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
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look I’m white but it’s in my
self-interest to fight against racism
because it opens my society to fascismAre economics responsible for fascism?
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for family issues back in Ohio and I
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would go through rural Ohio but I see no
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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
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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
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economy as as a factor also in the
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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
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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
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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
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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
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economic anxiety does not match all the
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areas it can explain it can explain why
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some groups in some areas fall prey to
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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
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look at and my book is about why it gets
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a grip when it’s so obviously a false
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promise and so in the United States when
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we talk about the poor working class we
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– we – the white working class we forget
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a chapter and Du Bois as black
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reconstruction is a poor white you know
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we have to talk about the psychological
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wages of whiteness we have to talk about
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and and the response is of course an
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economic response is a labor movement a
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labor movement you know when they smash
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the labor movements in the Upper Midwest
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suddenly people felt much more prey to
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this kind of politics and so you know so
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I think we do face this crisis we need a
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labor movement that’s why they went
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after the labor movement we’re in a
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crisis after the Janice decision and and
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so we have to rebuild the labor we
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wouldn’t give people economic hope I’m
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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
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history and making history no but I
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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
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truth the discrediting of sources the
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control of educational boards or
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institutions by people who might not be
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in their interest a place you know I
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mean so what I don’t know if that’s I
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mean if doing it’s having conversations
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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
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terms of thinking about what is the role
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of academics right now I mean people who
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do research is – it’s one I think that
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qualitative research in general is just
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D legitimized and it’s it’s dismissed as
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not being true despite the fact that you
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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
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their quantitative data and so I think
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that you know right now the other kind
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of struggle going on in universities is
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the growing attack in many ways on the
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liberal on liberal arts in general which
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is tied to the developments that Jason
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described so eloquently in the book so I
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think part of it is you know doing the
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work of having discussions like this
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it’s amazing that there’s so many people
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here and we’re having this really engage
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an important discussion that takes a lot
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out of us but that’s I think part of our
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responsibility as as researchers as
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scholars as intellectuals to try to
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write in accessible ways Jason was just
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telling me that he’s been on the radio
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for like ten hours this week that’s
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doing the work that’s doing that
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important work and I think part of the
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difficulty is in many in in many
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instances we we end up kind of preaching
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to the choir you can only go on Berkeley
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radio so many times I mean
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– is also kind of moving into different
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spaces where we might be less
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comfortable when I get invited to speak
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with libertarian or white ring groups
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are I’m happy to go because knowing that
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I might be walking into an abrasive
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situation you know I tried to make my
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book and my research as undeniable as
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possible and I think the argument that
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you’ve laid out in this book is also
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undeniable and that’s how I think we can
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begin to think about re-educating
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correcting the false narratives and
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erasing the untruths the mythic past
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that’s been created in history is I
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think really historical work is really
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key to that we don’t know how we got
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here unless we really really understand
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the past yeah I just want I just want to
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say you know that’s why do boys ends
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ends black reconstruction at the
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propaganda of history and that’s why
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he’s so corny and capitalizes truth you
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know that’s that’s that’s what gets me
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upset when people attack for instance
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african-american studies as as has been
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happening a lot or Gender Studies
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because they’re trying to tell the
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actual truth of a story that’s not told
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and you know and that that’s that’s why
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dude you know Dubois is always so corny
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about truth see like he’s like you know
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when you know erasure and erasure is
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never truth you know so and of course
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the backlash is always like a little bit
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of like at Yale what happened the I mean
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I could have told my colleagues the
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English department they added googy Wafi
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Unga this this goes back to you they had
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a GUI hua Theon go to one course and and
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there were like 20 articles from
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right-wing media about how they’re
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eliminating Shakespeare at Yale and it
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hit them so by surprise I was like my
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colleagues in the English department
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like what happened what happened we’re
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gonna go as death threats I’m like yeah
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you added an African writer to a
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required course you know so that’s the
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and we we have academic administrators
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here they can tell you about this but
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there’s there’s you know the very ID so
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true like multiple perspective
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which doesn’t mean multiple perspectives
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doesn’t mean there’s many truths there’s
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only one truth that’s why Dubois
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capitalizes it but the truth involves
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you know that the Nate what happened to
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the indigenous populations as well as
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what happened to Dale Carnegie
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[Music]
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[Applause]
Trump’s immigration policies have been a failure. Neither he nor Democrats have much of a solution to the current problem.
