The Daily Dose: Running Scared
Three scholars of fascism flee the United States
Earlier today, the New York Times posted a video featuring three leading specialists on fascism, Timothy Snyder, Marci Shore, and Jason Stanley. Under the headline, “We’re Experts in Fascism. We're Leaving the US,” they explain why they chose to leave the country and seek political refuge in Canada, where they have each taken posts at the University of Toronto.
After watching the video, I find myself having mixed feelings about their decision. On a personal level, I understand why they did it. America has transitioned to authoritarianism, and it is conceivable that at some point the new regime will begin targeting individual academics. If it does, Snyder and Stanley, in particular, would figure high on the list of scholars who might come under attack (Shore, while a highly respected scholar, does not have the public profile of the other two).
Now that they have left, they cannot very well implore others to resist the regime that they themselves have run away from.
Still, it is because they are such notable figures in the study of fascism—Snyder is the world’s leading expert on the topic—that their presence in the United States is sorely needed. Having taken on the public profiles that they have, it is arguably their public duty to serve as intellectual leaders of the resistance. The burgeoning movement against the Trump regime will need scholars like them to frame the issue, lay out the stakes, and explain why it is important to mobilize.
What they offer instead are excuses for their decision to leave. They even try to rationalize their move as somehow furthering the public interest, arguing that it is important for people in their position to do as the Russian opposition did and “set up centers of resistance in places of relative safety.” The claim strikes me as vacuous and self-serving. In all likelihood, they left because they are scared; it is as simple as that.
The reason why the Russian opposition, or what remains of it, has gone into exile is that every single opposition figure who did not leave is either dead or languishing in a gulag. As bad as things have become in America, that is not going to happen here—not for the foreseeable future, anyway.
Russia’s dictatorship took well over a decade to construct, and that was under an authoritarian leader who is far more competent than our own. Very few authoritarian regimes today can be classified as full dictatorships like those in Russia and China. In the vast majority, functional oppositions continue to exist and operate above ground.
In any event, we are a long way off from individual academics finding themselves in Trump’s crosshairs. He has far bigger fish to fry than them. For one thing, there are plenty of journalists, pundits, and TV personalities with daily access to audiences of millions who will come across his radar far sooner than a handful of Yale scholars.
Admittedly, I am not in a great position to throw shade at someone for leaving the country. My family and I have been living abroad since 2021. There are members of my family who have serious, debilitating health issues, and it proved impossible to get appointments with the relevant specialists on a realistic timeframe in the U.S. As a result, one could reasonably question what place I have to tell someone else, “you should stay.”
But we live abroad because we have to, and we were certainly not running away from anything when we moved. Nor do I have anything approximating the public profile and, therefore, responsibility of the scholars at issue here.
Americans now have two choices: give up or fight back. As I have previously explained, Trump’s position is exceptionally weak when compared to other authoritarians while that of American civil society is exceptionally strong. Despite the rather fatalistic undertone of the New York Times video, there is no reason why Americans should just surrender to their tinpot dictator when they are more than capable of casting him off.
But the American people need leaders, including intellectual ones, to encourage them to fight back. Being as prominent as they are, Stanley and Snyder were in a position to do that. But now that they have left, they cannot very well implore others to resist the regime that they themselves have run away from.
Who, after all, is supposed to assume that role now? Other people? Snyder and Stanley are the guys who would take on that task. If not them, who?
None of what I am saying here is meant to apply to ordinary people who have chosen to leave the country. It is a perfectly understandable decision that many have made for themselves and their families. Of course, Snyder and Stanley are human beings too and, as such, are subject to the same fears and insecurities others might feel under the circumstances. But they are far from ordinary; they are the leading voices on the issue.
Nor does any of this apply to other academics who are working abroad; they did not flee the system they must now urge people to rise up against. As a result, they still have the credibility to issue such calls. But when Snyder and Stanley do the same, how seriously can they be taken?
America could have used their help. But it is unclear what sort of help they can provide now that they have fled the very danger they left others behind to face.
We need creativity and inspiration from leaders. These scholars can't offer either of those. We need to look to people who have supplanted authoritarianism for solutions not people who study the darkest humanity has to offer with little insight into hope. That video was fear mongering laced with evidence to justify their reasons for leaving steeped in fear. It cannot spur anything other than fear and anxiety. It is therefore not constructive or helpful for people who have no choice but to stay. If they want to leave they can but they don't need to make up a whole slew of excuses for why when the true reason is their courage was overshadowed by their fear.
Neil, this is a weak and petulant article. Tim Snyder is one your country’s most important thinkers at the moment and, although you paid brief lip service to that, you then went ahead and judged him harshly for a personal decision he made (about which you know very little). Which, for the record, he indicated was not directly related to your country’s current administration. That is downright disrespectful. You should also have the grace and foresight to know that alienating (and attempting to shame) your greatest allies is a particularly unwise strategy at any time, let alone a time like this, and that Tim Snyder will continue to contribute meaningfully to the fight against tyranny regardless of his geographical location, just as he has his entire career. When your tantrum is over you might want to consider retracting this article with an appropriate apology.