I think it's very revealing to put those who tried—albeit in vain—to prevent Hitler on the same level as terrorists. It's clear where the speaker and his cronies stand politically. I'll stick to my usual conviction: fascism is getting worse every day. Not acting is not an option. As a German, I know very well what I'm talking about. The train from Alligator Alcatraz will end up in Auschwitz.
My 2 cents: What is apparent to our senses is not always what we "like" or feel comfortable with. We are instinctive storytellers; therefore, we create stories that soothe us. What is most soothing is hearing what we've always believed.
Reality is not aligned with our 'oldish' stories now. Reality is clashing with soothing reminders. Realizing how hard it is to face reality, often called cold, please try to accept it. Reality changes much faster than our stories do.
Yes, you are right on the mark! It seems to me that the Right Wing extremists have a real gift for simple, snappy slogans. The public picks them up, they seem to make sense on the surface, and the public looks no deeper but repeats the snappy slogans in an exponential explosion. And people vote for the party with the best slogans, in a lot of cases.
The Left has got to wake up and realize this is a tactic. It is the exact tactic the Left needs to use:
For Example: When the Right yelled Stop the Steal! the Left wrung its limp-wristed hands and whimpered about unfair accusations, instead of yelling back even louder, as we ought to have done, the one thing that Donald would have hated most:" SORE LOSER!"
The point is:this; We HAVE GOT TO PUT THE MAGA /TRuMP EXTREMISTS ON THE DEFENSIVE! Make them spend their time fighting factual, true accusations against what they are doing and saying.
DEMOCRATS HAVE TO DO THIS OR FAIL, in my view. We are far too quiet, too collegial, too pussyfaced and cowardly. WE NEED TO FIGHT FIRE WITH FIRE. AND NOT LET UP.AGAINST THE MAGA/TRUMP CONTINUAL, BLUSTERING ASSAULT. Democrats tend to back off after we have made one of our "well-reasoned, polite points".
What we need to do is YELL< CONTINUOUSLY. A good place to start is this: The MAGAss are broadcasting everywhere that "the Democrats are responsible for the Government Shutdown, for your plane ride being late, for your income being cut, for your pension being jeopardized. DEMOCRATS: YELL BACK THIS ONE FACT, WITHOUT CEASING, UNTIL THE MAGAs BACK OFF:
"HELLO, FELLOW AMERICAN CITIZEN. WAKE UP! YOUR MEDICAL INSURANCE COSTS WILL DOUBLE, FOR YOU, FOR YOUR PARENTS, FOR YOUR KIDS, UNLESS YOU HELP STOP THE MAGA/TRUMPs FROM SHUTTING DOWN THE US GOVERNMENT".
"THE MAGAs HAVE EMBEDDED A POISON PILL IN THE GOVERNMENT FUNDING BILL THAT WILL DOUBLE YOUR COSTS FOR ALL MEDICAL CARE IF WE DONT FIGHT THEM AND MAKE THEM DROP THIS CHANGE TO THE LAWS."
Then add:
"IF YOU WANT YOUR MEDICAL INSURANCE COSTS TO DOUBLE, VOTE FOR TRUMP. IF YOU WANT YOUR MEDICAL COSTS TO REMAIN THE SAME, OR EVENTUALLY GO DOWN, BACK THE DEMOCRATS.
"Democrats have made some very bad mistakes, due to old thinking that no longer works. We are working to fix this, and to learn so we reflect what YOU, FELLOW AMERICAN CITIZENS, actually want". Most of us are having a really hard time financially. We can fix this, and we can do a LOT BETTER IN PASSING LAWS THAT ACTUALLY HELP, NOT ROB, US AMERICAN CITIZENS. What is going on now DOES NOT WORK. WE MUST< AND WE CAN< WITH YOUR HELP< DO A LOT BETTER."
Phil and Kate: Not just legacy. Short, snappy slogans have been swirling around us since the advent of radio. After years in advertising, you learn to play with limited space and time. And we are all primed for it now. The right is good at it because they don’t feel constrained by honesty, good taste or embarrassment.
"Stop the Steal" was clever. Even though almost everyone knew it was a lie. Go back a few years, and it was, “You're Fired.” Now DT spews out a few new ones every now and then, decides if the response is good, and he’ll repeat it again and again. Like all the wars and other things, he did nothing about but took credit for.
