Discourse that allows us to express a wide range of ideas, opinions, and analysis that can be used as an opportunity to critically examine and observe what our experience means to us beyond the given social/cultural contexts and norms that are provided us.
Monday, January 27, 2025
Henry A. Giroux Speaking: "The question is no longer abstract—it is no longer “Is Trump a fascist?” The question is: How do we stop fascism before the bodies pile too high to count, before the destruction becomes too vast to fathom, before the violence leaves no room for resistance?"
"The question is no longer abstract—it is no longer “Is Trump a fascist?” The question is: How do we stop fascism before the bodies pile too high to count, before the destruction becomes too vast to fathom, before the violence leaves no room for resistance?"
In the midst of the enablers and collaborators of Trump's authoritarianism, I have also written a piece on Bertrand Russell to remind us of what political resistance and moral courage looks like.
American Nightmare: Facing the Challenge of Fascism (City Lights Books, 2018)
The real scandal lies not just in Trump’s madness but in the cowardice, corruption, and complicity of those who enable him—the press, politicians, and tech moguls alike. byHenry A. Giroux January 20, 2025
LA Progressive
Fascism has returned to power, toppling the world’s most formidable liberal democracy. War is no longer foreign—it has come home, waged as domestic terrorism against critics, Black and Brown people, Trans people, undocumented immigrants, and the rule of law itself. January 6th is no longer the emblem of a failed coup but a chilling milestone of success for fascist stormtroopers and the corporate ghouls who now reign over the United States. The ghost of the Confederacy has risen, not to haunt but to exact vengeance for its defeat in the Civil War.
This nation now bows to a convicted felon, a carnival barker, a white supremacist, an adjudicated sex offender. Barbarism will soon merge with the machinery of the carceral state, waging war on human rights, the planet, critical thought, and every flicker of justice. Social problems will not be solved—they will be criminalized. Prisons will multiply like weeds, the media will cower, bending its spine to zombie politics, and blood will stain the soil, flowing from the mouths of the walking dead who have seized power. Mass ignorance fuels their rise, feeding the death of moral conscience, the collapse of social responsibility.
Hope is not yet dead, but it lies wounded, waiting to rise on the shoulders of mass resistance. Strikes must shake the foundations. Boycotts must starve the beast.
Militant ideological, cultural, and economic resistance must pierce the heart of this new barbarism. The question is no longer abstract—no longer “Is Trump a fascist?”
The question is: How do we stop fascism before the bodies pile too high to count, before the destruction becomes too vast to fathom, before the violence leaves no room for resistance?
Trump and the Specter of Totalitarianism
Before even taking office, Trump has conjured grotesque visions of what he once called the dreams of a “unified Reich.” His delusions of grandeur, disdain for reason and truth, sycophantic worship of billionaires and despots, militarism, and embrace of white supremacy signal the rebirth of authoritarianism on a scale that recalls the horrors of the Third Reich, Pinochet’s Chile, and Putin’s Russia.
The real scandal lies not just in Trump’s madness but in the cowardice, corruption, and complicity of those who enable him—the press, politicians, and tech moguls alike. Figures such as Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and their allies in the legacy media and the ranks of so-called "Vichy Republicans" have turned participation in what Arwa Mahdawi aptly calls the “obsequiousness Olympics” into a grotesque form of political theater. They offer hollow platitudes while refusing to confront the grim resurgence of some of history’s darkest atrocities. Their deference to Trump’s power is not just a failure of courage but a damning indictment of the moral bankruptcy that permeates the ruling financial elite and its political enablers.
As these Vichy-like politicians and tech overlords churn out superficial commentary and sanitized reporting, the world teeters on the brink. Children are massacred in Gaza, the threat of nuclear war looms ever larger, and fascism spreads unchecked across the globe. Meanwhile, Trump’s incendiary rhetoric—calling for military invasions and mass incarceration of immigrants—has been disturbingly normalized, with little regard for the historical lessons such hate-filled messaging evokes. This chilling indifference signals not just the erosion of democracy but the abdication of basic civic responsibility and the wholesale betrayal of democratic rights and principles.
