Margaret Atwood: What Does U.S. Totalitarianism Look Like?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: So, what — so describe, what would fly? Because I’m honestly astounded by, again, the prescience that you wrote, because part of the crisis in “Handmaid’s Tale” started with an attack on Congress and the fallout from that. I mean, here, all these decades later, in 2021, we had an attack on Congress, and there are many who believe that the fundamental democracy of the United States is under threat. So what does totalitarianism look like in the U.S., or could?

MARGARET ATWOOD, NOVELIST AND POET: And when it arrives. Well, it’ll have a lot of God in it, and a lot of things will be done in the name of said word, that if you actually believe in some form of God — and in the latter part of that book, you would think that such a God would not indulge in these practices. I’m being very circumlocutious here. Yes. So it have a lot of God in it. It would have a lot of American flags in it. And it would have a lot of, let’s get back to the old days in it. When were those old days, and what was going on in them? So, you can’t separate anything that happens in the United States from its history of slavery and so-called Reconstruction and Jim Crow laws and segregation. That’s all very recent. So, I think the totalitarianisms of the left lead through hope: So, things are going to get much better, except we have to get rid of those people. And those of the Right lead through fear: unless you follow me and do what I say, terrible things will happen. And there’s a list of terrible things which are specific to each circumstance. But I would say, that’s how it goes. Don’t you think?

AMANPOUR: Well, it’s fascinating, again. Just really, just watching all of this unfold, things that I personally never dreamed could happen, an attack on American democracy of all places; rolling back, quote-unquote, “the woman question,” which we see right now. And again, goes to the very heart of “The Handmaid’s Tale.” And that, I don’t need to tell you, the Texas abortion law, the Mississippi abortion decisions that are about to come up, the idea that Roe versus Wade may be overturned, either in whole or in part. How — I mean, you obviously are concerned. Did you ever imagine though, that when you wrote “The Handmaid’s Tale,” this amount of reality would shape up so many decades later?

ATWOOD: OK, I’ve never believed in exceptionalism.

(LAUGHTER)

ATWOOD: I’ve never believed it can’t happen here.