Question: Two weeks ago, we witnessed a new and fierce attack on academic freedom in the United States. The University of Berkeley that is considered a cradle of debates and achievements on freedom of thought has complied with a Trump administration request and handed over a list of 160 names of students and professors accused of involvement in “alleged anti-Semitic incidents.” Given that you have been devoted to think and write about the subject, how do you assess the decision taken by the university authorities?
Éric Fassin – It confirms, and this is terrifying, that Donald Trump can get away with anything. Because everyone understands that things won’t stop there. He’s not just strong with the weak, like migrants; he can bring the biggest universities to their knees, whether public like Berkeley or private like Columbia. With a snap of his fingers, he can get the head of a prosecutor or a comedian. Institutions are at his beck and call, and big business keeps quiet. The separation of powers is over. The Supreme Court is giving its blessing to what I call “a democratic coup d’état.” Even when, as in my case, many have been concerned for years about “precarious democracy,” and insisting on not euphemizing this neo-fascism, one remains stunned by the speed with which things are done and undone. Democracy is collapsing like a house of cards, with little or no resistance.
What explains how an academic institution known for its commitment to freedom of thought could so easily comply with Trump’s inquisitorial demands?
In the first half of the 1960s, Berkeley was the birthplace of the “free speech” movement, i.e., the right to engage freely in politics at university. It is therefore a symbol, just as Columbia, also in the crosshairs, was a symbol of resistance to power during the Vietnam War. In both cases, political pressure is of course exerted through financial threats. Capitulation is a reminder that universities are businesses like any other. We have already seen this in the media, from the Washington Post to ABC. Ultimately, the cowardice of someone like Mark Zuckerberg is the rule, not the exception. The fact is that we are living in a regime of fear.
Judith Butler is listed among the accused. How to interpret that? From the point of view of political conditions prevailing in the US today?
If Judith Butler chose to reveal that her name was among the 160 sent to the Trump administration, it is of course because her notoriety is a form of protection. But conversely, international recognition also exposes her. Anti-intellectualism plays on anti-elitism, but also on MAGA nationalism, which hates this cosmopolitanism. On the part of the far right, which continues to denounce “the great replacement” as a Jewish conspiracy, there is undoubtedly a real pleasure in attacking a Jewish figure by accusing her of anti-Semitism. In any case, Trump and his troops display a scathing contempt for all forms of traditional legitimacy, whether from abroad or within the United States. For example, I am well aware that our open letter to the President of the University of California and the Chancellor of Berkeley, signed in a few days by 600 academics from around the world, has no chance of influencing the regime, which can only sneer at our mobilization. It remains to be seen whether universities, too, can afford to disregard academic legitimacy.
“Yesterday, the right-wing lament was ‘we can’t say anything anymore’; today, it is shouting at the top of its lungs, ‘shut up!’”
After the assassination of Charlie Kirk, Vice President J. D. Vance, other authorities, and figures that influence the Trump government have made the “radical left” a main political target. Is this mere rhetoric, or does it mean more than that?
We can no longer ignore the fact that rhetorical offensives lead to repression. As early as 2021, JD Vance declared: “Universities are the enemy.” The assassination of Charlie Kirk is a pretext for accelerating repression. Donald Trump makes no secret of it: he goes so far as to say that today this “martyr” would renounce freedom of expression. At the funeral ceremony that just took place, while Charlie Kirk’s widow called for Christian forgiveness of offenses, including for the murderer, Donald Trump made a point of distancing himself from her by preaching hatred against his opponents.
We became used to the radical right claiming freedom of speech to justify all racist, xenophobic, sexist, transphobic, and anti-Semitic discourse. In other words, freedom of speech, this left-wing value has shifted to the right. But today, the opposite is also true: the MAGA right is sequestering the left’s denunciation of hate speech, to say that it should not be protected by the First Amendment. Except that, for the right, this speech is a hatred of critical discourse. I have said it many times: yesterday, the right-wing lament was “we can’t say anything anymore”; today, it is shouting at the top of its lungs, “shut up!”
Many observers of this scenario are resorting to the frame of “new McCarthyism” to interpret these events. In your view, is this a productive choice? What happens today is indeed similar to what happened in the 1940s?
In the early 1990s, many liberals, in France as in the United States, took part in the neoconservative campaign against “political correctness.” Today, the denunciation of a supposed “left-wing McCarthyism” has returned to the forefront with the extreme rights offensive against wokism; and it is with the same political naivety that advocates of freedom of expression have mobilized against the “cancel culture” attributed to the left. To speak of “woke totalitarianism” is to display astonishing blindness; but perhaps it would be more accurate to speak of complicity. In France as in the United States, many media outlets bear considerable responsibility for the current climate.
McCarthyism was an anti-communist crusade, but it was also anti-Semitic and anti-intellectual. Today, MAGA figures accuse the Democratic Party, which has, nevertheless, supported the neoliberal revolution, of being Marxist, even communist. We see the same pattern of anti-intellectualism. The difference is that today, Republicans cloak themselves in the fight against anti-Semitism. This is nothing new: in France, too, the demonization of the far right involves demonizing the left, which is accused of anti-Semitism with the active complicity of Macronism, as it also happened in the United States, under Biden.
Who are the main targets of this anti-intellectual campaigns ?
Anti-intellectualism does not target just one group: “intellectuals.” The target is critical knowledge. The aim is to put an end to the circulation of ideas between social movements and political work on gender, sexuality, and race. But beyond that, as we are seeing today, it can also target economics, medicine, and climate issues. Ultimately, what is at stake is the status of truth. I draw on the philosopher Harry Frankfurt to distinguish between lies and “bullshit.” Lying still recognizes the legitimacy of truth, since the aim is to pass off falsehood as truth. On the other hand, talking nonsense, as Trump does, undermines the very foundations of truth. It is no longer just a question of “fake news,” which is nothing new; what Trumpism offers are “alternative facts.” Take the story of Haitian migrants eating dogs and cats. It’s nonsense. Talking nonsense opens the door to the possibility of doing anything. Attacks on universities are just one part of this effort to demolish democracy, along with publishing houses, the media, and the judicial and legislative branches. What support will then remain for social movements?
“We too, albeit to a lesser extent, are experiencing what I call the neo-fascist moment of neoliberalism.”
What can we extract from the political conditions prevailing in the US today regarding the state of liberal democracies? Can the current US dynamics contaminate Europe?
It’s not a risk; it’s already a fact. In my book Misère de l’anti-intellectualisme (The Misery of Anti-Intellectualism), I showed that the same logic is at work in France and the United States, as the subtitle suggests: from the prosecution of “wokism” to blackmailing people with accusations of anti-Semitism. For example, the French right wing organized hearings against universities, following the model of the Republicans in Congress. This may be the reason for the media silence surrounding this book, but also for its success with the public, as it was sold out after six months. In the public sphere, it is difficult to make heard what many of us have been denouncing for years: illiberal drift is not reserved for others. One need only look at the repression of social mobilizations in France. We too, albeit to a lesser extent, are experiencing what I call the neo-fascist moment of neoliberalism. It remains to be seen whether Europe will be forced to distance itself from the United States on this issue; otherwise, it will remain powerless.