately beamed back to Russians in the form of state propaganda.

And, you know, whether it was the attack on the Capitol or whether it's problems absorbing immigrants, whatever -- whatever is the thing that doesn't work, it's shown on Russian television.

I mean, and that's a -- So it's used -- the Russians use it in both directions.

>> And that's increasingly equivalent with Chinese state media, as well.

>> And, you know, here's the paradox, actually, and this gets us to a more interesting point, which is that even inside those systems, which are -- which both look actually pretty stable for the moment, the appeal of democracy and the kind of siren call of rule of law and the attractiveness even of of Europe that we -- you know, we think is going so badly and it's all falling apart, even that is still strong enough that the governments in those countries feel the constant need to denigrate it to their own people.

They are afraid of the appeal of these systems.

And maybe they're right to be afraid.

I mean, we've seen huge demonstrations, you know, in Minsk, in Moscow -- actually all over Russia -- not to mention Hong Kong, and those were pro-democracy demonstrations.

So even in places where autocracy is the strongest and apparently more successful, this appeal of democracy continues.

>> I wanted to ask you about Navalny.

What was your first thought when Navalny gets on that plane to go back to Moscow, knowing surely what he faced?

Just tell me, both emotionally and intellectually, how you immediately responded to that.

>> So, first of all, just so that everyone watching and listening knows, when Navalny was getting on the plane to go back to Russia, not only did he know he would be arrested, he also knew that he was about to publish a two-hour-long documentary accusing Putin personally of massive corruption.

It appeared -- as he was landing in Moscow, it went online.

And, you know, it immediately had tens of millions of viewers.

I mean, tens of millions of people have seen the video.

And it's a long video, but it's very well done.

I recommend everyone look at it.

So, his bravery wasn't just that he was returning.

He was returning while making this statement about the regime.

And it was an extraordinary act.

And it seems that what he was trying to do was show, with his personal bravery, he was trying to give Russians some kind of hope for change, you know, that they, too, could be brave, that it was possible to be brave, that there is something that can be done.

One saw him on the plane, and one wanted to shout, you know, "Get off!

Go back!"

You know, "It's futile."

You know, "You're not gonna achieve anything."

But I think his goal was maybe not even to achieve something politically right now but just to offer Russians something to think about, you know, into the future.

I mean, it was really -- it was something that we haven't seen a lot of, you know, in recent years, that kind of personal bravery.

>> Let's talk a little bit about the United States before we close.

Do you think any lessons have been learned from this last election and specifically from the events culminating in January the 6th?

>> In a way, the events of January the 6th were useful because they gave us a picture to illustrate something that we'd seen before but hadn't been manifest that clearly.

What was the attack on the Capitol?

That wasn't Republicans attacking Democrats.

That's not what was going on.

What you saw was a group of people who were attacking the system itself.

They were attacking Congress, and they were trying to prevent Congress from doing its constitutional duty, from naming and certifying the results of the election and declaring who the next president would be.

You know, suddenly, they were there.

We could see them, and then afterwards, we could measure support for them.

In the days immediately after the events, there was a poll taken that showed 21% of Americans supporting the attack on the Capitol.

Maybe that number has gone down since then, you know, as people understand more about it, but even if it's 10%, you know, even if it's 10%, this is a large number of people.

This is a large number of Americans who don't respect the neutral institutions of our democracy.

It's not that they don't like their political opponents.

This isn't just polarization.

This is dislike of the institutions themselves.

And that, I hope, will give our political leaders pause to consider whether some more dramatic changes don't need to be made in the way our democracy functions, maybe in the way our economy functions.

And then, of course, there's another area of major reform.

You know, thinking again about the Internet and social media.

The Internet, as it exists now, does not reflect the values of democracy.

The kind of debates and conversations that take place online aren't imbued -- You know, the Internet is not a place where the values of openness and transparency and personal responsibility are rewarded.

You know, there is a Chinese Internet, and we know what that looks like, an authoritarian Internet, and it's where the values of censorship and surveillance prevail.

But we don't have an answer to that yet.

We don't have an Internet that -- you know, where better kinds of conversations take place.

>> And that was Anne Applebaum.

Always wonderful to see you.

Thanks so much for joining us.

>> Thanks.

>> You just heard Anne Applebaum say that, quote, "The Internet, as it exists now, doesn't reflect the values of democracy."

Well, that may be a message big tech companies are starting -- just starting -- to hear.

>> The members of the Security Council express deep concern at the declaration of a state of emergency imposed in Myanmar by the military on the 1st of February.

>> Take Myanmar, where Facebook recently picked a side following a military coup in early February, announcing it would be removing all Myanmar military and military-controlled pages from its site and from Instagram, which it also owns.

>> In line with our global policies, we've removed the Tatmadaw True News Information Team Page from Facebook for repeated violations of our community standards prohibiting incitement of violence and coordinating harm.

>> It also said it would ban advertising from military-linked businesses.

Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, had over 22.3 million Facebook users in January 2020, more than 40% of its population.

Not a huge market for Facebook, but for much of Myanmar, Facebook is the Internet.

[ Explosions ] Facebook's intervention came after years of international criticism over how Myanmar's military has used and abused the site, including to incite hatred against the country's Muslim Rohingya minority group.

Remains to be seen how effective that ban will be.

Myanmar's generals had already restricted Facebook access nationwide.

>> The Burmese military should lift the restrictions on telecommunications.

>> But it is the latest example of a tech company feeling pressured to engage on an important geopolitical issue.

And now it's time for "Puppet Regime," where Russian President Vladimir Putin is taking your calls.

And that means you, too, kids.

>> Hi, there.

President of Russia here.

Welcome to new episode of "Putin' It Out There," my AMA where you ask questions, and I throw you in jail!

[ Laughs ] >> What?

We can't make that joke anymore?

Geez.

Cancel culture is out of control.

Anyway, today, I want to open up to a very special audience.

That's right.

Today, we are "Putin' the Kids Out There."

[ Children cheering ] First caller is Mikey, 5 years old, from New York.

Hello, Mikey.

>> Hi.

First-time caller.

I have a story, but it didn't really happen.

>> My favorite kind of story, the ones that didn't actually happen.

Go on.

>> Okay.

So, a girl at my school kissed me on the lips.

>> Wow!

That's great.

What's the problem?

>> My friend said he would tell everybody unless I gave him my lunch.

>> What a friend!

Very skillful use of kompromat and blackmail by this young friend.

Let that be a lesson to you, Mikey.

Never tell secrets to people unless you can make those people disappear.

>> Wait.

Have you ever made someone disappear?

>> Well, to be honest, there is this one guy I keep trying to -- Hey!

Time is flying.

That's all for today.

Remember, kids, nothing is true, and everything is possible, so keep Putin' your dreams out there!

>> ♪ "Puppet Regime" ♪ >> Okay, Dema, let's open up a file on Mikey and his friend in New York.

They can be very useful, especially the friend.

>> That's our show this week.

Come back next week.

And if you like what you see, and of course you do, because what stands between you and authoritarianism?

That's right -- "GZERO World."

Check us out at gzeromedia.com.

>> Major corporate funding provided by founding sponsor First Republic.

At First Republic, our clients come first.

Taking the time to listen helps us provide customized banking and wealth-management solutions.

More on our clients at firstrepublic.com.

>> Additional funding provided by... And by...