Sarah Kendzior

coronavirus from your location right now? I mean allegedly from my location. We don't have a high amount of cases, and we've opened up the state, but they're not really testing people. So people are kind of just, you know, stumbling in the dark and hoping to not get infected. But we're certainly not in as bad a position as New York or l A or San Francisco, are these big cities. Well, since in your new bestseller, Hiding in Plain Site, you drilled down into the politics of Missouri,

now should I be saying Missouri or Missouri Missouri? I'm in the Missouri part, trying to drive an hour south, I'll be in Missouri okay, uh, the governor and the legislature presently of what political party, oh, Republican, and our governor is a non elected governor who replaced the previous governor who had been tying up a woman in his basement, photographing or a half naked embezzling funds, committing fraud, and

doing other stuff. So you know that this guy is just more of a run of the mill Mike Pence Aclyte type GOP guy. Well, you know, living on the West Coast and tuning into national media on a regular basis, like the New York Times, Washington Posting Walls Rejournal. Maybe it's the news cycle, but it doesn't seem that there's been a whole hell of a lot of news about the scandal and the governorship in Missouri. Now I'm in there briefly, was in eighteen, you know, the first time

he got arrested. Second time, it kind of you know, faded. Um. I mean I thought it was a big deal, not just as a resident of Missouri, but because I think of Missouri as a microcosm for the US, which I write about in Hiding in Plain Sight, but also the governor Eric Righten's as a microcosm for what could happen for Trump because he had just, you know, brazenly committed a series of crimes. Everyone wanted him gone, his own party wanted him gone because of the intensity of the corruption,

and he was just refusing to leave. And eventually, you know, they did manage to get rid of him. And it's really something when someone is too corrupt for the Missouri goop um and and he left. However, I don't think that will necessarily be the case with Trump, but I saw it as kind of like a test run of abusive power and criminal impunity. Okay, well, let's just start with your state. What degree is jerrymandering a factor. It's a huge factor. I mean, I think that's true with

almost any Republican state. But even more than jerrymandering, dar money is a factor. We have the highest amount of dark money, and we are both you know, pretty expert. Not all my audiences please explain dark money. Dark money is just money that gets poured into a campaign where you don't know the source. You don't know where it's coming from, so you don't know what kind of special interests or individuals are deciding to back this particular candidate.

And after citizens United Supreme Court ruling in two thousand and ten, they basically decided there weren't going to be limits on dark money, and until that point, states had decided it individually. Missouri was particularly corrupt, to the point that they said, you know, in Missouri, there's not even such a thing as quid pro quote corruption because it's so rampant. So we were kind of, you know, the

bell weather ahead of the curve on that one. UM. And that's really what's infested our politics on a national levels. It's not just that that politicians can be bought. We don't know who's buying them. We don't know who's behind find Uh. You know those billions of dollars. Well, since you're an expert, the average person would say, wait, can't people and companies only donate a limited amount? Can you explain a little bit further, especially in Missouri, who is

raising these funds and how they're being dispersed. I mean, there are certain big players. Um, you know, the the guy in Missouri probably heard heard of Rex Sinkfeld. But you know, you see this um with other mega donors throughout the US. UM. You know, there's ways of circumventing these laws. There are loopholes, there are limitations, Um, if you're an individual as to how much you can donate, but you can form packs, you could form you know, other kind of corporate bodies in order to get that

money flowing. And so that's been a problem nationwide and they tried to clean it up in Missouri. They actually the citizens of Missouri passed an initiative called Clean Missouri that was supposed to get rid of jerrymandering, dark money, all these other obstacles to democ grassy. Unfortunately, the legislature is right now trying to strike it down. You know, there's a trending hashtag You're called dirty Missouri, and you

know that's what that's what we are. We're dirty Missouri. Okay, So the dark money coming into Missouri, does it tend to be state money or national money? Well, it's hard to tell, in part because it is dark money. UM, I do think that, you know, there is a high conglomeration of state interests. There are people in particular from outside St. Louis that are interested in buying up properties

in St. Louis, managing the politics of St. Louis. I've noticed that the national GOP kind of uses Missouri UM as an experiment, like as a Petri dish for their operations. This was true with Ted Cruz before it was true with Trump. You saw Cambridge Analytica, you know, which is that big company um, you know, located in the UK and involved in Brexit that was doing data mining, UM, you know, targeted ads, propaganda so forth. They were involved

in Missouri experimenting in Missouri. UM. And we've also just been kind of, uh, you know, a litmus test for the country. You have every kind of political um extreme here, you know, from extreme left across the spectrum to extreme right. It's where Phillis Schlafley was from. It's where the Tea Party emerged. It's also where the Ferguson movement emerged. UM. So you really get a bit of everything. And I think a lot of political actors and donors see it

as an opportune place to experiment. Think, well, you know, how is this going to play out on a national level, Like, let's see what happens in Missouri, the state that barely gets covered, where people won't really notice if we get up to something dirty. Let's go back to Cambridge and political from my for a moment on the Michael Lewis podcast, the guy was in charge of Cambridge Analytica said it didn't work, that the profiling didn't work. What's your view

point on that? I mean, did did he say what? It didn't work? At the In terms of targeting, I think it's hard to tell. I don't think that there's been a qualitative study, like in terms of you know, looking at people's social media profiles, trying to guess their tastes, trying to guide them to a particular candidate. I think, uh, you know, it might have worked, it might not have, but to my knowledge, there hasn't really been a study

of it. You know, I looked at a lot of those uh you know, Russia backed propaganda groups, although it's not solely Russia, um that was doing things like this as we know, it was actors from the US, the UK and so forth. Um, And you know, it did seem to persuade some I did think that it's influence in terms of like political advertising was overstated. I think there are a lot of things at play in the

twenty sixteen election that helped sway it. But when people talk about foreign influence, they often focused on bots and troll farms and the kind of things associated with Cambridge Analytica. There's a British journalist, UM Carol called Wallader who's studied

it in detail. Um, and whistleblowers that have come forward, and I really worry about that that company, and one's like it is privacy is the fact that they've assembled this giant database full of identifying details that can be sold, that can be used by different actors for different means. You know, we don't know what the future of that information is going to be, and a lot of people put their data on the internet unknowing that this would

be its ultimate destination. And I do think that that's a violation of our privacy. Let's go back to Missouri. Uh So at the present time, uh, what's the makeup of the legislature, right versus left, Republican versus Democrat. It's almost entirely Republican. Uh In terms of the main positions in the legislature that are filled. There's one the state auditor, and she's running for governor against our current Republican governor and she's the sole Democrat that's in power. And that

was not the case when I moved here. That was back in two thousand and six, it was pretty even. You know, it's fifty fifty. We had to democratic, uh, a democratic governor Democratic senator with Clara mccaskell. There's this belief that Missouri has always been a you know, quote deep red state. Uh, that's not true. But I also just don't think any state is red or blue. Um. You know, as I said in the book, that every

state is purple. It's purple like a bruce. Um. You know, it's a state that's dealing with its own pain, its own problems. Um. And it's a lot more complex than the media LA is out. And I think because the national media has now become conglomerated in just a few cities, like in you know, New York, l A, uh, sometimes Chicago, I guess for the Midwest, it's had this kind of unrealistic portrayal of how states relate to each other and how politics play out within states where it's really a

big mix. Um. And it's not so easy to type cast anybody California or Missouri. Now in some of these gerrymandered states, I believe, like in Wisconsin, in terms of sheer numbers, the Democrats are victorious, but in terms of the elections because of jerrymandering. The Republican's rule. Is that

a similar situation in Missouri. Yeah, although the the issue with Wisconsin that worries me a lot is voter disenfranchisement because after the partial repeal of the v r A, the Voting Rights Act in two thousand thirteen, there were new ID laws. And back in twos sixteen you add the Wisconsin election for the presidency, where you know, Trump won that state by about thirty thousand votes I think, and over two hundred voters were turned away because they

were told they didn't have the prerequisite identification. Uh. And there's a lot of question as to that, as to whether that was legitimate, and as to whether these voter ID laws, um you know, are keeping people from voting. You know, it's clear that they are. Missouri has since passed a law, um you know, requiring voter I D that can result in people being turned away. But at this point, you know, I'm worried about coronavirus, I'm worried

about whether there's going to be an election. I'm worried about whether we'll be able to safely vote. So a lot of that stuff is h is up in the air, I think for everybody, but certainly for us. Okay, let's just stay with the safely vote. Certainly here in California. Uh, whatever elections we have will be by mail. Do we anticipate that will be a fifty state situation or not. I think it should be. I think for public safety, it should be by mail and it should be easy

to do. We just finally in Missouri how to ruling that you'll be able to vote by mail as long as you have some sort of medical rationale, you know, I think, including if you fall into the category of seven year older you're a high risk person for coronavirus. The rest of us, I think, need to go see an auditor if we want to vote, um, you know, via mail, which I think is ridiculous. I mean, people are not going to put the time and effort into that, and it's a risky disease. You know, we don't know

what the hell it does. We don't know what the ultimate effect is. And you shouldn't be asking people, I think too, you know, potentially put their life on the line to go vote. It should be simple. Um. You know, Oregon and other states have been doing voting by mail for a while. But this is why the GOP wants to shut down the post office. That was one of the first things they announced had to go in March, um,

you know, in in their new little budgetary cuts. And that's a you know, the movement of an aspiring autocrat. That's the move of a party that does not want free and fair elections. Now, like you, I grew up in Connecticut, but I'm obviously older than you. But the first thing I remember Trump doing was saving Wollman Rink, Okay, and he got out a lot of press. And I was under the impression that the guy was smart. Certainly I no longer have that impression now that he is president.

So when it comes to the post Office, in these other uh plans, do you think he's aware? Do you think it comes from him who is generating this behavior now, not something that has to do with bureaucracy, not something that has to do with all the little details. You know, what Trump wants is a guaranteed win. You know, he

had said that before. Like people tend to not realize it, but Trump ran or nearly ran for president five times, almost ran in a d A in ninety six, he ran in two thousand, he ran two thousand twelve, if he ran in two thousand sixteen, he had set for about thirty years that he would only run and not drop out early if the win was predetermined. Um, and you know how literally you want to take that, I

don't know, but basically that's what he cares about. He cares about winning, about power, about money, about immunity from prosecution. He's not thinking about the organization of our bureaucracy. I don't think he necessarily knows the law except for the extent that he needs to break it to accomplish what he wants. And as president, he can break the law by rewriting it, having his lackeys like Bill Barr rewrite it.

So that's kind of how he operates. And he's always surrounded himself with people who are a lot smarter and savvier at handling these details, especially legal details, whether Roy Khon or Michael Cohen, or Bill Barr or Mitch McConnell. You know, those are the ones that work it out. He just has his own self interest, and you know,

that's primarily what what he's there, you know, to accomplish. Okay, let's go back to twenties sixteen since you mentioned that, uh needle to say nately Silver called the previous election and it he did a little bit of a maya culpa, but then he kind of explained, well, really the polls were right, okay, and certainly the New York Times missed it.

