“What Most Americans Want” with Andrea Pitzer

The writer who wrote the definitive global history of concentration camps explains how this could be our moment to escape authoritarianism

Andrea Pitzer’s book ONE LONG NIGHT became essential reading during Donald Trump’s presidency. This unforgettable global history of concentration camps provided clarity and context to the crimes the Trump administration was committing at the border in our names.

Now, Pitzer is back with a gripping new newsletter, Degenerate Art, and a warning about what could come next.

“In terms of what I've looked at in my own work from history, what I have found is that often, somewhere between three and five years after an authoritarian personality comes to power, there's kind of an inflection point or a moment when it could all almost be stopped,” she told us.

Pitzer explained what this inflection point means and why we can be optimistic that the American public might take advantage of this moment. She also provides crucial clarity about how Donald Trump became possible in the United States, how he would be worse the next time around, and what sort of atrocities we should expect if he and allies like Stephen Miller and Project 2025 seize power again.

And when one of the world’s leading authorities on concentration camps tells you that propaganda works, we better believe her.

Thanks for listening to these podcasts if you have. You can follow and support my work here at IKnowHowMuchYouCare.com.

ROUGH TRANSCRIPT

Jason Sattler: If Donald Trump was so dangerous, than how come the consequences, weren't worse the first time around. And that's the question Ezra Klein asked in his longer piece called "What's wrong with Donald Trump?" And that's the question I'm going to ask you. 

If Donald Trump was so dangerous, then how come the consequences weren't worse the first time around?

Andrea Pitzer: Well, Ezra Klein can be a really smart guy and so I'm a little baffled, honestly, by that statement from him. Because after I saw that, I just sat and thought, for a minute. I didn't even have to go look anything up and I'm remembering, the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville when Heather Heyer died. I'm thinking of the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting. I'm thinking of the incredibly botched COVID 

 and that medical authorities have assessed hundreds of thousands of deaths that were completely unnecessary because of Trump policies. I'm thinking back to the very beginning of the administration with the Muslim ban that they tried to put in place. And it was really only, I think the sudden and surprising willingness of people to go put their bodies on the line and show up at airports made them rethink that maybe this wasn't going to go as smoothly as they thought. All of those things happened. And that's just off the top of my head in 20 seconds here. But all those things that happened in a country where we had a Supreme Court that was much more willing to at least put a fig leaf over jurisprudence and rule of law. 

And so I think to assume, (A), that nothing bad happened when we have a really long laundry list of horrific things that they tried to do, some of which they achieved, and some of which they were stymied in, but (B), that we're operating in the same situation is a foolish assumption to make because we know that we aren't. Everything about Project 2025 and Stephen Miller and mass deportations, every indication they've given is that they plan to come out of the box, do all the unfinished business from before and do far worse.

Jason Sattler: What was Donald Trump's agenda when it came to immigration the first time around? And what did he achieve that was kind of out of the norms of American history? 

Andrea Pitzer: Um... 

Jason Sattler: ...recent American history, I guess...

Andrea Pitzer: I do want to make sure that I say one thing up front, and cause this is relevant for the election too, which is that we have a lot of problems that predate Donald Trump. And then you don't get a Donald Trump without there being some pretty systemic problems. And I would say the immigration is one of those areas that, I would frame it that mostly the right have kind of radicalized their position on it, and they have managed to successfully force the left, sometimes a very willing left, to use it as a political football. So there seems to be very little interest overall in solving that problem long term, and a lot of interest in the right in using it as a political football, and a lot of avoidance on the left of wanting to deal with it so that they don't get the, you know, the football pulled away or whatever metaphor we want to use here. But into it, I would say that what Donald Trump did that was new was this idea of a Muslim ban, which of course, then later he said, "Well, it wasn't supposed to be a Muslim ban. It was countries that had terrorists. Well, just so happened that all but one of the countries on this list was a predominantly Muslim country." And they colloquially used the term "Muslim ban" all the time. So it was this. Really, um, transparent attempt to label one group of people on the basis of religion as undesirable entrants into the American system under any circumstances. And I think that while we look back at, you know, older immigration history and American history, certainly an intolerance of foreigners and reaction against them... I mean, this is part of our national heritage, unfortunately. That's what Trump is tapping into. But to just do away with any serious attempt to identify people who have actually done something bad and just label an entire group of people as dangerous and a threat and that we would bring the force of law against them was a shocking step.

