Ken McDouall

“She separated every item she found into two categories: unrelated and possible evidence. The possible evidence pile got bigger and bigger. Eventually everything went into it.”
― Joseph Fink, Alice Isn't Dead

“Reporter Mary Louise Kelly went on the air to explain why she chose not to use the word in her story on Trump’s post-inauguration appearance at the CIA headquarters. She said that she checked the definition in the Oxford English Dictionary. “A false statement made with intent to deceive,” she said. “Intent being the key word there. Without the ability to peer into Donald Trump’s head, I can’t tell you what his intent was. I can tell you what he said and how that squares, or doesn’t, with facts.”
― Masha Gessen, Surviving Autocracy

“American political conversation had become a space free from imagination and aspiration. Rather than talk about the future, we talked about policy; rather than talk about what’s right and just, we talked about what’s realistic and lawful; rather than discuss values, we discussed strategies. It was this dull, neutral, largely hollow space that Trump so easily filled with his crudeness, cruelty, and lies.”
― Masha Gessen, Surviving Autocracy

“But the people walking through Mexico were not an army or a hurricane. They were not even planning to cross the border illegally. International law guaranteed their right to seek asylum. The United States had an obligation to consider their claims. Trump did not have a moral or legal leg to stand on when he talked about deterring the asylum seekers, much less when he promised to send the military to stop them. But most of the media, across the political spectrum, were now standing right there with him. They might have been uncomfortable with some of the language that Trump used in discussing immigration, but he had still succeeded in shifting their frame.”
― Masha Gessen, Surviving Autocracy