"America is going under": Historian Shore on the looming civil war in the USA

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung "America is going under": Historian Shore on the looming civil war in the USA Tania Martini • 20 hours • 9 minutes reading time You and your husband, historian Timothy Snyder, have decided to leave the USA and Yale University, where you teach European history. Why? It was a difficult, complex family decision – and it took a long time: The Munk School for Global Affairs at the University of Toronto approached me and my husband almost three years ago, and there were many good reasons, regardless of current politics, to accept the offer. I loved teaching at Yale; it was a privilege. But Toronto is a wonderful city with good educational opportunities for our children. Furthermore, Munk is a particularly attractive place from an academic perspective. So you didn't make your decision based on the political situation? What's happening in the USA scares me. And I'm afraid of what's to come. Gun violence in our country has always frightened me; it's something Europeans often don't really understand: the constant presence of guns and the everyday, even completely non-political violence. The US has the highest per capita gun ownership in the world. If you experience a medical emergency on a Saturday night in New Haven, for example, you have to wait a very long time in the emergency room because it's overflowing with people who have been shot. We Americans have normalized this: an example of the human ability to normalize the abnormal. We're used to it. Now, on top of that, I'm afraid of political violence. You can already sense the potential for political violence very clearly in the atmosphere. We're no longer a constitutional state. The government acts purely arbitrarily, and they assume they're allowed to do anything. Could you return to Yale? I don't know at this point. How has the university reacted to this step? Your colleague Jason Stanley has also left Yale and, like you, is moving to Canada. Very generous. The deans tried to persuade us to stay. I appreciated that very much. The chair of our department told me, in a very humane way, that she was very sorry we were leaving Yale, but she also clearly understands what's happening to us; she has no illusions. I want my children to be anywhere else during those years. I don't believe Yale or any other American university could or would protect their students and faculty. In January, J.D. Vance wrote on X that Timothy Snyder, my husband, was a disgrace to Yale. What happened then? The university remained silent. Neither the administration nor our colleagues at the law school, who, in my opinion, have a special responsibility given the role Yale Law School in general and "Tiger Mom" ​​Amy Chua in particular played in inventing J.D. Vance—she was his professor—have publicly defended Tim. Why is there so little resistance to Trump's interference at other US universities? There is resistance, but you're right: not enough and less than one might expect. In a public letter, Harvard President Alan Garber wrote: "But we are not perfect. Antisemitism is an important problem that we must address and will continue to address. As an institution and as a community, we recognize our shortcomings, strive for necessary changes, and build stronger bonds that allow everyone to thrive." On the one hand, it's true that no one is perfect. On the other hand, this is almost the language of Stalinist self-criticism, which is a very grim sign. Universities, especially the administration and leadership, are afraid. You've spoken in interviews about an impending civil war in the USA. What scenario do you have in mind, exactly? Various scenarios, some organized or provoked, others spontaneous. We are a country where many, many people are armed. And we know the principle of Chekhov's gun... You mean, if there's a gun hanging on the wall in the first act, then it will be fired in the last act? Yes, we've almost forgotten what happened on January 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. There's increasing violence in political discourse. Three years ago, after Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine, I gave a briefing to a congresswoman and her staff. I tried to explain the relationship between Russia and Ukraine. I spontaneously used an analogy: "Imagine," I told them, "that January 6 had turned out differently and we were now living under a Trumpian dictatorship. And imagine that, in the interest of 'Making America Great Again,' Trump had decided to send the American army across the border to invade Canada. Imagine if we Americans started bombing Toronto and burying children under rubble. Now, would anyone say, well, why should that bother Canadians? Okay, Canada is a bilingual country, but basically everyone speaks English, just like Americans, and they eat hamburgers and French fries, just like Americans, so they're basically the same people." My point, of course, was to make it clear that no linguistic or cultural affinity could in any way justify an invasion and mass slaughter. And back then—just three years ago—that analogy was effective because the idea of ​​the US attacking Canada was completely unimaginable. And now . . . Your colleague Jason Stanley speaks of fascism in reference to the Trump administration. Do you too? It's important not to fetishize categories. The categories we use—fascism, authoritarianism, totalitarianism, concentration camps, genocide, and so on—are heuristic tools that allow us to compare different historical moments. Nothing is ever exactly the same as anything else. These terms are hermeneutic devices that help us mediate between the singular and the universal. They help us think—amidst the irreducible uniqueness of life. I would return to Kant here: "Thoughts without content are empty; intuitions without concepts are blind." At what point does extreme authoritarianism tip into fascism? In Trump's case, one must identify certain classic, very clear characteristics of fascism – as Jason Stanley describes: the mythologization of the past, the naturalization of hierarchies, victim cults, insecure masculinity, Social Darwinism. And the rhetoric of "us versus them." The concept of fascism is not useful for distinguishing Putin's rule from Trump's. Both are fascist in some way, but nevertheless completely different. When it comes to