openpolitics.com

By uncovering disturbing patterns that are as prevalent today as ever, philosopher Jacob Stanley reveals in How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them that the stuff of politics—charged by rhetoric and myth—can quickly become policy and reality. Only by recognizing fascist politics, he argues, may we resist its most harmful effects and return to democratic ideals.

For this conversation Stanley is joined by Harvard associate professor of History Elizabeth Hinton.

 

Racism makes societies vulnerable to fascism

37:36
look I’m white but it’s in my
self-interest to fight against racism
because it opens my society to fascism

Are economics responsible for fascism?

54:22
for family issues back in Ohio and I
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would go through rural Ohio but I see no
54:27
feline annex and I’d see poverty and
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nobody Cambridge you about under and and
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it wasn’t covered you know and so I
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always say follow the money and there’s
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no money in the rural areas and
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globalism works in Boston and San
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Francisco but it doesn’t seem to work in
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rural America and so I always think that
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globalism is doomed and democracy is
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doomed if they can’t figure out a way to
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put rural Americans into this economy
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that doesn’t that that doesn’t seem to
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have happened I was I was in southern
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Ohio and a family gathering in Lebanon
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Ohio and the fireman was talking to me
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in there was part of the group and he
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said he’s retiring early because he
55:13
can’t stand picking up opioid addicts in
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a little talons Ohio with 10,000 people
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he’s got a five six calls a day take
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care of over those people and people
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shooting out in cars
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so yeah and this is little little
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hometown you know Warren Ohio is dead so
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you’re raising a couple different relate
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related points but both very important
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first of all we haven’t talked much
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about political economy and I think it’s
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very important to talk about political
55:46
economy as as a factor also in the
55:50
factor in the far-right movement like
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what’s happening it’s all right now
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fascism is not fascist politics not
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being used to like buttress military
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empire as much as its used to other one
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other than Yemen and so it is but but it
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it’s being used to like funnel money
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into oligarchs hands and blah and sort
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of like throw sand in the face of people
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with genuine economic concerns but the
56:17
OPA
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I mean it’s not just the rural Midwest
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like my partner is a doctor physician in
56:23
New Haven New Haven Connecticut has a
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horrific OPA opioid problem I mean the
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pharmaceutical companies I mean they
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delivered a whole bunch of opioids to a
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lot of people and and it’s a problem
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that is the dhih industrialized areas
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I mean opiates horrific it’s like what
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60,000 deaths last year 70,000 deaths so
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so but and it’s it’s tricky figuring out
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you know Carl Hart’s work would say it’s
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it’s mainly an economic problem you
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solve people’s economic issues and
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they’re not gonna be opioid addicts but
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but but you’re you’re I mean one thing
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about the economic anxiety point is that
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if you look at who was affected by the
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Great Recession the group that was most
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affected by the Great Recession I think
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were people of color but they didn’t
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flee into the arms of fascism you know they
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didn’t start voting for or you know they
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didn’t vote for Trump so I I don’t think
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so it can’t I think that economic and
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and then you look worldwide my book is
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about the world and you look at Poland
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like the Civic Platform in Poland
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like the Civic Platform expanded the GDP
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radically Poland was doing really well
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economically and then law and justice
57:45
came in and did all these tactics and
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one look at Bavaria one of the richest
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areas in the world Bavaria is filled
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with this you say oh say offer so the
57:57
economic anxiety does not match all the
58:00
areas it can explain it can explain why
58:03
some groups in some areas fall prey to
58:06
