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41 " Nations have faced autocracy before and recovered. It is not easy, but it is possible: witness the peaceful revolutions that preceded the collapse of the USSR, the dissolution of apartheid in South Africa, and the fall of tyrants throughout history, from Hitler to Milosevic to Mubarak. "
― Sarah Kendzior , Hiding in Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America
42 " scholars of authoritarian states who saw parallels to Trump in figures like Hitler, Milosevic, and, of course, Putin, but who were dismissed as alarmist despite their expertise. "
43 " The America of black Los Angelenos outraged by police brutality; the America of abused women like Tonya Harding and Lorena Bobbitt and Anita Hill who were pilloried on a national scale; the America of mythical child “super-predators”—teenagers like the Central Park Five, whose exoneration can never compensate for the brutality they endured. With no external enemy left to fight, America focused on fighting itself—and exploiting the casualties "
44 " Write a list of things you would never do. Because it is possible that in the next year, you will do them. Write a list of things you would never believe. Because it is possible that in the next year, you will either believe them or be forced to say you believe them. "
45 " Kushner viewed Netanyahu as his boss and Obama as his enemy.”37 "
46 " the plight is beyond party politics: it is not a matter of having a president-elect whom many dislike, but having a president-elect whose explicit goal is to destroy the nation. "
47 " Authoritarianism is not merely a matter of state control, it is something that eats away at who you are. It makes you afraid, and fear can make you cruel. It compels you to conform and to comply and accept things that you would never accept, to do things you never thought you would do. "
48 " The crimes are much worse than the scandals, but the media will always take the scandal bait. "
49 " It could always be worse, they say. They don't like to say that it could always be better, because that would require redress. Ranking "
― Sarah Kendzior , The View From Flyover Country: Essays by Sarah Kendzior
50 " Blame Stalin, the pundits cry, echoing the argument made every time something bad happens in the former Soviet Union. Blame Stalin, because we can pronounce that name. "
51 " Female intellectuals gain prominence through tales of their exclusion. They are known for being forgotten. "
52 " The Iraq war is notable not only for journalistic weakness, but for journalistic futility: the futility of fact itself. Fact could not match the fabrications of power. Eventually, our reality shifted to become what they conceived. “I could have set myself on fire in protest on the White House lawn and the war would have proceeded without me,” wrote Bush speechwriter David Frum. That was the message of the Iraq war: there is no point in speaking truth to power when power is the only truth. "
53 " Parties bound by blood or marriage are easier to control. "
54 " The story of Donald Trump’s rise to power is the story of a buried American history—buried because powerful people liked it that way. It was visible without being seen, influential without being named, ubiquitous without being overt. "
55 " One wonders how many future politicians, journalists, academics and leaders we are losing because they never have the chance to try. How many people from Hillary Clinton's middle-class background - or, for that matter, from Bill Clinton's rural poverty - can afford to tread the path of debt and unpaid labor required to succeed? The "
56 " The internet would seem an antidote to conspiracy theories and state secrecy, but it has only amplified both. "
57 " Who are the telegenically dead? The telegenically dead are the dead, plain and simple. That we see them is the novelty, that we grieve them is human, and to be human, today, is a hostile act. To grieve is to acknowledge loss, to acknowledge loss is to affirm life, to affirm life is to contemplate how it was taken. "
58 " Exponential increases in university tuition have erased the possibility of education as a path out of poverty. These are not revelations - these are hard limitations faced by most Americans. "
59 " When the bubbles popped, and the jobs disappeared, and the debt soared, and the desperation hit, Americans were told to stay positive. Stop complaining—things will not be like this forever. Stop complaining—this is the way things have always been. Complainers suffer the cruel imperatives of optimism: lighten up, suck it up, chin up, buck up. In other words: shut up. "
60 " republishing it himself on Kindle to try to get the word out. In 2015, a Daily Beast reporter wrote a piece detailing the alleged rape of Ivana and was threatened by Trump’s aspiring Roy Cohn replacement, lawyer and future felon Michael Cohen.55 "