She finds the whole idea absurd. To Prof Marci Shore, the notion that the Guardian, or anyone else, should want to interview her about the future of the US is ridiculous. She’s an academic specialising in the history and culture of eastern Europe and describes herself as a “Slavicist”, yet here she is, suddenly besieged by international journalists keen to ask about the country in which she insists she has no expertise: her own. “It’s kind of baffling,” she says.
In fact, the explanation is simple enough. Last month, Shore, together with her husband and fellow scholar of European history, Timothy Snyder, and the academic Jason Stanley, made news around the world when they announced that they were moving from Yale University in the US to the University of Toronto in Canada. It was not the move itself so much as their motive that garnered attention. As the headline of a short video op-ed the trio made for the New York Times put it, “We Study Fascism, and We’re Leaving the US”.
Starkly, Shore invoked the ultimate warning from history. “The lesson of 1933 is: you get out sooner rather than later.” She seemed to be saying that what had happened then, in Germany, could happen now, in Donald Trump’s America – and that anyone tempted to accuse her of hyperbole or alarmism was making a mistake. “My colleagues and friends, they were walking around and saying, ‘We have checks and balances. So let’s inhale, checks and balances, exhale, checks and balances.’ I thought, my God, we’re like people on the Titanic saying, ‘Our ship can’t sink. We’ve got the best ship. We’ve got the strongest ship. We’ve got the biggest ship.’ And what you know as a historian is that there is no such thing as a ship that can’t sink.”
You think you can call her a coward because you are protesting now? Oh boy, what you have now hardly qualifies as fascism. It aspires to be fascism, but it’s so, so mild. That doesn’t make you brave, that doesn’t make you better than her. Unlike you, she knows what’s coming next. I bet in 5 to 10 years, you’ll find out that you aren’t as brave as you thought.
Now who’s the arm chair captain?
I’m well aware of the potential outcomes of this situation and if anything that makes her decision more cowardly. Every person that leaves is telling those who can’t leave that their lives are less important, that I was on your side for as long as I believed it wouldn’t cost me anything to say so. That’s some fair-weather friend bullshit if I’ve ever heard it.
You can defend her decision if you like but I am choosing to stay and fight, whatever that ends up meaning, despite having the means and ability to leave and you will never convince me that that isn’t the decision every truly patriotic American should be making too.
She has children. It’s interesting that if you thought a full on dictators/ death camp regime was coming (as she does) you would either abandon your children or put them in harm’s way, but judging other people for making a different choice does not make you seem all that righteous.