Michael Anton calls 2020 the worst year of his lifetime, citing the lockdown, economic collapse, and rioting. He argues Democrats and left-leaning elites coordinated to stop Trump's second term, and describes mayors in Chicago, Minneapolis, New York, and Los Angeles as effectively encouraging the sacking of their own cities.
You, you understand, you're one of the handful, and unfortunately I do think it's a handful, who understand the stakes, which is why you correctly titled your book that way. Do you think most conservatives, well no, I'll put it this way, most Republicans understand the stakes?
I think they have a better, probably not yet, but 2020 has been an unfortunately clarifying year. I say in the preface to the book, I think, or no, I said it in another essay that I just published the other day, but it's been the worst, not the worst year for me personally, but it has been the worst year for America of my lifetime. It's just these unprecedented calamities from the lockdown and the economic collapse and the forced economic collapse, the completely, you know, self-enforced economic collapse, to all the rioting, the endless waves of rioting and violence that we lie about, that the media lies about and politicians lie about. And these horrible changes to our culture the demonization of America that's been going on in academic and elite intellectual circles for 50 years or more has really this year broke through to the mainstream in a way that those of us who've been on campus, we're familiar with it, but we sort of hoped we'd never see it in real ordinary life, and now it's everywhere. So I think it's a lot clearer to a lot more people in 2020 what the stakes really are, but unfortunately we had to go through hell to achieve a lot of that realization.
Well, and we're not out of it.
No, we're definitely not out of it. I mean, I guess the best way I could put that in the most positive spin, we were kind of slow walking, or more, you know, in this direction, at least we were going in this direction more slowly before 2020. The president was pushing back hard and getting a lot of things done, but also facing unprecedented resistance from every, power center in our society, every single one, including his own executive branch of the federal government that's supposed to take his orders and do what he says. I think that one of the things that explains 2020 is the Democrats' and the left's realization that they can't, you know, from their own perspective, from their own perception of their own interests, they cannot let him have a second term. And if that means destroying the country to prevent it, they will do it. I've never seen in my life, nor would I ever thought I would see— now, I'm a student of history, I'm a I've read in books about cities being sacked. It used to be not uncommon, right? Unfortunately, I have never heard instances where mayors of cities encourage the sacking of their own city, as the feckless mayors of Chicago and Minneapolis and New York, and unfortunately even Los Angeles, where I know you are, have done. I've— in all the books that I've read, I can't think of a single instance where this has happened, and it has now happened repeatedly in the last 3 months in the United States of America.
That's right. Well said. Where are you right now?
I am in DC, in the DC suburbs. I teach at Hillsdale College's Washington, DC campus. I actually have to go in and teach a class tonight.
Are students meeting?
Yes, students can under the DC rules, as long as the gathering is— it's not— they're not big gatherings. They're small. And we, you know, we carefully looked at all the rules. We follow them. We social distance. We wear masks and wash our hands, you know, as per required, but as long as the gathering is under a certain size and the classes are all that, then we can meet.
Life, Legacy, and a Dangerous Mission in the Soviet Union | Sunday Fireside Chat
