Notes from a Fascist Present

A college professor finds himself under vicious attack — including death threats — because he wrote a book about the history of the anti-fascism movement …

On September 22, 2025, when Donald Trump announced a decree to categorize “antifa” — a generic term for anti-fascism — as a “terrorist organization,” Rutgers history professor Mark Bray little suspected that his life was about to change radically.

But, years earlier, Bray had written a history book called Antifa: The Antifascist Handbook, and soon after Trump’s decree, a right-wing student organization petitioned for Bray’s dismissal from his job. This was quickly followed by a series of increasingly virulent social media attacks, culminating in online death threats that included his home address. 

In the wake of the Charlie Kirk murder, Bray took the threats seriously and tried to flee the country with his wife and two small children — only to be stopped at the airport and interrogated by Department of Homeland Security agents.

Eventually, amidst an explosion of international media attention, Bray and his family managed to escape to Spain. But the experience left him a wreck.

Notes From a Fascist Present is an intimate journey to the heart of how this Trumpian moment and the new fascism it has birthed—a world of far-right influencers, social media soldiers, and networked violence that chased me from my home—has shockingly made the United States a place to flee from. Dispatched from formerly fascist Spain, Bray offers a crucial meditative roadmap of the tragedy of the fascist present in the United States, and hopeful visions of a post-fascist future.