I agree, the media can be disappointing. Everything is being reinvented. It’s difficult to know what must be chucked. Legacy media is still in the job of informing. It is NOT Fake News. But many are still doing journalism with integrity, but with less support, understanding, and pay. It is still a hard job. Writing them off in a broad swipe is foolish. As far as Trvmp is concerned, he still makes the story all around “Fake News” (and he gets to bully people too, he likes that), but he does not go anywhere without a couple of dozen of them along with his cabinet members. Now, don’t any of those people have a job to do?
And unless you are an influencer or have your own podcast with adoring fans because you are simply regurgitating the same slams, the same hate, the same “gotcha.” That is a shame because that is where all the BS is coming from.
The left does not need to mimic the right. Being a jerk seems to be the ticket to success these days. And it might give someone a year or two to make some money (the Russians don’t seem to have much left to throw around in the US, lousy exchange rate). It will not last. I would not be surprised if many of the right-wing nuts playing with the MAGAs will drift away when things get really ugly and the pay dries up.
Don’t right off our journalists, sub stackers, YouTubers, Instagramers, but I’d steer away from TikTok. There is a lot of independence still. Even if everything seems to be owned by the same few pencil neck dweebs. The rich Tech-Bros are not our friends. Get a VPN.
Start listening to our own left-leaning smart, interesting types. They are out there. They are not as knowledgeable as Tim, nor can they get to the point immediately, but they are good, and they are trying, and they have a far better chance to change the world than I can. I truly believe that.
HL -- Your points are all excellent, and well taken. I agree with the thrust of what you have outlined.
In my view, where we need to change is in the METHOD of making people actually pay attention. That seems to me to be our weakest point. If people don't pay atttention, they dont ever even consider the message of truth and fact.
Re your point about testing: I recently took an on line course on Harvard edX titled American Government: Constitutional Foundations, which gives a pass/fail grade oonly. It was so much fun not worrying about a grade. What a positive difference that makes! (i got a "pass" grade)
I am currently almost finished Tsinghua University course online in Mandarin Chinese. Also, simple pass/fail. And again, that feeling of dread over grades that permeated all my "regular college" classes, when I was in my 20s, is absent.
I think the old fashioned Grades systems are a bad way to go, except for obvious exceptions like Medical Doctors and rocket scientists. I was truly amazed what a difference it made. Learning felt like when you are a child: pure fun and joy.
Yes, indeed, HL. Plenty of good ones out there. In fact I often refer to them.
Yours best here? -- looking at Donald's appointees and asking, "Now, don't any of those people have a job to do?"
That's why they're always clustered around him. To suck up to him. That's their only job. None of that crew believes, anyway, that government has any roles to serve the American people -- they hate all the agencies that regulated for worker safety, the environment, health, and consumer finance.
So now, all clustered around their fat, orange criminal, they form choruses to his further criminality, scare-mongering, and cheering on the ICE terror goons.
...the full descriptive, Phil, is, I believe, "the fat, orange criminal with the faux bone spurred flat feet". Kindly include this important additional scientific information...
Yes, true, Phil Balla. Do you think the value of the lazier media picking up and using a slogan is outweighed by the possible good effect of placing it before (possibly lazy) readers? I am not sure, but I hope so.
Slogans alone of course are not the answer to engaging the voting public. But seems to me they do have a beneficial effect in some way, since they seem to be so exceedingly successful for the MAGAs.
Of course, a MAGA public vs. a thinking, use-your-brain public, are not the same audience. I just hope every little bit helps that we can do. We have not yet hit the numbers to make the right outcomes happen, in my view.
The best danger of slogans, Kate, show in Orwell's "Politics and the English Language."
They anesthetize us, blind us, distance us from actual humans in actual pain, complications, and other contexts requiring specific language.
Also vital, the descriptions Pasternak gives of what slogans do in his chapter when the partisans capture Yuri Zhivago and he has to hear their abstracted slogans every night during his captivity.
For actual signs, the shorter, the better, particularly if you expect your motorist at the stoplight to be able to read them. Print 72 font bold and enlarge further by copy machine enlargement. Graphic design matters.
Signs for rallies and protests with foot traffic can be slightly longer, as there is more time to read a full sentence, but the font still needs to be clear and large.
