Hundreds of University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee students protest a Trump campaign rally on their campus, January 1, 2014. Protests by young people could become illegal in the future, according to Henry A. Giroux. (Image: Joe Brusky / Flickr)
Confronted with the rise of an authoritarian society affecting all institutions and individuals, there is a need for resistance based on radical transformation, says Henry A. Giroux in this interview about The Public in Peril. This resistance is embodied in mass action and a vision to achieve the hope of a life beyond capitalism.
Mark Karlin: What is the impact of domestic terrorism and authoritarianism on young people?
Henry A. Giroux: Under the authoritarian reign of Donald Trump, finance capitalism now drives politics, governance and policy in unprecedented ways and is more than willing to sacrifice the future of young people for short-term political and economic gains, regardless of the talk in the mainstream media about the need to not burden future generations with heavy tuition debt and a future of low-wage jobs. American society has declared war on its children, offering a disturbing index of a social order in the midst of a deep moral and political crisis. Too many young people today live in an era of foreclosed hope, an era in which it is difficult either to imagine a life beyond the tenets of a market-driven society or to transcend the fear that any attempt to do so can only result in a more dreadful nightmare.