As Campus Protests Intensify and Spread, Northwestern University Serves as a Model For De-escalation
We begin with more campuses erupting across the country, as protests against Israel’s war in Gaza intensify and spread, and speak with Wendy Pearlman, a professor of political science and director of the Middle East and North Africa studies program at Northwestern University. Her books include Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement and Triadic Coercion: Israel’s Targeting of States That Host Nonstate Actors. She is a signatory to an open letter from staff at Northwestern University urging productive conversations regarding the right of students to protest peacefully. We discuss how the agreement between students, faculty, and the administration at Northwestern has led to a de-escalation, serving as a possible model for other universities whose leaders have often made bad decisions that have led to escalation and confrontation.
The Disturbingly Accurate Analogies Between Hitler’s Rise to Power and Trump’s Threat to Democracy
Then, with Trump fined $9,000 today, for violating many gag orders, and threatened with jail by the judge, we will explore in depth the chilling and disturbingly accurate analogies between the rise of Hitler in 1932 and the American political moment in 2024. One hundred years ago in 1924, Hitler’s grandstanding in court and his jailing as a martyr for the cause of making Germany great again only boosted his popularity. From there, he rose to power thanks to a divided gerontocracy on the left, weakened by a split with the far-left, which allowed a deranged demagogue, supported by a one-third minority (but with help from right wing media barons and short-sighted plutocrats), to seize power and end democracy. Joining us is Timothy Ryback, who has written on history and politics for more than three decades and is co-founder and director of the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation in The Hague. He is the author of Hitler’s Private Library, a Washington Post Best Book of the Year, and The Last Survivor, a New York Times Notable Book. His latest book, just out, is Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power. We discuss his article at The Los Angeles Times, “Trump turns his trials into a soapbox. Does he know he’s channeling Hitler?”