Anne is a journalist and historian. She’s currently a staff writer at The Atlantic and a senior fellow at Johns Hopkins University’s Agora Institute. She’s written many books, including Red Famine, Gulag: A History, and Twilight of Democracy, and her new one is Autocracy, Inc: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World. Also check her substack, “Open Letters.”

For two clips of our convo — on whether Trump is a kleptocrat, and whether Kamala can connect with the public — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: the ways dictatorships no longer act alone; surveillance and social media; the appeal of Western freedoms via the internet; the Great Firewall; the Uyghurs and squelching dissent before it happens — with algorithms; Iranian theocracy; how autocrats have anonymity but their subjects don’t; the ease of stealing and hiding money; shell corporations; the unipolar hegemon of the US; the influence-peddling of the Trumps and the Bidens; what frightens Anne most about Trump; how his China policy could disappoint hawks; why he admires dictators; J.D. Vance and isolationism; Putin invading Ukraine to test the West; the failure of sanctions to cripple Russia; its economic alliance with China; Dubya’s foreign adventures; a dictator’s appeal to order and tradition; the profound brutality of Stalin; the Cold War; the war in Syria stoked by Russia; the fall of Venezuela as a rich democracy; Western democracies in crisis today; mass migration and Biden’s failure; the turnover of Tory PMs and Starmer’s “stability”; the West’s goal of transparency and accountability; autocrats leaning into social conservatism; scapegoating gays; the myth of Russia as a white Christian nation; misinformation and free speech; Trump’s endurance; the assassination attempt; and Anne’s husband becoming the foreign minister of Poland.

Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Jeffrey Toobin on the Supreme Court, Eric Kaufmann on reversing woke extremism, and Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy on animal cruelty. (Van Jones’ PR team canceled his planned appearance.) Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.

Lionel Shriver is an author and journalist. She’s written 17 novels, most notably We Need to Talk About Kevin, and in 2022 she published her first book of nonfiction, Abominations: Selected Essays from a Career of Courting Self-Destruction. She’s currently a columnist for The Spectator, and her new book is Mania, a satirical novel about a dystopian movement that claims that everyone is equally smart.

We recorded this convo last month. For two clips — on the relief that comes with personal limitations, and whether feminism has run its course — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: raised in North Carolina by a family of liberal Dems; her dad a Presbyterian minister and her mom a homemaker; Lionel a tomboy with two brothers; how she hated her birth name and changed it to a male one; David Bowie and how gender nonconformity has changed; the far left’s obsession with equality at all cost; the resentment toward achievement; trans sports; the far right and Bronze Age Pervert; the class structure of the UK; the English fondness for eccentrics; Farage and Trump; how conservatives are transgressive now; Plato and Aristotle; the past systemic racism against black Americans; when identity politics is needed; minority groups policing their ranks; epistemic closure on the right; 2020 election denialism; Montaigne and Shakespeare inventing the modern individual; Lionel living in London and now Portugal; her fierce independence in publishing; the tragic death of her brilliant older brother; Bill Clinton’s appetites; Hitch’s compulsions and work ethic; why the most gifted are often the most troubled; the loss of desire on O-zen-pic; the high standards and judgements of the old gays; the Oppression Olympics; why beauty shouldn’t have moral qualities; the DEI industry; the collapse of readerships within the MSM; how male friends mock each other; and how women and wokeness dominate the book industry.

Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Jeffrey Toobin on the Supreme Court, Anne Applebaum on autocrats, Eric Kaufmann on reversing woke extremism, and Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy on animal cruelty. (Van Jones’ PR team canceled his planned appearance.) Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.