She finds the whole idea absurd. To Prof Marci Shore, the notion that the Guardian, or anyone else, should want to interview her about the future of the US is ridiculous. She’s an academic specialising in the history and culture of eastern Europe and describes herself as a “Slavicist”, yet here she is, suddenly besieged by international journalists keen to ask about the country in which she insists she has no expertise: her own. “It’s kind of baffling,” she says.
In fact, the explanation is simple enough. Last month, Shore, together with her husband and fellow scholar of European history, Timothy Snyder, and the academic Jason Stanley, made news around the world when they announced that they were moving from Yale University in the US to the University of Toronto in Canada. It was not the move itself so much as their motive that garnered attention. As the headline of a short video op-ed the trio made for the New York Times put it, “We Study Fascism, and We’re Leaving the US”.
Starkly, Shore invoked the ultimate warning from history. “The lesson of 1933 is: you get out sooner rather than later.” She seemed to be saying that what had happened then, in Germany, could happen now, in Donald Trump’s America – and that anyone tempted to accuse her of hyperbole or alarmism was making a mistake. “My colleagues and friends, they were walking around and saying, ‘We have checks and balances. So let’s inhale, checks and balances, exhale, checks and balances.’ I thought, my God, we’re like people on the Titanic saying, ‘Our ship can’t sink. We’ve got the best ship. We’ve got the strongest ship. We’ve got the biggest ship.’ And what you know as a historian is that there is no such thing as a ship that can’t sink.”
That’s a shit lesson to take from 33. My takeaway is don’t let the brown shirts win. I’m not running from my country with my tail between my legs.
Fascists can fuck off, in fact
707 millions just assembled to say just that.Edit: I didn’t think staying in my country of birth and fighting for freedom and decency would be such a hot button issue.
To all of you who felt the need to be condescending I’d just say tighten up and show some backbone. Real disappointing. So you may be shot and sent to a gulag. You wouldn’t be the first, probably not the last. Try not to let fear and righteousness dictate your feelings.
Not sure where your getting that 70 million number, but according to Wikipedia it was some 5 million.
Not to criticize, but I think it’s important not to spread inaccuracies and over inflate turnout numbers like a certain someone likes to do.
Edit: Lemmy post with final count numbers on attendance. Looks like it’s a bit larger than initially thought, which is fantastic!
Your usage of “70 million” is a cope just like her “checks and balances”. There was nowhere near that amount of people. Not even 10 million. The protests were largely cancelled because of the political assassination.
I looked for photos of protests and the ones I saw did not have anywhere near these amounts of people. A few hundred to a couple thousand at any one city. America is very okay with fascism.
That sounds cool if your objective is to collect likes on social media. However, her objective is to save herself and her family from what’s coming. As “an academic specialising in the history and culture of eastern Europe,” she knows very well what it is. Only an ignorant and arrogant prick could say what you said.
“The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.”
That is iam14andthisisdeep material.