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We are living through historic times, when the global clash between democracy and autocracy is coming to a head. Authoritarianism is ascendent and now governs over 70 percent of the world’s population.1 The United States has become a key front of this struggle between tyranny and freedom, with President Donald Trump’s administration taking unprecedented actions to transition America from a democracy to an autocracy.
My specialty as a historian is authoritarian leaders. As my most recent book, Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present, demonstrates through detailed analysis of 17 authoritarian leaders over the last 100 years—including Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, Italy’s Benito Mussolini and Silvio Berlusconi, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and the United States’ Donald Trump—authoritarians share key traits and tactics. They capitalize on polarization, resentment, and uncertainty to take power, and then they stay in power with a toxic mix of propaganda, corruption, machismo, and violence.2
This essay focuses on the infusion of propaganda into education and attacks on medicine, science, and child welfare to underscore how the Trump administration seeks not only to destroy our political system of democracy in the present but also to create the conditions for future American societal decline. Educators, healthcare professionals, and activists in the United States have a special role to play in pushing back against this agenda.
The Stakes of Our Authoritarian Moment
Authoritarianism may be defined as the expansion of executive power and the personal power of the head of state to the detriment of the independence of the judiciary and other branches of government. That way the executive becomes beyond the reach of law and, along with close allies, can plunder the workforce, the environment, women’s bodies, and the economy.3
Since January 20, the Trump government has sought to crush democratic rights and institutions, intimidate the media and individuals who dissent from its policies, and destroy oversight and inspection mechanisms meant to hold government officials accountable.4 It has in addition imposed a white Christian nationalist purity agenda with roots that go back to the fascist era.5 That agenda entails detaining, disappearing, and disenfranchising the “wrong” people (nonwhite immigrants and US citizens6) and encouraging the “right” people to produce more children for the state.7
This sober summary does not, however, capture the Trump administration’s ultimate goal: to wreck the United States as a democratic power so that the autocrats Trump is allied with can flourish. “If you have a smart president, they’re not enemies,” Trump said of Russia, China, and North Korea at a campaign rally in Virginia in June 2024. “You’ll make them do great.”8 And how do you make them “do great”? By taking down their greatest adversary, a country with the world’s most powerful military and an economy that at the end of 2024 was seen as “the envy of the world.”9
The magnitude of this task is why the Trump administration has acted with dizzying speed on all fronts. In its first few months, the administration laid the foundations for the advent of mass distress, hardship, and disease. Wrecking the state by authorizing Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency to colonize and impede the operation of federal agencies; banning books; pulling federal funding from research; abandoning established public health and medical protocols; and defunding disaster response, climate crisis mitigation, and humanitarian and social assistance to children, the elderly, and other vulnerable populations.10 All of this will set the United States back decades.
Authoritarians think big and long term. What the war on education and the war on medicine, science, and child welfare have in common is that both degrade the population of the future, creating the potential for America to become a second- or third-rate power.
The War on Education: Gaining Power Through Propaganda
To understand why education is targeted by authoritarians, we need to view propaganda in a broader frame. It’s about not only getting people to believe individual lies—say, that Jews are taking over the world or that Trump won the 2020 election—but also changing the public’s worldview on many subjects. That’s why basic concepts of diplomacy, health, and education take on new meanings as a country loses its democracy and the “upside-down world” of authoritarianism comes into being.11 In that world, lies become official dogma, and truth-tellers and those who labor on behalf of the enlightenment and well-being of humanity—including educators, librarians, and journalists—are discredited, locked up, or killed.
This view of propaganda as a way to influence behavior and thought means that autocrats don’t just shut down intellectual freedom and change learning content to reinforce their ideological agendas. They also remake educational institutions into places that reward intolerance, conformism, suspicion, and other values and behaviors authoritarians require. Far from being “ivory towers” closed off from society, educational institutions are often frontline targets of those who seek to destroy democracy. What happens in and around classrooms reflects—and often anticipates—transformations of societies as authoritarianism takes hold.
The regime of Italy’s Benito Mussolini (1925–43) provided the template for right-wing authoritarian actions against faculty, staff, and students deemed political enemies.12 Leftists, liberals, and anyone who spoke out against the fascists were sent to prison or forced into exile. Since most schools and universities were public, most professors and researchers were civil servants and could be pressured through bureaucratic means. First came a 1931 loyalty oath to the king and fascism, then a 1932 requirement to join the National Fascist Party to apply for jobs or promotions. Student informers monitored their peers and teachers, recording any critical remarks or anti-regime jokes, and new student organizations inculcated fascist values.
In the Cold War era, Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, who seized power through a 1973 US-backed coup, claimed that universities were hotbeds of Marxism and targeted them for “cleansing.”13 This entailed the closure of ideologically objectionable departments, such as philosophy, and the purging of tens of thousands of students, faculty, and staff in the first few years of the regime (thousands were also sent from universities to prison, as were many other Chileans). Under this military dictatorship, civilian university rectors were replaced with military officials. Air Force General César Ruiz Danyau announced his arrival as rector of the University of Chile in Santiago by parachuting onto campus. The public school system was starved of funds and, in tandem with the neoliberal economic policies* introduced in Chile, was partly privatized, leaving the very poor without means of education.14
Today’s right-wing autocrats mostly come to power through elections and extinguish freedom slowly, as Viktor Orbán has done in Hungary. Yet, the education sector continues to be the target of leaders who seek to eradicate free thinking and turn campuses into sites where surveillance by the state, through the presence of student, faculty, and staff informers, creates an environment of mistrust and fear. Like his fellow far-right strongmen, Orbán aims to discredit and dismantle all liberal and democratic models of education to produce a new authoritarian-friendly population. As someone who grew up under communism, Orbán knows the power of political socialization. He also knows that universities have always been sites of resistance to authoritarianism, and so he has placed some universities under the authority of “public trusts” run by his cronies.15
The crusade of Trump and the Republican Party against LGBTQIA+ representation in educational materials has a precedent in Hungarian policies. A 2018 ban on gender studies preceded the end of legal recognition of transgender and intersex people in 2020.16 In 2021, a law outlawed any depiction or discussion of LGBTQIA+ identities or sexual orientation.17
This was followed by a crackdown on anyone in the educational sector who dissented from the state. A 2023 measure dubbed the “revenge law” has punished teachers, staff, and students who protest against low pay and disappearing intellectual freedoms.18 These people have been protesting because Orbán has slowly defunded public education, subtracting 16 percent from its budget over the past decade, while Hungary already has a dire teacher shortage.19
This law, which Hungarian opposition politician and European Parliament member Katalin Cseh called “a brutally oppressive tool” to elicit “compliance with a police state apparatus designed to silence them,” has placed educational policy under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Interior, which is also in charge of law enforcement.20 It allows the state to monitor teachers’ laptops and video-record their classrooms. No wonder a protest in front of Hungarian Parliament spelled out the word “future” in melting ice.21 Educators and their students see their possibilities vanishing, and thousands of teachers have resigned.
Hungary matters because its policies directly inspired the educational and other precepts of Project 2025 (the far-right policy playbook that the Trump administration is following22) as well as US state-level efforts to re-engineer education in an authoritarian key. In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis has been influenced by Orbán’s policies regarding the press, LGBTQIA+ individuals, and education. The remaking of Florida’s New College as a model of far-right pedagogy† takes a page from Orbán’s crusade against Central European University, which had to move from Budapest to Vienna to continue operating. In 2023, a Florida House bill would have barred Florida’s public colleges and universities from offering gender studies, critical race studies, and queer studies—and an ambiguous version of that bill, designed to stand up to legal challenges and strike fear in educators, became law.23
“Florida could start looking a lot like Hungary,” commented Michelle Goldberg (a New York Times opinion columnist) in 2023.24 The Trump administration has been able to move quickly with federal-level action in 2025 because states such as Florida have been testing grounds for the removal of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) from educational curricula and policy. Now the entire United States could follow the Hungarian model, but on a far more destructive scale, starting with Trump’s executive order to abolish the US Department of Education.25
The War on Knowledge: Discrediting Librarians and Teachers
To speed the transition to autocracy, it helps to discredit authorities associated with public spaces, such as libraries and schools, that encourage intellectual curiosity and democratic values. This is why public and school libraries, along with librarians and teachers, are always targeted by authoritarian parties and governments.
Public libraries and public schools are places where people of all backgrounds, political beliefs, and economic situations gather. Libraries have long been cited by social scientists as spaces that bolster civic life and encourage community: they combat polarization, disinformation, and isolation.26 School and public libraries also have long provided refuge to people of all ages with difficult home situations, and librarians and teachers can become trusted mentors and guides. This can bring them into conflict with authoritarian parties and governments that wish to indoctrinate youth, extend their control over the family, and discourage independent and critical thinking. That’s why whenever authoritarians are ascendent, and books become threatening objects, authority figures who recommend and read books are singled out for harassment or worse.
In the United States, myriad state laws and book bans seek to remove the history of white racism, slavery, and fascist genocides as appropriate subjects of study, along with writings about LGBTQIA+ identities and experiences—particularly from school libraries.27 Carolyn Foote, a retired Texas librarian and co-founder of the advocacy group FReadom Fighters, notes that when school districts pull books off shelves without following a clear process for reviewing them, they are “breaking that contract of trust” with parents, teachers, and students and degrading professional ethics.28 The authoritarians’ goal is not just to create a hostile work environment for library and teaching staff but also to pressure administrators to submit to corrupt tactics such as banning books on spurious grounds and accepting slanderous speech used against their colleagues.
For the same reason, authoritarians organize personal attacks on library employees and teachers, such as accusations that they are “groomers” who encourage inappropriate behaviors and relationships with the children they serve.29 It also lies behind the frightening attempts to criminalize librarians.30 In Clinton Township, New Jersey, in 2022, the police department received a request for criminal charges to be brought against librarians whose institution had a book with “obscene” content.31 This, too, is an imported tactic. The attempt to associate LGBTQIA+ individuals and their allies with pedophilia is an established strategy among the global right, including in Orbán’s Hungary.32
Unsurprisingly, many librarians have left their jobs, either resigning or being fired for refusing to remove books from their collections.33 In some small towns, like Vinton, Iowa, the consequences have been serious indeed: the Vinton library endured the now-usual attacks by activists objecting to its LGBTQIA+ staff and its displays of LGBTQIA+ books, and the library itself has had to close for lack of staffing. “We couldn’t function correctly as a library,” former Vinton Library Director Janette McMahon said about why she left her job.34 Undermining and discrediting institutions such as libraries and exhausting those who stand up for professional ethics and pluralism are how you degrade democracy.
Authoritarian claims on children are also why librarians and teachers are subjected to attacks from “parental rights” advocates. During Joe Biden’s presidency, far-right parents promoted parental rights to discredit schools seen as incubators of democratic values and common-sense public health protocols (masks and vaccines against disease).35 For Mike Pompeo, who served as secretary of state during Trump’s first term, parental rights was a bludgeon to discredit teachers’ authority and disenfranchise them from decision-making. “I think parents should decide what their children are taught in schools,” Pompeo tweeted in October 2021.36 Now that Trump is back in office, the parental rights crowd (which includes Vice President JD Vance) is backing privatization of schools and Christian homeschooling—anything to get children away from the multi-faith, multi-racial communities of public schools.37
The War on Medicine, Science, and Child Welfare: Wrecking the United States’ Future
Like the use of propaganda, much of what the second Trump administration is doing tracks with authoritarian tradition. Since the days of fascism and early communism, autocrats have wanted to reshape government and society in their own image.38 This has meant destroying institutions as they have been understood democratically, giving them different purposes and staffing them with loyalists who do the bidding of the leader and close allies.39
Yet the Trump administration’s crusade to wreck the United States’ prestigious science, medicine, and research sectors, seemingly as fast as possible, is unusual within the history of authoritarianism. Science and medicine are almost always politicized as autocracies grow more extreme. The history of Nazi racial science and the Soviet practice of deploying mental health professionals to have dissenters committed to psychiatric institutions are two examples.40 Yet most dictatorships proceed gradually in this area, and they often expand social welfare programs, including medical care, to win over the population—at least until state corruption and the costs of hiring incompetent loyalists to key administrative positions undermine service.
An administration starting out with a conspiracy theorist as secretary of Health and Human Services is uncommon. Also uncommon are the immediate planned destruction of child welfare programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, speedy bans on discussions of racial bias and other social determinants of health, and the resolve brought to pulling federal money for research and curtailing the work of America’s most prestigious institutions, such as the National Institutes of Health.
While these attacks opportunistically play on lingering fear and resentment from the COVID-19 pandemic, they are also intended to undermine the concept of expertise. Physician Dhruv Khullar is correct to frame the damage this administration is doing to medical training and biomedical innovation as “subversion.”41 Engineering the isolation42 of the country from beneficial circuits of trade and knowledge exchange that support medical and scientific research also harms American prosperity. Arresting international students and detaining foreign scholars speed the United States’ removal from intercultural networks and educational and scientific collaborations.43
The degradation of public health and fact-based knowledge, along with state intervention in family politics, converges in the tragic attacks on child welfare being waged by the Trump administration.44 There is no better example of this government’s zealous efforts to wreck the United States’ future than the aggressions directed at children’s rights to learn and to grow up healthy and safe.
Two recent articles characterized this crusade as a “war on children,” sharing stories of purposeful cuts to services that provide children with food, instruction, and medical care and protect them from exploitation, abuse, and neglect.45 Even programs to investigate missing children are on the chopping block, as are children’s services offices inside of the US Department of Justice as well as the US Department of Health and Human Services.
Research shows that government spending on children’s health and on education “offer some of the highest returns on investment,”46 but that only holds if your aims are democratic. The goal here seems to be to create multiple challenges to childhood development through exposure to disease, environmental pollutants, and gun violence, coupled with rescinding funds for care and protection, including Social Services Block Grant program funds. In the Trump administration’s quest to produce a collective failure to thrive, no area has been neglected: even farm-to-school programs, which provide fresh meat and produce to schools, are at risk due to the administration canceling grants from the US Department of Agriculture.47
There is a logic that unites these measures: a holistic plan to destroy our nation so that its enemies—Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping among them—can prosper. No wonder The Economist recently ran a story on how Trump could “make China great again” at America’s expense.48 The only parallels for this are measures imposed by leaders of puppet states that were created by foreign occupations; those leaders were often treated as traitors after those puppet states ended.
Striking Back on Behalf of Democracy and Our Children’s Futures
Although I have painted a grim picture in this essay, I am optimistic for the long term. In their authoritarian arrogance, the destroyers of America have not realized that a reckoning will come. In his first 100 days back in office, the president’s popularity had already begun to sink.49 We are in the early stages, but soon the real-world, everyday-life effects of the disruption and corruption perpetrated by this government will be impossible to ignore. This will start to open the eyes of many.
It will be Americans’ turn to discover the hard truth that autocrats have no interest in public welfare, “good governance,” or governance at all. They transform their public positions into vehicles for private enrichment and turn political institutions and the press into instruments for amassing so much power that they will not have to leave office. In the end, they are hated by the majority of the population. Many of them meet a bad end because, rather than promote collective well-being, autocrats produce mass suffering and sometimes mass death as well.50
Educators and healthcare professionals, who keenly feel the effects of corruption and politicization, can be vital communicators to the public of this hard-earned wisdom. And organizations such as the AFT and its thousands of affiliates can be key in the mass mobilizations to come, when enough Americans have understood the situation to participate in collective actions, whether that means a general strike or sustained nonviolent protest.51 Educators and healthcare professionals can be on the frontlines as we take our country back from those who wish to silence and intimidate us while they make our children less informed and less protected from pathogens and predators.
More broadly, the history of resistance suggests that pro-democracy movements that claim the mantle of moral authority and show care and solidarity in the face of plunder and violence can have an impact. In fact, even a tiny percentage of the population—often just 3.5 percent, according to one study of successful civil resistance movements—can make a difference if they mobilize on behalf of democratic values in situations of tyranny.52
Creating a big-tent opposition movement that includes progressive faith traditions and organized labor—two sectors of civil society that privilege values-guided action—is key. Joining with others, we transform our individual righteous indignation into a potent moral force for good.