For the president, immigration is a proxy for many issues — national security, domestic security, cultural change, nationalism, even nostalgia. The president’s rhetoric inflames the left as much as it energizes his loyalists, which is exactly his purpose. Democrats oppose Trump’s policies and cry foul when he seeks to blame them. They also point out that Trump tried to use immigration during the closing weeks of last year’s midterm elections, only to see his party lose its majority in the House.
Immigration will continue to animate Trump’s core supporters and will likely be one of two pillars of his reelection campaign. The other is the economy, the issue he will look to as a bridge to other voters whose support he will need to win what looks to be an extremely competitive election. Here, too, the Democrats appear to be struggling to find their own voice on what should be a central part of a presidential campaign message.
.. The new Battleground Poll by the Tarrance Group and Lake Research Partners under the auspice of Georgetown University’s Institute of Politics and Public Service shows the president holding a clear advantage over Democrats in Congress on which party people trust to deal with the jobs and with the economy. Democrats need to narrow or reverse that margin.
As an insurance policy, Trump has already gone on the attack against the Democrats on the economy, playing the “socialism” card. He has seized on Democratic proposals for a Medicare-for-all health-care plan and a Green New Deal, both of which in their most expansive iterations would require a heavy dose of government intervention and regulation, warning of dire consequences to the economy.
Candidates like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) have economic messages built around populist us vs. them themes, including attacks on big corporations and wealthy individuals. Their platforms contain the broad promise to rebalance the economic scales in favor of middle- and working-class Americans, in part through a variety of new taxes on those corporations and wealthy individuals. Warren in particular has offered a fresh list of detailed policies.
Most of the Democratic presidential candidates favor new taxes on the wealthy. But at this stage, most haven’t really said how they would pay for what they propose. The Democrats are often more focused on other issues than on the centrality of the economy in the lives of voters. Another sign of a lack of consensus in the party is the inability of House Democrats to agree on the outlines of a new budget.
The president has begun to set the themes for his reelection campaign. Democrats have vowed not to make the mistakes in 2016 of focusing too much on Trump’s fitness to be president. But they can’t ignore legitimate questions about how they would govern — or how they will credibly respond to the president’s attacks on his issues of choice.
Putin’s Medieval Dreams
As much of the world makes amends for social and political injustices of the past, Russia is lionizing its despots, raising statues to the worst of them. Behind this phenomenon is an ultra-nationalist brand of conservatism that seeks to take Russian politics back to the Middle Ages.
The Economics of Dirty Old Men
About washing machines: The legal basis of the new tariff is a finding by the United States International Trade Commission that the industry has been injured by rising imports. The definition of “injury” is a bit peculiar: The commission admitted that the domestic industry “did not suffer a significant idling of productive facilities,” and that “there has been no significant unemployment or underemployment.” Nonetheless, the commission argued that production and employment should have expanded more than it did given the economy’s growth between 2012 and 2016 (you know, the Obama-era boom Trump insisted was fake).
.. Everything we know about the Trump administration suggests that hurting renewables is actually a good thing from its point of view. As I said, this is an administration of dirty old men.
.. Over all, there are around five times as many people working, in one way or another, for the solar energy sector as there are coal miners.
.. Last fall, Rick Perry, the energy secretary, tried to impose a rule that would in effect have forced electricity grids to subsidize coal and nuclear plants. The rule was shot down, but it showed what these guys want. From their point of view, destroying solar jobs is probably a good thing.
