Thinking about...

A few thoughts for Americans for whom the survival of Ukraine is an electoral issue. Please watch and share. If you’re in Michigan and it’s 23 October, you can catch me live in Detroit at noon and in Kalamazoo at 7:00pm. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe

You have to be in a place to appreciate the television. And I think the history of fascism helps us to see what is happening in the ads.In public, the Trump presence in Ohio is weaker than in previous elections. There are fewer signs, and the big ones are in front of the small houses. There are fewer aggressive slogans in public, and the ones personally targeted Vice-President Harris are rarer and less vicious than the ones that targeted Hillary Clinton in 2016. On the other hand, there are more Trump flags and hybrid American/Trump flags, which is a bad sign that the state has merged with the Leader in the minds of people. And the message on television is certainly one of a much more refined fascism, which is what I am discussing in my third brief message today. The way the tv ads now follow Carl Schmitt’s advice of beginning politics by choosing an enemy follow fascist protocol by inventing imaginary crises around real human vulnerabilities. These themes are further explore in a number of my written posts.Please share this post. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe

Continuing yesterday’s theme on fascism, responding to questions about the possibility of American fascism. There have been American fascist movements in the past, and perhaps more importantly a tradition of us-and-them politics, sometimes under the surface. There are fascists in the present who continue American fascist traditions. And we invite fascism in the future by telling ourselves that it cannot happen here. Exceptionalism opens both the front and the back doors…In these remarks I invoke directly or indirectly:Sarah Churchwell, Behold, AmericaSarah Churchwell, “It has happened here,” New York Review of Books, 22 June 2020.Rachel Maddow, Prequel: An American Fight against FascismHeather Cox Richardson, “Letters from an American”Timothy Snyder, Black EarthThinking about... is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.PS: Correcting myself — I said 19 October; I meant 18 October 2024. TS This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe

People are talking about fascism. After a New York Times article was published today, I heard both from people who are baffled that we did not been speaking of fascism more and earlier, and from people who want to know what it means — and from people who want me to explain why fascism is bad. I am on the road, so I took ten minutes to make a little video about all of this. I hope it helps. As I’ll be driving around the country for the next ten days or so, I will likely do more of these. Let me know if you like the format. And please share!Some the ideas I talk about are expressed at greater length in this op-ed.In my remarks I refer directly or obliquely to these books:Jason Stanley, How Fascism WorksTimothy Snyder, BloodlandsTimothy Snyder, Black EarthTimothy Snyder, Road to UnfreedomTony Judt and Timothy Snyder, Thinking the Twentieth CenturyZeev Sternhell, Les anti-lumièresRobert Paxton, in Anatomy of Fascism, offers this pragmatic definition of fascism: “a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.”Thinking about... is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe

As a historian of forced population movements and as an American, I don’t think we are taking the consequences of the Trump-Vance deportation plan seriously enough. The reality will be much more personal and awful, and the politics more transformative and durable, than we might think. I will write this up soon; but I was moved to do a recording by the urgency of this, and by the desire to catch the end of Hispanic Heritage Month. Please listen and please share.Thinking about... is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe

This is the podcast version of a post from July which seemed timely now. I put the text below: what is new is the audio. You are receiving this as a subscriber, but please feel free to share!As the United States hovers at the edge of fascism, the history of Germany can help.To be sure, Americans have other histories to ponder, including their own. Some American states, right now, are laboratories of authoritarian rule (and resistance). The American 1860s and American 1930s reveal tactics authoritarians use, as well as the weaknesses of the American system, such as slavery and its legacy. At those times, though, Americans were lucky in their leadership. Lincoln and Roosevelt were in office at the critical moments. And so we lack the experience of the collapse of the republic.We can certainly learn from contemporary authoritarian success, as in Russia and in Hungary, which I have written about elsewhere. Yet the classic example of a major economic and cultural power collapsing into fascism remains Germany in 1933. The failure of the democratic experiment in Germany led to a world war as well as the Holocaust and other atrocities.Yet today a taboo hovers around anything concerning Hitler. As soon as the collapse of the German republic in 1933 is evoked, American voices commence a fake lament — America is uniquely good so nothing about Nazis can ever apply, and/or Hitler was uniquely evil and so nothing concerning him is relevant.To be sure, every person and every event is in some sense unique. But history is precisely the interaction of individuals and situations which, seen in isolation, will appear unique. The taboo on fascist history shoves people back to a turbulent present, leaving them feeling more helpless. It is an element of the fascist takeover.The lessons from Germany that I present below are not at all new. We have been trained by digital media to believe that only what happens right now matters. But the people who intend to destroy the American constitutional republic have learned from the past. One of the basic elements of Project 2025, for example, is what the Nazis called Gleichschaltung: transforming the civil service into a fascist nest.Those who wish to preserve the American constitutional republic should also recall the past. A good start would be just to recall the five basic political lessons of 1933.1. Voting matters. Hitler came to power after an election which enabled his appointment as head of government. It is much easier for fascists to begin from within than to begin from without. Hitler’s earlier coup attempt failed. But once he had legitimate power, inside the system as chancellor (prime minister), he could manipulate it from within. In the American system, “voting” means not just going to the polls yourself, but making donations, phone-banking, and knocking on doors. We are still, happily, at the stage when unglamorous actions can make the difference.2. Coalitions are necessary. In 1932, in the crucial German election, the far left and the center left were separated. The reasons for this were very specific: Stalin ordered the German communists to oppose the German social democrats, thereby helping Hitler to power. To be sure, the American political spectrum is very different, as are the times. Yet the general lesson does suggest itself: the left has to hold together with the the center-left, and their energies have to be directed at the goal rather than at each other.3. Conservatives should be conservative. Which way the center-right turns can be decisive. In Germany in 1932, conservatives enabled the counter-revolution. They did not see Hitler and his Nazis as something different from themselves. They imagined, somehow, that Hitler would preserve the system rather revolutionize it. They were wrong, and some of them paid for the mistake with their lives. As in American today, the German “old right” was less numerous than the “new right,” the fascists. But how the traditionalist center-right acts can very well make the difference.4. Big business should support democracy. In the Germany of the 1930s, business leaders were not necessarily enthusiastic about Hitler as a person. But they associated democracy with labor unions and wanted to break them. Seeing Hitler as an instrument of their own profit, business leaders enabled the Nazi regime. This was, in the end, very bad for business. Although the circumstances today are different, the general lesson is the same: whether they like it or not, business leaders bear responsibility for whether a republic endures or is destroyed.5. Citizens should not obey in advance. Much of fascism is a bluff — look at our loyal cult, listen to our outrageous language, heed our threats of violence, we are inevitable! Hitler was good at that sort of propaganda. Yet to gain power he needed luck and the errors of others. American fascism, likewise, is far from inevitable. It too is largely bluff, most of it digital. The internet is much more fascist tha

