Yes exactly! Their definition is too narrow. I’m much more interested in the radicals who have called out fascism in many American institutions forever. Fred Hampton called cops fascist pigs. These professors said nothing when Biden was president and students were abused for defending Palestine. They have not written about COINTELPRO, etc. I don’t get the purpose of their declaration, it’s incredibly narcissistic for these middle aged financially secure white people to use words like “fleeing” and “safety,” when they’re not in danger. Poor people and other marginalized people will never be able to leave. And it’s those people who lead movements anyways while elites sit in their armchairs and critique and apparently move to Canada. Also to your point, I don’t get how they can call themselves experts on fascism in Nazi Germany, while totally ignoring any resistance (the communists as an example).
While I do agree for the most part that we should be fighting now instead of fleeing, I do want to take a look to our immigrant and queer friends reading this article today.
For the straight white folks, this is a battle of ideas. For us, this is a battle for our lives. If you are unwilling to die, or worse, get shipped off to CECOT, you need to flee. There is no shame in a trans person or an immigrant who can fleeing to Canada, just as there would be no shame in a Jew fleeing Germany before Hitler's takeover. Just because JP says we should fight doesn't mean *you* have to stay. You *will* be targeted directly. You may not survive. Don't let this article or any other make you feel compelled to stay, they don't understand how deadly this country is for you right now.
thank you for saying this. some of us need to find the space to just breathe and exist and build ourselves up and heal a little before we can give ourselves to the fight like that. yes the fight is important, but i know as a young black trans person my fight won’t be strong enough for what i’ll have to face if i have to jump in before i’m ready. vigilance and dedication are important but so is patience and preparation.
My child is trans, and we are leaving. I appreciated the publicity the professors gave to the matter because it validates what I intuitively understand about our reality. I have exactly one job on Earth that matters, and that is protecting my child.
The “Fight vs Flight” analysis deserves context. A reasonable argument could be made that each of the academics referenced has, in fact, “fled” such that they can continue to “fight” unhindered and unrestrained from a secure location. Somewhat akin to a historical analysis panel in exile.
I have been involved in systems which, with the added value of hindsight and enhanced maturity, I could have had much more effect upon had I worked from the inside to improve rather than abandoning them when I felt they were irredeemable (US Navy, DNA, and DoE as examples).
In retrospect I feel that if one cares about an organization, or at least your personal conception of what an organization SHOULD represent (the US and Democracy writ large as examples), “we” collectively still have a greater chance of effecting change from within than from without. We have not yet lost our Military (I feel we will not), and we still maintain the opportunity for direct action via withholding labor (formally Organized or otherwise).
It made all the difference that Zelensky remained in Ukraine rather than established a government in exile.
Also…
To where on earth should we retreat that an America abandoned to the fascists could not affect our future lives?
Better that we stay and counter the monsters directly on our home turf.
May I dissent, by proposing that the word "fascism" does NOT name the big danger at present? Below, I'll say what I think is. First ... I'm a philosopher like Jason Stanley and the others, although I'm not at Yale or otherwise famous enough to make a big spectacle of myself. While I've not read the other two, I've read several of Stanley's articles on sites like Project Syndicate and a couple of his books. My honest impression: all sizzle and no steak. I read about a third of his NYT piece. All I could get through. Just too pretentious for me. No real surprises. Academic "ink-and-paper" philosophy has been in decline for a very long time.
What is fascism? The definition attributed to Mussolini (whether he wrote these exact words somewhere, no one knows): the merger of state and corporate power, for the purposes of creating and instituting top-down policies.
Is that not what we've seen on a global level, encroaching, little by little, since the Second World War? Corporations got larger. Government expanded with an eye to regulating them (back then, no one believed "the free market" was self-regulating). Then we saw regulatory capture (e.g., Big Pharma). Then came the neoliberal "free trade" era. We've just refused to use a term ... possibly because other aspects of 1930s era fascism included nationalism and a demonizing of "out groups" (Jews being the obvious example but not the only example). If you still call this fascism, it will have replaced nationalism with globalism. The "out groups" demonized are not Jews but "populists" who think there is more to a nation than its economy, and that some values aren't transactional.
Global corporatocracy might be a better word for the system that's been developed over the past 60-odd years than fascism ... especially as the New International Economic Order instituted global supply lines, a huge push to "develop" nations, and we saw the coming of Economic Hit Men (see John Perkins's books on this phenomenon).
