1). “Texas Professor Terminated Over a Fascist's Doctored Video: The latest target in MAGA’s campaign against higher education details the proceedings against him and the collective organizing effort behind him”, Oct 27, 2025, Maximillian Alvarez, In These Times, includes both text version and audio, duration of audio 1:05:33, at < https://inthesetimes.com/
2). “Fired for Advocating Socialism: Professor Tom Alter Speaks Out”, Sep 24, 2025, Ashley Smith, CounterPunch, at < https://www.counterpunch.org/
3). “Texas State University upholds firing of Professor Tom Alter for political speech”, Oct 17, 2025, International Youth and Students for Social Equality, World Socialist Web Site (WSWS), at < https://www.wsws.org/en/
4). “Fox News 'expert' says Hitler went to heaven: Karlyn Borysenko, a self-described fascist, is gaining influence — and getting liberals fired”, Sep 23, 2025, Russell Payne, Salon, at < https://www.salon.com/2025/09/
5). “Karlyn Borysenko Anti-Communist Cult Leader”, Latest Post on Oct 25, 2025, Karlyn Borysenko & various others in replies, X, at < https://x.com/DrKarlynB >.
6). “He Studies Fascism. Is He Now Living Through It? After death threats for his work on antifascism, a Rutgers University professor fled the United States. 'It’s too late for preventative antifascism,' he said. 'I think we’re in a new era.' ”, Oct 14, 2025, Schuyler Mitchell, Mother Jones, at < https://www.motherjones.com/
~~ recommended by dmorista ~~
Introduction: The standard practice of authoritarian and fascist regimes to stifle dissent is to fire (and sometimes kill) professors in the universities. Since the assassination of Charlie Kirk (most likely the handiwork of Zionist operatives, certainly the cover story is like that of the more famous patsies Lee Harvey Oswald, Sirhan Sirhan, and James Earl Ray). Always a leader in repressive operations and policies Texas became the 3rd state (after Florida and Ohio) to enact official policies to suppress university speech or curriculum that does not toady to their social and economic policies and beliefs.
Item 1)., “Texas Professor Terminated ….”; Item 2)., “Fired for Advocating Socialism: ….”; and Item 3)., “Texas State University ….”, all look at the termination of Dr. Tom Alter by Texas State University at San Marcos. Item 1). provides the clearest description of how the Fascist Operative Karlyn Borysenko deceptively edited the video that she put on the web and that went viral. Her editing tried to make it look like Alter (while attending a conference on Socialism) had stated that he was representing Texas State University in some of his personal comments, when in fact he clearly stated he was speaking for himself and did not mention the university where he worked at all. She also clipped out a section, that included context for the next part of Alter's statement, to try to make it look like Alter was advocating violent actions when he most certainly was not. Item 3, from WSWS, notes that the President of Texas State University at San Marcos has a salary of $815,000 per year, about 10 times that of professors like Alter and 30 times that of most other employees of the university.
Item 4)., “Fox News 'expert' says ….”, provides some background on this far-right operative, Borysenko. She is a fanatical fascist who is a prodigous poster and generates lots of fascist material. Item 5)., “Karlyn Borysenko ….” is a link to some of her actual online posting, at X where many fascists and far-right types put their material. There is a lot there, anybody who is interested should scroll down a bit to see some her insane rantings and ravings.
Item 6)., “He Studies Fascism. ….”, is a story from Mother Jones about a Mark Bray, professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey. He was targeted and Doxxed by right-wingers on October 4th of this year. This included messages threatening him, and his wife and children. Some of the threatening messages included his home address. Bray did not fool around and, after one attempt to board an airliner, in which his reservations had “mysteriously” been canceled, he and his family boarded an airliner bound for Spain on October 9th, that still included some harrassment by governmental agents at the airport. He will teach this years classes at Rutgers on-line. Bray, in 2017 wrote a book entitled Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, and has generally studied fascists and the far-right for years. Bray was subjected to action by Charilie Kirk's organization Turning Point USA whose Rutgers Chapter had started “.... an online campaign accusing him of 'supporting terrorist behavior.' A petition created by the Rutgers chapter of Turning Point USA had received fewer than 100 signatures. It was, nonetheless, amplified by Fox News.” Kirk was killed on September 10 and in the wake of that event Trump had issued two new Executive Orders on September 25th (declaring the Antifa is a terrorist organization) and on September 29th (that tries to end free speech by anybody who disagrees with the Trump Regime). Other prominent professors who have left the U.S. include Jason Stanley and Timothy Snyder (and Snyder's wife Marci Shore also a professor at Yale). All three taught at Yale and have decamped to the University of Toronto.
The message is clear. Trump (who is after all increasingly a confused old-man, diapered up and brought out for Excecutive Order signings and for some ranting and raving) is used by the real forces who run the U.S. government, Russel Vought and Stephen Miller among them, to order increasingly drastic measures. And Vought and Miller are just errand boys for the real rulers, including the 330 Oligarchical families who bankrolled Trump's 2024 campaign. These people don't care if they represent a majority of the population (then certainly don't), and they don't care a hoot about the “rule of law” or the constitution. They would happily order the massacre of people who protest about ICE raids in their neighborhoods or who go to “No Kings” rallies. The only question for them is what can they get away with now, and how much further can they push their agenda tomorrow. If they get their way the U.S. will become a nightmare, far worse than the already seriously flawed nation that we were, and to a large extent still are. There will be no vaccines of any sort, abortion will be outlawed completely along with contraception, you can kiss social security and medicare goodbye. Millions of people will be imprisoned in the “Concentration Camps” that have had $120 Billion appropriated for over the next 10 years, along with $50 Billion appropriated to hire the Thugs to fill and run them.
It is clearly worth the effort to resist this ongoing nightmare and to take much more serious efforts to protect ourselves from these monsters. Yesterday's post here, from Newest Beginning, “Blue States: It Is Time For Soft Secession”, is certainly a very good suggestion. And that should just be a starting point. The current day Dark Ages Red States would be much less formidable and internally powerful if the Blue States (that generate nearly 60% of the economic GDP of the country as a whole, and Blue Counties generate 71% of the nations GDP) began seriously using their powers to stop this stuff. We cannot give up, but we need new tactics vigorously pursued, that are more realistic and that use tactics that are not just reactive.
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Texas Professor Terminated Over a Fascist's Doctored Video
“In Texas, a socialist professor is now in the fight of his life against MAGA’s New McCarthyism,” Bill V. Mullen writes in Jacobin. “Tom Alter, a labor historian and tenured professor of history at Texas State University, was fired from his job on September 10 after a far-right troll doctored a videotape of Alter speaking at a virtual Revolutionary Socialism conference.” While Alter was provisionally reinstated on Sept. 26, he and his family remain in limbo as they wait for a final decision from Texas State University regarding his firing. In this urgent episode of Working People, we speak with Professor Alter himself about the sequence of events that have made his case a flashpoint in the MAGA right’s all-out assault on free speech, higher education, and the people who live, work, and study there.
