On Jurisdiction

Fighting fascism by taking a walk.

Feb 06, 2025

Jurisdiction (noun). From the Latin jūrisdictiōn-em, < jūris, genitive of jūs law + dictio, noun of action < dīcere to say, declare.

The extent or range of judicial or administrative power; the territory over which such power extends.

—Oxford English Dictionary

We historians claim jurisdiction over the history of the law: we have the right to speak the law’s history. When Trumpist insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, I was teaching historiography on Zoom. I used it as a teaching opportunity (everything is). I invited my young apprentice historians to imagine how future historians might think about the events of the day. This was very early in Cal Poly’s Winter Quarter, probably the first or second class meeting. I didn’t know my students very well yet, and they didn’t know me. But already they understood the importance of what we were doing that day. I remember I said something about “so-called” Attorney General Bill Barr, and one of my students echoed back “so-called” in the Zoom chat. Already this young historian understood the importance of denying Barr, who by then had betrayed his oath to the Constitution many times over, jurisdiction, the right to speak the law. Neither I nor my students imagined that four years later, the man who launched that insurrection would be in the White House again, announcing his plans to complete Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people so he can turn Gaza into a giant hotel/casino, while Members of Congress pound on the locked doors of the U.S. Treasury (currently held by a ketamine-addled Nazi broligarch with, as I never tire of reminding you, no Constitutional authority and no actual government job), trying in vain to exercise their Constitutional right to ensure that the monies they have appropriated to “provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States” are indeed being used for that noble purpose. But here we are.

Lately I fight fascism by taking a walk. This is Snyder’s 13th Lesson: “Practice corporeal politics. Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and march with them.”1 The original jurisdiction of the land on which I walk belongs to indigenous people such as the Tsebekinéndé.2 Theirs is the oldest claim: that those who walk the land are part of the land and have the right to speak for it. The next jurisdiction belongs to the United States of America. President Obama used the Antiquities Act to make this land into part of the Organ Mountains - Desert Peaks National Monument. The Bureau of Land Management speaks the law on this land now. I’ve met a couple of the local BLM rangers, and they are great folks who love the land and the people who walk on it. But if Las Cruces BLM falls to the Trumpists, then jurisdiction will pass immediately to Alt National Park Service (altnps.bsky.social), a coalition of brave civil servants who are determined to stay at their posts and uphold their oaths to the Constitution for as long as they can. I told them yesterday that history will remember them long after it has consigned Trump and Musk to its dustbin. Like so much of my speech lately, this speech is performative: I say it in order to make it true. And since I’m a historian, I have the power to make it true. I’ll write it myself if I have to.

Yesterday I took a picture of myself on the Monument, wearing my unofficial BLM hat and my gayest Wonder Woman t-shirt, and I sent it to Alt National Park Service along with my report that the Monument was gorgeous and free of fascism. It made me feel weirdly patriotic. I never felt patriotic when I was growing up here, because I didn’t know any better than to accept the lie that conservatives have a monopoly on patriotism. But now I work for the United States of America and I report to Alt National Park Service. And the fossil fuel flack who currently runs the Interior Department will turn this place into an oil field over my dead body. While I was walking the land I saw something that looked like a manufactured object. I went to look at it, because if it was trash, then picking it up would be part of my job as a BLM trail monitor. But it wasn’t trash. It was one of those retractable dog leashes, which someone had placed delicately atop a barrel cactus. I deduced that the leash had been misplaced by a responsible dog owner (the minimum BLM rule is that dogs must be under the control of their owners; leashes are required on some trails). And another hiker had found the leash and left it on the cactus where the person it belonged to was likely to find it. And I saw that Kropotkin had been right all along. The law of nature is not “survival of the fittest,” as social Darwinist biology3 and Malthusian political economy would have us believe. The law of nature is mutual aid.4 The person who returns a tool that someone needs to keep everyone else safe from their pet dog is speaking that law, loud and clear.

Today we had to transact some routine business with some of those federal employees who are at their posts upholding their oaths. They were nothing but kind and helpful and you better believe we thanked them profusely for their service. Finding myself feeling weirdly patriotic again, I put on my AOC t-shirt and once again did my part to keep the Monument free of fascism. Today a bicyclist was coming off a side trail to join the main trail just ahead of me. As I approached she lost her balance and fell down. I rushed up to see if she was OK, because like I said, that’s nature’s law. She was fine. And she loved my AOC shirt. In fact she loved it so much she asked if she could take a picture of it. I said sure. And then she asked if it was OK if my face was in the picture. I said well I just took a selfie and posted it to Alt National Park Service so go for it. Turns out she was there doing recon for a field trip. So there’s at least one teacher or teacher’s aide around here who loves democracy and hates fascism and plans to bring a group of kids there to enjoy our beautiful fascism-free public lands. And that gives me hope.

Above: 160,000 Germans protest against the neo-Nazi AfD party in Berlin, Feb. 2025.

I claim jurisdiction to say who is a Nazi. My credentials are an earned doctorate in modern European history from a major research university and 27 years of experience teaching the history of Nazism at a university. I say to you now that Elon Musk is a Nazi. Don’t say he’s just autistic. Half my family is autistic, and every single one of us knows better than to go around making fucking Nazi salutes. If you make excuses for Musk’s Nazi salute, you’re helping the fascists. Ein hitlergruß ist ein hitlergruß. Don’t believe me? How about 160,000 Germans protesting the Musk-endorsed neo-Nazi AfD? You better believe them, because if you try that shit in their jurisdiction, they will throw your Nazi ass in jail. And you can bet the bullshit that Musk posts on Twitler while he’s cooling his heels will be worse than Mein Kampf.

In a society ruled by law, jurisdiction belongs to the person who cares the most about the law. We learn this from the brilliant legal mind of Romo Lampkin. In a society ruled by law, an attorney’s right to speak privately with their client is sacrosanct. “I want to speak with my client, you don’t care, I win,” says Lampkin.

And so I claim jurisdiction, once again, as a historian, to speak the history of the law. And I say to you that the 28th Amendment, also known as the Equal Rights Amendment, is a part of the United States Constitution.5 In 1972, over 90% of each house of Congress voted to recommend the ERA to the states for ratification. Congress asked the states to ratify it by a certain date in the purely advisory resolution they used to transmit the proposed amendment to them, but not in the text of the amendment itself (as they did with several other amendments). Several states have purported to rescind their ratifications, but no take-backs! If there were take-backs, you better believe the MAGA states would un-ratify the 13th and make Black Americans slaves again. So when Virginia became the 38th state to ratify it, the ERA became part of the Constitution. If you say it doesn’t count because some states missed the non-binding deadline or because some states tried to un-ratify even though they can’t actually do that, you’re helping the fascists.

Jurisdiction matters. Every day Trump issues orders purporting to direct various federal agencies to engage in sex-based discrimination. These orders are unconstitutional. Everyone who cares about the law needs to say so. Today a coalition of state Attorneys General advised hospitals in their jurisdictions that Trump’s order purporting to ban gender-affirming health care is unlawful. These state AGs speak the law in their states, and I am grateful for their service. Now we must speak the law of the United States of America. We must speak this great nation’s highest law, its Constitution. I speak of that Constitution’s history. In 1972 it was proposed to the several states, and in 2020 it became the law of the land, that “Equality of Rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex.” I speak not for women or transgender people, for they speak for themselves. I speak for the United States of America, and I say to you that all Americans are diminished until all Americans are equal in this jurisdiction that is our nation.

Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. New York: Crown, 2017.