Sarah Kendzior

Sarah J. Kendzior (born September 1, 1978) is an American author, anthropologist, researcher, and scholar. Kendzior is the author of The View from Flyover Country – a collection of essays first published as articles by Al Jazeera – and is a former co-host of the Gaslit Nation podcast. Her second book, Hiding in Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America, published in In 2020, was a New York Times bestseller. Her third book, They Knew: How a Culture of Conspiracy Keeps America Complacent, published in September 2022, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Current Interest.

Quotes
In line, I met a middle-aged woman who had quit her job to care for her ailing father, who was too weak to stand, so he rested, in his "Make America Great Again" cap, against walls along the way. Her eyes filled with tears, she professed her own dedication to Trump, whom she saw as an authentic advocate of the downtrodden. But most of all, she wanted to show her father something special, an American moment that would make him proud.
 * Trump's campaign is a study in the mob mentality, how people who would normally act with kindness and compassion can turn cruel in response to the rhetoric of their leader, or in retaliation to those who oppose him.
 * "Trump supporters in St Louis: how 'midwestern nice' became a sea of rage", The Guardian (March 12, 2016)
 * From an account of a rally held at the Peabody Opera House in St. Louis, Missouri.


 * As scholars of authoritarianism have long advised, believe the autocrat when he speaks. The problem is that too few Americans believed in the concept of an American autocrat. Pundits ignored the threat of Trump enacting these policies through executive power. Enjoy hindsight while you can, Americans, the administration of “alternative facts” may rewrite your regrets as applause.
 * "Trump’s America, where even park employees have become enemies of the state", The Guardian (January 29, 2017)


 * If a mafia state has really taken hold, wouldn't someone from our institutions do something about it? And the answer is no, they didn't, but it's the lack of that expected response that I think has led people to believe things are safer than they are, better than they are, even in the face of overwhelming evidence.
 * We've seen [Trump] follow the textbook road to autocracy . . . Our institutions were very fragile and corrupt and the refusal to admit that led to the broader refusal to recognise how profoundly dangerous [Trump's] installation was.
 * From an interview, as cited in "Sarah Kendzior on why Americans should fear the worst in Trump", Financial Times (October 16, 2020)
 * Kendzior is cited in the Financial Times article as having described the Trump administration as a "transnational crime syndicate masquerading as a government".