Welcome back and thank you for this timely video as well as your posts from Ukraine and the incredible work you and your wife do there. Your voice and sanity is so important during these times of craziness and cruelty. We appreciate you so much.
Thank you, Professor Snyder. I appreciate your calm demeanor. I always appreciate that your lessons are taught in the context of history. You have said in On Tyranny to be careful of one's online presence. That was never so true as it is in this moment. Thank you for all you do.
PLEASE: I learn every time i read your thoughts and concerns. I really appreciate your insights, knowledge, and steady observations. I have been hard of hearing since toddler years when ear infections killed forever some of my ability to hear. Penicillin was not around yet just like vaccines weren’t here. Please post transcripts of your words so those less confident in our ability to hear, may also learn and profit. Many thanks!!
There is always a transcript with these videos. In case it doesn't appear when you play it, I've copied it here:
Thinking about...
This is Tim Snyder. It's Friday, September 19th. I got back from Ukraine at the beginning of this week, and there's been a lot in US politics to absorb. I wanted to just take a moment to give you a few thoughts, a few impressions, maybe a few conclusions about what's been going on. Number one, freedom of speech.
The reason we have freedom of speech is to speak truth to power. So lies coming from power are not essential to freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is about the ability of everyone to speak on the basis of knowledge, with the support of institutions, truth to power. That's what it's all about.
Number two, this is why comedians are very important. The truth that we have to speak to power is sometimes surprising, it's sometimes eccentric, it's sometimes personal. Comedians are unpredictable. They're sometimes eccentric, sometimes personal, but it's that laughter which lets us know that there's been a harmony between experience and facts. Comedians matter.
You can make the point historically, too. In Germany in the 30s or in Russia in the 2000s, when the comedians went, that was a sign that freedom for everyone else was going as well. Third thing I've noticed that's worth noticing is the fake conspiracy. The idea, as expressed by the president and people around him,
that there is some kind of far-ranging left-wing thing, antifa or whatever, This is, of course, not just a lie from power, it's dangerous in itself, because a fictional conspiracy can embrace everybody. As we know, for example, from the history of the Soviet Union, where the terror of 1937-1938 was based upon conspiracies which quite literally did not exist.
The fourth thing that I've noticed, and one should be careful of, is the politics of martyrdom. Of course, political assassinations should never take place, and of course there leads to terrible consequences, and of course human grief is real and has to be respected. But when politicians from on high try to turn individual grief into a collective
motive for the suffering of others, they're taking very dangerous steps. We know this from the politics of the far right in the past. Individual grief can be transformed into a politics of martyrdom, which seems to justify everything. final point this is a very good time to take action you can take action by
boycotting big companies that have given in you can take action by noticing who is advertising on your local news stations if they happen to be advertising for companies that have that have given in these are the kinds of things you can do locally right you can notice for example
if you have a Sinclair franchise that's producing your local news see who is advertising for them and then call those companies and tell them you're going to going to boycott these kinds of little things make a difference but thinking about the big picture at a time like this which is very stressful the most important
thing is to do something do something do something that you can do regularly do something where you know what you're doing do something with other people but make sure you're doing something And going back to where I started, free speech. Do something to express yourself. Do something to speak truth to power.
Look ahead to the big rallies, the big protests of October 18th for No Kings. But try to do something which allows you to speak truth to other people, allows you to speak the truth that you're seeing. Because free speech is not about the people in power having their way, controlling the conversation. It's the opposite of that.
Free speech is about you finding your voice and you sharing your voice, and that is just about as important as it could be right now. Thank you very much. That's what I made of this week, trying to catch up. We'll keep sharing with you in writing. If you've been listening to this,
this was Tim Snyder from my substack, which is called Thinking About, 19 September 2025. Thanks for being with me.
I once asked a comedian what made something funny. He said it's the combination of surprise and truth. These are both things an autocrat can't tolerate.
So now media - I'm looking at you Bob Iger - is bending to be placid and unsurprising. State media.