So you're right that something very bad is in the works, but wrong in thinking it started with Trump. In fact, I think Trump wants to fight it, but he's in over his head and his effort has been hijacked at its center. Plus being a transactional thinker he shares too many of its premises without realizing it (I assume you'd agree, he's not the brightest light in the harbor).
Look at it this way: Elon Musk gave Trump billions. Does anyone think that money was a free gift? Guys like His Muskiness don't give free gifts, and Trump knows this much. Hence DOGE, which I predict will lead to a call to privatize the federal agencies DOGE has partly or totally destroyed, so they can be run with a corporate structure using AI.
It's called Technocracy, and you need to learn about it. It's the idea that "scientific," technological "experts" should be running society, and that what little is left of democracy can be done away with (it's largely dead, anyway ... see Gilens & Page 2014). Although the Technocracy movement dates to the 1930s, you can read Nick Land's *The Dark Enlightenment* for some revealing thinking on where Technocracy is coming from, 2020s style (even if he doesn't use that word). https://keithanyan.github.io/TheDarkEnlightenment.epub/TheDarkEnlightenment.pdf
I also recommend Patrick Wood's foundational *Technocracy Rising* for its philosophical core, progress since the 1930s, and key developments since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Elon Musk is an arch-Technocrat, and so is Peter Thiel who "schooled" JD Vance out in Silicon Valley which is loaded with Technocrats.
Yanis Varoufakis has developed a variant on fundamentally the same idea further in his recent book *Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism* (2023). Varoufakis's views merit discussion, and I've given them some on my Substack ( https://stevenyates.substack.com/p/is-liberalism-dead-in-all-forms-part-bb1).
The idea is of a society based on total surveillance and total control, which the masses ACCEPT because they're sufficiently pacified with entertainment: remember "in the future you'll own nothing, have no privacy, and be happy"? With AI already eliminating thousands of jobs, within a couple of years you'll see Universal Basic Income get legs as a serious policy proposal, because with homelessness off the map, AI eliminating jobs by the hundreds of thousands, the political class will see the need to get money into people's pockets so they don't starve to death, and so the economy doesn't collapse! This will be a programmable central bank digital currency that can simply be switched off if you don't comply.
If that happens, "the fascists" may not need to "round you up."
This is NOT a "conspiracy theory." It's happening right in front of our eyes. Just the other day I saw an article on Fortune about a software engineer who'd been earning $150K/yr. who was replaced by AI and now works for DoorDash because it's the best job he could find! Well, robots are in development that will replace DoorDash deliverers, Uber and Lyft drivers, and other mainstays of the "gig economy." (Writers such as myself are also being replaced by AI.)
Finally, also read: Aaron Day, *The Final Countdown: Crypto, Gold, Silver, and the People's Last Stand Against Tyranny by Central Bank Digital Currencies* (2024).
View these as homework assignments.
There is one other major enemy as well, and it also owns the Trump administration. But since this comment is already ridiculously long, I'll just ask: how IS it that Israel basically gets away with the mass murder of at least 60,000 Palestinians in Gaza, has gotten away with getting the U.S. to fight its wars in the Middle East for decades, and if you criticize Israel you're demonized as "antisemitic"? What ideology is at work here? (No, it isn't capitalism, although it's made use of capitalism.)
I get it. Any attempt at a comprehensive view of what's going on is a lot to take in.
But very well ... without any "isms" or "ocracies":
We're presently on a road to global totalitarianism. If you fight Trump and manage to eliminate him, you'll still be on a road to global totalitarianism. You'll wonder what happened. Well, you didn't identify and properly characterize the enemy (-ies).
the framing of “do we fight fascism or do we flee” implies that ‘we’ should all be doing the same thing, and i don’t think that’s the case. idk much ab these journalists but i think some of us absolutely need to stay and fight, and most of us should fight from where we are while we’re there. but not all of us should just stay where we are, and for my black trans folks, esp trans women in states like FL and TX, escape could literally mean life or death. i’ve heard ppl make this argument to say trans people should stay in the south right now and i gotta say, as much as it’s true that some of us are gonna be needed by those who can’t leave, it’s pretty sad that other queer people who aren’t in as much immediate danger aren’t really willing to step up and fight for us where we are so that we can go find a safer home. the fight is vital, but the LIVES, the PEOPLE, the COMMUNITY are the reason the fight is important in the first place. a lot of people are forgetting that a fighter without the necessary support is not a fighter, but a martyr.