This was before Bezos had brought the Washington poster injected a lot of money, so it wasn't of the profile it had now, needless say, the Wall Street journals on the other side of the fence. What are the reasons? And one of the primary reasons you believe Trump was victorious in Um, well, I had anticipated he was going to win, uh you know, and there are a number of reasons for that. I mean, one was he did have a base of support. People refused to recognize that

that base existed for a long time. They treated it like a joke. They treated his candidacy like entertainment. Um. I saw him as an American demagogue, and as time went on, I saw him as having, uh, you know, similar style to the kind of dictators that I had studied in the former Soviet Union for most of my career. And you know, for those who don't know my degree in anthropology, UM you know, I spent that studying uz Pakistan.

I sent that studying some of the most brutal dictators and flamboyant dictators in the world, and Trump reminded me of them. Then I realized that this was not a metaphorical connection. You know, Trump was literally connected to the former Soviet Union through his financial dealings, through his hiring of Paul Manafort, who had worked for the Kremlin, as his campaign manager. And I realized Russia had a real investment in Trump winning, which you know, people in government

also realized. What they didn't seem to realize is that they could pull this off. That they were not stupid people. These are skilled operatives with the long history of you know, these kind of designs. And I think, um, that combined with I mean, it was a perfect storm of a lot of things. You know, there were flaws in the Clinton campaign. I think people underestimated, you know, how widely she was disliked. Um. But yeah, you know, the polls were wrong. I never really trust polls. I don't trust

polls now. I think polls are used to construct narratives by people who are savvy at manipulating the media. They're used to tell people that things are popular even when they're not. And from that, you know, actual popularity grows because people feel like it's acceptable to like this thing. It's acceptable to like Trump, to like a white supremacist, to like a big etcetera, etcetera. It opens, uh you know that that Overton window, and then our country gets

defonstrated through it. But uh yeah, anyway, Okay, I want to get back. I want to get Okay, we have endless debates. It looks like Warren's leader. People start to vote, and Bernie Sanders is doing extremely well and Biden is doing poorly. Needless to say, going back to the d n C is clueless and out of touch with their constituents. But as a voracious reader of the New York Times, in the Washington Post as well as the Wall Street Journal, it seemed to me there was a concerted campaign in

the media to make sure that Bernie did not win. Okay, and then it seemed to me there was a plot has too many negative connotations, but there was a decision, Okay, Bernie is doing so well that we're gonna get all the other candidates to drop out. Well, only have Biden South Carolina, and we'll give it to him. What's your viewpoint on what happened with Bernie? Yeah, I mean, I I do think that there was a plan, um that there was, you know, a concerted action from more centrist

Democrats to prevent Bernie from getting the nomination. And I think there is a move in the media against both Bernie and Warren. You know, there would be polls for examples, is a use of them? Is something other than a actual measuring tool where they'd say, who are you going to vote for? They would just leave her out, you know, they're trying to make her candidacy vanish. And then yeah, you know, Biden won South Carolina. You know, I think

he won it legitimately. But after that it was like centrist vultron assembled, where you had all the other candidates dropping out at once and throwing their support to Biden. And that's what secured the nomination for Biden on Super Tuesday. And what concerns me, you know, isn't so much. Um, I mean, they're there are things that concerned me beyond

just Biden being the candidate. But the Democrats, you know, don't seem to feel obligated to recognize the widespread support people have for the policies um that are endorsed by Sanders and Warren, especially economically, even though coronavirus is happening. I think Biden might be more receptive to these policies.

I don't think the d n C is and I think that the leaders ship of the Democratic Party, people like Pelosi and Schumer, have been incredibly timid and bad at fighting Trump, at realizing that they're up against an autocrat, they're up against a mafia state. They have not been you know, taking them on with the urgency that's necessary.

And so all of that makes me worry because I do at least feel that Bernie and certainly Warren recognize that we're in a crisis and that's going to be very difficult to get us out of that, economically, politically, and in every other respect. Let's go back to needless to say, the New York Times it was weird. You know, they had that meter on the front page of the paper and online, and literally, as I'm watching the results,

you watch the meter go in the other direction. Then became an era of self flagellation, okay, which the left wing narrative at this point in time is twofold. They say it's white nationalism, and then they say, let's look at the numbers. In reality, the upper middle class were the voting for Trump. My question is to what degree is globalization an issue? Now? One of the problems I have with globalization is that every says, yeah, bring the jobs back home, but they don't want to pay two

thousand dollars for a flat screen. Okay, And I believe globalization is inevitable without going down that path, my point being that one thing is clear. We did not take care of the people who lost during globalization. So the fact that people were screwed by globalization, to what degree them wanting to put a spanner in the works was

a factor in Trump's victory. I think it was a factor in just a general sense of disillusionment that you see across the political spectrum, and it was there before. I think that Trump is very good into tapping into that. You know, he's like a vulture that praise on people's pain. And I remember that. I remember during the campaign. Um, I think at that point, you know, my has been had been out of work for a long time, you know,

or he was actually working multiple minimum wage jobs. I was, you know, struggling to get by take care of the kids. And Trump comes along and announces that there's actually forty five percent unemployment, you know, under Obama, and all the pundits start laughing and they're like, my god, what an idiot, Like, who's going to believe that? And I was like, you know, consciously,

of course, like I know that that's not true. I know that it's not you know, technically after the country is unemployed, but it felt like that was the case because people are struggling, because people can't pay their bills, because they're working gig jobs, they're you know, working these side hustles, and they can't get by. Trump in reality,

you know, couldn't give a shift if people survive. He's not looking out for their welfare, but he's at least aware of that suffering and how he could exploit it. On the other end, you know, you had Bernie who also recognized it and did have ideas and how to

fix it. And then you had Hillary who gradually began to recognize that everybody was not so happy un or the Obama administration, especially younger people economically, uh, and she began to kind of you know, turn her campaign in that direction and ultimately did so, which I thought was a good move on her part, But yeah, you know, it was a mess. And I think people are worried not just about globalization, but about automation and with coronavirus.

I'm very worried about that because there are all these jobs that I think people will say, for safety reasons need to be replaced by, you know, robots, basically any kind of like cashier position something like that. I don't know where all those people who need those jobs to survive economically are going to go if that kind of decision is made, because I don't feel like like anyone

in the government is really looking out for them. Another criticism of the left is that it is too is become an elite like the traditional Republican and doesn't care and has contempt for lower economic people. The other thing being, when I grew up, there was not this level of income inequality in the fifties and sixties and up into the mid seventies, certainly, but if you were rich, uh,

you had inherited the money. Where is today? Most of the very wealthy people earn the money, and they worked very hard to earn the money, but they've got no time for the people hooked on I'm talking about people on the left. Forget the people on the right. They got no time. For the people on opioids, they got no time. And I think those people recognize that contempt. I I think that's true. I mean I recognize that contempt. You know, I've been the subject of that contempt. You know,

despite having a good education, um and whatnot. You know, it's frustrating, like they they seem to want to be idolized. There's this cult of personality thing that's been forming. I think Trump made it a lot worse because he really does want natural cult to surround him. But you know, when I makeicisms of people like Pelosi or Schumer, I get bombarded um with you know, how dare you critique

our our side or critique this or that. And I'm like, that's literally why they're there, Like this is a representative government. These are public servants. They're supposed to be doing their job. I'm not hurling at hominem comments. I'm not saying anything that's you know, honestly all that harsh. I'm saying, you know, you're screwing up at your job, and you're jeopardizing my life and my country's future as a result of it.

But yeah, there's there's a timidity there. I think that people have stopped expecting uh, public servants, expecting elected officials to do their jobs competently, to represent them, to stand up with people who don't have much, you know, are just struggling to survive. They they've lost that, and I think, you know, for people younger than me, they've never even

seen it an action in their lives. I mean, that's why Warren's campaign fell almost shocking to me, because she was addressing those issues and she had these very detailed plans and I could see how they would be carried out in action, and I'm like, oh my god, you know, I mean it's almost overwhelming to read all that. And of course, um, you know, she didn't win, and that's that's too bad, because I think she would have been a great president. But um, it's a it's a very

frustrating thing because I do think they care about their donors. Uh, they are in their bubble um and they're not you know, on the ground even aware of what's happening to ordinary Americans. Okay, as someone who follows is closely certainly not a scientific expert. As I was describing him my shrink, it's just raw insanity. Okay, But yesterday, and Lord only knows what will happen before

these airs, it truly took another leap. Okay, with Friday, we had the firing of the inspector, which was insane. But Trump taking the chlora queen, I mean put that in context for the rest of us. Oh, I mean, this is like the second time he's told Americans to take a potentially dangerous such a substance to cure coronavirus. The first time around it was drink bleach. So I

guess there's been a you know, an improvement. Honestly, um, you know, I usually don't buy the whole it's a distraction thing from Trump because I think it's important to examine everything. It's important to look at what he's doing behind the scenes, and it's important to look at, you know, what kind of propaganda narrative he puts forward. But as I say in the book, he tries to hide crime

with scandal. And so while I would look at, you know, one, the irresponsibility of recommending a drug that could potentially kill you, there's that there's probably a short term kind of profit margin for him, since he seems to have investment in the company that produces a drug. But I'm more worried about the complete chaos and the apathy toward Americans suffering

an American death demonstrated by this administration. Because as people are panicked, as people are going through the worst economic crisis of our lives, as they're wondering if they're going to get this you know, fatal disease that that many don't understand how it works. Uh, they're capitalizing on that. They're wording medical equipment, They're making the situation worse. Um. And I think that, you know, that is a way

that Trump has personally behaved his whole life. You know, when nine eleven happened, his gut reaction was, now my buildings look taller during any financial crisis two thousand eight, he was like, this is fantastic. Now people like me can make more money. You know, he's a disaster capitalist.

He's a corporate raider. He was trained, you know by New York Wall Street corporate raiders like Carl Icon to carry out this kind of uh, you know, loot and redistribute, destroy this, and then you know, sell it off for parts. That's what he wants to do to the United States, and I think he does not want us looking at that.

He'd rather have us you know, talking about his irresponsible snake oil peddling than about the fact that he's you know, looting the country essentially and also not helping Americans, uh, you know, during a massive public health crisis. But in this particular time, he is actually doing just like he's not wearing a mask, he's actually taking the drug. Even Neil Cavudo, I'm sure they're slapping him today, came out

against it. Uh. You know, if the Russian goal is just to create chaos so people tune out, does because this speaks to row credibilities just insanity? Okay, So does this just demonstrate how the government has no credibility? Does this actually work for him? Does it make people detach? I don't know what exactly he's trying to accomplish with the I don't even how to pronounce the hydraulic queen um.

