Writer Sarah Kendzior reports back from a trip to the absurd theater of Donald Trump's St. Louis rally, where a click-hungry newsmedia and Midwesterners abandoned by political elites set the stage for a bizarre, contradictory spectacle reminiscent of Central Asian dictatorships.

Sarah wrote the recent articles Who won the Midwest? Not the people who live in it for the Globe and Mail and Trumpmenbashi: What Central Asia’s spectacular states can tell us about authoritarianism in America for The Diplomat.