Maximillian Alvarez: Professor, thank you so much for joining me today, especially with everything going on in your life right now. I want to start with how you and your family are doing at this moment, and where things actually stand in your case as of this conversation, which we’re recording on Saturday, October 11.
Tom Alter: It’s been quite jarring, turning our world upside down. We made a home for ourselves and the community here in San Marcos, Texas. Finding out about my immediate termination through online posting from the university president has been quite disrupting to my family.
Alvarez: Let’s give listeners more of a sense of just what exactly you have been going through, and how your case has become this flash point for the new MAGA right. That became explicitly clear on the day of your firing, which was also the day that Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, was assassinated in Utah. Some people have jumped to the conclusion that you were a casualty of that initial wave of repression after Kirk’s assassination. But, the events leading to your firing predate that. I wanted to ask if you could walk us through the timeline of events, from you speaking at this conference to now.
Alter: I spoke at the Revolutionary Socialism Conference, a two day online conference beginning on Saturday, September 6. I gave the talk on my own time, from my home office on Sunday morning through zoom. The session that I was speaking on was titled “Building Revolutionary Organization Today.” This is a question that many of us on the left are grappling with, how do we organize ourselves in the face of all these attacks on working class people? During the talk, I didn’t identify myself as part of Texas State in any way. Later on during a break session of the conference, someone that recognized me from a previous conference asked me what it was like teaching at Texas State. Unbeknownst to myself and conference organizers, this wanna-be social media grifter, self-described fascist Karlyn Borysenko, filmed my conference talk then edited the section during the break about me being at Texas State to make it seem like that was during the conference talk. Then she was like, ‘Hey, look, here’s this Texas State University professor advocating for overthrowing the government.’
Myself and other people that participated in the conference were aware of this online campaign, but we decided not to give it any air. Turns out, a few days later, the Texas State University President Kelly Damphousse appeared to have listened to it.
I was at my son’s soccer practice. All of a sudden, I received a group text from local San Marcos community activists. They were calling for an emergency meeting to defend me. I was thinking, ‘Oh, nevermind that online fascist, it’s no big deal.’ And then I saw the announcement that I had been suddenly terminated. This immediately became a flash point for many people that have concerns about academic freedom, free speech, democratic rights and union rights. My unions came to my defense immediately: The Texas State Employees Union, affiliated with the Communication Workers of America, and the American Association of University Professors.
But foremost, it’s been the students at Texas State. I was fired on a Wednesday night and Thursday morning, they were out protesting. For five school days straight, students protested on campus, and then the internal organizing began.
Alvarez: All of that temporarily culminating in your reinstatement at the end of the month. Correct?
This immediately became a flash point for many people that have concerns about academic freedom, free speech, democratic rights and union rights.
Alter: Yes, a judge correctly ruled that my due process had been violated in accordance with Texas State’s own policies, state law and my federal constitutional rights. The judge ordered my reinstatement, but not reinstatement back into the classroom. Since then, the university is following their due process rules and conducting an investigation. The president had a hearing this past Monday, October 6, where he said that they’re still charging me with grounds for my immediate termination, saying I was engaging in “partisan political activity.” That’s the latest charge against me. Initially, it was “inciting violence,” and then I was a “danger to the public health and safety of the Texas State community,” which is ludicrous.
We had the hearing on Monday. He said he would have a decision by the end of the week, but, here we are on Saturday, and I’ve heard nothing. I’ve got my 11 year old son every day when I’m picking him up from school, saying, “Hey, Dad, do you still have your job? Do we have to move?”
Alvarez: We’re having our conversation just days after Professor Mark Bray and his family fled the country because of Bray’s scholarly work on the history of anti-fascism. Your case comes at a time when the Trump administration is trying to root out this ‘leftist, anti-American scourge ’ on campuses. In your corner of higher education right now, what has the past month taught you about where we are in this country?
Alter: These assaults on higher education and free speech and democratic rights have been ongoing for a few years. We saw it with the crackdown on students protesting against the genocide and for free Palestine under the Biden administration. But, what we are seeing now, in this past month, is an all out assault. History has been thrust upon us rather quickly.
This is where it began in Italy in the 1920s. You go after the universities then you go after the unions. That’s why I’ve seen so many organizations, trade unions, free speech activists and academic organizations rallying around this fight.
These assaults on higher education and free speech and democratic rights have been ongoing for a few years. We saw it with the crackdown on students protesting against the genocide and for free Palestine under the Biden administration. But, what we are seeing now, in this past month, is an all out assault.
Alvarez: Are there any lessons that you’ve taken away from this about how to maintain the fight for the things that we are fighting for while being cautious, protective and intentional about how we proceed in these very dangerous times?
Alter: Be yourself, speak to the truth and let the other side do themselves in. Once you start self-censoring, you put yourself in a weaker position. That being said, I used this term ‘revolutionary socialism,’ in my talk. How do you explain that and what it means? That is the challenge: being true to yourself and your political tradition as a Marxist and as a socialist, but realizing those are really loaded terms for a lot of people.
Alvarez: What may happen in the coming days and what can listeners do to support you, your family, your students and join the fight to defend free speech and academic freedom before both are gone completely?
Alter: In the next day or couple days, we could be celebrating a victory, or we could be looking at a protracted fight. But even if my case comes out positive, the fight doesn’t stop. What we did here at Texas State with the support of the unions, students, academic associations, supporters of free speech is what we need to be replicating across the country within our communities, on and off campus. Especially in Texas, where unions don’t have as much power, people have seen firsthand what a union can do as the basic defensive organization of the working class. So, I encourage everyone to join your union, become active in your union. Also join that particular political organization that meant something to you. Now’s the time to do it. It’s been time to do it for a little while. But now it’s really coming down to this do or die moment. Take power in that and take power from each other. It’s really empowering when you’re out there with fellow working people, fighting for your rights. Keep fighting, whether it’s around my case, hopefully it’s a victory, if not going we’re going to be fighting still.
Editor’s Note (10÷14÷25): On Monday, Oct. 13, Alter was notified by Texas State University President Damphousse that “his employment at Texas State University is terminated, effective immediately.” “I stand in opposition to Texas State University’s attack on democratic rights that are protected by the Texas and United States Constitutions as well as the academic freedom that was once the hallmark of Texas higher education,” Professor Alter said in a public statement. “The charges leveled against me by the Texas State University administration do not stand up to the facts; I have truth on my side and I look forward to my day in court.”
