The frustrating thing about the “you’re an alarmist” people has always been a kind of implicit assumption that fascism is a *thing*, a schematic that arrives fully formed, as opposed to a *process* that has underlying ideas that then need to work through institutions- governmental, civil, military, corporate, judicial - to actually constitute a system of authority.
It’s not a thing, it’s a set of ideas and practices that describe the relation between the state and executive power to citizens, to race and nationality, to corporate power, to insiders and outsiders, and especially perhaps to the law (the US is as close to the Fuhrerprinzip as certainly any western country has ever been).
All of this in the interwar period - until Hitler decided to wage war against…the world - was more than a little popular among mainstream western conservatives (as it is now). And all of it - obvious to anyone with eyes and ears - has been present in Trumpism from the beginning, it’s just that the requisite institutional capture was incomplete. In large part, with Trump’s second kick at the can and the addition of new allies like the tech tycoons, that problem has now been dealt with.
That said, right now there’s probably more Americans in a blind fury about Trumpist authoritarianism than the entire population of Germany in 1933 (roughly 66 million). Imagine if they could get organized…
*ahem* Danny Bessner. Bout to cancel my American Prestige subscription. His sniffing (literal sniffing) disdain for the argument and his supercilious snobbish and frankly, stoopid argument that the American state is too big, that it runs on rails that keep it from his narrowly defined historically "pure" definition of fascism, while it was clear that the state had already been speeding headlong toward fascism even before Trump 2 really puzzled and now sickens me.
As a woman, the Hollywood Access tape was enough to condemn Trump. The cruelty and the lack of decency towards a "lesser than" was a red flag. A person who behaves that way is capable of bad things. Many of us are more afraid of sounding like a conspiracy theoerist (or being hysterical, ironically a description oft used wrongly for women in the past) than of talking about what we are seeing. There is a difference. No, it's not petty for you to talk about this now. It's important that we understand what we are doing, and what we have done so we do better in the future. It bothered me that men didn't deem the HA tape as damning or the abortion ban as their problem, because, yet again, they are free to walk away from their responsibilities in the pursuit of something they define as more important. Yes, women support Trump, but we must consider the amount of brainwashing women have been subjected to by men since the beginning. This is what I see and have experienced. If anyone wants to dismiss that, ask yourself, "are you in a position to know?" We must air what we see and what we experience.
I'd been saying for years that they were going to overturn Roe, but not many wanted to hear it... even from lefties, who believed that the Republicans wouldn't allow it, because it was too good a fund-raiser / vote-getter for them. But when you listened to the rhetoric and watched the judges, it seemed pretty obvious to me that that was the actual goal. Now you see people saying, well this madness is only going to last 4 years, we can ride it out, and I am just as astonished. If you think Trump (or his successor) will relinquish the WH in 4 years, I got a bridge to nowhere to sell you!!
Back in 2016 even a dumbass like myself could see that Trump was compromised by Russia and that his giddy admiration for Putin and other dreadful strongmen was a very bad sign. I'm treated to the same side eyes now when I insist Dobbs was the first volley in an integralist project as I was then, raging that Trump was a fascist-in-the-making.
"Yes, women support Trump," particularly WHITE women, and many count among the prime villains who enabled MAGA, such as: Marjorie Dannenfelser, Duke-educated Catholic convert, president of the trollishly-named Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, and a Washington insider who cannot not have known what a dangerous man Trump is but made a devil's bargain over abortion. What might have been if not for her role, in concert with other elite conservative women actors, in rallying women voters to raise the pussy-grabber.
As not a woman, I would endorse everything you say, insofar as it's possible. Whoever did not see the blatant awfulness of the Hollywood Access tape was seriously blinded by bullshit and, I suppose, self- interest. In a sense, I rejoice to see how may people have turned around on the subject, just as I'll rejoice to find that that nasty pain in the abdomen is not appendicitis.
The thing that always struck me about CR's arguments is how he was able to use "structural" arguments to ignore what was plainly In front of his eyes.
The notion that Trump I was just a typical RW admin was belied by the extraordinary and extrajudicial measures Trump took to remain in power. That the steps he took were like knocking out every bullet point on a DSM type diagnosis for fascism - still didn't cause anything to break thru.
