Self‑terrorism is not strength, it’s weakness weaponized. Gutting the FBI, abandoning cyber defense, and militarizing cities isn’t protection, it’s sabotage of the nation’s own guardrails.
The Trump administration thrives on provoking violence, then exploiting it to tighten authoritarian control. That’s not governance, it’s a deliberate cycle of cruelty: dismantle defenses, wait for blood, then use the chaos as justification to oppress.
The most pathetic part is how predictable it all is. Authoritarians don’t need foreign enemies when they can manufacture domestic ones. And the people who enable this: politicians, institutions, sycophants; prove that money and power matter more to them than democracy or dignity.
Naming this pattern is the first step to breaking it. My goal is to talk about this more in my pieces too.
—Johan
Professor of Behavioral Economics & Applied Cognitive TheoryFormer Foreign Service Officer
Provoking &/or inciting external "threats" by labelling alleged drug runners "narco terrorists" & then murdering them while pardoning a global drug kingpin;
Provoking &/or inciting internal "threats" by labelling critics as traitors, & immigrants or naturalized citizens as "garbage"
We've already descended into the madness of seeing groupthink only, Joseph.
Here, in his 3rd-from-the-last para, Professor Snyder refers to how "We can be alert to the use of the undocumented as an emotional key to a politics of us and them."
But look at U.S. schools. Almost all of them -- up to and including the Ivies of "higher" ed -- have abandoned the reading of whole books. Who anymore reads or quotes for the delectation of broader contexts, the subtleties of complicated reality?
What rules imaginatively instead? The five-paragraph texts which are the max anyone finds in standardized testing.
Social media, all of it hate-&-sensationalism algorithm driven, doesn't help (though it does help the worst of our techie billionaires to keep divorcing themselves from human reality).
Yes, Donald and his fellow fools Vought, Miller, Vance, Noem, Hegseth, Bondi, Patel, Gabbard, `Homan all have their groupthink. As do their tens of millions of cult followers. And how many Dems evidence literacy alternative to that?
How many commenters here ever cite any whole books or anything from them, as if any have any alternative imagination beyond the standardized testing models of neutered humanity group think and the inexorably inevitable linearity which now rule?
Good point. We live in an era of sound bites and attention spans measured in seconds. I find myself more and more unusual in reading whole books, whether non-fiction or fiction.
Equally important is calling out the spineless Republican Congress. Congress has the power and the duty to keep the executive in check. The Supreme Court has a role in this duty also. Both branches are
shirking their responsibilities. The Founders feared this situation, an attempted power grab by one branch. I don't believe they thought the United States would be governed by women and men of so little integrity or substance. They believed we would always be governed by people with honor!
Thank you. We are 77 and 82 and believe in history, know fascism is real. I have applied to find my mom's Canadian birth certificate. Your summary of 1938 Germany is why. We are part of the resistance here. We believe we elders should be in all marches/protests. Shoot the grandparents? We also have family and friends here who are not going to leave. All our healthcare, substantial subjects, is here. What can I read to help me know what to do?
I went through that process too. Another family member and I applied for a parent's birth certificate during his first term. It took a long time in our case, but I'm grateful that I now have a Canadian passport. I look at it every time I read anything from Timothy Snyder. There is nothing stopping me from packing up and moving at anytime if I wanted to, yet, I stay. I love my home the community where I live and feel deeply resentful that that orange turd would chase me off. On other days, I wonder what I'm waiting for. I hope the application process goes smooth and quick for you. I wasn't prepared for how emotional all of these decisions have been. Best of luck to you.
We seem to travel in pretty much the same channels :-) Yes, worth re reading the book. Also, check out Timothy Snyder's Substack, if you dont already. His thinking is so clear and the pieces are all very much to the point right now. It is good to know you, Carole. -- Kate
Your mother was Canadian? You are so lucky. I've applied for Canadian citizenship by descent, but I am many generations away from ever receiving it. Check out this resource on Reddit. Their FAQs are well done. We rented an apartment in Toronto in November 2016. We couldn't make it work and gave it up several years later. We absolutely loved living in downtown Toronto. We have considered six months in a Canadian border town, and six months anywhere else. We are of similar ages to you and your partner, and not 30.
Carole, read the links at the end of Prof. Snyder’s Substack. He made it so easy! Some of the people who read Heather Cox Richardson’s Substack are writing a platform for the Democrats for the next election cycle. Lots is happening! Join in!
