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Author Don Winslow: "If Trump is elected in 2024, it will mean the end of democracy in the USA"
Photo: Fredrik Sandberg / TT NYHETSBYRÅN / dpa
The US bestselling author Don Winslow is on a reading tour in Germany. It was his last, he announced beforehand. The recently released thriller »City on Fire« is supposed to be the prelude to a trilogy that has already been written, after which it will be irrevocably over. Winslow wants to devote all his energies to fighting Donald Trump's re-election. DER SPIEGEL meets Winslow in Hamburg the morning after the opening reading. The writer and surfer, born in 1953, actually known for his agility and fitness, seems tired and depressed. The night before, immediately after his performance at the Altonaer Theater, he had learned about the school massacre in Texas and had hardly slept afterwards. For Democrat Winslow, incidents like the one in Uvalde are the result of lax gun laws. He doesn't want to talk about it so soon after the tragic events.
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SPIEGEL:
Mr Winslow, at the end of April you published a statement on Twitter announcing the end of your career as a writer.
"I love writing and I didn't make this decision lightly," it says, "but I will go into battle." You are fighting against Trump's re-election and giving up a lot for it - why?
Winslow:
In 2016, after Trump's election as US President, I began to agitate against Trump on Twitter.
When the Democrats won the election four years later, I thought for a moment that the battle had been won and that Trump's time was finally over.
But after January 6, 2021 at the latest, when he orchestrated the storming of the Capitol, I knew: It's not over yet.
We have arrived at an existentially important point in history.
If Trump is elected in 2024, it will mean the end of democracy in the United States.
It would be even worse than 2016 because Trump would be even more powerful, even more uncontrollable.
And he would take revenge on those he felt wronged him.
Laws, as was shown by January 6 at the latest, play no role for Trump.
He tried,
SPIEGEL:
Many, including you, had hoped that Trump would be tried for his misconduct as soon as he was no longer president.
Why hasn't this happened yet and are you still hoping for it?
Winslow:
Oh, for one, politicians don't like to go against their own kind.
Another reason is cowardice: many Democrats fear what might happen to them if Trump returns to power in 2024.
So no, I don't believe Trump will be held accountable before the next election.
SPIEGEL:
Why do you think that tweets give you a better chance of stopping Trump than literature?
Winslow:
There is a quote from Carl von Clausewitz that goes something like: "You should choose your battlefield yourself." But unfortunately that is not always possible and you have to fight the war where it is.
And today the war is taking place on social media platforms, most notably Twitter.
SPIEGEL:
It's often pretty rough on Twitter, how do you deal with that?
Winslow:
Sure, I've been threatened and insulted too.
But I have one essential requirement to survive there: I can be very
tough
.
We Democrats too often come to knife fights with spoons.
While others lie and cheat, let's be nice, reasonable, and civilized.
But it does not work.
It is said that if the opponent wants to pull you down, you should stay up yourself.
But I say: If the opponent wants to pull me down, then I'll be waiting for him down there.
SPIEGEL:
You now have more than 850,000 followers on Twitter, an impressive number for a writer.
How exactly do you want to use the medium?
Winslow:
I can't tell you that yet because who knows what will happen.
Everything changes extremely quickly in politics and on social media and I have to react to that.
I don't want to speculate what the future will bring, but one thing is clear: I want to fight for the right side to win.
And the past has shown that it is not a hopeless struggle.
For example, when I tweeted about supporting a particular candidate, I later heard from them that they actually got more campaign funds.
SPIEGEL:
Before the 2020 election, you also had videos shot and published them on the Internet, some with prominent support, which attracted a lot of attention.
Is something similar conceivable again?
Winslow:
I don't know yet.
But yes, before the election, I released a video for Pennsylvania, for which Bruce Springsteen provided us with one of his songs, and for Michigan, another one hosted by star actor Jeff Daniels.
We had around ten million views in those states, and both states narrowly voted in favor of the Democrats.
Of course, I'm not saying that we won these elections, but we had an influence on the outcome.
SPIEGEL:
When you say "we," who do you mean: Do you have a social media team?
Don Winslow:
No, I'll do it all by myself.
But the videos are produced by my agent and good friend Shane Salerno.