Personally, I can’t imagine studying something for my adult life, being presented the field work opportunity for the ages when it sprouts in my backyard, and then running away from it to observe from afar, to expend energy convincing oneself one did the right thing.
I find myself unable to, for each of the listed academics, feel anything beyond gratitude for the prescience of their analyses. The fact that they chose to relocate does not at all alter the value of the insights in their offerings.
I am not from academia, though I have fairly deep roots in the sciences as manifested by US government research.
I personally know of several top level researchers who must now shift to other countries to continue their research. Due to their age and the timelines involved in re-establishing research teams and facilities, they will never again “science” in the US. That boat has sailed.
Do I look down upon them for leaving the US and taking their brains with them ? Not at all. We collectively will benefit from their continued research in Public Health, Nuc Weps Safety, Atmospheric Science, Biostatistics, etc. (to identify only some of the individuals with whom I am familiar).
By an odd bit of fate and coincidence, I once sat around and chatted with Edward Teller at a gathering of the Los Alamos String Ensemble. Regardless what one thinks of the outcome, there are parallels with the brain drain from Europe when the Nazis rose (contributing to the Manhattan Project) and our the current war on science and academia in the US being waged by Trump and his minions.
If I plan a radical renewal of my property that involves, basically, stripping it down to its frame and rebuilding the structure…
I’m going to put my most valuable belongings in another location for safe keeping until they can be returned to a stable environment.
Appreciate your insight and fascinating anecdotes! And I agree, as for others studying the sciences and other matters, I completely understand and am even grateful that they are able to relocate to where they can best make their contribution to human knowledge and understanding.
One other point that is currently influencing decisions by US Academia…
Crossing the border for conferences, presentations, etc.
“They” (Trump admin) don’t have to come to your residence or institution to bundle you away for political views that they consider “problematic”. They can perform whatever warrantless searches and detentions they wish as a function of “border security”. Many conferences have already been cancelled due to scientists being unwilling to risk dealing with CBP. Better that Tim only had to deal with Canadian Customs “in” than to attempt to re-enter the US multiple times.
I appreciate your view on flighting vs fighting, but I think there is a place for both. The fight against Naziism in Germany could not have been won just by Germans in Germany. There had to be an outside opposition as well. Just as in 1930s Germany, the liberals in the USA set the stage for and enabled the rise of Naziism in 2024. Those whom the American academics thought were allies were betrayers and fifth columnists just as they were in 1930s Germany. Thanks in large part to the liberals, there is no organized opposition to Naziism in the USA (or in the white west) so capitalism has been evolving to its inevitable and predictable end stage - authoritarian Fascism - Naziism. Some will stay and fight, others will flee and fight from outside. Certainly, these three fleeing and making it a story has raised the issue much more broadly than had they stayed, protested, and been arrested. With any luck it will be a lesson to those in other white west countries that are not quite so far along the path to Naziism.
As a practical question, the ever-present "So what can we do...?" I wonder if you have specific suggestions for U.S. citizens who do live outside the US. Never mind why we left the US — right we may not be able to get back in (we, or our family members who aren't U.S. citizens, could be denied entry at the border), maybe we can't afford to resettle again, or maybe our health limits us. We had the privilege to leave at one point, but we don't have the privilege to return right now. So we do want to be useful humans, and specifically we want to be present for what's happening in the US, but if we aren't physically present and perhaps can't send money, then —?
You can continue to lend your support by staying active and vocal just as you are by contributing to this discussion. (Thank you). Continue to raise awareness wherever you might be physically as well as through your presence online. If it makes sense, pressure your government and community to boycott the US and Israel. Join mutual aid efforts in your community. Your labor and your values can be your contribution. We can all be united through our shared humanity instead of by fabricated nation-state borders and governments that seek to divide, isolate, control and exploit us.
Fuck capitalism. Fuck imperialism, settler colonialism and all manners of exploitation and oppression.
Exactly, to Tucker, raise your voice where you're at, and join with other anti-emperialists in your locale to pressure the government to cut ties with intereats such as Israel and the US. Personally you can put money and effort in good places and do your best to ensure that you're boycotting the worst corporations.
A great piece pop, but I suspect what the professor’s knowledge tells them is that not enough people will heed your calls. They are perhaps giving too much weight to historical evidence, but those who cannot remember history…
When they have criminalized you, chased you around the globe and arrested you every time you have flown back into the country, you pretty much have no choice remaining but to flee.