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Fired for Advocating Socialism: Professor Tom Alter Speaks Out
If we lose free speech, we lose freedom of the press and freedom of association as well as our ability to address grievances. Image by Getty and Unsplash+.
In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, the Trump administration has launched a McCarthyite assault on freedom of speech. The government, corporations, and institutions have censured, suspended, and fired workers from Jimmy Kimmel to the Washington Post’s only Black woman columnist Karen Attiah and others in almost every imaginable occupation for telling jokes, making statements, or posting critical comments on social media.
Even before Kirk’s assassination, the New McCarthyism was gaining steam. In one of the worst instances, Texas State University fired tenured professor Tom Alter for the crime of speaking at an online socialist conference. Far right grifter and self-declared “anti-communist cult leader” Karlyn Borysenko violated the conference’s protocols, recorded Alter’s speech, edited it to distort his comments, and shared her doctored video on social media, which then went viral.
President Kelly Damphousse responded by summarily firing Alter without due process, violating his First Amendment rights and academic freedom. Alter is a beloved teacher, author of the widely acclaimed book Toward a Cooperative Commonwealth: The Transplanted Roots of Farmer-Labor Radicalism in Texas, and a member of the Texas State Employee Union.
CounterPunch’s Ashley Smith here interviews Alter about his firing and the campaign to overturn his dismissal and reinstate him with full pay and benefits and without censure or restrictions.
You have just been fired from Texas State University for speaking at a socialist conference. What happened? What was the university’s justification for firing you? Has discipline or firing of this sort ever happened before? Isn’t this a threat to First Amendment rights and academic freedom for everyone?
On September 7, I participated in the online Revolutionary Socialism Conference. I gave a talk during the session titled “Building Revolutionary Organization Today.” At the beginning of my talk, I identified myself as a member of Socialist Horizon and the Texas State Employees Union (TSEU). I consciously did not identify myself as a faculty member or employee of Texas State University (TXST) during my talk. I gave the talk over Zoom, from my home, on a Sunday morning, during my own time.
Unbeknownst to conference participants and in violation of the conference rules of no recording or streaming, an online social media grifter recorded the conference. This person is a self-described fascist with horribly antisemitic and anti-queer views. The next day the fascist grifter called a campaign for my firing from TXST.
Two days later, while I was at my son’s soccer practice, I received a text from a local San Marcos community activist group chat drawing my attention to TXST President Kelly Damphousse’s public statement announcing my immediate termination. That’s how I found out I was fired. Damphousse stated that he “was informed about controversial statements that were made by one of our faculty members at a conference” and accused me of “inciting violence.”
Upon seeing this I immediately returned home and found that I had been cut-off from my TXST email. I later found an email from the university Provost in my personal email notifying me of my termination. The provost’s email also refers to my participation “at a recent conference.”
After a review of the conference video, the university determined that I “have engaged in conduct that jeopardizes the health and safety of our university community. You have also engaged in conduct that reflects inappropriate and poor judgement as a faculty member at Texas State University.” The reasons outlined in the provost’s email are the University’s justifications for firing me.
Repression of academic freedom, even that of tenured professors, is not something new in the US. What makes my case different is that there was no due process, not even a predetermined sham process. I was a tenured professor at a public university; this entitles me to due process according to TXST policy and state law.
This is in addition to protections afforded to me and all Americans by federal Constitutional rights. My firing is a threat to everyone’s first amendment rights and specifically all educators’ academic freedom. If I can be fired without due process and in violation of my democratic rights, then all our democratic rights are in serious jeopardy.
What makes this threat to our rights even more alarming is that President Damphousse in citing the conference video in connection to my firing has capitulated to a self-described fascist. This erodes the basic underpinnings of a free and democratic society.
How have your co-workers, union, and students responded? What does your defense campaign look like? What has been the response from the university bosses to the outpouring of support for you and other targeted professors?
While my firing by TXST was quick, the response of students to my firing was even quicker. I was fired on a Wednesday evening and on Thursday students spontaneously protested my firing on campus. Student-led protests on campus lasted for five school days, calling for my reinstatement and defense of free speech. The spontaneous student protests have subsided, but they have launched a long-term campaign in defense of free speech, which includes the demand “FREE DR. ALTER.”
My two unions, the TSEU and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) also came to my immediate defense. The TSEU is a statewide union representing all employees of the state of Texas. The union quickly started circulating a petition calling for my reinstatement and has taken this campaign to campuses across Texas. The AAUP has provided legal assistance and statements of support.
Everyone, everywhere, join a union! If my firing results in increased union membership, that will be a win. Statements of solidarity and offers of support continue to pour in. They have come from academic associations and community organizations of all kinds. My email inbox is flooded with so many messages that I am unable to answer them. I want people to know that I have seen your messages, and they are keeping me going. Thank you.
Needless to say, members of Socialist Horizon were there at the beginning and put taking care of me and my family first. Now with the help of other socialist and working-class left organizations a broad united front national campaign is being organized. This campaign will not only defend me but anybody else facing politically motivated attacks from the right.
International solidarity has been extended to my campaign as well. For example, I received a message of support and solidarity sent from the flotilla currently on its way to provide humanitarian aid in Gaza.
As for the university bosses’ response to the vast amount of support and solidarity I have received in defense of due process, academic freedom, and democratic rights? Who knows. You will have to ask them and question their judgement as to why they sided with a fascist.
This seems to be part of a broader assault on higher education in Texas. Other professors have been disciplined and fired at different institutions. Is there a pattern to this? Who’s driving the attack and what is their aim?
I agree my firing is part of a broader attack on higher education in Texas. A professor at Texas A&M was fired for teaching about gender identity. In the wake of the Charlie Kirk killing, primary and secondary school educators in Texas have been targeted by state agencies for posting negative opinions of Kirk on their social media pages.
Students at public Texas universities, including TXST, have been expelled or forced to withdraw from school for using their free speech rights in opposition to public vigils for Kirk. This is only a rapid acceleration of long-standing attacks on free speech and diversity on college campuses in Texas.
During the past few years, university programs in Texas based on equality and diversity have been eliminated. And the Texas legislature has limited free speech on campus to only members of the university faculty, students, and staff. Though as we have seen in my case and those of student protesters, administrators still decide who actually gets free speech, even when we speak off campus.
There is a pattern to these assaults. The far-right conservatives who now govern Texas have a particular view of the world, one driven by capitalist reactionary ideas and profit. Their baseline of society is one that is naturally white, straight, patriarchal, and adherent to a deeply conservative form of Christianity. Others who do not fit this baseline are tolerated, and even accepted in certain circumstances, as long as they do not challenge this baseline.
Everything and everyone else are a threat that must be repressed. Hence they find no contradiction in defending free speech for people calling for attacks on trans people, while denying free speech to students protesting the genocide of Palestinians.
