Yale professor who studies fascism fleeing US to work in Canada
Yale professor who studies fascism fleeing US to work in Canada
Jason Stanley, who says grandmother fled Berlin with his father in 1939, says US may become ‘fascist dictatorship’
I got so much shit from the Canadian reddit for saying that people are literally going to flee for their lives across the border.
That was back in November. Who's right now?
Humanities academics will do anything to avoid fieldwork.
“When I saw Columbia completely capitulate, and I saw this vocabulary of, well, we’re going to work behind the scenes because we’re not going to get targeted – that whole way of thinking pre-supposes that some universities will get targeted, and you don’t want to be one of those universities, and that’s just a losing strategy,” he said.
Stanley added: “You’ve got to just band together and say an attack on one university is an attack on all universities. And maybe you lose that fight, but you’re certainly going to lose this one if you give up before you fight.
1000%
But how is fleeing the country not "giving up before you fight"?
One professor is not the same as a university. He's talking about universities rolling over, because they are (or were, it's kind of too late now) the ones in this situation that have the power to take a meaningful stance.
But how is fleeing the country not “giving up before you fight”?
Trying to seriously answer... he's a researcher that studies fascism, so his most effective means of fighting is to continue his work. He's a more valuable fighter as a researcher than he is as a guy on picket lines. If he continues his research, it's a net gain for everyone - specially if he continues advocating, like he is already doing by talking about this with media.
He praised other faculty at Yale for standing up against the attacks on their profession and said he wished he could stay and fight with them.
“I don’t see it as fleeing at all,” he said. “I see it as joining Canada, which is a target of Trump, just like Yale is a target of Trump.”
Stanley’s profile has also risen since then after the publication of several books on propaganda and fascism. The Munk school is building a program with the view that there’s an “international struggle against democracy” and provides a “very exciting intellectual opportunity”, he said.
“I don’t see it as fleeing at all,” he said. “I see it as joining Canada, which is a target of Trump, just like Yale is a target of Trump.”
Elbows the fuck up.
It's better than simply obeying & complying. It shows that there are punishing consequences - we lose our top educators etc
I assume he’s going to continue his work, just from outside the US. Giving up would mean stopping his work.
This is a very bad sign.. this guy is a US citizen, right? If even he feels the need to flee, from the seclusion of the ivory tower ...
They've been going after academics and students first. Standard fascist dictatorship stuff.
It's crystal clear they'll soon start widespread criminalization of everything they deem liberal (woke, dei, lgbtq, etc).
If you're an educated professional in America ((STEM)), you should be making moves to get the fuck out and brain drain the fascist dictatorship, because they will come for you sooner than later; especially when the economy collapses and they realize their best and brightest are fleeing to former allies en mass.
educated professional in America ((STEM))
I get what you're saying, but there's no need to exclude the humanities from this. In fact, between this Yale prof and the way Columbia gave in to the administration's demands, it looks like STEM profs haven't yet been targeted in the same way.
They don’t even need to criminalize your conduct to indefinitely detain / deport you, and you might be deported to a country with even less due process / human rights protections.
It’s an important distinction, because it means they don’t have to criminalize things that their allies also do in order to catch their intended targets.
I'm in the same exact boat. US citizen, making my way out because it's way too dangerous. I can read the writing on the wall.
Wow, I can't believe how common this is becoming. There was an article about this recently, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/03/gold-card-residence-abroad/682103/ (archive https://archive.is/q3iCF )
Out of curiosity (and on the off-chance that it helps out a fellow USian) how are you getting out? What's the path you've picked, if you've gotten that far, or what options are you considering?
"may become"
Dude it already is a fascist dictatorship. People are getting unalived and disappearing for their opinions.
Murdered and abducted, newspeak nobody.
"Unalived" might be a euphemism that's only necessary on certain social media to avoid censorship nowadays, but people were using the term "disappearing" (especially as a transitive verb) during Chile's Pinochet regime, if not earlier.
Unalive and disappear don't change the meaning of the thought, and they circumvent ideological restrictions that intent to restrict thought. This is opposite the effect of newspeak.
seems he didn't wanna study it that closely
Who would?
many, many millions of people, going by the election results.
We actually should start working on a solution to house the massive amount of migrants that's will soon be arriving here.... No joke. And it wouldn't be bad for us but only if we plan accordingly and plan it to be sustainable and long lasting
Yes, Canada and other countries need to be anticipating large numbers of refugees from the USA. And it's just one more reason why Canada really needs to sort out its housing situation.
Step 1: draft them
Step 2: prepare for the invasion
I've honestly had this thought, 4 years of military / civil service and you get citizenship to Canada.
Based on the research I've done about migrating to Canada, this is already done. There is a whole process to get approved including a labor impact assessment. You can just show up to Canada and get a job and start using public resources without a ton of paperwork and approval process.
I guess if Canada has to start accepting refugees then that may be different.
If you're a US (or Mexican) citizen you don't even need LMIA, you might be eligible under NAFTA.
But I work in tech, and when I did this, I found it quite challenging to find an employer who would be willing to do this. Usually the employer needs an immigration lawyer and has to be set up with IRCC (i.e. the Canadian gov't) to do this. An LMIA - if you need one - would be even more paperwork for them.
When I immigrated to Canada the process was rather arduous, and the categories under which you could immigrate were quite restricted. It depends on your skills, your age, your finances, your family (if any) in Canada, which employment categories Canada is prioritizing, and so on. There's information here for anyone considering it:
https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada.html
And a questionnaire to find out whether you're eligible to apply to immigrate to Canada:
It is almost as if they have seen this movie and the several remakes before.
I read his 2018 book prior to the current Trump presidency. Good for Dr. Stanley...
... but yeah, a world expert on fascism research, and also a US citizen, getting the heck out certainly doesn't look great. I guess scientists tend to be subtle when facing media, but the last quote by him makes it pretty obvious what he's thinking
Anybody who can leave the Untied States at this point, should
Canary in the coal mine.
The Carney in the coal mine.
I'll show myself out.
When you know you are on the enemies list and they start rounding up the others at the top, it's time to leave
That’s all fine or whatever. But fuck you U of T for finding the money for lifelong positions these people whereas U of T would have never created the same positions for Canadian scholars. Same thing happened back in the day of the Vietnam War and the Kent State shooting - all my profs when I did my undergrad were draft dodgers from Vietnam and/or left the US after they shot and killed students at Kent State. Now today we’re getting even more US ideology infiltrating our country because the US voted in a fascist.
I thought he was already in Canada when he made the Rick Mercer Report.
Bring guns.
If you're studying fascism, wouldn't you want to be where the fascism is?
Hard to study fascism from a mass grave
He's an academic, not a war journalist!
If you’re studying fascism, wouldn’t you want to be where the fascism is?
He is. Fascism is growing on planet earth