.. what’s good for the Koch brothers may not be good for America (or the world), but it’s good for G.O.P. campaign finance. Partly it’s about blue-collar voters, who still imagine that Trump can bring back coal jobs. (In 2017 the coal industry added 500, that’s right, 500 jobs. That’s 0.0003 percent of total U.S. employment.)
.. It’s also partly about cultural nostalgia: Trump and others recall the heyday of fossil fuels as a golden age
.. But I suspect that it’s also about a kind of machismo, a sense that real men don’t soak up solar energy; they burn stuff instead.
.. You shouldn’t even call it protectionism, since its direct effect will be to destroy far more jobs than it creates. Plus it’s bad for the environment. So much winning!
While much of the world is busy dismantling monuments to oppressors, Russians are moving in the opposite direction, erecting statues to medieval warlords who were famous for their despotism. Understanding this revival can shed light on the direction of Russia’s politics.
In October 2016, with the endorsement of Russia’s culture minister, Vladimir Medinsky, the country’s first-ever monument to Ivan the Terrible was unveiled in the city of Orel. A month later, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the leader of the ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, called for Lenin Avenue in Moscow to be renamed Ivan the Terrible Highway. And in July of this year, President Vladimir Putin christened Moscow’s own tribute to the tyrant, declaring, erroneously, that “most likely, Ivan the Terrible never killed anyone, not even his son.”
Most historians agree that Ivan lived up to his name; not only did he kill his son and other relatives, he also ordered the oprichnina, the state-led purges that terrorized Russia from 1565 to 1572. He also presided over Russia’s defeat in the Livonian War, and his misrule contributed to the Time of Troubles and the state’s devastating depopulation.
.. Joseph Stalin initiated the modern cult of Ivan the Terrible. But, since the mid-2000s, Russia’s Eurasia Party – a political movement led by the pro-fascist mystic Alexander Dugin – has moved to position Ivan as the best incarnation of an “authentic” Russian tradition: authoritarian monarchy.
Dugin’s brand of “Eurasianism” advocates the embrace of a “new Middle Ages,” where what little remains of Russian democracy is replaced by an absolute autocrat. In Dugin’s ideal future, a medieval social order would return, the empire would be restored, and the Orthodox church would assume control over culture and education.
.. Eurasianism, which was marginal in the 1990s, has gained considerable popularity in recent years by contributing to the formation of the so-called Izborsky Club, which unites the Russian far right.
.. Putin has referred to Eurasianism as an important part of Russian ideology
.. members of the Eurasia Party, who consider political terror the most effective tool of governance and call for a “new oprichnina” – a staunchly anti-Western Eurasian conservative revolution. According to Mikhail Yuriev, a member of the political council of the Eurasia Party and author of the utopian novel The Third Empire, the oprichniks should be the only political class, and they should rule by fear.
.. Cultural vocabulary is also reverting. For example, the word kholop, which means “serf,” is returning to the vernacular, a linguistic devolution that parallels a troubling rise in Russia’s modern slavery. Data from the Global Slavery Index show that more than one million Russians are currently enslaved in the construction industry, the military, agriculture, and the sex trade. Moreover, serf “owners” are also happily identifying themselves as modern-day barins.
.. Nostalgia for serfdom compliments the desire for a return to autocracy.
.. Putin’s tacit support for the Eurasian vision of a neo-medieval Russia invokes the historical memory of Stalinism. According to Dugin, “Stalin created the Soviet Empire,” and, like Ivan the Terrible, expresses “the spirit of the Soviet society and the Soviet people.” No wonder, then, that monuments to Stalin, too, are multiplying in Russian cities.
.. Neo-medievalism is rooted in nostalgia for a social order based on inequality, caste, and clan, enforced by terror.
The lionization of historical despots reflects the contemporary embrace of such pre-modern, radically anti-democratic and unjust values. For Ivan’s contemporary champions, the past is prologue.