Jason Stanley, left-wing professor and author of How Fascism Works, fled to Canada to escape President Trump, yet somehow feels compelled to appear on TV to bash his abandoned home. He made another appearance on PBS on Amanpour & Co just in time to mark America’s 250th anniversary, in order to declare his previous home is a Nazi state under Trump and Republican control.
Stanley is a frequent guest on the (formerly) tax-funded circuit of PBS and National Public Radio, and he brought his tired "fascist" gimmick to the program.
Host Christiane Amanpour: Now, controversy continues to swell around President Trump's immigration agenda as he pushes through a series of sweeping changes from recent Supreme Court rulings terminating protected status for Haitians and Syrians to fast-tracking refugee status for white South Africans. Outrage has spread across the country….
Journalist Michel Martin welcomed back Stanley, chair of American Studies at the University of Toronto and frequent Amanpour guest, like a wise sage.
Michel Martin, Contributor: We often consult with you because of your expertise in the subjects of authoritarianism, propaganda, how governments define who belongs in the United States. The Supreme Court term just ended and there were some very consequential decisions around immigration and also citizenship….
Jason Stanley, Author, How Fascism Works: Well, the court has to maintain some measure of legitimacy because they are so obviously a tool for authoritarian purposes….
Martin: ….But at the same time, the administration is moving to end protections for Haitians, it's created this expedited pathway for white Afrikaners from South Africa. And so, when you look at those two things together, what do you see?
Stanley: Well, it's essentially the core of Nazi ideology, which is white replacement theory…..And then we are expelling those already in the country who are from Haiti, from Somalia, from Venezuela. And then the reason given for the lifting of TPS status in November 2025 was that it was in the national interest to remove Haitians from the United States. Why is it in the national interest? Because bringing in Haitians brings in criminal gangs. So, that there is the Nazi propaganda, the linking of targeted racial groups to crime….
Martin pushed back just a little, while framing common sense as devil’s advocate questions for Stanley to knock down.
Martin: Let's just say for the sake of argument that somebody's listening to our conversation and says, you know what, that's a shame. That's a shame. But you know, temporary protected status is supposed to mean temporary. The fact is they should either find other pathways to regularize their status or they should go home. It was never meant to be this long. It's just a shame. But what does it have to do with me? What would you say to people who felt that way?
Ex-pat lefty prof. Jason Stanley explains on PBS that encouraging the self-deportation of illegals is Nazism: "I first heard the concept of encouraging people to self-deport in the context of Nazi Germany....They wanted to treat people brutally to encourage them to self-deport." pic.twitter.com/DKUNUUyJ0r
— Clay Waters 🇮🇱 (@claywaters44) July 4, 2026
Later Stanley once again went there, as he inevitably does when he thinks he’s rolling.
Stanley: I first heard the concept of encouraging people to self-deport in the context of Nazi Germany….
Martin engaged in very mild pushback on Stanley’s vituperative name-calling.
Martin: You've used the word Nazi several times in our conversation. And there are people who, of different perspectives, who take issue with the word. They think it has a specific historical meaning and it should only be applied to that meaning. And there are others who just think it's extreme in the American context. What do you say to that?
Stanley was undaunted.
Stanley: Well, Hitler in Mein Kampf describes the United States as the country he most wants to emulate. Germany, he describes it as a racial state….
He recited the Asian Exclusion Act and the 1924 Immigration Act before calling the Supreme Court’s ruling on voting rights for black Americans a return to Jim Crow and concluding "the era they're returning us to is the era of American fascism.”
So, according to a frequent PBS guest, America both was and still is a fascist country for wanting borders and restrictions on who is allowed to be American -- things most every other country does in a more strict manner including Stanley’s adopted paradise, Canada. Yet somehow all those other countries avoid being linked to Hitler.
