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The Opinions
‘They're Coming After All of Us. So You Might As Well Tell the Truth.’
00:18:30
The longtime activist and writer Sarah Schulman on why now is the time to stand up to people you oppose.
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Podcast Host
This podcast is supported by Instagram.
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Instagram Representative
Introducing Instagram teen accounts. A new way to keep your teen safer as they grow. Like making sure they always have their seatbelt on.
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Podcast Host
All right, sweetie pie, buckle up.
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Lydia Polgreen
Good job.
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Instagram Representative
Or ring the bell on their bike.
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Podcast Host
Okay, kid, give it a try.
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Lydia Polgreen
Nice.
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Instagram Representative
Or remember their elbow pads.
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Lydia Polgreen
Knees, too. Okay. Yep.
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Podcast Host
There you go.
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Instagram Representative
New Instagram teen accounts. Automatic protections for who can contact your teen and the content they can see.
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Podcast Host
This is the Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times opinion. You've heard the news. Here's what to make of it.
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Lydia Polgreen
I'm Lydia Polgreen, and I'm a columnist for the New York Times. In my many years as a journalist, I've never seen anything quite like the swift and relentless attacks on our most fundamental rights and freedoms we are witnessing under the second Trump administration.
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Instagram Representative
Immigration and Customs Enforcement admitted to an.
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Sarah Shulman
Administrative error that resulted in the deportation.
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Instagram Representative
Of an undocumented man to El Salvador.
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Podcast Host
This letter from the Trump administration and the Department of Education. It orders all colleges and K12 schools to end diversity, equity and inclusion programs and initiatives or they run the risk of losing federal funding.
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Lydia Polgreen
The government is actively clamping down on any dissent, particularly among students, teachers and activists. The government is trying to deport Khalil over his role in pro Palestinian protests at the school last year.
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Podcast Host
A lot of fear and uncertainty rippling.
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Lydia Polgreen
Through college campuses across the country tonight after the Trump administration revokes hundreds of international student visas. To better understand the moment we're in and what we might do about it, I wanted to speak to my friend Sarah Shulman. She has played a defining role in leftist thought, from her work on the AIDS crisis to conversations about Israel and Palestine. She's just written a book called the Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity, which draws upon her previous works and speaks to this moment in history. Sarah, thank you for joining me.
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Sarah Shulman
Thank you so much.
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Lydia Polgreen
This book had its genesis in the ongoing crisis that has been unfolding in Israel and Palestine, but it also is coming out in a world where we Trump administration and things are unfolding much closer to home. I'd love to just hear you talk about both the original intention of the book and what you mean by solidarity. Why do you think it was important to write this book at this particular moment?
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Sarah Shulman
Well, the point of the book is to make solidarity more doable. And in order to do that, I'm trying to strip away the idea of heroism, perfectionism, and pure motive because I feel that those things are unachievable and they keep people from trying to participate in solidarity. So the book is like an array of very interesting, weird people and interesting movements that haven't been covered, and they're moments of complexity to help us see that solidarity really just builds infrastructure for the future. It doesn't solve the problems. And if we can look at it that way, I think it's easier to try.
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Lydia Polgreen
There are a couple of different strands there I want to pick up on, but just beginning with the title of the book, you know, I understand the necessity part, but I want to talk about the fantasy. You know, people have this very romantic idea of what it means to come together. And there were a couple of lines in the book that really struck with me along this theme. One is that you say that solidarity is a relationship rooted in inequality, and the other is that justice, by definition, is not a popularity contest, and solidarity does not require love. I think that these are very challenging ideas for people, because particular this time, we fantasize about a kind of Kumbaya moment where everyone has perfect alignment. I think there's an expectation that there is going to be this kind of perfect agreement, and that one has to make, as you write, a kind of perfectionist analysis. To say, like, you know, do we agree on absolutely everything in order to move forward together?
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Sarah Shulman
Well, that doesn't work. I mean, historically, no movement that has tried to force everyone in it to agree on one analysis and one strategy, none of those have succeeded. They have all failed. And the reason is very simple. People are different. And I know that's really hard to accept, and I had to be in therapy for 20 years to accept that people are different, but they just are, and people can only be where they're at. So trying to force people to think and believe things that they don't think and believe will sabotage your movement. So real leadership is about helping people be effective from where they're at.
