SHOWING THE FACE OF TYRANNY
Professor’s advice list on Facebook expanded and released as book
NEW YORK Timothy Snyder would have preferred a different path to the bestseller lists.
The Yale University professor and scholar of European history, whose books include Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, was so alarmed by the election of Donald Trump last fall that soon after he posted, on Facebook, “20 Lessons from the 20th Century on How to Survive in Trump’s America.” His advice ranged from “Be kind to our language” to “Believe in truth” to “Do not obey in advance.”
The list went viral and the Penguin Random House imprint Tim Duggan Books released an expanded edition of Snyder’s warnings that quickly reached high on Amazon.com’s bestseller list. With more than 100,000 copies in print, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century has become a guide for many worried about democracy under Trump’s administration.
In a recent interview, Snyder spoke of why he posted the initial list, what concerns him now and what he’d like to see happen:
ON HIS FACEBOOK POSTING
“What I thought I should try to do as quickly as possible, and economically as possible, concisely as possible, was pass on what I think I understand about regime change, in the negative sense, from democracy to authoritarianism. And (to pass on) what I think I’ve learned from people who are smarter than me and who have experienced more than me, in Europe in the 20th century, about what that looks like and how it should be resisted.
“And my sense, which has been confirmed in the weeks and months that followed, is that many Americans understand something strange has happened, but don’t quite know where to turn for guidance about what to do.”
ON U.S. DEMOCRACY
“How long has America really been a democracy, in the sense of people being allowed to vote? I would say, circa 1965, Civil Rights Act? If not all of your citizens can vote, you’re not really a democracy. So were talking about half a century, tops. In addition to that, we’re not a democracy now, in the very important sense that there are voter suppression laws, there is an Electoral College, which means (some) people’s votes don’t count the same as other people’s votes. There is a gerrymandered system at the level of congressional districts, so that again means (some) people’s votes don’t count the same as other people’s votes.
“And we have an absurd amount of money in politics, which creates a situation in which someone like Mr. Trump can say, ‘Sure I’m a billionaire, but at least I’m YOUR billionaire. You don’t know what the other side’s billionaires are.’ ”
CHANGES HE’D LIKE
“The things that happen here now, that so alarm us or surprise us, have generally happened in some form in some other country in the not-too-distant past. But we’ve shut ourselves out from that. We’ve made ourselves much more provincial than we used to be. I would think a thoughtful government, rather than attacking the press as is the case now, would incentivize young people to go into careers in journalism. A thoughtful government would find ways to support institutions of the press which actually report abroad. This may seem like a minor thing, but really it’s not.”