Texas has long been a diverse and transnational space. Yet, during most of Texas’ history first as a republic and then as a US state, it has been controlled by Anglo elites who concocted a one-sided, celebratory history of heroic Anglos taming a wilderness and triumphing over “savages” and non-white people to justify their rule.
Well, the far-right’s baseline does not reflect the reality of Texas today, which is incredibly diverse. And the heroic Anglo narrative of history has been exposed as a fabrication. Studies often recognize Houston as being the most diverse city in the US in terms of race, ethnicity, culture, religion, and languages spoken. Other areas of Texas are not far behind in reflecting this diversity, though some areas do not.
I honestly love living in Texas because of its diversity—its people, food, and culture. Though Texas can also be cruel. Texas universities in recent years began to reflect the diverse reality of society in Texas and sought to meet the multifaceted needs of such a society. This became too much for the far-right to bear so they launched their assault on higher education. They aim to return Texas society to their baseline.
Your firing is part of a much larger attempt to transform higher education in this country. It began under the Biden administration with the repression of Palestine solidarity activism among professors, staff, and students. Trump has now turned that incipient McCarthyism into an attempt to purge the universities not just of left wing but also liberal professors and programs. What are they doing and why?
The attack on higher education needs to be placed in context. Working-class and middle-class people in the US are now suffering from high prices, high rents and mortgages, and a predatory health insurance system. The corollaries to this are increased attacks on women’s rights, queer people, immigrants, destruction of the environment, and a rise in police brutality especially against people of color.
Meanwhile, we are undergoing an incredible wealth transfer from working people to billionaires. This is due in part to US imperialism beginning to lose its dominant position in the world economy to rival capitalists around the world. To maintain profit levels, capitalists have to plunder the working class.
What has been the role of the university in a free society? Public universities as classically liberal institutions are entrusted to be centers of education. They have also been at the forefront of scientific research and new technologies. To accomplish this, they must be open to a diverse array of people and ideas, with open debate, acceptance, tolerance, and free speech. They are not to be centers of indoctrination.
Universities have not always met this charge. Yet in recent decades, universities have made significant strides, mainly because of movements of workers and the oppressed. Students could now take courses in gender and women’s studies, Chicano studies, African American studies, and labor history. Universities have gone from being accessible to only the children of the wealthy and middle class to now being increasingly open to working-class students, though at the cost of crippling student loan debt.
All the while, the university served its primary function in a capitalist society of producing a professional and managerial middle class for capitalist production needs. With capitalism in crisis and a shrinking middle class, what then becomes the function of a university in a capitalist based economy?
Through a bipartisan effort of both Democrats and Republicans, public universities are being run less as places of learning and more as a business. Many public universities have high acceptance rates with low graduation rates. The university receives tuition money with students receiving not a degree, but student debt.
With universities as centers of learning, open debate, tolerance, and free speech, the possibility exists that students might become sensitive to the suffering of other people and question an economy based on profit over people as well as the role of the US military around the world. This does happen occasionally, as we witnessed with the large number of student protests against the genocide in Palestine in the spring of 2024.
University administrations with support from state governments and the Biden administration cracked down, many times violently, on campus protests against genocide. The struggle for a “Free Palestine,” while front and center and vitally important, has become more than a national liberation struggle in the Middle East. Just as the Black Civil Rights Movement was the center around which all other struggles of the 1960s revolved, the Palestinian liberation struggle today is the axis of fighting for free speech, against war, and for social, economic, and environmental justice.
Liberal Democrats like Biden are generally for diversity and tolerance. But at the same time are totally devoted to capitalism, so much so that when diversity and tolerance threaten capitalism, they toss diversity and tolerance out the window. We saw this in the Biden administration’s complete support and enabling of Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians, including his support for cracking down on student protestors. Trump has no such liberal qualms. He has launched an open campaign to turn universities into centers of far right indoctrination, purged of any dissenting beliefs. Any that resist face defunding.
In addition to the assault on higher education, my firing is also part of a broader international right-wing campaign of accusing people of inciting political violence as a way of repressing dissenting voices. We see accusations of inciting political violence thrown at everyone from the Irish hip-hop trio, Kneecap, because of their unwavering support of Palestinian liberation, to me, because of my support for working-class political organization.
How should faculty, staff, and students respond to this New McCarthyism? What traps should be avoided? How does resistance on campus fit into the broader resistance against Trump’s attempt to impose authoritarian rule in this country?
We are witnessing an open assault on higher education and a march toward authoritarian rule. I obviously became a target in this march. I have always believed and practiced that we must use our rights, or we will lose our rights. Well, I used my rights and lost my job.
If there is a trap people could fall into, it is censoring themselves and not exercising their rights. If you do that, you have done the right’s job for them. We must not surrender our rights but use them collectively. I will say over and over again, join a union, especially on our campuses. The more people who join the labor movement, the more we can transform our unions into instruments of class struggle and liberation.
Resistance on campus is part of the broader resistance against attempts to impose authoritarian rule in the US. Universities due to their very nature are centers of free speech. The crackdown began when administrators targeted student, faculty, and staff speaking out and organizing against the genocide in Palestine on campus.
Now, after Kirk’s assassination, Trump, university bosses, and corporations are targeting faculty and students for exercising their free speech on a wide number of political issues. If we lose free speech, we lose freedom of the press and freedom of association as well as our ability to address grievances. This is a fight we cannot lose.
Finally, what can people do to support your struggle? And what can they do to support others facing discipline or termination?
The outpouring of support for my struggle has been incredible. Large numbers of people, unions, and organizations rightfully see my struggle as part of a broader fight for democratic rights against the rising tide of fascism in the US. There are a couple of petitions that people can sign, one by the TSEU and another on Change.org. There is also a GoFundMe to keep my family going during this difficult time.
Statements of support and in defense of free speech are also highly welcomed from unions, academic associations, community groups, and political organizations. Please do the same for other faculty, staff, and students facing attacks. Every single fight for our rights is part of our collective struggle. Solidarity is the only way to win.
It is also very important that we get organized. Join a union. If a union does not exist at your workplace, organize one. Join a political organization you feel represents your beliefs. I am partial to socialist organizing that connects all the struggles of working-class people in a quest to build a society free of class division that’s genuinely democratic and meets human needs.
Overall, if you hear about a fight for economic, social, and environmental justice, join it. Our future depends on mass struggle for collective liberation here in the US and throughout the world.
Texas State University upholds firing of Professor Tom Alter for political speech
Professor Thomas Alter, a historian of labor and the American left, has been fired by Texas State University for political speech. The move is not only an attack on Alter’s rights as a tenured faculty member, a worker, and a citizen, it is an assault on freedom of speech and political organization, and the right to education of college students.
