<p dir="ltr">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.</p> <p>If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at <a href="http://samharris.org/subscribe">samharris.org/subscribe</a>.</p>

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#376 — How Democracies Fail

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Sam Harris Episodes Around July 19, 2024

#361 — Sam Bankman-Fried & Effective Altruism

#362 — Six Months of War

#363 — Knowledge Work

#364 — Facts & Values

#365 — Reality Check

#366 — Urban Warfare 2.0

#367 — Campus Protests, Antisemitism, and Western Values

#368 — Freedom & Censorship

#369 — Escaping Death

#370 — Gender Apartheid and the Future of Iran

#371 — What the Hell Is Happening?

#372 — Life & Work

#373 — Anti-Zionism Is Antisemitism

#374 — Consciousness and the Physical World

#375 — On the Attempted Assassination of President Trump

#376 — How Democracies Fail

#377 — The Future of Psychedelic Medicine 2

#378 — Digital Delusions

#379 — Regulating Artificial Intelligence

#380 — The Roots of Attention

#381 — Delusions, Right and Left

#382 — The Eye of Nature

#383 — Where Are the Grown-Ups?

#384 — Stress Testing Our Democracy

#385 — AI Utopia

#386 — Information & Social Order

#387 — Politics & Power

#388 — What Is Life?

#389 — The Politics of Risk

#390 — Final Thoughts on the 2024 Presidential Election

#391 — The Reckoning

Summary