My husband and I fought like hell for my freedom and now I'm just trying to do what I can from exile in Mexico. The Mexicans - specifically the controlling Moreno party here - definitely do NOT support what is happening in the US either, and they can also be important allies...
In the end those of us who have any intelligence ultimately realize that our being locked up in one of their fascist prisons isn't going to do anything help us, our families or anyone else and will only make us another victim of their fascist system. In fact, after spending over 18 months wrongfully incarcerated, I would rather take my own life than be incarcerated again.
Criticize me as you may, but there is a point where it just doesn't make sense to stay when you are already on their list, have a police car parked across from your apartment watching you and have essentially been shown your prison cell for life.
I can’t leave the US. I am old. I am poor now. I am disabled. I am on Medicaid for now. Who knows what will happen with that. Without Medicaid I will die. I’m fighting by joining my local democratic county party. I have a GOP congresswoman. Politics is local. I minored in poli sci in college, I was a theatre major. The party chair & others like how I speechify. My theatre training & political background serve me well now. I will do what I can.
You might be disappointed to know that Democrats are also fascists that enabled and capitulated to the Republicans constantly. I hate to be the one to break it to you but, Democrats aren’t going to lead the fight against fascism, any party beholden to corporate interests isn’t going to help fix a system they benefit by, only Socialism fights fascism and that’s why Democrats fight harder against the socialist wing of their party than they do Republicans, both parties are aligned in how they conduct business.
Things have gotten to this point because we have no effective “left” in power to counter fascism within the corporate owned duopoly.
I recommend listening to Upstream Podcast as a starting place to get accurate history and hearing the sound voices of current activists.
I understand what you’re saying. Local democrats are different than national democrats. Local democrats aren’t beholden to corporations. I have to work in the system I have in my locality. In fact, at this level, I’m seeing pro-union candidates for city council seats, truly working class people of all stripes, immigrants, & environmentalists. It’s been eye-opening. I’m old school DFL: democratic/farmer/labor who grew up in Minnesota. I’m open to change. I see corruption in both parties at the national level, even the state level, & what it’s doing. However, there is work to do to get out from the 2 party system. It’s not going to happen overnight & if that avenue isn’t available to me, I’m still going to do something. Not just for me but for the overall greater good.
This is what we lose when we lose our indigineity, our connection to land and place.
We have become landless people, we live without regard to the metabolism we are in, we don’t breathe with the seasons. We have no loyalty to the larger living system, we think we can just remove ourselves from one part and insert ourselves in another with no consequence to the system.
We won’t fight to preserve it, we won’t let it teach us, we refuse anything other than cursory relationship with it.
I say we, but I also mean me.
I don’t even know how to create that deeper connection, though I desperately want it. I imagine it starts with working on the land itself and not at a desk.
Perhaps other formerly unlanded people can let me know how they made their connection.
I am a Canadian following your struggle closely. I cannot judge your choices in this situation. Whether to stay and fight or to leave—and still fight—is an individual choice. I am reading It Can’t Happen Here, in which the protagonist tries to leave but cannot, and is eventually detained, tortured and threatened with execution. This is the direction that autocracies go. I would not blame those who fear unlawful detention from leaving the US now. The lines of violence, torture and execution have not yet been crossed, but history professors, more than others, may be aware that authoritarianism can lead there. If something like that starts to happen, I would not blame those who have spoken out against the administration for leaving.
I'm poor, have no transportation, am queer, and too disabled to be able to live on my own. I can't flee. I don't have a choice. It's fight and stay for me. I'm here to fight for the rest of us who can't flee, especially my fellow disabled folk, many of whom cannot fight at all and get overlooked in liberation movements but heavily targeted by fascists.
Yes exactly! Their definition is too narrow. I’m much more interested in the radicals who have called out fascism in many American institutions forever. Fred Hampton called cops fascist pigs. These professors said nothing when Biden was president and students were abused for defending Palestine. They have not written about COINTELPRO, etc. I don’t get the purpose of their declaration, it’s incredibly narcissistic for these middle aged financially secure white people to use words like “fleeing” and “safety,” when they’re not in danger. Poor people and other marginalized people will never be able to leave. And it’s those people who lead movements anyways while elites sit in their armchairs and critique and apparently move to Canada. Also to your point, I don’t get how they can call themselves experts on fascism in Nazi Germany, while totally ignoring any resistance (the communists as an example).