The International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) denounces Alter’s removal, demands his immediate reinstatement, and calls for an independent inquiry into the actions of Texas State President Kelly Damphousse.
Damphousse’s decision was delivered to Alter and his attorneys on Monday. It invokes Texas State University System Rules and Regulations, Chapter V, paragraph 4.53, declaring to Alter that “your last date of employment with Texas State University will be October 13, 2025.”
The letter states that Alter is “subject to summary dismissal” for what the university deems “serious professional or personal misconduct.” But the letter does not even make an effort to describe professional misconduct of any sort. Rather, it denounces Alter’s political speech, specifically his advocacy for socialism.
Alter’s dismissal is based on remarks he delivered at a gathering called the Revolutionary Socialism Conference, an on-line event that took place on September 7, 2025. In his comments, Alter addressed issues of political organization, criticized the capitalist status quo, discussed his interpretations of the American left, and spoke about his views on the need to build a revolutionary socialist party. When questioned by attendees about his teaching role, Alter described his work with education majors and spoke about Texas State’s long-standing involvement in training public school educators.
On September 10, without prior warning or any opportunity for Alter to respond, Texas State University summarily terminated him via email. He was immediately locked out of his university email and denied access to all campus systems, separating him from his students and abruptly halting his classes and ongoing academic responsibilities. Alter’s firing cut him off not only from his salary, but also from university-provided health insurance for his family.
All of this was done without any hearing or investigation, in clear violation of basic due process and the protections that tenure is supposed to guarantee. Alter was given no chance to communicate with his students and colleagues. For days, he did not know if or how he would be able to defend himself against the allegations.
It was only after Alter filed a lawsuit and obtained a temporary restraining order from a Hays County judge that he was briefly reinstated—though still barred from teaching—pending a hearing. Even then, the process that followed remained under the tight control of the university president and provost, culminating in a second termination after a brief and highly orchestrated meeting, with no real recourse or transparency granted to Alter or his legal counsel.
Alter’s removal was centrally orchestrated by Karlyn Borysenko, a fascist provocateur and Fox News commentator who declared recently that Hitler went to heaven and Jews chose their own deaths in the Holocaust. Borysenko surreptitiously recorded Alter’s remarks as part of her campaign to infiltrate left-wing political events under false pretenses and destroy the lives of targeted individuals.
Despite the illegitimate and potentially illegal origins of the recordings and the openly fascist agenda of the source, the university administration treated the supposed “complaint” as credible and proceeded to act upon it, ignoring procedural norms, tenure rights, and basic freedom of speech in the process.
Alter is the author of Toward a Cooperative Commonwealth: The Transplanted Roots of Farmer-Labor Radicalism in Texas, published by University of Illinois Press in 2022. The book examines the evolution of agrarian radicalism in Texas, following three generations of German immigrants to illuminate how farmer-labor alliances, rooted in transnational radical ideas, shaped working class politics, political protest movements, and economic reform. Alter is esteemed among his students and colleagues alike for his dedication to teaching and mentorship. His courses regularly draw strong enrollments and enthusiastic engagement. Alter was awarded tenure in September 2025.
The university’s letter sent to Dr. Alter on October 13 upholding his firing makes clear that its concern is not with the conduct of teaching or scholarship, but the content and political character of Alter’s speech. The letter attributes “misconduct” to the fact that Alter promoted a “vision for the recruitment of Americans into a Revolutionary Socialist Party with the stated goal of overthrowing the United States government.”
The entire premise rests on criteria that can be wielded against anyone who opposes the policies of the American government, policies that currently include support for Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians, summary assassination of people on boats in the Caribbean at the direction of the American president, and the deployment of the military in American cities in violation of the Constitution. Indeed, what shapes the university’s judgment is Alter’s opposition to, in his own words, the “most bloodthirsty, profit-driven, mad organization in the history of the world—that of the US government.”
The letter declares that Alter’s advocacy of socialism is a violation of Texas State’s “academic neutrality.” But Texas State, like nearly every American university, accepts and encourages overtly partisan activity by faculty and students on behalf of Democratic and Republican causes.
Damphousse’s unabashed hypocrisy is all the more glaring in his condemnation of Alter’s alleged “goal of overthrowing the United States government.” The Republican Party orchestrated efforts on January 6, 2021 to overturn the results of the presidential election—an actual attempt to topple the government. This was backed by 147 congressional Republicans who voted to object to the electoral count after the Capitol riot, and was subsequently defended or minimized by much of the party’s leadership, as well as that of the Democratic Party. No doubt it would be possible to locate many statements by Texas State University Republicans justifying the attempted coup, but Damphousse took no action against them.
As for Damphousse’s invocation of the potential “disruption of university operations, the destruction of university property, and acts of violence on university campuses across our country,” this is entirely speculative and untethered to anything in Dr. Alter’s record or actions.
The university’s letter in fact reveals just how tenuous its justification truly is. Its authors concede that “while this type of activism in itself, if undertaken on your own personal time and without reference to your role as an associate professor at Texas State University, likely would not constitute serious misconduct,” they nonetheless assert that Alter’s remarks “implicate Texas State, its students and employees, and safety on campus during a time when tensions on campuses across the country, including at Texas State, are high.”
The point is unmistakable: the university will quash speech that criticizes fundamental aspects of US society—imperialism, state violence, capitalism and social inequality. Perhaps Damphousse has special concern for the last category. His salary totaled $815,000 for the 2024-2025 academic year, roughly 10 times the pay of a tenured professor and nearly 30 times that of the approximately 500 food, custodial, and maintenance workers at Texas State.
The final lines of the Damphousse letter threaten not only Alter’s livelihood, but the future of open debate and academic inquiry on campus:
Your comments, taken as a whole, go beyond speaking on a topic of academic interest or advocating, in your personal capacity, for a particular political agenda. The totality of your actions and your subsequent explanation for such actions reflect a serious lapse of judgment which has affected the trust placed in you by this university. For these reasons, I find that you remain subject to summary dismissal.
Dr. Alter has every right—morally, legally, and academically—to freely express his political viewpoints. The recognition that the United States is a world leader in imperialist violence is not a radical or irresponsible claim, but a sober analysis supported by overwhelming evidence and abundant scholarship.
The core justification for tenure is to allow precisely for intellectual engagement shielded from administrative reprisals. The firing of Alter makes a mockery of those protections. The process by which this determination was reached—a hearing at which Alter’s attorney presented materials but received little substantive recognition, and a rapid, summary decision—underscores the predetermined nature of the administration’s approach.
