linda gordon has taught at the university of wisconsin and nyu. originally a historian of russia and ukraine, she published cossack rebellions and social turmoil in the ukraine. turning then to u.s. history, work focused on the history of gender and family issues. publishing books on the history

of birth control. family violence and welfare. her book, the arizona orphan abduction, won the bancroft prize for best book in american history and the beveridge prize for best book on the history of the western hemisphere. her biography of photographer dorothea lange won a second bancroft prize among awards. her most recent books are feminism unfinished, a short, surprising history of american women's movements and the second coming of the kkk. a new book on 20th century american social movements will out in the fall of 2024. she was a common center fellow here in our early days back in 2004 and 2005 steven hahn and is a pulitzer prize historian who studies american political and social movements. his acclaimed works include a nation under our feet, which awarded the bancroft prize, the a.h. merrill kirti prize, and the pulitzer prize for history and a nation borders, published in 2016. he teaches at new york university and lives in new york city and southold on long island. in the new york times, david

leonard wrote that steve's book, quote, an important case for vigilance in the face of extremism and warns against, telling the history of the united states as one of inevitable progress. and on that note, please join me in welcoming steve and linda linda. well, thank you. and particularly thanks to the cullman center, not only for inviting me to do this, but for the year so long ago that i got to spend here even more. want to thank dupont because for one thing. this got me to read your book right away. who knows when i would have got to it. but i'm yet and actually had a big impact on me and. i want to start by asking you other people to think about the title because talking using the term illiberal is, not common

and. the way historians think about things. we have lot of other other labels, but it's very illuminating and i do want to point that it is not often that the very title of a book introduces to a new way to think about history. so i want to post you a bunch of that are hovering around this term. you did. how did you come to choose that term? how does it differ from labels, other labels for conservatism and of is it is illiberalism the opposite of liberalism which may seem evident. but to me i think it's not totally evident. so i wonder if you. okay. so. those are great questions. let me just begin by thanking the center, salvatore gabbana, who unfortunately not here.

lauren goldenberg who was generously introducing us? paul de la dach, who is also a florida director. and the entire staff of the new york public library as we were here in a weird year, it was 20, 20, 2021. we had very limited to the resources of the library and limited access to each other. there was very little face time, which was really unfortunate because we were on zoom a lot and people presented their work on zoom and when you heard about the work. it was like, you know, fabulous throughout. and yet we didn't really have much time to talk with each other. i did have the good fortune of getting to know a few people. but, you know, between the comments our staff and the the other people in the library, they really put themselves at a

lot of in order to help us. so i really really appreciate that. and my fellow fellows who i did get to know a little bit and who in a variety of ways helped me think about what i was doing. now to your questions. you know, the best to start answering them is to talk a little bit about how this book came into being. in many ways, i've been writing about this subject for my entire life as a historian but chiefly from the point of view of those were on the receiving end of illiberal ism and illiberal movements. basically what happened in 20 1516, i was really struck by the reaction of journalists and other observers to the campaign who talked about how he violated liberal norms. i wasn't sure what those norms

were, but it was interesting that already 2016, just looking at the supreme court, that the supreme had intervened and determined the outcome of a presidential that in citizens had opened the spigot of big money, had the voting rights act and state legislatures across the country were basically mimicking what was happening at the end of the 19th and early 20th century and restricting rights. i thought this is pretty obvious. somehow there was this, you interest and i think there still is in talking about how there are these liberal liberal norms out there that somehow are strong and enduring and you have a case where you know as in noxious weed growing you know out of the ground is sucking them up. so i decided, i thought i would, you know, maybe take a shot at writing about this. and then the question was, you

how would you conceptualize a project? because i really wanted to do something of a deep history. and i had been reading about illiberalism, which, again, you know, apropos of linda's question, you know, as a relative of relatively vintage. so then the question is, well, how can you use something that basically is coming out and the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century as a way of about this phenomenon historically. and i'm sure you know, won't convince, you know, some readers of of, you know, the use and wisdom of that but what struck me about illiberalism and i'll you know i will in a sec about what its aspects are is that i found it a very compelling schiff's concept that could encompass a variety of forms of

social intellectual disposition and movements that may emerge that some to sometimes overlap with conservatism, but not always. they weren't always conservative and sometimes they took forms that we necessarily see that way. but nonetheless, that's how things out. and it also flexible. so i could think about change over time. i was really worried about telling a continuity story that this gets embedded and. that's the way it is and it plays out again and again and again and. what i was its future its features, which have to do with the of a assigned hierarchies which whether they're of race or gender or nationality a belief inequality a interest cultural

homogeneity, whether of again race or nationality or religion religion, a mark of internal as well as. external enemies and an embrace of political violence as a way of achieving or securing power. and the of expulsion, as a way of the borders of communities and societies and, you know, one thing that's really important, the will of the community as kind overriding the rule of law and of course, community is a very vague idea but and community is constantly being redefined. and whether on a very local basis or even on a national basis. and i think something that is both a and something that manifests itself, you know, rather differently.

