Day: June 9, 2022

An Historian of Fascism on Trump’s January 6 Fascist Coup Attempt

We begin with the first public hearing of the House select committee investigating January 6 which is about to begin with an expectation that Trump will emerge at the center of an insurrection that he and his team of dead-enders and Congressional attack dogs organized, led and executed. Joining us to discuss whether the Committee will make the case that this was a fascist coup attempt is Federico Finchelstein, a Professor of History and Director of the Janey Program in Latin American Studies at the New School for Social Research and Eugene Lang College. The author of seven books on fascism, populism, Dirty Wars, the Holocaust and Jewish history in Latin America and Europe, his latest books are From Fascism to Populism in History, A Brief History of Fascist Lies, and most recently, Fascist Mythologies: The History and Politics of Unreason in Borges, Freud, and Schmitt. We discuss his article at The Los Angeles Times, “White replacement theory is fascism’s new name” and how the “stop the steal” lie that Trump has manufactured, and has since become a bedrock GOP belief, fits the category of fascist lies.

Could Ukraine Win Small or Win Big?

Then we get an assessment of whether Ukraine could win small or win big in the over 100 day war Putin has unleashed with no end in sight that is beginning to resemble World War I trench warfare. Joining us is Michael Kimmage, a professor of history and department chair at the Catholic University of America, chair of the Kennan Institute Advisory Council and a fellow at the German Marshall Fund. From 2014 to 2017, he served on the Secretary’s Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State, where he held the Russia/Ukraine portfolio. His latest book is The Abandonment of the West: The History of an Idea in American Foreign Policy and we discuss his article at Foreign Affairs “What If Ukraine Wins? Victory in the War Would Not End the Conflict With Russia.”

The Global Food Crisis Caused by Russian War on Ukraine

Then finally we investigate the global food crisis caused by Russia’s war in Ukraine which the head of the UN describes as threatening to “unleash an unprecedented wave of hunger and misery, leaving social and economic chaos in its wake.” Joining us is Chris Barrett, Professor of Applied Economics and Management, and an international professor of agriculture at the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, as well as a professor in the Departments of Economics and Global Development at Cornell University. He is co-editor-in-chief of the journal Food Policy, edits the book series Agricultural Economics and Food Policy, and co-edits the Elsevier Handbook of Agricultural Economics.