Conversations (ABC) · ABC Australia
Is America sliding into autocratic rule under Trump?
March 13, 2026·51 min·3 clips
Gessen argues ICE killings of white victims in Minneapolis are a deliberate signal that no one is safe from state terror.
As heard by us
M. Gesson watched Russian democracy collapse once; the autocratic logic they trace in Trump's America is uncomfortably familiar.
Richard Feidler's conversation with M. Gesson, New York Times columnist and author of Surviving Autocracy, works because Gesson has seen this before.
Why you'd press play
When M. Gesson says the incompetence is the point, something about the last four years clicks into place.
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