September 14, 2025 • 28 mins
US President Donald Trump is a fascist, running an authoritarian regime.
We hear this allegation a lot, now. But is he? Really?
Fascism expert Jason Stanley says he moved with his family to Canada so that he could leave behind, and protest against, the political climate in the United States.
Today, Stanley, a University of Toronto philosophy professor, and author of Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future, argues that American exceptionalism has blinded many Americans from thinking fascism could ever take root in their country. And he discusses if fascism could flourish here in Australia.
Jason Stanley appears in Curious at the Sydney Opera House on Sunday 28 September and in Melbourne on Thursday 2 October, presented by The Wheeler Centre.
Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/
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Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
S1 (00:01):
From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
This is the morning edition. I'm Samantha Selinger Morris. It's Monday,
September 15th. American President Donald Trump is a fascist running
an authoritarian regime. We hear this allegation a lot now.
S2 (00:20):
Kamala and her campaign is that everyone who isn't voting
for her is a Nazi. We're Nazis.
S3 (00:27):
People say, oh, the Democrats failed because they said that
Trump was a fascist and they warned of his dangers. Well,
maybe what failed was the fact that so many people
mocked those warnings.
S1 (00:41):
Fascism expert Jayson Stanley says he moved with his family
to Canada two weeks ago so that he could leave
behind and protest against the political climate in the United States.
And so that his children could grow up in a
free country. Today, Stanley, a University of Toronto philosophy professor
and author of Erasing History How fascists rewrite the past
(01:02):
to control the future. Joins me to discuss how American
exceptionalism has blinded many Americans from thinking that fascism could
ever take root in their country. And if fascism could
flourish here. So, Jason, welcome to the Morning Edition.
S3 (01:20):
Thank you. It's really good to be in conversation with you, Samantha.
S4 (01:24):
Well, let's get stuck into this, because you are. I've
got to tell the listeners, you're a renowned scholar of
authoritarianism and fascism. And you recently moved to Canada from
the United States because of the political climate, uh, in
your birthplace. And you said you want to raise your
kids in a country that is not tilting towards a
fascist dictatorship. So what's made you conclude that this is
(01:44):
what's actually happening in the United States?
S3 (01:47):
Well, I don't know. Well, I don't know how to
describe fascism in a way that it doesn't directly apply
to what is happening in the United States right now.
So I just, you know, I mean, I suppose you
could talk about, you know, usually people ask me to
define fascism such that it applies to what's happening in
the United States. But it's so obvious now that I
(02:10):
think what you have to do is try to define
fascism in such a way that it doesn't apply to
what's happening in the United States. But ideologically, fascism is
based around great replacement theory. It's based, you know, Hitler,
you know, xenophobia, hatred of immigrants is utterly central to
Mein Kampf. Uh, we have JD Vance, the vice president
(02:33):
of the United States and now a senator from Missouri, uh,
both talking about how America isn't a proposition. Uh, you know,
as Abraham Lincoln said, it was in the second inaugural.
S5 (02:48):
A new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created.
S3 (02:59):
So America, you know, J.D. Vance says America is a
soil where your ancestors are buried. You know, basically defines
American identity in terms of blood and soil nationalism, and
specifically white blood and soil nationalism.
S4 (03:17):
Let's get into this, because a lot of listeners, I
think they might be listening to you and they might
be thinking, whoa, like Trump, a fascist dictator, really, you know,
because they might look to Benito Mussolini in Italy in
the 30s or of course, Adolf Hitler. And they might think, wait,
we're not seeing the sort of violence. I guess that
was really a hallmark of those men's fascist regimes, you know,
the extermination camps to get rid of an entire race
(03:38):
of people, the assassination of political foes. So what would
you say to them?
S3 (03:42):
Yeah. So we're getting something very similar to mid-century European
fascism in the United States, a cult of the leader.
The one political party has been entirely taken over for
two elections in a row. The the Republican Party platform
has been what, you know, trust and Trump. Uh, so
we have a cult of leader, which, you know, in
(04:03):
American racial fascism of the sort that Hitler admires openly
in Mein Kampf when he says the United States is
building a racial state. That's my model. You didn't have
a cult of the leader, but you have a cult
of the leader now, like in mid-century Germany and Italy.
(04:26):
The final Solution is not decided on until 1941. Italian
fascism was not anti-Semitic until the mid to late 30s.
Until they had to be. Uh, so, you know, Italian
fascism and German fascism differ a lot from each other. Uh,
but both have a cult of the leader based around
(04:46):
the leader represents the nation. The emergencies are being called repeatedly.
So people are getting their legal immigration status revoked and
they're being deported and mass deportations, and it's the Alien
Enemies Act are claiming it's an invasion on emergency. That's
(05:07):
just how fascists grab power. That's how Hitler grabbed power.
So you have the strategies. You have the ideology. The
final solution does not come until 1941. So if you
said Trump is not a fascist because there's no death camps,
(05:27):
then you'd be saying Hitler was not a fascist in 1935, 1936, 1937.
So that's a terrible argument. So it's eight months in.
Multiple Democrats have been targeted for mortgage fraud. In other words,
they claimed two different residences or didn't do their mortgages. Right.
(05:51):
So they're all being targeted. He's targeted multiple political opponents
with the justice system. Even if they're not sent to prison,
they'll be completely bankrupted. Finally, I mean, there are many cases.
Think of Ice. We've now given, what, over $70 billion
to Ice for recruitment, $170 billion for the border stuff.
