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Yesterday, the Stanford Daily published an article titled “Hoover-affiliated historian calls fascism fears a ‘category error’ amid No Kings protests.” The historian in question is Professor Niall Ferguson. Despite past differences, we applaud him for his controversial and correct stance: that President Trump is not, in fact, Hitler.
The Stanford community overwhelmingly assumes “Trump = Hitler.” At POLISCI 31’s panel, titled “Is this the End of the Post-WWII New World Order,” students inquired “whether this era was fascist or not.” It took Professor Ferguson from the Hoover Institution, an “oasis of conservatism” on a broadly liberal campus, to unequivocally state that President Trump is not fascist. The other two guests questioned whether America is heading into fascism, bemoaning “eroding confidence” in institutions like the Department of Justice.
The article is particularly ironic because its own headline reflects the truth of Ferguson's claims. If the President’s administration is truly fascist, why does the “No Kings” protest continue unabated and unobstructed by the administration? Ferguson recognizes real fascism: “I’ll take you back to year five of Hitler, how about that?” Ferguson said, adding, “There was no rule of law whatsoever, anybody who is a political target – if they [can] walk out of the courts – will be picked up by the SD.” In any authoritarian regime of the past, protests like “No Kings” would be forcefully ended and their instigators jailed or worse.
Indeed, the label “fascist” means next to nothing in American political discourse. It’s a partisan slur for “Republican I dislike.” Today, Democrats and so-called experts on democracy nostalgize Bush Junior as a model of nonfascist conservatism; they seem to forget that during his presidency, they aggressively demonized him as fascist. Bush Junior, Bush Senior, Reagan: these proponents of free markets and small government, fascism’s kryptonite, were all tarred as fascist simply for opposing progressive politics.
It is true that Trump is different from these Republicans of yore because he uses muscular executive power. But this is standard 21st-century politics. “No Kings” protestors point to Trump's use of executive orders as fascism; they forget that it was Obama who pioneered their use in order to override Congress’ will. The Biden administration embarked on a campaign of blatantly political prosecutions while debanking opponents.
The very factions bewailing Trump’s supposed fascism came closer to supporting fascism than Trump ever has, Stanford included. The Stanford Internet Observatory worked to censor conservative voices at the behest of the federal government and recruited students to assist in this task. In past decades, speech codes at Stanford were deemed unconstitutional, and, we might add, it took a lawsuit from the Review to put an end to them.
Echoing this sentiment, in a fireside chat last week with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Hoover Director and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice remarked that elite universities have “a lot to atone for” after a period “without viewpoint diversity,” during which free speech was not defended. By demonizing their opponents as “fascist,” the left is putting off this much-needed atonement.
Demonization allows the left to co-opt well-intentioned individuals and silence opponents. If Republicans are fascist, is it not reasonable to murder them in cold blood—as we’ve seen with Charlie Kirk? Indeed, Kirk’s assassin was motivated by the same sentiments Stanford’s culture promotes; investigators found bullet casings with the slogan “Catch Fascist!" History shows that when political opponents are demonized, violence ensues, and the democracy that the left profess to value fails.
But to learn from this history requires knowing history. The Review agrees strongly with Ferguson’s closing advice: “You are almost certainly not reading enough books.” Even a cursory reading of history will reveal that genuine fascism looks nothing like our America, and that crying wolf will not make up for the left’s lack of a positive vision for the country; it will only deepen the erosion of trust in American institutions.
The Review’s founding editor rejected “name-calling” in favor of genuine political debate; terms like “fascist” do no one any good. Thirty-eight years later, our mission endures: to remind Stanford that argument, not insult, is the essence of our nation.