Hello Carole! I recommend the book “From Dictatorship to Democracy” by Gene Sharp. From the blurb; “This short, pithy, and extraordinarily clear guide to overthrowing a dictatorship by nonviolent means lists 198 specific methods, including sit-ins, popular non-obedience, selective strikes, withdrawal of bank deposits, revenue refusal, walkouts, silence, and hunger strikes.”
You may need to purchase it from the odious Amazon.
I hope this recommendation helps. I wish you the best.
The Canadians have really cut down on immigration. You might get in, but unless they start loosening up for US political refugees I don't think you'll be allowed to stay.
Not at all. The conservatives on the SC have bent over backward and, it seems, created law out of whole cloth. The extensive use of the "Shadow Docket" goes against every principle in our system.
No you’re not naive. Everything has been upended. Up is down, black now.is white. At 78 I can’t believe any of this is happening in our country. Sadly I feel it’s deeper than the spineless republicans in congress….and fear much deeper turmoil ahead. But let’s keep a clear head and at least try to understand the dynamics, so thank you Tim, I guess.
Many or most of Hegseth's comments begin with his positing a generic enemy, then explaining that enemies ought to be dealt with as decisively as possible--without letting namby-pamby laws stand in the way. This approach ignores the fact that the international laws of war, US law, and the DoD rules of engagement exist, at least in part, to determine who the specific enemy is. It looks like practically-speaking "the enemy" is now anyone Trump ID's as such. Foreign-born persons and Democrats are on that list, among others..
His approach will only expose our service people to the same treatment as we mete out. "No quarter" will mean no quarter for anyone. I hope our service people, especially the officer corps, remembers that.
As to the officer corps, I have more hope in them than in the salt of the earth in the rank and file. They actually have some of that eddication type stuff that Trump hates (but, of course, lies about his own), and I watched the idiot show when T called all the generals and admirals to leave their posts and come to Washington for the Trump Show. He really didn't like the applause he didn't get, and we could see the stony faces of the generals etc. And the next day some *retired* high-ranking generals gave their honest opinions of the shitshow. And remember that the previous highest-ranking officer of the USA has gone public speaking of his pride that he swore allegiance to the Constitution, not to any person!
Thank you for this. Feeling some sense of control is important for sanity. I keep hoping Congress will act. But another troubling point: Trump needs a war to protect himself from laws he's already broken.
KBS, to your point, this "vibe" is discussed in this excellent into with Robert Kagan, who has been prescient like Dr Snyder has long been. Your point surely rings true to me! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8IA7x-j2MQ
WORDS MATTER. If the word becomes flesh then we need stronger ones. "Unpopular " doesn't begin to describe the egregious, reprehensible, soul-killing effects on We the People.
Re: Self-terrorism: It's not necessary if events serve up a suitable catalyst. The Charlie Kirk assassination was not half-bad, except that the shooter was a red-blooded, gun-fancying American. Now it appears that they intend for the DC shooting to be "the one." It looks sketchy. If the Afghan veteran had killed Charlie Kirk, that would have been just perfect.
Can they really scapegoat everyone who Trump has declared to be an enemy? I wonder. German Jews in the 30's were less than one percent of the population. Currently, the list in the US is far longer: Foreign born are something like 15%; Green card holders and asylum seekers awaiting hearings are more. Add persons who are other than white, Deep Staters, Never Trump Republicans, Democrats, etc. and you may have a majority. Can the MAGA minority vilify and persecute a majority of the country?
You raise a good point. Given how many people are awash in grievance and conspiracy theories, and heavily armed, the likelihood grows that self-terrorism might come from MAGA itself. This complicates the Trump regime’s plan to scapegoat the opposition as the one true enemy. In addition to the Charlie Kirk killing, we saw another example this week with the big pipe bomber announcement that omitted the inconvenient fact that the guy was an election denier. I’m sure they will keep trying to hang everything around the necks of their non-supporters, but their own rage-filled gun-toting cohort is likely to thwart the plan time and time again.
And he didn’t even have the blast caps or whatever actually detonates the bombs. They were just facsimiles of pipe bombs.
Truth and facts do not matter. Only Trump’s easily hurt feelings do. And Hegseth’s, Bondi’s, and especially Noem’s and Patel’s. What dangerous and thin skinned overly self-righteous people with few brains we have.
Thank you for this powerful analysis. Since learning that this administration is instructing NATO to take on providing the bulk of weapons at least by the end of 2027 and thinking it unlikely that it is even possible for NATO nations to scale up that fast, I wonder if Trump is creating a crisis in Europe that the US can't respond to because it is engaged in South America. That gives Putin a chance to roll and may create the conditions to invoke war powers here at home. I am wondering if that's Trump's means to stay in power from 2027 on in a police state with loyalty up the chain and from SCOTUS, which has already given him the right to break laws in fulfillment of his duties. This administration's BP and ICE already ignore judicial rulings and deport people, use violence against peaceful protesters, and more. Lawlessness is a feature and we are being groomed as the instruments for it are developed.
