Surviving Autocracy

Masha draws a powerful connection between historical autocracies and events playing out in near real time/recent history in the United States.

With her background and focus, the narrative is compelling.

I would have liked more clarity on the examples, perhaps with timelines. However, the narrative as given is worth a read. It is incredibly quick to read.

Maybe I didn't do my homework before picking up this book but I felt that, for most of it, it was just retelling me things I've seen on the news numerous times with brief moments of actually interesting takes on where to from there. I came for the where to from there and at the exception of a segment in the middle and at the very end I didn't feel like I got much on that, this book wasn't written at the right time for that I assume. It contains a ton of information and if you're new to the topic you might find it interesting if a little dry.

I love Masha Gessen's prose and perspective, so their take on the Trump era was always something I was going to read. I just don't know that I was really ready to relive that time (and particularly, the early days of the pandemic) quite yet. Their writing continues to be clear, elegant, and precise, a real pleasure to read, so that made the sometimes-yuck trip down memory lane bearable.

If you read this book thinking that Masha Gessen is going to give tips for how to survive autocracy, you will be disappointed. Instead, they analyze the Trump presidency as an autocratic attempt. The chapters on political language and journalism in the Trump era are particularly fascinating. Gessen contends that Trump has rendered a lot of political language that we are used to hearing meaningless now, and that legacy journalism (New York Times and the like) has helped to normalize Trump's behavior by covering it neutrally as though this were a normal presidency. The only parts of the book that come close to advice on surviving autocracy come late in the book, when Gessen writes about healing and rebuilding after Trump. What will be needed, they say, is leaders who can bring us back to a discussion of what American moral values and ideals are, and help us move in the direction of those ideals.