‘I’m much more interested in the radicals who have called out fascism in many American institutions forever.’
GOOD for you!
Hundreds of references since January, 2025. Thousands of references over the past quarter century.
https://www.wsws.org/en/topics/internationalPoliticsCategory/fight-against-fascism
While I do agree for the most part that we should be fighting now instead of fleeing, I do want to take a look to our immigrant and queer friends reading this article today.
For the straight white folks, this is a battle of ideas. For us, this is a battle for our lives. If you are unwilling to die, or worse, get shipped off to CECOT, you need to flee. There is no shame in a trans person or an immigrant who can fleeing to Canada, just as there would be no shame in a Jew fleeing Germany before Hitler's takeover. Just because JP says we should fight doesn't mean *you* have to stay. You *will* be targeted directly. You may not survive. Don't let this article or any other make you feel compelled to stay, they don't understand how deadly this country is for you right now.
thank you for saying this. some of us need to find the space to just breathe and exist and build ourselves up and heal a little before we can give ourselves to the fight like that. yes the fight is important, but i know as a young black trans person my fight won’t be strong enough for what i’ll have to face if i have to jump in before i’m ready. vigilance and dedication are important but so is patience and preparation.
My child is trans, and we are leaving. I appreciated the publicity the professors gave to the matter because it validates what I intuitively understand about our reality. I have exactly one job on Earth that matters, and that is protecting my child.
Yes. Protect yourself first, because you can't help others if you are imprisoned or dead...
‘You cannot escape fascism by crossing international boundaries.’ — Leon Trotsky
The “Fight vs Flight” analysis deserves context. A reasonable argument could be made that each of the academics referenced has, in fact, “fled” such that they can continue to “fight” unhindered and unrestrained from a secure location. Somewhat akin to a historical analysis panel in exile.
I have been involved in systems which, with the added value of hindsight and enhanced maturity, I could have had much more effect upon had I worked from the inside to improve rather than abandoning them when I felt they were irredeemable (US Navy, DNA, and DoE as examples).
In retrospect I feel that if one cares about an organization, or at least your personal conception of what an organization SHOULD represent (the US and Democracy writ large as examples), “we” collectively still have a greater chance of effecting change from within than from without. We have not yet lost our Military (I feel we will not), and we still maintain the opportunity for direct action via withholding labor (formally Organized or otherwise).
It made all the difference that Zelensky remained in Ukraine rather than established a government in exile.
Also…
To where on earth should we retreat that an America abandoned to the fascists could not affect our future lives?
Better that we stay and counter the monsters directly on our home turf.
Thanks again for your efforts. Best.
May I dissent, by proposing that the word "fascism" does NOT name the big danger at present? Below, I'll say what I think is. First ... I'm a philosopher like Jason Stanley and the others, although I'm not at Yale or otherwise famous enough to make a big spectacle of myself. While I've not read the other two, I've read several of Stanley's articles on sites like Project Syndicate and a couple of his books. My honest impression: all sizzle and no steak. I read about a third of his NYT piece. All I could get through. Just too pretentious for me. No real surprises. Academic "ink-and-paper" philosophy has been in decline for a very long time.
What is fascism? The definition attributed to Mussolini (whether he wrote these exact words somewhere, no one knows): the merger of state and corporate power, for the purposes of creating and instituting top-down policies.
Is that not what we've seen on a global level, encroaching, little by little, since the Second World War? Corporations got larger. Government expanded with an eye to regulating them (back then, no one believed "the free market" was self-regulating). Then we saw regulatory capture (e.g., Big Pharma). Then came the neoliberal "free trade" era. We've just refused to use a term ... possibly because other aspects of 1930s era fascism included nationalism and a demonizing of "out groups" (Jews being the obvious example but not the only example). If you still call this fascism, it will have replaced nationalism with globalism. The "out groups" demonized are not Jews but "populists" who think there is more to a nation than its economy, and that some values aren't transactional.
Global corporatocracy might be a better word for the system that's been developed over the past 60-odd years than fascism ... especially as the New International Economic Order instituted global supply lines, a huge push to "develop" nations, and we saw the coming of Economic Hit Men (see John Perkins's books on this phenomenon).
