authoritarianism
what we live under now
authoritarianism
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.
Timothy Snyder • On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
It is institutions that help us to preserve decency. They need our help as well. Do not speak of “our institutions” unless you make them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions do not protect themselves. They fall one after the other unless each is defended from the beginning. So choose an institution you care about—a court, a newspaper, a
... See moreTimothy Snyder • On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.
Timothy Snyder • On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
Life is political, not because the world cares about how you feel, but because the world reacts to what you do.
Timothy Snyder • On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
The hero of a David Lodge novel says that you don’t know, when you make love for the last time, that you are making love for the last time. Voting is like that.
Timothy Snyder • On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
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 multi-party system and defend the rules of democratic elections. Vote in local and state elections while you can. Consider running for office.
Timothy Snyder • On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
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
... See moreTimothy Snyder • On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
Sometimes institutions are deprived of vitality and function, turned into a simulacrum of what they once were, so that they gird the new order rather than resisting it. This is what the Nazis called Gleichschaltung.
Timothy Snyder • On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
The mistake is to assume that rulers who came to power through institutions cannot change or destroy those very institutions—even when that is exactly what they have announced that they will do.