From left to right: Elon Musk, Tulsi Gabbard, Donald Trump, Robert Kennedy, Jr., Mike Johnson. Photograph Source: Office of Speaker Mike Johnson
The Machinery of Neoliberal Authoritarianism
Silence, civic illiteracy, and the G.O.P.’s embrace of ruthless dictatorships have plunged the United States into a moral abyss. Algorithmic authoritarianism and neoliberalism’s “disimagination machines” have gutted the public sphere, eroding critical thought with conformity and turning truth into the enemy of politics and everyday life. Historical consciousness is now deemed as dangerous, and dissent is branded as treason. The impending horrors of Trump’s presidency are starkly evident in his escalating rhetoric of vengeance, labeling critics and political opponents as “the enemy within.” There is no question that Trump in his second term will intensify ecocide, ethicide, the role of the punishing state, and engage in greater state militarization. This is not governance—it is a declaration of war on democracy itself.
Donald Trump is not the architect of America’s descent into authoritarianism but its inevitable culmination. As Chris Hedges powerfully notes, “Donald Trump is a symptom of our diseased society. He is not its cause. He is what is vomited up out of decay.” This decay has been festering for decades. Since the 1980s, neoliberalism has unleashed a brutal legacy of misery, staggering inequality, systemic corruption, and an unflinching allegiance to white supremacy and Christian nationalism. It has done more than widen economic divides and entrench power hierarchies—it has magnified and perpetuated the deep-rooted histories of racial, gender, class, and religious violence that mutilate the nation’s past and shape its present.
For generations, the United States has been willing to place a For Sale sign on its politics, institutions, and professed ideals. But today, we are witnessing a consolidation of power into “an ever-smaller set of hands”—a deepening and betrayal not just of democracy but of the very possibility of justice. Trump represents the endpoint of this trajectory: the embodiment of an unrestrained gangster capitalism that now clings to fascist politics as its final stronghold—a desperate, violent grasp for unchecked power amid a collapsing moral and social order.
Democracy, once a beacon of hope, has been hollowed out, its light dimmed by the relentless forces of neoliberalism. In this moment of history, we are witnessing a global repudiation of a vision of democracy tethered to these values—values that have transformed democracy from a promise of equality and justice into a hollow symbol of bad faith. The architects of this transformation—billionaires and powerful corporations—have turned democracy into little more than a thin veneer, obscuring the vast suffering beneath. Behind this fragile facade lies a brutal reality: staggering inequality, the dismantling of democratic institutions, and the decay of what once gave democracy its substance—the justice system, the separation of powers, majority rule, and the very idea of collective will.
For many, democracy no longer embodies the spirit of shared aspiration; it has become a shield for the crimes of the financial elite. The rise of Trump is not an anomaly, but the inevitable culmination of gangster capitalism—a system rotted by moral decay, built on unbridled corruption, and defined by the systematic dismantling of civic rights. In this world, nothing—whether public goods, human dignity, sustainability, or even the future itself—remains untouched by the cold logic of profit. Everything is commodified, sold to the highest bidder, and cast aside once its value has been extracted. This is the democracy we are left with: not a force for the collective good, but a machine that grinds down the common people, leaving in its wake a world where the few thrive at the expense of the many.
It is worth repeating that Trump is not the root cause of democracy’s collapse but rather its most visible symptom. The deeper issue lies in the failure of the Democratic Party to confront how neoliberalism has eroded the very core of democratic life. As Wendy Brown insightfully argues, Trump did not single-handedly push the nation toward authoritarianism. Instead, he harnessed forces that had long been at work. Ignoring these forces leaves the liberal establishment blind to the origins of today’s antidemocratic currents. Neoliberal policies and financialization have devastated the economic prospects of the working and middle classes, while the Democratic Party’s alignment with these forces over decades has compounded the problem. Complicit media structures, whether corporately controlled or fractured by social media silos, have further undermined public trust. Meanwhile, public education has been devalued, and neoliberalism’s relentless assault on democratic norms has left citizens increasingly anxious about the system’s inability to address pressing global crises—from catastrophic climate change to the enduring inequalities produced by centuries of imperial domination.