(06:14):
They're now hiring Ice agents with $50,000 signing bonuses. I mean,
I that would be life changing for me. They don't
have to have any qualifications except loyalty to Trump. So
what this is, is it a storm of Tai lung
that they're building? Uh, it's. So the storm of Thailand
were sort of the Nazi hooligans who then got government uniforms.
(06:38):
So that's what we're seeing. We're going to have well-paid
Trump soldiers on the street because they're being quizzed for
loyalty as the new federal government is. You also have
a glacial tongue replacement of the federal civil civil service
with loyalists. On and on.
S4 (07:00):
And I have seen it written that, you know, once
you've got armed immigration officers or policemen, you know, hiding
their identities in your streets. That's that's not a good sign.
And I'm so interested because you write in your latest book,
Erasing History How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future,
that there's a particular cultural environment that really has the
ideal conditions for fascist politics to bloom. So what are they?
S3 (07:24):
Well, you need to set up the conditions for great
replacement theory. The idea that, you know, the country's greatness
will be threatened by being replaced by members of the
non-dominant group. So you need a structure where people think
what the country is is this pure country, say pure
(07:48):
white country. You know, this this country that, you know,
suppose you have a country that is like, well, the
real say Australians are white and we're not going to
let any non-white people in because they don't mesh with
our idea of. So I would call that the mythic past. Uh,
this mythic past of a pure past where that people
(08:10):
weren't guilty of anything. And then foreigners, people not of
that group who come in will ruin the nation. So
that will, uh, incline you towards the kind of xenophobia
and panic that fuels fascist movements. Uh, now, uh, it's
particularly dangerous when you have a country, as Germany had
(08:34):
even before the Nazis, that kind of views itself as
exemplary and unique. So a country that views itself as exceptional.
And so then you can spin this narrative of decline
and we must regain our Exceptionality. Our exceptionality is under threat.
Look at Putin. Putin is saying we were a great empire.
(08:58):
We've always been a great empire. And then we encountered
this period of ruin. And I'm going to bring us
back to greatness. Putin is a fascist. So that structure,
loss of empire, as my colleague Greg Grandin has argued,
loss of empire is a particularly dangerous time for fascism.
(09:18):
But ideology of a pure nation that stands to be, uh, infected, ruined, destroyed,
its purity, its nobleness by immigrants, so that a background
of we're a multiracial country with lots of immigrants is
not conducive to fascism.
S4 (09:40):
And you're coming to Australia later this month, and you're
going to be discussing whether we are ill equipped to
understand what's playing out before our eyes. So are we.
And by we, do you mean Americans? Do you mean Australians?
Is everyone ill equipped to see what you see? Is
this very clear rise towards fascism in the United States?
S3 (09:57):
I think all the people who used to argue with
people on my side who were like, this is really
just an autocratic takeover of the sort that happens all
the time in the world. And guess what? It's happening here.
The and, you know, the all the anti-woke stuff that
was used as a fuel for this, you know, yes,
(10:18):
there can be annoying things that, you know, and kind
of screechy things that, you know, wokeness does, but it's
always the case that fascist movements have to create this
communist opposition that they then can run against. And so
I think that, you know, what we saw was this
(10:38):
structure of like, okay, you need fascism to smash wokeness. And, and, uh,
these fascist movements are rising everywhere appealing, you know. White supremacy.
Hindu supremacy. Jewish supremacy. You know, so. But I think
Americans now see that, okay. It's bad, you know, like,
(11:02):
you know, I think the people who who like, I
know who who are like, Trump isn't so bad and
wokeness is really bad. Like, now they're like, okay. Yeah. Uh,
you know, okay, this is really bad. I have close
friends who are like, Trump is going to end foreign wars.
You know, like all that stuff that I think everybody
(11:23):
is seeing is just absurd. Like, there's no evidence Trump
is going to side with Palestinians against Israel as the
Muslims in Michigan thought he would. As the as the
Arab population. Like that's not happening. There's no way he's
going to, uh, you know, the whole Russia Ukraine situation. Nothing.
(11:45):
I'm seeing people gradually understand around the world I'm speaking
in the media of a lot of countries. I think, uh, Canada.
I still think there's a there's a lot of going
to be a lot of denial. And because people remember
going to America like two years ago, you know, and
they're like, American people would never do that, you know?
(12:05):
But the country's been taken over. You know, the country's
been taken over by an autocrat. So.
S4 (12:14):
Wow. So, yeah. And so I've got to ask, I mean,
do you think that we are vulnerable to authoritarianism or
fascism flourishing here in Australia? Because just recently we witnessed
neo-Nazis marching in our streets protesting immigration? That was pretty
shocking to a lot of people. And still, you know,
Australians would argue, no, there's no way. Not here. You know,
(12:35):
I think it's arguable that many people here would have
what you refer to as, you know, that exceptionalism, uh,
view that you say a lot of Americans have always
had about. Well, no, no, no, fascism can't happen here.
Do you think that we we are the same here?
S3 (12:47):
First thing to point out is it's not the neo-Nazis
marching on the street. You know, the neo-Nazis marching on
the street. Some of them might eventually don suits. There
is a global fascist movement of great sophistication that is
not neo-Nazis marching on the streets. It's Yale Law School
graduates like Kris Kobach, the attorney general of Kansas.
S6 (13:12):
Sorry to say, but by the end of the campaign,
Democrats and their media allies had convinced many people, even Republicans,
that I was an extremist. If I were one, I
would tell you, but I am not.
