Masha Gessen has stared down Russian President Vladimir Putin and is currently locking horns with US President-elect Donald Trump.
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But the investigative journalist told an audience in Bendigo’s Capital Theatre tonight one of her greatest fears was a way of thinking sweeping the world – including in Bendigo.
“Conspiracy thinking is probably one of the scariest things that I’ve had to cover as a journalist,” the US-Russian writer said.
“Conspiracy thinking is what brings countries to ruin.”
Ms Gessen said the United States had witnessed a devolution of fact-based debate to one based on belief systems.
“You have one side saying ‘we believe this and facts be damned’ and you have the other side saying ‘we believe this and facts be damned’,” she said.
“That leads to autocracy – which we are now staring in the face.”
It was not the only impact the Trump election would have on Bendigo and communities around the world, she said.
“It’s the damage he’s doing to the public sphere,” Ms Gessen said.
“And its not just the American public sphere, because their public sphere influences the entire world, in particular the English-speaking world.
“You feel like you can’t always be calling something out as a lie or an absolute horror and so you slowly begin to normalise what’s happening.
“The other thing is the post-fact or no-fact reality of just using any words to mean anything … which is a way of expressing power.”
A prolific contributor to the likes of The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, Ms Gessen said the media’s failure to predict the election of Trump demonstrated a “failure of imagination”.
She described the reality-TV star turned president-elect as an “autocrat” and said the influence of Breitbart News and the role of its executive Steve Bannon in running Trump’s campaign and now his position within the White House as the beginnings of a “powerful autocratic media scheme.”
She drew comparisons to fascist movements in pre-WWII United States and spoke of the “terrible news for the world” that Trump and Putin – two “mediocre bullies” – would have their fingers on the buttons of the two biggest nuclear arsenals on the planet.
But amidst the gloom Ms Gessen struck a single chord of optimism – the outpouring of writing which had followed the US elections.
“The only thing, possibly, that gives me hope is that just incredible mobilisation of intellect that has happened,” she said.
“And that to me feels different to the other autocrats that I have experienced and it feels invigorating and it feels fascinating.
“There is the possibility of renewal, of intellectual renew, of institutional renewal – especially for the media – that is contained in that writing and that makes me very excited and interested.”
Masha Gessen’s talk ‘Donald Trump's Lessons in American Democracy’ was presented by the Wheeler Centre in partnership with Bendigo Writers Festival and La Trobe University.