The institutions were quite clearly falling apart. We have his own senior appointees, with right wing and conservative bonafides, straight up calling him a fascist. And he's unable to connect (I) he ran a standard rightwing admin (which rhetorically is false, but in terms of policy, isn't far off) to (II) the people who ran the admin calling him a fascist and (III) the people replacing the Republicans who ran the admin last time, with the most unhinged true believers who delight in saying up is down and threatening your freedom for it with a smile.
Yes Corey, it isn't so much that country club republicans aren't racist. But when you replace the guys who care about getting rich, with people who care about the birthrates of whites, we're gonna see much worse shit, even if it all falls under the broad existing umbrella of reactionary conservatism.
Speaking of bullet points: Trump fits perfectly into Erich Fromm's description of narcissism. (A popular writer, Heaven defend us! Yeah, with the highest qualifications to write what he did) In particular, as we saw in his first admin, take his habit of finding really really super people to work for him, and soon deciding the were horrible and needed to be fired and humiliated. Who knows -- how long can he continue loving the superman Musk before one of them decides to fire or murder the other?
I see a similar pattern in the so-called "heterodox" academics who spent their time criticizing institutions for "coddling" students in that their motives were undergirded by a reflexive defense of a status quo where their views are given deference as opposed to being challenged by their inferiors (e.g. students). You see the same thing at another institution (The New York Times) that is very slow to fully acknowledge the present threat because to do so upsets an order which is favorable to them. It's tragic you were right, but it's not unreasonable to say so in order to make things plain.
The New York Times will never declare Trump a fascist, or even the softer “authoritarian.” He may make some “authoritarian” political moves, he may operate with an “authoritarian mindset,” but he will never be an “authoritarian.”
I dunno. Very recently, one of their highly conventional opinion writers wrote one titled "Democracy Dies In Dumbness" which may have annoyed fascist Bezos as sort of like a direct insult. Another (Maggie Haberman) seemed to endorse it. Maybe not all hope of the NYT growing a spine is lost.
I think John's thesis is partly correct insofar as I never came in for this kind of treatment when I was involved in these debates, i.e., between 2016 and 2020. Perhaps I wasn't important enough. Perhaps I had some residual credibility from my involvement with the Sanders campaign. Maybe the fact that I have academic credentials helped. It may also be that the timing of my "peak" involvement matters. I suspect a combination of all four, and I'll return to the last issue below.
But I think there are two issues John glosses over.
• Stanley was the most prominent (i.e., "internet famous") early members of the "it's fascism" camp. And his argumentation was... easy to dismiss. I think he provided a convenient anchoring point for the anti-anti Trump left to dismiss the rest of us.
• The anti-anti-Trump left wasn't just denying the usefulness of the F word. They were also deriding fears of authoritarianism and Russian electoral manipulation. These lines of argument – as Bessner would freely admit on Twitter and later write at Jacobin – were always fundamentally about their decision to prioritize attacking Clinton and "liberals" over the MAGA threat. They also were important to creating and maintaining a particular, and highly successful, "brand" on social media and even in the pages of the New York Times.
I don't recall if John's discussed the quality of Stanley's work on fascism. But he's obviously written about the latter matter before. I raise it here, as well as my own experience in Fascism 1.0 debates, to suggest a qualification on his thesis. I don't think it was about being crass or vulgar.
My impression is that the self-styled intellectual vanguard of the anti-anti-Trump left had a major stake in denying a lot of things about Trump, including that he was a fascist, that he posed a unique threat to democracy and the rule of law, and even that he benefited from Russian electoral intervention. As they hardened in these positions, they became increasingly dismissive and belittling. The dynamics of social media reinforced these decisions; Bessner, for example, built his entire public-facing career on anti-anti-Trump politics.
The penchant for the US left in prioritising ‘lib Dem bashing’ over building solid anti authoritarian coalitions never ceases to amaze. Whenever I ponder the lack of a vigorous ‘left’ in the US it’s this to which I return. I loath psychological analysis of political phenomena however I make an exception here. The US ‘left’ hates its parents, particularly its mothers more than it hates fascists.
I’m not saying this is why people took those positions but this is one of the ways we get dumb online. We are exposed to weak arguments, and we are also annoyed by the people who make them so we form strong opinions they’re wrong about everything.
Or else we let the rightwing shape the conversation. Leftists do both these things constantly.
The lesson is that you have to think hard and trust yourself. Just because someone is an academic doesn't mean that they get things right. My own experience has been similar to yours. I can't tell you the number of times I've been scoffed at by colleagues who turn out to be wrong. Most never concede—they just steal your arguments and pretend they were their own.
