I imagine many of you are already familiar with Timothy Snyder’s thin volume On Tyranny. As Snyder offers twenty lessons to help resist encroaching tyranny, it feels more than coincidental that the book was released just a month after the first inauguration of Donald Trump. Oh, timely. That’s the word. Timely.
Many of the lessons that Snyder offers are pretty straightforward. For instance, the first lesson is “do not obey in advance” and the second one is “defend institutions.” These are explicitly, obviously, political. Others are more surprising, and actually the reason that I read the book. A friend and colleague of mine pointed me towards the chapter “Make Eye Contact and Small Talk,” in which Snyder recognizes that engaging with our neighbours and community members in a casual way also offers us a way of disrupting tyranny by humanizing ourselves to one another and offering solidarity as we navigate the world.
Of the other chapters, one that stood out in particular was “Be Wary of Paramilitaries.” I’ll offer a quotation from the book here. See if you can spot any parallels to real lice. I mean life. Sorry, messed up IFE and ICE there for a second:
“When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching with torches and pictures of a leader the end is nigh. When the pro-leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle the end has come.”
The chapter discusses how government wants to retain exclusive right over the use of violence. If other groups can use violence, it gets in the way of official government business. So, tyranny operates by creating and funding violent organizations that involve themselves in politics: “such groups can take the form of a paramilitary wing of a political party, the personal body guard of a particular politician, or apparently spontaneous citizens’ initiatives, which usually turn out to have been organized by a party or its leader.” I can’t help but think of all the people that have been emboldened to, say, storm the capital. Or, say, the “lone wolves” that are encouraged to take action against Democrats like Nancy Pelosi’s husband. Or, say, the private security details that removed Trumps’ opponents from rallies and all of the willing audience members who became part of the mob. Or, say, bringing in ICE and the National Guard against citizens without concern over due process. Encouraging the use of the 2nd amendment almost certainly enables the right to solidify their authoritarianism, rather than its supposed intent to resist tyrannical government.
Another lesson I found resonant was “Believe in Truth.” Criticizing power relies on having a basis of truth and it’s no wonder that the Trump administration, along with technogiant capitalists, want us to reject ideas of truth. If we don’t have a common understanding of truth, it prevents us from mobilizing against tyranny and exploitation. Snyder documents different ways that truth erodes:
1. “The first mode is the open hostility to verifiable reality, which takes the form of presenting inventions and lies as if they were facts.” I think we see this process everywhere. When talking to MAGA supporters, how many times have we watched the facts been declared as “fake news”? How many times have blatantly wrong views been supported by “do your own research” (i.e. don’t listen to the experts, listen to the random unaccredited people that I trust)? Snyder notes that on the campaign trail, 78% of Trump’s factual claims were false. But that’s not the point. The point is to destabilize what even counts as truth because that makes it easier for tyrants to exploit people. They have the freedom to pretend reality is false.
2. “Shamanistic incantation.” Snyder notes that the “fascist style depends on endless repetition designed to make the fictional plausible and the criminal desirable.” He refers to how Trump’s nicknames for his enemies displace his negative qualities elsewhere, but I’d argue that his slogans (“make America great again”) are repeated without true understanding of the true implications, or a lack of concern for nuance in any case. We see it in the talking points the press secretary refuses to deviate from. Repeat it enough, and it becomes true.
3. “Magical thinking, or the open embrace of contradiction.” Snyder gives the example of the campaign promises to cut taxes while increasing spending for social policy and national defence. There’s a blasé attitude that things will just work themselves out and people have to accept that all is possible. I would also point to all of the nonsense comedians-on-the-street point out to people at Trump rallies. For example, they’ll openly embrace the contradiction that Leftists are weak and effeminate and yet also the biggest threat to the state.
4. “Misplaced faith.” Need we even comment on the AI-generated images of a Godlike Trump?
One area that I would maybe push back on Snyder a little bit is his assertion that one way of resisting tyranny is to be a patriot. I understand where he’s coming from—you’re a true patriot if you defend the place you’re from and your community. I think my sense of ‘patriotism’ has just been eroded through all the people that claim patriotism as a character trait. To me, patriotism as it is is primarily servant to the state, and the state is too often aligned with tyranny. But I get what he’s saying.
Of course, this edition of On Tyranny is also the expanded audio edition. While the initial book was maybe only a hundred pages, Snyder’s expanded edition goes on for hours more. It’s compelling that he applies the lessons of On Tyranny to the history of Ukraine and Russia. The specifics of the history were informative but I’m more interested in the ‘big picture’ concepts. In particular, the totalizing views of history. Tyranny relies on both the “politics of inevitability” and the “politics of eternity.” The latter is more immediately obvious with respect to Russia: Putin relies on Russia’s foundational myth, a myth for a moment in time that never really existed but nonetheless establishes the justification for invading Ukraine. The corollary is that all of history is inevitable. Everything must be that way and therefore all suffering and displacement of Ukrainians is necessary.
If you’re interested in politics and history, On Tyranny is worth a read. The original text is definitely insightful from a political standpoint and the expanded one is a better fit for history enthusiasts. Both are accessible to a general audience, so don’t be intimidated—and also, smile at your neighbours.
Happy reading!
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