I thought this piece on our media religion, which I meant entirely seriously but which I hope is also fun, might be a useful preparation for the media this weekend and in weeks to come. This is the podcast version of a written post from July. I paste the text in below; what is new is the podcast. You receive it as a subscriber, but you are welcome to share it.Why does American television and press “both-sides” our politics? Why are such different presidential candidates presented as equally flawed? Why do the outrages of Trump, for example at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, lead to the humiliation of Biden?Both-Sidesism is the habit of reducing the world into two perspectives, treating the two as fundamentally alike, and then ignoring or adjusting the data. One cause of this odd behavior is the ownership of media companies. Another is fear. But Both-Sidesism is not just a practice. It passes in the United States for a principle of journalism. Indeed, the dualism is almost unquestionable. Americans tends to take it for granted.But it makes no sense. No data from the world around us indicates that two is the correct number of perspectives, nor that any two perspectives, once chosen, would be equal. These are, rather, articles of faith. Once accepted, they enable the public performance we wrongly call “media.” Both-Sideism does not mediate but mystify. Its practitioners, called “anchors” or “publishers,” are shamans or priests. Mystifiers.To be sure, “media” people do not think that they are mystifying. Nor are we in the habit of seeing them as practicing a religion. But let us step back. Let us consider, for the sake of argument, that Both-Sidesism might be a dualist cult. Let us place its beliefs and practices in the context of the history of religion, and see what happens.The number two has helped humans make sense of the world, from distant times to the present. It has had a powerful sway over human minds. The number two can address the mystery of creation. In Indo-European societies, the universe sometimes began as a coupling of two entities, for example the Earth and the Sky. Or the first Being could be of two sexes, or twinned. In several myths, twin gods ride to the rescue of early humans in peril.Duality can also help humans to frame the problem of evil, as in Manicheanism. Its founder Mani (enlightened by a spiritual twin) claimed that the universe was divided into darkness and light. Human action is then understood as struggle between these two forces.The number two can also help us handle time. The Romans had a two-faced god, Janus, who was in charge of doors, passages, and thus transitions in general, beginnings and endings. He is very much present with us at the beginning of each year; January is named for him.In Daoism we find something of all of the above in the notion of yin-yang: dark and light, chthonic and lively, female and male, wet and dry, which constantly join and give way to one another. Their interaction brings the world into being, and also enables natural and guides human action.Both-Sidesism is another dualism. When confronting a phenomenon, for example an election or a party convention, the acolytes of Both Sides perform two steps. They reduce events to two personalities, then treat them as equal aspects of the two-headed divinity known as Both Sides. Again: that there only two sides, and that the two aspects are the same, are unspoken articles of faith.Once this initial ritual has been performed, the task of the priesthood is to sense disturbances that disrupt the apparent equality of the two aspects of Both Sides. The mythic utterances of the priests of Both Sides – bad journalism -- resolve the cultic tension that appears when a difference between the two aspects emerges. Equality is restored in a peculiar way, one that emphasizes the sacred character of the dual god, at the expense of understanding reality. The priests cannot undo the deeds of one aspect of Both Sides – for example a coup attempt or a call to deport millions. And if they described it accurately, they would only be deepening the mystical inequality between Both Sides’ two aspects. They must normalize.Our Both-Sides priests correct the mystical imbalance with two mantric maneuvers. The first is to proclaim, groundlessly, that the perpetrator of the crime has learned his lesson, executed a pivot, turned a corner. The second is to humiliate the other side, the one that did nothing. And thus the mystical equilibrium between the two aspects of Both Sides is restored. This normalization has consequences. If one of the two aspects of Both Sides seems to have done a great evil, the priests of Both Sides always ritually vituperate the other side. The price of the restoration of mystical equality is the rehabilitation of the criminal and the degradation of the blameless. Our media people do not see it this way, of course. The restoration of the mystical equilibrium of Both Sides brings our priests a pio

After more than a year and a half of war, it can be hard to imagine it ending. And yet it can, and will. The Ukrainians can win this war, provided that we do not let them down. What they cannot do is constantly remind us how important the war is. We have do some of that work for ourselves.This history lecture, the Lax lecture delivered at Mt. Holyoke, is about the origins of Ukraine, in a deep sense. It begins with the observation that the war is of global significance. Its thesis is that this is true because, in a number of ways, the lands of Ukraine have been central to global history.You'll maybe need earphones for this one. The audio is not great. And the subjects might not be familiar. I am starting with the prehistory, working through the bronze age, and into the beginning of the historical record. I am trying to make European and global history make more sense on the basis of what we can learn about Ukraine.So take some time. In the constant blitz of particular events, I hope this will help. I always find Ukrainian history extraordinarily interesting in itself. And this deep history, if we attend to it a bit, also suggests what the war is about, and how it can be won.My next book, which I am finishing now, will be about freedom. After that I am hoping to write a brief but global history of Ukraine. This gives you a very preliminary sense of some of what I am thinking about. Thank you for coming along.Thinking about... is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe

Today the Ukrainian president visits to thank Americans for our support. The right kind of hospitality would be to thank Ukrainians for all that they have done for us and others. Here are ten reasons we should be grateful.(Kherson Oblast, Ukraine, TS)TS 19 September 2023 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe

Dear Friends,This is a lecture I delivered yesterday (6 April 2023) at Princeton University, in a series devoted to the European Union, and in the presence of colleagues who study Europe as social scientists and historians (and I was impressed by how many turned up!). I took as my title “Empire, Integration, and Ukraine,” because I wished to show how the present moment, that of the Russo-Ukrainian war, gives us a precious opportunity to consider what European integration actually means (and thus what it is for). The standard story from which both the policymakers and the scholars begin is that of European nation-states learning a lesson from the Second World War: war is bad; peace is good; trade is pacifying. This is very appealing, but it is not true. The historical trajectory is actually this: European empires lose wars; and after the Second World War, best understood as a German defeat in an imperial war, they begin a process of European integration that overlaps with (and distracts from, and compensates for) imperial defeat and decline. Seeing matters this way (as Tony Judt did in his Postwar) has the advantage of opening European history to world history, since part of the appeal of the standard story is that it allows Europeans to forget the imperial past. It also sets the Russo-Ukrainian war in a context that is easier to understand: another imperial war, where the defeat of the imperial power is a necessary condition for continued European integration. The actual question in European politics has been empire or integration, and this has been true for decades; the Russian invasion of Ukraine brings this to light. Russia’s invasion is obviously a colonial war; juxtaposing it with others helps us to understand it and think through the proper response.Once recognized, this basic historical truth should alter policy discussions. Trade might be pacifying, but the European example is of trade among defeated empires (in particular a defeated Germany). The defeat is part of the story not to be overlooked. In general, defeat (not peace) is the relevant category; it was not peace that happened Germans in 1945 or the Dutch in 1949 or the French in 1962, but defeat. We also see that the stakes of this war for the European project are as high as can be. Finally, we recognize that Ukraine resistance cannot be understood only in national categories, as we tend to do, but also in the broader categories of anti-colonialism and European integration.Drawing from arguments I made in Bloodlands, Black Earth and Road to Unfreedom, I develop all of this in what I hope is an accessible manner in the lecture, which I share with you now. TS 7 April 2023Thinking about... is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe

Russia’s war against Ukraine has been genocidal from the beginning. Genocide is a matter of actions, and a matter of intentions. In this lecture, delivered at Boston University on 28 October 2022, I give examples of all five of the crimes that are designated genocidal by the 1948 convention. In Russia’s war against Ukraine, the problem is not the absence of expressions of genocidal intention. If anything, Russian officials and propagandists provide so many of them that we risk being overwhelmed, becoming jaded, and demanding even more evidence. I recite a few straightforward declarations of genocidal purpose, but devote more time to categorizing nine forms of speech that we know express an intention to carry out genocidal acts. I realize that there are objections to the thesis of genocide: I begin with them. In my view, the core problem is that we do not want to believe that a genocide is going on, because that would make us bystanders. But it is this sort of reaction, precisely, that makes bystanders of people. Please listen. I am sending this lecture to all subscribers. If you would like access to all audio content and to the complete archive of all posts, please become a paid subscriber. On 4 November I will also host a live discussion with paid subscribers. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe

In this lecture, which I will summarize briefly here, I take the premise seriously. Democracy might or might not have a future. The signs, in general, are not good. The tendency, also in this country, is not encouraging. Our republic might have only a few years left. I will write about this soon.I try to make the case that the future is democracy, or it is not at all. We are used to people telling us that we have to choose between freedom and security. In fact, we have to choose both to get either. Climate change will be resolved if majorities are heeded. Those who accelerate climate change tend to be oligarchs backed by minorities.In the lecture, I try to show how the war in Ukraine is a specific (and terrible) instance of a general problem. Vladimir Putin is the most important of the hydrocarbon oligarchs. Like all of them, he has no plausible vision of the future, and instead tries to realize implausible visions that consume the future for everyone else. His personal fantasy is that there is no Ukraine. On this absurd basis Russia has invaded a neighboring country and begun a war of extermination.A sense of time is necessary for democracy. In the lecture, I move to the relationship between the future and the past. A tyrant who says that something has “always” been a certain way is consigning to “never” the things that actually happened. So the claims that Crimea was “always” Russia or that Ukraine and Russia were “always” together are not simply false; they are also a self-authorization to say that other peoples or countries “never” existed — and so that any signs of their existence have to be suppressed.Russia’s war against Ukraine has been genocidal. If Ukraine is not real, than anyone defending it must somehow be a foreigner; when more and more Ukrainians appear to defend their country, they too must be killed. These assertions of non-existence, I continue, raise the more interesting question of what it does mean to exist as a society or as a nation. What exactly is it that Russia is encountering in Ukraine? (And is it not a problem for Russia that the non-existence of Ukraine has become the central argument for the existence of Russia?)I contend that the “objective” measures that we apply from the outside to judge the existence of a society or a nation, such as ethnicity or language, are themselves often imperial forms of knowledge, suppressing or ignoring the actions and commitments of the people in question. The fact that Ukrainians are bilingual is very confusing to both Russians and Americans; in fact, Ukrainian use of language, for example in creative wartime communications, is an example of creative self-assertion. I contend in the lecture that the existence of Ukraine as a society and as a nation is better understood as a matter of recent experience, including the ability to change leaders through elections, and defend that process when necessary. The war itself has been carried out in large measure by a Ukrainian civil society that has constituted itself in the last decade. The Ukrainian president’s choice to remain in the country, I argue, is an important reminder that democracy exists as a commitment, or not at all. In taking a physical risk, he was making possible certain kinds of futures that would otherwise have been impossible. Democracy depends upon choices of this kind. In the United States, people were generally convinced that Volodomyr Zelens’kyi would fled the country, and that Ukraine would quickly fold. This was a sign of our own problems.We (and this is lecture’s conclusion) have tended to forget that democracy is about the future, and as such can only exist when individuals seek to generate futures on the basis of values with the help of institutions that allow them to do so. Since 1991, since the end of the Soviet Union and the beginning of Ukrainian independence, we have tended to believe the democracy was inevitable, because there were no alternatives, because capitalism would guarantee it, and so on. In fact, placing faith in structural factors and abstractions makes democracy impossible. Democracy will always be a struggle.This is just a summary! The points are much better made in the lecture itself, which was delivered at Stony Brook on 19 October.PS I am making this lecture and this summary available to all on the mailing list, but please do subscribe if you can. Paid subscription will give you access to the entire archive, as well as access to a number of other podcasts, as well as to on-line exchanges with me, which will resume in a few days.Thinking about... is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe

In this lecture, I begin from a recent clip on Russian television: a Russian soldier explaining that, if Ukrainians do not accept that they are Russians, it will be necessary to kill a million of them, five million of them, or all of them.The man in question is a known fascist (he appears in my book Road to Unfreedom), and what he says opens the way to a discussion of the character of Russian fascism. We have no trouble seeing the genocidal aspects of the Russian invasion — the eliminationist language, the deportations, the mass murders, the rape — but we do not always grasp how they are connected to the notion of the non-existence of Ukraine. The Russian soldier claims that Ukrainians are “possessed. This reveals a basic current of Russian fascism that one finds in a favored thinker of Putin (whom he just cited again) and in television propaganda. In this mindset, Russia’s enemy is actually “Satan” (I will develop this theme in a written post to come). In the next part of the lecture, I move to the related topic of Russian colonialism, using history to explain how there is no basis for the claim that Crimea in particular, or Ukraine in general, were “always” part of Russia. Indeed, the “always” claim is part of an imperial maneuver by which power is able to begin things “anew.” Both Catherine the Great at the time of the annexation of Crimea and southern Ukraine, and Vladimir Putin now, make “always” claims on the basis of obliterating actual history. Their “always” is the “never” that is insisted upon for Ukraine and for Crimea. I conclude the lecture with the argument that democracy can succeed when those who support it are aware of history, are aware of their own historical predicaments, and choose to act. In this sense, Ukrainian resistance is a model. If we believe that democracy will be brought to us by structural factors, then we will get more fascism, more genocide, more imperialism. But we do not have to believe that. We can believe instead that democracy is always a struggle, but that the struggle is worth it. On this theme the lecture concludes. It was delivered 12 October 2022 at the University of Connecticut.PS Most of the audio content here is for paid subscribers. I am sending this one out to everyone, but I would appreciate it if you would subscribe if you can. If you do, you will have access to all of the podcasts, as well as to an archive of all of the written material, as well as to live interactions starting later this month.Thinking about... is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.TS, 14 October 2022 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe

This year I have been writing a philosophical book about freedom, in which the war in Ukraine and Volodymyr Zelens’kyi figure in important ways. A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of a long conversation with President Zelens’kyi, which was entirely devoted to the subject of freedom. I was able to pursue with him several interesting conceptions that he himself has advanced, in word and in deed, these last seven months, since his decision to remain in Kyiv despite the Russian invasion. One of the things we spoke about was the tradition of the dissidents of the 1970s and 1980s, and in particular Václav Havel’s idea of “living in truth.” In the lecture recorded here, which I was very happy to be able to give at a conference at Colby College devoted to Havel last Saturday, I work together some of the main themes of the thinking of Zelens’kyi and of Havel, and present elements of my argument about the nature of freedom. I am proud of this lecture, and hope that you will enjoy it. PS As I’ve been saying for months now, Ukraine is winning the war. Look out for some headlines about Ukrainian advances in the next day or two.PPS Normally I keep audio material for paid subscribers only, but this time I will release it for everyone. If you can, though, I would appreciate it if you subscribe. Doing so opens the archive to you, and will give you access to other audio material, as well as on-line discussions with me to be scheduled in the months to come.Thinking about... is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe

Lesson 13. 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. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe

Lesson 12. Make eye contact and small talk. This is not just polite. It is part of being a citizen and a responsible member of society. It is also a way to stay in touch with your surroundings, break down social barriers, and understand whom you should and should not trust. If we enter a culture of denunciation, you will want to know the psychological landscape of your daily life. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe

Lesson 11: Investigate. Figure things out for yourself. Spend more time with long articles. Subsidize investigative journalism by subscribing to print media. Realize that some of what is on the internet is there to harm you. Learn about sites that investigate propaganda campaigns (some of which come from abroad). Take responsibility for what you communicate to others. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe

Lesson 10: Believe in Truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe

Lesson 9: Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying. Make an effort to separate yourself from the internet. Read books. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe

Lesson 8: Stand out. Someone has to. It is easy to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different. But without that unease, there is no freedom. Remember Rosa Parks. The moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe

Lesson 7. “If you carry a weapon in public service, may God bless you and keep you. But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things. Be ready to say no.”In the podcast, I go into greater depth about the sources of this lesson: the mass atrocities carried out by German policemen and soldiers during the Second World War. I also spend some time on what might help all of us to be more reflective about the past and present. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe

Dear All, It’s been one of the great pleasures of my life as a writer to speak about the new graphic edition of On Tyranny with its illustrator, Nora Krug. Her interpretation of the book is astounding and beautiful, and in our public conversations I have much enjoyed making contact with her and with our new public. There has also been a good deal of discussion of the book on television. I am now getting back to these podcasts, and will get them all out to you by Christmas (not by Hanukkah, which is coming very early this year!). This lesson and this podcast is about paramilitaries. As we approach the anniversary of our coup attempt, with investigation slow and coup plotters defiant, it is, I fear, more timely than ever. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe

As you know, I am releasing new discussions of the twenty lessons from On Tyranny, first as videos (notifying subscribers) and then as podcasts (for everyone). We have reached the fifth of twenty podcasts. In the book, the fifth lesson reads: “Remember professional ethics. When political leaders set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become more important. It is hard to subvert a rule-of-law state without lawyers, or to hold show trials without judges. Authoritarians need obedient civil servants, and concentration camp directors seek businessmen interested in cheap labor.”We know from these and other examples (which I develop in the book) how quickly professions can adapt (and how the shame of having done so endures). But we also have hopeful signs, for example from 2020, of how professional ethics can adapt in positive ways. It mattered that reputable lawyers stayed away from Mr. Trump’s coup attempt, and that reputable judges insisted on rules of evidence. It mattered that business leaders and organized labor, in an unusual moment of unity, rejected Mr. Trump’s big lie in a timely fashion. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe

The text of lesson four reads:“Take responsibility for the face of the world. The symbols of today enable the reality of tomorrow. Notice the swastikas and the other signs of hate. Do not look away, and do not get used to them. Remove them yourself and set an example for others to do so.”Now that Nora Krug has made On Tyranny a deeper and better book with her transformative art, this lesson is even closer to me than it was in the past. Like much of On Tyranny, lesson four is about recognition and defense: seeing a problem, resolving it, bearing responsibility. The illustrations in the new On Tyranny suggest a more hopeful reading: we can make the face of the world better, more enlivening, more suggestive of possibility. I am not an artist; I am convinced, though, that we cannot make it as a democracy without art. We all need to be slightly less predictable versions of ourselves, which is one definition of what art does for us. Democracy needs a future; a future needs imagination; imagination needs art.I hope you enjoy this podcast, in which I speak about what lesson four means to me now. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe

“Lesson 3. Beware the one-party state. The parties that remade states and suppressed rivals were not omnipotent from the start. They exploited a historic moment to make political life impossible for their opponents. So support the multiple-party system and defend the rules of democratic elections. Vote in local and state elections while you can. Consider running for office.”This is the third of twenty podcasts, discussing the twenty lessons of On Tyranny. This one, about the one-party state, is at least as timely as it was in 2017, when the book originally appeared. In the text, I discuss the historical examples of one-party states. I then explain the vicious cycle that begins when a party begins to seek power by subverting elections. The less practiced it becomes in using democratic methods to seek power, the more dangerous it becomes in power. In the podcast, I describe how this has played out these last few years, and what I expect by 2025. PS: In the graphic edition, Nora Krug’s artwork brings out a point that was only implicit in the original book: that the South after 1877 was in effect a one-party state. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe

The last podcast was about lesson one, not obeying in advance. That is the first lesson of On Tyranny because all of the others depend upon it. If we do obey in advance, if we normalize what is coming before it even arrives, we are part of the problem of tyranny. If we can preserve our own sense of values, if "normal” for us means what is good and right and not just whatever happens, then we have a chance to follow some of the other lessons. Number two is about defending institutions, and this could hardly be more timely. Our American democracy is under threat: not just from a violent attempt to overthrow it, not just by a big lie about the last election, but from a nasty legalism that instructs us that whatever becomes the law must be democratic. This is not true. All around the world democracies are ending because parliaments pass laws that make democratic institutions ever less so. Defending institutions means defending the values that should inform them, not just following along with whatever happens. Ultimately the only way to defend institutions is to make them better. This is the second podcast in a series of twenty to come, accompanying the publication of the graphic edition of On Tyranny. It was published earlier this week, and quickly (thanks to Nora Krug’s stunning graphic adaptation, and thanks to the support of you and others like you) became, on that day at least, the bestselling book in the country. I hope that means that this and the other lessons will continue to help us. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe

Today is the publication day of a new graphic edition of my book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. Thanks to the extraordinary artwork of Nora Krug, it is now a deeper and better book. I have kept the lessons exactly as they were, but changed some of the supporting text to account for experiences of the past five years, and for the challenges of the years to come. In that spirit, I have also made new recordings discussing each of the twenty lessons. As promised, I will be uploading podcasts of every lesson, twice a week, for the next ten weeks. This is the first one! Let me know what you think. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe

Dear Friends, this essay elicited touching and interesting reactions, and I am encouraged to think and write more about our melancholy politics of parenting. This was also my most widely read essay at the time it was published, which was 20 May. Because it is very personal, I liked reading it. I hope you appreciate this version, which I am sending to everyone. In general, the writing will be for everyone, and the podcasts for subscribers. If you are not a subscriber and would like access to all of the podcasts, please do sign up. TS This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe

Dear Friends, this is one of my favorite posts. I think some of it works better in the spoken language. I hope you enjoy it. I am sending this one out to everyone, although in general the podcasts are for subscribers. If you would like to have access to all of the podcasts, as well as to an archive of all of the posts, please do sign up. This text was published on 17 April 2021. TS This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe

This is my most recent post, read aloud by me. I chose to record it first, and to send it to everyone, because it deals with the preservation of democracy in the United States.If you would like to receive podcast versions of my other posts, please subscribe, if you have not already done so. Subscribers will receive audio as well as text versions of all past and future posts. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe