Notes from the Editors, January 2017

Abstract

buy this issueShortly after the election of Donald Trump, the alt-right organization Turning Point USA introduced its notorious Professor Watchlist…, listing some 200 radical academics in the universities as dangerous professors. Stories regarding this list were soon being carried in major papers throughout the country. In contrast to David Horowitz's list of "the 101 most dangerous academics in America" a decade ago, the current Professor Watchlist has behind it the new sense of power on the extreme right provided by Trump's electoral victory.… There can be no doubt that this is part of an attempted new McCarthyism. In terms of its overall orientation, the alt-right strategy here resembles the Gleichschaltung ("bringing into line") in 1933–35 in Hitler's Germany, where intimidation was directed at all the major cultural institutions, including universities, with the object of getting them to align with the new dominant views.

Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.