Historian Niall Ferguson challenged claims that the United States is sliding into fascism during a lecture at Stanford University. Ferguson said applying the term “fascism” to a democratically elected government is a misleading mistake and distracts from real issues such as China’s rise and academic corruption.
Ferguson made the remarks at a panel titled “Is This the End of the Post‑WWII New World Order,” alongside fellow historians David Kennedy and – interestingly – former Education Secretary Margaret Spellings. He critiqued demonstrators who chant “No Kings” and similar slogans as engaging in what he called an “exaggerated and misleading ‘category error.’”
Ferguson invoked the early years of Adolf Hitler’s regime as a stark contrast to the modern American political landscape. He pointed out that in Nazi Germany there was no rule of law, courts had no real independence, and political targets were regularly arrested by the SD.
He emphasized that a populist, democratically elected government cannot reasonably be labeled “fascist” without losing the meaning of the term.
Ferguson urged attention to the “inability of the American establishment to offer a response to the rise of China” and criticized elite universities, which he claimed “had ceased to be meritocratic institutions” and lacked ideological diversity. On the other hand, Kennedy argued the alleged “abuses” of higher education had been “greatly exaggerated,” noting that fields like organic chemistry and biophysics remain relatively free from “wokeness.”