S3 (13:27):
Uh, it's, uh, JD Vance. Uh, you know, JD Vance
is brilliant. Uh, JD Vance says that you're American. If
your ancestors are buried in the cemeteries of our Civil war,
regardless of your views.
S7 (13:45):
Now, in that cemetery, there are people who are born
around the time of the Civil War. And if, as
I hope, my wife and I are eventually laid to
rest there and our kids follow us, there will be
seven generations just in that small mountain cemetery plot in
eastern Kentucky, seven generations of people who have fought for
this country, who have built this country, who have made
(14:06):
things in this country, and who would fight and die
to protect this country if they were asked to.
S8 (14:12):
And I just think the construction of, of this notion
reveals a lot about someone who fundamentally believes in the
supremacy of whiteness and masculinity.
S9 (14:21):
Oh my goodness. Pass the smelling salts. Am I getting
a whiff of what's out of the air? White supremacy.
S10 (14:29):
He just wants to be buried with his family. Heaven
forbid the Trump and Vance should resurrect an America that
is American.
S3 (14:39):
There are very sophisticated fascists and Nazis with top degrees
who believe that the entire post-World War Two liberal consensus
needs to be overturned, and we need to return to
ethnic nationalism.
S1 (15:01):
We'll be right back.
S4 (15:05):
Well, let's talk practically, then. Like, what are the warning
signs that listeners should look out for wherever they are that,
you know, perhaps their leader or government is moving their
country towards a fascist regime?
S3 (15:15):
I think Australia is not in a situation where you
face a cult of the leader. I don't see anyone
in your political scene. That's not going to happen in Australia.
The chances that you'll have someone with Trump's political gifts
who can destroy democracy, and then after that, it's just
like whatever the most powerful future dictator is, gets to rule.
(15:38):
That's not going to be Australia's situation unless there's some
hidden TV superstar that you guys that I don't know about.
So it's not, as I said, a European cult of
the leader situation. What you face is more like a possible,
you know, everyone goes back to their racist, fascist past.
(15:59):
What I would expect from Australia is a sophisticated movement
of White Australia supporters. So who are educated, uh, wealthy, uh,
you know, your friends. There's a good piece from the
early 40s called Who Goes Nazi? Uh, that's that's written
(16:21):
about a New York cocktail party. Like, who would go
Nazi here? Now, in the United States, there are many
members of polite society who think race is biological and,
you know, are scientific racists or, uh, you know, have
various views that we would associate with, uh, you know,
(16:44):
white supremacy. So what I would expect from you guys
is you don't have someone who could create a cult
of the leader like Trump can. I would expect a
party that represents the white Australia past and represents immigrants
as destroying what is, you know, the pure, innocent, wonderful
(17:06):
Australian life of the past. And so the borders must
be shut and we should stop talking about indigenous genocide. And,
you know, because that's trying to shame this, you know,
nation that was like pure and innocent. That's what I
would expect in Australia. Then the immigration crackdown comes, the
(17:28):
immigration crackdown, as we're seeing in the United States that allows,
you know, essentially military into the cities and, and the
secret police. So possibly that would be a route, uh,
in Australia, but it would be more like with you guys,
a herrenvolk democracy, like a white, uh, democracy for white
(17:50):
people where non-whites sort of are not regarded as super.
You know, there's a model Australian who's it would be
something like that. It would be a white nationalist return
to White Australia, which ended in, what, 1971?
S4 (18:07):
In the 70s? Yeah, yeah.
S3 (18:08):
So you guys are not that far away from a
herrenvolk democracy, you know, a racial democracy.
S4 (18:16):
I'm just curious. Let's just say that in the extreme case,
we actually become that. What would the practical difference be
in terms of us living on the streets between living
in a fascist regime and living in the one that
you've just presented?
S3 (18:29):
Uh, a herrenvolk democracy?
S4 (18:32):
Yeah.
S3 (18:33):
Well, I mean, black Americans call Jim Crow a, uh, fascism,
even though it's not a cult of the leader. It
was a racial, uh, hierarchy where Black Americans couldn't vote
and there were violent reprisals if Black Americans tried to
vote or tried to, uh, have any political agency. And,
(18:56):
you know, the Ku Klux Klan were police during the
day and donned hoods during the night. So, uh, so
a fascist dictatorship of the sort you're seeing in the
United States right now or in Russia, uh, is one
where it, uh, I mean, I think even even with
kind of a racial, once you lean into herrenvolk democracy,
(19:19):
whites are like the only pure Australians. Then then favors
get done for you if you're white, you know. Old
boys networks, like white people's networks, um, uh, non-whites would
have worse jobs and the formation of a kind of
informal apartheid system. But fascism is like what you would
(19:40):
not fascism. The sort of classic European fascist fascism of
the sort that you see in the United States right now,
is a dictator and a party that is completely aligned
around the dictator. And Stephen Miller, one of the most
powerful people in the United States, recently said that the
Democratic Party are, uh, not it's not a legitimate political party.
(20:03):
It's an extremist domestic extremist organization. So terrorists.
S11 (20:10):
The Democrat party. Sean is terrorizing the American people. Just
think about what is happening in our major cities, the Bloodbaths,
every single weekend. One victim after another, one shooting after another,
one murder after another. When you have Democrat politicians like
Pritzker and Newsom that are freeing illegal alien pedophiles, illegal
(20:34):
alien child abductors, illegal alien murderers back into our streets
to kidnap people, to beat them senseless, to stab them
and shoot them to death. This is terrorism being waged
against the American people.