The left wing will never win a slogan war with the right wing because lies are always easier to express than truths. That said, I agree with you that the left wing needs to stop whining and hand-wringing and answer back strongly. We can push back with more wit and truth than the right wing ever could.
Please, Douglas, write what you’ve written here to Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries. Or to your senators.
Or to all 4 of them. As far as I can tell they’re doing the same things they’ve
done since 2016. They’re not fighting back effectively as a group. Maybe it’s just me, but I see this as a “street fight.” In a street fight you have to fight fire with fire.
When the opposition is a bunch of nasty bullies you have to get up in their faces. Dems should have thousands of new hires on all social media day & night pushing out the facts about how ICE is doing things that violate the law—how they are refusing detainees due process, how they are detaining people based on how they look, how they’re detaining citizens & people who are here legally. How they’re detaining people without a warrant or probable cause—that’s illegal. Not only that, after picking up people who are here legally, they are torturing them by putting them in solitary confinement for, in one man’s case, over two months!! ICE ignores requests for medication some detainees need to stay alive or to keep their health from rapidly deteriorating. They are not criminals. They’re people
with jobs and families.
Dems should be pushing all of this info out on social media & explaining what Dems stand for instead of letting Magas define what Dems stand for. Dem operatives should be on Meta, Threads, “X,” Instagram, Bluesky & Substack explaining what Due Process is,how the Rule of Law works, how our Constitution works & voters should understand all of the ways repubs are attempting to suppress the vote. If Dem leaders would do that, they would very likely start getting more donations. This is a 4 alarm fire
they fighting with a bucket brigade!
Democrats should be saturating social
media with all kinds of information. I
suspect Democratic leaders don’t spend a lot of time on social media so
they are discounting its importance,
when in reality it reaches a lot of voters who aren’t paying attention to politics and don’t realize what’s at stake. It’s the people who aren’t paying attention who are going to drag all of us down into an intolerable
You got that right. I now cant even pay for the (recently doubled by PSEG) electric bill, or the (recently tripled!) house insurance. Or the more than tripled School taxes (having myself with my taxes already put decades of other people's kids through our public schools (NJ property taxes are the HIGHEST in the entire Nation). Rice and beans for us, pleas for "Donations for the Democratic Party" for Schumer and Jeffries. I am really fed up with these completely out of touch, brains-set-in-cement politicians. THEY DO NOT GET HOW THE REST OF US LIVE. We need a living ASSURED INCOME for ALL Citizens. It is NOT OK the way it is, with the extreme Haves and Have Nots. (And I am far from the worst off -- people living in utter financial despair is NOT OK, and I know of many).
ABSOLUTELY RIGHT: as stated above, DEMOCRATS SHOULD BE SATURATING SOCIAL MEDIA WITH ALL KINDS OF INFORMATION. We know this, but to date, it does not to me seem to be happening. Thank you, Susan Garrity Benton, for pointing this out.
We need something short and shocking. "Johnson just bought MILLIONS of body bags", "MAGA bought stock in caskets", or "My Actions Guarantee Anarchy" or something like these....
Right on the mark! Only, make the whole thing in CAPITAL LETTERS. The Body Bag idea gave me a chill. Spread the word. The last example is too abstract. You need to be able to see and touch the message, which is why the Body Bags one is perfect. (I am cited in Who's Why in America for PR ) -- a lot of which is finding and inventing messaging just like your Body Bags idea. Great!!
Yes, Johan. AntiFa doesn’t exist but ProFa is alive and well. It has its leaders and its network. The real leaders are Miller and Vought. The network is magats, Fox, and social media. The new movement is us: AntiProFa.
Social media is a great way to communicate. Tell folks where the party is, what to bring, and the dress code. That doesn't mean that the attendees are becoming members of the host family.
Yes. Your point is excellent, and true, it seems to me.
People who care to know DO know that Antifa is not an "organization" -- but instead an attitude (we do not like or want Fascism) belonging to many, many groups and individuals. But as you say, a lie is easier to push on the public. So the MAGAs scream, endlessly.about an "Antifa terrorist threat". We, unfortunately, dont flood the zone with the truth, but only state it once or twice, in places not even seen by MAGAS.