Some of this is about personal temperament, honestly. I used to engage a lot with Robin many years ago and I just stopped, not because I found his analysis repellant or anything of the sort, but because he generally treated all disagreement as an attack. David Graeber, for those of us who knew him and talked to him online, was often the same--David could just not let things alone and was in constant fight mode whether he was dealing with a hostile critic or a minor nit-picker. As you say (and Joshua P elevates in his comment) we could wish that pique and vanity were about greater goals, or perhaps that intense disagreement should be reserved for existentially-threatening adversaries (who frequently aren't talking to us anyway). It's hard not to go down the rabbit hole where long-running arguments about positions that are ultimately fairly proximate turn into battles to the death, but we are not the first generation of intellectuals and public writers to undergo that kind of misdirection.
re: Graeber, at the time he died, I had unfollowed him on twitter I think for a few years despite respecting his POV and having read and liked "Debt," just because i found his style of online arguing too irritating.
I'm not the biggest fan of the horseshoe theory of politics but there is obviously a kind of leftist out there whose real rage is not a right-wingers, fascists, authoritarians, totalitarians but against mere liberals for a variety of reasons.
Some of them seem to practice Reverse American Exceptionalism, the U.S. as a unique source of evil instead a neverwrong source of light.
Others think liberals/mainstream Democrats are the true roadblock to socialist utopia.
Then liberals/Democrats also take things like national security as things you need to take seriously.
I had one of those in the family. Not at all sympathetic to fascists, better informed about modern politics than anybody else I know, not a real live Communist, but - just as the right-wingers say - America was always wrong.
It obviously paints over a lot, but horseshoe theory correctly identifies a common disdain for liberalism (in the broad sense of limits on the power of the state) and liberals (in the American sense of centre-lefties). To the extent there are similarities (eg, procedural radicalism) they tie into that
imo the most grating things about the online-professoriate-left is the sneering tone used to make sure no one would ever mistake them for a boring normie lib. These folks are the worst offenders, even if they themselves don't have particularly radical politics iirc (Morn, Robin)
I remember going to a talk by Paul Krugman about ten years ago or thereabouts. He used the word "populism" as a near-perfect stand-in for "fascism." I think he knew better at that time, but he was a public figure in a public setting, and the f-word could not yet be used in polite company. You still see this in the stodgier parts of the press, but the rest of us are now free to call things by their proper names--especially Krugman himself.
No. I was there and you weren't. Krugman was referring solely to the far-right wing. He did not mention Bernie or the Italian Five Star movement, which was populist and popular at the time, but not particularly fascist.
But really, this is a Mainstream Press distortion of populism, which was a reasonable position when it was actually current. True, the most famous populist of all, "Cross of Gold" etc, was also an anti-evolutionist, but there's an explanation of that, considering the times, and his exposure to German nonsense about Master-Racism, which he rejected. If his economics were not right, they were at least less damaging to the People than the gold standard. And the post-Bryan leaders were not reactionary at all.
I know you're writing a lot about very serious stuff but I gotta say: "one just hopes one’s pique and vanity ultimately is in service of some greater goal" is a pull quote that should be etched on stone (or embroidered?).
The other thing about academics is that it tends towards equivocation. There are sometimes good reasons for this. Almost nothing is 100 percent certain but in debates like this "does appear to," "seems to be" kind of hedging language only helps Trump even if the academic is overall critical of Trump. But academics learned that unequivocal language is generally prohibited if you want tenure and respect in the academy.
Speaking as someone with a PhD, I think this is exactly right. In spite of the "liberal" politics of many academics, academia itself is an old-fashioned, bureaucratic, conservative institution with a propensity for normalcy bias.
Listening to “it’s time to say goodbye” podcast from last week, it’s funny how similar
the criticism of academia is across covid and fascism:everyone seems to be so safe and suffering from groupthink. From my own experience in economics (bs/ms) and law (jd), everyone agrees with each other on everything. I’m not even controversial or smart, but I remember countless times when I’d bring up counter points and get mocked or dismissed by professors. (Even if I my points were correct).
The frustrating thing about the “you’re an alarmist” people has always been a kind of implicit assumption that fascism is a *thing*, a schematic that arrives fully formed, as opposed to a *process* that has underlying ideas that then need to work through institutions- governmental, civil, military, corporate, judicial - to actually constitute a system of authority.