SPIEGEL:
You yourself are sometimes criticized for the aggressive tone of your tweets.
How much does that bother you?
Winslow:
Yes, I've been accused of increasing polarization in the US with my tweets.
But I see it differently: right and wrong are the exact opposite of each other, democracy is the opposite of autocracy.
And I should polarize by expressing my opinion?
An example: I started publicly calling Donald Trump a fascist as early as 2014 and was insulted as a radical nutcase, as a scaremonger.
And I wish I was wrong then.
SPIEGEL:
At the end of a long career, it's nice to look back.
You've been writing novels for 30 years, what were the special moments?
Winslow:
First of all, it took me a long time to break through.
My early novels, written in my thirties, earned me the stamp of cult author, which is the kiss of death for a writer who wants to make a living from his work.
Then, when I worked on Day of the Dead for five years and the novel wasn't a success, it almost ended my career.
SPIEGEL:
But in Germany, Day of the Dead was your breakthrough, wasn't it?
Winslow:
Yes, I sold more in Germany than in the US.
And maybe I would have actually given up without the success in Germany, but also in Spain and France.
My breakthrough in the US came with »Savages« and the Oliver Stone film adaptation.
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Winslow, Don
City on Fire
Publisher: HarperCollins
Number of pages: 400
Publisher: HarperCollins
Number of pages: 400
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SPIEGEL:
With "Zeit des Zorns" you changed your style again and perfected the art of brevity.
The first chapter, which only consists of the words »Fuck you«, is legendary.
How did you come up with the idea?
Winslow:
I was pissed off because my career was in a coma and I kept hearing from editors and agents that they didn't know how to market me.
So the "Fuck you" went straight in her direction.
But when I thought about who might be the sender of this curse, I suddenly wrote from the perspective of a young woman from Orange County.
That was a liberation for me and released a lot of energy.
SPIEGEL:
After "Days of the Dead," you wrote two more novels in the so-called "Cartel" trilogy. The last, "Years of the Hunter," follows the trail of Mexican drug money all the way to the Trump administration.
Why have you now decided to turn away from the present with your new trilogy?
"City on Fire", the prelude, takes place in Rhode Island in 1987.
Winslow:
I've had enough of the violence of the cartels for a long time, the research is just unbearable.
The new novels are loosely based on Homer's The Iliad, in which he tells the story of the Trojan War.
I replaced the Greeks and the Trojans with the Italian mafia and Irish gangsters.
And, like Homer, the dispute is ostensibly about a woman.
In truth, however, this war, like all wars, is about money, about power, about land.
SPIEGEL:
Why is your book set in the 1980s?
Winslow:
Because that was the time when organized crime was on the decline.
And that's what makes it interesting for me: to tell about people who see that the life they knew is coming to an end, but who don't know what else to do.
SPIEGEL:
You're talking about a gangster war in Rhode Island, the smallest state in the United States.
They grew up there until they moved away when they were 17.
How much of your own past is in »City on Fire«?
Winslow:
This novel is a very personal matter.
The story is pure fiction, but I know all the characters from it in a similar way from before, I grew up with them, hung out with them.
While my family and I weren't directly involved with organized crime, everyone knew who was involved.
Every once in a while one of my classmates would be absent for a few weeks, and although nobody spoke about it, everyone knew that the father had to go into hiding.
Sometimes life here was a bit like an episode of the mafia series The Sopranos.
SPIEGEL:
You wrote large parts of the novel in Rhode Island, on the porch of your mother's house.
How was it coming back?
Winslow:
My wife and I live near San Diego for most of the year, but have been coming to Rhode Island regularly for a long time for family reasons.
It wasn't easy for me at first.
I felt guilty about the friends I left behind at the time and for the most part it was impossible to reconnect with them, our lives had turned out too differently.
But at some point, when I was once again sitting on the beach of my childhood, where I had learned to surf at the age of four, the memories suddenly came and with them came this feeling of home.
And, getting back to where our conversation started, these three novels feel like coming full circle, which made my decision to quit writing an easier one.
SPIEGEL:
No chance of a comeback?
Winslow:
I'm 68 now and I definitely don't want to be banging around on stage like some rock stars in their mid 70's.