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 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]
64:07
[Applause]
Donald Trump Jr’s BIZARRE Real Estate Deal
Investigative reporter Joe Rubin (@JoeRubinCreates, @newrepublic, @typeinvestigate) gives an inside look into Donald Trump Jr’s role in a controversial South Carolina real estate development deal. https://newrepublic.com/article/16353…
Hunter Biden Caught Soliciting $2 MILLION To Unfreeze Libyan Assets
Hunter is not selling any art he’s cleaning some money and we all know it!
Hunter Biden’s ‘art.’ That story was so offensive to real, practicing artists that have worked hard their entire lives, went to school for art, worked horrible jobs to fund our ability to create art. So gross. And of course the gallery side of the arts plays ball. This kind of stuff happens everyday in the art world. Most unregulated industry in the world.
Republicans and democrats are two royal families fighting for the throne, while the peasants pick a team to cheer for.
Corruption runs in powerful families
This kind of SH** is why “Drain the swamp” was such an effective slogan.
It doesn’t MATTER if he drained it or not, the fact is there was a swamp to drain to begin with.
I can’t wait to see how this is covered by the mainstream, national news.
Oh, wait.If only there was warning signs of the Biden family corruption…….. 🤡
This so amazing. This is BLATANT corruption, and yet these emails are so goddamn casual.
UGH. Hate this goddamn oligarchy.
Gstaad is known as a major ski resort and a popular destination amongst high society and the international jet set.
I love how it reads like it would have been more of a positive if he’d chased high class hookers instead lmao
You know you’re dealing with a real justice democrat when they don’t know how to pronounce Gstaad.
Im sure this will be CNN’s top story today right?
A lot of us knew about this before November 2020 – all this was in that laptop
Trump Confesses To Felony Bribery
Trump describes a hypothetical call to Exxon mobile in which he asks for campaign money in exchange for special treatment with permits.
Bill Barr’s Continued Manipulations: First DC US Attorney, then SDNY, Now Eastern District of NY
Bill Barr has been involved in a game of Three-Card Monte with US Attorney assignments. First, he pulled DC US Attorney Jessie Liu out of her position as top prosecutor in DC, installed a lackey, Tim Shea, who then started doing favors for Donald Trump’s criminal associates, reducing Roger Stone’s sentencing recommendation and trying to tank the Mike Flynn case altogether. Barr then tried to do the same thing to Southern District of New York US Attorney Geoffrey Berman, trying to install Jay Clayton, a non-prosecutor as the top prosecutor in SDNY. Berman had the last laugh as he both exposed Barr as lying about the claim that Berman had resigned (he hadn’t) and securing the appointment of his Deputy Audrey Strauss as SDNY Acting US Attorney. Now, Barr is at his shell game again, trying to swap a high-ranking DOJ official, Seth DuCharme, for the US Attorney at the Eastern District of New York US Attorney’s Office, Richard Donoghue. Will Barr get away with this latest game of musical chairs . . or musical US Attorneys?
Trump Campaign Secretly Paying $180,000 A Year To His Sons’ Significant Others
Lara Trump and Kimberly Guilfoyle are each receiving $15,000 per month through the campaign manager’s private company, GOP sources said, to dodge FEC rules.
President Donald Trump’s campaign is secretly paying one Trump son’s wife and another one’s girlfriend $180,000 a year each through the campaign manager’s private company, according to top Republicans with knowledge of the payments.
Kimberly Guilfoyle, the girlfriend of eldest son Donald Trump Jr., and Lara Trump, wife of middle son Eric Trump, are each receiving $15,000 a month, according to two GOP sources who are informal White House advisers and who spoke on condition of anonymity.
They were unsure when the payments began but say they are being made by campaign manager Bradley Parscale through his company rather than directly by either the campaign or the party in order to avoid public reporting requirements.
“I can pay them however I want to pay them,” Parscale told HuffPost on Friday, but then declined to comment any further.