Alter’s firing has drawn strong condemnation of Texas State University’s actions from students, faculty, and historians across the country and beyond. Supporters have raised over $47,000 through a GoFundMe campaign to assist with Alter’s legal expenses and ongoing living costs during his fight for reinstatement. Petitions demanding that Texas State University reverse its decision and restore Alter to his post have collectively garnered hundreds of signatures.
Graduate students in the Texas State History Department issued a statement denouncing the dismissal for undermining both “the university’s own commitment to academic freedom” and “the values that are foundational to higher education.” The Texas State University student newspaper, the University Star, noted the case’s chilling effect on free speech and the warnings it sends to other faculty: “What is at stake is not simply one job or the reputation of one scholar, but the rights and freedoms of all those who work and learn at public universities.”
The Organization of American Historians, the American Historical Association, the Labor and Working Class History Association, and the Canadian Committee on Labour History have all condemned the firing and described it as a violation of fundamental professional standards and due process and an attack on the discipline of history itself.
The determined campaign to reinstate Professor Alter and defend academic freedom at Texas State University now stands as a critical test for students, educators, and all defenders of democratic rights. The International Youth and Students for Social Equality reiterates its demand for Alter’s immediate reinstatement and a full, independent inquiry into the actions of President Damphousse and the university administration. Attacks on scholars, campus speech, and student organizations must be met with the broadest opposition across campuses nationwide and internationally.
Students at Texas State and beyond must draw the necessary conclusions from this precedent. It is not only one professor, but the right to dissent and the future of critical thought that are at stake. We encourage all students who want to fight back against censorship and political victimization to join the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE). The IYSSE fights to unite students and youth in the struggle against war, authoritarianism, and social inequality, advancing the perspective that only the independent political mobilization of youth and the working class, organized on socialist principles, can defend and extend our most basic rights.
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Fox News "expert" says Hitler went to heaven
The firing of historian Tom Alter from Texas State University is drawing attention as part of a broader right-wing war against free speech. But the attack on Alter is also of note for relying on video circulated by a far-right influencer — who appeared this month on Fox News — that has made outrageous claims about Nazis and Jews, claiming the public was “lied to about World War II” and that “Hitler went to heaven.”
Alter, a tenured professor, was fired earlier this month and accused by Texas State University President Kelly Damphouse of “inciting violence” for a recent speech at a socialist conference. Far-right activist Karlyn Borysenko had posted a clip of Alter, misleadingly shorn of context, of him describing a confrontational strain of anarchist thought that arose in connection with protests of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, better known as “Cop City.” The shared clip did not include his criticism of that tendency.
The clip circulated in right-wing circles on social media, eventually resulting in Alter’s firing by Damphousse, who was chosen to lead Texas State University by the Texas State University System Board of Regents. Members of the board are appointed by the governor of the state, Greg Abbot, a Republican.
But Borysenko, whose exclusive coverage of the event immediately preceded Alter’s firing, has herself repeatedly espoused extreme rhetoric on social media, even publicly embracing “fascism” and revisionist histories of Nazi Germany.
For example, in a post from August 2024, Borysenko said, “Hitler went to heaven. I do not apologize.”
This post was in response to another post from her in which she said, “Everyone who died in the Holocaust choose [sic] to die in the Holocaust before they were ever born because they [collectively] wanted to understand the experience of ultimate oppression. That’s why Hitler went to heaven.”
That exchange came as part of a years-long record of insisting that the leader of the Third Reich went to heaven, which includes saying things like, “You mean the JEWS don’t believe Hitler went to hell either???”
Borysenko has previously responded to criticism of her comments, saying, “Heaven is real. It’s the spirit realm we all go to after we die. hell is not real. It’s an invention of religion to control people,” and “Hitler was an evil person on a human level. He still didn’t go to hell. Hell is not real.”
In another exchange from September 2024, Borysenko said, “We were all lied to about World War II. They traumatized us in school with atrocity propaganda.”
“Hitler was fighting communists and made multiple attempts to end the war. Most deaths in the camps were from typhus. Winston Churchill is one of the most evil men who ever lived,” Borysenko said.
Later in the same thread, Borysenko responded to a reply that was criticising her for Holocaust denial, saying “You’re literally Jewish,” adding, “Your opinion means nothing to me.”
In response to a request for comment, Borysenko said, “I’m rather shocked that you’re not smart enough to do your own research and fine [sic] any number of the videos or statements I’ve already made commenting on it. Since you obviously need me to do your job for you, what would you like to know? I will be documenting this exchange publicly on X to my 90,000 followers.”
In a brief phone call with Borysenko, she did not respond to a request to explain her past comments about Hitler, World War II and her efforts to “question the Holocaust.”
Borysenko describes her work as an effort to shed light on the danger of the left.
“Karlyn Borysenko infiltrates their meetings, collects their materials, decodes their language, and exposes their ideas,” reads her description of her Substack.
Broysenko has also recently been welcomed by Fox News as an “expert” and “an undercover investigative journalist,” in the words of prime-time anchor Jesse Watters. Borysenko, in an appearance last week, painted a dire picture for Fox’s audience, claiming that the left’s “primary goal is the violent overthrow of the federal government.”
Watters did not mention Borysenko’s avowed support for the far-right, including her stated belief that “fascism might actually be our only option to actually defeat the left.”
“From a real-world perspective, I right now am of the opinion that fascism might actually be our only option to actually defeat the left. I’m not actually joking again,” Borysenko said. “At my heart and core, I am a Libertarian. I believe in voluntarism. I believe in individualism. I believe in the free markets. I believe in all this stuff. But from a practical perspective, I kind of just feel like the conservatives cannot be trusted to make any decisions at all, and they will never defeat the left. They are way more committed to sending all our money to Israel than they are in actually fixing this country.”
Fox News did not respond to a request for comment.
In a Sept. 8 post concerning Alter, Borysenko, who was a Libertarian Party candidate for governor of New Hampshire in 2022, winning just over 2,700 votes, boasted that the clip was from her “exclusive coverage” of the conference.” A search of X also shows that her post about Alter was the one that widely circulated ahead of his Sept. 11 firing.
Liz Yates, an expert on political violence and bigotry at the Western States Center, an organization that monitors right-wing extremism, told Salon that people like Borysenko have taken on an increasingly prominent role in right-wing movements.
“Streamers have become increasingly visible and relevant in anti-democracy and bigoted networks. They film live or online events and interactions and post video content that is often full of disinformation or conspiratorial narratives,” Yates said. “Their goals are to gin up support for bigoted and authoritarian policies, encourage harassment of political activists and people from targeted communities, and even attempt to trigger federal or state action. They’re basically the cheerleaders and enforcers of those who are leading assaults on our multiracial democracy.”
Yates cautioned that “streamers’ depictions of events are often false or misleading, so we must promote accurate and complete information — without engaging these disinformation spreaders or platforming their content.”