so that's kind of how you know, and i thought that the book begins actually. yeah. at first there as some of you know of louis hartz as a book published in the 1950s called the liberal tradition in america was very influential one and argued, you for kind of a consensus version of american history as basically being by political and economic liberalism. and i thought cleverly, i would write a book about the illiberal tradition in america pretty quickly. i learned that that was probably not the best approach, including when i a presentation on zoom my to the other fellows and got some interesting you know suggestions from them so. i decided i would try to the book starts with a chapter the invention of the liberal tradition in the 1940 and 1950s

and then goes back into the 17th century just to push you a little more. okay, what liberals and liberalism is. there were a lot of other labor that we use when we think about people who were on the. right. whether you were talking conservative far fascists, even populist, you know, a phrase that i bet you certainly can't very comfortable with because know that in the 19th century there was a strong populist that was not illiberal but fairly progressive. but it's also to me that there are some contradictions in terms of how we distinguish liberals and liberals. i mean, for example, i was thinking a lot of illiberal people that you would call that a believed in free speech and would defend it for themselves. both liberals. liberals often had a very

individualist approach to. what makes change in history. there in traditionally both liberals and liberals have been. i would say, blind to economic and social inequality impinge freedom. and i wasn't thinking this i was reminded of this great quote from this french journalist france. some of you may have heard of who said, i'm not sure i have every word right. he said that though the law in its majesty forbids and poor alike to sleep under the bridges. so, you know especially and furthermore, just let me add more thing and then i'll get you one thing. and that is that liberal has often been used as a pejorative not by the right, but on the left. definitely by the left.

so talk about their differ. what you know what i try to do in and you know as suggested it's not uncomplicated is to recognize as a an idea concept that liberalism that really developed out especially europe of feudal and early modern societies that didn't necessarily anything to do with liberalism, um, that eventually developed alongside of it. and then over time developed in relationship to it powerfully enough so that think liberalism itself and people regard themselves as liberal kind get entangled it. what i was really trying do in part was this you know, offer a view of u.s. history that these centered that didn't deny that it was important that didn't try to make an argument that illiberal, you know,sensibiliti,

you know forms of organization were more or less important. but that it would be, i think, more valuable for us to understand american history as involving multiple political currents. some of which had to do with liberalism and liberalism, some of which did not or the best they could to escape from it. you know, both in liberal and liberalism. ah, and to some extent ideal types. and that's always problematic for historians because mean it's not, it's problematic for some scientists, but ideal types don't necessarily work very well when you get on the ground and this book, you know, is really it's not an intellectual history. it's kind of a social history of ideas. it's this stuff plays out in particular historical context, how it's embraced and rejected and changed. so, you know, i do think that in

both cases, you know, people who study liberalism, recognize i mean, i use it in a political rather than in an economic way. they're obviously interconnected. there's lots of debate over when liberalism actually. and what it is, you know, is this a 17th century phenomenon? is it a product of the french revolution and, you know, whether say it's century versions of, modern liberalism, sometimes called corporate liberalism, what it's, you know, relationship is to liberalism itself. but i try to, you know, think about it in of a number of characteristics which is, you know, idea of widespread, if not universal rights bearing the idea of democratic political practice idea that a society should be organized by representative of institution. the idea of at least legally

quality meaning equality before law. and you know in many respects, you know, you know in liberalism is a rejection of all of that. it's not necessarily a conscious rejection from the beginning because that's how the society is were organized. and one of the things i think that's, you know, interested me is that, you know, at certain times a small scale or attitudes that have long been associate let's say with early. aspects or, you know, somehow the predecessors, you know, liberal democracy in the future actually turned out to be very different on the ground. and know just to get to your point that say for example people who opposed the ratification of the constitution called anti-federalists. there was kind of an epithet.

