Solidarity vs. Exclusion: The Mechanics of Fascist Appeal
Robin analyzes how fascist politics builds identity through exclusion and scapegoating rather than inclusive community.
Transcript
chevron_right
Play full episode
chevron_right
Transcript
Episode notes
We’re with the cultural historian Robin D.G. Kelly at UCLA, who has the nerve to ask: where have our thinkers gone in Trump time? Not the experts or the influencers, but the grander minds who might tell us where our country went.
James Baldwin and Noam Chomsky (by Susan Coyne).
Robin hooked us with his piece in the Boston Reviewon “The Responsibility of Intellectuals in the Age of Fascism and Genocide.” Whose job is it to tell us the truth in what can feel like a sort of waking nightmare or a revolution going backward? Will we ever see Benjamin Franklin’s common-sense republic again? Or put it another way: where’s Noam Chomsky, or James Baldwin for that matter? Will we ever again meet an unflinching truth-teller about our real condition in this autumn of 2025?
