It's great to welcome back to the program.
ason Stanley, who's a professor
at Yale university, author of the books, how fascism works, the politics of us in them
and how propaganda works.
Both a very, very relevant in wenty nineteen.
Jason, so great to have you back on.
Great to be back on, David.
So a couple of things that I want to touch on.
I mean, ne, generally speaking, you know, we, we explored the idea in your irst, uh,
appearance on the show about how there are sort of very formal characteristics and definitions
of things like fascism, but that oftentimes in, in ostensibly democratic Western, uh,
government's elements of fascistic behavior can sort of creep in.
It's not fascism per se, but that doesn't mean that it's not a useful term to explore
what it is that we're seeing.
How relevant is that as a lens through which you continue to watch the Trump administration
since you were last on?
I think it's, it's highly relevant.
I mean, what we're seeing is we're seeing a continued cooptation of our institutions.
So we're seeing a, uh, we're seeing institutions that are supposed to be independent but are
being transformed into, uh, essentially, uh, loyalty, uh, cadres of loyalists for the,
the, the leader, which is what we see in the devolution and deconstruction of democratic
in, in, uh, in, uh, countries in Eastern Europe, oland and ungary are primarily, we're seeing
our courts being co-opted by partisan extremists.
So, uh, this is, this is, we're seeing a ne party state developed.
We're seeing, uh, and the ne pan, it's not just a ne party state filled with decent Republicans
committed to a multiparty system.
It's a, a party being taken over by a family, uh, and the leader, and we're seeing a, and
we're seeing taken over by partisans of that party.
Uh, so that is something deeply worrisome.
We're seeing that accelerate.
Uh, the courts are going to be in the hands and very partisan hands for some number of
time.
We're seeing an accelerated.
We're seeing a toleration or greater toleration for things that seemed shocking wo years ago.
So, uh, IS w, uh, the situation at the border and [inaudible] in the detention centers,
we're seeing people, we're seeing the normalization of treatment of our fellow human beings.
People are learning to look away and that of course is a very disturbing sign of encroaching
fascism.
When we talk about the Trump presidency, there are a couple of different views that are still
critical, but there are different views that can sometimes be applied.
ne is that this is sort of a, an anomaly and that as soon as Trump is gone, everything
goes back to how it was before.
For better or worse, we can debate how it was before, but it immediately sort of goes
back.
The other idea is that Trump now has modified, uh, what is considered acceptable for the
office of the presidency in a way that will not simply go back to the way it was even
once Trump personally is gone.
What, what does history tell us about that?
What, what do you, what are your thoughts about that?
Right.
Well we have, we are [inaudible].
Democracy is held up by norms that that in even in the best instance are not followed.
Uh, but at least you have to pay loyal lip service to them.
Now we're not paying lip service even to those norms anymore.
Uh, so we're seeing, uh, an assault on truth that is unprecedented.
It's not that governments didn't, our government didn't lie to us.
Governments lie.
That's what they do.
Liberal liberal democracies lie to their people.
Governments lie.
The raq war, financial crisis, uh, our racial history filled with lies, but it's something
different now.
There's a different character to the lying.
So in the past, take the raq war, there was an intent to deceive.
If you looked at the literal statements, uh, the literal statements were not as often lies.
They were just, they were meant to mislead you, trick you into thinking, you know, uh,
rums help say, uh, Saddam Hussein is not an honest man.
Well, that could be true consistently with Saddam Hussein not being involved in ine leven.
Okay.
And so they were intense to deceive.
There's no more intent to deceive.
There's just a bald faced, open lion on assault, direct assault on truth.
And so that is very particular to authoritarians, uh, authoritarians try to dismantle truth
and make the public space information space, just us versus them.
So, uh, so what we're seeing now is, uh, is from DOE.
They don't believe the things that Trump says, uh, but they think it's, uh, it's our lies
versus their lies.
There is no reality.
There is no cost for lying anymore.
Uh, and so, and, and it's just you're with us or, or against us.
And that's anti-democratic because democracy is all about compromise.
It's about seeing our fellow citizens point of view, not vilifying our fellow citizens.
So our information space has been really damaged and I'm not exactly sure how we repair it.
Is that ne of the, the hallmarks of effectively propagandizing by an a, a government urge
administration that even when the followers, the recipients of the propaganda identify
that on, on, uh, on the basis of facts, what they're being told isn't true.
They either accepted on the assumption that there's some greater truth that is implicit
or even sometimes on the idea that the ends sort of justify the means or that the other
people also lie.
Like is that a sign that you are effectively propagandizing your followers?
Yes, definitely.
But it's a particular kind of propaganda.
All political parties engage in propaganda.
So what's tricky is to notice the difference in our information space.
The difference is not that people are manipulating audiences with rhetoric that's just called
politics.
And so, uh, the right wo at the left to it, the Democrats do it, the Republicans do it,
everybody does.
Um, but what's different is that there is no intent to make people believe things, uh,
believe that reality is different than it is.
It's just an attempt.
Uh, it, I mean there's no, there's no attempt to, to uh, to sort of give plausible sounding
reasons.
It's just churning the political space into complete us versus them.
This is why the subtitle of my book, how fascism works is the politics of us and them.
This is what you see when you see the attacks on democracy.
And if you can remember previous admits, if you can put yourself back to the pre-Trump
era, if that's even possible for us now.
Uh, it was a time where we knew that our politicians lied to us, but we also knew that if you caught
them, there would be a cost that's gone.
Uh, we now have the situation that you used to have that I would understand from people
who lived under authoritarian regimes where everyone, everyone thought everybody's lying.
It's all ne big lie.
You just have to figure out, as you said, who's really deeply on your side and the distinction
between a deeper truth.