Bob Iger lives in a world, where he can fly in a private jet at a moment's notice to anywhere in the world. He will never be personally affected by the coming turbulence and darkness. Keeping stock prices up and protecting Disney's role in media consolidation and expansion is all that matters to him and his board.
He and his board, and shareholders will all be affected by the coming turbulence and darkness, in ways they now perversely believe they themseslves can sidestep. And while they have funds to bribe their way out of the moment, they will not bribe their way out of their historical roles as the villains of authoritarianism against whom freedom lovers are pitted.
Their glamourous corporate Potemkin Village facade will crumble. We already see them crowding behind it.
I certainly like your vision more than mine. But it is hard for me to believe that. Most Industrialists and Corporate Chieftains who backed the Nazi Regime, not as believers, but as opportunists seeking profits or protecting property, died in their comfortable beds long after the regime was defeated, not the poorer for it.
Done and done. It was actually quite a stress reliever. They ask why you cancelled at the end of the process and it was quite satisfying typing "Kimmel" in that context. I will, however, be doing some grieving over the last episodes of Alien/Earth...though not as much as I would over losing my first Amendment rights.
Of course not. Someone else, often the targets of the ratting in order to save themselves, will retaliate with their own ratting. By the end, the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc had two completely different sets of reality happening side-by-side - the official, often brutal one, born out of fear, deception and the need to keep your head down and survive (made worse the grifting of those in power with the chance to do so and by those climbing ladders by being obedient in advance) and the shadow reality that was not spoken about, but was much closer to truth.
Hitler’s playbook, too. My parents grew up under the Third Reich and my mom said children were expected to report their parents for anti-Nazi sentiment. The kids were being brainwashed in school and youth groups, and readily complied. Can you imagine?
Yes! It’s happening in Ukraine. Lev Parnas reported that Putin has kidnapped (stolen) at least 20,000 Ukrainian children from occupied territories and indoctrinated them within Russia, while forcing them to work in armaments factories, building missiles, drones and other weapons to use against their own people. Here are details:
👉🏽 Important Sunday Message from Lev Parnas: Russia’s Digital Slave Market of Stolen Children (Aug. 10, 2025)
They’re being cataloged like products, erased from their families, and sold to strangers — this is the war crime no one is talking about.
👉🏽 Breaking: Kidnapped Children Forced to Build Putin’s War Machines (Sep. 18, 2025)
From Russia’s camps where kidnapped children are brainwashed, militarized, and turned into weapons against their own people, to Trump’s energy betrayal of Europe — the truth he doesn’t want you to see
Thank YOU for keeping the conversation going with your much-needed insight. Appreciate your, Maria Ressa and Anne Applebaum’s experience and firsthand knowledge about the past and present.
Excerpt: "This is a very good time to take action. You can take action by boycotting big companies that have given in. You can take action by noticing who is advertising on your local news stations if they happen to be advertising for companies that have that have given in these are the kinds of things you can do locally. You can notice for example if you have a Sinclair franchise that's producing your local news -- see who is advertising for them and then call those companies and tell them you're going to going to boycott. These kinds of little things make a difference..."
Thank you Tim Snyder, for keeping on, for keeping up, for your caring. It must be exhausting to keep up. It's exhausting for many of us who just try to keep up with the latest, often outrageous. You are one of the few positive voices. I have taken to repeating "Despair is a Killer" meaning also that if we feel it, and understandably, try to not lay it on others. It is harmful to ourselves to let it dwell. So find joy. Work on it. There is help here- positive voices. If we feel negative- also try not to spread it for need of commiseration.
Always I am thinking of Ukraine and Ukrainians too. Many are amazing examples of keeping on, of fortitude. They are led by their wonderful comedian, V. Zelensky, who has probably had a hard time keeping his sense of humor.
I was going to do something anyway but after watching your video, I decided to do it without delay. I found ABC's YouTube channel, and wrote to them candidly. Thank you for inspiring me.
Mockery is essential. Even kings understood the purposes of speaking truth to power - their court jesters' mockery can be seen as equal to the advice of noble counselors.