You know. I do think that it's somewhat of a distraction thing because there are very serious things, you know, going on in the government, both with economically but also things Pompeio is getting up to bars, getting up to I don't think that the intent is just to cause chaos. There is something weird about Trump, um, which is that

he's a lifelong germophobe. You know. You could read articles about him going back about over three decades saying how he compulsively washes his hands, he won't shake hands, he's terrified of getting a terrible virus. In one article, it's even named as coronavirus. There's an article from seventeen, i think, in Politico called the pure Le Presidency, and it's about he forced everyone around him to use perel to keep

off germs. Suddenly an actual pandemic emerges, a very contagious one, and he's running around shaking everyone's hand, sharing microphones, you know, disobeying all these rules, refusing to wear a mask. It's very weird because he's acting like he's immune or that at the least someone has told him that he is immune to this virus, despite being in a target demographic of men over seventy years old, you know, very very

likely to get it and to be severely affected. So I have found that strange from the moment I heard about the virus back in January, and it only gets weirder when he's recommending this drug that doctors and scientists say doesn't actually work as a treatment. So I don't know whether he believes it, or whether they're something else going on or or what um. But I do think

the entire medical situation with him is bizarre. Well, certainly this drug can have negative consequences speaking to the heart. But from my viewpoint, the right defines the debate and the left reacts, why do you believe that is? And could there be a u turn such at the left defines a debate. It's a very frustrating thing. There's a tendency in the life to just not speak bluntly about any of this. You know, they won't call lie a

lie or a crime a crime. It shouldn't be easy, I mean, it shouldn't be difficult to criticize Donald Trump. You know, it gives you a lot of material to work with. I think some of the hesitancy comes from this both sides style of journalism that's been, you know, very popular over the last twenty years, where Trump is like, you know, I want a new hurricane, and they're just like, oh, will it work? Will it not? You know, instead of just addressing the issue as a a sign of a

great threat now national security. We see that's not just with Trump, but things like climate change, and it causes incredible damage when people refuse to acknowledge a blatant threat. I think that this elitism in the media is one of the causes of this. I think that the media and our political culture and these overlapping circles have become, you know, dominated by people from very wealthy backgrounds, from

you know, sort of very very narrow geographic focus. There have been all these credentials now required, all these prerequisites to get your foot in the door, and that means that they're reluctant to report on each other. Honestly, you know, they want to keep this illusion going. They don't want to out people like Ivanka and Jared as grifters when those are their sources. And they're just thinking of things like, you know, access and prestige and reputation and of themselves.

You know, they're not thinking about the country. They're not thinking about how does this affect ordinary Americans. They're thinking about their selves and their insular little world. And that applies to the Trump camp and to the people working at Fox News and it applies to people working at the New York Times and other allegedly liberal outlets. It's just a failure to value truth, to value honesty, um, and to just you know, tell people what's actually going on,

and you know, tell it like it is. I went to the Holocaust Museum in Los Angeles a year ago, and I was stunned that they had the reprints of all the papers, that the information was there and no one acted. Now, we can certainly talk about degree quantity and whether they avoid certain nooks and crannies, but there is a lot of information that has been printed. Now. Although one of the critics said when Trump got elected that the uh on NPR that the press should take

a viewpoint, which they haven't. Okay, you say something fascinating as time I heard anybody else say this, that we all have a feeling as we're living our regular lots, that there's somebody out there, there's somebody who's going to take care of it. And you say there isn't. Okay, So what can be done about truly blowing the whistle on this all insanity in our country? Yeah, it's a

very frustrating thing. You know. I think the scariest part of my book is the fact that there's like thirty pages of end notes from all the other reporting that has been done on all these massive crimes being carried out by Trump and other members of this administration. You know, as is in the title, it's in plain sight, and

it's the failure to act that's been very frustrating. Everyone thinks somebody else is going to swoop in and save us, or they think, Okay, you know, if this is really so bad, if this is really so dangerous, people would be behaving differently. They'd be acting with urgency, they'd be speaking out strongly. But they don't um and that's unfortunately,

very typical when a democracy transitions into an autocracy. That's why newspapers of the nineteen thirties, you know, leading up to the time of Hitler's domination, World War two, the Holocaust, you will see similar styles of articles. You'll see puff pieces on Hitler and on the Third Reich that resemble the kind written about the Trump administration, where people just refuse to see what's right in front of them. They refused to see cruelty or evil or to acknowledge it

as such. They're they're afraid of being seemed as alarmist or as hysterical. But I think that you really need to error on the side of caution here, especially because there is such a historical precedent for this. And I don't just mean Nazi Germany, but you know, looking at Milosovich, at put In, at anybody who's risen to power, the path is very similar to Trump. It's easy to predict.

You know, it's the dictator's playbook, and we're watching it play out in a kind of American pop culture infotainment kind of way, you know, a tabloid kind of way that I think people don't recognize it because they think autocracy means like tanks appear on the street. They don't understand that a very American root autocracy is to have a reality TV star inhabiting the White House and deceiving people and you know, using is considerable media spin and

propaganda skills to get this horrific agenda accomplished. Let's one thing we know about Trump, as I stated previously, he's really not that intelligent. However, the Republicans in Congress and pretty much are a few, you know, never Trump people, but they don't have that much traction. So these people look at the impeachment et cetera. They all line up behind Trump. Let's just say, for this sacred to me discussion, you know, Trump gets hit by a car tonight dies,

what will perpetuate the autocracy? I think that well, Trump's skill always is to keep it in the family, and the fact that Jared and Ivanka are in the White House should have been just a giant red flag that this is an aspiring autocrat. This is a colectocrat, you know, who need to keep the money flowing through the family. The cryme flowing through the family. That's what he wants. I don't think that the GOP as a whole is

that enamored of them, but they'll certainly try to take power. Technically, I guess the reigns of power will go to Mike Pence. But I think the Republicans have seen Trump as a vehicle for desires that they've had and have been honing

for decades. You know, he didn't come out of nowhere like on one hand, you have you know, the foreign aspect of this, where not just Russia, but Russia, Israel, Saudi Arabia, all of these different countries realized that Trump has no baseline loyalty to the United States, and so it's pretty easy to get him to do things that are damaging to the United States and beneficial to them. The Republicans see it as a way where, you know, as I think, as Grover Norquist said, you can drown

government in a bathtub. That that's what they want to do. They want to have this libertarian or ultra libertarian agenda where you just basically don't have government, you dismantle it. It's everybody for them selves. You let the poor suffer and starve. There's a you know, white supremacist aspect to it. That's that's pretty blatant. Um. You're seeing all of that play out with the coronavirus, by the way, because it is disproportionately black and Native American communities getting hit by it.

And if that weren't the case, um, you know, maybe they would be more assertive at combating it, but not necessarily because I don't think that the Trump administration cares about poor white people either. Um. You know, there's a genocidal quality to it. So if he were gone, the same tendencies would continue because so many people have managed to you know, pack the courts purge agencies, get money, get power, violate, and then rewrite the rules. They're not

going to give up that opportunity. They're going to hang on to that power, you know, with all they've got. Okay, let's go back to you. You're from Connecticut. And for those people who well, first of all, it's on Wikipedia whatever, and you're forty two. So for forty one, there's some stuff in that Wikipedia page where I was like, wait, old mind, now I'll be forty two later in the year. Um, but yeah, I'm from Meridan, Connecticut. They got that part right. Um,

you know most of it, most of it's correct. Fit I didn't got the authority here on it. So how many kids in your family? I have a younger sister, younger sister, what's her life look like. She lives in Texas, she's married. Uh, you know, she's got two kids of her own. Uh you know right now. I mean her her life is just taking care of the kids who are home from school because we're living through a pandemic. So okay, so your parents, how many generations was your

family in America? Uh? My great grandparents were the ones who came from Poland. From Poland on both sides. Uh, yeah, Poland and you know, a couple other Eastern European countries thrown in, but mostly Poland. So how did your parents meet in Meriden? Like everyone's from Meridin. I'm the one who left. You know, my grandparents also grew up in Meridin. Before that, I think, you know, the great grandparents lived in New Britain, you know New Britsky, um in the

Middletown and you know, places near Meridan. So that was those the big adventurers going from there to Meridan. Uh, they're not the most adventurous family. Like I was sort of the odd one out and that you know, I liked to travel. Uh, you know, I like to move around. I was much more of a restless person. But yeah, you know, my parents met each other in middle school. Uh, started dating in high school. And I've been together for like, I don't know, fifty years. And people are like, you know,

what's the secret to your marriage? My mom says like inertia and propinquity or something. It's not not so romantic, but you know they are together. So and what did they do for a living. My mom was an English teacher at the one of the public schools in Meridin, and my dad was first the corporation council for Meridin, like the city attorney kind of, and then late in life became the city manager for Meridin, like before his retirement. He kind of he went in to fill in for somebody.

I mean, this is long after I left home, so I don't completely know happened, and then ended up just stay there for about eight years until he was hired. So he is an attorney, yeah, yeah, yeah, well he has a law degree, but he ended up going into city management. I have a law degree to it. It's like I'm not practicing. Oh yeah, the year in the music industry. I'd be glad to tell you my story, But I grew up at first of all, I grew up in a completely different era where everybody wanted their

kid to be a lawyer or a doctor. I know people. I was talking to a friend of mine. He's got a friend who I know pretty well myself was a doctor and he said his sixties. Now, when he first got out a medical school, he was making two hundred and forty grand. Today he's making two hundred and forty grand. Okay, so it used to be your upper class and not to tell you know, they're certainly surgeons of making a

million dollars a year. That's not my point. But your parents wanted you to work hard to make sure that you know, you could feed yourself, do things, etcetera. Unfortunately, what they were unaware of they had hard lives through during the Depression. We grew up in the sixties, which was all about you know, the uh. The Army stole our slogan, you know, be all you can be, okay, And my mother is a real cultural vulture. So after college, I was a starving freestyle skier and I got the

world's worst case of mononucleosis. And I went to law school and I would have dropped up, but I used to tell people all the time it was the worst year in the history of skiing in Utah, which no one knew until two thousand eleven and twelve. It was also bad, and they had the statistics. So I went through law school. If I go through law school, I'm gonna take the bar and pass it. Otherwise you know why I burned three years. But I never had an

intention of practice law. I did a little bit, remember going to court once because my boss had o c D and couldn't drive on the freeway, and I got the temporary ruling overturns and I said, I never have to go again. But I always wanted to be in the music business. And this is important only because music drove the culture in the sixties and seventies. And there's one canard which drives me crazy. Is that okay, and this isn't all fields. Everything is the same. You're just

too old. You don't get it. Music is a big business, but it is not the driver of the culture the way it was in the sixties and seventies. I say the same thing about tech, and they're starting to be a turn from to tech. Was everything drove the culture. I don't hear people dropping out saying, oh, I'm gonna I'm gonna write an app today. Okay, but I think there's a backlash against tech. But people are invested in the past. But you're growing up in the eighties and nineties.