I would also say it's easy to forget the border actions that were taken and the ramp up in border detention. Again, only possible because we have really bad policies in place that had moved away from releasing people on parole and had moved to a more detention focused approach in certain settings. It was only because we had that in place that Trump had something to use the way that he did, but it was clear he ramped it up in a way that not only went beyond what presidents before him had done, but shocked even sort of the conscience of everyday Americans who are seeing this stuff on television, that we're separating families, we are locking people up. And one of the things I remember pointing out when this was going on during Trump's term was we were refusing vaccinations to people who were in these incredibly unsanitary and unsafe detention settings literally behind fencing and shoved together and not getting clean, maybe not good air circulation. And that was something that literally the first time we operated anything that was called a concentration camp, which is what those border camps were compared to, was a hundred years ago in the Philippines during occupation. And we vaccinated the people that were there. And so the idea that we gave them soap and we vaccinated people a hundred years ago, and that we wouldn't do this under Trump in this setting, I think just showed that these weren't even policies that somehow a majority of Americans had embraced or were pushing for. This was like a punitive expedition. 

I think that idea of punishment is really at the heart of Trump's first administration. And I think even more punishment is what he's promising when he comes in, picking out the vulnerable groups that he has identified as somehow the problem for America and trying to turn his followers and the rest of the country against them in a way that gets him power. I mean, that's literally what it does. And unfortunately, across history, a lot of different groups have been vulnerable to it, and Americans maybe like to think of themselves, I certainly like to think of myself as immune from some of those pleas and calls, and I think what we're seeing in a second potential Trump term is propaganda works and vilifying people works. It isn't something people automatically do. It isn't human nature, but we're vulnerable to it when you have a demagogue that sort of trots this stuff out, and that's what we're watching.

Jason Sattler: Have to say, this is what worries me most on immigration. Our argument has become "We tried to pass. Trump's bill."

Andrea Pitzer: They don't want this problem solved. It is too useful to them. 

But I think we have to be careful in saying that Republicans don't want any resolution to the immigration situation because it's easy then to recall the rhetoric around abortion, where people said for years, "Oh, Republicans don't really want to get rid of abortion. It's too useful to them as a political tool." And the answer was it was useful them to as a political tool, and whether they meant for it to happen or not, they either drove it that direction or unleashed the forces that took it that way, and that's what happened.

So that's also my answer when we start talking about immigration, because you do see some people that will say, "Oh, he's not really going to do mass deportation of millions and millions of people. We don't really have the infrastructure for it. It's just campaign talk." 

And so anybody that's saying that to you, I think you have to make sure you remember, that's exactly what was said about overturning Roe v. Wade. That was exactly what was said about abortion, and it did happen. And so I think that if a second Trump administration came in, we have to assume that everybody has been on board with this. We have Heritage Foundation, Project 2025, the Republican GOP platform, Trump, Miller... you know, everything has lined up.

This is the one issue that all of them agree what needs to happen. And I think we have to assume we would be looking at "a round your neighbors up" crisis. 

I think immigration, unfortunately, maybe something that Harris couldn't have gone out on a limb on in this time, this short time that she's been a candidate. But it grieves me deeply and also infuriates me that this is where we're at as a country that we would have to cede ground on something like "don't create detention camps and round up your neighbors for something..." These are not criminals that we're talking about. In any group of millions, of course, you'll find a few, but overwhelmingly, they are people like you and me, and that this should be their fate because of an American system that drew them here is ridiculous. But this is the moment we're in. 

Jason Sattler: How would a Trump first term be different than the second term? Is it possible for it to accelerate?

Andrea Pitzer: I think that the overwhelming odds are that it would accelerate. I mean, we just have to look realistically at it in a few different ways. 

First we can look at it from the standpoint of what are they saying that they're going to do? Right. And they are already saying that Um, for instance, Miller has talked about that they made a real effort to denaturalize some people that had become American citizens before, but that program was kind of stalled.

He's already said on social media, in interviews that they're planning to revive that and expand it. So not just deportation of people who don't who are here without papers, although the numbers they give you are more than the actual population people that are here without papers, millions more.