First of all I think you are giving the insipid orange turd credit for much more forethought than he deserves. Listening to him speak like any of us normally do, reveals a man ravaged by dementia, he’s not capable of organized thought much less action, that is not to say that his boot lickers don’t have that capacity. He is rapidly aging in front of our eyes, when his time is up, it will be over, and all of his unelected sycophants will be stuck with their tongues in his diaper. In the meantime they will be making a mess of things, of that there is no doubt. The realignment document released on Friday night (their favorite time to release anything controversial), stands no chance of being accepted by the majority of Americans, we are not now, and have never been aligned with putin, and what he is doing in Ukraine, and that is not going to change no matter what the orange turd wants.
T has a team behind him that wrote Project 2025, alongside tech billionaires who act like global oligarchs --- several of whom appear to have fascist leanings. T just needs a similar world view to be manipulated by the allure of ever greater personal wealth and flattery. As Russia reportedly knew since the 1980s.
Wow, Linda, I never thought about that - on its face the recent move of the large naval ship to the Caribbean from Europe didn't make much sense. But this theory does make sense given their malovence. SO much to pray against.
In the meantime, the “L'affaire Espstein” coils in the soup of our collective unconsciousness while also rearing out, venomously, to confront us all with how imperialism, impunity, and self-loathing comportment entwine in our imaginative myth-making, self-serving opportunism, and agonized efforts to be better than we are now.
In that context, the challenge of our current century may be to move beyond macho/masochistic imperialism as we understand it, to confront interior colonization and racism as well as “client-state terrorism by proxy” as we are witnessing in Gaza and the West Bank.
As I write this, Senator Tom Cotton echoes venomously from “CBS Sunday Morning” where he offers legalistic (Nazi) justifications for murdering people ANYWHERE in the world based on “the facts” that some have been declared “enemy terrorists” which somehow also establishes “the facts” that they are using drug-running to overthrow the US, molest our children, and traffic our women (or something).
Once, with the collapse of the “H-bomb bristling” Soviet Union, there was a proposal called “the peace dividend” which might have meant meaningful investment in education, healthcare, infrastructure, and decency. It could also have meant using US cultural, diplomatic, economic, and (sometimes) military power to help humanity construct a viable rules-based-international order. But of course “rules” and even the very concept of “law” are repugnant to those who seek only tools for intimidation, manipulation, and domination, as well as personalized glorification, satiation, and impunity.
trump will not stop on his own. Compare him, if you like, to a shark that can never stop swimming—and preying. But he is a human person driven by ancestral demons and beset with incapacitating fears of being humiliated, dominated, mocked, or exposed to justice. There’s a “little hitler” and “terrified trump” in all of us, and we should fear and respect that.
“Self terrorism” apparently is Tim Snyder’s formulation, but it is based on deep study of East European history (focusing on Germany and Russia/Soviet Union and the genocidal atrocities of world war sand totalitarianism) as well long steepage in the thinkings of trained and tested philosophers, living and dead.
The evidence? She’s a speaksa for herselfa:
“How does the Trump administration react to political killings and domestic terrorism? Does it revive the agencies meant to stop it? No, it does not. Does it speak of fictional conspiracies and blame whole groups, thereby provoking further turmoil and creating a pretext for oppressing Americans? Yes, it does. Does it invite violent responses by escalating the militarization of cities --deploying more troops to DC and also deploying new troops to another city, New Orleans? Yes, it does. As the Trump administration uses the horrible attack on troops in Washington to accelerate creeping authoritarianism, we have a terrible confirmation as to why those men and women were deployed in the first place.” — Timothy Snyder
Snyder is building a case for understanding and confronting something generatively named “self terrorism.” The concept of “self terrorism” builds itself out of an analysis of previous terror states, including those that predate Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia. Today’s versions will incorporate the tools provided by Social Media and Large Language Modeled Artificial Intelligence.
“Aspiring American authoritarians will only win if they are allowed to do so. None of this has to happen. Both of these terrible possibilities, land war and self-terrorism, are signs of weakness rather than strength. They can be prevented, but only if we name them, and use their horror as the first step to describe something much better.” —Timothy Snyder
1. We all harbor a miniature Hitler and a traumatized trump inside us.
2. We are condemned by our common humanity to honor, fear, and respect that.
After that, I’d have to decide whether your problem concerned the first notion (which is rather unitary though still somewhat fraught and complex) or the second notion which has at least three fraught and complex sub notions.