Here is a question, on a different idea. I would value your thoughts on it: Do you think this could work? It is based on a visual, which seems to work better in trying to change people's minds, than simply words alone, as I see it.:
Trumpf's HUGE fear is being found out, by the public, including his MAGA fan-base, for his pederast activities with his pal Jeffrey Epstein. Many, many young women who were abused sexually by the Epstein criminal operation are speaking out, lately. My question is this:
What about inviting several dozen of these former young victims to join hands on the White House lawn (or on the sidewalk in front of the White House if they cant get in) and chant together "Open the Epstein Files!" It would get plenty of media coverage, and make it harder for trumpf to continue "distracting" news outlets, the general public, lawmakers, and citizens who care, from focusing on the EPSTEIN FILES.
I believe one big reason for the current chaotic and demented attacks on many American cities with our own Armed Forces, is outrageous by design, so we will chase after that and forget who abused young girls.
If trumpf is actually one of them, he needs to be caught and pay the price. He is, by all accounts, terrified of being found out.
Too often, the left wing is so busy fretting about what right-wingers say and might do that they forget the people they want to support. The survivors of the Epstein sex trafficking ring stood in DC and said they would name names. All they asked for was support. They haven't received much. The Democratic Party Establishment ignored the survivors and instead embarked on a political stunt that ends up helping the regime avoid accountability.
The American left wing can't count on the Democrats, they need to take matters in their own hands and take actions like what you suggest.
I also have been writing on this: BRING THE GIRLS AND WOMEN WHO WERE ABUSED BY JEFFREY EPSTEIN AND HIS PAL DONALD TRUMP TO THE WHITE HOUSE LAWN (or in front on the sidewalk, if donald wont let them in). Let these many, many girls and women TELL WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM. and what role, if any, donald trump had in their abuse.
Trump fears this, more than anything else, according to people who are informed about it, which is why all the DISTRACTIONS like invasions of our American cities by US Military and other trump-invented atrocities are moving ahead with such velocity.
Such an obvious and excellent way to put MAJOR PRESS ATTENTION back on the Epstein connection to donald, in my view also. What is WRONG with the flatfooted Democrats that they do not LEAP on this PUBLICITY HOME RUN? Make donald trump face the facts of his past actions against girls and women.
How can we get others like us to help spreading this message, do you think?
Kate, I agree—but the key is, we have to guarantee protection for the girls-
who are now women. Let’s think about this. What if we don’t involve them, but put ICE-like disguises on women
who represent each one symbolically?
Each one could carry a sign with a quote on it from the victim she represents. I saw a quote from one who was very young at the time. She said something to Trump and said he then slapped her, ripped her panties off and then raped her.
WOW! Your comment floored me, Susan Garrity Benton. Great ideas. Of course you are right, no person who didnt want to be in-person would not need to be present, but someone else could carry a placard for her with a message. Brilliant idea! Thanks. Spread the word, will you?
"My father was ANTIFA. He landed on Normandy Beach in 1944 and fought his way to defeat FASCIST Nazi Germany."
"I am ANTIFA too, though I could never match my patriotic father."
Sign that would have been in a march but for the fact that it was raining an inch an hour during the protest. It would have been a limp mess in about 10 minutes. My small cloth American flag was put in service instead (and respectfully dried on the laundry line when finished.)
True, by the way. My dad was an Army private, then private first class by the time that he was demobilized.
I think the admin is trying to find ways to go after Moveon, ActBlue, NoKings, 50501, 5Calls and all the grassroots organizations that are helping people resist, and the people who have donated.
When we think about the rise of totalitarianism, we often picture mass rallies, uniforms, and propaganda posters. But Viktor Klemperer — a Jewish scholar of language who lived through Nazi Germany — saw something more insidious: the slow corruption of everyday speech.
In his book “LTI – Lingua Tertii Imperii” (The Language of the Third Reich), Klemperer argued that Nazi ideology didn’t just spread through orders or slogans. It seeped into the most ordinary words people used. “Words can act like tiny doses of arsenic,” he wrote. “They are swallowed unnoticed, they seem to have no effect, and after a while the poison takes hold.”
This was Klemperer’s great insight: that language itself can carry ideology. The Nazis didn’t just control what people could say — they shaped how people thought, by reshaping the words available to them.