You go to public school. Did you fit in? Were you popular? Were you No? No? I was like like a nerd with an attitude problem. So you know, it's think the worst of all worlds, right, you know, grades wise, I did fine, But you know, I was bored. I was restless. Uh you know, I was a big music fan. I was like big Guns and Roses fan. I heard you were I heard you were a metal head. Oh yeah yeah. I mean it was funny because today, um, Alex Skolnik from Test of It was like, oh, I

saw that you were in the Pop Upsets letter. I was like, yeah, you know, I'm gonna be on the show. And he's like, that's great. Yeah. He interviewed me too. And you know, Decibel wrote a profile on me, and that's fine. I like all kinds of music. It's not just metal. You know, my tastes are pretty broad. But um, you know, I was a piano player and a guitar player and you know, not that great musician. But I always loved music, Um, and it was important to me,

and I think even back then, music drove the culture. Certainly, MTV drove the culture for my generation, and it was very weird to me when they stopped playing videos and

when FM radio kind of ceased to have meaning. And I was in college during Napster, so obviously I enjoyed that you know, Napster free ride experience, but um, you know, music and journalists and began to overlap quite a bit because everyone was expected to work for exposure and everybody was getting you know, their content you know, kind of stolen or you know, was having difficulty finding opportunities in their fields. And I think that that created a culture

of conformity. And I don't think that that's the whole culture, but the sort of people who rise to the top a lot of the times are the people who will embrace, uh, you know what a shrinking industry demands of you, which doesn't always produce, you know, the highest quality, or it doesn't allow a lot of space for unconventional people to

be able to financially survive. And so I just look at the sixties and seventies where there's all this you know, political turmoil, you know, a pretty horrible time politically, but at least there was music and you know in movies, like a great, great pop culture. So I get kind of jels of that, you know. I was looking at like the Watergate Watergate hearings and thinking about the albums that came out in those years, and I was like, wow,

like what incredible comfort in that time. Whereas I mean I do like, you know, bands that are out now I'm not completely dismissive of it by any means, but it isn't that driving force. There isn't that that feeling of being part of something bigger, you know, something that that like gets your soul, I think, and maybe the way there was back then. What's your favorite guns and Roses? Long? Oh god, that's so hard to pick because I think of Appetite is kind of its own thing, and then

you know, there I have. I have, like everybody have a mix tape of the Illusion albums combined, right, I can't read of some of the lesser tracks. Um gosh, you know that's uh. I mean it goes by my sometimes Rocket Queens sometimes it's so easy. Sometimes you could be mine. But also I don't know. I like Rocket Queen because it goes through the whole, like through all the emotions. You know that that you can experience that that the band puts forward, you know, where they have

that coda and they go out like that. I just think it's an interesting constructed song. Well, I think Appetite is certainly the best piece of work they did. My favorite would be Paradise City and it's a great video. Whatever. I'm a big busy fan and Dustin Bones and use your illusion one which begs the question did you go to see the reunion tour? Of course, like, oh my god, yeah, I was so excited. Well, first of all, I've had this feeling it basically since Trump won, Like am I

living in a simulation? Or you know, it's is this the apocalypse? And I'm in purgatory? And then when G and R not only reunited but then went to Place St. Louis, whereas you probably know, they were banned, uh, you know because of the riverport right, I got tickets immediately, and I kept thinking, like Trump is gonna install full fascism before I get to see G and R. But that didn't happen, and so I saw them in July seventeen. Then I saw them over the summer, uh, Louder than life.

And then one of the weirder things that happened is that Duff read my first book. He read The View from fly Over Country and really liked it, uh, and it helped inspire you know, his his album that he put out last year. And so that for me, I mean if you had asked me when I was twelve, like what would my dream be, it would be like seeing G and R writing a bestselling book inspiring gen R.

I mean, like you can't really top that. But then someone would have had to say to me, like, well, also, Donald Trump is going to be the president and he's going to be a dictator, Like will you make this right now? I'm like, I don't know. I mean, I wouldn't. I don't want to dictatorship. But it was kind of like I kind of five peaked now, like there's nowhere

to go but down from care. But traditionally, you know, in nineteen nine, when led Zeppelin one came out, that was considered heavy metal and Black Sabbath was too far out there. But certainly now more metal is its own genre. But even back then, people listen to that as anger at society. They felt misunderstood, and they could turn it up and create their own world. Would that be an apt description of you? Oh yeah, I mean I'm angry

all the time, and I'm not apologetic about it. Like I think there's plenty to be angry over, and you know, I think there's there's an impulse just as a woman, you're not supposed to be angry, etcetera, etcetera. You know, people say you're shrill, you're whining whatever. But I think it's broader than that. I think everyone is kind of conditioned to not be angry, to not complain. Uh And you know, in my first book, and if you're from five our country, I have an essay called and defend

pense of complaining. And I think that anger, in many ways, it's a form of compassion. You know, It's it's looking out for other people. It's being angry on their behalf. You know, I'm off I'm also angry on my own behalf. But when I write, you know, I tried to think of other people, think of our society, um, you know,

and as what's happening to it. But you know, I mean with with heavy melo, you'll get a variety of songs, and you know, some of them are more overtly political, you know, lyrically, and a lot of them just capture and emotion. And I'm in it for both, you know, I'm in it for the feeling that it conjures, even if the lyrics have absolutely nothing to do, you know,

with anything that's that's happening. But there's also I think, you know, great songs like I think Civil War by guns and Roses, for example, is a great song in that genre. To what degree in your inbox or your incoming do you hear that you're too negative? Um? It depends from the people who agree with me. They think I'm I'm doing just fine. Um. I I used to get it more in the beginning of the Trump administration. It wasn't so much negative. It was you know, pessimistic,

doom and gloom. And I'm like, look, you know I I spent my career studying authoritarian states. I don't want to be right. I mean that was something I think people failed to grasp, is that I wanted to be wrong about everything. I wanted to be wrong about all my predictions because you know, I'm a mom, Like I'm I'm raising my own children in this society I'm living here. You know, I want my country to be a democracy.

I want it to be free. Uh. And I saw basically a mafia state forming and it it paralleled both directly and you know in terms of how you know, governance was formed the really awful states that I had been studying and that you know, I had worked with exiles and dissidence from. And I never took freedom of speech for granted. I never took free media for granted, and I've always been worried that those things would go away.

And I think people who weren't as familiar with world history or contemporary dictatorships, they just get thinking, well, this can't happen here, So why is she, you know, going on and on about that, like as if it was like a stick or something. But it wasn't. Um, you know, it was a warning. And I wanted the warning to be heated, and I wanted officials to intervene, and I

wanted them to make me wrong, and they didn't. Uh. You know, people have sat back and let this happen, you know, knowing full well what it is, or occasionally um, you know, sticking their heads in the sand. Uh, and you know, comforting themselves with denial. And I don't fall ordinary people for not fully understanding what's happening, because I

think that they've been lied to quite a bit. I do fall our officials, whether you know, Mueller, Pelosi, Comy, anyone who could have you know, enforced accountability but chose to look the other way. So you gotta Sarah Lawrence, how's that experience? Sarah Lawrence in the late nineties. I mean it was weird. It was fine. It was a school that had small classes, a lot of emphasis on writing, very little emphasis on math. You know, w it's a very bad at So I was glad for that. Um

I kind of did my own thing. I mean, it's a weird thing because you you definitely have that class dynamic where like I was just do and stuff like renting a video and eating Chinese food in my dorm room and that would be like a big Friday night out for me. But a lot of really rich kids go to that school, and you know, they'd be doing all these expensive drugs or partying in New York City or so forth. It was an interesting time to have

access to New York City. You know, it was about a half hour forty five minutes away, and I got familiar, um, you know with New York tabloid culture, you know, to some degree. I always was like, as you know, if you grew up in Connecticut, you get a lot of New York media pumped into your home, and so you get to learn about people like Donald Trump from your early childhood. But I started reading you know, The Post, the Daily News, the Times, kind of absorbing that and

then after college, you know, I moved there. I moved to New York for three years um, in part because I gained familiarity with it through going through Sarah Lace, going to Sarah Lawrence. How did you pay for Sarah Lawrence? Mixture of scholarships, my parents helping me in loans. Okay, so you go to New York and you worked the graveyard shift at the Daily News. Other than living in New York and anything good about doing that, other than meeting your husband there? Yeah, I mean my husband was

a co worker. That was good. I mean it was my first, like real job, my first like I'm out of college and I have a job job, not like I work at the mall as a cashier kind of job, you know, over the summer um. So it was an educational experience, you know. It was just at that point grateful I was able to pay my bills because I was worried about that. I was there at a very

tumultuous time, you know. I was there for the two thousand presidential election, and then of course I was there for nine eleven UM and that that was a horrific time to live in New York City, you know, And it was a traumatic experience, And on one hand, I was glad to be at a newspaper because I felt

like at least we were contributing something. And at that point, um, you know, as I described in the book, they made the decision to make the website a completely different animal than it had been before nine eleven, where instead of just being a replica of the print version, you had breaking news person ended live on the site. And so that was to be part of that change, which you know, in retrospect is a very big historic change for media. And it wasn't just the daily news. It was you know,

basically every newspaper and magazine was making this decision. UM to witness that was something, but no one ever figured out what to do economically, um, how to monetize it. After nine eleven, there are a lot of layoffs, you know, in in my division, and I eventually, you know, I left New York UM in two thousand three because it had gotten incredibly expensive. Uh, there were no raises in sight.

I was always worried that I I too would be laid off, and I also just felt constricted, kind of like I I want to go deeper on these subjects. I want to do more writing. There isn't a path for me here, There isn't probably a place for me here. Um. You know, at this point, I was only twenty four years old, so it's kind of like I've got time to change my mind, you know. Okay, so you have your boyfriend, then I don't know if you're married at that point in time. We quit and then got married

and invited our co workers. They came so and then you both went were uh. We left, uh, and we taught English for a year in Turkey. And before that we did a little bit of traveling. I had been freelancing on the side at the daily News and saving up my money, like kind of unbelievably, I wrote for like a few fashion magazines and neck then they paid well, and you know that's why I did it. They were being like a buck fifty word. So I sacked away

about ten thousand bucks. Uh. And then you know, we went on a honeymoon and then I got jobs teaching English in Istanbuwl and while we lived in Instan Bowl, you know, we traveled around. We went to Bulgaria, Romania, we went across Turkey, went to Georgia, um, Armenia. You know, I just kind of thought that this is the time before I have children, like I want to see as much of the world as I can. Um. And I

had never left the country until I was twenty. When I was at Sarah Lawrence, I did a semester in Vienna and I love to travel. You know, I miss it a lot right now. Um, my kids have never been outside the country, and I always dreamed of being able to to have them have those experiences. You know, since my family was so unadventurous with me, I wanted to give them that. So the coronavirus, it's hard for me to think of the future. It makes me sad,

but yeah, that was an interesting point in my life. Eventually, Um, you know, we ran out of money and I had applied for a master's program UM in Central Asian Studies at Indiana University and so Central Asian, uh the stands the former Soviet Union Central Asian countries, and I was studying uz Pakistan. And I had a Foreign Language Area Studies fellowship to to do that, which was very good because I didn't want to pay for it. And uh, you know, we we wanted out in New York at

that point. Honestly, we didn't really know what we were doing and what did um he just looked for whatever job you could find and ended up, you know, working in marketing. He had been a journalist with me at the Daily News, like on the website division. But like journalism died in our lifetime. Like you know, basically we our goal is to pay the bills. Our goals did not have debt. That's the goal of a lot of people of my generation. You know, your dreams don't necessarily

go beyond that. And uh, you know lately, I mean until recently, he was supporting my dreams. Um or there weren't even dreams, my best reactions to difficult circumstances that I was engaged in, uh, and just trying to keep us afloat. Okay, So the master's degree takes how long? Two years? Two years? And during that time do you go back to Central Asia? Well, I tried. I was supposed to go to Uzbekistan. I had a you know,

a scholarship and a ticket and everything. And then in May two thousand five, there is a massacre in Uzbekistan, um you know, Tienamen Square style by the state, by the military on a group of protesters that had assembled in a city called Andi John and they massacred eight hundred people. UM and so that men. Of course, I was not going to go to Uzbekistan at that time,

and the country closed itself to westerners. And then at that point I started to study the massacre from abroad because I was very upset, you know, that it had happened just as a human rights crisis, but also what it had done is sent all these people from Uzbekistan, all these journalists, all these witnesses, into exile. And at that point blogging was new. It was basically banned in Newzbekistan, but they were in exile, so they were able to

put online their recollections of what happened. And through that and through other documents that I was able to procure, I wrote papers debunking the uzbek government's version of what happened in newz Pekistan, where they were saying, you know, they didn't do it, they weren't responsible, They invented a fake Islamic terrorist group and blamed them. I was able to debunk that. Um, that paper was used by the

United Nations. Uh, you know, I'm glad I wrote it, But it meant, of course that I was never going to go to Uzbekistan, and I was never going to probably be allowed into a lot of other countries. So I shifted my focus onto digital media, into how digital media was challenging autocracies and whether it would ultimately end up, you know, making a more democratic political culture. The answer

to that is no, the opposite happened. You know, autocracies and dictatorships influenced uh democratic political cultures and infiltrated them, in part using the Internet. So unfortunately, Um, you know, that's what I started to identify as a trend when I began you know the next phase of my life, which was getting my PhD at Washington University. That's what I was studying was politics, the Internet, dictatorships, Central Asia.