Failure to address these systemic failures only deepens the grip of fascism, eroding what remains of democracy and jeopardizing any hope for a sustainable future. As Will Bunch rightly points out, the collapse of democracy in the U.S. is evident in the absence of justice for those who sought to overthrow the government. Furthermore, the fact that 19 million Americans who voted for Biden in 2020 abstained in 2024 reveals a profound disillusionment with democracy. They no longer believed in its viability, nor did they fully grasp the threat posed by a second Trump presidency—one that openly embraced authoritarianism. Rise of the Totalitarian Subject
What we are witnessing today is the rise of a reengineered “totalitarian subject,” forged in the wreckage of institutions that once upheld the common good, basic rights and civil liberties, replaced by machinery designed to sustain authoritarian rule. This subject is governed by fear, surrendering their agency to the grip of cult-like devotion and the iron hand of strongman figures. It is a subject ensnared in a culture of ignorance, enveloped by the fog of anti-intellectualism, and animated by a disdain for difference and the Other. They are imprisoned in what Zadie Smith calls the dreams of a language of autoimprisonment and the blinding poison of consent. Their worldview is reductive, confined to rigid binaries of good and evil, where complexity is obliterated in favor of simplicity.
This is a subject that values emotion over reason, exalts a toxic machismo that glorifies violence, and harbors a seething contempt for women, LGBTQ+ individuals, immigrants, Black people, and anyone who does not conform to the narrow, exclusionary ideal of white Christian nationalism. Their identity is an unsettling fusion of economic, religious, and educational fundamentalisms, designed to crush critical thought and enforce conformity.
The totalitarian subject thrives in a milieu of manufactured crises and engineered divisions, where cruelty becomes virtue and the lust for domination is mistaken for strength. This is not merely a political condition but a moral disintegration—a retreat from shared humanity into the sterile, unyielding embrace of authoritarianism. Under the GOP, the creation of the totalitarian subject—shaped by regressive values, stunted agency, and a warped sense of morality—intersects with a broader assault on the very meaning of citizenship.
Peter Gordon, reflecting on Theodore Adorno’s 1950 classic The Authoritarian Personality, offers a chilling summation of the traits that define the authoritarian subject—a subject whose shadow looms ominously over our current moment. Adorno and his collaborators set out not merely to document overt expressions of allegiance to political fascism but to uncover the deeper, latent psychological structures that could, under certain conditions, erupt into fascist commitment. Their goal was nothing less than to identify “the potentially fascistic individual.”
As Gordon elaborates, the fascist psyche is marked by its attachment to figures of strength and its contempt for those it perceives as weak. It thrives on rigid conventionalism, stereotypical thinking, and an obsessive need to divide the world into stark in-groups and out-groups, vigilantly policing the boundaries between them. It fixates on rumors of immorality and conspiracy, projecting onto others a sexual licentiousness it both condemns and represses with self-loathing.
Fascism, Gordon warns, is neither mysterious nor otherworldly—it is alarmingly familiar. It is the modern symptom of an authoritarian mindset and personality that is not rare but disturbingly widespread, a latent force that threatens to unravel society from within. At a time when authoritarianism is resurgent across the globe, this diagnosis feels not only prescient but urgent—a clarion call to vigilance against the forces of repression and division that endanger the fragile bonds of democracy.
As Susan Rinkunas observes, the far-right’s xenophobic rhetoric has seeped into mainstream discourse, legitimizing calls to abolish birthright citizenship and redefining citizenship as a privilege reserved for white men. This authoritarian agenda is unmistakable in the GOP’s relentless efforts to dismantle foundational protections and rights, including the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, and even the hard-won freedoms secured under Roe v. Wade. Together, these attacks hollow out the democratic ideals of inclusion and equality, leaving behind a fractured and exclusionary vision of America defined, as professor of constitutional law Michele Goodwin notes, by “a coalition of Christian fundamentalists, white nationalists, and power-hungry Republicans displeased that women and Black people have made gains in the modern fight for full citizenship.”
The Struggle for Youth and Democracy
Our fight is a generational one, waged for young people who are being systematically sacrificed at the altar of greed and authoritarianism. They are slaughtered by wars that enrich the few, brutalized as mere consumer pawns, shackled by oppressive debt, robbed of historical memory, and rendered disposable by a society that treats them as surplus. These are not isolated injustices but part of a broader assault on democracy itself, now hollowed out by gangster capitalism and reduced to a mere swindle of fulfillment.
Oligarchic gangster capitalism, with its brazen consolidation of power and wealth, has overtaken neoliberalism as the dominant force masquerading as democracy. This ideological and economic rot will persist until the public rejects the false equation of capitalism with democracy. When money drives politics, and human rights are subordinated to capital accumulation, democracy crumbles—along with morality, justice, and the rule of law.
