Sarah Kendzior discusses the current state of affairs ahead of the 2024 U.S. Election. https://sarahkendzior.substack.com/ SARAH KENDZIOR BIO I am the bestselling author of THE VIEW FROM FLYOVER COUNTRY (2018), HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT (2020), and THEY KNEW (2022). My next book, THE LAST AMERICAN ROAD TRIP, will come out in 2025. From 2018 until 2013, I was the co-host of Gaslit Nation, a weekly podcast which covers corruption in the United States and the rise of authoritarianism around the world. I live in St. Louis, Missouri. I now write essays regularly at Sarah Kendzior’s Newsletter. It’s free — you should subscribe! I am well-known for my coverage of the Trump administration and its aftermath and for writing about authoritarianism, kleptocracy, transnational organized crime, racism and xenophobia, media, voting rights, technology, the environment, and corruption, among other topics. From 2016-2020, I was a regular columnist for the Globe and Mail, and from 2012-2024, I was a columnist for Al Jazeera English. I have written for dozens of other outlets including Fast Company, NBC News, POLITICO, Quartz, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Guardian, Foreign Policy, The Diplomat, Marie Claire, De Correspondent, The Atlantic, Medium, Radio Free Europe, POLITICO Europe, The Chicago Tribune, The Baffler,  Blue Nation Review, Alive Magazine, Ethnography Matters, The Common Reader, The New York Daily News, La Stampa, Slate, World Policy Journal, The Brooklyn Quarterly, Belt Magazine, Centre for International Governance Innovation, Teen Vogue, City AM,  Opinio Juris,  HRDCVR, World Politics Review, Shondaland, and The New York Times. In addition to working as a journalist, I am a researcher and scholar. I have a PhD in anthropology from Washington University in Saint Louis (2012) and an MA in Central Eurasian Studies from Indiana University (2006). Most of my work focuses on the authoritarian states of the former Soviet Union and how the internet affects political mobilization, self-expression, and trust. My academic research has been published in American Ethnologist, Problems of Post-Communism, Central Asian Survey, Demokratizatsiya, Nationalities Papers, Social Analysis, and the Journal of Communication.