Everyday Germans began to speak of fanatical loyalty as a virtue, of special treatment as a bureaucratic euphemism for murder, of heroic death as something glorious. Words that once had neutral meanings became moral signals. And once those linguistic habits took root, thinking differently became harder.
You didn’t have to be a party member to be affected. Simply by repeating the language of the regime, people unknowingly absorbed its worldview. That was Klemperer’s quiet, devastating observation: even passive acceptance of a political vocabulary can change the moral landscape of a society.
His warning feels disturbingly relevant today. Every age has its own charged language — words that simplify, sanitize, or moralize. Political slogans, corporate euphemisms, social media buzzwords — all shape how we frame reality. The question Klemperer forces us to ask is timeless:
When we borrow someone else’s language, do we also start to borrow their way of thinking?
Language, Klemperer reminds us, is never neutral. It’s a living map of what a society allows itself to imagine — and what it chooses to forget.
Klemperer’s insights echo uncomfortably in our own time. The MAGA movement surrounding Donald Trump has developed a strikingly distinctive language — emotional, absolute, and infused with moral urgency. Phrases like “the real Americans,” “enemy of the people,” or “take our country back” carry more than political meaning; they define who belongs and who doesn’t.
As Klemperer would have recognized, such language doesn’t merely describe reality — it creates it. It simplifies the world into loyalists and traitors, purity and corruption, strength and weakness. The words themselves become moral weapons.
History doesn’t repeat itself word for word, but it often rhymes in tone. Klemperer’s warning still stands: when language becomes a tool of identity and division, it prepares the ground for something far darker than argument — it prepares the ground for belief without thought.
Anyone interested in the topic can purchase Klemperer’s book here:
Exactly. This distinction was important to me, too. I have nothing against Russia and the Russians. But Putin's mentality, which he spreads, and the idea that he must create an empire, must disappear. A large part of the world's instability can be traced back to Russian influence operations aimed at destabilizing the West. Unfortunately, this has succeeded, and unfortunately, it has been most effective in the USA.
This moment, when Trump is being heralded as the Great Peacemaker in the Middle East, an area well distant from the US, and worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize at the same time that right here at home he is hell bent on starting a civil war among those whom he is supposed to be a united force is so jarring as to seem some sort of black comedy.
Some Israelis say Trump had nothing to do with the cease-fire. Whatever, it remains to be seen how far and where this goes. Will the Israeli government and other Middle Eastern nations help Palestinians rebuild? Or will they be shipped out to some truly war- ravaged place like Sudan? If they are, then Trump will be able to build his Mar-a-Lago on the Mediterranean. Maybe that was Trump‘s goal all along. He’s devoid of any altruistic action or feeling.
I suspect that Netanyahu has been desperately seeking a way to end the slaughter, which has increasingly caste Israel as a butcher of women and children in the eyes of the outer world, in some way for which he does not have to take all from his own right wing. Trump is a great excuse. Trump, of course, badly needs another distraction from the chaos he is creating here, and we all know his obsession with winning a Nobel Peace Prize at any cost to anyone else. Putin has stymied that in the Ukraine. I can easily imagine Bibi and Donnie working this out between them to the mutual benefit of both.
The only reason Netanyahu might seek to end the slaughter is that he is running out of people to kill. He certainly has a vested interest in continuing the war, as it is really the only way he stays out of prison.
Of course there's another possibility. The people at that "round table" may be so muddle-headed and monumentally ignorant that they've got antifa confused with the Nazis. These are not the sharpest knives in the drawer, after all.
Actually, of the 24 in the dock at Nuremberg, all (but one) were above average in intellect, several well above. I'm not sure which is more disturbing, a kakistocracy of stupid or smart people.
But in this matter, the stupid ones are happily following a script prepared by ones who do know the history. And they don't care anyway, all they want is power. Truth doesn't matter, be it historical or in the moment.
Thank you Tim! When I heard that line, my mind was blown. It made me realize the people running our government don't know and don't study history. I am so glad you put it all in historical context and explained it so well. Appreciate what you do. Timely.
It's pretty obvious that Trump wants a civil war. How many people will have to die to keep the Epstein files concealed? How can anyone still believe that cancelling future elections isn't part of the plan?
Trump and his corporate communist cronies need to rue the day that they gave birth to ANTIFA, because what was once merely a shared sentiment will rise defiant and proudly own its place in history. #ANTIFA
Going beyond this useful reminder of what was actually going on in Weimar Germany, I would really like to see you do a piece urging institutions and individuals to guard their archives -- family letters (emails even), research notes from history classes, whatever might show what real people today and in the relatively recent past are thinking and perceiving about the current historical and political situation. We should assume that the individuals and organizations who are attacking universities as centers of knowledge are going to attempt to destroy or alter historical records. If they succeed, they could have a lock on perception of reality for a long time to come.
I remember reading Solzhenitsyn describing his character going down into a basement, through a dark hallway to a meeting with a paranoid Stalin when he was holed up in a bunker. Stephen Miller certainly also acts like a paranoid schizophrenic, which also makes me relate him to Stalin. His doublespeak is literally manic and comspiratorial. These people must be stopped. Only evil can come of this Death Cultist.
I almost didn't listen because we're exposed daily to way too many glib references to "Nazis" among Trump's coterie of lieutenants, like Stephen Miller in particular, and "Antifa" of course does not exist as an organization. But the key points Prof. Snyder makes here about the Weimar Republic and those who failed to stop Hitler from coming to power take the fervor of Trumpists' vengeful threats against "Antifa" to a different level. It is worth knowing and understanding these key historical links: (1) the people who tried to stop Hitler from coming to power were the Social Democrats who just wanted normalcy; in effect (2) the Social Democrats in the US are all of us in the broad center who want a functioning government under the Constitution, rule of law, etc. as we have known it; and (3) when Trump and his regime call "Antifa" the enemy and vow to go after Antifa, they are bent on destruction, not of a fictional organization of "anti-fascists" on the Left, but of the broad center of the American population that simply wants to live in normalcy. The Social Democrats failed to keep Hitler and the Nazi Party from coming to power, and we need to understand why that happened because there are important parallels. We need to understand the danger for all of us that is signaled by the Trumpists' naming "Antifa" as the enemy, as if it's an organization with identifiable card-carrying members (to borrow a phrase from the anti-Communist fervor of the McCarthy era). "Antifa" is effectively a code word that masks the breadth and depth of their anti-American mission. Thanks to Professor Snyder for this cogent and helpful primer. Keep 'em coming. Historical perspective is essential to understanding what we're living through, what we should expect, and what defeating the forces of evil will take.
I am a pretty engaged citizen and educated media consumer and…
Timothy Snyder consistently blows me away. It’s like I’m sitting in a dark room and he turns on a light like… it isn’t just that Fascism won in 1930’s Germany… it is also that ANTI-Fascism LOST in 1930’s Germany and then turns it up brighter… and there are lessons we can learn from that!
I’m smart… and I think I get what is going on more than most… and Tim Snyder sometimes makes me feel like a grade schooler!
Dear Dr. Snyder. Trump and Hitler - the common thread is the number of opportunities to stop them dead in their tracks that were not taken. The most obvious were their attempts to overthrow their respective governments which coincidentally failed. Beer Hall Putsch failure - 9 month sentence for Hitler. January 6 insurrection - Republicans, led by Moscow Mitch, would not vote for impeachment of Trump, even with the majority of votes pro impeachment. Opportunities ignored, or lost, are difficult, if not impossible, to rectify. Struggle.
In my worst nightmares I did not envision Prof Snyder using his learning/research on the 20th century horrors of Central/Eastern Europe to describe and diagnose 21st century US political scene.
I was born in CE Europe under Soviet slavery (do not mince words here, it was slavery) and in the ghoulish shadow of WWII and Nazi occupation. OK, it could have been worse, Hell has many circles.
But it was so bad that emigration was a dream to many people (remember, Soviet Union did not allow its slaves to travel). Emigration (assuming a successful escape) meant abandoning all property, your parents/family, and being ready to do any menial work abroad. Do not learn this mindset yourself. It will scar you for life.
Slavery comes in stages. Getting chained and whipped for obedience is at the end of a long road. It probably starts when people are no longer equal under the law. Which is where the US is already. Turn back, it will be only harder, more costly, more injurious further down this road.
Thank you for making this connection. I heard the reference to Weimar and knew what it meant but I am really glad you picked up on it and expounded on it so clearly! Thank you!
When “anti-antifa” becomes a rhetorical shield for authoritarian nostalgia, we’re not debating tactics, we’re enabling historical amnesia.
