We just talked live with the historian and author Heather Ann Thompson, who has a new book out this week, Fear and Fury: The Reagan Eighties, the Bernie Goetz Shootings, and the Rebirth of White Rage, which examines Goetz’s 1984 vigilante attack on four Black teenagers as a way of understanding what happened to America in the 1980s and since. Thompson talked to us about:
How the situation in Minneapolis is part of a long history we need to understand
How cities are weaponized to spread fear in people who don’t live in cities
Why Bernie Goetz was a precursor to an era of white rage
How easily villains can masquerade as victims
The rise of Zohran Mamdani, and the question of what actually makes people safe — more police or better quality of life
Why she believes that, after Minneapolis, America may be at a tipping point
If you want to understand how we got to this moment, you won’t want to miss this conversation. Just click on the video player above.
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Join us for more Live conversations this week!
Join us tomorrow, Wednesday, January 28, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern, when The Ink Book Club meets with journalists Carol Leonnig and Aaron C. Davis, the authors of Injustice: How Politics and Fear Vanquished America’s Justice Department. Then come back on Thursday, January 29, also at 12:30 p.m. Eastern, when we’ll talk with economist Paul Krugman.
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