Fascism Expert Shares A Big Fear That Prompted Her To Leave Donald Trump’s America

Marci Shore, a respected academic who used to teach at Yale University and specializes in the study of totalitarian regimes, recently opened up about why she and her husband decided to leave the United States and move to Canada.

Her husband, Timothy Snyder, is also a well-known scholar who focuses on the history of tyranny. Together, they accepted new roles at the University of Toronto, a decision that wasn’t made lightly but was driven by a growing sense of fear and unease about the direction of American politics.

Shore explained that Donald Trump’s reelection in 2024 deeply disturbed her. What affected her most wasn’t just the fact that Trump won, but that so many Americans had clearly seen his behavior over the years and still chose to support him again. It wasn’t like the first time, back in 2016, when some voters might have felt unsure or wanted to take a chance on someone outside the political system.

By 2024, everyone had years of experience watching how Trump led the country — the chaos, the scandals, the blatant disregard for democratic norms — and yet a large part of the population still decided that this was the kind of leadership they wanted. That, she said, was something she couldn’t emotionally or morally accept. It made her feel disgusted, as if the country had willingly embraced a form of extremism that she wanted no part of.

She described how Trump’s way of doing politics has made extreme and dangerous behavior seem normal. According to her, he doesn’t even try to hide unethical or outrageous actions  instead, he puts them right out in the open, almost daring people to care. This, she believes, has changed the entire tone of political life in the U.S., where being shameless has become a kind of strategy. What once would have been unthinkable is now just another headline, and people have become numb to it.

Shore also talked about a much darker fear — the idea that the U.S. might be moving closer to some kind of violent internal conflict. She’s genuinely worried that a civil war, or at least more widespread violence, could be possible. She mentioned the large number of guns in America and how often gun violence occurs. To her, it seems like violence is something Americans have come to expect or accept, while in many other parts of the world — like Europe — this kind of relationship with violence would be deeply shocking.

When Trump was first elected in 2016, Shore had already started feeling uneasy. She thought seriously about leaving the country even then, but her husband believed it was important to stay and try to be part of the solution. Over time, though, that hope began to fade. With Trump’s return to power in 2024, she felt there was no longer any room for denial. The direction the country was taking felt clear, and it was a direction she could no longer tolerate.

In the end, it wasn’t just a political decision for her — it was an emotional and moral one. She felt like the country she once called home had changed in a way that made her feel like a stranger in it. The idea that millions of people could see everything that had happened over the past eight years and still choose Trump again was simply too much for her to live with. That was the final push that made her and her husband pack up their lives and start over in another country, hoping to find a place where the values they believe in still matter.