Handmaid’s Tale author Margaret Atwood says it’s time to 'worry' for America

Canadian author Margaret Atwood turned 86 last week and is unafraid of speaking out about her southern neighbor.

The Guardian served a host of fans the opportunity to swap words with the author of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” which is now an acclaimed streaming series. And in those exchanges Atwood shared the same lingering trepidation that molded her emblematic series into the rallying cry that it is today.

When asked by a fan what she would do were she American, Atwood answered: “now, this very minute, I’d be worrying a lot about my country. Is it a democratic world leader on a steep slide into autocracy?”

Another fan asked why we keep electing “psychopaths” to office, to which the author of the “Book of Lives” said sometimes voters get waylaid by bad information.

“Quite often, in elections, people are not given the choice of something they actually want. So they vote, not for the best, but for the one they think will be the least worst. Not surprisingly, they sometimes get it wrong. And in an age of disinformation (see 18th-century political pamphleteering, just for a fun comparison) the possibility of deciding on the basis of accurate information may be pretty low.”

When asked if women and human society would ever be able to truly “topple patriarchy” Atwood was more concerned with women being able to “hold the line – the line on one side of which women don’t have jobs, money or political rights; and on the other side of which they do?”

The hypocrisy of the Trump era was another phenomenon needing address. While hypocrisy “has been a constant factor in human societies,” Atwood said there are high and low points, but now “we are seeing the greatest democracy of modern times turning away from these ideals, the ideals are looking better as aspirations than they have for a while.”

“What will we do and who will we be without them?” she asked.

Like the world of the “Handmaids Tale,” Atwood was unsure if U.S. democracy could last.

“I don’t know. But America is a large and very diverse country. It will be hard to make all the Americans line up and salute without killing a lot of people,” she said. “And the armed forces — as we have just been reminded — take an oath to the Constitution, not to an individual. It’s a bit like fairies in Peter Pan. Democracy will die if you don’t believe in it. (But so will money.)”

She added, however, that “more hopeful turns are always possible — except at the moment when you’ve been pushed out a window.”

“[T]there is no ‘inevitable course of history’. And yes, individuals have made a difference. And can still do so. (Though at what cost?)”

Read the Guardian report at this link.