Snyder, Shore, and Stanley: Heading north. In late February, I took a seat at the extended table of a Hamden scholar who hosted a group of locals: donors to the annual LEAP fundraiser. And, along with about 20 others present, I got an earful — as well as several mouthfuls of savory poache d salmon.The featured guest that night was Jason Stanley, a philosophy professor at Yale and author of prominent books that illustrate the way fascism and authoritarianism have proliferated in recent times.Stanley raised the alarm about what is happening now in the United States, where his expertise has been sought because of the outrages flooding from the Oval Office. The professor seemed throughout the evening to be in a dour mood even though he injected humor. As a Jewish man, he felt free to tell a joke at the expense of fellow members of the community: ​“What’s the difference between a Jewish pessimist and Jewish optimist? The Jewish pessimist says ​‘Things can’t possibly get any worse.’ The Jewish optimist says, ​‘Oh, yes they can!’” I stuck my nose into the fray during the question-and-answer period. Trying to inject a spark of optimism, and miserably failing, I asked, ​“So, professor, in response to these outrages, who will be the leader who saves us from disaster – who will be our Gandhi, our Navalny, our Martin Luther King?”He questioned my question. ​“Leadership won’t matter,” he said. ​“What will really matter and make a difference is a response from the ground up.” That is, for the citizens of this country to rise up and defend democracy. Then he added a point about the late Russian hero, Alexei Navalny. ​“He supported Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.” The professor revealed that night that he had been receiving offensive emails and other unpleasant responses to his work, and his warnings about Trump and the authoritarianism threat. What he didn’t say — perhaps he hadn’t yet committed to the idea — was that he’d soon be leaving for Canada, where he would continue his teaching at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. He wrote in an email to the Yale Daily News that the move ​“is entirely due to the political climate in the United States.” He told the Guardian that he was appalled by the caving of Columbia University to demands by the Trump administration, a case of academic extortion with $400,000,000 in federal grants on the line.Alas, he is joined in his flight to the Toronto institution by Professor Marci Shore and her husband, the best-selling author Timothy Snyder (“On Tyranny,” and ​“On Freedom”), both experts on Eastern European history.They told the Yale Daily News even before last November’s elections they had been considering recruitment offers, and also had other reasons to move on.Still, as I see it, it is their way to respond to what they consider an assault on the American way of life and its well-established laws.It also seemed to support Jason Stanley’s point at the LEAP dinner that we won’t be saved by leaders, but by ourselves. This is an assignment, if granted by default by the departing professors, that we are perhaps ill-equipped for. The American Revolution tested the will of the people. The Civil War tore the nation apart. And now, we can see that roughly half of Americans see very little wrong with the madman at the helm. He is even a god-like figure. It is a rare time in history when a convicted felon, a purveyor of mendacity, a man found in court to be responsible for sexual assault, a person who considers himself more important than the U.S. Constitution, a bigot, and a malignant narcissist who, in effect, just named a newly commissioned jet fighter fleet after himself (F‑47), is compared to Jesus Christ. As a Jewish man myself, I’m no expert on Jesus. But as my Christian friends are eager to point out, there is no substantial evidence for a comparison between the two exalted figures. Grass roots, then, is our hope. That, along with savory poached salmon and some measure of courage, will prepare us, leader shy though we may be (though Chris Murphy is out there, toiling away), to address the hardest collective job we have ever imagined.  ...read more read less