Siri Hustvedt

"The Populism That Reached New Proportions With Trump Has Not Faded And Will Not Fade"
Nov 2020

La Tercera

"The Populism That Reached New Proportions With Trump Has Not Faded And Will Not Fade"

In an interview with Andrés Gómez published in the newspaper La Tercera of Chile, Siri talks about "Writers Against Trump" and how this moment in American history will be remembered.

"The crisis in this country is epistemic, a crisis of knowledge. How do we know what we know? A significant portion of the American population has turned against sources of knowledge - the mainstream media, science, experts in various fields, and the government itself - as part of an elite conspiracy. Convincing them otherwise seems almost impossible. It is a predominantly white rural population movement with no university education, and it is less about economics than social and cultural identity, and it has strong racist, xenophobic and misogynistic traits. The emotional tone of this group is almost exclusively negative. It offers no vision of the future and thrives on anger, bitterness, and cruel humor. This movement is not interested in dialogue, education or discussion. It is extremely difficult to know how to approach a group that does not recognize the opposition as fully human. Trump's references to women as dogs, pigs and monsters and immigrants as animals or vermin does not bode well for conversation. Hate speech doesn't wait for an answer."
Read the whole interview.