Anne Applebaum Compares Trump to Hitler and Stalin: ‘It’s Not as Hard as You Think to Change the Rules’

EXCERPT:

APPLEBAUM: “Nowadays, most democracies fail not because of violence or coup d'etat, but because a legitimate elected leader comes to power and then begins to dismantle institutions. He puts a loyalist in the -- in the jobs instead of experts. He politicizes institutions that are supposed to belong to the whole nation, like the military or the Department of Justice, and makes them serve him and his political program. And, you know, we've seen this happen. I mean, it's what happened in Hungary. It's what happened in Turkey. I saw it happen in Poland, where I live part of the time, as you know, and the Polish ruling party at that time tried to do this. They went through the steps. They didn't succeed in doing it fully and so they eventually lost an election. But, you know, the -- it's not as hard as you think to -- you know, to change the rules, to bring in new kinds of people, to use the law against media or against politicians that you don't like, to use the IRS against politicians you don't like. And there are precedents for it in American history, too. So it's not as if it's absolutely never happened before.”