S05E02: The Fragili­ty of US Democ­ra­cy and the Gen­uine Threat of Fas­cism it Faces

The U.S. is in the midst of an ongo­ing coup, there is a real threat of fas­cist ten­den­cies in the U.S. and else­where; these influ­ence the pos­si­ble out­comes of the upcom­ing 2022 mid-term elec­tions as well as the 2024 U.S pres­i­den­tial elec­tions. What are the poten­tial­ly dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences of legal action or rather inac­tion fol­low­ing from the Jan­u­ary 6th com­mit­tee? How frag­ile is Amer­i­can democ­ra­cy today, and can chang­ing per­cep­tions of account­abil­i­ty lead to irre­versible trans­for­ma­tions in the polit­i­cal and legal struc­ture, poten­tial­ly even dis­man­tling insti­tu­tion­al checks and bal­ances in the Unit­ed States? What role does an increas­ing­ly par­ti­san Supreme Court play in these process­es? How can the his­tor­i­cal­ly unprece­dent­ed dilem­ma of the choice between the con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly guar­an­teed sep­a­ra­tion and inde­pen­dence of the judi­cia­ry, and the sov­er­eign will of demo­c­ra­t­ic pop­u­lar majori­ties be resolved? What are the prospects of resis­tance to the threat of fas­cism, not just in the Unit­ed States, but also glob­al­ly, espe­cial­ly in the wake of Rus­si­a’s con­tin­u­ing war of aggres­sion against Ukraine?

Guests fea­tured in this episode 

Jason Stan­ley; Pro­fes­sor of Phi­los­o­phy at Yale Uni­ver­si­ty, and  author of five mono­graphs, includ­ing, most recent­ly, the acclaimed How Pro­pa­gan­da Works and How Fas­cism Works. Jason is also a renowned pub­lic intel­lec­tu­al who has writ­ten exten­sive­ly on fas­cism, author­i­tar­i­an­ism, pro­pa­gan­da, free speech, crit­i­cal race the­o­ry, and mass incar­cer­a­tion for The New York Times, The Wash­ing­ton Post, The Guardian, Project Syn­di­cate, or The Chron­i­cle of High­er Edu­ca­tion. He appears reg­u­lar­ly on CNN, NBC, CBS, or Democ­ra­cy Now, and has been con­sult­ed by the Jan­u­ary 6 Com­mit­tee of the US Congress.