Sarah Kendzior


Sarah J. Kendzior is an American journalist, author, anthropologist, researcher, and scholar. Kendzior is the author of The View from Flyover Country – a collection of essays first published by Al Jazeera – and is co-host of the Gaslit Nation podcast. Based on her expertise with authoritarian regimes in Central Eurasia, she is widely credited with being the first person to predict Donald Trump's election victory in 2016. In 2020, she published her second book, Hiding in Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America.

Early life and education

Kendzior was born in New Haven, Connecticut. She grew up in Meriden, Connecticut.
In 2000, Kendzior received a B.A. in history from Sarah Lawrence College. In 2006, Kendzior received an M.A. in Eurasian Studies from the Department of Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University. Her thesis was titled "State Propaganda on Islam in Independent Uzbekistan". In 2012, Kendzior earned a PhD in anthropology from Washington University in St. Louis. Her thesis was titled "The Uzbek Opposition in Exile: Diaspora and Dissident Politics in the Digital Age" and her advisor was John Bowen. Her focus of study was former Soviet Union totalitarian states. Kendzior's dissertation was on how the Uzbekistan dictatorship employed the Internet to undermine public trust in and manipulate the media.

Career

From 2000 to 2003, Kendzior worked as an online news editor and writer for the New York Daily News.
She has written for Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Foreign Policy, Marie Claire, The Boston Globe and other outlets. Some of Kendzior's journalistic publications have focused locally on St. Louis.
Kendzior has frequently appeared on MSNBC on the AM Joy show hosted by Joy Reid. In 2017, The Irish Times asserted that Kendzior "has become a must-follow journalist." On a St. Louis radio station, Kendzior was described in April 2018 as having become "a media sensation in recent years," and having attained a "relatively sudden national celebrity".
Kendzior and Bill Kristol were the main speakers for the 7th annual Public Values Symposium held on March 29, 2019 at the University of Missouri–Saint Louis. The two speakers saw "eye-to-eye... on the importance of people speaking up for what they believe in the face of eroding societal norms."
Kendzior was a featured speaker for the Canadian Journalism Foundation's annual Ottawa J-Talk on April 9, 2019.
Regarding her coverage of Donald Trump, Kendzior has stated that she has had "three advantages":
Arthur Levitt interviewed Kendzior about her book and career in a May 2019 podcast for Bloomberg News.
The Columbia Journalism Review reported that because of her writings and expertise on authoritarian states, "as the new president came into power and the specter of Russian interference in his victory triggered Mueller's investigation, the limos started lining up" to drive Kendzior to interviews at television studios.

''The View from Flyover Country''

In 2015, Kendzior self-published her first book as an ebook – a collection of essays on the American condition first published by Al Jazeera starting in 2013 – called The View from Flyover Country. In 2018, Flatiron Books published an updated print version of the book.
In June 2017, speaking to an American Library Association conference, Hillary Clinton described herself as "riveted by... The View From Flyover Country, which turned out to be especially relevant in the midst of our current health-care debate."
The New York Post described Kendzior's The View as a "collection of essays from the talented Kendzior, who writes intelligently and with great empathy about problems faced by the Midwest."
The Buffalo News described Kendzior's The View as "an astonishment and a challenge to convention for all sorts of reasons," noting that Kendzior had "roared to the fore" because of her prediction of the 2016 election results, a result of having studied foreign demagogues and understanding deteriorating conditions in the U.S.
The Green Bay Press-Gazette described The View as a collection of "honest essays addressed themes of poverty, the American Dream, gentrification, race, school costs, unpaid internships and the decline of malls. Some articles have an opinion feel to them, but most are packed with statistics related to the topic at hand."
Kealey Boyd, reviewing in 2018 for Hyperallergic, stated that the essays in The View
Omair Ahmad, reviewing Kendzior's The View for The Wire, stated that
On Milwaukee Public Radio WUWM, Bonnie North and Lauren Sigfusson stated that Kendzior's The View "takes no prisoners" and is "now a bestseller, but it was originally self-published because no traditional publisher wanted it. The book critiques labor exploitation, race relations, media bias and other aspects of America's post-employment economy that gave rise to President Trump. She believes the United States’ refusal to deal with the repercussions of the 2008 recession 'has come back to haunt us big time.'"
The book was listed as a New York Times bestseller in May 2018.