you know, and one of the things they were interested in was, say, were, you know, interested in securing local control. but local control also meant, you know, sometimes they were opposed to coastal elites and sometimes they were opposed to what they thought was a political system that would be distant from them, that would be too centralized and on. and so they seemed to kind of pushing back in a democratic way. and to some extent they are. but what they were interested in doing was kind of securing the relationships of power and hierarchy that in their communities and of patrolling the borders of their communities against, those who were regarded as outside orders. i mean, illiberalism, you know, is tied up with suspicions, people who are not like them their insistence on patrolling both potentially internal trouble as well, as, you know, and using expulsion, i mean, expelling people from puritan, you know, towns in the 17th century up through, you know,

the 19th century, where there are lots of expulsions, you know, are part of the kind of content of this, not to mention, you know, hostility native peoples and the termination to rid their territories of them. so i guess, again, it's sort of the idea of illiberalism, unlike simply, you know, particular forms conservatism later on, you know, fascism is gives you a sense that there is lot of it and can change very quickly so that, you know, this is a book that does try to emphasize you know political volatility and it's volatile among social groups, volatility among individuals. people do not fit, you very clearly into a box, although certain social groups tend to, you know, end up in in something of a box. but it, i think, allure to the

kind of things that bind groups of people together and also involve the exclusion of others. i mean, i think that the exclusion is that really oftentimes the heart of, you know, what i think of of as illiberalism. yeah following on and i guess i have to talk about liberal and illiberal was were would you ever have conceived of illiberalism as a social movement now i do but and you know that the word populism arises of that that it is designed to label a concern of perspective or a far perspective that is rooted in large scale social activism from people at the bottom, so to speak and by

contrast, for example, i was thinking about voter suppression. well, there was very strong liberal. not a movement but certainly a force pushing voter suppression on the ground that only people who had the appropriate knowledge and morals should be entitled to the franchise. and, you know we i'm sure, you know, probably most people know that the you the southern victory in depriving but of a right to vote was often rested on exactly those kind of claims that these people cannot write be full citizens of a liberal you know one of the things i mean i think it's good that you brought that up. you know, one of the things i got really interested in when thinking about how illiberalism of transforms itself is transformed looks precisely at

this period. i mean, i, when i looked at progress ism, sort of the period between roughly. 1919 20, which is gen really seen as part of the birth of modern liberalism. what struck me about it was the, you know, almost across the progressive spectrum, that spectrum was pretty considerable. nonetheless, there seemed to be a an interest in what you might call social engineering. there was an interest in eugenics, which, you know, if you read the literature on progressivism. it's generally treated as a sidebar, and yet wherever you look, there is an incredible buy in that. really gets back to linda's point, because what happens during the progressive period is not and simply the most extreme version, which is the advent of jim crow political disenfranchisement, black

people, segregation, even harsher regimes. but you the attempt to redefine fine political parties, herbert crowley, is a really good example of this who was as a village. yeah. who was very influential with, you know, teddy roosevelt and, his new nationalism, who basically thought that, you know, politics ought to be the sphere of educated experts, it should be bureaucratized. and that, you know, he was very, very tough on what he called jeffersonian democracy, which was more local political participation, which from his point of view, trend tended toward corruption. and therefore, the idea of marginalizing people who were, you know, not regarded as capable of exercising a franchise and participating in politics at the level that he thought, who understood, as he

would put it, the national purpose. you know, this is proto i mean, i think that it's not you know, if you think of what's going on in this period between eugenics other forms of social engineering scientific management which is really taking hold this period. you think about american imperialism, you think about, you know, the sort of the nationalization of racism and in new ways the supreme court and the big federal government is giving its imprimatur. i mean, this anticipate, you know, what's going to happen in europe in the 1920s. and not to mention as linda knows better than me, what in the united states in the 1920s. so, you know, i try to make a case that, you know, this is a period where that's not all going on and where grew up in portland, oregon you know, there were really interesting that included trying make occupation

the basis of apportionment i mean that's still ahead of our time. so this is not the they are the only currents. but i think that in a sense progressive ism was kind of a movement that operated at numerous levels. i mean it was a corporate movement in part. it was a movement of people who were trying to redefine the nature of politics who were embracing new hierarchies. i mean, teddy talked a lot about, you know, the problem of enfeebled people, basically weighing the the capacities of the population in general. so you know, it helps us understand what we're looking at now is the end of a long period when voter turnout political was you know it's over a century of decline and i think that's important i want to push a little bit on something you