Uh, and let's remember, and, and, uh, uh, and a superficial truth is ne that is, comes
from the Soviet union, that that prov de is the deeper truth.
Uh, and so the state might lie and the service to a deeper truth.
And that's the, uh, the emblematic of authoritarianism.
If you can remember, like if you're gonna remember back to like wenty twelve, wenty
thirteen, you know, there were real costs allying.
There were real costs to being caught in a lie.
Um, because this deeper truth element wasn't that the varia
when we look at some of the different areas you mentioned at the beginning.
So for example, onald Trump doesn't literally controlled the judiciary in the way that you
see in some other countries, but he's responsible for having selected more and more Supreme
court justices, more and more lower appeal level judges.
So it's not a direct control in, in the cartoonish way that sometimes exists, but he is exerting
more and more influence over the judiciary.
Trump doesn't literally control the media, but there are some media outlets that are
essentially arms of the Trump administration.
There are others that even in their critiques of onald Trump are still being led almost
by a leash as to what will you talk about for the next our days when onald Trump decides
to tweet about a, to take your attention off of B. So, in looking at all of these different
areas that onald Trump is not in a, in a formal controlling, but is increasingly wielding
influence over, which is the most concerning to you in terms of the, it's authoritarian,
uh, uh, direction that it's going?
The judiciary.
Okay.
I mean the media as well, both are concerning, but it's more the judiciary, uh, the Republican
party, uh, unfortunately the, the moderate Republicans that we remember from times past,
uh, are fewer and fewer.
Uh, and the ones that desire power at all costs a ne party state, complete domination.
I mean, you know, we have to remember this president lost by hree million votes, uh,
that anti-democratic elements in the structure of our country, like the electoral college,
uh, and the whole system of the Senate really that disempower majorities are, uh, are at
work here.
And then we have an assault on voting rights, uh, and the, the Supreme court validating
partisan extreme partisan gerrymandering.
So at some point you have to ask in what sense are we a democracy?
Or even, uh, I mean there's always, Oh, we're not a democracy.
We're a Republic.
Our, what sense are we anything but a ne party state?
And the judiciary has been now filled with very young, far right, many of them partisan
hacks.
And so when you look at the literature on authoritarianism, they always warn you about
a ne party state.
And if you look at our GT judiciary, what we're seeing is a lot of partisan hacks.
A lot of people who are not trained at elite elite institutions who, uh, who are basically,
uh, from, uh, not that elite institutions have always led us in the right way.
Mind you.
Um, and of course the Supreme court is an elite.
Institutions are part of the problem.
Uh, the Supreme court on the right and the left on whatever ideology, they're all from
Harvard and Yale.
So, uh, but, uh, but we have a lot of unqualified, uh, justices and people who are just part
really, really partisan.
And so that deeply concerns me.
It's flying under the radar.
These are people who are going to steer policy for decades to come.
Uh, and I don't know how much of this can be undone.
Uh, so I, I really worry about the guts of our democracy.
The voting laws, the voting rights act has been gutted.
Uh, partisan gerrymandering has been validated.
So if you go back to Jim Crow, uh, well, what was Jim Crow about?
But about the voting system and there's a lot of concerns about our ODing system and
the judiciary is really, uh, foundational there.
So even if you have a fully free press that can say what what it wants, uh, ultimately
it's supposed to affect, uh, the voting system.
And if the voting system is not free and fair, uh, then, uh, we're going to increasingly,
I have problems.
So if onald Trump is reelected in November of wenty twenty, which, I mean, I'm not making
any predictions at this point, but it's certainly quite plausible despite, you know, hearing
Oh, he's not doing well in orth Carolina.
Okay, listen, we, we know that our expectations the day before election day are often a, a
proven wrong.
If he is allowed to no longer have another election coming up.
What concerns do you have about what the next level may be in these authoritarian tendencies?
Like, what has he not done yet that at this point he could probably get away with?
Uh, he's shown a clear proclivity towards using the, uh, the instruments of power, uh,
to target his enemies.
Bill BARR, the attorney general has proven to be a very dangerous, uh, person.
So the thing is that he's got an attorney general who seems to believe that the presidency
is a dictatorship.
And so Ben bell bar is now opened a criminal investigation on the basis of a far right
conspiracy, uh, about how kraine supposedly set Putin up.
Yup.
So that's already extremely disturbing and it's a year away from the election to open
up a criminal investigation on the basis of a far right extremist conspiracy that kraine
somehow was setting up.
Uh, um, so using the instruments of power using the justice department, he's a very
willing attorney general to target political opposition.
He seems to think that's completely fair.
We are ready are starting to look like a banana dynastic dynastic banana Republic.
I mean, he brings, his family members are at all a loci of power.
So, uh, you know, these pictures from, um, the [inaudible] and these other with, uh,
with Ivanka Trump and, and various other family members, just, it's just, uh, so we're looking
already like a family dynasty.
Uh, we're, we're, we're seeing the justice department being used to target political
opponents.
Uh, we're, we're seeing, I'm extremely worried about the ever increasing intensity of the
immigration, uh, uh, mechanisms which are sending our fellow residents in the nited
States into hiding, uh, no mercy at all.
And he seems to not be able to find the department of Homeland security had, whose harsh enough?
So, uh, so I'm worried and I'm worried about these mechanisms of cruelty being baked into
our economy as you already see in the Midwest, where many County jails rely on the money
they get from ice.
So you, you have really harsh targeting of undocumented, uh, of undocumented workers
in residents.
So I'm worried that the gloves will be off in a way that even now,
I, it's hard to imagine.
We've been speaking with ason Stanley, who's a professor at Yale university.
He is the author of,
uh, the most recently author of wo books, how fascism works, the politics of us and
them, and also how propaganda works.
Jason, so great having you on.
Again,
great to speak to you David, the David Pakman