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Lydia Polgreen
So, you know, for the left, there hasn't ever perhaps been a more vital time to wrestle with these ideas of solidarity, of stepping outside of one's safety and family and tribe. And I think one of the things that's been toughest for me is seeing how Trump's popularity is slipping. You see that people are not trusting him. On the economy, I think we can see why people are angry about a variety of other issues. They think that tariffs are a bad idea, but the one place where his approval remains in positive territory is on immigration. And to me, I look at that, and I just think, my God, this is the realm in which he is exercising the greatest cruelty Stepping the furthest outside of the bounds of certainly the law, but also of just human decency. And I guess that challenges my ability to be in solidarity with the people who are angry at Trump for other reasons, but are indifferent to the cause that I care about most. So I'd love you to give me a little bit of therapy about how to be in solidarity with people who don't care about Palestine, who don't care about trans rights, who don't care about immigrants, but are angry at the Trump administration and are potential allies in making change happen.
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Sarah Shulman
The challenge of Big Ten politics is working with people that you don't agree with. I would say radical democracy is about accepting difference with the bottom line. You have to have a bottom line, but then it's a kind of emotional maturity that you can partner with people when you agree and when you disagree, walk away from them. You know, one example is, like, the Catholic Church. I disagree with the Catholic Church on almost everything, but in certain neighborhoods, when people are facing eviction, the Catholic Church is there to defend them. And that's a time that you move in and work with them. Once they bring up abortion, then you walk away. And this gets back to where we started, which is this fantasy of perfection that does us in every time.
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Lydia Polgreen
I think the other thing that really struck me, particularly in the early part of the book and that I've been thinking about a lot, is the role of those who are early to understand danger. And you write in the book about how the American supporters of the Spanish Republican movement against the fascists suffer for being, what you call prematurely, anti fascist.
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Sarah Shulman
That was a government term.
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Lydia Polgreen
Oh, really?
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Sarah Shulman
Yeah.
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Lydia Polgreen
Oh, wow. Yeah. Okay, so say more about this group, because I think as we think about the way that events are unfolding now, it really does seem as though, particularly those who are involved in the student movement and the other movements for Palestine are suffering a similar fate.
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Sarah Shulman
Well, it's always difficult to be in the first group of people that understand something. It's always better to be in the fifth, you know, because it's already. People are used to it. But these were people like the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, Americans who wanted to fight fascism In Spain, the US government would not support. And, of course, later, the US entered the war against fascism. So by the 40s, the average American would describe themselves as fighting against fascism, but these people did it before it became the status quo. So when McCarthyism came in, they were called prematurely anti fascist, which is this absurd term. But it's something we can all recognize, which is people who understand an injustice and start acting towards it before it's acceptable or even discussed in a public way. What that shows, I think, is that early insight starts to build the infrastructure of movement. Sometimes it's just the politics of repetition. But by the time movements are ready, they already have pre existing organizations, they already have books, they already have ideas that are already formulated that they can build on. And that's what we're seeing now with the Palestine Solidarity movement. I mean, they have organizations like Students for Justice in Palestine is 30 years old. And this has been able to propel people forward.
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Lydia Polgreen
At the same time, it does feel like this is a profound moment of and of disillusionment, of fear. I'd love to just hear you reflect a little bit on how you manage the kind of emotional landscape of this moment, because you've been there watching friends die when you were part of ACT UP during the height of the AIDS crisis. But how do you manage that feeling of hopelessness?
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Sarah Shulman
Well, it is true that there are a lot of cowards. You know, a moment like this really shines the light on everybody. And sometimes it's surprising, but there are so many decent people out there and there's so much resistance going on, but it's not at the top. You know, students. It's interesting because the student movement has not been stopped, even with all this punishment. I mean, these students at Barnard who not only were expelled, but their colleagues had their diplomas revoked, which is insane. You know, after they graduated, all this is doing is alienating people from these institutions. It's discrediting the institutions. And I'm seeing it in my school because I'm the faculty advisor to Jewish Voice for Peace at Northwestern University. My students are so sincere in their objection to the Israeli war in Gaza that they are willing to risk discipline by the administration because they have to live with themselves. And that's very inspiring. And I start the book with a quote from Khadir Shafi, who is a Palestinian lesbian leader. And she says, think about what you can do, not what you can lose. And that is my mantra, because as I've been going through the world, I'm constantly engaging people who are terrified that they're gonna lose some status, they're gonna lose some access. And often they do, but you get something else, which is this internal coherence of integrity. So in a way, I feel like the greatest hope that we have is to expand our integrity so that we can maintain it, because it's the only thing we can control.
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Lydia Polgreen
Yeah, yeah. One of the real pillars of Your work and your activism is the idea of direct action. So I'd love to hear you talk a little bit, particularly in this moment, about the history and importance of direct action in making change happen.