Yet, even in the face of such devastation, hope endures. Hope and resistance, though wounded, remain the flames that keep the possibility of a better world alive. Without hope, there is only fear, complicity, and the stench of death. We must nurture this hope, transforming it into a collective will for justice, a vision for a multi-racial working class rising like a phoenix from the ashes of despair. This is not a struggle for the faint of heart—it is a ferocious battle requiring courage, vision, and mass action.
The New Year’s Call to Resistance: Hope in the Face of Fascism
As we step into a new year, the shadows of fascism loom large, threatening to extinguish the very essence of democracy, justice, and human dignity. Yet, in these dark times, we must cling to what Antonio Gramsci so aptly described as the “optimism of the will.” We are called not merely to resist but to envision and enact a transformative movement—a grand narrative of collective power capable of dismantling the death machine of oligarchic gangster capitalism and resurrecting the promise of a meaningful democracy.
This is no time for passive despair. The horror we face must be named, confronted, and transformed into a collective force of resistance. The stakes have never been higher, and failure is no longer an option.
The year ahead must be one of fierce struggle and unyielding militant, collective hope—a time when justice finds its voice again, the working class unites with social movements in acts of defiance and imagination, and a radical democracy rises anew from the ashes of authoritarian decay. Only through relentless resistance and the rekindling of solidarity can we stem the tide of despair and reclaim the dream of a just and equitable world—a democracy built on equality, justice, and freedom.
The time to act is not tomorrow, not someday—it is now. We must wield the educational force of culture, universities, and every platform of communication to expose the machinery of fascist power, policies, and values, rendering them unmistakable and unignorable. Education must become the heartbeat of a politics committed to shaping ideas, transforming mass consciousness, and envisioning futures beyond the chains of domination. This is particularly urgent at a time when the left seems clueless about the role of education in shaping a subject vulnerable to the poisonous lure of fascism.[1]
We must breathe life into the general strike, making it a weapon of both national and international resistance. We must bring the gears of militarization to a halt, dismantle the networks of domestic terrorism, and confront the oligarchic systems driving this march toward authoritarian ruin.
Silence is not neutrality—it is complicity. Inaction is not prudence—it is surrender. This is not a time for hesitation but for mass struggle. The moment demands that we fight, reclaim the transformative vision of radical democracy, and revive solidarity as a political and moral force. We must unite to build a world where shared humanity triumphs over division, and where hope rises above fear. The stakes could not be higher: the future of democracy, the survival of justice, and humanity itself hang in the balance. The time to act is now.
[1] While figures on the left, such as Cornel West, Robin D.G. Kelly, Jeffrey St. Clair, and Angela Davis, recognize the critical role education plays within dominant cultural apparatuses, there remains a noticeable gap in broader left discourse on this issue. Many progressive conferences, for instance, often overlook the inclusion of prominent leftist educational theorists in their programs. Similarly, only a handful of online platforms—such as Counterpunch, Truthout, Fast Capitalism, Rise Up Times, Common Dreams, LA Progressive, and Uncommon Thought—consistently emphasize education as a vital political force. Bridging this gap is essential if the left is to fully engage with education as a transformative tool in the struggle for justice and democracy.
The opinions expressed here are solely the author's and do not reflect the opinions or beliefs of the LA Progressive.
Henry A. Giroux currently holds the McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest in the English and Cultural Studies Department and is the Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy. He is the acclaimed author of over 30 books. His most recent books include: The Terror of the Unforeseen (Los Angeles Review of books, 2019), On Critical Pedagogy, 2nd edition (Bloomsbury, 2020); Race, Politics, and Pandemic Pedagogy: Education in a Time of Crisis (Bloomsbury 2021); Pedagogy of Resistance: Against Manufactured Ignorance (Bloomsbury 2022) and Insurrections: Education in the Age of Counter-Revolutionary Politics (Bloomsbury, 2023), and coauthored with Anthony DiMaggio, Fascism on Trial: Education and the Possibility of Democracy (Bloomsbury, 2025). Giroux is also a member of Truthout’s board of directors.
Within days of his return to office, President Donald Trump unleashed a chilling display of authoritarianism, providing a stark reminder of the specter haunting the United States: the specter of fascism. As reported in the New York Times, his actions underscored a vision of governance steeped in cruelty and unchecked power. With the stroke of a pen, Trump pardoned 1,500 individuals involved in the January 6th insurrection, dismantled environmental protections, opened Alaska’s wilderness to expanded oil and gas drilling, terminated Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs across federal agencies, and signed an executive order ending birthright citizenship. He erased recognition of gender diversity on official documents, escalated attacks on transgender Americans, withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization, declared a national emergency at the southern border, dispatched thousands of troops, and initiated mass deportation orders targeting immigrants. Each action exemplified not only the brutalities of gangster capitalism but also a profound disregard for human rights, social justice, and the preservation of the public good.
