Sarah Kendzior writes tight, powerful sentences, poetic and meme-ready quotes to be admired and emblazoned as precursors to action, the clarion calls that helped avoid an all too real impending crisis. If we all had her courage, wisdom, research skills, clarity of thought, and talent at concisely stating fact, the world might become a better place.
And I say this not just because I’m from her hometown. Her description of Missouri and St. Louis almost made me defensive; surely she was wrong about my home, but if I looked beyond the insulated world of St. Louis county where I live, and did more than take daylight strolls through north city where I worked as an underpaid, underappreciated adjunct, then I might be screaming louder, working harder to help her turn the country around and right the injustices so clearly evident. I will try to call out the corruption, the Kleptocracy “hiding in plain sight,” despite the potential for online ridicule and retaliation. But whatever online abuse you and I might encounter pales in comparison to the threats of physical harm and death Kendzior has endured along with all the others who have dared to challenge the Keptocrat and aspiring autocrat who cheated his way into the presidency worse than how he cheats on his wives.
Kendzior finished her book pre impeachment, pandemic, economic collapse, and the current protests over racism and police brutality, before Trump used the military for a photo op, called for them to attack US citizens, and the ensuing backlash. While she is hesitant to use the word “hope,” I do hope she see these events as the beginning of an age where her generation will not “settle for scraps” left on the floor by subjugating Kleptocrats selling them “survival as aspiration.”
Kendzior is an expert on autocratic authoritarian regimes in Central Asia, specifically Uzbekistan, and she sees an all too familiar pattern, the pillaging of our national treasures, nepotism, threats to our security from the highest office, relinquishing freedoms in service to the autocrat, the unthinkable transformation of the United States into a dictatorship. Her book outlines in clear unassailable detail, Trump’s rise to power, his longstanding connections to Russia, clear admissions and evidence that he is inexorably entwined with Russian autocrats and Keptocrats, the Russian mafia, criminals who have helped him rise to power, and the mostly Republican enablers who are complicit in his continuing criminal activity. While most of her ire is directed at Republicans, she casts a sharp eye on failures in democratic administrations as well, adding further legitimacy to her argument.
We have no leader, only a conman who thrives on chaos as a means for imposing autocratic control. In this dangerous world, we the people must take control. We must step in and lead. We must break free of voter suppression and brave the pandemic, ridiculously long lines, intimidation from gun-toting enforcers, and help others go the polls. We must all vote. And in the months leading up to November third 2020 we must be vigilant, we must help others vote by mail, we must call out corruption continually and begin the process of healing. Yes, that means voting for Joe Biden, but our votes need to include the House and the Senate, and state and local officials, and just maybe then we can convince Kandzior to accept hope, with all its positive connotations, and convince her that we will never again divorce hope from action.
