Do we fight fascism or do we flee?

Three professors and the choices we face

Photo by Jason Hafso on Unsplash

By now you might know that Yale professors Marci Shore, Timothy Snyder, and Jason Stanley have fled the country. These three made their careers studying authoritarianism, and now they’ve left the U.S. for Canada, citing the threat of fascism. They’ve penned articles and had articles written about this flight, and their most recent media piece was a big New York Times video production. Much has already been said about them and their choices, which is of course part of the point of this media flurry. So I want to start by being clear that I’m not here to demonize the professors.

What I might be here to demonize a bit is their media tour, the multiple pieces they’ve penned and recorded about their exit from the United States. You can examine what they’ve said or what’s being said about them for yourself, if you want. And you’ll find some decent points about the U.S. descent into fascism, some inarguable statements about the threat to liberal democracy, and more. But where the problem starts is with where we go from there. In the NYT video, for example, Shore mentions Nazi Germany and then says the “lesson of 1933 is you get out sooner rather than later.”

I disagree. I would say the lesson of 1933 is that you rise up, take out Hitler, and do everything in your power to prevent the Holocaust and World War II before it’s too late. People getting out didn’t stop the atrocities of the Nazi regime, and we can’t afford the sort of resignation that comes with this mentality. If some people with the means and ability to move internationally choose to leave, that’s their choice, but propagating the idea that everyone should get out is ceding the United States to the fascists and leaving behind millions and millions of people who can’t flee.

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

Maybe in the long term these three academics will be proven right. Maybe in a few years people who rail against fascism will be rounded up. None of us know, because the future is contested. But what we do know is that some people are already being kidnapped off the streets by ICE. People are being snatched up by agents because they weren’t born here, or because of their outspoken criticism of Israel and defense of the Palestinian cause. These ordeals, these nightmares aren’t hypothetical. They’re real and immediate and ongoing. And all of us face the question, right now, of focusing on escape or fighting with our neighbors who are being targeted and attacked.

I choose to fight. Countless people I know, and millions more who I’ll never meet, are choosing to fight. We’re choosing to flood the streets in protest, to be more outspoken than ever, and most importantly to organize and build power so that we can defeat the fascist menace once and for all. This is infinitely bigger than a few well known professors, this is a question of fight or flight, and it’s a question that can only be answered through action.

I don’t begrudge anyone an essay or article; I obviously feel like we can do a lot of good in these exchanges of ideas, by spreading information, and through the changing of minds. But all of it is worthless if we aren’t spurring each other into action, into the fight. Fascism is the great annihilator, it comes to stamp out dissent, to demolish the imagination, to erase the very idea of a better world. So while I hope we dream of a very different society, I know we’re never getting there unless we develop the power to smash fascism and pull it up by the roots.

Here we get to one of the limits of much of academia. There is an incentive structure that rewards observation, even seemingly radical observations, but not radical action. There is a moderating effect that often comes with being in these massive institutions where you need grants to fund your work and are appealing to the government and major non-profit sources for that money. The clearest example that I’ve witnessed comes from the Columbia University picket line four years ago. 5,000 graduate student-workers were on strike, and I would go over to support them. In one instance I spent a while talking to a friend in the union. An administrator walked by during our conversation and my friend turned to me and said, “She did her dissertation on Marx, now she’s trying to break the strike.”

We’ve seen the limits of these academic institutions very sharply over the past year and a half. Universities are deeply intertwined with capital, and their boards are typically composed of the wealthy and powerful. Since October 2023 we’ve seen students boldly protest genocide, only to be met with militarized police, beatings, suspensions and more. Just this week an NYU graduation speaker advocated against the slaughter in Gaza, and the university responded by withholding his diploma and dishonestly smearing his speech.

This is a microcosm of the broader fascist encroachment, and in both cases things could have gone differently if people had stepped up years or decades ago, refusing to let academia complacent acquiesce to big money interests, the military-industrial complex, and Zionism. So it’s probably not a coincidence that the three scholars of authoritarianism who have garnered such attention have hardly spoken up against Israel’s genocide in Gaza. They’ve made a name for themselves, in part, by having a narrow definition of fascism that focuses on Trump and Nazi Germany. This understanding doesn’t consider how fascism has its roots in capitalism and imperialism and colonialism. This understanding is widely palatable, but not sufficient. It’s an understanding that does little to help us pave a way out. It’s an understanding that doesn’t see how if we permit a genocide abroad, with U.S. bombs and U.S. dollars, we shouldn’t be particularly surprised when that boomerang comes around to smack us in the mouth.

These three scholars aren’t too important in and of themselves, and this isn’t really about them. It’s about the limits of self-preservation, the limits of a tepid and moderate approach to fascism, the limits of a resistance that has a big bark and no bite. We are up against real fascists, ruthless individuals who would happily ruin millions of lives. And they take action. They have organized and seized power and are using that power to enact a white supremacist, corporate, far-right agenda. Now we have a choice to meet their radical action with action and power of our own, or to flee and abdicate responsibility. I know what I’ve chosen, and I hope you do too. - JP