Other actions can take place at the individual level, such as having conversations with family and community members who support Trump and the MAGA movement and explicitly raising with them questions of dignity and decency and the ruination of our children’s futures. As the government paralysis deepens and affects everyday life, these conversations will likely become easier.
Each time we show solidarity with others or support those who are protecting the rule of law, helping the targeted, or exposing lies and corruption, we are standing up for democratic values of justice, accountability, equality, and more. In doing so, we model the behaviors the authoritarian state wants us to abandon. This is especially important for those of us who work as educators and organizers alongside young people, who may look to us as mentors and moral guides. A reckoning will come for this corrupt and cruel administration; when it does, we can be on the right side of history.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat is a professor of history and Italian studies at New York University. She is the author or editor of seven books, including Fascist Modernities and Italian Fascism’s Empire Cinema. Her most recent book is The New York Times bestseller Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present, and she publishes a Substack newsletter, Lucid, about threats to democracy. A winner of Guggenheim, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Fulbright fellowships, she is also an advisor to Protect Democracy and to various civil society and faith organizations.
*See here for “Neoliberalism, Inequality, and Reclaiming Education for Democracy,” an article that defines neoliberalism as “capitalism on steroids” and describes how it increases inequality. (return to article)
To learn about the attack on New College, see “Defending Academic Freedom” by Patricia Okker, New College’s former president, in the Fall 2024 issue of American Educator: aft.org/ae/fall2024/okker. (return to article)
Endnotes
1. R. Tilli, “Two Decades of Decline in the Global State of Democracy,” Demo Finland, April 9, 2025, demofinland.org/en/two-decades-of-decline-in-the-global-state-of-democracy.
2. R. Ben-Ghiat, Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present (New York: W. W. Norton, 2020).
3. CCNow, “On Autocracy and Climate Action,” Covering Climate Now, March 21, 2024, coveringclimatenow.org/from-us-story/on-autocracy-and-climate-action; W. Kakenmaster, “The Fossil-Fueled Roots of Climate Inaction in Authoritarian Regimes,” Perspectives on Politics (August 9, 2024): 1–19, cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/fossilfueled-roots-of-climate-inaction-in-authoritarian-regimes/204D555036E8B1C81ECA43A4B2AD606B; and E. Servettaz, “Women’s Rights: How Authoritarian Regimes Use Women’s Bodies for Power,” swissinfo.ch, Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR, December 2, 2024, swissinfo.ch/eng/foreign-affairs/how-authoritarian-regimes-are-using-womens-bodies-for-power/88333820.
4. R. Benson, How Democracies Defend Themselves Against Authoritarianism (Washington, DC: Center for American Progress, April 9, 2025), americanprogress.org/article/how-democracies-defend-themselves-against-authoritarianism.
5. R. Reich, “5 Elements of Fascism and Their Exact Expression in Trump,” LA Progressive, June 20, 2023, laprogressive.com/republicans/5-elements-of-fascism-and-their-exact-expression-in-trump.
6. A. Whitehead, “The Growing Anti-Democratic Threat of Christian Nationalism in the U.S.,” Time, May 27, 2021, time.com/6052051/anti-democratic-threat-christian-nationalism.
7. Benson, How Democracies Defend Themselves; and R. Buller, “Trump Is Trying to Pay His Way into a US Baby Boom. Experts Say It Won’t Work,” The Guardian, May 6, 2025, theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/06/trump-baby-boom-bonus-checks.
8. Republicans Against Trump, X/Twitter post, June 29, 2024, 2:18 p.m., x.com/RpsAgainstTrump/status/1807116337065443372.
9. A. Ma and S. Rabinovitch, “Why the US Economy Is Still the Envy of the World,” National Public Radio, December 14, 2024, npr.org/2026/01/01/1198001428/simon-rabinovitch-us-economy-envy-of-the-world.