this politics but looking
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internationally the politics gets a grip
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and even looking nationally because it
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gets a grip on some groups and not the
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other others and if you look at if you
58:19
look at and my book is about why it gets
58:21
a grip when it’s so obviously a false
58:24
promise and so in the United States when
58:26
we talk about the poor working class we
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– we – the white working class we forget
58:31
a chapter and Du Bois as black
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reconstruction is a poor white you know
58:35
we have to talk about the psychological
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wages of whiteness we have to talk about
58:39
and and the response is of course an
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economic response is a labor movement a
58:43
labor movement you know when they smash
58:46
the labor movements in the Upper Midwest
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suddenly people felt much more prey to
58:50
this kind of politics and so you know so
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I think we do face this crisis we need a
58:57
labor movement that’s why they went
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after the labor movement we’re in a
59:01
crisis after the Janice decision and and
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so we have to rebuild the labor we
59:07
wouldn’t give people economic hope I’m
59:09
not sure it’s as globalization as much
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as it’s the lack of a of a of a labor
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movement in the United States
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I mean German manufacturing is doing
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fine and German labor is doing fine
59:22
history and making history no but I
59:26
guess how do you make it known
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given that the I mean given what you’re
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talking about you know the attack on
59:34
truth the discrediting of sources the
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control of educational boards or
59:39
institutions by people who might not be
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in their interest a place you know I
59:43
mean so what I don’t know if that’s I
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mean if doing it’s having conversations
59:54
like this I mean I think it’s it’s it’s
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really up to us and this is like in
59:59
terms of thinking about what is the role
60:00
of academics right now I mean people who
60:03
do research is – it’s one I think that
60:07
qualitative research in general is just
60:09
D legitimized and it’s it’s dismissed as
60:13
not being true despite the fact that you
60:16
know my I don’t use my data doesn’t come
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from surveys it’s not in document since
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the ways in which I’m interpreting those
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documents just like it’s the ways in
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which other people are interpreting
60:27
their quantitative data and so I think
60:30
that you know right now the other kind
60:32
of struggle going on in universities is
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the growing attack in many ways on the
60:39
liberal on liberal arts in general which
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is tied to the developments that Jason
60:43
described so eloquently in the book so I
60:45
think part of it is you know doing the
60:48
work of having discussions like this
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it’s amazing that there’s so many people
60:53
here and we’re having this really engage
60:55
an important discussion that takes a lot
60:57
out of us but that’s I think part of our
61:00
responsibility as as researchers as
61:03
scholars as intellectuals to try to
61:06
write in accessible ways Jason was just
61:08
telling me that he’s been on the radio
61:10
for like ten hours this week that’s
61:13
doing the work that’s doing that
61:14
important work and I think part of the
61:17
difficulty is in many in in many
61:19
instances we we end up kind of preaching
61:21
to the choir you can only go on Berkeley
61:25
radio so many times I mean
61:29
– is also kind of moving into different
61:34
spaces where we might be less
61:35
comfortable when I get invited to speak
61:38
with libertarian or white ring groups
61:40
are I’m happy to go because knowing that
61:44
I might be walking into an abrasive
61:45
situation you know I tried to make my
61:49
book and my research as undeniable as
61:52
possible and I think the argument that
61:53
you’ve laid out in this book is also
61:55
undeniable and that’s how I think we can
61:58
begin to think about re-educating
62:01
correcting the false narratives and
62:04
erasing the untruths the mythic past
62:07
that’s been created in history is I
62:09
think really historical work is really
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key to that we don’t know how we got
62:14
here unless we really really understand
62:16
the past yeah I just want I just want to
62:23
say you know that’s why do boys ends
62:26
ends black reconstruction at the
62:28
propaganda of history and that’s why
62:29
he’s so corny and capitalizes truth you
62:32
know that’s that’s that’s what gets me
62:34
upset when people attack for instance
62:36
african-american studies as as has been
62:39
happening a lot or Gender Studies
62:41
because they’re trying to tell the
62:42
actual truth of a story that’s not told
62:45
and you know and that that’s that’s why
62:48
dude you know Dubois is always so corny
62:50
about truth see like he’s like you know
62:52
when you know erasure and erasure is
62:55
never truth you know so and of course
62:59
the backlash is always like a little bit
63:01
of like at Yale what happened the I mean
63:04
I could have told my colleagues the
63:05
English department they added googy Wafi
63:07
Unga this this goes back to you they had
63:08
a GUI hua Theon go to one course and and
63:12
there were like 20 articles from
63:14
right-wing media about how they’re
63:15
eliminating Shakespeare at Yale and it
63:18
hit them so by surprise I was like my
63:21
colleagues in the English department
63:21
like what happened what happened we’re
63:23
gonna go as death threats I’m like yeah
63:25
you added an African writer to a
63:28
required course you know so that’s the
63:32
and we we have academic administrators
63:34
here they can tell you about this but
63:36
there’s there’s you know the very ID so
63:39
true like multiple perspective
63:41
which doesn’t mean multiple perspectives
63:43
doesn’t mean there’s many truths there’s
63:45
only one truth that’s why Dubois
63:47
capitalizes it but the truth involves
63:49
you know that the Nate what happened to
63:52
the indigenous populations as well as
63:55
what happened to Dale Carnegie
64:02
[Music]
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[Applause]