Sarah Kendzior is an author and journalist who's been railing against Trump since she transitioned to covering the presidential election in March 2016. Kendzior is an expert on authoritarian states and saw in Trump all the classical symptoms of that manifest itself in one man. Her early writings were criticized by some for being hyperbolic and over-the-top, especially in regards to the checks and balances that were supposed to be in the American system of government. Someone as bad and as inept as Trump surely couldn't do too much damage before the system would right itself, was the argument at the time. Well, that turned out to be a farce and Trump has basically run roughshod over every norm of the presidency and promises to do much worse if re-elected.
This morning she spoke with Joy Reid and Malcolm Nance about Trump's and his (not our) Attorney General William Barr and their recent efforts to turn the United States into a police state.
JOY REID: I don't know if there's anyone more sinister in the administration than William Barr, first of all. You had senator Chris Murphy and others call this division controlled by Bill Barr a secret police force. Is that what we've come to in America?
SARAH KENDZIOR: Yes, essentially. When you have no identification, you have no accountability. And accountability is what they've been trying to avoid and trying to destroy the entire time. What Malcolm said before about Trump viewing the military as his own personal military, that, of course, extends to his view of Barr as his personal attorney. That extends to their general philosophy for the United States which is not to govern. It's to rule. It's to see Americans who show any form of dissent, any form of independent thought as rivals, as enemies. It's to deem the press itself as enemies of the state which he did long ago. this is a very consistent pattern for this administration. A lot of people were in denial. They kept thinking that's not what authoritarianism looks like. It means soldiers on the streets, firing and fighting against their own citizens. Well, guess what? We're now at that point because people remained in denial for so long. Do not let anybody tell you that nobody saw this coming. That is another dodge for accountability. Because if no one saw this coming, then no one could have prevented it. It could have been prevented. It could have been slowed. There's steps that Congress and others could take, for one, impeaching Bill Barr, dismantling the system, exposing state crimes that should have been exposed long ago. The truth will get you far in this scenario, as dire as things are right now.