So the question becomes, even by their own admission, "Who are they planning to deport?" Lots and lots of people, not necessarily just people without documents, but also actively, uh, taking some people who have American citizenship and stripping them of it. And then I'm sure that there are people say, well, those would just be edge cases, maybe somebody lied on their application, maybe. But if you listen to Trump, Trump is talking about protesters. He's talking about journalists. All these people that are clearly targets to him. We can't assume that those groups won't become targets. I don't think they will all become targets overnight. I think it will take a little bit of time, but there's no reason to assume that there would be any delay in starting, at least the efforts toward mass deportation, which I think would get hobbled and stuck very quickly, but that wouldn't keep them from dumping hundreds of thousands and millions more people into that same mess. It doesn't have to be a functioning system. 

So I think the way it would accelerate first of all, is you would see a flawed and non functional deportation machine that would wreck the lives and communities all over the country coast-to-coast. I think you would see efforts to denaturalize people. 

And again, these are the things they're saying. I'm just starting with the things that they're saying. 

We are seeing these efforts from state attorneys general about girls and the potential for teen mothers and them wanting to not have their state demographics reduced by having teen girls have access to birth control and abortion care. I mean, really weird arguments that are just creepy and being used in strange ways to go along with calling IVF into question. I mean, just think of even a year or two ago how weird all these things would sound. And they sound freakish now, but they sound more possible now that we are seeing some bands upheld in terms of these early abortion bans. We're seeing other ones kind of put on hold. 

There's clearly a stasis in the system that I think is sort of waiting to see what is going to be happening. And I don't think they're necessarily waiting just on the presidential election. But, we're at a tipping point on reproductive rights in America and the strangeness of Vance's rhetoric around this, and, and realistically the likelihood of Trump making it through a four year term, I think is, you know, I would give it less than 50, 50 odds. I'm not an actuary, so don't hold me to that professional call. But I think that age-wise and health-wise, he seems like he's mentally declining. We have to be considering that Vance has really, really extreme, even more extreme than Trump, rhetoric on reproductive issues. So there are going to be a lot of opportunities made for that to get a lot worse. And that is one of the areas in which the Supreme Court seems most willing to go the direction that the Trump/Vance administration would want to go. 

So you've got immigration. You've got reproductive rights.

One thing I think is critical long term that's just a disaster is the Chevron case being overturned. And so as a result, the idea that even under a Democratic president or a more reasonable Republican president--if we can imagine such a thing anymore --that there would be any environmental restrictions or regulations on what happens is going to pretty much vanish. Because that idea of regulatory expertise being a defining factor in making these judicial decisions has been thrown away. And so now, even in an administration that wants to do those things, I think it's going to be much, much harder to protect the environment, to deal with climate change. 

And then under a Trump administration, I think it's pretty much all gone. I think it's going to be one of the easiest areas to undo 50 years of serious environmental work. And it unfortunately would be taking place at the exact moment that we need to be buckling down on dealing with climate issues to try to preserve as much as possible a climate that we can still live reasonably comfortably inside. I mean, we're really getting close to some, some tipping points. Some of them we've already passed. There's still a lot we could do under a Trump administration thing. I don't think those things would be done. 

So that's just what they're saying. That's just a few things. 

In terms of what I've looked at in my own work from history, what I have found is that often, somewhere between three and five years after an authoritarian personality comes to power, there's kind of an inflection point or a moment when it could all almost be stopped. And there's a real debate whether they're going to continue with camps, whether they're going to try to work inside a real legal model. And it's not necessarily a super-rational, obvious debate, but looking at the example's history, you can kind of always find this moment where that's the case. And I have been sort of wondering if... In my mind, I'm thinking we had the four years of Trump and then Biden came in, and it's a close call, right? We were kind of could have gone either way. The election, unfortunately, after four years, it didn't make it more obvious to people, which was heartbreaking, but that was the reality, but they did go with Biden. So there was what you hope is a hard reset, but which might just kind of be a pause. And I worry that a second Trump administration would be, even with that four year interruption, what I've seen more in the past, which is there's this kind of inflection point and then the society just tips fully over into largely unbridled authoritarian rule.

Now we do still have some functioning courts in the country. There is still some independence. I think it's really critical for listeners to not be hopeless, because I want to be clear as much as I'm saying scary things. I want you to be thinking about those things, but also in almost all these situations that I've looked into, people could not do street protests. People could not have a legit vote. People could not speak against the government. People were being assassinated left and right and jailed. So in a lot of these settings. It was at tremendous risk that people tried to preserve the better parts of their institutions. And right now in the U.S., there is still a lot we can do. Certainly, voter suppression is a serious problem. There are certain communities in which it is less safe to speak up, but I would say the majority of Americans that are concerned about this can actively do a ton of stuff, and it doesn't require anybody to be a hero.

