My Grandmother Told Me These Stories… I Never Thought I’d See Them Again.’ — Jeffrey Lax | The Erin Molan Show
3 weeks ago
In this highlight, Professor Jeffrey Lax delivers one of the most personal and emotional moments ever shared on The Erin Molan Show.
Responding to Erin’s question about the political climate in New York, Lax draws parallels between what he’s seeing today — ideological alliances, social pressure, infrastructure disruptions, and rising hostility — and the stories passed down from his grandmother, a Holocaust survivor.
What shakes him most is not dramatic violence, but the soft complacency that allowed dangerous ideas to become normalized in pre-war Europe — and the casual way his grandmother remembered it happening.
Erin and Jeffrey explore:
• Why subtle shifts in culture are the hardest to recognize
• How “casual” changes become warning signs in hindsight
• The emotional weight of generational memory
• What Lax says is the first moment in his life he has felt real fear for America
• Why he believes this moment affects everyone, not just one community
This conversation is less about politics and more about history, identity, and the responsibility to recognize patterns before they become irreversible.
If this moved you, please LIKE, SHARE, and SUBSCRIBE. Conversations like this matter.
⭐ CHAPTERS
0:00 Erin asks about the “Mamdani era” in New York
0:20 Jeffrey Lax: “It’s already here”
0:45 The campus incident that shocked him
1:20 The unexpected ideological alliance
2:00 Erin: The horseshoe theory
2:28 “This is the first time I’ve ever been scared”
3:10 The pre-war parallels
4:00 The grandmother story — and its emotional weight
5:00 The danger of casual normalization
6:00 Erin: “These signs happened before. Why ignore them now?”
7:00 Why Lax says everyone should be paying attentio
Responding to Erin’s question about the political climate in New York, Lax draws parallels between what he’s seeing today — ideological alliances, social pressure, infrastructure disruptions, and rising hostility — and the stories passed down from his grandmother, a Holocaust survivor.
What shakes him most is not dramatic violence, but the soft complacency that allowed dangerous ideas to become normalized in pre-war Europe — and the casual way his grandmother remembered it happening.
Erin and Jeffrey explore:
• Why subtle shifts in culture are the hardest to recognize
• How “casual” changes become warning signs in hindsight
• The emotional weight of generational memory
• What Lax says is the first moment in his life he has felt real fear for America
• Why he believes this moment affects everyone, not just one community
This conversation is less about politics and more about history, identity, and the responsibility to recognize patterns before they become irreversible.
If this moved you, please LIKE, SHARE, and SUBSCRIBE. Conversations like this matter.
⭐ CHAPTERS
0:00 Erin asks about the “Mamdani era” in New York
0:20 Jeffrey Lax: “It’s already here”
0:45 The campus incident that shocked him
1:20 The unexpected ideological alliance
2:00 Erin: The horseshoe theory
2:28 “This is the first time I’ve ever been scared”
3:10 The pre-war parallels
4:00 The grandmother story — and its emotional weight
5:00 The danger of casual normalization
6:00 Erin: “These signs happened before. Why ignore them now?”
7:00 Why Lax says everyone should be paying attentio
