Sarah Kendzior

Kendzior was born in New Haven, Connecticut. She grew up in Meriden, Connecticut.[4][5]

In 2000, Kendzior received a B.A. in history from Sarah Lawrence College. In 2006, Kendzior received an M.A. in Eurasian Studies from the Department of Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University. Her thesis was titled "State Propaganda on Islam in Independent Uzbekistan".[6] In 2012, Kendzior earned a PhD in anthropology from Washington University in St. Louis.[4] Her thesis was titled "The Uzbek Opposition in Exile: Diaspora and Dissident Politics in the Digital Age" and her advisor was John Bowen.[7] Her focus of study was former Soviet Union totalitarian states. Kendzior's dissertation was on how the Uzbekistan dictatorship employed the Internet to undermine public trust in and manipulate the media.

From 2000 to 2003, Kendzior worked as an online news editor and writer for the New York Daily News.[8][9]

She has written for Al Jazeera,[10] The Guardian,[11] Foreign Policy,[12] Marie Claire,[13] The Boston Globe and other outlets. Some of Kendzior's journalistic publications have focused locally on St. Louis.[14]

Kendzior has frequently appeared on MSNBC on the AM Joy show hosted by Joy Reid.[9][15] In 2017, The Irish Times asserted that Kendzior "has become a must-follow journalist."[16] On a St. Louis radio station, Kendzior was described in April 2018 as having become "a media sensation in recent years," and having attained a "relatively sudden national celebrity".[2][9]

Kendzior and Bill Kristol were the main speakers for the 7th annual Public Values Symposium held on March 29, 2019 at the University of Missouri–Saint Louis.[17][18] The two speakers saw "eye-to-eye... on the importance of people speaking up for what they believe in the face of eroding societal norms."[17]

Kendzior was a featured speaker for the Canadian Journalism Foundation's annual Ottawa J-Talk on April 9, 2019.[19]

Regarding her coverage of Donald Trump, Kendzior has stated that she has had "three advantages":[4]

I transitioned into covering the presidential election in March 2016. I had three advantages in covering Donald Trump specifically as a candidate. First, I worked in New York tabloid media, so I knew exactly how he marketed himself. Then, I studied dictatorships and authoritarian regimes the entire time I was doing my PhD.... A lot of things that Trump was doing in his campaign reminded me of things I saw in Uzbekistan, Russia, and other authoritarian states around the world. Alarm bells started going off in my head.... Third, I live in the center of the country, not in D.C. or New York. When they talk about how hard things are out here, that's accurate.[4]

Arthur Levitt interviewed Kendzior about her book and career in a May 2019 podcast for Bloomberg News.[20]

The Columbia Journalism Review reported that because of her writings and expertise on authoritarian states, "as the new president came into power and the specter of Russian interference in his victory triggered Mueller's investigation, the limos started lining up"[9] to drive Kendzior to interviews at television studios.

In 2015, Kendzior self-published her first book as an ebook – a collection of essays on the American condition first published by Al Jazeera starting in 2013 – called The View from Flyover Country. In 2018, Flatiron Books published an updated print version of the book.[2]

In June 2017, speaking to an American Library Association conference, Hillary Clinton described herself as "riveted by... The View From Flyover Country, which turned out to be especially relevant in the midst of our current health-care debate."[21][22]

The New York Post described Kendzior's The View as a "collection of essays from the talented Kendzior, who writes intelligently and with great empathy about problems faced by the Midwest."[23] The Buffalo News described Kendzior's The View as "an astonishment and a challenge to convention for all sorts of reasons,"[24] noting that Kendzior had "roared to the fore" because of her prediction of the 2016 election results, a result of having studied foreign demagogues and understanding deteriorating conditions in the U.S. The Green Bay Press-Gazette described The View as a collection of "honest essays [in which Kendzior has] addressed themes of poverty, the American Dream, gentrification, race, school costs, unpaid internships and the decline of malls. Some articles have an opinion feel to them, but most are packed with statistics related to the topic at hand."[25]

Kealey Boyd, reviewing in 2018 for Hyperallergic, stated that the essays in The View

were originally published by Al Jazeera between 2012 and 2014, which is concerning, since every essay could be released now and be just as relevant – proving the stagnation of what Kendzior calls our "post-employment economy." Kendzior points to a surging underemployment rate as professionals and laborers work multiple part-time or contractual jobs at poverty wages in place of full-time careers..... "Mistaking wealth for virtue is the cruelty of our time," states Kendzior. When social stigma drapes over professional immobility and lost opportunities, bad luck is perceived as bad character.... Kendzior observes that Americans born approximately between the late 1970s and the late 1990s are often declared lazy and narcissistic despite enduring the worst economy since the Great Depression. Kendzior's sober observations of the formation of character labels and their impact echo work by Martha Gellhorn, a writer employed by the Roosevelt administration to record the human stories behind the government statistics during the Depression.... Kendzior's prose is sharp and consistent whether the essay is data dense or an opinion piece. She maneuvers through big issues with a pace and clarity that makes unpalatable topics fascinating, and unfortunately, relatable.[26]

