Professor Jason Stanley’s books How Fascism Works (2018) and Erasing History (2024) help understand backsliding democracy and the rise of authoritarianism. Stanley (2018) shows that “fascist politics” divides people along racial or religious lines, dehumanizes vulnerable minorities, glorifies a mythic past, and perpetuates a sense of victimhood. Stanley (2024) continues the narrative, as follows.
He argues that fascism emphasizes national greatness, vilifies the left, and stokes grievances within the dominant in-group (p. 78). It views a targeted out-group as an internal enemy that would replace the dominant in-group (pp 82, 91). He notes that under supremacist nationalism, the focus is shifted from addressing poverty and inequality and towards scapegoating the minority out-group (pp 71-72).
Undermining Education
Stanley argues that fascist politics undermines the education system by indoctrinating students with the narrative of a “glorious past” and a supreme nation (pp xiii, 110). He argues that fascist regimes control education to mould the political culture and erase diversity of perspectives (pp 23, 111). He adds that right wing politicians are abetted by libertarians and business oligarchs in undermining public education, reducing education to “narrow job training”, and undermining democracy (pp 121-122, 132).
Stanley notes that right wing politicians in the US associate universities with Marxism (pp 111-112). He adds that right wing activists use self-serving “opportunistic and inconsistent” arguments, as they condemn universities for restricting free speech (with which they agree) and for allowing too much free speech (with which they disagree) (p. 19).
Stanley argues that classical education may not be the antidote to fascist education, as many classical texts accept slavery, restrict reason to white men, and view non-whites as intellectually inferior (pp 136, 137, 146, 147). For instance, Locke speculated on primitive minds, Hume denied non-white races had worthy civilizations, Kant distinguished between the rationality of blacks and whites, and Voltaire argued the blacks were less able (p. 148). Stanley instead argues that education based on critical race theory, gender studies, and labour theory leads towards civic compassion (p. 177). However, fascist politics suppresses the teaching of structural racism, intersectionality, and critical race theory (pp xviii, 4).
Under supremacist nationalism, the focus shifts from poverty and inequality to scapegoating minorities
Jewish Nationalism
Stanley argues that identity-based nationalism like “Jewish nationalism” has been used to justify “violent colonialist practices” (p. 43). He states that nationalist supremacism in Israel manifests as greater protections are afforded to Jewish citizens and as the law yields a “non-democratic apartheid state” (pp 61-62). Like Pankaj Mishra, he notes that oppressed people are not immune to “supremacist nationalism”, as Israel directs “supremacist colonial nationalism” against the Palestinians (pp 70-71).
Stanley argues that settler colonialism “permanently displaces” the “indigenous inhabitants”, as Israel drove out the indigenous population, destroyed their villages, and promoted the myth of a land without people for a people without land by (pp 39, 41). He states that Israel has committed “war crimes” and “genocide” by inflicting conditions towards the destruction “in whole or in part” of the Palestinians (p. 113). Additionally, he highlights “scholasticide” i.e., the destruction of the educational infrastructure in Gaza (p. 42).
Hindu Nationalism
Similarly, Stanley describes Hindu nationalism as a “violent supremacist” movement based on religion (p. 59). He elaborates that “Hindu supremacy” marginalizes Muslims towards “semi-citizenship” and alludes to the Indian education system, which privileges “Hindu Indians over Muslim Indians” (pp xix, 22, 61). This reinforces the message that India’s glorious past was “exclusively Hindu”, Hindus are “exceptional and uniquely worthy”, and “Muslims are foreign and undeserving” (p. 22).
He highlights that students protesting anti-Muslims laws were subjected to severe police treatment and labelled universities as anti-nationals for defending equal rights for Indian Muslims (pp 21-22, 118). He adds that the Modi government facilitated steps to file “complaints against professors who lectured on topics they disliked” (p. 117). This is like the US, where right wing propaganda labelled anti-war protests in universities by professors and students as supporting Hamas in a bid to “delegitimize universities” (pp 21, 113).
Overall, where Stanley (2018) highlighted that fascism divides people along racial or religious lines, dehumanizes vulnerable minorities, glorifies a mythic past, and perpetuates a sense of victimhood, Stanley (2024) shows that fascism undermines education, associates universities with Marxism or anti-nationalism, bans teaching that engenders civic compassion, and elaborates with examples from Jewish and Hindu nationalism.