And my conclusions were, you know that we're in free a rough road because technology could so easily be manipulated by state powers, and people refuse to acknowledge that possibility. They always thought democracy somehow just sustains itself. What made you decide to get a PhD? Uh? Mostly because they were offering me like a five year, you know, continuous amount of money, and I at that point I wanted

to have a family. Um, you know, I was twenty seven, I had started working as a research assistant for an anthropologist at Indiana University, and I realized that all that writing, uh, that I wanted to do at the daily news, where you could write longer articles, you could choose very interesting but more esoteric subjects, you know, is Pekistan is not exactly like a popularity winner. Um. You know that I would have the freedom to do that and to do the kind of research I liked, and so I applied.

Uh was you offered me, you know, basically a full ride guaranteed for six years, um, you know, with health insurance and benefits and free tuition and the whole thing. Uh. And my sister in law lives here in St. Louis, you know, with her kids, and we liked the idea of having her own children near family. Um. And so that seemed like a good plan. And you know, it was a good plan. We we moved here. I did

have kids while I was in graduate school. I got, you know, pregnant right off the bat, as soon as that fellowship check arrived. Um. And and it went fine. You know, I graduated actually before my classmates. Um. But then, of course, the the economy collapsed while I was getting that PhD, and there were no jobs once I finished it, So that was its own little obstacle. So your plan

was to be an academic. I mean at that point in life, you know, I had witnessed the two thousand one economic collapse, nine eleven, um, you know, just a lot of changes that gave me very little faith on anything sustaining. So in my head, I always have multiple plans, you know, and I still in that way. I don't assume things are going to work out, as have a

backup plan. So I thought, Okay, either I'll go into journalism, or I'll go into academia, or I'll work for an NGO UM, or I'll do something where hopefully it's interesting and challenging and creative work and I could provide for my family and have time with my children. Um and so it was really just sort of seeing what was out there. But yeah, I thought academia sounded good. Uh.

You know, I I stayed home with my kids. I didn't want to pay for daycare, and also just I like kids, you know, I liked staying home with mine and I thought, well, if an academia I got summers off, you know, that's good. Like the kids will be home to will be home together. There's those sorts of concerns a lot of the time that um guided my career. You know. It wasn't lofty dreams. It was how do I make this work? Like what corners can I cut?

Like how do I get creative satisfaction and just survive economically? Um? And you know I figured out ways to do that. But it's been tough because it's been a tough twenty years. You know, today is actually the twentieth anniversary of my college graduation. And I was saying to my mom this morning, that means it's been twenty years of people telling me that the economy is eventually going to work itself out,

Like I'm still waiting. It's now been half my life. UM. So yeah, you know I wasn't necessary expecting things to go well. I know, I wasn't expecting, you know, Donald Trump, post of celebrity apprentice to be the aspiring dictator of my country. But uh, you know I definitely didn't see a smooth road ahead for myself. Okay, so what year

do you get your PhD? Well, technically I finished it in two thousand eleven, late two thousand eleven, I defended my dissertation, received the actual degree in two thousand twelve. Um And I was a little sneaky. I wanted to be I had had a baby in two thousand eleven, and I wanted to be home with him. Uh and I had a fellowship and national fellowship, I had one. So I basically kind of was a stay at home mom for spring semester and then picked up my degree.

But actually during that time I began writing again. UM. I began freelancing in early two thousand twelve for outlets who were interested in my work on Central Asia, and then expanding to write about the United States and about economic decline, collapse of institutions, politics, areas that I hadn't

really written about. Um it wrote about academia itself. I wrote about it as an exploitative industry, which of course burnt all my bridges uh in academia, But I mean whatever, um And I just felt like there's a need to be honest about this. I felt like I was in a game that people like me, you know, we don't

win it. I would have better a lot um and certainly more personal satisfaction, you know, from the perspective of valuing integrity and honesty by exposing these exploitative practices and these corrupt systems, then trying to participate in them and trying to be part of it. Like part of that is I'm not good at doing that. I'm not good at, you know, faking it and sucking up and doing all

those things you're supposed to do. But I also felt like this is a systemic problem, and it is it's hurting our world, like the it's depriving the world of talent and knowledge and good people because all of the opportunities are being hearded by elites that have this pay to play system where you basically have to pay to apply for jobs, or you have to do unpaid internships, or you have to do very low paid jobs and

expensive cities. I felt like it was all rigged, and it was you know, I wanted to blow the whistle on it. I felt at that point, honestly, I had very little to lose. Okay, so in this era, after eleven, you start writing, is your husband the main breadwinner at that point? Yeah? Yeah, well he us. But I still had my I got a fellowship from wash you. I mean,

it wasn't a lot, it was about twenty dollars. But when the but when the fellowship ends and you have your degree and you don't go into academia before your first book is published, how lucrative is your writing career? Not not that lucrative. Probably. I mean I wasn't working full time because I had two little kids, and so I was, you know, spending a lot of times taking care of them. It's probably making like, I don't know, between twenty five and thirty five thousand a year, which

I'm sure in California sounds very low. In Missouri for a mom, staying at home is not that bad, you know, combined with my husband's salary, because our rent and all our expensives are a lot cheaper. And so yeah, I mean I was always kind of hoping that i'd be offered some sort of you know, better paying position. Um, but you know, it was more than I had been

making in grad school, for one. And uh. What I realized though, was that any kind of position I was ineligible for because I refused to move to New York or to San Francisco or wherever jobs are based with a family, because I could never afford that, you know, here, I could buy a house you know there I could live in a closet and pay like three thousand dollars or something, and you do own a house. Yeah, yeah, you in the bank own a house. Okay, yeah, exactly.

Tell me the story of fly Over Country, how you get a deal, how that comes out in the reaction there too, Well, that was just that was a fluke. I mean basically, in two thousand and twelve, I started writing for Al Jazeera on pretty much a weekly basis, writing essays. And when I left, I I quit Al Jazeera in because they were launching Al Jazeera America, um, and they basically just wanted like hot takes, and uh, I had a new editor. My editor quit and protest.

Other people quittin protests, and so eventually I did too. And my readers were like, I wish all your essays were in one place, and I said, okay, And so you know, I put them together myself, um, in a book, you know, I called if You for fly Over Country. I wrote a little introduction and I published it Kindle. It was a self published book and it was surprisingly successful.

And at this point I had had agents from the publishing world approaching me, you know, wanting to know if I wanted to write a book, um, and I had proposed that, actually, I had proposed an essay collection because I knew there was demand for it. They basically said, you know, no, no one would want that. Um. Also, no one understands really what you're talking about. You know, you're too gloomy. Things aren't that bad? And I was like, well, you know, these are viral essays for a reason, like

they're they're resonating with people. And so then I was just sort of like, well, screw these New York people aren't gonna understand what I'm talking about anyway. I'm just gonna go about my life. Um. I ended up covering Ferguson from that point on because published the book. What gains notice for the book, because usually a book doesn't get any notice unless the author works it. Yeah, well, I I mean I promoted it on Twitter, and at

that point, I had, you know, fairly substantial following. I think I self published in and I had maybe forty or fifty thousand people. I mean at this when of half a million people. So it's changed quite a bit. Um. You know, Then with that book, what happened was the election. And so when the election happened. And I had been writing about the election all year. I covered it for the Globe and Mail in Canada and for other publications, and I made lots of predictions that people thought were crazy,

but they all came true. And so suddenly everyone was looking at like, well, what else did she write? And you know what, what does she study? And they all wanted this book because the book does describe a lot of the things that Trump exploited. Economic devastation, political paranoia, hyper partisanship, you know, all these these essays about different facets of American decline. It became very, very popular at the end of twenties sixteen, and um, you know, as

you've mentioned in your newsletter, Hillary Clinton was quoting it. Um, a lot of celebrities were quoting it. Still still self published it. I was still self published. So then what happens. And at that point I had an agent I actually liked. It's this guy who's in Canada who liked me, you know back when uh like, he didn't like me for like am I popular or not? He liked the quality of my work. So I trusted him because he liked me when I wasn't all that well known and he's

still my agent now. So all these publishing houses are coming to me and they all want to republish View from fly Over Country, and I'm thinking no, like, I'm never gonna let you republish it, because this is my book and I wrote it myself, and I'm worried that you're gonna take my words and you're gonna twist them

or you're gonna cut things out. And this went on and on, Um, and I kept refusing offers until finally the Hillary thing happened, and then we got you know, a lot of interest after that, and I just said, yes, Um, you know, I'll let you buy the rights to this, you know, and they're paying me in advance as a standard, and I wrote you know, some new material for the

book as well, and the introduction and the conclusion. But I'm not changing a word of these essays because they're quoted all over the place, and they're also emblematic of the time in which they're written, you know, they capture that moment between Um and so I somewhat reluctantly agreed to you know, have a flat iron. McMillan published a paperback version. Uh, you know, there was demand for that lot of people. They don't like reading things on kindle.

They want a print version. And I understood that, and I thought, all right, you know, why the hell not. And to my great surprise, it became a best seller. And I just did not think that would happen, because I mean, really, this is the third go round for this essay collection. You know, first there online, then it was a kindle book, then it's a print books. I thought, well, no one's going to really buy this, like, and I

don't think that flat. I thought that either, Like it was understocked everywhere, you know, people were trying to get copies of it and could and they had to they

had to print more. But I landed on the New York Times bestseller list, and so then they made me, you know, another offer for for my next book, um, which again I was a little bit reluctant because of the chaos that we live in, you know, because of these times, like how do you write about politics knowing that your work won't be published for a whole year, you know, when so much changes every day. As I thought, well,

I'll write a history. I'll write a history of the last forty years and of all the things that have transpired that people refused to cover because that will always be necessary and that will be to some degree current. Although, as I explained in the book A Challenges, there were new revelations of that history coming hard and fast throughout nineteen when I was writing it, so that it was

challenging in its own right. But yeah, yeah, that's you know, Okay, when when you self published the book, were you making any money selling it? Oh? Yeah, yeah, with Amazon, you get you keep like se well my question did didn't add up to a decent pile of money. Um, I mean, I couldn't have lived off it, but it certainly made a you know, it was good. It helped me out.