S3 (20:48):
Now, that's not going to be the case in a
multi-party system in a white apartheid state, which would be
more the kind of thing I would worry about with Australia.
The problem is politicians, as Plato pointed out in the
eighth book of the Republic, politicians who are corrupt and
(21:12):
power hungry will use fear and panic to gain power.
So behind any white Australia xenophobic campaign will be a
politician without any principles whatsoever who seeks fundamentally power.
S12 (21:29):
And so, with regards.
S4 (21:31):
To what you see happening in the United States, why
is this happening now? You know, is it because the
status quo is failing or is it something else?
S3 (21:37):
Well, one thing is Trump is a uniquely capable politician.
And of course, the Democrats screwed things up. Biden needed
to step down. You know, Kamala Harris ran a terrible campaign.
To be fair to her, didn't have the chance to
run a campaign. The Democrats concealed Biden's aging condition. Those
(22:02):
were factors in Trump's victory. There was a failed assassination
attempt that made him much more popular. But I think
the main factor was that people did not recognize that
Trump meant what he said. Now people say, oh, the
Democrats failed because they said that Trump was a fascist
(22:22):
and they warned of his dangers. Well, maybe what failed
was the fact that so many people mocked those warnings.
S12 (22:32):
And so do you.
S4 (22:33):
Think the US can actually recover from what you're seeing
as this tilt into fascism, or is this it, you know,
is it just going to. Are we going to be
seeing scenes like we saw in the 1930s with Mussolini? Like,
is that what's going to happen?
S13 (22:45):
Well, we're already we're already seeing that Trump trumps.
S3 (22:49):
More and more federal buildings have Trump's face on them,
that scowling face. It's everywhere. So it's getting. DC is
occupied by the military, and the federal buildings have Trump's
face on them, you know. So it's as bad as
it can be in terms of authoritarianism, you know? Uh,
(23:11):
so is anyone with eyes should be able to see, uh, and, uh,
and so, you know, just look at how, you know,
the praise and the lavish. So the Republican Party is
just 100% anything he wants. Now he's like taking parts
of companies and, you know, so that looks kind of
like some, you know, state owned control. Problem is, it's
(23:34):
hard to see how a country recovers from that. Like
when Trump dies in office. I could see him possibly, like,
doing what Putin did, where he allowed someone to be
a sort of fake leader. Um, I could see that happening.
Or I could see him handing the reins to Marco
(23:54):
Rubio or JD Vance. People he trusts who will keep him.
But I think he will stay in office until he dies. Uh,
and then after that, I think it will probably like
whoever is the most savage, uncompromising, um, dictator will be next.
(24:15):
Lots of countries are authoritarian. Canada faces these forces. Australia
faces these forces. Uh, you know, Europe faces these forces. Uh,
you know, it's not like, you know, people are like, oh,
my God, democracy is under threat. What is happening? Actually,
democracy is the exception. And Authoritarianism historically the rule. So
(24:38):
you can have dictatorships that when the dictator dies, they
become the countries eventually become democratic. But it's hard to
see a way out of this.
S4 (24:49):
Okay. Well, in an attempt to end on something of
a positive note, because you say that the struggle against,
you know, the rise of fascism is part of the
action of democracy itself. You say, if we weren't having
this struggle, we wouldn't be living in a democracy. So
to that end, you know, what steps can people take
to oppose the first steps towards a fascist regime? Like,
is it possible to stop one?
S3 (25:08):
Oh, absolutely. Like, absolutely. I think in Germany you have
a very powerful fascist movement that seeks to impose a
Bluten Boden blood and soil identity in alternative for Deutschland,
but Germans. But there's a lot of anti-fascist Germans. So
mass political protests against the off days. Alternative for Deutschland
(25:32):
is the most popular party in Germany. But it's a
multi-party system, and there are lots and lots of people
opposed to that program. And they they're willing to go
out on the streets. They're willing to have their voices heard. Uh,
I think, you know, defining yourself against what is happening.
Canada is defining itself in the moment against what is
(25:55):
happening in the United States, which is strengthening its own democracy.
There are annoyances. You might be annoyed with some woke stuff, uh,
but being aware of how that can be weaponized. As
you can see, the people saying we, the universities are
threatening free speech. All these all these woke people are
(26:16):
threatening free speech, are firing people left and right for
saying things they disagree with. Texas A&M, an instructor was
talking about, uh, transgender identity and a student filmed her.
The instructor was fired. And, uh, the students that you
have to say there are two sexes and two genders,
(26:39):
and that's it. It's illegal to say anything else. The
instructor was fired from Texas A&M, and the dean of
arts and sciences was fired. And the chair of her department,
chair of the instructors department was fired. So the forces
that were saying, oh, we got to bring free speech.
Those are the very forces that are making it illegal
(27:00):
to do anything but salute the flag in universities. Every
time you say, oh, you know, cancel culture or be
aware that the people pushing the narrative that cancel culture
is stollen. They're the ones who are the real cancel
(27:21):
culture threats.
S4 (27:24):
Well, it's a very timely discussion, Jason. So thank you
so much for your time.
S3 (27:29):
Thank you, Samantha, thanks for the work you do.
S4 (27:33):
Jason Stanley appears in curious at the Sydney Opera House
on Sunday, September 28th, and in Melbourne on Thursday the
2nd of October, presented by the Wheeler Centre. Today's episode
of The Morning Edition was produced by Tammy Mills. Tom
McKendrick is our head of audio. To listen to our
(27:55):
episodes as soon as they drop. Follow the Morning Edition
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(28:17):
your inbox every morning. Links are in the show. Notes.
