That’s a good question. You are right that if we wanted to see the extent of Anne’s vapidity we could just read her book. Speaking for myself, I was never going to do that. While I’m sure most here figured her out a long time ago, seeing her talk at length like this was eye-opening to me at least. And probably the same for a lot of people whose only exposure to her is from the odd piece in the FT or whatever. Honestly, if someone wanted a primer on how and why western hegemony is failing, I think an hour of Anne Applebaum discussing her honestly held views is as good an explanation as any. In this respect, I prefer a guest like Anne Applebaum over a Mehdi Hassan if only because the former embodies the actual values of the state rather than the professed values represented by the latter. It really is something to behold the emperor without any clothes.
But, if it’s telling you something you already know, it IS pointless and counter-productive. There are people who will watch it and think, “Gosh, she’s right, Poland DID do well in its transition to neoliberalism and therefore the system is sound and was implemented with good intentions and Russia is just innately full of bad people who can’t succeed”. Is it acceptable to allow obvious falsehoods like that to be stated without any pushback? Ehhhh…
Every day I wake to the news that Biden hasn’t yet contracted ebola and feel dispair.