On today’s “To the Contrary” Podcast, Anne Applebaum joins me from Warsaw to examine the alarming rise of authoritarian tactics in the U.S., from the militarization of federal agencies to the normalization of political cruelty. We discuss the Trump administration’s embrace of spectacle, the breakdown of truth, and the erosion of institutional guardrails. Applebaum warns that what once seemed unthinkable is now unfolding in broad daylight, and cautions that history shows how quickly democracy can vanish when we stop recognizing the danger.
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Happy Thursday.
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Some of the highlights of our conversation
Why a Federal Police Force Changes America’s Guardrails
In this clip, I asked Applebaum about the flamboyantly performative celebration of brutality — complete with t-shirts and other merch — at the “Alligator Alcatraz”. Did that seem familiar. Listen to her fascinating answer:
Catching up…
Amid ICE raids, bishop tells SoCal worshippers they can stay home on Sundays
A Southern California Roman Catholic bishop told his diocese of roughly one million parishioners this week that they can stay home on Sundays to avoid Mass while concerns about federal immigration sweeps still loom over the region.
Bishop Alberto Rojas of the Diocese of San Bernardino wrote in the decree Tuesday that many church-goers have shared “fears of attending mass due to potential immigration enforcement action" and that "such fear constitutes a grave inconvenience that may impede the spiritual good of the faithful."
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Why MAGA Hates Superman - by Nicholas Grossman
Truth and justice have been Superman’s values since he first appeared in 1938, and subsequent interpretations have included related concepts, such as tolerance. The slogan “truth, justice, and the American way,” linking those values with the United States, was popularized by the 1950s TV show with George Reeves, and the 1978 Christopher Reeve movie.
In sharp contrast, MAGA has a cult of personality around a serial liar who thwarted justice to get away with crimes against the country, reversed justice by pardoning convicted January 6 attackers, and frequently undermines justice in office, abusing power to break laws and violate rights.
Trump’s core values are the opposite of Superman’s. Not just in the latest movie, but from the character’s beginning, and through over 80 years of adaptations. James Gunn couldn’t make an anti-immigrant, anti-diversity, self-centered lying criminal Superman, because then he wouldn’t be Superman. Even Zack Snyder’s darker take on the character in Man of Steel and Batman v. Superman includes things like Superman rushing off to save people from a fire in Mexico—and not demanding public praise for it—rather than watching them suffer and defending that choice as “America First.”
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Elon Musk's Grok Is Calling for a New Holocaust - The Atlantic
Why does this keep happening? Whether on purpose or by accident, Grok has been instructed or trained to reflect the style and rhetoric of a virulent bigot. Musk and xAI did not respond to a request for comment; while Grok was palling around with neo-Nazis, Musk was posting on X about Jeffrey Epstein and the video game Diablo….
Grok, as Musk and xAI have designed it, is fertile ground for showcasing the worst that chatbots have to offer. Musk has made it no secret that he wants his large language model to parrot a specific, anti-woke ideological and rhetorical style that, while not always explicitly racist, is something of a gateway to the fringes. By asking Grok to use X posts as a primary source and rhetorical inspiration, xAI is sending the large language model into a toxic landscape where trolls, political propagandists, and outright racists are some of the loudest voices. Musk himself seems to abhor guardrails generally—except in cases where guardrails help him personally—preferring to hurriedly ship products, rapid unscheduled disassemblies be damned. That may be fine for an uncrewed rocket, but X has hundreds of millions of users aboard.
For all its awfulness, the Grok debacle is also clarifying. It is a look into the beating heart of a platform that appears to be collapsing under the weight of its worst users. Musk and xAI have designed their chatbot to be a mascot of sorts for X—an anthropomorphic layer that reflects the platform’s ethos. They’ve communicated their values and given it clear instructions. That the machine has read them and responded by turning into a neo-Nazi speaks volumes.
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Colby Hall: Trump Just Shot His Base in the Middle of 5th Ave By Dumping Epstein Conspiracy
The real danger for Trump isn’t just internal embarrassment. It’s the loss of control over the very media figures who helped build the MAGA brand. Tucker Carlson, for all his eccentricities, is no Alex Jones. His audience—massive, loyal, and notably critical-thinking compared to the average Facebook meme warrior—takes his betrayals seriously. The same goes for Megyn Kelly, who, despite her post-Fox exile, has found a massively influential footing among disaffected conservatives who crave truth over tribalism.
Thursday dogs
From my daughter’s Substack… A day at the lake with Auggie.
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