# Yale professor who studies fascism fleeing US to work in Canada **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [March 29, 2025, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yale-professor-who-studies-fascism-fleeing-us-to-work-in-canada/1016299 "2025-03-29T09:54:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2025, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yale-professor-who-studies-fascism-fleeing-us-to-work-in-canada/1016299/21 "2025-03-30T01:05:44Z")
> [@Zoobi](#): > > Maybe you’ll benefit if you play your cards right and you can laugh all you want at this silly professor and his performance. My posts here (on the SDMB) are almost certainly enough to make me an enemy of Trump. I’m already done for with this this administration. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2025, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yale-professor-who-studies-fascism-fleeing-us-to-work-in-canada/1016299/22 "2025-03-30T01:11:40Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > Moving to Toronto is not a terribly retrograde step. Canadian universities punch above their weight, and UBC, Toronto and McGill are world class. One of the strengths of Canadian universities is that most schools are very good, including ones like Western, Dalhousie, Waterloo, Queens and Calgary. Sure, Canada has some great schools, and Stanley himself makes the point that part of the appeal of going to the Munk School was “they’re assembling a team…and the idea is to train people from democratic backsliding countries, journalists, politicians, to give them a home where they can strategize and go back to their home countries…as well as solidify Canadian democracy in the face of this onslaught,…” But giving up a tenured position at an Ivy League school (even if it is Yale) and a named professorship, as well as moving to another country to live as a non-citizen resident with young family in tow is still a major life disruption, and one that I suspect he would not be considering if he thought he could do that work without leaving New Haven. > [@Zoobi](#): > > Plenty of people in fascist states don’t feel any consequences. Well, until they fail, which they often do spectacularly. > [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > My posts here (on the SDMB) are almost certainly enough to make me an enemy of Trump. I’m already done for with this this administration. Nobody gives a flying fuck about your anonymous posts on a pretty insignificant message board. But if you are someone who is actively speaking or working against the interests of an authoritarian regime, you are certainly going to be high on the list of people to persecute. Fascists and despots specifically go after intellectuals in very public ways because beating down someone who looks like they should be protected by free speech and the ivory tower of academic freedom is a great way _pour encourager les autres_. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2025, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yale-professor-who-studies-fascism-fleeing-us-to-work-in-canada/1016299/23 "2025-03-30T01:13:13Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Here is a CBC interview with Stanley on why he is leaving Yale and going to University of Toronto: Yes, this was the interview I listened to. I would suggest for everyone to hear him out. He makes very compelling arguments. And, poetically, it just makes sense -that a man who dedicated his entire life to teaching about fascism- that he would be just as passionate about living true to his beliefs. The intellectual restrictions that the American government is placing on universities (up to and including violent actions towards foreign students and faculty) would clearly drive a person like him to publicly take action. It should drive most of us. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2025, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yale-professor-who-studies-fascism-fleeing-us-to-work-in-canada/1016299/24 "2025-03-30T01:15:14Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Nobody gives a flying fuck about your anonymous posts on a pretty insignificant message board. So, you are saying that an authoritarian regime will draw a line and leave me be? If I was in Iran and posting on IranSDMB against the ayatollah they’d leave me be because they don’t “give a flying fuck” about what I write on an “insignificant message board?” Also, you don’t know of my efforts outside of this message board. All legal but not likely to make Trump happy. ---
**Author:** ![Zoobi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/13edae/32.png) [@Zoobi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoobi)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2025, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yale-professor-who-studies-fascism-fleeing-us-to-work-in-canada/1016299/25 "2025-03-30T01:18:36Z")
Ok, it sounds like you just want to hear that the professor is a silly Billy, so I’ll say it for you: He’s a silly Billy and putting on a performance. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2025, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yale-professor-who-studies-fascism-fleeing-us-to-work-in-canada/1016299/26 "2025-03-30T01:21:18Z")
Is there any evidence he was at risk of arrest? ---
**Author:** ![Zoobi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/13edae/32.png) [@Zoobi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoobi)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2025, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yale-professor-who-studies-fascism-fleeing-us-to-work-in-canada/1016299/27 "2025-03-30T01:23:07Z")
He’s a silly Billy, so obviously not. He’s just looking for attention. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2025, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yale-professor-who-studies-fascism-fleeing-us-to-work-in-canada/1016299/28 "2025-03-30T01:23:52Z")
> [@Zoobi](#): > > He’s a silly Billy and putting on a performance. Aided by Trump in a supporting role of pretending to be a demagogue. The drama! The craft! The staging! It almost looks like a real fascist regime! All it needs is a majority political party in full capitulation, a functionary with ambiguous authority threatening government employees and disrupting agencies, and the backing of a bunch of shady billionaires with a plan openly advocating for a totalitarian theocracy, and you might think it is for reals! Stranger ---
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2025, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yale-professor-who-studies-fascism-fleeing-us-to-work-in-canada/1016299/29 "2025-03-30T01:25:26Z")
