One of the biggest worries right now for those witnessing the current Trump administration unfold is that it might turn into a dictatorship (if it wasn’t already there). In fact, a professor from Yale who studies fascism grew a little too worried about his observations that he fled from the US to Canada to avoid what he assumed to be an impending repeat of history.
Jason Stanley is the Yale professor in question, and he is now in the process of leaving the US to transfer Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto in Canada. Stanley points at the current US political climate as his primary reason for leaving, and he is genuinely worried that the US is at a huge risk of becoming a fascist dictatorship.
As much as possible, Stanley wants to raise his kids in a country that’s not fascist. The other reason for the move is that Columbia University in New York recently got pressured by President Donald Trump, and Stanley is worried that all other universities in the US– even Yale– could be next.
For the record, President Trump has enticed Columbia University by about $400 million if the university cracks down on protests and removes some academic programs, such as the Middle Eastern studies department. Columbia University obliged.
“When I saw Columbia completely capitulate, and I saw this vocabulary of, well, we’re going to work behind the scenes because we’re not going to get targeted – that whole way of thinking pre-supposes that some universities will get targeted, and you don’t want to be one of those universities, and that’s just a losing strategy.
Columbia was just such a warning. I just became very worried because I didn’t see a strong enough reaction in other universities to side with Columbia. I see Yale trying not to be a target. And as I said, that’s a losing strategy,” explained Stanley in an interview with The Guardian.
Stanley’s exit and the departure of other academics in universities all over the US have raised quite an alarm, especially those studying in political fields. It appears the experts on the matter are leaving, and they do tend to know more about the situation.
Parallels to the Rise of the Nazi Party
Jason Stanley’s leaving the US has also prompted people online to draw some parallels to what happened to Albert Einstein in Germany back in the 1920s. Einstein was originally German but after the rise of the Nazi party before World War 2, the renowned scientist quickly renounced his German citizenship and fled to the US.
Certain books called Hitler’s Gift, as pointed out by some Redditors, have also detailed how scholars from Germany and surrounding countries prior to World War 2 also fled to the US either to escape the rise of fascism or to bolster the academies in a neutral country. Now, it appears the US is the current fascist hotspot, which is all the more ironic.
Others have chimed in on Jason Stanley’s flight from the US, stating that the fascism scholar might be back on American soil again for some fieldwork in a few more years. Thankfully, most US citizens are choosing to stand their ground to hopefully prevent their country’s current trajectory.
“That guy must’ve been going crazy over the last fifteen years or so as he watched America follow the same path Germany did in the 1920s,” says Redditor anticomet.
“He’ll be back when he has to do his fieldwork,” jokes Redditor The_Wookalar
“If only there had been a literal decade of warnings for people to pay attention to…” laments Redditor bbqsox