I'm Samantha Selinger. Morris. Thanks for listening.
From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
This is the morning edition. I'm Samantha Selinger Morris. It's Monday,
September 15th. American President Donald Trump is a fascist running
an authoritarian regime. We hear this allegation a lot now.
S2 (00:20):
Kamala and her campaign is that everyone who isn't voting
for her is a Nazi. We're Nazis.
S3 (00:27):
People say, oh, the Democrats failed because they said that
Trump was a fascist and they warned of his dangers. Well,
maybe what failed was the fact that so many people
mocked those warnings.
S1 (00:41):
Fascism expert Jayson Stanley says he moved with his family
to Canada two weeks ago so that he could leave
behind and protest against the political climate in the United States.
And so that his children could grow up in a
free country. Today, Stanley, a University of Toronto philosophy professor
and author of Erasing History How fascists rewrite the past
(01:02):
to control the future. Joins me to discuss how American
exceptionalism has blinded many Americans from thinking that fascism could
ever take root in their country. And if fascism could
flourish here. So, Jason, welcome to the Morning Edition.
S3 (01:20):
Thank you. It's really good to be in conversation with you, Samantha.
S4 (01:24):
Well, let's get stuck into this, because you are. I've
got to tell the listeners, you're a renowned scholar of
authoritarianism and fascism. And you recently moved to Canada from
the United States because of the political climate, uh, in
your birthplace. And you said you want to raise your
kids in a country that is not tilting towards a
fascist dictatorship. So what's made you conclude that this is
(01:44):
what's actually happening in the United States?
S3 (01:47):
Well, I don't know. Well, I don't know how to
describe fascism in a way that it doesn't directly apply
to what is happening in the United States right now.
So I just, you know, I mean, I suppose you
could talk about, you know, usually people ask me to
define fascism such that it applies to what's happening in
the United States. But it's so obvious now that I
(02:10):
think what you have to do is try to define
fascism in such a way that it doesn't apply to
what's happening in the United States. But ideologically, fascism is
based around great replacement theory. It's based, you know, Hitler,
you know, xenophobia, hatred of immigrants is utterly central to
Mein Kampf. Uh, we have JD Vance, the vice president
(02:33):
of the United States and now a senator from Missouri, uh,
both talking about how America isn't a proposition. Uh, you know,
as Abraham Lincoln said, it was in the second inaugural.
S5 (02:48):
A new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created.
S3 (02:59):
So America, you know, J.D. Vance says America is a
soil where your ancestors are buried. You know, basically defines
American identity in terms of blood and soil nationalism, and
specifically white blood and soil nationalism.
S4 (03:17):
Let's get into this, because a lot of listeners, I
think they might be listening to you and they might
be thinking, whoa, like Trump, a fascist dictator, really, you know,
because they might look to Benito Mussolini in Italy in
the 30s or of course, Adolf Hitler. And they might think, wait,
we're not seeing the sort of violence. I guess that
was really a hallmark of those men's fascist regimes, you know,
the extermination camps to get rid of an entire race
(03:38):
of people, the assassination of political foes. So what would
you say to them?
S3 (03:42):
Yeah. So we're getting something very similar to mid-century European
fascism in the United States, a cult of the leader.
The one political party has been entirely taken over for
two elections in a row. The the Republican Party platform
has been what, you know, trust and Trump. Uh, so
we have a cult of leader, which, you know, in
(04:03):
American racial fascism of the sort that Hitler admires openly
in Mein Kampf when he says the United States is
building a racial state. That's my model. You didn't have
a cult of the leader, but you have a cult
of the leader now, like in mid-century Germany and Italy.
(04:26):
The final Solution is not decided on until 1941. Italian
fascism was not anti-Semitic until the mid to late 30s.
Until they had to be. Uh, so, you know, Italian
fascism and German fascism differ a lot from each other. Uh,
but both have a cult of the leader based around
(04:46):
the leader represents the nation. The emergencies are being called repeatedly.
So people are getting their legal immigration status revoked and
they're being deported and mass deportations, and it's the Alien
Enemies Act are claiming it's an invasion on emergency. That's
(05:07):
just how fascists grab power. That's how Hitler grabbed power.
So you have the strategies. You have the ideology. The
final solution does not come until 1941. So if you
said Trump is not a fascist because there's no death camps,
(05:27):
then you'd be saying Hitler was not a fascist in 1935, 1936, 1937.
So that's a terrible argument. So it's eight months in.
Multiple Democrats have been targeted for mortgage fraud. In other words,
they claimed two different residences or didn't do their mortgages. Right.
(05:51):
So they're all being targeted. He's targeted multiple political opponents
with the justice system. Even if they're not sent to prison,
they'll be completely bankrupted. Finally, I mean, there are many cases.
Think of Ice. We've now given, what, over $70 billion
to Ice for recruitment, $170 billion for the border stuff.
(06:14):
They're now hiring Ice agents with $50,000 signing bonuses. I mean,
I that would be life changing for me. They don't
have to have any qualifications except loyalty to Trump. So
what this is, is it a storm of Tai lung
that they're building? Uh, it's. So the storm of Thailand
were sort of the Nazi hooligans who then got government uniforms.
(06:38):
So that's what we're seeing. We're going to have well-paid
Trump soldiers on the street because they're being quizzed for
loyalty as the new federal government is. You also have
a glacial tongue replacement of the federal civil civil service
with loyalists. On and on.