pointed out by using the a different word which is expertise and you wrote a about american historians know well that in the progressive era there was a lot of move to the idea of that you do research and you present this research and that is the basis policy. louis the supreme justice was noted for bringing, quote, scientific expertise. the court to affect decisions. now, a lot of that was fine, good. although i have to say. well, let just give a couple of examples from my work that led me to some suspicion about. for example in the early 20th century, hardrock miners in the west began becoming ill as they were becoming ill with what

today is called public airey thrombosis. that was not their word then the mine managers believe that they became ill because had poor hygiene at home and they organized ways of trying to educate people, particularly the wives of miners, about the way to raise children. and to do this and that well the miners knew that that was not the case the miners knew what was making them sick. and finally i find it really remarkable feminist progressive activist alice hamilton, who was one of the founders of the modern public health. she went to these mines. she looked and she saw that it was the dust from so the rocks that they were drilling into that was making them sick. there's a more contemporary example that came from more recent work of mine that had to

do with farm workers and pesticide farm workers were really aware of very serious effects. the widespread of aerosol pesticides. again, we had long period in this country which some, you may remember, of being assured that these things were safe. these like ddt and so on. well, of course, it turned out that the mine were absolutely right. but once you start talking about expertise, it's difficult to find that kind of vernacular expertise can enter the public discourse and deserve respect. and i'll just say one more thing i want to tell you an occasion to be talking to a very mp and a

politician who was conservative. and he literally said to me, the problem with our government that we don't have enough smart people in the government. if we had smart people, we wouldn't have these problems. i think that is related. and so i just yeah, i mean, what can i say? well, you know, i think the idea of, you know, vernacular is an important one to point out because indeed, we think about expertise in certain terms about being formally educated and therefore and by extension look down upon communities that have managed for a long time, whether it's medical or otherwise based on. you know, the expertise that they have developed as communities. and, you know, one of the things we, you know, have to recognize, too, with the pushback that we saw during covi it is a deep hostility toward, you know, the

expertise of, the medical profession, which oftentimes is, you know, treated, you know, groups of with condescension or were dismissed above them. and the suspicion is very deep. they were obviously the other things at play, but you know, i certainly the you know, the that expertise or meritocracy reigns. and you know, we see this now again research surfacing in opposition to say affirmative action that need to go back to more merit to cratic system, one that, you know is very historically blind. and nonetheless, i think plays, you know, very well to a lot of audiences, does suggest the way in which people, you know, regard themselves as, you know, brandishing liberal credentials. in fact, you know, find themselves slipping back when you they need to deal, you know, reestablish order and they don't

necessarily recognize power very. well, you know, and i think linda alluded to some of this. that's true on both the left and the right. yeah. yeah. i at one point in the book, you used the phrase modernizing liberalism and at least i see that in part moving away or expanding traditional notice of first all freedom, which actually for a long time that freedom from government and positions on you. right. and in modernizing liberal i, i know we're all about increasingly the possible use of government to increase freedom at a certain level. you mean by freedom people's ability to function freely freely in the world.

but again, i see a contradiction. i think that liberals and illiberal allies can often end up at the same place. how? thinking recently about a lot of very, very valid criticism of police and police behavior at the same time i have been aware from things i've read that there are at least in new york city there are a lot of people who live in the projects i'm thinking people our particularly are women i'm talking poor women women color they want more policing because they feel that they are being left to the mercy of a certain kind of gang behavior yet again. you know, consider abortion and the liberal tradition, privacy and individual rights. but what you among people and i'm not sure you could call them liberal is the notion that

abortion is a form of killing and you don't have right to do that. and furthermore, more in do in the immediate abortion, you need an expert, you need a well, you don't actually a doctor in many many, many centuries plenty of people did abortions quite safely without that. but so this whole tension between freedom as a kind of negative of freedom, what we won't allow government to do and what we want government to do. and you actually mentioned a really good example of the illiberal approach to this. when you mention waldo frank, who called the program the cod, the nra, as part of the new deal, part of roosevelt's program, he wanted to call it fascism okay. so this wasn't the national rifle? no, not the necessarily national