So you're right that something very bad is in the works, but wrong in thinking it started with Trump. In fact, I think Trump wants to fight it, but he's in over his head and his effort has been hijacked at its center. Plus being a transactional thinker he shares too many of its premises without realizing it (I assume you'd agree, he's not the brightest light in the harbor).
Look at it this way: Elon Musk gave Trump billions. Does anyone think that money was a free gift? Guys like His Muskiness don't give free gifts, and Trump knows this much. Hence DOGE, which I predict will lead to a call to privatize the federal agencies DOGE has partly or totally destroyed, so they can be run with a corporate structure using AI.
It's called Technocracy, and you need to learn about it. It's the idea that "scientific," technological "experts" should be running society, and that what little is left of democracy can be done away with (it's largely dead, anyway ... see Gilens & Page 2014). Although the Technocracy movement dates to the 1930s, you can read Nick Land's *The Dark Enlightenment* for some revealing thinking on where Technocracy is coming from, 2020s style (even if he doesn't use that word). https://keithanyan.github.io/TheDarkEnlightenment.epub/TheDarkEnlightenment.pdf
I also recommend Patrick Wood's foundational *Technocracy Rising* for its philosophical core, progress since the 1930s, and key developments since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Elon Musk is an arch-Technocrat, and so is Peter Thiel who "schooled" JD Vance out in Silicon Valley which is loaded with Technocrats.
Yanis Varoufakis has developed a variant on fundamentally the same idea further in his recent book *Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism* (2023). Varoufakis's views merit discussion, and I've given them some on my Substack ( https://stevenyates.substack.com/p/is-liberalism-dead-in-all-forms-part-bb1).
The idea is of a society based on total surveillance and total control, which the masses ACCEPT because they're sufficiently pacified with entertainment: remember "in the future you'll own nothing, have no privacy, and be happy"? With AI already eliminating thousands of jobs, within a couple of years you'll see Universal Basic Income get legs as a serious policy proposal, because with homelessness off the map, AI eliminating jobs by the hundreds of thousands, the political class will see the need to get money into people's pockets so they don't starve to death, and so the economy doesn't collapse! This will be a programmable central bank digital currency that can simply be switched off if you don't comply.
If that happens, "the fascists" may not need to "round you up."
This is NOT a "conspiracy theory." It's happening right in front of our eyes. Just the other day I saw an article on Fortune about a software engineer who'd been earning $150K/yr. who was replaced by AI and now works for DoorDash because it's the best job he could find! Well, robots are in development that will replace DoorDash deliverers, Uber and Lyft drivers, and other mainstays of the "gig economy." (Writers such as myself are also being replaced by AI.)
Finally, also read: Aaron Day, *The Final Countdown: Crypto, Gold, Silver, and the People's Last Stand Against Tyranny by Central Bank Digital Currencies* (2024).
View these as homework assignments.
There is one other major enemy as well, and it also owns the Trump administration. But since this comment is already ridiculously long, I'll just ask: how IS it that Israel basically gets away with the mass murder of at least 60,000 Palestinians in Gaza, has gotten away with getting the U.S. to fight its wars in the Middle East for decades, and if you criticize Israel you're demonized as "antisemitic"? What ideology is at work here? (No, it isn't capitalism, although it's made use of capitalism.)
Using a lot of new words to describe things we already have words for feels rather redundant.
It's all still rooted in the core of fascism's representation of capitalist decay.
I get it. Any attempt at a comprehensive view of what's going on is a lot to take in.
But very well ... without any "isms" or "ocracies":
We're presently on a road to global totalitarianism. If you fight Trump and manage to eliminate him, you'll still be on a road to global totalitarianism. You'll wonder what happened. Well, you didn't identify and properly characterize the enemy (-ies).
the framing of “do we fight fascism or do we flee” implies that ‘we’ should all be doing the same thing, and i don’t think that’s the case. idk much ab these journalists but i think some of us absolutely need to stay and fight, and most of us should fight from where we are while we’re there. but not all of us should just stay where we are, and for my black trans folks, esp trans women in states like FL and TX, escape could literally mean life or death. i’ve heard ppl make this argument to say trans people should stay in the south right now and i gotta say, as much as it’s true that some of us are gonna be needed by those who can’t leave, it’s pretty sad that other queer people who aren’t in as much immediate danger aren’t really willing to step up and fight for us where we are so that we can go find a safer home. the fight is vital, but the LIVES, the PEOPLE, the COMMUNITY are the reason the fight is important in the first place. a lot of people are forgetting that a fighter without the necessary support is not a fighter, but a martyr.