I mean, especially during the time, like as I mentioned, there's like a sixteen month period where my husband had been laid off, you know, as part of a mass layoff at his company, was looking for jobs. We were very close to the poverty line. So every little bit helped, you know, like little sums of money like a hundred dollars, two hundred dollars, like they would make a huge difference for us, and so um. But yeah, like in twenty sixteen, after the election, suddenly the book brought in quite a

lot of money. And you know that was, you know, by my standards, quite a lot of money. That was when reasons I was reluctant because I was thinking, well, you know, this is lucrative for me. I want to hold onto this because what if it doesn't sell anything? Like what if this advance isn't worth it? So and

and so forth. Um, you know, ultimately I think I made the right decision by by letting them put the print one out, But yeah, you know it was I mean, it had a lot more to do with creative control. Like I wanted those essays meant something to me, and I wanted to hold onto them, and I I honestly I didn't trust uh, you know, somebody else managing my material that had already been read and was quoted and appreciated.

So I thought it would be better. Though. So you have that book, and you have the subsequent book that came out about six weeks ago, Hiding in Plane Site. You if someone were to research you, You're constantly on TV shows, You're constantly being here and there is because the reason I bring this up is in your book Hiding in Plane Site, you talk about someone who's a well known pundit and is essentially broke it. Needless to say, you're not paid for these appearances or nothing significant. Have

they led to any other economic opportunities? No, I mean I started my own podcast with a friend of mine, um Andrea Chalupa, who's also an expert on the former Soviet Union, and we started our podcast, Gasola Nation in and I think just the fact that at this point I was relatively well known, especially for you know what the podcast is on, just corruption and autocracy, and she was too. That became an an unsuspected hit. Um. You know, we we've done very well with that show and so,

but that again was an opportunity I created myself. It was like self publishing the book, where I'm not working for anybody but me on my own boss. Um. But yeah, you know the interviews I do, it's to get information

out to the public. Like I feel like the media is not covering a lot of very vital topics having to do with organized crying, with state corruption, with rising fascism, and so when I get my little minute on MSNBC or whatever, I try to pack a lot of information in there because I know it's the only one I'll get and I feel like, you know, you kind of need to to cut through the crap um and tell

Americans what's going on. And I'm by no means saying I'm the only person who knows what's going on, but uh, you know, I think, I guess the way I talk is distinct from the way a lot of pundits choose to present themselves. And I'm not interested in, you know, being an MSNBC contributor or anything like that. That's like not the kind of job I'd want to do. Although I guess nowadays you can just do it from your house and maybe it's more feeling. But um, you know,

that wasn't my goal. My goal is to just kind of, you know, get the word out there, um, and uh, you know, and sometimes it's it's fun to do that, you know. I I write to communicate, and so I like it when my words are heard, and I like hearing from my readers, and you know, I like having interesting discussions. Okay, I think it's in no direction home. Bob Dylan says they asked him what he wants and he won't tell them because his dreams are so big. But I'm going to ask you and in your mind,

what do you want to have happened for yourself? I mean for myself. I want this country to remain a democracy. I wanted to rain free. I want to have enough financial stability to you know, travel around and raise my kids and show them in and I, you know, I'm worried. It's more of what I don't want. That that's what looms largest in my mind, unfortunately, and it's it's a terrible thing to live through life that way, but I

feel like it's pragmatic. You know, things have changed in a very dire way over the course of my adult life, and I feel like I'm constantly, you know, battling these things, you know, like I have to be hyper vigilant. I have to fight them off. And so if I were to just have anything, it honestly wouldn't be that much. I just want my creative freedom, my ability to speak my mind, a baseline level of income that that keeps me comfortable. But I don't care that much about you know,

material stuff or prestige to what degreed? Do you care about the breath of your wisdom reaching the public, which is not a monetary thing. If people read it, you know, that matters to me. Because you know, I'm especially because I'm trying to send out a warning about things that are happening, you know, to our government that in in our country that I don't think everyone is aware of.

You know, that matters to me. And obviously as a writer, you know, it's a great feeling to connect with my audience. And I'm very grateful you know when people say that they understand something or they're you know, moved by what I wrote, or any kind of emotional reaction. I mean, I think that's true for everyone, So that's important to me. Um, you know, But the whole sort of I don't even know, Like I don't know what the sort of thing I'm

supposed to be striving for for publishing is. You know, people will bring up like awards or prizes and like I don't know what they are. I feel like I've seen this whole rigamarole from academia. Like in academia, I want a ton of prizes and awards and it didn't mean jack ship. I mean unless unless it gave me some money, you know, so that I could get by.

It just doesn't matter. Like I just want to put work out that I'm satisfied it that I think is actually high quality and good, which is not an easy thing. You know, I do a lot of rewriting. I do a lot of harsh editing of my own work. Um. And so you know, it's a matter of meeting those challenges and also just trying to you know, keep up with what's happening politically. Uh. And you know, get the word out to to as many people as I can so Uh. In one of your podcasts, you say you're

not worried about your reputation. What did you mean by that? I don't worry about what, you know, sort of fancy people like people in powerful positions what they think of me. Um. And I in some respects at this point, have the luxury of doing that because I do run my own podcast, and you know, as a writer, I'm kind of an autonomous unit writing a book. I mean, I do have to deal with the publishing company and the lawyers and whatnot,

and that's not always pleasant. But you know, I essentially am in a unique position where I could do what I want. I'm not trying to climb some kind of ladder. I think the ladder doesn't go anywhere. Uh. And it's also of no interest to me, like, and I get invited. I mean, this guy sounds so obnoxious. But when I get a vited to like a lot of these conferences that people had in the pre pandemic era, you know, I was uncomfortable. I didn't like the fanciness of it,

the expense of it, the superficiality of it. I sometimes would meet really great people, people I genuinely respect, and that's always a good thing, but I don't know that the whole world, it's not for me. Um And so yeah, okay, let's go macro. Tell us about Putin, the man, Russia, the country and their plan and interference in the United

States and other world affairs. Yeah, well, Putin has basically been plotting the revenge of the Soviet Union ever since he was elected UM in New Year's even And I think, you know, what we're seeing on a global scale is the influence of not just Putin in the Kremlin, but of Putin and it's uh, you know, oligarch and mafia kind of tri part um, you know, conglomeration where they want autocracy, where they're involved in money laundry, where they

see things like NATO and the EU and these international bodies as obstacles to their own goals, you know, and their goals. Putin's goals are the same as any dictator. So he wants money, he wants power, he wants territory, which we've seen with Crimea. He has openly said, you know, he wants to bring the Soviet Union back together. He said that the dissolution of it was the great tragedy of his life. And he sees people like Trump as

useful vehicles for this goal. And you know, the book lays out how Trump has both had political ambition in the United States UM and with the Republican Party with operatives like Roger Stone for over thirty years, and has been hooked up to the Kremlin and to especially the Russian mafia for over thirty years because there who bailed him out after his bankruptcies when nobody else, you know,

would would invest in him. The Russians made an investment in Donald Trump and it paid off very well for them. And I should specify that by I shouldn't say Russians. It's Aligarcs from the former Soviet Union and mobsters from the former Soviet Union. And they're not always from Russia the country. They're not always you know, ethnically Russian. There are people who profited off the dissolution of the Soviet Union themselves, you know, which is honestly, that's the model

that I think they want for the United States. They wanted to be weak, they wanted to fall apart, and then they want to make money, taking resources, taking over businesses, and so on and so forth. You talk a lot in the book about a transnational crime syndicate, and you say in the US, the Italian mafia has been replaced by the Russian mafia. I don't think the average even though you quote sources in the government warning about this, I don't believe the average American is aware of this.

How bad is it? It's it's very bad, especially because, uh, you know, a lot of this kind of happened legally in a way. Uh. You know, the border between white collar crime and organized crime really began to blur in the nine nineties, and one of the hot spots for this was of course New York City, Um, you know, with deregulation on Wall Street. And then what happened was, you know, you had Juliani in the nineteen eighties basically

cracking down on the Italian mafia weakening them. And then after the collapse of the Soviet Union, where people from that region were able to travel, including its top criminals, they set up shop in New York City. Some of them had already been doing that in the nineteen eighties. They were living in Trump Tower. You know. Trump Tower is basically functioning as a dorm for the Russian mafia.

And they began to move their dirty money in and out of all these New York properties, including others owned by Donald Trump, and they gained quite a foothold. And some of them, you know, went and worked on Wall Street. They worked for these big firms, and that that's what I mean by that line being very much blurred. And I think there is a tendency in the United States to be very forgiving of these figures. They're like, oh,

you know, poor Russians. You know, they were a communists and now they're just having trouble figuring out this capitalist thing. It's like, no, these are seasoned criminals. They understand high finance very well, they understand organized crime very well, and they are duping you. You are thinking that they're playing dumb, but they're actually very intelligent. And honestly, I don't think Trump is particularly intelligent, but I think he's intelligent at

playing dumb as well. He pretends to be a lot stupider than he is because he is smart when it comes to crime. He knows exactly the amount he needs to know, and he knows how to function within a criminal organization. But yeah, the Russian mafia took over where the Italian mafia left off, and they're still very active. You know, It's true, not just in New York, but in most major cities. Miami is another hot spot, Southern Florida in general. Uh, And no one cracked on on them.

There was a crackdown in the late nineties, but once nine eleven happened, all those resources at the FBI that we're looking into Russian organized crime, UH turned to you know, Islamic terrorism, preventing future attacks and so forth, and they forgot about them. But they were still working, and they realized that one of the wisest things they could do to keep their illegal operations going was to infiltrate government and infiltrate institutions and make those institutions work for them.

And so you have, you know, things like the former directors of the FBI in the nineties, Lewis Free, William Sessions going on to work for the Russian mafia, as you know, consultants working for various firms. It's it's frightening, um, And it's frightening to me that people don't talk about it more because it is a profound national security threat.

Mueller himself in two thousand and eleven wrote a speech about what a security threat this was to Western democracy, how incredibly dangerous these people are, and now they're in the White House. Okay, so we covered a little bit of sixteen in Russia interference with the election, but certainly the you from this side of the pond, looking at the government, etcetera, to what degree is it a factor? To what degree was it bungled by either Mueller, Pelosi,

Shoe or what happened? What and what should have happened? They all really screwed up. Like I was getting incredibly worried in the months leading up to November twenty six because I saw clearly what was happening, like when Trump asked Russia to get him Hillary Clinton's emails at a press conference and then nothing was done after that. Um, I was like, they're they're not going to do anything about this. They're going to let this happen. And I

knew that, at least for you know, the Kremlin. The ambition was to turn the US into something like a a proxy state of Russia. And I knew that for um, you know, these organized criminal bodies, this is going to be a windfall. And I still don't understand the dereliction of duty in the Obama administration because they were warned, you know, um, they knew that Russia was after them. They had hacked by that time, the State Department, the d o D, the d n C, the r n Z.