S4 (07:00):
And I have seen it written that, you know, once
you've got armed immigration officers or policemen, you know, hiding
their identities in your streets. That's that's not a good sign.
And I'm so interested because you write in your latest book,
Erasing History How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future,
that there's a particular cultural environment that really has the
ideal conditions for fascist politics to bloom. So what are they?
S3 (07:24):
Well, you need to set up the conditions for great
replacement theory. The idea that, you know, the country's greatness
will be threatened by being replaced by members of the
non-dominant group. So you need a structure where people think
what the country is is this pure country, say pure
(07:48):
white country. You know, this this country that, you know,
suppose you have a country that is like, well, the
real say Australians are white and we're not going to
let any non-white people in because they don't mesh with
our idea of. So I would call that the mythic past. Uh,
this mythic past of a pure past where that people
(08:10):
weren't guilty of anything. And then foreigners, people not of
that group who come in will ruin the nation. So
that will, uh, incline you towards the kind of xenophobia
and panic that fuels fascist movements. Uh, now, uh, it's
particularly dangerous when you have a country, as Germany had
(08:34):
even before the Nazis, that kind of views itself as
exemplary and unique. So a country that views itself as exceptional.
And so then you can spin this narrative of decline
and we must regain our Exceptionality. Our exceptionality is under threat.
Look at Putin. Putin is saying we were a great empire.
(08:58):
We've always been a great empire. And then we encountered
this period of ruin. And I'm going to bring us
back to greatness. Putin is a fascist. So that structure,
loss of empire, as my colleague Greg Grandin has argued,
loss of empire is a particularly dangerous time for fascism.
(09:18):
But ideology of a pure nation that stands to be, uh, infected, ruined, destroyed,
its purity, its nobleness by immigrants, so that a background
of we're a multiracial country with lots of immigrants is
not conducive to fascism.
S4 (09:40):
And you're coming to Australia later this month, and you're
going to be discussing whether we are ill equipped to
understand what's playing out before our eyes. So are we.
And by we, do you mean Americans? Do you mean Australians?
Is everyone ill equipped to see what you see? Is
this very clear rise towards fascism in the United States?
S3 (09:57):
I think all the people who used to argue with
people on my side who were like, this is really
just an autocratic takeover of the sort that happens all
the time in the world. And guess what? It's happening here.
The and, you know, the all the anti-woke stuff that
was used as a fuel for this, you know, yes,
(10:18):
there can be annoying things that, you know, and kind
of screechy things that, you know, wokeness does, but it's
always the case that fascist movements have to create this
communist opposition that they then can run against. And so
I think that, you know, what we saw was this
(10:38):
structure of like, okay, you need fascism to smash wokeness. And, and, uh,
these fascist movements are rising everywhere appealing, you know. White supremacy.
Hindu supremacy. Jewish supremacy. You know, so. But I think
Americans now see that, okay. It's bad, you know, like,
(11:02):
you know, I think the people who who like, I
know who who are like, Trump isn't so bad and
wokeness is really bad. Like, now they're like, okay. Yeah. Uh,
you know, okay, this is really bad. I have close
friends who are like, Trump is going to end foreign wars.
You know, like all that stuff that I think everybody
(11:23):
is seeing is just absurd. Like, there's no evidence Trump
is going to side with Palestinians against Israel as the
Muslims in Michigan thought he would. As the as the
Arab population. Like that's not happening. There's no way he's
going to, uh, you know, the whole Russia Ukraine situation. Nothing.
(11:45):
I'm seeing people gradually understand around the world I'm speaking
in the media of a lot of countries. I think, uh, Canada.
I still think there's a there's a lot of going
to be a lot of denial. And because people remember
going to America like two years ago, you know, and
they're like, American people would never do that, you know?
(12:05):
But the country's been taken over. You know, the country's
been taken over by an autocrat. So.
S4 (12:14):
Wow. So, yeah. And so I've got to ask, I mean,
do you think that we are vulnerable to authoritarianism or
fascism flourishing here in Australia? Because just recently we witnessed
neo-Nazis marching in our streets protesting immigration? That was pretty
shocking to a lot of people. And still, you know,
Australians would argue, no, there's no way. Not here. You know,
(12:35):
I think it's arguable that many people here would have
what you refer to as, you know, that exceptionalism, uh,
view that you say a lot of Americans have always
had about. Well, no, no, no, fascism can't happen here.
Do you think that we we are the same here?
S3 (12:47):
First thing to point out is it's not the neo-Nazis
marching on the street. You know, the neo-Nazis marching on
the street. Some of them might eventually don suits. There
is a global fascist movement of great sophistication that is
not neo-Nazis marching on the streets. It's Yale Law School
graduates like Kris Kobach, the attorney general of Kansas.
S6 (13:12):
Sorry to say, but by the end of the campaign,
Democrats and their media allies had convinced many people, even Republicans,
that I was an extremist. If I were one, I
would tell you, but I am not.
S3 (13:27):
Uh, it's, uh, JD Vance. Uh, you know, JD Vance
is brilliant. Uh, JD Vance says that you're American. If
your ancestors are buried in the cemeteries of our Civil war,
regardless of your views.
S7 (13:45):
Now, in that cemetery, there are people who are born
around the time of the Civil War. And if, as
I hope, my wife and I are eventually laid to
rest there and our kids follow us, there will be
seven generations just in that small mountain cemetery plot in
eastern Kentucky, seven generations of people who have fought for
this country, who have built this country, who have made
(14:06):
things in this country, and who would fight and die
to protect this country if they were asked to.