Personally, I can’t imagine studying something for my adult life, being presented the field work opportunity for the ages when it sprouts in my backyard, and then running away from it to observe from afar, to expend energy convincing oneself one did the right thing.
I understand your point, however…
I find myself unable to, for each of the listed academics, feel anything beyond gratitude for the prescience of their analyses. The fact that they chose to relocate does not at all alter the value of the insights in their offerings.
I am not from academia, though I have fairly deep roots in the sciences as manifested by US government research.
I personally know of several top level researchers who must now shift to other countries to continue their research. Due to their age and the timelines involved in re-establishing research teams and facilities, they will never again “science” in the US. That boat has sailed.
Do I look down upon them for leaving the US and taking their brains with them ? Not at all. We collectively will benefit from their continued research in Public Health, Nuc Weps Safety, Atmospheric Science, Biostatistics, etc. (to identify only some of the individuals with whom I am familiar).
By an odd bit of fate and coincidence, I once sat around and chatted with Edward Teller at a gathering of the Los Alamos String Ensemble. Regardless what one thinks of the outcome, there are parallels with the brain drain from Europe when the Nazis rose (contributing to the Manhattan Project) and our the current war on science and academia in the US being waged by Trump and his minions.
If I plan a radical renewal of my property that involves, basically, stripping it down to its frame and rebuilding the structure…
I’m going to put my most valuable belongings in another location for safe keeping until they can be returned to a stable environment.
Thanks for your comment. All the best.
Appreciate your insight and fascinating anecdotes! And I agree, as for others studying the sciences and other matters, I completely understand and am even grateful that they are able to relocate to where they can best make their contribution to human knowledge and understanding.
One other point that is currently influencing decisions by US Academia…
Crossing the border for conferences, presentations, etc.
“They” (Trump admin) don’t have to come to your residence or institution to bundle you away for political views that they consider “problematic”. They can perform whatever warrantless searches and detentions they wish as a function of “border security”. Many conferences have already been cancelled due to scientists being unwilling to risk dealing with CBP. Better that Tim only had to deal with Canadian Customs “in” than to attempt to re-enter the US multiple times.
They’ve seen this movie. They know what’s coming.
I appreciate your view on flighting vs fighting, but I think there is a place for both. The fight against Naziism in Germany could not have been won just by Germans in Germany. There had to be an outside opposition as well. Just as in 1930s Germany, the liberals in the USA set the stage for and enabled the rise of Naziism in 2024. Those whom the American academics thought were allies were betrayers and fifth columnists just as they were in 1930s Germany. Thanks in large part to the liberals, there is no organized opposition to Naziism in the USA (or in the white west) so capitalism has been evolving to its inevitable and predictable end stage - authoritarian Fascism - Naziism. Some will stay and fight, others will flee and fight from outside. Certainly, these three fleeing and making it a story has raised the issue much more broadly than had they stayed, protested, and been arrested. With any luck it will be a lesson to those in other white west countries that are not quite so far along the path to Naziism.
I think you might have done poorly in your history classes.
As a practical question, the ever-present "So what can we do...?" I wonder if you have specific suggestions for U.S. citizens who do live outside the US. Never mind why we left the US — right we may not be able to get back in (we, or our family members who aren't U.S. citizens, could be denied entry at the border), maybe we can't afford to resettle again, or maybe our health limits us. We had the privilege to leave at one point, but we don't have the privilege to return right now. So we do want to be useful humans, and specifically we want to be present for what's happening in the US, but if we aren't physically present and perhaps can't send money, then —?
You can continue to lend your support by staying active and vocal just as you are by contributing to this discussion. (Thank you). Continue to raise awareness wherever you might be physically as well as through your presence online. If it makes sense, pressure your government and community to boycott the US and Israel. Join mutual aid efforts in your community. Your labor and your values can be your contribution. We can all be united through our shared humanity instead of by fabricated nation-state borders and governments that seek to divide, isolate, control and exploit us.
Fuck capitalism. Fuck imperialism, settler colonialism and all manners of exploitation and oppression.
Exactly, to Tucker, raise your voice where you're at, and join with other anti-emperialists in your locale to pressure the government to cut ties with intereats such as Israel and the US. Personally you can put money and effort in good places and do your best to ensure that you're boycotting the worst corporations.