They had hacked like every governmental body. And then we found out in twenty eight that Russia had infiltrated the treasury and twenty I mean you found out in twenty eighteen that they had infiltrated the treasury. In the Obama administration, for reasons I still don't fully comprehend, did very little about this, and I don't think they necessarily welcomed it or approved of it. But they didn't stop it, and they didn't take it seriously, and the FBI did nothing

to stop it either. Harry Reid, when he was sentate minority leader, sent a letter to James Comby in the summer of sixteen, saying you have to warn the American public about Russia and the election because they're planning to falsify the official results. And so when I saw that letter, which was an open letter, I was like, my God, Like for the Senate Minority leader to say that, that's an incredible statement. Why is no one in the press covering this or very few people, like why is this

not on television? Why aren't we looking at this in the context of Trump's long relationship with the Russian mafia or Paul Manafort, who at that point, you know, had been working as a oligarch lackey for various Kremlin affiliated actors, Like, there were so many connections to look at. You know, there was also Wicki Weeks in its connection to Russia, and no one was doing anything. And I realized in October, like, they're just gonna let this happen. They're gonna just let

him win. And then I don't know what the hell is going to happen to America, but it's not gonna be good. And then that's been the pattern since you know, Mueller, blewett Um. I think possibly intentionally, the Democrats have been incredibly timid. The Republicans are complicit. So yeah, you know when I say I don't think anyone's gonna save us, it's because I've seen all the people who were in a position to make a meaningful difference to protect us,

they all refused to do so. Um And you know, I know that there are threats involved in bribes and blackmail, but you know, we're all we're all taking a risk here, Like I take a risk here just talking about this. So I kind of look at them with all of their private security and all their money and all their influence, and I'm like, come on, like, do the bare minimum for your country here, Like, I really don't understand how you think this is going to end up, because it's

not gonna end up well for you in the end. Either, it's not gonna end up well for any of us. Oh, your book Hiding in Plain Site is very well documented. Okay, a lot of people they dash off a book, its theories, whatever, But you literally linking two things. People said, Okay, hey, why did no one pick up on these stories which you covered a little bit? And do you believe now that you delineated these things there will be a move

on them. I don't know, because you know, there have been other best selling books kind of either on the subject You're related to it by David K. Johnston, Michael Malcolm Nance, Craig Unger on the Russian mafia aspect. You know, they they've laid this out and there's certainly been a lot of documentation of Trump's corruption and barkins Trump confesses to it all the time, like you don't have to look that hard, you know, he goes on Lester Hole

and he's like, yeah, I committed obstruction and justice. And you know, Donald Trump Jr. Tweets out his emails that are very damning. So no one has acted on this even though it's in the public light. Um. You know, my book Hiding in Plain Site has has been very popular. It was, you know, it is a best seller on

multiple lists. Uh. You know, I didn't notice though that you know, no one not no one would review it, but the standard places that would review a book put out by McMillan that's the best seller, Like the Times, with Watching and Post, they're not going near this thing because I think it's still taboo. And you know, the same thing is kind of true sometimes with television, people

are very afraid of the subject. Like a natural place for all of these things that are in my book to be discussed was the impeachment hearings because it directly reflected what happened in you know, they tried to make about twenty nineteen and about Ukraine, but the background that was in Russia and Trump's long relationship with the Kremlin and the relationship of people in his circle like Giuliani, Roger stone mana for etcetera to the Kremlin, and of

course the Muller Report. If they aren't going to do it an impeachment, it's hard for me to imagine them doing it now. And I hope that I am adding pressure or at least I'm educating, you know, average Americans on what the government should be telling them. Like I've had people write to me and they're like, this is what I thought at the Mueller Report would be like like this is the kind of information that I've been looking for, And I'm like, yeah, you know, it's been

out there. Like I'm standing on the shoulders if many other people who have tried to tell this story, you know, and I'm good, I think at weaving these things together because they can be very complicated. But a lot of folks have been trying to get this out and officials

have just refused to act on the information. Now, not only did Trump beat impeachment, he is systematically getting rid of people who are not loyalists, who are not only you know what he calls not only elected whatever or not not only part of his cabinet, but people who were part of the bureaucracy what he calls the deep state. We're just gonna let him get away with this. I mean, I wouldn't if I were if I were in charge, but I'm not. Um, you know, it's frustrating to me

because there they act shocked every time this happens. Like I see these officials, senators, congressmen, what have you on Twitter and they're like, oh my god, I can't believe it. Can you believe that they just fired the ethics investigator? And I'm like, yeah, like where you've been? And I think that their tactic there is to feign shock, because if you are not shocked, then you have to enforce accountability.

And if everything is a continual surprise to you, then no one is going to expect you to actually do your job. But I do expect them um to do their jobs, and I wonder what's going on behind the scenes. You know, as I said, I do have I have sympathy for our representatives because they're dealing with a mafia state. You know, these are very dangerous people. During the Impatient hearings, they admitted that Trump essentially ordered a hit on Marie Ivanovitch,

the U S Ambassador Ukraine. The others who testified, Fiona Hill, Alexander Vinman. They had to have private security at the hearings for Manaphor and for Roger Stone. The judges were threatened, the jury was threatened, and there have been so many unexplained deaths, sudden deaths and murders. You know, if people

like Jamalka shogi um throughout this administration. So yes, I that there are risks, but I don't think that you should get involved in politics and you know, run for office if you're not willing to take these people on. And there are exceptions to this. You know, there are people in government who have tried to take this on. I think, you know, Warren has been very outspoken about corruption.

I think, you know, Adam Schiff, I've had some criticisms of him, But I think he was good during impeachment, and I think he wanted to say more. I often sensed that tendency from these officials. They want to tell Americans the whole story. They want to be able to talk about the things that I talked about in my book and that others have talked about in their books. And it's astounding to me that since we all kind of know it, you know, it's out there now, that

they still won't go down that road. And I'm not completely sure it's holding them back, whether it's greed, you know, maybe there's donors, donor money um that influences they're thinking threats, blackmail. But at this point, it's like we have a you know, a surreal, sort of lopsided sense of reality. We're on one hand, they're acting like everything is normal. We're just gonna have a reg year old election in November, and you know, we're not going to talk about this mafia stuff.

And then you see Trump just overtly acting like a mob boss, you know, shaking people down, like what he did to the governors, what he did to different states during the pandemic, where it's like you do what I say, or you don't get medical equipment. It's like, good God, how much clearer does it have to be that this is the mindset and that this is the behavior, and how dangerous this is to ordinary people, to sick people, to victims of this um and they still just they

won't call it like it is. They won't call him a criminal. Uh. And then now there's a sort of agenda going on to try to flip this script to be like, oh, no, you know, it's really Biden that's the big threat. Biden's the criminal, and the media once again is falling into the scene trap that they did in Okay, you're other than Bill Maher, You're the only public figure I'm aware of. That said, even if he loses,

Trump won't leave. Could he amplify that place? Yeah? I felt that way since because once an autocrat gets into power, and that is what Trump wants to be, they it's very difficult to get them out because they'll rewrite rules, they'll pack courts, they'll purge agencies, they put the conditions in place to make not leaving much easier. And he also violates norms. You know, we've seemed countlessly over the

last four years. How much American democracy and its stability rests on norms and expectations of behavior that he has fine breaking because he has no sense of shame and he has no sense of you know, this is the way that things need to be done. This is the precedent for this sort of you know time. So if he loses a selection, if by some miracle we have a free and fair election Biden wins, he's just gonna

say it's I legitimate. He's gonna say it's rigged, or he's gonna say, you know, the country can't afford to change right now because of coronavirus or whatever. And he won't go. And I think, you know, Michael cohen Um during his hearing in early twenty nineteen, he said the

same thing, that Trump is refusing to go. And now we're hearing Kushner saying, oh, I don't know if there's going to be an election, and so yes, everyone should be very prepared for the possibility that he won't leave, and if it gets to the point where they're actually trying to take him out of power, that there will be violence on the streets of this country from his supporters.

But I don't even think it's so much from his voters as from fanatics that have associated themselves with him, uh, you know, attached themselves to him, using him as a vehicle for their own causes, looking for violence. I think we're going to have a very very difficult time between November and January. At the least, you know, if the Democrat were to lose outright for getting you know, jerrymandering and voter suppression whatever, it's it's much easier process for Trump.

But if a Democrat were to win, if you were advising Biden appears to be the candidate, Uh, if you were advising Biden and the d n C, what would you tell them to do in terms of protecting election security or just in general in general? Well, I would tell him right now he needs to come out with

a coalition. Like it cannot be just about Biden. Like Trump is a he has a personality cold and I think it would be effective for the Democrats if they presented themselves as a group, you know, including others who ran for president, people like Warren Sanders, uh, you know, even the ones they didn't like quite as much, like Buddha judge, you know, to to present themselves as we are a group, we are public servants. We are creating

policy for you, we are serving you. And I think others, you know that would be useful here, maybe Stacy Abrams because she does understand election integrity, Alexandria, Alexandria Acossio Cortes Um, they should do that. He should announce his VP choice, he should announce his cabinet, and then they need to work very much on election integrity. And now we have coronavirus um, so I think they need to move to

voting by mail. They need to lock that down. It can't be something we're debating in September October, like gee, am I gonna cast my vote? Like they need to have that settled now so that Trump can't do legitimize it. And also just some people can vote without risking their lives. And then there's the other problems of you know, voter ID laws being abused for an interference, hackable machines for those who are voting electronically, like they should have been

on top of this stuff years ago. But you know, I I think that even though they weren't, there's no time like the president, so I would include I would encourage them to be transparent with the American public, be like, this is what's happening, this is the problem, this is how we're gonna fix it. None of this little behind the scenes meetings, none of this like we're too good to talk to her own constituents kind of attitude, Like just talk straight, and I think people would be appreciative

of that. Okay, what about terror read irrelevant of whether it happened or not. The Republicans do have a good point that the Democrats squeezed out everybody if there was a hint, you know, Al Frankin, who was a great senator or whatever. So what's your viewpoint on this? How should he the left handle the problem that the right is very unified for the left to win, it's a

big tent. But because of political correctness and all kinds of subgroups, they end up causing their own problems, which ali and they're people, never mind the people on the other side. Yeah, I mean with terror read, you know, she's a person, and I hate every time this happens.

I hate having to see a woman, having to see a person being used as a political pawn and this sort of like what about is um and back and forth, Like you know, I do think with Trump as I lay out in the book, we have an extreme problem of sexual abuse, sexual assault connections to people like Epstein. It doesn't mean, though, that what Biden did is not a problem, and there is a pattern of sexual harassment, and I think that he needs to be upfront about that.