these concepts, it is important for me, as a historian of the history of ideas, to examine the difference between the totalitarian ideologies of the 20th century and the postmodern, "post-truth" versions in Russia and the USA. In this context, the distinction between the absolutist truth claims of National Socialism or Stalinism and the postmodern break with the claim in Trumpism or Putinism not to be constrained by empirical reality is important. Is this post-political? We see that Putin is far more effective at demobilizing than mobilizing. "I'm not interested in politics" is the common response of Russian citizens to questions about the Russian mass murder in Ukraine. In a 1967 essay, Hannah Arendt described the totalitarian ideologies of the 20th century as seamless reconstructions of reality. They offered a grand narrative, a story that, while false, still possessed its own narrative arc. They held a transcendental key to our history and our lives, transforming them into a seamless and coherent whole. Despite the fantasies of omnipotence and ideas of empire, isn't a grand narrative the point anymore? The postmodern world begins where we transition from epistemic to ontological uncertainty. This is the moment when we abandon the belief that there is such a thing as a stable reality as the basis or center of human-made narratives. Now there isn't even the semblance of a coherent narrative. Trump changes his story, opinions, and so on every day. Putin once said that his "special military operation" was intended to defend the "Luhansk People's Republic" and the "Donetsk People's Republic." Then he said it was about denazifying Ukraine. A little later, it was about launching a preemptive strike against NATO (because NATO was allegedly preparing an attack on Russia). A little later still, the invasion became a "special military operation" to restore the lands of Peter the Great—and then we heard from Russian state media that there isn't a Nazi regime in Kyiv, but a literally satanic regime. They even debated whether Zelenskyy is the Antichrist himself or just a demon in the service of the Antichrist. Trump's agenda, in many ways, especially regarding his protectionism, is no longer neoliberal. Various terms attempt to capture this new form of government. Do we perhaps simply have to prepare for a mafia state in which only the law of the jungle will prevail? I'm no economics expert at all, but my intuition says yes: It's a mafia state. Imagine you're the richest person in the world. You could feed all the starving children. Or you could be completely self-absorbed and spend your days lying on the beach, drinking cocktails and eating caviar, doing nothing for other people. Or you could come to power and deliberately and actively take food away from starving children. We're now dealing with a special kind of cruelty. For you as a historian, it must be both interesting and shocking to see how Trump is now trying to control the future by controlling the past. He wants to influence history by decree. What's going through your mind? That's no surprise. It's all about avoiding responsibility and accountability. We've seen this many times in history. In Poland, when it was in government, Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, the PiS party, tried to do something very similar with history politics. The US is a country built on slavery. During World War II, we sent racially segregated American troops to Europe to fight the Nazis. We had anti-miscegenation laws until 1967—22 years after the Nazis' defeat. My wonderful sister-in-law, my youngest brother's wife, is African American. They had a beautiful wedding; our whole family was there. And when I later told my children that their aunt and uncle's marriage would have been illegal just five years before I was born, it was hard for them to believe. We will never move forward as a society if we don't face up to this past. Is it about guilt? It's not about blame, it's about responsibility. This distinction is not insignificant. Guilt usually hinders development. I don't feel guilty about slavery; I feel responsible for the truth, for seeing and telling the truth. And I feel responsible for addressing the consequences of that past, which continue to this day. Responsibility means facing the truth of the past. The Smithsonian Institution, once founded to "spread knowledge," has "in recent years come under the influence of a divisive, racially-oriented ideology," Trump claims. The National Museum of African American History is a particular thorn in his side. Are there any notable joint initiatives by historians to stop this historical revisionism? "This is a fifth-alarm fire for public history, scholarship, and education in America," historian Samuel Redman recently said. Samuel Redman is right. But that doesn't mean there isn't resistance. Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, for example, constantly speaks fearlessly, and what Cory Booker just did when he spoke in protest against the Trump administration on the Senate floor for more than 25 hours without a break is heroic. During that speech, he said, "I don't want a Disneyfication of our history. I don't want to whitewash history. I don't want a homogenization of history. Tell me the unfortunate truth about America, because that speaks to our greatness." And my colleague at Yale, historian David Blight, just wrote in the New York Times: "Big lies spread like viruses in culture, and while we have evidence, facts, and ethics on our side, there are no vaccines. The crude intent of this order is to further destroy institutions and silence historians." You know Ukraine and Eastern Europe very well. Do you think Trump has a plan, or does he simply want Ukraine off the table? I tell all my Ukrainian friends and colleagues: Don't trust us! The people in power here have no fundamental principles, no real ideas. Trump is a moral nihilist. For him, truth and lies, good and evil, do not exist; there is only what is advantageous or disadvantageous to him at a given moment. Other people around him—for example, Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham, or Tucker Carlson—have sold their souls to the devil. What does this mean for Europe? Europeans must understand: This is the end of the affair. America is going under. Don't let us drag you down with us. You must mobilize. The fate of the world—quite literally—depends on it.