A great piece pop, but I suspect what the professor’s knowledge tells them is that not enough people will heed your calls. They are perhaps giving too much weight to historical evidence, but those who cannot remember history…
Sorry, don’t know where the “pop” came from, but given I’m in my seventies you’d have to be in your nineties for it to have been appropriate!
Pop music still alive
Well I do.
It’s what I dubbed ‘auto [IN]correct.
PS: Click the … and use the edit function.
PPS: We’re of the same vintage.
Safer to apologise than edit! Happy to meet another child of the fifties.🙂
When they have criminalized you, chased you around the globe and arrested you every time you have flown back into the country, you pretty much have no choice remaining but to flee.
My husband and I fought like hell for my freedom and now I'm just trying to do what I can from exile in Mexico. The Mexicans - specifically the controlling Moreno party here - definitely do NOT support what is happening in the US either, and they can also be important allies...
In the end those of us who have any intelligence ultimately realize that our being locked up in one of their fascist prisons isn't going to do anything help us, our families or anyone else and will only make us another victim of their fascist system. In fact, after spending over 18 months wrongfully incarcerated, I would rather take my own life than be incarcerated again.
Criticize me as you may, but there is a point where it just doesn't make sense to stay when you are already on their list, have a police car parked across from your apartment watching you and have essentially been shown your prison cell for life.
I can’t leave the US. I am old. I am poor now. I am disabled. I am on Medicaid for now. Who knows what will happen with that. Without Medicaid I will die. I’m fighting by joining my local democratic county party. I have a GOP congresswoman. Politics is local. I minored in poli sci in college, I was a theatre major. The party chair & others like how I speechify. My theatre training & political background serve me well now. I will do what I can.
You might be disappointed to know that Democrats are also fascists that enabled and capitulated to the Republicans constantly. I hate to be the one to break it to you but, Democrats aren’t going to lead the fight against fascism, any party beholden to corporate interests isn’t going to help fix a system they benefit by, only Socialism fights fascism and that’s why Democrats fight harder against the socialist wing of their party than they do Republicans, both parties are aligned in how they conduct business.
Things have gotten to this point because we have no effective “left” in power to counter fascism within the corporate owned duopoly.
I recommend listening to Upstream Podcast as a starting place to get accurate history and hearing the sound voices of current activists.
I understand what you’re saying. Local democrats are different than national democrats. Local democrats aren’t beholden to corporations. I have to work in the system I have in my locality. In fact, at this level, I’m seeing pro-union candidates for city council seats, truly working class people of all stripes, immigrants, & environmentalists. It’s been eye-opening. I’m old school DFL: democratic/farmer/labor who grew up in Minnesota. I’m open to change. I see corruption in both parties at the national level, even the state level, & what it’s doing. However, there is work to do to get out from the 2 party system. It’s not going to happen overnight & if that avenue isn’t available to me, I’m still going to do something. Not just for me but for the overall greater good.
This is what we lose when we lose our indigineity, our connection to land and place.
We have become landless people, we live without regard to the metabolism we are in, we don’t breathe with the seasons. We have no loyalty to the larger living system, we think we can just remove ourselves from one part and insert ourselves in another with no consequence to the system.
We won’t fight to preserve it, we won’t let it teach us, we refuse anything other than cursory relationship with it.
I say we, but I also mean me.
I don’t even know how to create that deeper connection, though I desperately want it. I imagine it starts with working on the land itself and not at a desk.
Perhaps other formerly unlanded people can let me know how they made their connection.
I am a Canadian following your struggle closely. I cannot judge your choices in this situation. Whether to stay and fight or to leave—and still fight—is an individual choice. I am reading It Can’t Happen Here, in which the protagonist tries to leave but cannot, and is eventually detained, tortured and threatened with execution. This is the direction that autocracies go. I would not blame those who fear unlawful detention from leaving the US now. The lines of violence, torture and execution have not yet been crossed, but history professors, more than others, may be aware that authoritarianism can lead there. If something like that starts to happen, I would not blame those who have spoken out against the administration for leaving.
https://nopharma.substack.com/p/from-sovereign-mother-to-tiktok-mom?r=4egiqz
I'm poor, have no transportation, am queer, and too disabled to be able to live on my own. I can't flee. I don't have a choice. It's fight and stay for me. I'm here to fight for the rest of us who can't flee, especially my fellow disabled folk, many of whom cannot fight at all and get overlooked in liberation movements but heavily targeted by fascists.