It’s not a thing, it’s a set of ideas and practices that describe the relation between the state and executive power to citizens, to race and nationality, to corporate power, to insiders and outsiders, and especially perhaps to the law (the US is as close to the Fuhrerprinzip as certainly any western country has ever been).
All of this in the interwar period - until Hitler decided to wage war against…the world - was more than a little popular among mainstream western conservatives (as it is now). And all of it - obvious to anyone with eyes and ears - has been present in Trumpism from the beginning, it’s just that the requisite institutional capture was incomplete. In large part, with Trump’s second kick at the can and the addition of new allies like the tech tycoons, that problem has now been dealt with.
That said, right now there’s probably more Americans in a blind fury about Trumpist authoritarianism than the entire population of Germany in 1933 (roughly 66 million). Imagine if they could get organized…
*ahem* Danny Bessner. Bout to cancel my American Prestige subscription. His sniffing (literal sniffing) disdain for the argument and his supercilious snobbish and frankly, stoopid argument that the American state is too big, that it runs on rails that keep it from his narrowly defined historically "pure" definition of fascism, while it was clear that the state had already been speeding headlong toward fascism even before Trump 2 really puzzled and now sickens me.
As a woman, the Hollywood Access tape was enough to condemn Trump. The cruelty and the lack of decency towards a "lesser than" was a red flag. A person who behaves that way is capable of bad things. Many of us are more afraid of sounding like a conspiracy theoerist (or being hysterical, ironically a description oft used wrongly for women in the past) than of talking about what we are seeing. There is a difference. No, it's not petty for you to talk about this now. It's important that we understand what we are doing, and what we have done so we do better in the future. It bothered me that men didn't deem the HA tape as damning or the abortion ban as their problem, because, yet again, they are free to walk away from their responsibilities in the pursuit of something they define as more important. Yes, women support Trump, but we must consider the amount of brainwashing women have been subjected to by men since the beginning. This is what I see and have experienced. If anyone wants to dismiss that, ask yourself, "are you in a position to know?" We must air what we see and what we experience.
I'd been saying for years that they were going to overturn Roe, but not many wanted to hear it... even from lefties, who believed that the Republicans wouldn't allow it, because it was too good a fund-raiser / vote-getter for them. But when you listened to the rhetoric and watched the judges, it seemed pretty obvious to me that that was the actual goal. Now you see people saying, well this madness is only going to last 4 years, we can ride it out, and I am just as astonished. If you think Trump (or his successor) will relinquish the WH in 4 years, I got a bridge to nowhere to sell you!!
Back in 2016 even a dumbass like myself could see that Trump was compromised by Russia and that his giddy admiration for Putin and other dreadful strongmen was a very bad sign. I'm treated to the same side eyes now when I insist Dobbs was the first volley in an integralist project as I was then, raging that Trump was a fascist-in-the-making.
"Yes, women support Trump," particularly WHITE women, and many count among the prime villains who enabled MAGA, such as: Marjorie Dannenfelser, Duke-educated Catholic convert, president of the trollishly-named Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, and a Washington insider who cannot not have known what a dangerous man Trump is but made a devil's bargain over abortion. What might have been if not for her role, in concert with other elite conservative women actors, in rallying women voters to raise the pussy-grabber.
As not a woman, I would endorse everything you say, insofar as it's possible. Whoever did not see the blatant awfulness of the Hollywood Access tape was seriously blinded by bullshit and, I suppose, self- interest. In a sense, I rejoice to see how may people have turned around on the subject, just as I'll rejoice to find that that nasty pain in the abdomen is not appendicitis.
The thing that always struck me about CR's arguments is how he was able to use "structural" arguments to ignore what was plainly In front of his eyes.
The notion that Trump I was just a typical RW admin was belied by the extraordinary and extrajudicial measures Trump took to remain in power. That the steps he took were like knocking out every bullet point on a DSM type diagnosis for fascism - still didn't cause anything to break thru.
The institutions were quite clearly falling apart. We have his own senior appointees, with right wing and conservative bonafides, straight up calling him a fascist. And he's unable to connect (I) he ran a standard rightwing admin (which rhetorically is false, but in terms of policy, isn't far off) to (II) the people who ran the admin calling him a fascist and (III) the people replacing the Republicans who ran the admin last time, with the most unhinged true believers who delight in saying up is down and threatening your freedom for it with a smile.