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Sarah Shulman
Well, it's interesting because very effective movements, starting with Dr. King's movement, which was a direct action movement, and going through ACT up, the AIDS activist movement, which used very similar tactics. The way they moved forward was by building campaigns. And this is something people have lost. It's not just getting huge numbers of people in the street to yell and scream and then they go home. That doesn't help. You need to first become the expert on your issue. Then you need to design solutions that are reasonable, winnable and doable. You go to the powers that be and you bring your proposal. And when they say no, then you use nonviolent, theatrical, civil disobedience to communicate through the media to the public what your solution is so that every action you take is to build on this demand and this campaign. So that's sometimes what's missing is this idea of a winnable goal and that you use actions to build towards that goal. Without that, you're often just wasting energy.
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Lydia Polgreen
So in this moment right now, let's take for example, the detention of students who hold legal status to be in the United States. What would you imagine would be an agenda for direct action, achievable goals? Because I think people are really hungry for ideas. And again, I'm not saying this is your space or the, but I think it'd be helpful just to hear your thoughts on how one might approach this.
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Sarah Shulman
Well, I think right now there's a three part approach. So one is the legal that. We have our lawyers who are in the courts. There are some judges who are reasonable. There is a problem of enforcement because the government has dismantled enforcement. But that is one approach. The second are protests. We've seen demonstrations inside Trump Tower. We've seen students chaining themselves to fences. You know, we're seeing constant objection on the part of the people against these kidnappings. And the third is providing information to students about how they can protect themselves, what their rights are in relationship to ice, what kinds of questions they can ask. And then there are some schools that are providing legal protection, as they should. It's the simultaneity of action that always makes movements effective. And that's what we're seeing. There is no quick fix to this moment. This moment is a cataclysm. But speaking out, being informed, working with others, allowing for multiple approaches, that's what we can do.
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Lydia Polgreen
It seems, though, that the other thing that's happening is a kind of intimidation, a threat of violence. You had President Trump speaking on Air Force One about how he'd love to send American citizens to El Salvador if it was possible. I think there is a very strong and palpable fear that seems designed to deter direct action.
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Sarah Shulman
There is. But, you know, in the end, it's funny, because I was talking to my sister recently about our ancestors who were exterminated in the Holocaust, actually. And she asked me, what camps did our aunts and uncles die in? And I said, well, they never made it to the camp. They were shot in the town square of their town. And I started thinking about that, and I realized, you know, in the end, you don't protect yourself by what you say or don't say because you become an anonymous mass from the point of view of fascists. So it's this kind of narcissistic fear that if you tell the truth, they're going to spot you and they're going to come after you. They're coming after all of us, so you might as well tell the truth.
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Lydia Polgreen
Sarah, you are also a prolific novelist and playwright, and I know you primarily think of yourself as an artist. In this time, I've been finding myself really leaning on art as a place to find a sense of connection and community and meaning. And I'm curious, what are the works and experiences that you're leaning on in this time to provide inspiration, to give you a sense of groundedness or whatever it is?
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Sarah Shulman
Well, there's two pieces that I think of. One is Zone of Interest, the film by Jonathan Glaser. And the second is a novel, Minor Detail, by the Palestinian writer Adoniy Shibley. And they both work very similarly, formally, to show us that the past and the present exist simultaneously. And this is something that we need to take in that we've been here before. These things are rooted in the past. I just read Red Scare by Clay Risen, and what it really reveals is that the Red Scare was a white Christian male rebellion against the New Deal and women and black people getting money to write and make paintings and rural theater companies and all of this kind of thing. And it's very similar to Jim Crow being a resistance to reconstruction. So we've understand that these are not all discrete events. These are patterns of people, multitudes of different kinds of people rising in this country and then being opposed by this very small minority that has a lot of power. And this gets back to the immigration issue. Many people in the United States have projected their anxieties and problems onto immigrants without realizing that it's actually being caused by the 1% that are stealing all the wealth of the country. That's the thing. When people are not getting their Social Security checked, when they're watching the tech Bros rising and rising, maybe some connections will happen because of their actual lived experience.
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Lydia Polgreen
Well, I think that's a really good place to end it. Sarah, thanks so much for talking with me.
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Sarah Shulman
Thank you Lydia.
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Podcast Host
The opinions is produced by Derek Arthur, Sophia Alvarez Boyd Vishaka Darba, Christina Samulewski and Gillian Weinberger. It's edited by Kari Pitkin, Allison Bruzek and Annie Rose Strasser. Engineering, mixing and original music by Isaac Jones, sonia Herrero, Pat McCusker, Carol Sabaro and Afim Shapiro. Additional music by Aman Sahota. The Fact Check team is Kate Sinclair, Mary, Marge Locker and Michelle Harris. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Christina Samulewski. The executive producer of Times Opinion Audio is Annie Rose Strasser.