10. ACLU of Kentucky, “Students Sue Department of Defense Schools over Curriculum Changes, Book Bans,” April 15, 2025, aclu-ky.org/en/press-releases/students-sue-department-defense-schools-over-curriculum-changes-book-bans; S. Lurye and J. Gecker, “How U.S. Colleges Are Navigating Cuts to Grants for Research After Trump Restricts Federal Funding,” PBS News, March 28, 2025, pbs.org/newshour/education/how-u-s-colleges-are-navigating-cuts-to-grants-for-research-after-trump-restricts-federal-funding; Global Biodefense, “The Disbanding of HICPAC Is Part of a Larger, Dangerous Pattern of Undermining Health Protections,” May 7, 2025, globalbiodefense.com/2025/05/07/the-disbanding-of-hicpac-is-part-of-a-larger-dangerous-pattern-of-undermining-health-protections; G. Cohen, “FEMA Losing Roughly 20% of Permanent Staff, Including Longtime Leaders, Ahead of Hurricane Season,” CNN, April 23, 2025, cnn.com/2025/04/23/politics/fema-staff-cuts-hurricane-season/index.html; C. Kelly and J. Smith, “The Trump Administration’s Cancellation of Funding for Environmental Protections Endangers Americans’ Health While Draining Their Wallets,” Center for American Progress, April 2, 2025, americanprogress.org/article/the-trump-administrations-cancellation-of-funding-for-environmental-protections-endangers-americans-health-while-draining-their-wallets; J. Bedayn, “Affordable Housing Threatened as Trump Halts $1 Billion Program to Extend Life of Aging Buildings,” PBS News, March 12, 2025, pbs.org/newshour/politics/affordable-housing-threatened-as-trump-halts-1-billion-program-to-extend-life-of-aging-buildings; E. Hager, “The Trump Administration’s War on Children,” ProPublica, April 23, 2025, propublica.org/article/how-trump-budget-cuts-harm-kids-child-care-education-abuse; H. Gleckman, “A Second Trump Shock to Programs for Seniors and People with Disabilities,” Forbes, April 2, 2025, forbes.com/sites/howardgleckman/2025/04/02/a-second-trump-shock-to-programs-for-seniors-and-people-with-disabilities; and Oxfam America, “What USAID Does, and the Impact of Trump’s Cuts on Foreign Aid,” May 23, 2025, oxfamamerica.org/explore/issues/making-foreign-aid-work/what-do-trumps-proposed-foreign-aid-cuts-mean.
11. A. Taylor et al., “Rubio Unveils Sweeping Reorganization of State Department,” Washington Post, April 22, 2025, washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/04/22/trump-rubio-state-department-reorganization; S. Simmons-Duffin, “RFK Jr. Got Rid of an ‘Alphabet Soup’ of Health Agencies. Now, Congress Gets a Say,” NPR, May 13, 2025 npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/05/13/nx-s1-5381022/rfk-hhs-layoffs-restructuring-trump-budget; and J. Stanley, “Trump Is Setting the US on a Path to Educational Authoritarianism,” The Guardian, March 17, 2025, theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/17/trump-us-path-educational-authoritarianism.
12. Ben-Ghiat, Strongmen.
13. J. Bohoslavsky, K. Fernández, and S. Smart, eds., Pinochet’s Economic Accomplices: An Unequal Country by Force (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2020), 160, ri.conicet.gov.ar/bitstream/handle/11336/134799/CONICET_Digital_Nro.1bcd6292-3752-4532-9657-f0ecf491f57d_A.pdf?sequence=2.
14. T. Boultinghouse, “A Comment on the Anniversary of the Chilean Coup,” Council on Hemispheric Affairs, September 17, 2012, coha.org/comment-on-the-anniversary-of-the-chilean-coup.
15. B. Novak, “Hungary Transfers 11 Universities to Foundations Led by Orban Allies,” New York Times, April 27, 2021, nytimes.com/2021/04/27/world/europe/hungary-universities-orban.html.
16. L. Kent and S. Tapfumaneyi, “Hungary’s PM Bans Gender Study at Colleges Saying ‘People Are Born Either Male or Female,’” CNN, October 19, 2018, cnn.com/2018/10/19/europe/hungary-bans-gender-study-at-colleges-trnd/index.html; and K. Knight and L. Gall, “Hungary Ends Legal Recognition for Transgender and Intersex People,” Human Rights Watch, May 21, 2020, hrw.org/news/2020/05/21/hungary-ends-legal-recognition-transgender-and-intersex-people.