The first notion is almost complete subsumed into Judeo Christian (and Muslim) theology. I consider myself to be a non-theist for all kinds of reasons associated with baggage and nonsense surrounding the term “atheist.” I do believe in the existence gods just the way that I believe in the reality values and ideals which means I have acknowledge the reality of devils/demons (as the antitheses of so-called “good gods) as well as the counterparts to human values. If solidarity is real so is isolation and betrayal, etc. Also to me, the meaning of “theism” is entwined with notions of super-natural beings who (whether or not they are separate from our everyday mental and material existence) who have personal traits and experiences (like sorrow, rage, and jealousy).
I could talk more about the above, but thinking about it only shows me that the second item is really another way of saying the first. We cannot afford to say that any other human is evil or even that we ourselves are evil. We all think evil thoughts, have troubling and disruptive emotions, and do hurtful, self destructive things that alarm or injure others. And we have to TRY To deal with that in ways that, hopefully, makes things (and the collective “us) better and not worse.
Thanks for your post, Tim. This is very worrisome. I do not think any kind of Vietnam-style invasion of Venezuela is in the cards. What I do worry about is that Trump has a deal in mind: Russia gets to surround, attack and dominate Ukraine, China Taiwan, and the US Venezuela. The multipolarism of three superpowers?
More likely than a land invasion is a sort of coup from afar: a limited attack designed to decapitate Maduro’s regime and install a new leader. The closest comparison would be the 1989 US Invasion of Panama, which deposed Noriega. That, too, took place in December and ended in January, and I fear a Christmas surprise from Trump. According to Wikipedia's entry on The Invasion of Panama, “the Pentagon estimated that 516 Panamanians were killed during the invasion, including 314 soldiers and 202 civilians. A total of 23 U.S. soldiers and 3 U.S. civilians were killed.”
But Venezuela is not tiny Panama. Multiple those numbers by ten, at least, were there to be an attempt to remove Maduro. I'll try to cover this in a new "beat," although I can't give it the attention it desrves: https://michaelalandover.substack.com/p/an-invasion-of-venezuela ?
Fantastic piece. Might you consider being interviewed by Heather Cox Richardson or Marc Elias or one of the other democracy warriors who share your (and our!) passion for exposing the truth?
Good to see my namesake in this piece! Beyond that, history instructs me a bit differently. Before the invasion of Poland and start of WW2, Hitler had already "incorporated" Bohemia and Moravia (contemporary Czech Republic) and Austria (with little opposition). Indeed, those "expansions " took place before Kristallnacht and were based on irredentism, the Russian rationale for Ukraine. Meanwhile, internal terror was hardly slowed as much as exported to the territories Hitler consumed along with continuing via different agencies and methods within Germany itself. The resistance within Germany after Kristallnacht was often more aesthetic than ethical. It didn't "look good." Hitler s targets were already formally stripped of citizenship. So the trajectory of moving from internal to external targeting does not work as well for me, knowing that Tim is fully aware of the complexity!
Thank you for this powerful piece!
Self‑terrorism is not strength, it’s weakness weaponized. Gutting the FBI, abandoning cyber defense, and militarizing cities isn’t protection, it’s sabotage of the nation’s own guardrails.
The Trump administration thrives on provoking violence, then exploiting it to tighten authoritarian control. That’s not governance, it’s a deliberate cycle of cruelty: dismantle defenses, wait for blood, then use the chaos as justification to oppress.
The most pathetic part is how predictable it all is. Authoritarians don’t need foreign enemies when they can manufacture domestic ones. And the people who enable this: politicians, institutions, sycophants; prove that money and power matter more to them than democracy or dignity.
Naming this pattern is the first step to breaking it. My goal is to talk about this more in my pieces too.
—Johan
Professor of Behavioral Economics & Applied Cognitive TheoryFormer Foreign Service Officer
The authoritarian power consolidation MO:
Provoking &/or inciting external "threats" by labelling alleged drug runners "narco terrorists" & then murdering them while pardoning a global drug kingpin;
Provoking &/or inciting internal "threats" by labelling critics as traitors, & immigrants or naturalized citizens as "garbage"
We've already descended into the madness of seeing groupthink only, Joseph.
Here, in his 3rd-from-the-last para, Professor Snyder refers to how "We can be alert to the use of the undocumented as an emotional key to a politics of us and them."
But look at U.S. schools. Almost all of them -- up to and including the Ivies of "higher" ed -- have abandoned the reading of whole books. Who anymore reads or quotes for the delectation of broader contexts, the subtleties of complicated reality?
What rules imaginatively instead? The five-paragraph texts which are the max anyone finds in standardized testing.
Social media, all of it hate-&-sensationalism algorithm driven, doesn't help (though it does help the worst of our techie billionaires to keep divorcing themselves from human reality).
Yes, Donald and his fellow fools Vought, Miller, Vance, Noem, Hegseth, Bondi, Patel, Gabbard, `Homan all have their groupthink. As do their tens of millions of cult followers. And how many Dems evidence literacy alternative to that?
How many commenters here ever cite any whole books or anything from them, as if any have any alternative imagination beyond the standardized testing models of neutered humanity group think and the inexorably inevitable linearity which now rule?
Good point. We live in an era of sound bites and attention spans measured in seconds. I find myself more and more unusual in reading whole books, whether non-fiction or fiction.
Professor Snyder, thank you so much for your insight and your calling out this administration for the weak pitiful group of people they are
Equally important is calling out the spineless Republican Congress. Congress has the power and the duty to keep the executive in check. The Supreme Court has a role in this duty also. Both branches are
shirking their responsibilities. The Founders feared this situation, an attempted power grab by one branch. I don't believe they thought the United States would be governed by women and men of so little integrity or substance. They believed we would always be governed by people with honor!
Thank you. We are 77 and 82 and believe in history, know fascism is real. I have applied to find my mom's Canadian birth certificate. Your summary of 1938 Germany is why. We are part of the resistance here. We believe we elders should be in all marches/protests. Shoot the grandparents? We also have family and friends here who are not going to leave. All our healthcare, substantial subjects, is here. What can I read to help me know what to do?
I went through that process too. Another family member and I applied for a parent's birth certificate during his first term. It took a long time in our case, but I'm grateful that I now have a Canadian passport. I look at it every time I read anything from Timothy Snyder. There is nothing stopping me from packing up and moving at anytime if I wanted to, yet, I stay. I love my home the community where I live and feel deeply resentful that that orange turd would chase me off. On other days, I wonder what I'm waiting for. I hope the application process goes smooth and quick for you. I wasn't prepared for how emotional all of these decisions have been. Best of luck to you.
Carole Ferguson: I urge every person wondering about exactly the question you ask, to get a copy of Timothy Snyder's essential book, ON TYRANNY.
The last few points made in this book will help orient all of us. And we do need to ACT.
And to act, we need to be very clear about what is going on. We really are in a very dangerous time. Knowledge, as everyone knows, is power.
-- Kate Delano-Condax Decker
I’ve read On Tyranny. Excellent. I have out to my children when it was first out. Will go back to footnotes.
We seem to travel in pretty much the same channels :-) Yes, worth re reading the book. Also, check out Timothy Snyder's Substack, if you dont already. His thinking is so clear and the pieces are all very much to the point right now. It is good to know you, Carole. -- Kate
Your mother was Canadian? You are so lucky. I've applied for Canadian citizenship by descent, but I am many generations away from ever receiving it. Check out this resource on Reddit. Their FAQs are well done. We rented an apartment in Toronto in November 2016. We couldn't make it work and gave it up several years later. We absolutely loved living in downtown Toronto. We have considered six months in a Canadian border town, and six months anywhere else. We are of similar ages to you and your partner, and not 30.
r/Canadiancitizenship
Will look at Reddit. Thank you!
Carole, read the links at the end of Prof. Snyder’s Substack. He made it so easy! Some of the people who read Heather Cox Richardson’s Substack are writing a platform for the Democrats for the next election cycle. Lots is happening! Join in!
Great note in your comment. Thanks.
Im totally joined to and creating resistance. But Canada is appealing. Moral.
Hello Carole! I recommend the book “From Dictatorship to Democracy” by Gene Sharp. From the blurb; “This short, pithy, and extraordinarily clear guide to overthrowing a dictatorship by nonviolent means lists 198 specific methods, including sit-ins, popular non-obedience, selective strikes, withdrawal of bank deposits, revenue refusal, walkouts, silence, and hunger strikes.”
You may need to purchase it from the odious Amazon.
I hope this recommendation helps. I wish you the best.
Cheers! Karola
Same here, except for the Canadian connection.
Yes. and a lot of us are beginning to wonder if we can just slip through the Canadian border undetected... :-)
The Canadians have really cut down on immigration. You might get in, but unless they start loosening up for US political refugees I don't think you'll be allowed to stay.
just kidding... :-) I dont think anyone can slip through the Canadian border -- they are on to us. Tempting to try, though... :-)
Just From Dictatorship….. at your suggestion. Local independent bookstore will order it. Thanks!