I mean, honestly, I am not completely convinced by Tara Reid's story. I'm also not unconvinced by it, and I don't want to attack her like I hate that. You know, we're in this position where we have to evaluate, Um, you know, another person who's put her whole life on the line by being in the public eye. Um, But I think that he needs to be uh, you know, straightforward and not defensive and you know, talk about his

own behavior. I mean, I think, I mean, in a way, it's like I say, honestly, is honesty is the best policy, knowing full well that the GOP always exploits it. But I don't see a way out of this. I think admitting, um, you know, personal or institutional failures can actually be helpful when you have a population that is so disillusion from the barrage of lies and propaganda. You know, a lot of people fell for Trump because they fell for this

illusion of authenticity. They thought that he was being honest, even if he was being awful. They thought it was some sort of awful honesty, which is not you know, he's a he's a chronic liar. But I think that that just uh as a stance is a way to go. Who should be the vice presidential candidate and who will be? I don't know. I feel like he's going to make a bad decision. I mean, I think he's gonna pick like Biden Junior type. A lot of people talking about Warren,

you know, who was my preferred candidate to as VP. UM. I would be content with that, but I basically like, I want Warren to be like the Dick Cheney of this whole administration, Like I want her plans implemented. I want her behind the scenes calling the shots. One thing that's very unusual about Biden is that he is so elderly, and he's spoken about how he might not be there

for a second term. So whoever he picks as a VP is potentially, uh, you know, the next presidential candidate, and we may be going through all this again in four years. Honestly, if we're lucky, we'll be going through this again with having had a democratic um administration. But I think that she's very knowledgeable and at the least

her plans should be implemented. I'm worried that, as usual, the d N C um in the powers that we are not going to recognize the need for someone, uh, you know, who understands the severity of the corruption that we've experienced, the severity the economic crisis that has plans to fix it. Uh. They often don't seem to recognize

the need to be inclusive in that respect. Like I don't like how they're dismissing not just Warren, but Sanders and and his voters as well, because especially during coronavirus, when you have you know, unemployment hovering around twenty five per cent, you know, you need people who understand what it's like to live through poverty and how difficult it was to get by even before this crisis came along. So I don't know, that's why I want to coalition. I want as many like good minds out there as

possible and as little ego as possible. Like I'm sick of these political personality colts. I think they're weird, first of all, Like, why are you getting like this over a politician of all people. But they're also just damaging. They're damaging the democracy. Going a little inside baseball. Is Warren the nonstarter because Massachusetts presently have as a Republican governor who most probably would uh pick a Republican to fill Warren's seat. I think if they're looking at at

it that way, then they're nuts. I mean, you know, I don't necessarily think the Democrats are going to get the Senate anyway, So you're like placing a weird bet. But you need the top people to be in this cabinet in some way to make these big decisions because whoever wins this thing, like if it's you know, assuming it's fight, and all he's going to be doing is digging us out of the hell hole that we are

in because of Trump. You know, where you have entire departments that have been dismantled, Like we don't have a State Department. We have a zillion acting uh you know, secretaries of this, secretaries of that. We have a gutted and purged FBI. We have intelligence that's been compromised, like we've had idiots like Jared Krishner going around selling state secrets like the ramifications of what they've done are going to be there for the rest of my life. Like

I don't expect to ever see this stuff resolved. And we have things like climate change, we have these existential threats hovering abous. We need the top people, and I think that Warren would be better in uh the government, whether as VP or treasurer or something. Then in the Senate. Um, I think in the Senate they need like attack dog types. I honestly think you know, Sanders is usable in that regard. In the Senate, they need somebody who will tell Mitch

McConnell to go uh. I don't know if I could swear on your show to to fund himself. I mean it's like, you know, they need to time to get lost and that they're not gonna put up with his ship anymore. Like they need, uh, they need to get in the ring for the Republican Party. They need a long, you know, kind of kind of rant and just somebody

to take them down. But when it comes to like the top people, when it comes to the cabinet, they need the finest minds and they need the best plans because we are in for such a terrible uh four years even in the best of circumstances. And I've got no illusions about that. Let's just assume for the sake of argument, Biden does win. What happens with all the Trump constituents. We saw that Trump wanted to open the

country for economic reasons. He got all these crazy people to protest in uh front of governors, in front of the state houses, even though statistically more people wanted to stay home. So if a Democrat, i e. Biden, wins the presidency, I don't anticipate all the Trump supporters gonna roll over. No, And I think it's less the Trump

voters or supporters than this very fanatical base. And I was reading an article the other day about how, you know, these little protests like open up Michigan, Liberate this libery that have spread the virus. But in the article it was about how it's basically the same band of like a few hundred people moving from state to state having

these protests. These protests are heavily AstroTurf. Like I don't doubt that there are people who are genuine you know, there are people joining in that genuinely they want stuff open. They're very upset, and I understand that to some degree, but a lot of this is fake. Uh and uh, I think that that's kind of true of the Trump base. It's the base is very small. The voters are are larger group than the base, but the base can be

riled up to violence. I worry about the q and on phenomenon, where we really seem to have a like a religious cult forming, not quite around Trump, but about ideas of uh, you know, kind of what's a big plan, uh, mythical character. I mean, all of these are signs of like a collapsing society where institutions have completely filled the public. So I don't completely blame them, but I think that they could some of them can be spurred to violence.

I think some of Trump's other followers they're already looking for violence. I remember in sixteen when I was covering the election. You know, here in Missouri, there are a lot of people that thought, you know, Trump would win, but he'd be robbed, like Hillary would just take over and she'd be the president and Trump would be able to get an office. And they were ready for civil war.

They had bought all these guns, all these weapons, and what people don't understand, I think is that this is expensive like they made an investment in civil war and then they didn't get to have one, and all of those weapons have just been sitting in their homes and they've been waiting for the opportunity. And you know, Trump encourages this. He encourages violence, and so do the people in his camp, and he has a great propaganda apparatus, and that's one of the reasons I think it's gonna

get dangerous. I think if Biden wins, it's dangerous. And even if he wins, I think it'll be like sixteen when hate crimes went through the roof. I think he'll exalt in it and I'll see you as a mandate for state sanctioned brutality, and he'll get up a notch um, you know, as soon as that happens, And you know I do fear for that. Let's, just for the sake of argument, say that Trump outright wins. Another four years go by, then what happens. I don't think that will

be a democracy anymore. I'm not sure that, you know, like the conversation you and I are having now, I don't know if that will be possible. I feel like there will be an attempt to regulate speech and regulate the media. And it's not going to be some sort of rewriting the First Amendment, UM, making new laws. It will be through excessive LiTi gaiation. It will be through control of social media, of the architecture of the Internet.

It will basically be through severing connections of people, um, you know, so that we're able to have straightforward conversations and share information. I worry about digital archives. I worry about history being rewritten. I mean, one reason I was willing to write a print book is I wanted it in print, like I wanted an analog version of my work preserved, because I don't know what the digital future

will hold. And I you know, I'm I'm predicting a somewhat based on what Trump and his cohorts say, but also on the path that's been taken in Hungary, in Russia, UM, in Turkey and other countries that were uh, you know, democratic to some extent, just as as recently as five years ago and are now autocracies where journalists and intellectuals and opposition leaders are locked up. I see that as

a possible path here. UM. And we are different, you know, We've had a long history of you know democratic traditions, but you know, autocracy moves fast. And the people who always say it can't happen here, um, they tend to be the ones that it happens to. And I don't think that we're adequately prepared. And again, you know, I hope I'm wrong. Um, And then of course I have to you know, throw the wrench into this, which is coronavirus.

Like we're responding to a pandemic in the midst of this that makes everything very hard to predict, especially with the economic devastation. You know that it that it's created. Okay, how important is privacy an issue? And where should the line be? According to you? I I think it's very important. It's another reason I like Warren as I feel like

she addressed this. I worry about privacy, uh, in conjunction with monopolies, with these extremely powerful social media companies that have access to our information and that don't share with us how that information is being used, how it's being gathered. I worry about, um, you know, how kids are growing up with this, Like that's been a challenge as a parent, Like, you know, what do I allow them to do? What kind of information is there? And they always think I'm nuts.

You know, like when my daughter wanted to have a TikTok account and I said, you know, to her and to her friends who are over, no, you guys cannot go on TikTok because you know that your information is

going to go to the Chinese government. And they're looking at me like I'm like Dale Gribble on King of the Hill, like you know, it's crazy conspiracy theory, mom, And I'm like, no, I'm serious, Like the Chinese on TikTok and whatever you put on there, I'm not saying they're going to use it, but you know, they will

technically own your image, they will own your content. And that's true not just with China, but with UM, you know, obviously with American companies and with all these international uh you know, corporations as well. It's very risky. I don't

know what they're going to do. But I look at that states like China, you know, which is a surveillance state, which is doing stuff with facial idea, UM you know, which is uh having things like a social credit system, and I wonder how inspired America is going to be by those ideas and whether they're going to try to implement something like that, and that will get used to being tracked. We won't have the expectation of privacy anymore.

I've already watched that happen. I think over the last ten years, the expectation of privacy has really kind of slipped away. Um, people don't demand it. They're now used to having their photo all over the place because people have digital cameras and that makes it so much easier. And um, I mean it's a tough thing. I don't like the idea of people living so that they inhabit a persona. And I'm hoping that the younger generation, the one that's just sort of used to this, maybe they

just don't give a ship. Maybe they won't be constantly grooming themselves to please others online. Maybe they'll just feel like they can be themselves and if someone doesn't like it, then too bad. Like I hope that that's the attitude they take, because I've watched my generation could toward itself into trying to fit some sort of image, you know, for social media, for the public eye. Like we've all

been forced to be micro celebrities. And I don't think that, you know, anyone really wanted that, so if we look at the world at large, the thought was with the fall of the Wall, the breakup of the Soviet Union, that the world would turn to democracy. That's one of the rationalizations for the abortion in a ran Okay, if you predict the world at large, is democracy a dying dream? I mean, I think it's a dream it's worth fighting for. Like that's, you know, one of those things I don't

give up on. I want a democratic system. It's deeply important to me, and so you know, I'll fight till the bitter end. And I think that many others will too. I do think that a lot of countries that people thought would remain democratic have turned quite quickly, um, you know,

towards authoritarianism. And that includes the ones that you know, we're dominated by the Soviet Union, places like Poland, um or Hungry that you know, had a hard fought freedom in nine and onward and then now have reverted, you know, to this new kind of authoritarian rule. It's easier to happen than you think. I think that whatever will get it's not gonna look like a replica of the Soviet Union or of Nazi Germany. It's going to be a new thing. And I do think it is going to

have this big digital surveillance component. But I think, um, you know, democracy literally translates to the power of the people, and I hope that everyone remembers that. I hope they remember that they, as Americans, are entitled to that. You know, it's not optional. Public servants exist to serve us, They exist to uphold the Constitution, and it should not be something that they can pick or choose to do. They

have to do it. Um. And I think that expectation stations have been lowered in part because Congress has so completely failed us. But those expectations, uh, you know, those demands need to be constant, even if they're not being met. Um. You know, we need to expect more of them, and we need to be prepared for a long fight ourselves. You've also said, and I may be getting it a little bit wrong, that you don't have hope. And it's not about hope. No, I mean, I don't have hope.

I don't have hopelessness. It's just not the way that I look at the world. I mean, I guess I think of hope is like sitting around and waiting for something to change, or just sort of like wishing. I mean, maybe I have faith, you know, I have conviction, you know, obviously, I know what kind of governmental system I support, and I know what my values are, and I know what my morals are, and I know how I feel when I see people flavorrantly violating them. Um, you know, and

I'll fight, but uh, I just I don't know. It's hard for me when people are like, what's going to happen next? Or do you feel you know, optimistic or pessimistic. That's not the way I view it. I feel like when everything's collapsing, and I like everything's kind of been collapsing my whole adult life, then you cling to your principles, you know, you cling to your conscience because you can control that. Like I can't control, you know, who's gonna

win in November, at least unilaterally. And I can't control what's going to happen to the economy. But I can control how I treat other people. And I can control, you know, what my participation in this kind of you know world is going to be, and how I try to leverage you know, what little power advantages I've accumulated, you know, That's what I try to do with my

writing and with my podcast. That's my choice. And so I would encourage people to think of it that way because then you you have a little more control over the situation. You know, you can't control the situation, but you can control your your part in it. And you're not just sitting around, you know, hoping that some sort of savior will intervene. Sir, your revelation and a beacon. You'd be surprised. The nature of being a writer is you don't really know what people think about your writing.

And I wrote about you, and I was stunned the amount of feedback I got. People who are not only aware of you, but passionately aware of you. I mean, you click boxes that people didn't even think existed, one being in the Midwest, being of this demo, having a pH d in an era where education and intelligence are far from primary. So I thank you so much for taking the time to speak to my audience. Well, thank you so much for having me on. It's the pleasure

talking with you. Until next time. This is Bob left Sets