Critics of the arrangement, including Republicans, said the setup was designed to get around Federal Election Commission rules that require campaigns, political parties and other committees to disclose their spending in detail.
“A lot of people close to Donald Trump are getting rich off of his campaign,” said Paul Ryan, a campaign finance legal expert at the watchdog group Common Cause. “They don’t want donors to know that they’re getting rich. Because, at the end of the day, it’s donor money.”
Stuart Stevens, a top aide to 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s campaign, was even more blunt: “That’s why Parscale has the job. He’s a money launderer, not a campaign manager.”
Lara Trump, 37, was a campaign “surrogate,” making appearances and conducting media interviews on behalf of her father-in-law, in the 2016 campaign and continues to participate in “Women for Trump” events as a 2020 campaign “senior adviser.” In early 2017, Parscale confirmed he had hired her to work for his company, which was, in turn, continuing to work for Trump’s campaign.
Guilfoyle, 51, has been accompanying Donald Trump Jr. to campaign events since they began dating two years ago. She had been a Fox News personality until she left the network in 2018. In January 2020, she was named chair of Trump Victory, a joint fundraising committee used to solicit and distribute money to the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee.
“She’s doing stuff, but she’s just like this silly cheerleader,” one of the White House advisers said of Guilfoyle. “She gets on these donor calls, and it’s ridiculous.”
The existence of the payments, but not the amounts, was first reported by The New York Times, which recounted a scene in which Guilfoyle confronted Parscale about why her payment checks were always late and Parscale responded that he would look into it. That incident took place June 18, 2019, at a Trump reelection rally in Orlando, Florida, suggesting that payments to Guilfoyle had been taking place for some time.
FEC rules require that campaigns, political parties and other committees disclose all expenditures, including payments to employees. But the Trump campaign and the RNC have been getting around it by routing many of their payments through Pascale’s private companies.
In all, Parscale’s firms ― Giles-Parscale and Parscale Strategy LLC ― have been paid $38.9 million by Trump’s campaign, the RNC, joint fundraising committees and a pro-Trump super PAC between the day Trump took office through February 2020, according to the latest filings available.
Numerous RNC officials and members did not respond to HuffPost queries about the arrangement. One who did, Arizona committee member Bruce Ash, wrote: “Drop dead!”
Trump funneling donor money into his children’s households builds on his practice of funneling it into his own pocket, which began in 2016, right after he became the presumptive Republican nominee and began raising large amounts of GOP money. Trump immediately quintupled the rent he was charging his campaign at Trump Tower, from $35,458 per month to $169,758. He also began billing the campaign five- and six-figure sums for use of his hotels and golf courses for hosting fundraisers.
Those practices continued after his election and through to this day. His campaign still pays Trump Tower $37,542 a month in rent, even though it is based in a high-rise office building in Arlington, Virginia. The campaign and the RNC continue to host fundraisers at Trump’s properties, putting hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time into his own cash registers.
All of those entities are owned by the Trump Organization, which in turn is owned by a trust that Trump created after his election and of which he is the sole beneficiary.
“Grift and graft is the family business,” said Robert Weissman, president of the liberal group Public Citizen.
The payments to Guilfoyle and Lara Trump may also complicate the Trump campaign’s efforts to attack presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden for accepting lucrative board memberships when his father was vice president.
Trump and his top aides in 2018 saw Joe Biden as the most dangerous threat to his reelection among the Democrats in the primary field and sought to damage his candidacy by raising questions about his son’s business activities. Indeed, Trump wound up getting impeached for trying to coerce the president of Ukraine into announcing an investigation into Hunter Biden, using $391 million in congressionally approved military aid as leverage.
Even some of the Republican senators who voted to acquit him said that what Trump did was wrong and illegal but not bad enough to warrant his removal from office.
I Have Ventilators. But, I’d Like You to do me a Favor Though. (Cartoon)
— wmjesq (@wmjesq) April 3, 2020