Read this: ‘Hiding in Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America’ by Sarah Kendzior

Journalist Sarah Kendzior didn’t want to be right. In the fall of 2015, from St. Louis, she predicted the outcome of the 2016 presidential race: that the country would elect Donald Trump, a real estate businessman–turned–reality TV star–turned–Republican politician, whom others—even those in his own party—wouldn’t consider a serious contender for quite a while, over former U.S. Senator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The Wire later called Kendzior a Cassandra in Trumpland. Kendzior, who has a Ph.D. in anthropology from Washington University and studied authoritarian regimes in such former Soviet republics as Uzbekistan, had noticed similarities between Trump and Uzbekistan’s first president. She had also seen, through life in St. Louis, how the Midwest had lost cultural and economic standing, transforming into a solidly red state. Her first essay collection, The View From Flyover Country: Dispatches From the Forgotten America, published in 2018. In a new book, Hiding in Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America, out April 7, Kendzior traces the series of events that led to Trump’s candidacy, beginning in the 1980s. “I wanted it to be clear to people that Trump and his cohort did not come out of the blue, that this is not some sort of fluke,” she says. Does she have any predictions for November? “The main thing I’m worried about is election integrity,” she says. “I’m worried about voter suppression, about foreign interference, about unsecure machines.”