It’s very easy to say some leader whose politics you disagree with is a tyrant or a fascist or something along those lines. It happens every day. Godwin’s Law, the idea that an argument online that runs long enough will eventually reference Hitler, exists for a reason. However, are there any signs of what to look for to ensure actual tyranny doesn’t happen to occur in the United States or other free democracies around the world?
Yale history professor Timothy Snyder had some thoughts on that for his short book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century.
Snyder’s book, running about 120 or so pages, is basically just what it says on the title. He offers twenty short lessons, the longest being maybe eight pages, on how to both recognize and then resist the efforts of autocrats in the United States, leaders who would weaponize the truth into propaganda, deny the humanity of others, and eventually attempt to end elections. To demonstrate how these plans work and how to fight back, Snyder offers examples from the rise of fascism on the right and communism on the left as examples of how these systems overrun the complacent and take power. Some of his pointers are good ideas in general to be a good citizen in any functional democracy, like vote in every election and don’t just accept it when elected officials say and do bad things.
That said, though he never names the man, Snyder clearly believes Donald Trump has tyrannical impulses and is not fit for office. He routinely refers to “the president” in a way that makes it obvious who he is talking about. He isn’t shy about naming other American or international figures like Hilary Clinton and Vladimir Putin, but for some reason, Trump remains anonymous in Snyder’s work. If that sort of thing is a deal-breaker, then you’ve been warned. Otherwise, there isn’t much to this book. It’s a bit of history of European (for the most part) dictatorships from the 20th century with an eye on preventing such future occurrences. That may be worth reading, but it’s not much more than a very surface level discussion of history. If you want to know more about actual history and not just compare then to now in America, you will probably need to find it elsewhere.
Grade: C+
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