Terry.
This is FRESH air.
I'm Terry Gross.
There's a term for what Musk and Trump are doing.
That's the headline of the latest Atlantic magazine article by my guest, Ann Applebaum.
The term, she says, is regime change.
She writes,
no one should be surprised or insulted by this phrase
because this is exactly what Trump and many who support him have long desired.
She points out during his 2024 campaign, Donald Trump spoke of Election Day as liberation day,
a mom when people he described as vermin
and radical left lunatics would be eliminated from public life.
Before Applebaum started writing about America moving to the right
and Trump moving toward authoritarianism,
she was writing about how some European countries were becoming authoritarian.
Last weekend, she was at the Munich Security Conference, where Vice President J.D.
vance and Secretary of State Pete Hegseth were dismissive of NATO
and its importance for American as well as European security,
marking a turning point in the post World War II Alliance.
It left European leaders shocked and worried.