136 Quotes by Masha Gessen

The assault on language may be harder to define and describe than his attacks on institutions, but it is essential to his autocratic attempt, the ultimate objective of which is to obliterate politics.

As a gay parent I must flee Russia or lose my children.

Finally, there is every indication that Putin’s government worked neither to prevent terrorist attacks nor to resolve crises peacefully when they occurred; moreover, the president consistently and increasingly staked his reputation not only on his own determination to “rub them out” whatever the circumstances but also on the terrorists’ perceived ruthlessness.

No powerful political actor had set out to destroy the American political system itself – until, that is, Trump won the Republican nomination. He was probably the first major party nominee who ran not for president but for autocrat. And he won.

The people who came were not always the ones who most needed to escape: they were the ones most capable of escaping.

When something cannot be described, it does not become a fact of shared reality.

It is expected that all decisions taken by the coordinating council or by the general meeting shall be recommendations: members who are in the minority should not be obligated to participate in a decision with which they disagree but neither shall they have the right to counteract the actions of the majority in any way other than through the power of conviction.

Unusually for the Trump era, the argument in the hearings was not about the facts – the facts were known and uncontested – but about the nature of political power in America. One side was arguing that political power was provisionally granted by voters and limited by law, rules, norms, expectations, policy legacy, and the system of checks and balances. The other side was arguing that power wants to be absolute and is limited only by what the president can get away with.

Trump’s lies and his word piles both are exercises in arbitrariness, continued assertions of the power to say what he wants, when he wants, to usurp language itself, and with it, our ability to speak and act with others – in other words, our ability to engage in politics.