17. Eurochild, “New Hungarian Legislation Not Only Fails to Protect Children, It Puts Them at Greater Risk of Harm,” June 25, 2021, eurochild.org/news/new-hungarian-legislation-not-only-fails-to-protect-children-it-puts-them-at-greater-risk-of-harm.
18. J. Spike, “Hungary Passes Contentious Education Law Despite Protest from Teachers Unions,” Associated Press, July 4, 2023, apnews.com/article/hungary-teachers-education-law-660780df241b54cd11b6bfd37e3ff123; and European Trade Union Committee for Education, “Hungary Passes Controversial Education Law Despite Protest from Education Trade Unions,” July 17, 2023, csee-etuce.org/en/news/member-organisations/5248-hungary-passes-controversial-education-law-despite-protest-from-education-trade-unions.
19. K. Cseh, “Orbán’s ‘Revenge Law’ Is an Orwellian Crackdown on Education,” EUobserver, July 6, 2023, euobserver.com/opinion/157236.
20. Cseh, “Orbán’s ‘Revenge Law.’”
21. Spike, “Hungary Passes Contentious Education Law.”
22. M. Wendling, “Project 2025: The Right-Wing Wish List for Trump’s Second Term,” BBC, February 13, 2025, bbc.com/news/articles/c977njnvq2do.
23. A. Dove-Viebahn, “BANNED: Gender, Race and Sexuality Studies,” Ms., June 16, 2023, msmagazine.com/2023/06/16/florida-book-ban-gender-sexuality-race-black-women-history.
24. M. Goldberg, “Florida Could Start Looking a Lot Like Hungary,” New York Times, February 27, 2023, nytimes.com/2023/02/27/opinion/desantis-higher-education-bill.html.
25. Southern Poverty Law Center, “Trump’s Executive Order Dismantling the Department of Education, Explained,” splcenter.org/resources/guides/trumps-doe-order-faq.
26. E. Klinenberg, “To Restore Civil Society, Start with the Library,” New York Times, September 8, 2018, nytimes.com/2018/09/08/opinion/sunday/civil-society-library.html; and N. Hertz, The Lonely Century: How to Restore Human Connection in a World That’s Pulling Apart (New York: Penguin Random House, 2021).
27. J. Gross, “School Board in Tennessee Bans Teaching of Holocaust Novel ‘Maus,’” New York Times, January 27, 2022, nytimes.com/2022/01/27/us/maus-banned-holocaust-tennessee.html; and M. Markham et al., Cover to Cover: An Analysis of Titles Banned in the 23–24 School Year (New York: PEN America, February 27, 2025), pen.org/report/cover-to-cover.
28. M. McGibney, “74 Interview: FReadom Fighters Co-Founder Carolyn Foote on Why School Librarians Matter as Book Bans Rock the Country,” The 74, March 8, 2022, the74million.org/article/74-interview-freadom-fighters-co-founder-carolyn-foote-on-why-school-librarians-matter-as-book-bans-rock-the-country.
29. H. Natanson and M. Balingit, “Teachers Who Mention Sexuality Are ‘Grooming’ Kids, Conservatives Say,” Washington Post, April 5, 2022, washingtonpost.com/education/2022/04/05/teachers-groomers-pedophiles-dont-say-gay; and R. Port, “Port: ‘Librarians, Teachers, They’re Not Pedophiles, They’re Not Pornographers, and They’re Not Groomers,” InForum, February 21, 2025, inforum.com/opinion/columns/port-librarians-teachers-theyre-not-pedophiles-theyre-not-pornographers-and-theyre-not-groomers.
30. H. Italie and K. Kruesi, “Librarians Fear New Penalties, Even Prison, as Activists Challenge Books,” Associated Press, April 9, 2024, apnews.com/article/book-bans-libraries-lawsuits-fines-prison-0914fa6cbb2a99b540cbbd28a38179b4.
31. E. Harris and A. Alter, “With Rising Book Bans, Librarians Have Come Under Attack,” New York Times, June 22, 2023, nytimes.com/2022/07/06/books/book-ban-librarians.html.