It is still puzzling to me that the Supreme Court has been aiding and abetting this. Am I just naive?
The Extreme Court has been assembled by the Billionaire Techno Class over decades of subversive efforts to eliminate the goals of FDR’s New Deal
They are not a court, they are assassins of Democracy voting in secret to achieve the goals of their bosses, like Leonard Leo
Not at all. The conservatives on the SC have bent over backward and, it seems, created law out of whole cloth. The extensive use of the "Shadow Docket" goes against every principle in our system.
The "Shadow Docket" is as un-American as Chinese made Apple Pie.
The six "conservatives" are complicit. I wouldn't be surprised if a few of them are in the Epstein Files.
No you’re not naive. Everything has been upended. Up is down, black now.is white. At 78 I can’t believe any of this is happening in our country. Sadly I feel it’s deeper than the spineless republicans in congress….and fear much deeper turmoil ahead. But let’s keep a clear head and at least try to understand the dynamics, so thank you Tim, I guess.
Wow, I wish you were naive! The Supreme Court is aiding and abetting this whole process. They are on the wrong side of history.
Many or most of Hegseth's comments begin with his positing a generic enemy, then explaining that enemies ought to be dealt with as decisively as possible--without letting namby-pamby laws stand in the way. This approach ignores the fact that the international laws of war, US law, and the DoD rules of engagement exist, at least in part, to determine who the specific enemy is. It looks like practically-speaking "the enemy" is now anyone Trump ID's as such. Foreign-born persons and Democrats are on that list, among others..
His approach will only expose our service people to the same treatment as we mete out. "No quarter" will mean no quarter for anyone. I hope our service people, especially the officer corps, remembers that.
Thank you for saying this, when we ignore the rules, it is a gift to our enemies who then feel justified to treat US troops the same way,
As to the officer corps, I have more hope in them than in the salt of the earth in the rank and file. They actually have some of that eddication type stuff that Trump hates (but, of course, lies about his own), and I watched the idiot show when T called all the generals and admirals to leave their posts and come to Washington for the Trump Show. He really didn't like the applause he didn't get, and we could see the stony faces of the generals etc. And the next day some *retired* high-ranking generals gave their honest opinions of the shitshow. And remember that the previous highest-ranking officer of the USA has gone public speaking of his pride that he swore allegiance to the Constitution, not to any person!
They seem to be operating on a theory that when Trump speaks of a threat to the country, he speaks ex cathedra.
For some values of 'they', as the mathematicians say. I noted this in another comment.
Thank you. You are teaching the most important classes of your career. We must increase attendance. And pay attention!
Thank you for this. Feeling some sense of control is important for sanity. I keep hoping Congress will act. But another troubling point: Trump needs a war to protect himself from laws he's already broken.
What about the idea that this conflict is a continuation of the American Civil War? The vibe of "only white men should make decisions" is pervasive.
KBS, to your point, this "vibe" is discussed in this excellent into with Robert Kagan, who has been prescient like Dr Snyder has long been. Your point surely rings true to me! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8IA7x-j2MQ
WORDS MATTER. If the word becomes flesh then we need stronger ones. "Unpopular " doesn't begin to describe the egregious, reprehensible, soul-killing effects on We the People.
Re: Self-terrorism: It's not necessary if events serve up a suitable catalyst. The Charlie Kirk assassination was not half-bad, except that the shooter was a red-blooded, gun-fancying American. Now it appears that they intend for the DC shooting to be "the one." It looks sketchy. If the Afghan veteran had killed Charlie Kirk, that would have been just perfect.
Can they really scapegoat everyone who Trump has declared to be an enemy? I wonder. German Jews in the 30's were less than one percent of the population. Currently, the list in the US is far longer: Foreign born are something like 15%; Green card holders and asylum seekers awaiting hearings are more. Add persons who are other than white, Deep Staters, Never Trump Republicans, Democrats, etc. and you may have a majority. Can the MAGA minority vilify and persecute a majority of the country?
You raise a good point. Given how many people are awash in grievance and conspiracy theories, and heavily armed, the likelihood grows that self-terrorism might come from MAGA itself. This complicates the Trump regime’s plan to scapegoat the opposition as the one true enemy. In addition to the Charlie Kirk killing, we saw another example this week with the big pipe bomber announcement that omitted the inconvenient fact that the guy was an election denier. I’m sure they will keep trying to hang everything around the necks of their non-supporters, but their own rage-filled gun-toting cohort is likely to thwart the plan time and time again.