S8 (14:12):
And I just think the construction of, of this notion
reveals a lot about someone who fundamentally believes in the
supremacy of whiteness and masculinity.
S9 (14:21):
Oh my goodness. Pass the smelling salts. Am I getting
a whiff of what's out of the air? White supremacy.
S10 (14:29):
He just wants to be buried with his family. Heaven
forbid the Trump and Vance should resurrect an America that
is American.
S3 (14:39):
There are very sophisticated fascists and Nazis with top degrees
who believe that the entire post-World War Two liberal consensus
needs to be overturned, and we need to return to
ethnic nationalism.
S1 (15:01):
We'll be right back.
S4 (15:05):
Well, let's talk practically, then. Like, what are the warning
signs that listeners should look out for wherever they are that,
you know, perhaps their leader or government is moving their
country towards a fascist regime?
S3 (15:15):
I think Australia is not in a situation where you
face a cult of the leader. I don't see anyone
in your political scene. That's not going to happen in Australia.
The chances that you'll have someone with Trump's political gifts
who can destroy democracy, and then after that, it's just
like whatever the most powerful future dictator is, gets to rule.
(15:38):
That's not going to be Australia's situation unless there's some
hidden TV superstar that you guys that I don't know about.
So it's not, as I said, a European cult of
the leader situation. What you face is more like a possible,
you know, everyone goes back to their racist, fascist past.
(15:59):
What I would expect from Australia is a sophisticated movement
of White Australia supporters. So who are educated, uh, wealthy, uh,
you know, your friends. There's a good piece from the
early 40s called Who Goes Nazi? Uh, that's that's written
(16:21):
about a New York cocktail party. Like, who would go
Nazi here? Now, in the United States, there are many
members of polite society who think race is biological and,
you know, are scientific racists or, uh, you know, have
various views that we would associate with, uh, you know,
(16:44):
white supremacy. So what I would expect from you guys
is you don't have someone who could create a cult
of the leader like Trump can. I would expect a
party that represents the white Australia past and represents immigrants
as destroying what is, you know, the pure, innocent, wonderful
(17:06):
Australian life of the past. And so the borders must
be shut and we should stop talking about indigenous genocide. And,
you know, because that's trying to shame this, you know,
nation that was like pure and innocent. That's what I
would expect in Australia. Then the immigration crackdown comes, the
(17:28):
immigration crackdown, as we're seeing in the United States that allows,
you know, essentially military into the cities and, and the
secret police. So possibly that would be a route, uh,
in Australia, but it would be more like with you guys,
a herrenvolk democracy, like a white, uh, democracy for white
(17:50):
people where non-whites sort of are not regarded as super.
You know, there's a model Australian who's it would be
something like that. It would be a white nationalist return
to White Australia, which ended in, what, 1971?
S4 (18:07):
In the 70s? Yeah, yeah.
S3 (18:08):
So you guys are not that far away from a
herrenvolk democracy, you know, a racial democracy.
S4 (18:16):
I'm just curious. Let's just say that in the extreme case,
we actually become that. What would the practical difference be
in terms of us living on the streets between living
in a fascist regime and living in the one that
you've just presented?
S3 (18:29):
Uh, a herrenvolk democracy?
S4 (18:32):
Yeah.
S3 (18:33):
Well, I mean, black Americans call Jim Crow a, uh, fascism,
even though it's not a cult of the leader. It
was a racial, uh, hierarchy where Black Americans couldn't vote
and there were violent reprisals if Black Americans tried to
vote or tried to, uh, have any political agency. And,
(18:56):
you know, the Ku Klux Klan were police during the
day and donned hoods during the night. So, uh, so
a fascist dictatorship of the sort you're seeing in the
United States right now or in Russia, uh, is one
where it, uh, I mean, I think even even with
kind of a racial, once you lean into herrenvolk democracy,
(19:19):
whites are like the only pure Australians. Then then favors
get done for you if you're white, you know. Old
boys networks, like white people's networks, um, uh, non-whites would
have worse jobs and the formation of a kind of
informal apartheid system. But fascism is like what you would
(19:40):
not fascism. The sort of classic European fascist fascism of
the sort that you see in the United States right now,
is a dictator and a party that is completely aligned
around the dictator. And Stephen Miller, one of the most
powerful people in the United States, recently said that the
Democratic Party are, uh, not it's not a legitimate political party.
(20:03):
It's an extremist domestic extremist organization. So terrorists.
S11 (20:10):
The Democrat party. Sean is terrorizing the American people. Just
think about what is happening in our major cities, the Bloodbaths,
every single weekend. One victim after another, one shooting after another,
one murder after another. When you have Democrat politicians like
Pritzker and Newsom that are freeing illegal alien pedophiles, illegal
(20:34):
alien child abductors, illegal alien murderers back into our streets
to kidnap people, to beat them senseless, to stab them
and shoot them to death. This is terrorism being waged
against the American people.
S3 (20:48):
Now, that's not going to be the case in a
multi-party system in a white apartheid state, which would be
more the kind of thing I would worry about with Australia.
The problem is politicians, as Plato pointed out in the
eighth book of the Republic, politicians who are corrupt and
(21:12):
power hungry will use fear and panic to gain power.
So behind any white Australia xenophobic campaign will be a
politician without any principles whatsoever who seeks fundamentally power.