national recovery. yeah. you know, i think one of the features of liberalism and how it changes to do with its perspective on the state and whether governments at national or local levels are seen as basically supporting the desires of various communities or standing opposed. i mean, you know, linda, a great book on the in the 1920s. you talk a right wing movement. you it was the biggest political movement that period may be one of the biggest right wing movements ever in american history. stronger the south than in the south, motivated by anti-catholic ism and anti-semitism as well as anti-racism that managed to get into power at know from the ground all way up to the supreme court and and think that one of

the things you know, in the 1920s, i think there was a sense that the state, as it was, was in the service of people who, you know, concerned about a of the changes taking place, concern and at that point you know remember 1924 as the first national immigration act which sets quotas and particularly sets very high restrictions against immigrants from southern and eastern europe, were described as the chinese of europe, meaning and socially and politically on a similar bill. and we just had one little piece of data that in those quotas, the quota for all of africa, north and south was 100. and that doesn't change till 1965 with all sorts of consequences along the, you know, clearly one of the things that has transformed in recent

times and which is why the far right sees 1965 as a tipping, sees, of course, the 14th amendment as a tipping point, and understands the governance men as collecting client populations that not include them. so from their point of view, this kind of an anti-government disposition that might not have been, you know, a there earlier. so it is of the process of, you know, how these forms liberalism change but you know they maintain some of the characteristics over time as well. looking back to notion about what's a social movement, i think it's pretty obvious to all of us today that what we might call a liberal ism is in large part a movement. but i just have quick question about that is there ever a time when you think of as a social

movement? i think, well, i think there were important liberal social movements. i mean, you think about abolitionism, you think about various rights struggle. i mean, i don't regard populism as a liberal movement, but it certainly, you know, was a movement that both critiqued the concentration of wealth power in the united states that was trying to offer actually a program. unlike today's populists who are not interested, know there is simply interested in this, you know, in kind of defining elites as more people like us, as the enemies, but have no critique of the way which the inequalities of wealth and are organized or any particular program for changing that. certainly the civil rights movement, you know, its successes organize itself around

its to the reconceive function amendments and to ideas. i mean, one of the things that's certainly the case is that whatever happened to the kind of principles that were laid down declaration of independence, the people who have embraced most fully over time have been those who have been denied them, those who are on the outside i mean, they're the ones who, you know, sort of embrace equality and democracy most fully, whether they were involved in, more particular movements, you know, around, say, black nationalism as a case in point or you they never talked about denying anybody their rights. they talked about expanding rights more generally so to that extent, not all of these movements are in the sense that the combination of political and

economic critique and programs might be social, they might be democratic socialist, you know, socialism at the very time of progressivism had a really interesting history. and for the first, say, 15 years of the 20th century, the socialist party, we think about eugene debs. but in the socialist party organized on the local level across country, had elected people to local and state office and where well in louisiana and texas, kansas, oklahoma, the dakotas. and one of the interesting historical questions then i guess thomas frank to take up, which is how did the red become the red states right and how take a political context out of people looking left and things turn around? no, obviously they're not the same people, but nonetheless, there's a question of why the kind of political memories and

political legacies changed you know in such powerful ways. yeah, we don't have lot of time left, but i do want to ask you about where neo liberalism fits in because we well many people would consider liberalism to be and of well, you just tell me what you think. well how would you place that on a spectrum? you know, i have a chapter in the book called neo liberals and illiberalism. to some, it starts with clinton's signing the crime bill and, you know, part of the war on drugs, war on crime that was, you know, crucial to development of mass incarceration. and one of the things that's really the case is that while neo liberals were interested in getting the state out of a

regulatory, they were very happy to get the state in to protect the relationships of the marketplace. and they also not necessarily clinton per se, but they also were very suspicious of democracy they had serious doubts about whether democratic practices had any chance of realizing the kind of world in relation to power that they were after milton friedman when traveling down to talk to pinochet shortly after the the coup that that destroyed the allende regime. there's a lot of other example where basically neoliberals don't see any problem and embracing but are clearly illiberal political. you know dispositions and i might also add that i kind of

include you know, the advent of eiti and the internet and the obsession of, you know, people who have been central to it as if they didn't actually depend the federal government for financial ever since world war two, that somehow or other are, you know, the the these individualist champions. and yet, you know, for all that internet does, it's an incredible source of surveillance and personal exploitation mean we are being harvested the time in ways we do not and you know then more information are being sold elsewhere. i mean it's you and i, i is obviously accentuating this, but this is if you want to talk about a totalitarian vision, you know, i think is it someone here raises a really interesting question about the relationship