Yes Corey, it isn't so much that country club republicans aren't racist. But when you replace the guys who care about getting rich, with people who care about the birthrates of whites, we're gonna see much worse shit, even if it all falls under the broad existing umbrella of reactionary conservatism.
Speaking of bullet points: Trump fits perfectly into Erich Fromm's description of narcissism. (A popular writer, Heaven defend us! Yeah, with the highest qualifications to write what he did) In particular, as we saw in his first admin, take his habit of finding really really super people to work for him, and soon deciding the were horrible and needed to be fired and humiliated. Who knows -- how long can he continue loving the superman Musk before one of them decides to fire or murder the other?
I see a similar pattern in the so-called "heterodox" academics who spent their time criticizing institutions for "coddling" students in that their motives were undergirded by a reflexive defense of a status quo where their views are given deference as opposed to being challenged by their inferiors (e.g. students). You see the same thing at another institution (The New York Times) that is very slow to fully acknowledge the present threat because to do so upsets an order which is favorable to them. It's tragic you were right, but it's not unreasonable to say so in order to make things plain.
The New York Times will never declare Trump a fascist, or even the softer “authoritarian.” He may make some “authoritarian” political moves, he may operate with an “authoritarian mindset,” but he will never be an “authoritarian.”
They still struggle with reporting that Trump *lied*.
“Misleading claims”
“Inaccurate”
I dunno. Very recently, one of their highly conventional opinion writers wrote one titled "Democracy Dies In Dumbness" which may have annoyed fascist Bezos as sort of like a direct insult. Another (Maggie Haberman) seemed to endorse it. Maybe not all hope of the NYT growing a spine is lost.
I think John's thesis is partly correct insofar as I never came in for this kind of treatment when I was involved in these debates, i.e., between 2016 and 2020. Perhaps I wasn't important enough. Perhaps I had some residual credibility from my involvement with the Sanders campaign. Maybe the fact that I have academic credentials helped. It may also be that the timing of my "peak" involvement matters. I suspect a combination of all four, and I'll return to the last issue below.
But I think there are two issues John glosses over.
• Stanley was the most prominent (i.e., "internet famous") early members of the "it's fascism" camp. And his argumentation was... easy to dismiss. I think he provided a convenient anchoring point for the anti-anti Trump left to dismiss the rest of us.
• The anti-anti-Trump left wasn't just denying the usefulness of the F word. They were also deriding fears of authoritarianism and Russian electoral manipulation. These lines of argument – as Bessner would freely admit on Twitter and later write at Jacobin – were always fundamentally about their decision to prioritize attacking Clinton and "liberals" over the MAGA threat. They also were important to creating and maintaining a particular, and highly successful, "brand" on social media and even in the pages of the New York Times.
I don't recall if John's discussed the quality of Stanley's work on fascism. But he's obviously written about the latter matter before. I raise it here, as well as my own experience in Fascism 1.0 debates, to suggest a qualification on his thesis. I don't think it was about being crass or vulgar.
My impression is that the self-styled intellectual vanguard of the anti-anti-Trump left had a major stake in denying a lot of things about Trump, including that he was a fascist, that he posed a unique threat to democracy and the rule of law, and even that he benefited from Russian electoral intervention. As they hardened in these positions, they became increasingly dismissive and belittling. The dynamics of social media reinforced these decisions; Bessner, for example, built his entire public-facing career on anti-anti-Trump politics.
Good points. Okay still willing to say Stanley sucks
Can you please say why you think so?
The penchant for the US left in prioritising ‘lib Dem bashing’ over building solid anti authoritarian coalitions never ceases to amaze. Whenever I ponder the lack of a vigorous ‘left’ in the US it’s this to which I return. I loath psychological analysis of political phenomena however I make an exception here. The US ‘left’ hates its parents, particularly its mothers more than it hates fascists.
I’m not saying this is why people took those positions but this is one of the ways we get dumb online. We are exposed to weak arguments, and we are also annoyed by the people who make them so we form strong opinions they’re wrong about everything.
Or else we let the rightwing shape the conversation. Leftists do both these things constantly.
The lesson is that you have to think hard and trust yourself. Just because someone is an academic doesn't mean that they get things right. My own experience has been similar to yours. I can't tell you the number of times I've been scoffed at by colleagues who turn out to be wrong. Most never concede—they just steal your arguments and pretend they were their own.
