Hi, I'm Melissa Malano. And this is Sorry Not Sorry. So, As the American Right becomes more and more authoritarian, it is attempting to rewrite history.

From its claims that the United States isn't a democracy

to its attempts to remove books from libraries

and rewrite curricula,

the reshaping of the past risks our future.

In light of this evolving reality, best-selling author Jason Stanley joins us to discuss his

new book, Erasing History, How Fascists Rewrit the past to control the future.

It's got this urgent question at its core

about figuring out why, even us,

why the United States started to bend with all those other parts of the world

towards authoritarianism. Under no circumstances you are promising America

tonight you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody.

Except for day one.

Not just the book beloved by Tony Morrison.

A whole lot of other books on race or gender are now getting targeted by conservative parents and elected officials.

I know that the left and all the little gatekeepers on Twitter become literally hysterical

if you use the term replacement, if you suggest, the Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate,

the voters now casting ballots, with new people, more obedient voters from the third world.

Jason, welcome to Sorry, not sorry. I'd like to start by asking you to let our lessoners know a little bit about you and the work that you do.

So I'm a philosopher of language and an epistemologist and I've been working on fascism,

its politics and the culture it creates in order to make its politics more effective.

I use my work on essentially how we access reality,

...