Laura Flanders & Friends Sep 12, 2025 Laura Flanders and Friends: Positive Independent Journalism for a Just World Sound the Alarm on Rising Fascism: Masha Gessen and Jason Stanley, leading experts on authoritarianism, warn of attacks on DEI, trans bodies, civil rights, and higher education, and discuss the need for a bold vision of a multi-ethnic democracy.   ARE YOU AUDACIOUS? SUPPORT OUR RESISTANCE REPORTING FUND! Help us continue fighting against the rise of authoritarianism in these times. Please support our Resistance Reporting Fund. Our goal is to raise $100K. We’re at $35K! Become a sustaining member starting at $5 a month (  / lauraflandersandfriends  ) ! Or make a one time donation at LauraFlanders.org/Donate (https://lauraflanders.org/donate)   Description: What will it take to reject fascism, before it’s too late? Masha Gessen and Jason Stanley are two leading experts on autocracy, and they’re sounding the alarm. They and their families have escaped totalitarian regimes and oppressive governments; today Gessen and Stanley are pulling back the curtain on the attacks against DEI, trans bodies, civil rights, higher education and more. Is authoritarianism here? Masha Gessen is an acclaimed Russian-American journalist, a Polk Award winning opinion writer for the New York Times and the author of “Surviving Autocracy” and “The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia.” Forced to leave Russia twice, in 2024, a Moscow court convicted them, in absentia to eight years in prison for their reporting on the war in Ukraine. Jason Stanley is a best-selling author and professor whose books include “Erasing History” and “How Fascism Works”. He recently left his teaching position at Yale University to relocate to Canada with his family; noting that he is a child of Jewish refugees who fled Nazi Germany. In this historic conversation — the first interview between Gessen and Stanley — the two explore how to be bold in our movements and envision a multi-ethnic democracy. Plus, a commentary from Laura. “What I see now is this regime shifting the self understanding of America, from having these democratic ideals . . . God knows they’ve been imperfect, to a self identity as loving the United States because we’ve had these great men in our past, and we’ve conquered the West, and we can punch you in the nose. And that’s not a democratic project. That’s like what Putin is doing in Russia.” – Jason Stanley Guests: • Masha Gessen (https://literary-arts.org/bio/masha-g…) : Opinion Columnist, The New York Times; Author, Surviving Autocracy; Distinguished Professor, Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, CUNY • Jason Stanley (https://philosophy.utoronto.ca/news/w…) : Author, Erasing History & How Fascism Works; Professor, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto   Watch the special report (   • Masha Gessen & Jason Stanley: Is it Doomsd…  ) released on YouTube May 2nd 5pm ET; PBS World Channel May 4th, and on over 300 public stations across the country (check your listings, or search here (https://lauraflanders.org/watch/) via zipcode). Listen: Episode airing on community radio (check here (https://lauraflanders.org/radio/) to see if your station airs the show) & available as a podcast May 7th. Full Conversation Release: While our weekly shows are edited to time for broadcast on Public TV and community radio, we offer to our members and podcast subscribers the full uncut conversation. These audio exclusives are made possible thanks to our member supporters.   RESOURCES: Watch the broadcast episode cut for time at our YouTube channel and airing on PBS stations across the country  (   • Masha Gessen & Jason Stanley: Is it Doomsd…  ) Full Episode Notes are located HERE. (  / 128008794  ) Related Laura Flanders Show Episodes: •. Special Report- Decades After Bloody Sunday, Is Trump Taking Civil Rights Back to Before Selma in ‘65?:  Watch (   • Decades After Bloody Sunday, Is Trump Taki…  ) ,  Audio Podcast:  Episode (https://lauraflanders.simplecast.com/…) , and Uncut Conversation (https://lauraflanders.simplecast.com/…) with Kimberlé Crenshaw, AAPF and Clifford Albright, Black Voters Matter •. Journalists Maria Hinojosa & Chenjerai Kumanyika: Forced Removals, Foreign Detention, the War on Education & Free Speech: Watch (   • Trump Attacks Dissent and Due Process: Dep…  ) ,  Audio Podcast: Episode (https://lauraflanders.simplecast.com/…) , and Uncut Conversation (https://lauraflanders.simplecast.com/…) •  The People v. DOGE: Jamie Raskin’s Strategy to ..