Omair Ahmad, reviewing Kendzior's The View for The Wire (India), stated that

I have rarely come across writing that is as urgent and as beautifully expressed.... Kendzior's work has two distinctive qualities that make it stand out. The first is that she is writing from, and about, St Louis, Missouri – a city that was once a cultural hub, but has seen part of the slow decline witnessed in other manufacturing cities of the US. The second is that she is a scholar of the Central Asian republics.... To say that this is an unusual combination would be a radical understatement. Too often scholars of undemocratic regimes leave their horror for the way that humans are treated at their borders, unable or unwilling to see the conditions that the less privileged among their fellow citizens face. Because both journalism and academia are elite professions in themselves – a point that Kendzior makes repeatedly, and with particular force – this distance from local reality is exaggerated even further. The ability to see both allows Kendzior to make some very interesting comparisons...[27]

On Milwaukee Public Radio WUWM, Bonnie North and Lauren Sigfusson stated that Kendzior's The View "takes no prisoners" and is "now a bestseller, but it was originally self-published because no traditional publisher wanted it. The book critiques labor exploitation, race relations, media bias and other aspects of America's post-employment economy that gave rise to President Trump. She believes the United States’ refusal to deal with the repercussions of the 2008 recession 'has come back to haunt us big time.'"[28]

The book was listed as a New York Times bestseller in May 2018.[29]

Together with Andrea Chalupa, Kendzior hosts a podcast called Gaslit Nation, which originally started out as part of Dame Magazine.[30] In Psychology Today, Joe Pierre stated that the podcast "frequently reminds listeners that the Trump administration is part of a 'transnational crime syndicate masquerading as a government'",[31] stating that

The podcast’s title, Gaslit Nation, refers to their assertion that the Trump administration is "gaslighting" America in precisely the way that Arendt, Orwell, and Pomerantzev have described, by repeatedly contradicting the facts and claiming that black is white. This assertion is supported by independent databases maintained by Politifact and The Washington Post that tally false claims involving President Trump. According to The Washington Post’s Fact Checker, President Trump has made 15,413 false or misleading statements (and counting) since taking office. Many of these... have been repeated again and again to the point that some no doubt believe it.[31]

In April 2020, as the United States dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic, Kendzior stated that

Trump covers up crime with scandal and covers up malice with incompetence. His administration would like you to think that they’re inept, that they’re just stumbling into these situations. That’s not the case. And the key thing to remember is that it’s not Trump as some geopolitical mastermind; it’s an inner circle of Republican backers and ideological extremists, many of whom have massive financial interests and certainly their own agenda.[32]

In 2016, Kendzior wrote about similarities between Donald Trump and the authoritarian leaders she had studied given Trump's admiration for Russian president Vladimir Putin before there was widespread public awareness of Russia's interference in the US election.[33] Ten days after Trump was elected president, she wrote an article warning that "we're heading into dark times," and urging her fellow Americans to "write down what you value; what standards you hold for yourself and for others... your dreams for the future and your hopes for your children... the struggle of your ancestors and how the hardship they overcame shaped the person you are today.... Because if you do not do it now, you may forget," and also to "write a list of things you would never do."[34] She urged her readers to

most of all, never lose sight of who you are and what you value. If you find yourself doing something that feels questionable or wrong a few months or years from now, find that essay you wrote on who you are and read it. Ask if that version of yourself would have done the same thing. And if the answer is no? Don't do it.[34]

Kendzior described the 2018–19 U.S. government shutdown as "a predictable, planned destruction," stating that "people who call this ‘unimaginable’ ignore that the dangers were all spelled out".[35]

Kendzior has stated that "America has been in decline since before I was born," and that "widespread corruption in individual crises like Watergate, like Iran Contra, like the 9/11 aftermath, the war in Iraq, the 2008 financial crisis... were not countered at the time. We did not see repercussions and consequences for brazen criminality at the time. If we had, we would be in a different place.... Belief in American exceptionalism is what got us here. Belief in institutionalism, in checks and balances as a fail-proof mode of democracy got us here. Because checks and balances are only as good as those who uphold them."[17]

On May 4, 2019, Kendzior stated on MSNBC that the Republican Party is engaging in "total obstructionism that is aimed at making American citizens weaker, making them less likely to fight back... They want a one-party state, that is what the GOP seeks, and Trump wants to be an autocrat with that state behind him."[15]

In a July 24, 2019 opinion piece in The Globe and Mail,[36] Kendzior stated that in his testimony earlier that week to the US Congress,

[Former Special Counsel Robert] Mueller acted as if outside forces constrained his ability to answer questions. But he is no longer an employee of the Department of Justice, and they can no longer tell him what to say.... key topics – such as Mr. Trump's possible involvement with organized crime or the influence of other foreign countries in the 2016 election – went unmentioned. Other issues, such as Mr. Trump's shady finances or the prospect of impeachment, were largely avoided.... He acted like a man terrified to speak the obvious. The question remains: why?.... The public has the right to know whether its own government constitutes a threat to national security and if the president is complicit in a crime. Testifying to Congress was Mr. Mueller's patriotic obligation, and he should not have required a subpoena to show up. His question-dodging mirrored the reticence of his probe: he did not want to indict anyone even when their offences were blatant, and he did not want to explain why. It is disconcerting that one of the few things Mr. Mueller would confirm is that Americans are not safe. Mr. Mueller decided not to decide, but... His bad choice could mean that Americans lose their own free will in the years to come.[36]