Shakespeare wrote within the constricts of monarchy. Hamlet and Lear are spotlights on monarchy. And class struggle and legitimacy. The grave diggers in Hamlet are not merely comic relief - they are not just low in the social order, they are subterranean - they literally speak from the grave of the hypocrisy of the ruling class noting that as suicides they would be buried at the cross roads, while the suicide Ophelia is buried within the sanctity of the churchyard. And of course, the fool Yorick is a man of 'infinite jest and excellent fancy' on whose shoulders the young prince was elevated. In Lear, Edgar plays the fool as Mad Tom to survive and then restore order. Those are just two examples.
Trump recently named Shakespeare as an "incredible and unbelievable person" - I must doubt he's read him or watched performances of his plays. Although in 2017 he was involved with corporate sponsors withdrawing funding from the Public Theater in NYC because of a setting of Julius Caesar in 'Trump's court' entirely missing the point that the play is an indictment of political violence.
Trump as Julius Caesar: anger over play misses Shakespeare's point, says scholar | New York | The Guardian
Thank you for being there for us, professor. These are very dark times and your voice is very powerful.
Mike, the professor is being there for us in Canada. Just sayin'.
I know! Please keep him safe!
I’ll go with that too!
Welcome back and thank you for this timely video as well as your posts from Ukraine and the incredible work you and your wife do there. Your voice and sanity is so important during these times of craziness and cruelty. We appreciate you so much.
Thank you, Professor Snyder. I appreciate your calm demeanor. I always appreciate that your lessons are taught in the context of history. You have said in On Tyranny to be careful of one's online presence. That was never so true as it is in this moment. Thank you for all you do.
Glad you're back. It's getting really crazy up in here.
PLEASE: I learn every time i read your thoughts and concerns. I really appreciate your insights, knowledge, and steady observations. I have been hard of hearing since toddler years when ear infections killed forever some of my ability to hear. Penicillin was not around yet just like vaccines weren’t here. Please post transcripts of your words so those less confident in our ability to hear, may also learn and profit. Many thanks!!
You can turn on the closed captions by clicking on the CC buttong at the bottom of the screen.
thank you!!
There is always a transcript with these videos. In case it doesn't appear when you play it, I've copied it here:
Thinking about...
This is Tim Snyder. It's Friday, September 19th. I got back from Ukraine at the beginning of this week, and there's been a lot in US politics to absorb. I wanted to just take a moment to give you a few thoughts, a few impressions, maybe a few conclusions about what's been going on. Number one, freedom of speech.
The reason we have freedom of speech is to speak truth to power. So lies coming from power are not essential to freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is about the ability of everyone to speak on the basis of knowledge, with the support of institutions, truth to power. That's what it's all about.
Number two, this is why comedians are very important. The truth that we have to speak to power is sometimes surprising, it's sometimes eccentric, it's sometimes personal. Comedians are unpredictable. They're sometimes eccentric, sometimes personal, but it's that laughter which lets us know that there's been a harmony between experience and facts. Comedians matter.
You can make the point historically, too. In Germany in the 30s or in Russia in the 2000s, when the comedians went, that was a sign that freedom for everyone else was going as well. Third thing I've noticed that's worth noticing is the fake conspiracy. The idea, as expressed by the president and people around him,
that there is some kind of far-ranging left-wing thing, antifa or whatever, This is, of course, not just a lie from power, it's dangerous in itself, because a fictional conspiracy can embrace everybody. As we know, for example, from the history of the Soviet Union, where the terror of 1937-1938 was based upon conspiracies which quite literally did not exist.
The fourth thing that I've noticed, and one should be careful of, is the politics of martyrdom. Of course, political assassinations should never take place, and of course there leads to terrible consequences, and of course human grief is real and has to be respected. But when politicians from on high try to turn individual grief into a collective
motive for the suffering of others, they're taking very dangerous steps. We know this from the politics of the far right in the past. Individual grief can be transformed into a politics of martyrdom, which seems to justify everything. final point this is a very good time to take action you can take action by
boycotting big companies that have given in you can take action by noticing who is advertising on your local news stations if they happen to be advertising for companies that have that have given in these are the kinds of things you can do locally right you can notice for example
if you have a Sinclair franchise that's producing your local news see who is advertising for them and then call those companies and tell them you're going to going to boycott these kinds of little things make a difference but thinking about the big picture at a time like this which is very stressful the most important
thing is to do something do something do something that you can do regularly do something where you know what you're doing do something with other people but make sure you're doing something And going back to where I started, free speech. Do something to express yourself. Do something to speak truth to power.
Look ahead to the big rallies, the big protests of October 18th for No Kings. But try to do something which allows you to speak truth to other people, allows you to speak the truth that you're seeing. Because free speech is not about the people in power having their way, controlling the conversation. It's the opposite of that.
Free speech is about you finding your voice and you sharing your voice, and that is just about as important as it could be right now. Thank you very much. That's what I made of this week, trying to catch up. We'll keep sharing with you in writing. If you've been listening to this,
this was Tim Snyder from my substack, which is called Thinking About, 19 September 2025. Thanks for being with me.
Thank you! That was v helpful!
Thank you!!🙏
You're very welcome. It's quite frustrating - it seems to depend on the thing you use to view the video, whether the transcript appears or not.
Thank you, Professor Snyder.
I once asked a comedian what made something funny. He said it's the combination of surprise and truth. These are both things an autocrat can't tolerate.
So now media - I'm looking at you Bob Iger - is bending to be placid and unsurprising. State media.
Boycott, boycott, boycott.
Bob Iger lives in a world, where he can fly in a private jet at a moment's notice to anywhere in the world. He will never be personally affected by the coming turbulence and darkness. Keeping stock prices up and protecting Disney's role in media consolidation and expansion is all that matters to him and his board.
He and his board, and shareholders will all be affected by the coming turbulence and darkness, in ways they now perversely believe they themseslves can sidestep. And while they have funds to bribe their way out of the moment, they will not bribe their way out of their historical roles as the villains of authoritarianism against whom freedom lovers are pitted.
Their glamourous corporate Potemkin Village facade will crumble. We already see them crowding behind it.
I certainly like your vision more than mine. But it is hard for me to believe that. Most Industrialists and Corporate Chieftains who backed the Nazi Regime, not as believers, but as opportunists seeking profits or protecting property, died in their comfortable beds long after the regime was defeated, not the poorer for it.
Or do those chieftains share now the fate of Jacob Marley?
Imagine the update of that tale by Dickens.
Another cautionary tale that those chieftains failed to take heed of.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Jacob+Marley&t=chromentp&ia=videos&iax=videos&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DeIMfJJBy1hw
Done and done. It was actually quite a stress reliever. They ask why you cancelled at the end of the process and it was quite satisfying typing "Kimmel" in that context. I will, however, be doing some grieving over the last episodes of Alien/Earth...though not as much as I would over losing my first Amendment rights.
This should terrify everyone. Also, Trump wanting people to rat on co-workers—right out of Stalin’s playbook. But ratting didn’t save people.
Of course not. Someone else, often the targets of the ratting in order to save themselves, will retaliate with their own ratting. By the end, the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc had two completely different sets of reality happening side-by-side - the official, often brutal one, born out of fear, deception and the need to keep your head down and survive (made worse the grifting of those in power with the chance to do so and by those climbing ladders by being obedient in advance) and the shadow reality that was not spoken about, but was much closer to truth.
Hitler’s playbook, too. My parents grew up under the Third Reich and my mom said children were expected to report their parents for anti-Nazi sentiment. The kids were being brainwashed in school and youth groups, and readily complied. Can you imagine?
The Cultural Revolution in China made denouncing your parents a virtue for which children were lauded and rewarded.
Good grief. Terrifying.
It’s horrible. But children’s brains can be molded under the right conditions…
Yes! It’s happening in Ukraine. Lev Parnas reported that Putin has kidnapped (stolen) at least 20,000 Ukrainian children from occupied territories and indoctrinated them within Russia, while forcing them to work in armaments factories, building missiles, drones and other weapons to use against their own people. Here are details:
👉🏽 Important Sunday Message from Lev Parnas: Russia’s Digital Slave Market of Stolen Children (Aug. 10, 2025)
They’re being cataloged like products, erased from their families, and sold to strangers — this is the war crime no one is talking about.
https://open.substack.com/pub/levremembers/p/important-sunday-message-from-lev-183?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
👉🏽 Breaking: Kidnapped Children Forced to Build Putin’s War Machines (Sep. 18, 2025)
From Russia’s camps where kidnapped children are brainwashed, militarized, and turned into weapons against their own people, to Trump’s energy betrayal of Europe — the truth he doesn’t want you to see
https://open.substack.com/pub/levremembers/p/breaking-kidnapped-children-forced?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Thank YOU for keeping the conversation going with your much-needed insight. Appreciate your, Maria Ressa and Anne Applebaum’s experience and firsthand knowledge about the past and present.
Thank you! It was great to see the Brits mock Trump with creatively presented truth and humor!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stations_owned_or_operated_by_Sinclair_Broadcast_Group
Excerpt: "This is a very good time to take action. You can take action by boycotting big companies that have given in. You can take action by noticing who is advertising on your local news stations if they happen to be advertising for companies that have that have given in these are the kinds of things you can do locally. You can notice for example if you have a Sinclair franchise that's producing your local news -- see who is advertising for them and then call those companies and tell them you're going to going to boycott. These kinds of little things make a difference..."
Thank you Laura.
Thank you Tim Snyder, for keeping on, for keeping up, for your caring. It must be exhausting to keep up. It's exhausting for many of us who just try to keep up with the latest, often outrageous. You are one of the few positive voices. I have taken to repeating "Despair is a Killer" meaning also that if we feel it, and understandably, try to not lay it on others. It is harmful to ourselves to let it dwell. So find joy. Work on it. There is help here- positive voices. If we feel negative- also try not to spread it for need of commiseration.
Always I am thinking of Ukraine and Ukrainians too. Many are amazing examples of keeping on, of fortitude. They are led by their wonderful comedian, V. Zelensky, who has probably had a hard time keeping his sense of humor.
Thank you for your work.
I was going to do something anyway but after watching your video, I decided to do it without delay. I found ABC's YouTube channel, and wrote to them candidly. Thank you for inspiring me.
Yes! Thank you from Vancouver. So much has happened……
ThankYou. For all essential points.
Mockery is essential. Even kings understood the purposes of speaking truth to power - their court jesters' mockery can be seen as equal to the advice of noble counselors.
Shakespeare wrote within the constricts of monarchy. Hamlet and Lear are spotlights on monarchy. And class struggle and legitimacy. The grave diggers in Hamlet are not merely comic relief - they are not just low in the social order, they are subterranean - they literally speak from the grave of the hypocrisy of the ruling class noting that as suicides they would be buried at the cross roads, while the suicide Ophelia is buried within the sanctity of the churchyard. And of course, the fool Yorick is a man of 'infinite jest and excellent fancy' on whose shoulders the young prince was elevated. In Lear, Edgar plays the fool as Mad Tom to survive and then restore order. Those are just two examples.
Trump recently named Shakespeare as an "incredible and unbelievable person" - I must doubt he's read him or watched performances of his plays. Although in 2017 he was involved with corporate sponsors withdrawing funding from the Public Theater in NYC because of a setting of Julius Caesar in 'Trump's court' entirely missing the point that the play is an indictment of political violence.
Trump as Julius Caesar: anger over play misses Shakespeare's point, says scholar | New York | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/jun/12/donald-trump-shakespeare-play-julius-
Thank you for the link. Interesting read.
It was incompletely copied I think. Took the liberty to put the right one below.
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/jun/12/donald-trump-shakespeare-play-julius-caesar-new-york
ThankYou!!!
Thank you.