I mean, that's the great thing. If we can elect Kamala Harris, we immediately wipe out the, let's say, the worst 60 to 70 percent of the problems facing us become much more workable, much more feasible to handle. There will be paths by which we don't even have to invent the paths by which to handle them. I mean, there's a lot that can be dealt with just by bringing her in and the remainder of things, which are still quite serious, Gaza, immigration. And there are other things that we've talked about. I think that some of the reasons that people are still so tempted by Trump, and I don't want to buy into the economic anxiety argument... Clearly, there's racism. There's a tremendous amount of things. But by not feeling plugged into a community that everyone supports and cares about, I think for a lot of low income people of every race and every background, background, ethnicity people feel shut out from the political process. And I think there are ways to bring them in. 

But you don't even have to do heroic stuff. You can send postcards. You can help with get out the vote efforts. You can make sure your relatives are voting. You can, where it's legal, give people rides to vote that need to go vote. There's still a lot of stuff that's not sexy and doesn't make the headlines of newspapers, you won't be the hero of the election, but it can make a real difference, particularly if you can do that work in swing states.

And I know you've done so much stuff toward promoting the local races, because honestly, if we're going to have a country that isn't susceptible to Trumpism, it has got to be that we are more engaged at the grassroots level that we are making sure that the people who are going to be in books aren't on the school board to start with. And then they don't rise through and then become mayors and council people and then they don't run for Congress. I mean, the Tea Party was a really successful operation in that way that it took those local races with dark money and awful people--it wasn't done community rising in its own, it was an outside operation--but that idea that they understood you have to build something from the community up. What we're seeing right now is the fruition of that. And I think that to counter Trumpism and any of those kinds of forces that are always there, but in the background in America, we need to have that kind of down ballot races and community organization that is going to have people feel like they have a political role close to home. And then the national race becomes just a reflection of that. 

Whereas right now, I think it's completely flipped. Everybody feels strongly and polarized about the national thing. 

I bet you that honestly, even with the deep racism and the deep discord that's been sown, when you look at those, at the polls at YouGov and different places on actual policies, there is still a tremendous agreement among a lot of Americans about policies that 50, 60, 70 or more percent of people want, but national politics is so polarized that the people voting for Trump don't even realize that they're shutting themselves off from those policies they actually want.

Jason Sattler: I have to tell you the moment that I realized I have to speak to you was watching the RNC and seeing people hold up placards that said mass deportation. The main thrust of this convention was, we are going to deport, as you mentioned, not just the 11, 12 million that people assess that are not documented in the United States.

 Sometimes gets up to 30 million of people that they want to deport. Speaking of an inflection point in american history, has there ever been a point like this where there's a chance the public could completely validate mass deportation?

Andrea Pitzer: Yeah, I think it was shocking and it should be shocking. I'm really disappointed it wasn't more shocking to more people. I mean, it definitely, um, raised eyebrows a lot of places, but I think it's the kind of thing that ought to be met nationwide with revulsion. And so it's always disappointing when people don't have that response to active dehumanization and threats against, like, a large group of people who are civilians like you and me and are, in fact, our neighbors.

This is a cudgel that has been used in America again and again, and we haven't seen a televised sort of joy fest over it, but you think back to lynching parties, you think back to Chinese Exclusion Act and anti-Irish actions and anti-Italian actions, every new group that has come In on a wave in America and been the dominant immigrant group for a time has been treated this way, but unfortunately, our modern media gives us a chance to see the ugliness of how that is applied. Because it's never an organic thing. It is always powerful interest, motivating a specific group by accusing these newcomers of being the threat. I don't want to be sentimental at all because, um. I think sentiment is super dangerous, and I read somewhere that people always think their childhood was the best time. I had a horrible, horrible childhood, but when I think of America in my childhood, I am 56 years old, so I was basically a kid in the 70s and a teenager in the 80s. And so I was a kid when the 200th anniversary, the bicentennial of the revolution was celebrated. And I got to tell you, I grew up in West Virginia, which is not a lefty state and, and, you know, has its share of racism and other issues and economic anxiety for sure. And at the same time, what I remember getting at school and being in the community. And it wasn't like a hippie dippy house that I grew up in or anything either was like immigrants are awesome. Immigrants built the country and so even though in the research that I've done I know all these historical episodes where anti immigration sentiment was strong and sometimes quite violent in the U. S. and certainly around the world in other countries with their own immigration challenges. But my baseline was that America thought of immigrants as, I mean, I just kind of can't let go of that childhood moment I was reared in.

