In 2021, I wrote in my memoir, Camel from Kyzylkum (laragelya.com), the following:
"FROM JANUARY 2017 to January 2021, I was terrified to watch the onset of Trump’s tyranny in our country. I saw such familiar signs—I experienced all of them in the Soviet Union! I ran for a better life from the country where I was born. The Soviet Union controlled its citizens with a regime of tyranny. This regime sustained itself in political power by controlling mass media that was disseminating propaganda, by the secret police, by restrictions of free speech and criticism, by mass surveillance and political purges, by the persecution of specific groups of people. The Constitution in the United States was designed to prevent tyranny through a system of checks and balances. We might be tempted to think that our democratic heritage automatically protects us, but in President Trump’s America, those safeguards were failing. Trump held the grandiose belief that only he should rule America. Unchecked by cowed or complicit Republicans in Congress, Trump invoked executive authority to alter policies that were long-established by law and practices. Trump is the only president in the United States who was impeached twice. He came to our lives with a scandal and indecency and he is exiting from our lives with a scandal and indecency.
I’m so relieved that during the election of 2020, democracy prevailed. But we all witnessed how fragile our democracy is. Even though the horrible Trump presidency is over and Joe Biden won the election of 2020, Trump keeps spreading the lie and pretending that the election was stolen from him.
The January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol is one of the most unforgettable events in American history and in my life. The Capitol building was last breached when British forces invaded during the War of 1812. Two hundred and nine years later, a mob of insurrectionists attacked the building at the behest of none other than the sitting, but on-the-way-out, U.S. President Donald Trump. Videos from the scene show Capitol police at worst unprepared and at best overwhelmed by the sheer size of the crowd. I watched on TV in disbelief how easily the rioters were able to enter the Capitol building. Trump supporters invaded the Capitol from multiple points—videos and images show the rioters scaling walls, smashing windows, and breaking down doors to get into and advance through the building. Many lawmakers, including Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence, were evacuated to safe locations.
Just recently, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi created a select special committee to investigate the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, while most GOP members opposed the creation of the committee.
I’m still worried and wondering what is going to happen during elections in 2022 and 2024 and in what direction this country will be heading?"
Here we are, trying to digest the results of the 2024 election, and I feel like I’m back in the USSR. I’m more than scared for what the next four years will bring to our country.
Lara, your perspective, having left the USSR for the democratic US, is a great place from which to talk to fellow Americans about what you see happening in the US today. We cannot reverse what has already been done over the past decade(s). But we also don't have to accept and condone and support the US becoming a tyranny.
I encourage you to write Op Eds in your local newspaper and to present your book at public events (local libraries are often wonderful venues) where you can raise these important issues in community.
Do you have the entire poem you mentioned by Maksym Kryvtsov? I have been looking for that one and can’t find it. (Nit any others). I am interested in finding out more about his work.
I do, as I am currently in the process of translating (together with Helena Kernan) his collection "Virshi z Biynytsi [Poems from the fire trench]," which was published in Ukrainian in 2023 just before he was killed. We have not published any of our translations yet. Sending you a private message.
In 2021, I wrote in my memoir, Camel from Kyzylkum (laragelya.com), the following:
"FROM JANUARY 2017 to January 2021, I was terrified to watch the onset of Trump’s tyranny in our country. I saw such familiar signs—I experienced all of them in the Soviet Union! I ran for a better life from the country where I was born. The Soviet Union controlled its citizens with a regime of tyranny. This regime sustained itself in political power by controlling mass media that was disseminating propaganda, by the secret police, by restrictions of free speech and criticism, by mass surveillance and political purges, by the persecution of specific groups of people. The Constitution in the United States was designed to prevent tyranny through a system of checks and balances. We might be tempted to think that our democratic heritage automatically protects us, but in President Trump’s America, those safeguards were failing. Trump held the grandiose belief that only he should rule America. Unchecked by cowed or complicit Republicans in Congress, Trump invoked executive authority to alter policies that were long-established by law and practices. Trump is the only president in the United States who was impeached twice. He came to our lives with a scandal and indecency and he is exiting from our lives with a scandal and indecency.
I’m so relieved that during the election of 2020, democracy prevailed. But we all witnessed how fragile our democracy is. Even though the horrible Trump presidency is over and Joe Biden won the election of 2020, Trump keeps spreading the lie and pretending that the election was stolen from him.
The January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol is one of the most unforgettable events in American history and in my life. The Capitol building was last breached when British forces invaded during the War of 1812. Two hundred and nine years later, a mob of insurrectionists attacked the building at the behest of none other than the sitting, but on-the-way-out, U.S. President Donald Trump. Videos from the scene show Capitol police at worst unprepared and at best overwhelmed by the sheer size of the crowd. I watched on TV in disbelief how easily the rioters were able to enter the Capitol building. Trump supporters invaded the Capitol from multiple points—videos and images show the rioters scaling walls, smashing windows, and breaking down doors to get into and advance through the building. Many lawmakers, including Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence, were evacuated to safe locations.
Just recently, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi created a select special committee to investigate the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, while most GOP members opposed the creation of the committee.
I’m still worried and wondering what is going to happen during elections in 2022 and 2024 and in what direction this country will be heading?"
Here we are, trying to digest the results of the 2024 election, and I feel like I’m back in the USSR. I’m more than scared for what the next four years will bring to our country.
Lara, your perspective, having left the USSR for the democratic US, is a great place from which to talk to fellow Americans about what you see happening in the US today. We cannot reverse what has already been done over the past decade(s). But we also don't have to accept and condone and support the US becoming a tyranny.
I encourage you to write Op Eds in your local newspaper and to present your book at public events (local libraries are often wonderful venues) where you can raise these important issues in community.
Do you have the entire poem you mentioned by Maksym Kryvtsov? I have been looking for that one and can’t find it. (Nit any others). I am interested in finding out more about his work.
Thanks
I do, as I am currently in the process of translating (together with Helena Kernan) his collection "Virshi z Biynytsi [Poems from the fire trench]," which was published in Ukrainian in 2023 just before he was killed. We have not published any of our translations yet. Sending you a private message.