''Gaslit Nation'' podcast

Together with Andrea Chalupa, Kendzior hosts a podcast called Gaslit Nation, which originally started out as part of Dame Magazine. In Psychology Today, Joe Pierre stated that the podcast "frequently reminds listeners that the Trump administration is part of a 'transnational crime syndicate masquerading as a government'", stating that

Views on recent events

In April 2020, as the United States dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic, Kendzior stated that
In 2016, Kendzior wrote about similarities between Donald Trump and the authoritarian leaders she had studied given Trump's admiration for Russian president Vladimir Putin before there was widespread public awareness of Russia's interference in the US election.
Ten days after Trump was elected president, she wrote an article warning that "we're heading into dark times," and urging her fellow Americans to "write down what you value; what standards you hold for yourself and for others... your dreams for the future and your hopes for your children... the struggle of your ancestors and how the hardship they overcame shaped the person you are today.... Because if you do not do it now, you may forget," and also to "write a list of things you would never do."
Kendzior described the 2018–19 U.S. government shutdown as "a predictable, planned destruction," stating that "people who call this ‘unimaginable’ ignore that the dangers were all spelled out".
Kendzior has stated that "America has been in decline since before I was born," and that "widespread corruption in individual crises like Watergate, like Iran Contra, like the 9/11 aftermath, the war in Iraq, the 2008 financial crisis... were not countered at the time. We did not see repercussions and consequences for brazen criminality at the time. If we had, we would be in a different place.... Belief in American exceptionalism is what got us here. Belief in institutionalism, in checks and balances as a fail-proof mode of democracy got us here. Because checks and balances are only as good as those who uphold them."
On May 4, 2019, Kendzior stated on MSNBC that the Republican Party is engaging in "total obstructionism that is aimed at making American citizens weaker, making them less likely to fight back... They want a one-party state, that is what the GOP seeks, and Trump wants to be an autocrat with that state behind him."
In a July 24, 2019 opinion piece in The Globe and Mail, Kendzior stated that in his testimony earlier that week to the US Congress, Special Counsel Robert Mueller "acted as if outside forces constrained his ability to answer questions. He acted like a man terrified to speak the obvious. His question-dodging mirrored the reticence of his probe: he did not want to indict anyone even when their offences were blatant, and he did not want to explain why." In another Globe and Mail opinion piece on November 17, 2019, Kendzior called the Trump administration "a transnational crime syndicate masquerading as a government".
Regarding the impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump, Kendzior was quoted in Salon as stating that
In an interview in given to business magazine Fast Company, Kendzior addressed the challenge of dealing with misinformation disseminated through social media. She stated that "other countries like Estonia... have been dealing with this for a long time, and they’re much better on cybersecurity, better at educating the public about propaganda.... Germany... college students... have a very good understanding of this propaganda because they know their own country’s history, and they know how you can get lured down this slope. And I’m not saying either of these countries is perfect and that everybody had amazing grasp of it. But at least it’s emphasized that this is a civic problem."
Regarding the 2019-2020 impeachment of Trump, Kendzior wrote on February 2, 2020 that
Interviewed in January 2020 by WUWM radio of Milwaukee, where Trump has held several rallies, Kendzior stated that "Theoretically, rallies are used during times of campaigns when they need to get the public's attention, when they need to get the public's approval. With Trump it's been different because the rallies from the campaign never stopped, and I think that that has to do with Trump's drive to dominate the news cycle at any cost... He always has to be in the process of vanquishing an enemy."
In March 2020, Kendzior wrote that "For his entire life, Mr. Trump has been a self-described fatalist. He has called himself a fatalist in interviews spanning nearly 30 years. This admission is a rare expression of consistent honesty for a man infamous for lying about everything."
In April 2020, Kendzior wrote that
and when interviewed by Vogue she stated that
In an April 2020 online Q&A podcast for Politics and Prose bookstore, Kendzior summarized her observations about the state of American democracy laid out in her book, Hiding in Plain Sight, and encouraged listeners to become more active at the local level and to ensure that young people become familiar with the history of the United States.

Personal life

Kendzior is married and has children. She speaks Russian.

Selected works and publications

Books

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