In another opinion piece in the 17 November 2019 issue of The Globe and Mail,[37] Kendzior stated that former ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, who had recently testified to the United States House impeachment committee,

lives in a simulacrum of democracy dependent on the refusal of elites to admit the severity of the crisis. Ms. Yovanovitch swore to tell the whole truth, but to tell the whole truth is to terrify everyone. To tell the whole truth is to say what officials gloss over but what citizens can see: This is apparently a transnational crime syndicate masquerading as a government.... Had Mr. Trump’s lifelong connections to transnational organized crime been highlighted during the 2016 election, had his suspected ties to Vladimir Putin not been laughed off by clueless pundits as "gaffes" and had criminals such as Mr. Manafort been held accountable in real time... perhaps Ms. Yovanovitch would be safer now. Perhaps all Americans would.[37]

Regarding the impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump, Kendzior was quoted in Salon[38] as stating that

If reporters feel the impeachment hearings aren't ‘exciting’ enough, they can go report on Trump's decades of mafia ties, sexual assaults, financial crimes, and all the other horrifying activity they failed to cover.[38]

In a 17 November 2019 article for The Globe and Mail, Kendzior stated that "by the time impeachment hearings rolled around, Republicans and Kremlin operatives had spent two years building an alternative narrative of 2016 while simultaneously engaging in the same illicit activity that this narrative was supposed to cover. The result is that last week, Americans watched both impeachment hearings and an aspiring show trial. The latter was exhibited in the opening statements of Devin Nunes, who recited a repetitive series of Kremlin talking points like the dummy of a bored ventriloquist."[39]

In an interview in given to business magazine Fast Company, Kendzior addressed the challenge of dealing with misinformation disseminated through social media. She stated that "other countries like Estonia... have been dealing with this for a long time, and they’re much better on cybersecurity, better at educating the public about propaganda.... [in] Germany... college students... have a very good understanding of this propaganda because they know their own country’s history, and they know how you can get lured down this slope. And I’m not saying either of these countries is perfect and that everybody had amazing grasp of it. But at least it’s emphasized that this is a civic problem."[40]

Regarding the 2019-2020 impeachment of Trump, Kendzior wrote in The Globe and Mail[41] on February 2, 2020 that

Many officials had the job of holding Mr. Trump accountable – James Comey, Robert Mueller, the Republicans, the Democrats and Supreme Court Justice John Roberts, who sits in the trial like window dressing for the defenestration for democracy – and they have failed to act with the urgency and bravery required. The President does not want to be punished but he loves to get caught. He flaunts every crime he gets away with because it showcases the degradation of law, which ironically was furthered by his opponents’ blind faith in it.[41]

Interviewed in January 2020 by WUWM radio of Milwaukee, where Trump has held several rallies, Kendzior stated that "Theoretically, rallies are used during times of campaigns when they need to get the public's attention, when they need to get the public's approval. With Trump it's been different because the rallies from the campaign never stopped, and I think that that has to do with Trump's drive to dominate the news cycle at any cost... He always has to be in the process of vanquishing an enemy."[42]

In March 2020, Kendzior wrote in The Globe and Mail that "For his entire life, Mr. Trump has been a self-described fatalist. He has called himself a fatalist in interviews spanning nearly 30 years. This admission is a rare expression of consistent honesty for a man infamous for lying about everything."[43]

In April 2020, Kendzior wrote in The Globe and Mail that

COVID-19 may be novel, but the mentality needed to battle it – constant attention to crisis, refusal to abandon those you love – is old news. The coronavirus pandemic is not only a public-health crisis, but a political one. Its origin might be natural, but its spread and exploitation are not. The virus emerged in a world of rapidly consolidating autocracies: the United States, Britain, Russia, Israel, Hungary, Brazil – and that is not a comprehensive list. The leaders of these countries seem apathetic as to whether their citizens die.[44]

and when interviewed by Vogue she stated that

If Trump was really a dangerous criminal, wouldn’t someone say something about this? Wouldn’t the FBI, or the Obama administration, or anyone try to prevent this from happening? And the answer is no: Everyone waited for someone else to save the day; everyone expected that if we had an actual traitor trying to inhabit the executive branch that someone would put a stop to it—and now we’re all self-isolating in our homes from a plague that he seems content to let ravage our country.[45]

In an April 2020 online Q&A (question and answer) podcast for Politics and Prose bookstore, Kendzior summarized her observations about the state of American democracy laid out in her book, Hiding in Plain Sight, and encouraged listeners to become more active at the local level and to ensure that young people become familiar with the history of the United States.[46]

Kendzior is married and has children.[9] She speaks Russian.

• Official website
• Gaslit Nation weekly podcast by Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa
• Sarah Kendzior on Twitter
• Sarah Kendzior on IMDb
• Sarah Kendzior publications indexed by Google Scholar