32. R. Ben-Ghiat, “From Budapest to Boca Raton, Illiberal Politicians Target LGBTQ Populations: Homophobia Is a Constant Throughout a Century of Authoritarianism,” Lucid (blog), April 5, 2022, lucid.substack.com/p/from-budapest-to-boca-raton-illiberal; and J. Parrock, “Hungary’s Anti-LBGTQ Law Criticized by MEPs,” Deutsche Welle, July 7, 2021, dw.com/en/european-parliament-demands-action-over-hungarys-anti-lgbtq-law/a-58190027.
33. Harris and Alter, “With Rising Book Bans.”
34. T. Rushing, “What’s Happening with the Vinton Public Library,” Iowa Starting Line, July 13, 2022, iowastartingline.com/2022/07/13/whats-happening-with-the-vinton-public-library.
35. K. McGuire and M. Wilka, “A Democratic Vision for Public Schools,” Stanford Social Innovation Review 22, no. 4 (Fall 2024): 38–47.
36. M. Pompeo, X/Twitter post, October 5, 2021, 5:33 p.m., x.com/mikepompeo/status/1445502369593135104.
37. H. Wething, “A Strong Department of Education Is Critical to Public Schools,” Working Economics Blog, Economic Policy Institute, March 10, 2025, epi.org/blog/a-strong-department-of-education-is-critical-to-public-schools.
38. Ben-Ghiat, Strongmen.
39. Benson, How Democracies Defend Themselves.
40. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “The Biological State: Nazi Racial Hygiene, 1933–1939,” Holocaust Encyclopedia, encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-biological-state-nazi-racial-hygiene-1933-1939; and R. van Voren, “Political Abuse of Psychiatry—an Historical Overview,” Schizophrenia Bulletin 36, no. 1 (January 2010): 33–35.
41. D. Khullar, “Trump’s Agenda Is Undermining American Science,” New Yorker, March 9, 2025, newyorker.com/magazine/2025/03/17/trumps-agenda-is-undermining-american-science.
42. M. Bird, X/Twitter post, April 6, 2025, 10:10 p.m., x.com/birdyword/status/1909066198785913244?s=51&t=_HBw3MHuLHnvyF_kDG1Okw.
43. B. Drenon and R. Levinson-King, “Anxiety at US Colleges as Foreign Students Are Detained and Visas Revoked,” BBC, April 18, 2025, bbc.com/news/articles/c20xq5nd8jeo; and American Studies Association, “Joint Statement on Targeting of Foreign Scholars,” April 23, 2025, theasa.net/about/news-events/announcements/joint-statement-targeting-foreign-scholars.
44. Hager, “The Trump Administration’s War on Children.”
45. C. Rampell, “Donald Trump’s War on Children,” Washington Post, April 18, 2025, washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/04/18/trump-children-head-start-lead-vaccines; and Hager, “The Trump Administration’s War on Children.”
46. N. Hendren and B. Sprung-Keyser, “A Unified Welfare Analysis of Government Policies,” working paper, Harvard University, February 2020, scholar.harvard.edu/sites/scholar.harvard.edu/files/hendren/files/welfare_vnber.pdf.
47. K. Hardy, “USDA Cuts Hit Small Farms as Trump Showers Billions on Big Farms,” Stateline, April 4, 2025, stateline.org/2025/04/04/usda-cuts-hit-small-farms-as-trump-showers-billions-on-big-farms.
48. The Economist, “How America Could End Up Making China Great Again,” April 3, 2025, economist.com/leaders/2025/04/03/how-america-could-end-up-making-china-great-again.
49. D. Balz, S. Clement, and E. Guskin, “Trump Approval Sinks as Americans Criticize His Major Policies, Poll Finds,” Washington Post, April 27, 2025, washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/04/27/trump-poll-approval-rating-100-days.
50. Ben-Ghiat, Strongmen.
51. D. Brooks, “What’s Happening Is Not Normal. America Needs an Uprising That Is Not Normal,” New York Times, April 17, 2025, nytimes.com/2025/04/17/opinion/trump-harvard-law-firms.html.
52. E. Chenoweth, “Questions, Answers, and Some Cautionary Updates Regarding the 3.5% Rule,” discussion paper, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Kennedy School, April 2020, https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/2024-05/Erica%20Chenoweth_2020-005.pdf.
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