‘The cult of the leader’: The professor who left America says fascism is flourishing

The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age

14 Sept 2025  The Morning Edition Podcast

US President Donald Trump is a fascist, running an authoritarian regime. We hear this allegation a lot, now. But is he? Really? Fascism expert Jason Stanley says he moved with his family to Canada so that he could leave behind, and protest against, the political climate in the United States.Today, Stanley, a University of Toronto philosophy professor, and author of Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future, argues that American exceptionalism has blinded many Americans from thinking fascism could ever take root in their country. And he discusses if fascism could flourish here in Australia. Jason Stanley appears in Curious at the Sydney Opera House on Sunday 28 September and in Melbourne on Thursday 2 October, presented by The Wheeler Centre.

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