S12 (21:29):
And so, with regards.
S4 (21:31):
To what you see happening in the United States, why
is this happening now? You know, is it because the
status quo is failing or is it something else?
S3 (21:37):
Well, one thing is Trump is a uniquely capable politician.
And of course, the Democrats screwed things up. Biden needed
to step down. You know, Kamala Harris ran a terrible campaign.
To be fair to her, didn't have the chance to
run a campaign. The Democrats concealed Biden's aging condition. Those
(22:02):
were factors in Trump's victory. There was a failed assassination
attempt that made him much more popular. But I think
the main factor was that people did not recognize that
Trump meant what he said. Now people say, oh, the
Democrats failed because they said that Trump was a fascist
(22:22):
and they warned of his dangers. Well, maybe what failed
was the fact that so many people mocked those warnings.
S12 (22:32):
And so do you.
S4 (22:33):
Think the US can actually recover from what you're seeing
as this tilt into fascism, or is this it, you know,
is it just going to. Are we going to be
seeing scenes like we saw in the 1930s with Mussolini? Like,
is that what's going to happen?
S13 (22:45):
Well, we're already we're already seeing that Trump trumps.
S3 (22:49):
More and more federal buildings have Trump's face on them,
that scowling face. It's everywhere. So it's getting. DC is
occupied by the military, and the federal buildings have Trump's
face on them, you know. So it's as bad as
it can be in terms of authoritarianism, you know? Uh,
(23:11):
so is anyone with eyes should be able to see, uh, and, uh,
and so, you know, just look at how, you know,
the praise and the lavish. So the Republican Party is
just 100% anything he wants. Now he's like taking parts
of companies and, you know, so that looks kind of
like some, you know, state owned control. Problem is, it's
(23:34):
hard to see how a country recovers from that. Like
when Trump dies in office. I could see him possibly, like,
doing what Putin did, where he allowed someone to be
a sort of fake leader. Um, I could see that happening.
Or I could see him handing the reins to Marco
(23:54):
Rubio or JD Vance. People he trusts who will keep him.
But I think he will stay in office until he dies. Uh,
and then after that, I think it will probably like
whoever is the most savage, uncompromising, um, dictator will be next.
(24:15):
Lots of countries are authoritarian. Canada faces these forces. Australia
faces these forces. Uh, you know, Europe faces these forces. Uh,
you know, it's not like, you know, people are like, oh,
my God, democracy is under threat. What is happening? Actually,
democracy is the exception. And Authoritarianism historically the rule. So
(24:38):
you can have dictatorships that when the dictator dies, they
become the countries eventually become democratic. But it's hard to
see a way out of this.
S4 (24:49):
Okay. Well, in an attempt to end on something of
a positive note, because you say that the struggle against,
you know, the rise of fascism is part of the
action of democracy itself. You say, if we weren't having
this struggle, we wouldn't be living in a democracy. So
to that end, you know, what steps can people take
to oppose the first steps towards a fascist regime? Like,
is it possible to stop one?
S3 (25:08):
Oh, absolutely. Like, absolutely. I think in Germany you have
a very powerful fascist movement that seeks to impose a
Bluten Boden blood and soil identity in alternative for Deutschland,
but Germans. But there's a lot of anti-fascist Germans. So
mass political protests against the off days. Alternative for Deutschland
(25:32):
is the most popular party in Germany. But it's a
multi-party system, and there are lots and lots of people
opposed to that program. And they they're willing to go
out on the streets. They're willing to have their voices heard. Uh,
I think, you know, defining yourself against what is happening.
Canada is defining itself in the moment against what is
(25:55):
happening in the United States, which is strengthening its own democracy.
There are annoyances. You might be annoyed with some woke stuff, uh,
but being aware of how that can be weaponized. As
you can see, the people saying we, the universities are
threatening free speech. All these all these woke people are
(26:16):
threatening free speech, are firing people left and right for
saying things they disagree with. Texas A&M, an instructor was
talking about, uh, transgender identity and a student filmed her.
The instructor was fired. And, uh, the students that you
have to say there are two sexes and two genders,
(26:39):
and that's it. It's illegal to say anything else. The
instructor was fired from Texas A&M, and the dean of
arts and sciences was fired. And the chair of her department,
chair of the instructors department was fired. So the forces
that were saying, oh, we got to bring free speech.
Those are the very forces that are making it illegal
(27:00):
to do anything but salute the flag in universities. Every
time you say, oh, you know, cancel culture or be
aware that the people pushing the narrative that cancel culture
is stollen. They're the ones who are the real cancel
(27:21):
culture threats.
S4 (27:24):
Well, it's a very timely discussion, Jason. So thank you
so much for your time.
S3 (27:29):
Thank you, Samantha, thanks for the work you do.
S4 (27:33):
Jason Stanley appears in curious at the Sydney Opera House
on Sunday, September 28th, and in Melbourne on Thursday the
2nd of October, presented by the Wheeler Centre. Today's episode
of The Morning Edition was produced by Tammy Mills. Tom
McKendrick is our head of audio. To listen to our
(27:55):
episodes as soon as they drop. Follow the Morning Edition
on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Our
newsrooms are powered by subscriptions, so to support independent journalism,
visit The Age or smh.com.au. Subscribe and to stay up
to date, sign up to our Morning Edition newsletter to
receive a summary of the day's most important news in
(28:17):
your inbox every morning. Links are in the show. Notes.
I'm Samantha Selinger. Morris. Thanks for listening.
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