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

by Sarah Kendzior

An audience member asked the panel about what the election of Trump meant for American values. I couldn’t help the answer that came out from me: There is a gulf between the president and the public. I love my country. But I am horrified that this man, this autocrat, who is struggling against a democratic framework of checks and balances that may or may not hold, has become my president. I want to point out that his victory was both narrow and flawed. Only about 25 percent of the country voted for him. The election was marred by Russian interference, baseline voter suppression, and flaws in our electoral system that go back to the founding of the United States. We have never been a perfect democracy. We have never been an equal country. But generally, at least through my lifetime, we have tried to progress toward that kind of change. I live in the center of the United States. I live in St. Louis, Missouri. I live in a majority black city in a bright red state that voted for Donald Trump. What I saw when he came into St. Louis and campaigned was that he was preying on people’s pain, and he was preying on people’s prejudice. He was taking the economic devastation that is real in the heart of America—he was right about that—and exploiting it for the most awful and xenophobic instincts that you could bring out in Americans. He is hurting the most vulnerable and disadvantaged people in our country, and as he stays in office, that’s going to get worse. I don’t think that this is ...