between illiberal. illiberal and anti-intellectualism do you think that these terms are in in some way equivalent or not? you know, that's a that is a great question because, you know, richard, who on the one hand was really central to advancing the idea of the liberal tradition. america was also interested in all sorts of examples of illiberalism. he you know, a book called the anti-intellectual ism in american life where he, you know, took examples over time, mostly more ones and also was writing about the advent of the political right in the late 1940s and 1950s anti-intellectualism of of sorts does you know coincide with an overlap with you know, illiberalism depending on exactly what it is. i mean can be forms of so-called

anti ism that are really pushed back against expertise and the, you know, sort of of intellectual power that they represent. but nonetheless, if you read hofstadter, he was certainly in what we would associate. i mean, he was interested in the rise of the radical. he was interested, you know, he of excoriated populism of the late century for its negative features, being backward looking, xenophobic, anti-semitic which were aspects of the movement but tended to be, you know, sort of relatively so. i do think that, you know, i would certainly encourage anyone to read hofstadter book and, but also to recognize that anti-intellectual realism is kind of a large and potentially term. yeah and, you know, one other question is, can both liberals liberals be anti intellectual? but i want i want to just push you on one thing that you

mentioned, but i'd like you to address more directly, and that is the relationship between what we would call mainstream conservative ism and illiberalism i, i couldn't help but mention a wonderful phrase from my former wonderful colleague marilyn young, who i can't remember. she said it or wrote it, but she said, i where is the ruling class now that we need them? the point being, and i'm both a marxist and a liberal understanding, the ruling class is supposed to have a long view. they're supposed to be concerned with the overall stability of the of the political order and the society that seems to quite different from illiberal ism. well, i do think that illiberalism overlaps with certainly reactionary conservatism, which is based on notion of inherent inequalities.

i don't think necessary conservatism in has freed itself from that. some are conservatives in some ways, but not in other ways. there people who are, you know, economic conservative is but are not necessarily conservatives in on social terms, you know one of the things that just struck me as i was this and you know i guess i hadn't quite grasped it is that if you look at the course of american history, um, you know, the really unusual moments are when liberals and the left are actually ruling are actually in power because for the most part, they're not. and for the most part, if you talk about, you know, defeats who gets, you know, all i mean,

i don't know of an example other than the civil war when a you know, a reactionary class was crushed although they had good surviving powers. and i can think of other examples there were are examples when conservatives and the liberals are fall out of to some extent but are certainly not you know they're not defeated. and i think one of the things we need to understand and in terms of what we're up against is that and they've always had a pretty substantial social base and always enormous resources, economic resources to, support them. here's a really provocative question and a good way. is the policing of private spaces like universities and social media that are private

institutions that effectively serve as public forums is that example of illiberalism? well, it can be, you know. various institutions have certain obligations to protect people who involved in them and participate in them from or harassment or violence and so there are certain kinds think of policing, policing against, you know, harm that can come to people. but, you know, that, you know, expand or, you know, become, you know, a phenomenon that is much more restrictive. that is i mean, you know look, we're we're dealing with a time our universities really under fire on a lot of fronts. and in some ways from rich

donors who in the past you know just wanted to slap their names a building and now seem to think that they determine what's in the curriculum, not in physics or chemistry, but mostly in, you, the humanities and some of the social sciences. i mean, this is you know, this is a new kind of policing that is taking place. obviously are issues about, you know, codes conduct, which, you know, can be extremely important to establish a groundwork for people to interact and to challenge each other. but at the same time, you know, in the 1990s, there was a case at the university of pennsylvania of harassment of black women on campus and the president at the time, sheldon, you know established some kind of behavioral code and of course, the right wing. now which is calling for a lot

of them, thought that this was absolutely outrageous. but i do think that, you know, policing is a strong and powerful word. sometimes it evokes its own forms of harass segment and exclusion, but i think that institutions in our society has to establish certain kind of rules as we do for conduct so that are don't feel threatened, harmed a liberals are often condemning a kind of political action that is deliberately disruptive innovative in interrupting of you know blocking roads sitting in a i can't recall that illiberal well liberals would call it that you know i a course at nyu called american history makers you probably never heard of and the the first one we study is a man