What makes these assaults even more alarming is their widespread support. Trump’s war on civil rights, immigrants, the rule of law, the environment, and gender equity is endorsed by the MAGA Party, a significant portion of the American public, billionaires seeking deregulation, and a chorus of complicit pundits and politicians. This is more than a moral collapse or a democracy on life support—it reflects the deliberate cultivation of civic ignorance and the institutional erosion that allowed fascism’s seeds to take root, with Trump’s presidency representing its most visible end point.
At the core of this culture of gangster capitalism lies an interconnected web of anti-public intellectuals, media personalities, cultural influencers, and powerful apparatuses—including the legacy press and online platforms—that actively promote or tacitly enable an authoritarian agenda. Their complicity contrasts sharply with historical figures who resisted tyranny with unflinching courage. Bertrand Russell, for instance, serves as a reminder of intellectual bravery in dark times. Today, such moral clarity is rare but not extinct. Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, who led the National Prayer Service at Washington National Cathedral, embodies a bold and energized resistance, challenging the silence and submission that so often accompany the rise of authoritarianism.
During the service, Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde addressed President Trump directly, urging him to embrace justice, compassion, and care in his policies, particularly toward immigrants and those most vulnerable under his administration. With a solemn yet hopeful tone, she declared:
“Millions have placed their trust in you. As you said yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of that God, I implore you: have mercy on the people of this nation who now live in fear. There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in families across the political spectrum—Democrat, Republican, and Independent—some who fear for their very lives. Have mercy upon them.”
As her sermon neared its conclusion, she continued, her words both a plea and a moral indictment:
“I ask you, Mr. President, to have mercy on the children who fear that their parents will be taken away. I ask you to extend compassion and welcome to those fleeing war zones and persecution, seeking refuge on our shores. Our God commands us to be merciful to the stranger, for we too were once strangers in this land.”
Trump’s response was as predictable as it was venomous. He dismissed the service as “boring and uninspiring,” deriding Budde as a “radical left hardline Trump hater.” His words, steeped in scorn and his trademark disdain for critique, encapsulated the spirit of his administration—a politics of division, cruelty, and vindictiveness.
In these exchanges, the chasm between Budde’s call for mercy and Trump’s politics of malice became starkly evident—a collision of two opposing visions for the nation. One rooted in compassion, the other in the unrelenting embrace of cruelty.
The spirit, boldness, and courage embodied in Budde’s speech echo a long and vital history of resistance. Under every regime of domination, there have always been voices that refuse to be silenced—public intellectuals and everyday citizens who, together, stand against the tides of bigotry, hatred, war, and state violence. These voices remind us that even in the darkest times, resistance is not only possible but necessary.
One such voice, whose life and work illuminate the enduring power of civic courage, moral responsibility, and the willingness to risk everything for justice, equality, and freedom, is Bertrand Russell. His legacy offers us profound lessons for navigating our current moment, where the stakes of resistance feel as urgent as ever. My connection to Russell’s work feels especially personal, as my own writings are housed in McMaster University’s Mills Library, alongside a significant archive of Russell’s papers. In reflecting on his life, we are reminded that the struggle for justice is a continuum—one that demands not only bold ideas but also the bravery to act upon them.
One of the most unexpected and meaningful moments of my personal and scholarly life was standing beside a towering image of Bertrand Russell during the ceremony marking the donation of my personal archives to McMaster University Library’s William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections. It felt like a quiet dialogue across time—a convergence of lives committed to ideas, justice, and the unyielding pursuit of truth. Libraries and archives hold a special kind of magic, especially in an age when historical memory is eroded by an avalanche of information, the unceasing churn of emotional overload, and a culture entrapped by what Byung-Chul Han calls “the immediate presence.”
In stark contrast to this frenzy of hyper-communication and ephemeral data, the archive stands as a sanctuary for depth and reflection. It safeguards not just the fragments of the past but the larger arc of its story, providing a sense of wholeness and continuity. Here, time stretches beyond the fleeting moment, offering a context that embraces the works, personal artifacts, and relationships that shape the lives of artists, intellectuals, and cultural workers. The archive resists the tyranny of the present, reminding us that the threads of history weave a fabric far richer and more enduring than the fleeting snapshots and soundbites of our digital age.