Since his firing, Alter has sued his former employer. His attorney, Amanda Reichek, told Salon that, “Dr. Alter was terminated because he espoused views that are unpopular in today’s conservative, politically-charged climate, in violation of his First Amendment right to free speech.”
Reichek also disputed the account provided by Borysenko.
“On September 7, a Sunday, Dr. Alter spoke during an online conference organized by Socialist Horizon,” he said. “He never represented that his opinions were those of Texas State University. He spoke in his individual capacity, on his own time, and his connection with Texas State University was revealed only by another participant.”
“Unbeknownst to the conference organizers,” Riechek continued, “a self-described fascist influencer registered and attended the conference and violated the conference’s policy of no recording or streaming of conference proceedings by attendees. Afterwards, she posted Dr. Alter’s comments to her YouTube channel.”
Damphousse had initially accused Alter of inciting violence. In the lawsuit, Alter said that he was told he was fired after the university received a complaint.
“Conduct that advocates for inciting violence is directly contrary to the values of Texas State University,” Damphousse said. “I cannot and will not tolerate such behavior.”
The clip circulated by Borysenko and later by other right-wing accounts begins with Alter saying, “As anarchists, these insurrectionists explicitly reject the formation of a revolutionary party capable of leading the working class to power. Without organization, how can anyone expect to overthrow the most bloodthirsty, profit-driven mad organization in the history of the world, that of the US government?”
However, in context, it is clear that Alter is criticizing a strain of anarchist activism in the United States.
“Another strain of anarchism gaining ground recently is that of insurrection, insurrectionary anarchism, primarily coming out of those that were involved in the Cop City protest. These groups and individuals have grown rightfully frustrated with symbolic protests that do not disrupt the normal functioning of government and business. They call for more direct action, shutting down the military-industrial complex and preventing ICE from kidnapping members of their communities. Many insurrectionary anarchists are also serving jail time, lost jobs and face expulsion from school. They have truly put their bodies on the line. While their actions are laudable, it should be asked what purpose do they serve?” Alter said immediately preceding the clipped section.
The move to fire Alter is part of a larger campaign from administrators in Texas’ university system to crack down on speech that the right deems offensive.
Melissa McCoul, a professor at Texas A&M, was fired earlier this month after a video surfaced of a student confronting McCoul for saying in class that there are more than two genders. The student then went on to say that McCoul’s statement conflicted with President Donald Trump’s executive order, which asserts that there are only two genders.
“I’m not entirely sure this is legal to be teaching because, according to our president, there’s only two genders,” the student said in the video.
The video also led to criticism of McCoul from Republican lawmakers in the state. The president of Texas A&M has since resigned.
More recently, Texas State expelled a student for allegedly mocking Kirk’s death in a video circulated by another right-wing activist on X. In the video, the student is shown saying “Charlie Kirk got hit in the neck, b—h,” before seemingly reenacting Kirk’s death.
Damphousse’s office, in response to a query from Salon, said that it does not comment on active litigation.
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I can't post X on blogger so click on the profile if you can stomach it.
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He studies fascism. Is he now living through it?
Mother Jones illustration; Ted Shaffrey/AP; Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty
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On Saturday, October 4, Rutgers University professor Mark Bray was sitting in his living room watching the MLB playoffs when he received an email that would change his life.
Bray, a historian and author of the 2017 book Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, had recently become the subject of an online campaign accusing him of “supporting terrorist behavior.” A petition created by the Rutgers chapter of Turning Point USA had received fewer than 100 signatures. It was, nonetheless, amplified by Fox News. By the bottom of the first inning, Bray was not only receiving calls for his firing but death threats—including an email that contained his home address.
“I’m not suspected of any crimes. I’m just a professor.”
“That was when I knew everything had changed, and my family had to pick up and leave the house,” Bray said. “Initially, I thought about going somewhere else nearby. But the threats kept coming in.”
By Monday, Bray’s home address and information about his family had been leaked publicly on X. He decided to flee the country with his wife and children.
While their reservations for their first flight to Spain were canceled at the airport without explanation, Bray and his family successfully left the United States on October 9. He will teach his classes remotely for the next year.
Bray’s departure came after Trump signed an executive order designating “antifa” a domestic terrorist organization and issued a memorandum ordering the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force “to investigate, disrupt, and dismantle all stages of organized political violence,” including “antifa” groups.
Mother Jones spoke with Bray about his experience being targeted by the right, what his research on the history of antifascism can teach us about this political moment, and what “antifa” even is.
This interview has been lightly condensed and edited.
I’d like to start by walking our readers through what’s been going on in your life the past few weeks. When did the threats start? And what happened when you first tried to flee the country?
I was just living my life as a suburban dad and professor. Then there was the Charlie Kirk assassination. I think the Trump administration seized upon that as an opportunity to go after their political opponents, and I see Trump’s executive order declaring antifa a terrorist organization as part of that. It was a few days after that that I started getting threats.
The first time we tried to fly out of the country, we successfully got our boarding passes and made it through security. We were at the gate.
I think, for 99.9 percent of the time, that’s it, right? But they told us there was an error. They made a bunch of phone calls and basically said that, somehow, someone at the very last second had canceled our flight reservation—which I didn’t even know was possible.
I don’t know what happened. But it felt like more than a coincidence that—the one time this happened—my family was fleeing the country while some of the key far-right figures who had been harassing me were at the White House meeting with Donald Trump.
The next day, we managed to leave—but not before being searched and interrogated by federal officers, despite facing no charges whatsoever.
I’m not suspected of any crimes. I’m just a professor.
Talk a little bit more about your areas of focus as a professor. What questions guide your academic research?
“I consider myself an antifascist insofar as I oppose fascism, but it’s disingenuous to simply collapse my research into who I am as a person.”
I’m a historian of modern Europe with a thematic focus on the history of the left, social movements, and protest. I’ve published four books about antifascism, anarchism, and other forms of radical political thought. Regionally, I’ve focused on Spain and Western Europe. I’m interested in how people have organized to make a new world in different times and places, particularly from the 19th century into the mid-20th century. I’m interested in how they’ve resisted authoritarianism and fascism. I’m interested in how different kinds of states—authoritarian or not—have sought to squelch or co-op protest.
I also have a history as an activist myself. I was one of the organizers of Occupy Wall Street in New York City in 2011. I’ve been involved in labor organizing and environmental organizing in a number of different places. The problem is that Turning Point USA and some of these far-right figures are arguing that I am the thing I’m researching. But I’ve never been part of an antifa group. I consider myself an antifascist insofar as I oppose fascism, but it’s disingenuous to simply collapse my research into who I am as a person.