And I was like, was I really the only person that believed this? I don't think so. 

I just think that we There has been such a relentless beating on this topic for decades, and I think that Americans, instead of turning to the people who have gotten the massive tax cuts to the billionaires that whose whims are shaping our defense industry right now, our car industry, how we receive our retail goods. Our lives have been reshaped by these billionaires that have been created by the changes in the tax code cuts. And yet the message that's being sent to the people that are disenfranchised by the new robber barons, if you will, is the same one, which is, "It's this new guy. He's your real problem, right?" And the willingness of people to buy that is sometimes like infuriating to me because I feel like, "Don't you know, they're seeing you as a sucker, right? But one of the other lessons that comes out of all this research that I've done is I firmly believe that No matter how smart a population is, no matter how informed a population is, if there is a relentless subjugation to propaganda that comes to dominate the community in which they receive information, over time, propaganda wins. It does not win automatically. It actually has to change the feelings, the lens through which people see it, the degree to which they think their neighbors agree with them. It takes time. It takes years to do all that. But on the immigration issue, we've had 30 years or more via Fox via Rush Limbaugh-style radio programming, and I think that it, it has warped the sensibilities.

And I know a lot of people think, "Well, I would never fall for something like that. And I, the real case example for me, and I know not everybody will agree with this, and it might actually upset some of your viewers, but is that, to watch what happened in England with transphobia and the journalism coverage of it and that The Guardian seemed to buy into this for a time. And so that friends of mine, well educated, smart people, informed about the world, but they were bathed for a few years in a row of this idea that trans men were a threat to women. It was shocking to me that the degree to which it worked because I like, this was my cohort, right? And I liked to think I'm not vulnerable to this stuff. But what that was to me, to see how many of them came out as willing to then sort of be adjacent to white supremacists and like awful people, people saying awful, awful things because they came to feel so strongly that this trans issue was a real one that had to be addressed and that there was some serious danger from it, really led me to believe that I, myself, and anybody else in those same circumstances, that propaganda is going to do it. And I still believe in free press and, and I don't, I'm not a fan of censorship, but I think we have to build more robust media structures. We have to find ways to reach these parts of the community that are going with these bro influencers that are just toxic, awful people. And I don't think that there's easy solutions to that. I still feel like Fairness Act and dark money in politics. I still think that there are some legal avenues we have to figure out how to deal with long-term. But in the short-term again, what you're doing, I think, is the critical thing, focusing on these down ballot races and what's happening close to your home.

You or I alone are not going to decide whether Trump or Harris becomes president next. But there's a lot that we could do to change things on a smaller basis. And it's shocking how sometimes just five or six motivated people in the community can completely change , whether it's school board or city council stuff. Because there's just not a lot of people and there's almost no coverage of that stuff in journals anymore because journalism has been bled dry.

Jason Sattler: Of course, we see the dark side now of that whole small group of thoughtful, or at least committed individuals who can change the world. When we see that these book bans, that's like six people who reported all the books. 

Andrea Pitzer: Reporting like 100

books. filling out on 100 books that they obviously didn't even read.

That is something you can find a way to tackle at your local level. That is on its surface ridiculous. Even a right-leaning city council confronted with this is who's filing the things can be embarrassed into doing the right thing. I don't know if you saw the post I did, but I was trying to say journalism can't solve everything. I had been talking about how journalism needs to do more, but also journalism can't solve everything. And the Washington Post a story about the mid-level CIA analyst that triggered the first Trump impeachment by talking about the content of the phone call with Trump's phone call with Vladimir Zelensky. And it was amazing to me that he began to feel like he had to come forward with this, even though he didn't see himself as a whistleblower. And the report he wrote went to Michael Atkinson, I think, was the name. And he was a Trump appointed intelligence community Inspector General. Trump appointed. But he got this and he's looking at the regulations about like what qualifies as like an offense. Right? And he's like, yeah, this seems cool. And so he moves it along and he does, you know, he's Trump appointed, but he moves it along. I do think when, in the end, he gets fired, which is like, the guys at the lowest levels don't get fired. did the right thing, right? It was when it came up higher, when you got to the Senate, when you got to people in charge, they were the ones who should have been coming forward sooner and didn't. So it did not work out. Even though it came to impeachment eventually, it was stymied by forces above him. But these two guys did the right thing, two people you wouldn't expect to necessarily be the ones out blowing the whistle in a public way. 