And he didn’t even have the blast caps or whatever actually detonates the bombs. They were just facsimiles of pipe bombs.
Truth and facts do not matter. Only Trump’s easily hurt feelings do. And Hegseth’s, Bondi’s, and especially Noem’s and Patel’s. What dangerous and thin skinned overly self-righteous people with few brains we have.
I don't understand why they were not armed at all.
Thank you for this powerful analysis. Since learning that this administration is instructing NATO to take on providing the bulk of weapons at least by the end of 2027 and thinking it unlikely that it is even possible for NATO nations to scale up that fast, I wonder if Trump is creating a crisis in Europe that the US can't respond to because it is engaged in South America. That gives Putin a chance to roll and may create the conditions to invoke war powers here at home. I am wondering if that's Trump's means to stay in power from 2027 on in a police state with loyalty up the chain and from SCOTUS, which has already given him the right to break laws in fulfillment of his duties. This administration's BP and ICE already ignore judicial rulings and deport people, use violence against peaceful protesters, and more. Lawlessness is a feature and we are being groomed as the instruments for it are developed.
First of all I think you are giving the insipid orange turd credit for much more forethought than he deserves. Listening to him speak like any of us normally do, reveals a man ravaged by dementia, he’s not capable of organized thought much less action, that is not to say that his boot lickers don’t have that capacity. He is rapidly aging in front of our eyes, when his time is up, it will be over, and all of his unelected sycophants will be stuck with their tongues in his diaper. In the meantime they will be making a mess of things, of that there is no doubt. The realignment document released on Friday night (their favorite time to release anything controversial), stands no chance of being accepted by the majority of Americans, we are not now, and have never been aligned with putin, and what he is doing in Ukraine, and that is not going to change no matter what the orange turd wants.
I'm not as worried about Trump as I am of the people running this Misadministration from the shadows. Especially Putin.
Pvtin has his own issues to hide from everyone. It is Stephen Miller and those christofascists in the background that must be watched.
That concerns me as well, but we would have to allow it and I don’t see us ever aligning with putin.
T has a team behind him that wrote Project 2025, alongside tech billionaires who act like global oligarchs --- several of whom appear to have fascist leanings. T just needs a similar world view to be manipulated by the allure of ever greater personal wealth and flattery. As Russia reportedly knew since the 1980s.
Wow, Linda, I never thought about that - on its face the recent move of the large naval ship to the Caribbean from Europe didn't make much sense. But this theory does make sense given their malovence. SO much to pray against.
In the meantime, the “L'affaire Espstein” coils in the soup of our collective unconsciousness while also rearing out, venomously, to confront us all with how imperialism, impunity, and self-loathing comportment entwine in our imaginative myth-making, self-serving opportunism, and agonized efforts to be better than we are now.
In that context, the challenge of our current century may be to move beyond macho/masochistic imperialism as we understand it, to confront interior colonization and racism as well as “client-state terrorism by proxy” as we are witnessing in Gaza and the West Bank.
As I write this, Senator Tom Cotton echoes venomously from “CBS Sunday Morning” where he offers legalistic (Nazi) justifications for murdering people ANYWHERE in the world based on “the facts” that some have been declared “enemy terrorists” which somehow also establishes “the facts” that they are using drug-running to overthrow the US, molest our children, and traffic our women (or something).
Once, with the collapse of the “H-bomb bristling” Soviet Union, there was a proposal called “the peace dividend” which might have meant meaningful investment in education, healthcare, infrastructure, and decency. It could also have meant using US cultural, diplomatic, economic, and (sometimes) military power to help humanity construct a viable rules-based-international order. But of course “rules” and even the very concept of “law” are repugnant to those who seek only tools for intimidation, manipulation, and domination, as well as personalized glorification, satiation, and impunity.
trump will not stop on his own. Compare him, if you like, to a shark that can never stop swimming—and preying. But he is a human person driven by ancestral demons and beset with incapacitating fears of being humiliated, dominated, mocked, or exposed to justice. There’s a “little hitler” and “terrified trump” in all of us, and we should fear and respect that.
“Self terrorism” apparently is Tim Snyder’s formulation, but it is based on deep study of East European history (focusing on Germany and Russia/Soviet Union and the genocidal atrocities of world war sand totalitarianism) as well long steepage in the thinkings of trained and tested philosophers, living and dead.
The evidence? She’s a speaksa for herselfa:
“How does the Trump administration react to political killings and domestic terrorism? Does it revive the agencies meant to stop it? No, it does not. Does it speak of fictional conspiracies and blame whole groups, thereby provoking further turmoil and creating a pretext for oppressing Americans? Yes, it does. Does it invite violent responses by escalating the militarization of cities --deploying more troops to DC and also deploying new troops to another city, New Orleans? Yes, it does. As the Trump administration uses the horrible attack on troops in Washington to accelerate creeping authoritarianism, we have a terrible confirmation as to why those men and women were deployed in the first place.” — Timothy Snyder
Snyder is building a case for understanding and confronting something generatively named “self terrorism.” The concept of “self terrorism” builds itself out of an analysis of previous terror states, including those that predate Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia. Today’s versions will incorporate the tools provided by Social Media and Large Language Modeled Artificial Intelligence.
“Aspiring American authoritarians will only win if they are allowed to do so. None of this has to happen. Both of these terrible possibilities, land war and self-terrorism, are signs of weakness rather than strength. They can be prevented, but only if we name them, and use their horror as the first step to describe something much better.” —Timothy Snyder
I have a problem understanding your statement - “There’s a “little hitler” and “terrified trump” in all of us, and we should fear and respect that.”
I’d probably like to rephrase and say:
1. We all harbor a miniature Hitler and a traumatized trump inside us.
2. We are condemned by our common humanity to honor, fear, and respect that.
After that, I’d have to decide whether your problem concerned the first notion (which is rather unitary though still somewhat fraught and complex) or the second notion which has at least three fraught and complex sub notions.
The first notion is almost complete subsumed into Judeo Christian (and Muslim) theology. I consider myself to be a non-theist for all kinds of reasons associated with baggage and nonsense surrounding the term “atheist.” I do believe in the existence gods just the way that I believe in the reality values and ideals which means I have acknowledge the reality of devils/demons (as the antitheses of so-called “good gods) as well as the counterparts to human values. If solidarity is real so is isolation and betrayal, etc. Also to me, the meaning of “theism” is entwined with notions of super-natural beings who (whether or not they are separate from our everyday mental and material existence) who have personal traits and experiences (like sorrow, rage, and jealousy).
I could talk more about the above, but thinking about it only shows me that the second item is really another way of saying the first. We cannot afford to say that any other human is evil or even that we ourselves are evil. We all think evil thoughts, have troubling and disruptive emotions, and do hurtful, self destructive things that alarm or injure others. And we have to TRY To deal with that in ways that, hopefully, makes things (and the collective “us) better and not worse.
Thanks for your post, Tim. This is very worrisome. I do not think any kind of Vietnam-style invasion of Venezuela is in the cards. What I do worry about is that Trump has a deal in mind: Russia gets to surround, attack and dominate Ukraine, China Taiwan, and the US Venezuela. The multipolarism of three superpowers?
More likely than a land invasion is a sort of coup from afar: a limited attack designed to decapitate Maduro’s regime and install a new leader. The closest comparison would be the 1989 US Invasion of Panama, which deposed Noriega. That, too, took place in December and ended in January, and I fear a Christmas surprise from Trump. According to Wikipedia's entry on The Invasion of Panama, “the Pentagon estimated that 516 Panamanians were killed during the invasion, including 314 soldiers and 202 civilians. A total of 23 U.S. soldiers and 3 U.S. civilians were killed.”
But Venezuela is not tiny Panama. Multiple those numbers by ten, at least, were there to be an attempt to remove Maduro. I'll try to cover this in a new "beat," although I can't give it the attention it desrves: https://michaelalandover.substack.com/p/an-invasion-of-venezuela ?
Russia won't stop at Ukraine and the US won't stop at Venezuela. China after Taiwan? I don't know.
Fantastic piece. Might you consider being interviewed by Heather Cox Richardson or Marc Elias or one of the other democracy warriors who share your (and our!) passion for exposing the truth?
Good to see my namesake in this piece! Beyond that, history instructs me a bit differently. Before the invasion of Poland and start of WW2, Hitler had already "incorporated" Bohemia and Moravia (contemporary Czech Republic) and Austria (with little opposition). Indeed, those "expansions " took place before Kristallnacht and were based on irredentism, the Russian rationale for Ukraine. Meanwhile, internal terror was hardly slowed as much as exported to the territories Hitler consumed along with continuing via different agencies and methods within Germany itself. The resistance within Germany after Kristallnacht was often more aesthetic than ethical. It didn't "look good." Hitler s targets were already formally stripped of citizenship. So the trajectory of moving from internal to external targeting does not work as well for me, knowing that Tim is fully aware of the complexity!
No mention of Pearl Harbor day today? Not news anymore?
we live in the united states of amnesia