FASCIST AMERICA 2025: Brilliant Journalist, Political and Social Theorist, Cultural Critic, Historian, Author, Scholar, Teacher, and Activist John Ganz On The Ominous Rise and Rapidly Expanding Role of Homicidal Politics, Perspectives, Activism, and Far Rightwing Philosophies of White Supremacy, Corporate Capitalism,Anti-Semitism, Misogyny, Homophobia, and Xenophobia in the United States and the Clear and Present Existential and Empirically Active Danger These Organized Groups and Individuals Represent, Advocate, and Embody in American Society Today--Part 2

John Ganz | What's Happening Here? Fascism as Past and Prologue



The Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory

December 1, 2025

Theorizing the Present

VIDEO: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVdv1tWqmaw

For the past decade, there’s been a lively public debate over whether America faces a fascist threat. What have we learned, if anything, from this discussion? Is fascism a living possibility in today’s world or merely a historical phenomenon?  

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

John Ganz is the New York Times best-selling author of When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024). He writes the Unpopular Front newsletter on Substack, and his work has appeared in The Washington Post, Harper’s Magazine, Artforum, the New Statesman, and other publications. Presented in partnership with the Law, Letters, and Society program