Emergency Powers

This isn’t a post-mortem; it’s CPR. I write to find my bearings. It’s a compulsion to look hard realities in the eye, make sense of them, and refuse to look away. Sometimes that’s a polemic or an exposé on corruption. Sometimes it’s an essay on the static of ordinary life. I am not impartial. Impartiality is the prose of those who have made their peace with transgression. I have not made mine.

I hold degrees in global politics and analytic philosophy. I began writing about autocracy and public policy in the Blogger days. In previous publications, I covered the Syrian war, reported from Za’atari, the world’s second-largest refugee camp, and traced the underground economies of global aid during the Arab Spring. I’ve interviewed figures across the political spectrum, from Karl Rove to the Weather Underground.

I stepped away from this work for some time. Then ICE trucks rolled through the streets of my city, Los Angeles. The reality of what was happening arrived on the doorstep. Some colleagues asked me to return to the keyboard. I did. How could I not? Have you read the news lately?

— Deric Mendes

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