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During an impeachment hearing this week, President Donald Trump’s former top Russia adviser accused Republicans of peddling Russian propaganda.

Anne Applebaum is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and historian who will join The Atlantic as a staff writer in January. As one of the world’s leading experts on pre- and post-Communist Europe, disinformation and propaganda, and the future of democracy, she joins Edward-Isaac Dovere to discuss impeachment through a global lens.

How did a conspiracy theory concocted by Russian intelligence officers become a Republican defense of Trump? And what future does Applebaum see for NATO and Western democracy if the president is in office for another five years?

Listen for:

how Soviet history helps explain this moment in America’s partisan politics;

what to do about disinformation (and how the unique story of the BBC might be an example);

and what Trump’s authoritarian tendencies could mean in a second term.

Voices:

Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere)

Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum)