Hiding in Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America

by Sarah Kendzior

At 3 A.M. on November 9, after Trump had been announced as president-elect, I called Andrea Chalupa. We had never spoken on the phone, but I did not know who else to turn to. She was among the few people unsurprised and determined to face this grim new reality head on. We spent hours reviewing the results and examining the possibilities of what had happened. By the morning, we had come to the conclusion that Trump, working with an international criminal syndicate connected to the Kremlin, had illegally influenced the 2016 election, possibly altered vote results, and would build a kleptocracy while curtailing civil rights, starting with immigrants and anyone who is not white. This turned out to be what happened, but at the time our serious concerns were dismissed as hysteria. The level of denial in the media, especially among New York and D.C. establishment reporters, was staggering. I spent weeks privately begging high-profile reporters with more connections and resources than me to follow the Trump team money trail. I urged them to start with Manafort, only to be told by them that Manafort was not a problem. Manafort had been on the Sunday shows, they assured me, and networks don’t put criminals on the Sunday shows. Despite these obstacles, Andrea and I kept going. Autocracy moves fast, and once an autocrat gets in, it is very hard to get them out. We figured we had two and a half months to educate the country about what to expect when your country is expecting a dictator...