named benjamin lay now benjamin lay was a very, very radical quaker or in the early 18th century, he was really apoplectic about the way which the quaker community both in england and then in the states parties operated in the slave trade and slavery. and he used bust into meetings and disrupt them. at one point he would carry in a bladder filled with red liquid and and break it and. you know, he was run out of one, you know, quaker meeting house after another and he had ended in the united states in part because of that. and then you think about, you know, would ask my some of the students thought well, you know don't you think he would have done better if he, you know, had more sort sort of less disruptive methods and then you think, well, how do you

challenge established systems of power even within your own community? there's no question that you know social movements that have as their. the expansion of rights ideas about social justice. nevertheless you know need to be forceful and need to engage in civil disobedience and then perhaps other struggles because power as frederick douglass put it, power doesn't give up on its own. i mean, know no struggle, no progress. yes. so i don't think you i think it would take out of a historical context to to just try to isolate certain behaviors and then try to decide, you know, whether are liberal or liberal or whatever you want to call them, rather than understand finding the larger frame in which there taking place.

this is a more directly political and personal question. i just want to ask how different would your book be if you had written it. before 2016? well i probably wouldn't have. well, i don't know. i don't think it would be any different, to tell you the truth. the question is whether i would have been interested in writing it. you know, i had finished some projects. i mean, you know you can have this thing goes and you're kind of looking for something else to do. and you know, this kind of jumped up and i thought, i don't know. i mean, this this could be interesting to work on. i do not think the that this book effectively would have been any different before. trump because a lot of the things i end up talking about i mean, the book ends with a chapter called specters of race war replacement and a lot of it

about what happened before trump. trump kind of just is at the very end. and that's important thing. i think we need understand that and this is about the kind of violation of liberal norms and. so on it's there's this idea it's all about him and that somehow or other, if he is removed. i mean, look here, it wouldn't be bad, but if he was removed, that somehow or other we would solve the problem like what he did was he managed, you know, impressively to tap into the fears and concerns and, you know, i mean, he validated people's way of thinking about the world and a pretty simplistic set of answers. and if it wasn't him, it would have been someone else. maybe not as gross or but you know, in some ways we were lucky so far, all he cared about was

himself money. so at that point didn't build a movement. now he surrounded himself. people who really want to do that. and which is why his second term would be so frightening. well, i can't avoid going from there to the question of the fascism. i notice that you get around it by talking about fascist policies. i've gotten around about using it as an adjective, fascistic. yeah, because there is no. do you think there's any value in any use of that term to discuss what's going on not just in the us but in the world. well, i, i do have a chapter called fascist policies which is on the 1920s and which i think, you know, are, that's exactly is going on, not to mention admiration of fascist regime is the support that the united states and various organizations gave to people who, you know,

were involved in eugenic research. mussolini was you widely admired, really, until 1935 when he invaded ethiopia, you know, hitler and fdr got into power basically at the same time and briefly, fdr thought about maybe there be some kind of meeting at that that didn't turn out. i do think that one of the advantages of thinking illiberalism is that fascists is a form of illiberalism. it's a historically specific form of illiberalism and i think as a political slogan, fascism. terrific. you know, it it evokes the kind concerns that people should have about repression it's about exclusion, it's about forms, domination, surveillance, you know, expulsions and so on and so forth, you know, fascism. there are different forms of fascism in the 1920s and 1930,

some of them endured in places like spain and portugal. they certainly had there were crazy fascist regimes in other parts of the country. latin america as well. and but i think, you know, as historians, you know, we need to be a little careful about what invoking that means. and i don't i you know, i don't object per because i think an argument can be made you know are we moving you know in i mean we're clearly in a very illiberal moment there's no doubt about that. and it's part of a larger moment of reckoning that's taking place. and i think, you know has a lot to do with the end of the cold war and things that happened as a result of that. but and, you know, i read people who interesting cases why we you know this is but i do think that it it tends to see kind of

history repeating itself in ways that are not necessarily all that useful to us that recognize that we need to recognize the historical specificity of the kind of movements and objectives that are happening now. and if they bear resemblance to fascist regimes, that's important to recognize, we don't need necessarily to pull out fascism a kind of rubric under which we're going to try to stick everything else. i think illiberalism, whatever the problems with the illiberalism kind of works a little better. well, i've been told we need to stop. i just want to say read this book. i you know, i've been a historian for a long time and it made me see things somewhat differently and it's a great read. well, thank you. and i'd also like, you know, it's a great honor to share a stage with linda gordon and you

all for coming. i really it.