Use the f-word

Philosopher Jason Stanley talks about why fascists have mounted an attack on education, why universities haven't fought back, and how to resist

Yale philosopher Jason Stanley — whose expertise is in analytic philosophy and the use of language — has spent much of his time over the past eight years explaining why the best word to describe the rightward turn in contemporary politics is the obvious one: “fascism.”

Stanley’s 2020 book, How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, build on his previous academic work on the politics of language to put the new far right in historical context for a readership and citizenry that had — even when faced with the rise of illiberal leaders across the big democracies — been afraid to call fascism by its name. Stanley is back with a new volume, Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future, that digs deeper into the concepts he explored four years ago, explaining the far-right attack on education in the U.S. as part of a central fascist strategy to nip dissent in the bud and recast the meaning of citizenship itself.

The book puts in clear — and often challenging — context the battles over affirmative action, the widespread attempts by Moms for Liberty and related groups to take over school boards and control library access, the university crackdowns on students protesting the war in Gaza, and the congressional hearings that have since led to the ousters and resignations of multiple university leaders. It’s also a deeply personal book, rooted in Stanley’s readings of his father’s life and work as a refugee from the Nazis and an activist in the progressive education movement.

We talked to Stanley about why the U.S. education system has come under assault from far-right forces at every level and how liberal educators and administrators have been unable or unwilling to resist, the dangerous legacy of American exceptionalism, and what he hopes readers will take away from the book in advance of the election in November, and what Americans need to understand to face the threat in the only way that can work — in solidarity.

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In your last book, you defined “fascism” for an audience who didn’t necessarily recognize — or want to recognize — what they were seeing in American politics. And this new book digs deeper into why the far right has mounted a concerted attack on your industry — education.

This book opens with a short inquiry into the use of the f-word. Since the book went to press and just over the last couple of weeks, Trump has rolled out the stab-in-the-back, you have a republican gubernatorial candidate who identifies as a Nazi, the vice presidential candidate is starting a pogrom. Is there any question on the application of the terminology now? 

I think it's just really hard to deny that this is a fascist social and political movement. There are a bunch of scholars who have spent their time since 2016 simply arguing that this isn't fascism. And I am astonished that these people think that this is some kind of important or relevant intervention.

It reminds me of the argument that happens after a mass shooting about whether a particular gun is an SKS- or AR-platform weapon?

Exactly. They're doing vital work to smooth the path by urging people not to worry. They're also American exceptionalists, saying, oh, fascism is just some European thing. 

So you posit American exceptionalism itself as a manifestation of the kind of supremacist nationalism that’s one of the roots of fascism.

Absolutely. When you look, when you look at a country where fascism has taken root, be it India today, be it Nazi Germany, be it Russia today, you see this supremacist narrative, an exceptionalist narrative. The fact is that the United States has an anti-democratic past and an anti-democratic present. It's always had these structural problems, this formation of racial authoritarianism, whether we call it fascism or not. 

By properly labeling what we're seeing as a fascist social and political movement, you can predict what it's going to do. You know, you could have predicted Trump was not going to step down from office. But if you thought that was just America as usual, you couldn't have made that prediction.