He states that the USA is not quite at the Russia stage (“Throwing journalists out of windows”) but foreigners (students) have been detained / jailed for their views. The government is openly advancing fascism and expanding / testing the legal limits of their powers. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2025, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yale-professor-who-studies-fascism-fleeing-us-to-work-in-canada/1016299/30 "2025-03-30T01:26:38Z")
> [@Zoobi](#): > > He’s a silly Billy, so obviously not. He’s just looking for attention. Snark aside the answer is “No, he was not.” ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2025, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yale-professor-who-studies-fascism-fleeing-us-to-work-in-canada/1016299/31 "2025-03-30T01:27:52Z")
I get it is bad. Gestapo level shit is happening. I saw the video of the government agents not in uniform nabbing that woman off the street. Truly scary. When do I sell everything, lose my job and run? Could you do that? Right now…drop everything and flee from wherever you are? ---
**Author:** ![Sylvanz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/fbc32d/32.png) [@Sylvanz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sylvanz)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2025, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yale-professor-who-studies-fascism-fleeing-us-to-work-in-canada/1016299/32 "2025-03-30T01:57:45Z")
The woman on the street didn’t know she was in danger of arrest. They did even tell her they had revoked her visa 10 days prior to that little piece of street performance, (which tecnically they cannot revoke a visa wthout cause or not inform the person whose visa they revoked, but lookie they did it anyway, so whatever.) If I could leave I would, but like most working class Americans we’re stuck. More power to this proffessor who is willing to disrupt his life, in order to keep studying and exposing America’s downfall. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2025, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yale-professor-who-studies-fascism-fleeing-us-to-work-in-canada/1016299/33 "2025-03-30T02:02:15Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > When do I sell everything, lose my job and run? Could you do that? Right now…drop everything and flee from wherever you are? If, like him, you saw the writing on the wall and fully expected to be forced out of your job just as soon as your organization got targeted the way Harvard and Columbia already have been, and had a great job offer waiting in Canada, you’d probably go, too. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2025, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yale-professor-who-studies-fascism-fleeing-us-to-work-in-canada/1016299/34 "2025-03-30T02:02:42Z")
You don’t know what else could be going on for the professor. Maybe he has a trans kid. Maybe there are green card holders in the family who are attending protests. Maybe a family member is a veteran whose care has been yanked. Maybe an expert on fascism understands aspects of fascism. ---
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2025, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yale-professor-who-studies-fascism-fleeing-us-to-work-in-canada/1016299/35 "2025-03-30T02:05:24Z")
Surely that is only a question you can answer. I can only think to [the words of James Baldwin](https://youtu.be/xKvI35BpbEY?t=110) in describing how the dangers and problems of abandoning the USA were dwarfed by the constant terror of living in the USA. > I left this country in 1948. I left this country. For one reason only, one reason. I didn’t care where I went. I might’ve gone to Hong Kong, I might’ve gone to Timbuktu. I ended up in Paris, on the streets of Paris, with 40 dollars in my pocket on the theory that nothing worse could happen to me there, that hasn’t already happened to me here. > You talk about making it as a writer by yourself,… you have to be able then, to turn off all the intent of a which you live, … **because once you turn your back on this society you may die**. You may die. And it’s very hard to turn to a typewriter and concentrate on that if you’re afraid of the world around you. > The years I lived in Paris did one thing for me. They released me from that particular social terror, which is not the paranoia of my own mind, but a real social danger; visible in face of every cop, every boss, everybody. It would take a lot for me to leave Canada (I’m too invested). ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2025, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yale-professor-who-studies-fascism-fleeing-us-to-work-in-canada/1016299/36 "2025-03-30T02:08:28Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > …and had a great job offer waiting in Canada… I missed that part. Yeah…I’d be out too! That’s an easy choice. But it does diminish the notion of fleeing a bit. Now it is just you took a new job and are moving. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2025, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yale-professor-who-studies-fascism-fleeing-us-to-work-in-canada/1016299/37 "2025-03-30T02:10:47Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Stanley himself describes as “…centers of excellence and in particular in this fight for democracy.” He will, however, have to learn to spell better. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2025, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yale-professor-who-studies-fascism-fleeing-us-to-work-in-canada/1016299/38 "2025-03-30T02:12:40Z")
Many points (in my mind at least) for quoting James Baldwin. He was amazing. ---
**Author:** ![Zoobi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/13edae/32.png) [@Zoobi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoobi)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2025, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yale-professor-who-studies-fascism-fleeing-us-to-work-in-canada/1016299/39 "2025-03-30T02:20:45Z")
You sure he wasn’t just looking for attention? ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2025, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yale-professor-who-studies-fascism-fleeing-us-to-work-in-canada/1016299/40 "2025-03-30T02:23:46Z")
Who? Baldwin? What is your point? Or do you just mean to post zingers that say nothing? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yale-professor-who-studies-fascism-fleeing-us-to-work-in-canada/1016299.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yale-professor-who-studies-fascism-fleeing-us-to-work-in-canada/1016299.md?page=3)