What are the key takeaways in your book about organizing against fascism? What lessons did you learn from your conversations with antifascist organizers across North America and Europe?
Historians typically have focused on resistance to Hitler and Mussolini in World War II, but they have been reticent to talk about antifascism after World War II. I was one of the few at the time in 2017 to talk about the connections and the changes over time. It focuses on what I think you could refer to as “preventative antifascism”—which is the kind of antifascism that antifa groups have engaged in. This antifascism tries to make it so that small and medium-sized far-right groups are unsuccessful in their attempts to influence the halls of power and society.
I think in the US, we’re beyond that point; because those groups and those ideas have direct access to the White House these days. Take, for example, the great replacement theory, which only existed on the farthest reaches of neo-Nazi publications and message boards decades ago. I think that we can see a lot of the Trump administration’s policies fitting into that kind of theory. So it’s too late for preventative antifascism. I think we’re in a new era.
The main takeaway I want people to get from the book is to think about different ways that antifascists have organized and resisted, their successes and failures. It is not a prescription for one kind of resistance. I’m not saying that I endorse everything that everyone has ever done in every time and place under the rubric of antifascism.
What does “preventative antifascism” entail?
After World War II, antifascists, particularly in Europe, faced the question of how to ensure “never again.” How do we make sure there isn’t a new Nazi party or fascist party? The dominant answer, particularly in continental Europe, and put forward by the leading socialist and communist parties, was that you use the state, and you make a law. In Germany and in Italy, it was illegal to make another one of those parties.
The problem is that, over time, particularly moving into the 1980s and 90s, you get a kind of far-right resurgence, particularly in response to the first real waves of non-European migration. It’s very xenophobic and racist—and what’s going on is fascist, but they don’t call it that. They change the names, they change the labels, they change the symbols. And so what develops is this more clearly articulated militant antifascist movement that argues that you resist in the streets, in your communities, from below, and without relying on the police or the courts or the discourse of civil society to stop the march to fascism. It’s a kind of strategy and politics that developed to stop small and medium-sized fascist groups from getting into parliament and influencing the halls of power.
But obviously, if you’re at a point where the president is echoing the great replacement theory and trying to banish books on African American history and create what a number of scholars have likened to concentration camps for undocumented people—you’re beyond that point. Which isn’t to say that there is no role for some form of street-level antifascism in counter-protesting far-right demonstrations. But I think that we’re at the point where we really need to call upon larger social movements to try and change the direction of society.
And what would that look like?
That’s the challenge. There are two main blueprints in antifascist history. There’s the preventative, post-war blueprint that I laid out. There’s also the kind of Spanish Civil War, World War II blueprint. We are not at that point, and I hope we never get there.
We’re somewhere in between, because we have what I would argue is a kind of fascistic administration—people like Stephen Miller, who I think are really avowedly fascist, who really do want to destroy democracy and dissent, are promoting their politics. But we have not reached the point where they have achieved all their goals.
So, in that sense, if you look at the moments of historical fascism, we’re somewhere between January 1933, when Hitler took power, and the end of February, when he passed the Enabling Act. But that’s such a brief window of time that there’s not a direct parallel.
I think we need to come up with a new blueprint fit for the 21st century that is popular, that is pluralistic, that takes different forms of resistance, that encourages people to look beyond their political differences, that involves different kinds of civil disobedience and direct action. But I couldn’t possibly give a formula—because it will develop on its own, through a whole vast network of arteries that are beyond anyone’s individual control.
And that’s what is so misleading about how Trump and his allies depict resistance. There’s no one person telling anyone what to do. That kind of politics is really long gone. It’s going to come from different kinds of networks, and nodes, and groups across the country.
And I hope from afar to see this politics reclaim the country, so I can feel comfortable coming back home.
One of the things that the right-wing media has seized on is a part in your book where you say that you’re donating some of your proceeds to the International Anti-Fascist Defense Fund. What is this fund, and why is the right so mad about it?
“It’s too late for preventative antifascism. I think we’re in a new era.”
The International Anti-Fascist Defense Fund collects small donations from activists around the world to pay for the legal and sometimes medical costs of people facing charges for antifascist activism. Most of the cases that it sends money to are people who are resisting regimes in Eastern Europe, Belarus, Russia, and so forth. It is not itself an antifa group.
What even is an “antifa group,” since the term has been brandished so loosely?
The term antifa is originally German from the 1920s and 30s. It spread more broadly when it was revived in Germany with the autonomous antifascist groups of the 80s and onward. You don’t see it in the Anglophone world until the late 2000s. The first US group to call themselves antifa was Rose City Antifa, founded in 2007. It means there’s a group of activists, leftists of one sort or another, who decide to organize against fascism in a way that does not rely on the state. They’re not calling for bans on fascist groups. They’re not calling for censorship. They’re organizing in their everyday life. Beyond that, it takes a multiplicity of forms. Certainly, it’s much more well-known and understood in Europe, particularly continental Europe.
It’s more of something that a group of people do, or maybe something that they loosely identify with, rather than a fixed organization. Although: a lot of these groups are, internally—insofar as maybe they have a dozen members—rather well-organized, and take seriously questions around infiltration, and making sure that their identities are not found out by the far-right. But beyond that, it’s kind of open-ended how they operate.
Because, again, it is this kind of transnational movement that spans decades, and part of what I try to do with the book is trace some of that history so it’s better understood.
The other part of the book that’s received criticism is your language about the handbook being an “unabashedly partisan call to arms.” What do you mean by that?
What I mean by a call to arms is that I call upon people to organize against fascism. I’m not telling anyone any one way to do it or another. The book is not prescriptive in that sense. It’s only prescriptive in the sense that I want people to be informed when they decide what to do and to take action. I don’t know what the blueprint should be of resistance right now. I’m just encouraging people to resist. And so in that sense, you know, I come at this as a scholar, as a professor, as a researcher, as an activist. I’m not prescribing any particular form of resistance beyond people getting out there and organizing against what’s going on.
Three Yale professors who study fascism also left the country for Canada earlier this year, including Jason Stanley, the author of How Fascism Works. Do you get the sense that there are more academics who might be considering leaving, and, as a historian, does the exodus of intellectuals signal anything to you?
The future is unwritten, but it’s hard to imagine that it won’t get worse before it gets better. And that informs my decision to leave. Certainly, receiving death threats, having your address publicly exposed—this is all very concerning, particularly as a parent—and they’re grounds enough for me to want to seek safety. But my concerns about the pace at which this is going make me much more concerned. If things continue on the fascistic pace they’re on, without a change, we will get there.
So, it’s incumbent upon us to do something: to stop this, to get out, to mobilize. I think that we can stop this before it gets as bad as it could conceivably get. But it’s hard to see that happening before things start to get at least somewhat worse.
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