On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder

Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

I’ve decided I might as well just go ahead and start calling 2018 my year of nonfiction. Two full months in and I’ve only read one traditional work of fiction out of the 10 books I’ve read. Also, I’m prepared to lose friends and alienate certain groups of people over this review and if that’s the case, so be it. I’ve accepted it and made my peace with it.

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Synopsis

The Founding Fathers tried to protect us from the threat they knew, the tyranny that overcame ancient democracy. Today, our political order faces new threats, not unlike the totalitarianism of the twentieth century. We are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience.

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Review

I will never support the current president of the United States. He is not the person that I voted for and he is not the person that the majority voted for. I woke up the day after Election Day 2016 in tears, not because we didn’t elect our first female president (yes, I was bummed about that), but because it seemed that a man who lied and connived his way into the top office managed to hoodwink a bunch of my fellow Americans into supporting him. I couldn’t believe it. I cried foul. Because they failed to notice the overt similarities between his campaign and those of the Nazi party and fascists of Europe in the twentieth century.

Now, let me make myself clear – I have nothing against Republicans, hell, most republicans I know do not like our current president. I do, however, have something to say to all those who let themselves be dragged into the media circus that was his campaign. It’s taken me a full year to finally come to terms with my feelings on the whole matter and I’m pleased to report that when I did finally settle into how I feel about it all, after many panic attacks and moments of depression and despair, I realized that this is not solely a gender issue. I’m not a whiny woman sad that Hilary does not sit in the oval office simply because I wanted a female president (someone I had once considered a friend accused me of this). It is, as Timothy Snyder outlines, an issue of tyranny and group behavior that leads to tyrannical leaders landing in power – and staying there.

Those who voted for the current president are supporting a man who acts against just about everything that the Founding Fathers sought to safeguard our country against. Snyder points out repeatedly that we have ignored history. And when we ignore history, especially recent history, we find ourselves doomed to repeat it. When we ignore nationalistic behavior, when we ignore propaganda and language that subverts our freedoms and democracy, when we turn on our neighbors and judge them by their race, religion, sexual identity, etc. we find ourselves screwed.

I absolutely refuse to sit idly by and watch that happen. I will not stay quite in the face of people who cannot manage a well reasoned argument or defense and simply resort to shouting the same mantra over and over. I refuse to let people degrade others by using harmful stereotypes to prejudge or discriminate against them. And I refuse to be silenced by those who would rather I say and do nothing at all.

Rating: 10 out of 10 stars

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