Having my work archived along with Russell’s was particularly moving since he was a model for me as a public intellectual as I began teaching and writing in the 1960s. I came of age when intellectual, political, and cultural paradigms were shifting. Protests were advancing on university campuses and in the streets against the Vietnam War, systemic racism, the military-industrial complex, the corporatization of the university, and the ongoing assaults waged on women, the poor, and the vulnerable. Intellectuals and artists such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Allen Ginsberg, Norman Mailer, Ellen Willis, Susan Sontag, Paul Goodman, James Baldwin, Angela Davis, and Martin Luther King, Jr. were translating their ideas into actions and exhibiting a moral courage that both held power accountable and refused to be seduced by it. This was an age of visionary change, civic courage, and democratic inclusiveness; it was a time in which language translated into actions that enabled people to understand how power operated on their daily lives and how their daily existences and relationships to the world could be more engaging in critical and radically imaginative ways.
For me, Bertrand Russell stood out among these intellectuals in a way that was both iconic and personal. Russell was not only a rigorous scholar but also a public intellectual who moved with astonishing ease through a range of disciplines, ideas, and social problems. He embodied a new kind of public intellectual, one who functioned as a border crosser and traveler who, like another great public intellectual, Edward Said, refused to hold on to scholarly territory or a disciplinary realm in order to protect or bolster his fame or ego. Careerism was anathema to Russell and it was obvious in his willingness to push against conceits and transgressions of power—whether it was contesting World War I as a conscientious objector, dissenting against the authoritarian populism consuming much of Europe in the 1930s, protesting against the threat of nuclear weapons, or criticizing the horrors and political depravity that marked the United States’ war against the Vietnamese people.
In pushing the boundaries of civic courage and the moral imagination, Russell took risks, put his body on the line, and made visible the crimes of his time, even if it meant going to jail, which he did as late in his life as the age of 89 after protesting against nuclear weapons. Russell lived in what can be called dangerous times and he responded by placing morality, critical analysis, collective struggle, and a profound belief in democratic socialism at the center of his politics.
I was always moved by his courage, and his belief in the political capacities of everyday people and the notion that education was central to politics itself. Russell believed that people had to be informed in order to act in the name of justice. He believed that politics could be measured by how much it improved people’s lives, gave them a sense of hope, and pointed to a future that was decidedly better than the present. Russell, like Václav Havel, another towering public intellectual, believed that politics followed culture and that there was no possibility of social change unless there was a change in people’s attitudes, consciousness, and how they live their lives. Russell believed that a critical education could teach young people not to look away and to take risks in the name of a future of hope and possibility. Russell’s radical investment in the power of education was more than simply a strong conviction. Not only did he start his own progressive school in the 1920s, but he believed that one demand of the public intellectual was to be rigorous and accessible and to make one’s work meaningful in order for it to be critical and transformative. Russell connected education to social change and believed that matters of identity, desire, power, and values were never removed from political struggles.
Russell’s willingness to keep going in the face of such attacks nurtured in me both energy and faith in my convictions. As a radical educator, Russell inspired me and gave me the courage to address issues animated by a fierce sense of justice and the political and moral imperative to fight against “the texture of social oppression and the harm that it does.” Like Russell, I learned that thinking can be dangerous and that it demands a certain daring of mind and willingness to intervene in the world. Russell convinced me that to be an educator, you had to be willing to cause trouble in times of war and upheaval and just as willing to disturb the peace in moments of quiet acquiescence. At a time when public intellectuals seem to be in retreat, Russell’s legacy and work are even more important given the darkness now engulfing much of the globe.
Russell is more important to me today than he was when I first read his works in the 1960s. He is a reminder of a type of engaged intellectual that crossed boundaries far removed from the university with its sometimes deadly specialisms, corporatism, conformism, and separation from the problems of the day. While public intellectuals still exist today, too many of them speak from narrow specializations, narrate themselves in soundbites appropriate for the digital age, and often refrain from speaking to the broad audiences and tangled issues of the day. Too many of them advocate for single issues and lack the knowledge or willingness to speak in terms that are comprehensive, willing to do the hard work of connecting a vast array of issues and common concerns. Russell’s claim that his three passions were “the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind” seem quaint in today’s fast-paced culture of consumerism, unchecked individualism, and a crippling obsession with self-interest.
Russell is a crucial reminder of the value of historical consciousness and memory because his life, writing, actions, and moral courage remind us of the work that public intellectuals can do and how they can make a difference. Russell provides a model of what it means to talk back, scorn easy popularity, and refuse to wallow in the discourse of comfortable platitudes. Russell was not merely a witness and, like Martin Luther King, Jr. and other notable figures of his generation, refused to keep silent and was equally appalled by the “silence of good people.” He made clear that there had to be a crucial element of love and solidarity in the ability to feel passionate about freedom and justice. Erich Fromm, one of the great Frankfurt School theorists, called Russell a prophet because his “capacity to disobey is rooted, not in some abstract principle, but in the most real experience there is—in the love of life.” In an age of “fake news,” emergent fascism, systemic racism, and engineered destruction of the planet, militarism, and genocide, Russell is an extraordinary and insightful reminder of the power of informed rationality, critical education, and evidence. At a time when the threat of a nuclear disaster looms larger than ever, Russell offers both in words and deeds the recognition that security cannot be gained through a culture of fear, fraud, armaments, and armed struggle.
At a time when democracy teeters under siege, authoritarian populism surges, public values are eroded, and trust in democratic institutions falters, Bertrand Russell’s writings, actions, and struggles offer an enduring reminder of what is necessary to confront the present darkness. He calls us to civic courage, moral outrage, and the critical thinking required to bridge private troubles with broader social transformations. His life and work stand as a testament to the unyielding pursuit of justice and the recognition that no society, no matter how idealized, is ever just enough.
For Russell, politics was not just about economic structures; it was a battle for the meaning and dignity of humanity itself —over agency, identity, values, and the ways we see ourselves in relation to others. These concerns resonate profoundly today, as unbridled individualism, the fetishization of privatization, and a narrow devotion to self-interest have been elevated to virtues in many Western societies. These forces have paved the way for a moral void, a nihilism that fuels the resurgence of authoritarianism across the globe. Against this collapse into despair, Russell’s vision remains a vital antidote—expansive, hopeful, and profoundly life-affirming.
Russell’s legacy is not just a lesson in intellectual brilliance or political acumen, but in the audacity of hope paired with the courage to act. He reminds us that history bends not by passive observation, but by collective struggles, solidarity, and the refusal to accept injustice as inevitable. To remember Russell is to embrace a moral clarity that resists indifference and cynicism, and to imagine a world where dignity, equity, and joy are not luxuries but foundational principles.
Standing beside his archives was, for me, an extraordinary honor. It was not merely an encounter with history but an invitation to carry forward the weight of its lessons. In that moment, I felt the enduring shadow of a life devoted to justice and civic responsibility, a shadow that challenges us to live with greater purpose.
To remember Russell is to remember the indispensable role of hope in the face of despair, the necessity of resistance when the specter of fascism is with us once again, and the moral obligation to imagine and fight for a world yet to be born. His legacy is a call to action—a reminder that even in the darkest of times, the power of ideas, the courage of individuals, and the collective force of mass movements can light the way forward.
Note.
This essay draws from an earlier essay on Russell that appeared in Hamilton and Arts Letters 11:1 (2018).
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Henry A. Giroux currently holds the McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest in the English and Cultural Studies Department and is the Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy. His most recent books include: The Terror of the Unforeseen (Los Angeles Review of books, 2019), On Critical Pedagogy, 2nd edition (Bloomsbury, 2020); Race, Politics, and Pandemic Pedagogy: Education in a Time of Crisis (Bloomsbury 2021); Pedagogy of Resistance: Against Manufactured Ignorance (Bloomsbury 2022) and Insurrections: Education in the Age of Counter-Revolutionary Politics (Bloomsbury, 2023), and coauthored with Anthony DiMaggio, Fascism on Trial: Education and the Possibility of Democracy (Bloomsbury, 2025). Giroux is also a member of Truthout’s board of directors.
"I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it's for or against."
W.E.B. DuBois (1868-1963)
"There is but one coward on earth, and that is the coward that dare not know."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)
"Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent. "
James Baldwin (1924-1987)
"Precisely at the point when you begin to develop a conscience you must find yourself at war with your society."
Aimé Césaire (1913-2008)
"A civilization that proves incapable of solving the problems it creates is a decadent civilization. A civilization that chooses to close its eyes to its most crucial problems is a stricken civilization. A civilization that uses its principles for trickery and deceit is a dying civilization."
Nina Simone (1933-2003)
"There's no other purpose, so far as I'm concerned, for us except to reflect the times, the situations around us and the things we're able to say through our art, the things that millions of people can't say. I think that's the function of an artist and, of course, those of us who are lucky leave a legacy so that when we're dead, we also live on. That's people like Billie Holiday and I hope that I will be that lucky, but meanwhile, the function, so far as I'm concerned, is to reflect the times, whatever that might be."
Amilcar Cabral (1924-1973)
"Always bear in mind that the people are not fighting for ideas, for the things in anyone's head. They are fighting to live better and in peace, to see their lives go forward, to guarantee the future of their children ....Hide nothing from the masses of our people. Tell no lies. Expose lies whenever they are told. Mask no difficulties, mistakes, failures. Claim no easy victories..." .
Angela Davis (b. 1944)
"The idea of freedom is inspiring. But what does it mean? If you are free in a political sense but have no food, what's that? The freedom to starve?”
Duke Ellington (1899-1974)
“Jazz is the freest musical expression we have yet seen. To me, then, jazz means simply freedom of musical speech! And it is precisely because of this freedom that so many varied forms of jazz exist. The important thing to remember, however, is that not one of these forms represents jazz by itself. Jazz simply means the freedom to have many forms.”
Amiri Baraka (1934-2014)
"Thought is more important than art. To revere art and have no understanding of the process that forces it into existence, is finally not even to understand what art is."
Frederick Douglass (1817-1895)
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” --August 3, 1857
Cecil Taylor (1929-2018)
“Musical categories don’t mean anything unless we talk about the actual specific acts that people go through to make music, how one speaks, dances, dresses, moves, thinks, makes love...all these things. We begin with a sound and then say, what is the function of that sound, what is determining the procedures of that sound? Then we can talk about how it motivates or regenerates itself, and that’s where we have tradition.”
Ella Baker (1903-1986)
"Strong people don't need strong leaders"
Paul Robeson (1898-1976)
"The artist must take sides. He must elect to fight for freedom or for slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative."
John Coltrane (1926-1967)
"I want to be a force for real good. In other words, I know there are bad forces. I know that there are forces out here that bring suffering to others and misery to the world, but I want to be the opposite force. I want to be the force which is truly for good."
Miles Davis (1926-1991)
"Jazz is the big brother of Revolution. Revolution follows it around."
C.L.R. James (1901-1989)
"All development takes place by means of self-movement, not organization by external forces. It is within the organism itself (i.e. within the society) that there must be realized new motives, new possibilities."
Frantz Fanon (1925-1961)
"Now, political education means opening minds, awakening them, and allowing the birth of their intelligence as [Aime] Cesaire said, it is 'to invent souls.' To educate the masses politically does not mean, cannot mean, making a political speech. What it means is to try, relentlessly and passionately, to teach the masses that everything depends on them."
Edward Said (1935-2003)
“I take criticism so seriously as to believe that, even in the midst of a battle in which one is unmistakably on one side against another, there should be criticism, because there must be critical consciousness if there are to be issues, problems, values, even lives to be fought for."
Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937)
“The challenge of modernity is to live without illusions and without becoming disillusioned. There must be pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will.”
Susan Sontag (1933-2004)
"Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager."
Kofi Natambu, editor of The Panopticon Review, is a writer, poet, cultural critic, and political journalist whose poetry, essays, criticism, reviews, and journalism have appeared in many literary magazines, journals, newspapers, and anthologies. He is the author of a biography MALCOLM X: His Life & Work (Alpha Books) and two books of poetry: THE MELODY NEVER STOPS (Past Tents Press) and INTERVALS (Post Aesthetic Press). He was the founder and editor of SOLID GROUND: A NEW WORLD JOURNAL, a national quarterly magazine of the arts, culture, and politics and the editor of a literary anthology NOSTALGIA FOR THE PRESENT (Post Aesthetic Press). Natambu has read his work throughout the country and given many lectures and workshops at academic and arts institutions. He has taught American literature, literary theory and criticism, cultural history and criticism, film studies, political science, creative writing, philosophy, critical theory, and music history and criticism (Jazz, Blues, R&B, Hip Hop) at many universities and colleges. He was also a curator in the Education Department of Detroit’s Museum of African American History. Born in Detroit, Michigan, Natambu currently lives in Berkeley, California with his wife Chuleenan.