I do think that even among Trump minded people in small towns and areas... And I say this is again, somebody out of West Virginia. I have Trump supporters in my family. I don't understand certain things about them. I certainly have tried to conduct rational discussions in ways that I think are really difficult to have once people are Trump voters. And yet I do not think a majority of Americans... And I don't just mean this as my opinion, I mean this literally looking at history, typically it is not a majority of people that want these bad outcomes. There's maybe a quarter of the population that becomes really invested in punishing immigrants, in keeping women's choices restricted, and these kinds of things. But it is never the majority.

What has to happen is this kind of mushy middle has to be made so afraid and so confused by what's happening that they are willing to go along. So I think that the interruption point that we as regular people can do in this system is to help keep that mushy middle uncomfortable and not sort of easing into believing in somebody that's going to keep you safe, when it's very clear that that's not what's happening. And I say that not just because I think they're not committed and that's why we should target them. But also, I don't think that 25%, again, I'm making just a ballpark number there that's committed to Trump policies, that wants to see somebody punished, that would actually rather live under an authoritarian system... I don't think they're going to change their mind because the appeal is so deep that by the time they have that world, it reinforces some need for them, whether it's just kind of how they're wired, whether it's environment, whether it's how their parents were... We can argue about where that authoritarian desire comes from. But once they're in that, my sense is it's extremely difficult to lead. And you could spend the effort it would take to move 10 mushy middle people into a saner place without ever getting one Trump person. When I say we have to deal with this, we have to talk to these people. We I am not saying go out and find a Trump voter and try to talk them out of it because my experience is it's not going to work.

And again--with family members, with people, I know--that it is not going to work. But what I have found is that when people are exposed to other information in a low-key ongoing way, especially if for some reason they were Fox News watchers and they're not anymore something. Like a partner dies and then suddenly they're not watching Fox News.

I'm thinking of the woman in Georgia--I don't know if you saw that who didn't vote her r whole life. She's 81 and she kind of always wanted to. But her husband didn't want her to. And maybe didn't vote himself. But she really was excited to, and she came out and voted. I mean, if we just went out and got the widowed women, honestly, who may have been watching Fox News for the last 50 years, and their husbands have died, I'm not saying go out and market to these people, because would be ghoulish... But there are whole population groups like that, that I think are still willing to be participants with better information in a democracy. 

Not only is important not to leave those people behind. I think we actively need them on board to like to build the country that you and I at least want to live in. And honestly, I think that they want to live in too. Again, a lot of the policies we're talking about are ones that most Americans want. They want some more sensible gun control. They don't want the courts telling women what to do with their bodies. I mean, we see this clearly again and again. And in fact, immigration is fascinating because even as of June in Pew research--which routinely does polling, so they have like a history of this--59 percent of Americans, in June, wanted people without papers who were here to be able to find a way to stay here. So whether they were for or against immigration, they thought the people who were here. But now you're seeing these polls on mass deportation, and it's so clear that the way you present the question is critical. And so when the question is done pejoratively, if "You want these illegals out" people are like, "Yes!" And it just shows you that there's a tremendous lack of information. If you said to them, "Do you want the construction industry ground to a halt? Do you want your neighbors to be subject to midnight raids? Do you want a service industry in America? Do you want your sister in law deported? People would say no. And of course, they're not going to ask the question in that counter pejorative way either. But even on what seemed like the most incendiary questions, I think that the majority of people actually want a more reasonable country than Trump is presenting by a long shot.

Jason Sattler: i've taken too much of your time so I will hold my Nabokov question to hopefully we speak again. One of the more fascinating things about your history is that that's how you came to write about concentration camps, which I learned the last time I spoke to you. Your books are fascinating and wonderful and not just about concentration camps and not just about Nabokov, also about the Arctic. Beautiful in every way. And I really thank you for your time.

Andrea Pitzer: Thank you so much for having me on. 

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