While reporting on the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, Chris Hayes was struck by the sight of police teargassing unarmed residents in their own backyards. It was an injustice, yes, but also a quintessentially American one. “I started thinking about what an outrage that was in the most basic ‘Don’t tread on me’ sense,” says the bespectacled 38-year-old, who began his career as a freelance writer for the Reader and whose MSNBC show All In With Chris Hayes is currently one of the few clear-eyed sources of news analysis in the morass of cable television.
In A Colony in a Nation you draw a comparison between colonial America and today’s police state.
He had a bit of a longing for despotism in him.
Cops are made to play so many different roles in our society: they’re social workers, agents of conflict resolution, therapists. Don’t we give too many duties to certain professionals, especially police and teachers?
Exactly.
Donald Trump has frequently invoked Chicago for political gain.
Fri 3/31, 11:30 AM, Union League Club, 65 W. Jackson, 847-446-8880, ulcc.org, $42