Some of this is about personal temperament, honestly. I used to engage a lot with Robin many years ago and I just stopped, not because I found his analysis repellant or anything of the sort, but because he generally treated all disagreement as an attack. David Graeber, for those of us who knew him and talked to him online, was often the same--David could just not let things alone and was in constant fight mode whether he was dealing with a hostile critic or a minor nit-picker. As you say (and Joshua P elevates in his comment) we could wish that pique and vanity were about greater goals, or perhaps that intense disagreement should be reserved for existentially-threatening adversaries (who frequently aren't talking to us anyway). It's hard not to go down the rabbit hole where long-running arguments about positions that are ultimately fairly proximate turn into battles to the death, but we are not the first generation of intellectuals and public writers to undergo that kind of misdirection.
re: Graeber, at the time he died, I had unfollowed him on twitter I think for a few years despite respecting his POV and having read and liked "Debt," just because i found his style of online arguing too irritating.
I'm not the biggest fan of the horseshoe theory of politics but there is obviously a kind of leftist out there whose real rage is not a right-wingers, fascists, authoritarians, totalitarians but against mere liberals for a variety of reasons.
Some of them seem to practice Reverse American Exceptionalism, the U.S. as a unique source of evil instead a neverwrong source of light.
Others think liberals/mainstream Democrats are the true roadblock to socialist utopia.
Then liberals/Democrats also take things like national security as things you need to take seriously.
I call them the "America Worsters".
I had one of those in the family. Not at all sympathetic to fascists, better informed about modern politics than anybody else I know, not a real live Communist, but - just as the right-wingers say - America was always wrong.
It obviously paints over a lot, but horseshoe theory correctly identifies a common disdain for liberalism (in the broad sense of limits on the power of the state) and liberals (in the American sense of centre-lefties). To the extent there are similarities (eg, procedural radicalism) they tie into that
This is exactly how I always felt about Corey Robin et al when they downplayed the Trump threat.
imo the most grating things about the online-professoriate-left is the sneering tone used to make sure no one would ever mistake them for a boring normie lib. These folks are the worst offenders, even if they themselves don't have particularly radical politics iirc (Morn, Robin)
I remember going to a talk by Paul Krugman about ten years ago or thereabouts. He used the word "populism" as a near-perfect stand-in for "fascism." I think he knew better at that time, but he was a public figure in a public setting, and the f-word could not yet be used in polite company. You still see this in the stodgier parts of the press, but the rest of us are now free to call things by their proper names--especially Krugman himself.
That wasn't just to deny fascism, it was also to disparage all forms of populism - Bernie was running at the time.
No. I was there and you weren't. Krugman was referring solely to the far-right wing. He did not mention Bernie or the Italian Five Star movement, which was populist and popular at the time, but not particularly fascist.
But really, this is a Mainstream Press distortion of populism, which was a reasonable position when it was actually current. True, the most famous populist of all, "Cross of Gold" etc, was also an anti-evolutionist, but there's an explanation of that, considering the times, and his exposure to German nonsense about Master-Racism, which he rejected. If his economics were not right, they were at least less damaging to the People than the gold standard. And the post-Bryan leaders were not reactionary at all.
I know you're writing a lot about very serious stuff but I gotta say: "one just hopes one’s pique and vanity ultimately is in service of some greater goal" is a pull quote that should be etched on stone (or embroidered?).
If academics admitted Trump was a fascist then they’d have to endorse voting for Democrats. Truly a vulgar notion for the professional left.
The other thing about academics is that it tends towards equivocation. There are sometimes good reasons for this. Almost nothing is 100 percent certain but in debates like this "does appear to," "seems to be" kind of hedging language only helps Trump even if the academic is overall critical of Trump. But academics learned that unequivocal language is generally prohibited if you want tenure and respect in the academy.
Speaking as someone with a PhD, I think this is exactly right. In spite of the "liberal" politics of many academics, academia itself is an old-fashioned, bureaucratic, conservative institution with a propensity for normalcy bias.
Listening to “it’s time to say goodbye” podcast from last week, it’s funny how similar
the criticism of academia is across covid and fascism:everyone seems to be so safe and suffering from groupthink. From my own experience in economics (bs/ms) and law (jd), everyone agrees with each other on everything. I’m not even controversial or smart, but I remember countless times when I’d bring up counter points and get mocked or dismissed by professors. (Even if I my points were correct).
If it steps like a goose… etc.