Yale Professor’s Books On Fascism and Propaganda Predicted Violent Unrest in America

Last week’s insurrection on Capitol Hill has opened the public’s eyes to the cracks in America’s democracy. In the last four years, the country has seen an acceleration of far-right extremism, spurred by a widespread misinformation campaign. While the temperature has been turned up in recent years, experts and scholars say that this movement toward violence and disruption has actually been mounting for quite some time.  

Listen: Yale Philosophy Professor on the growth of fascism in the U.S.

Guest:

Jason Stanley is a Jacob Urowsky Professor of Philosophy at Yale University. He is also the author of five books, including “How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them”. He says that what the country saw unfold at the Capitol last week was an attack on democracy. Stanley adds that this degradation of democracy was a long time coming in the United States, intensified by the electoral failures of the Republican Party. According to Stanley, since Republican candidates have lost the last seven out of eight popular votes for president, the party has been forced to call into question the democratic process of elections in order to maintain power. Now, that flirtation with undermining elections has become fully realized.

Stanley says what President Trump has done is legitimate groups like the Proud Boys, pushing the country further toward fascism. “The situation we face in America, the reason we are facing a fascist nationalist movement, which is what we are facing… is because of fundamental structural problems that you can’t deal with in a centrist kind of way,” says Stanley. He adds that widespread racialized inequality needs to be addressed to retain some form of order in America. “We need massive structural change to address the role of finance in our politics and the billionaire class,” says Stanley.

Web story written by Clare Brennan.