From a behavioral lens, this is incentive distortion at scale: redefine resistance as threat, then reward alignment with power.
The goal isn’t clarity—-it’s control through confusion.
Thanks for surfacing this. The architecture of memory matters.
— Johan
Professor of Behavioral Economics and Applied Cognitive Theory
Former Foreign Service Officer
I think it's very revealing to put those who tried—albeit in vain—to prevent Hitler on the same level as terrorists. It's clear where the speaker and his cronies stand politically. I'll stick to my usual conviction: fascism is getting worse every day. Not acting is not an option. As a German, I know very well what I'm talking about. The train from Alligator Alcatraz will end up in Auschwitz.
Promoting historical amnesia is one of the primary goals of the Republican Party.
True, it's malformation to create a controlling narrative.
My 2 cents: What is apparent to our senses is not always what we "like" or feel comfortable with. We are instinctive storytellers; therefore, we create stories that soothe us. What is most soothing is hearing what we've always believed.
Reality is not aligned with our 'oldish' stories now. Reality is clashing with soothing reminders. Realizing how hard it is to face reality, often called cold, please try to accept it. Reality changes much faster than our stories do.
One of the right-wing's most successful lies has been the fiction that Antifa actually exists as a real organization.
Yes, you are right on the mark! It seems to me that the Right Wing extremists have a real gift for simple, snappy slogans. The public picks them up, they seem to make sense on the surface, and the public looks no deeper but repeats the snappy slogans in an exponential explosion. And people vote for the party with the best slogans, in a lot of cases.
The Left has got to wake up and realize this is a tactic. It is the exact tactic the Left needs to use:
For Example: When the Right yelled Stop the Steal! the Left wrung its limp-wristed hands and whimpered about unfair accusations, instead of yelling back even louder, as we ought to have done, the one thing that Donald would have hated most:" SORE LOSER!"
The point is:this; We HAVE GOT TO PUT THE MAGA /TRuMP EXTREMISTS ON THE DEFENSIVE! Make them spend their time fighting factual, true accusations against what they are doing and saying.
DEMOCRATS HAVE TO DO THIS OR FAIL, in my view. We are far too quiet, too collegial, too pussyfaced and cowardly. WE NEED TO FIGHT FIRE WITH FIRE. AND NOT LET UP.AGAINST THE MAGA/TRUMP CONTINUAL, BLUSTERING ASSAULT. Democrats tend to back off after we have made one of our "well-reasoned, polite points".
What we need to do is YELL< CONTINUOUSLY. A good place to start is this: The MAGAss are broadcasting everywhere that "the Democrats are responsible for the Government Shutdown, for your plane ride being late, for your income being cut, for your pension being jeopardized. DEMOCRATS: YELL BACK THIS ONE FACT, WITHOUT CEASING, UNTIL THE MAGAs BACK OFF:
"HELLO, FELLOW AMERICAN CITIZEN. WAKE UP! YOUR MEDICAL INSURANCE COSTS WILL DOUBLE, FOR YOU, FOR YOUR PARENTS, FOR YOUR KIDS, UNLESS YOU HELP STOP THE MAGA/TRUMPs FROM SHUTTING DOWN THE US GOVERNMENT".
"THE MAGAs HAVE EMBEDDED A POISON PILL IN THE GOVERNMENT FUNDING BILL THAT WILL DOUBLE YOUR COSTS FOR ALL MEDICAL CARE IF WE DONT FIGHT THEM AND MAKE THEM DROP THIS CHANGE TO THE LAWS."
Then add:
"IF YOU WANT YOUR MEDICAL INSURANCE COSTS TO DOUBLE, VOTE FOR TRUMP. IF YOU WANT YOUR MEDICAL COSTS TO REMAIN THE SAME, OR EVENTUALLY GO DOWN, BACK THE DEMOCRATS.
"Democrats have made some very bad mistakes, due to old thinking that no longer works. We are working to fix this, and to learn so we reflect what YOU, FELLOW AMERICAN CITIZENS, actually want". Most of us are having a really hard time financially. We can fix this, and we can do a LOT BETTER IN PASSING LAWS THAT ACTUALLY HELP, NOT ROB, US AMERICAN CITIZENS. What is going on now DOES NOT WORK. WE MUST< AND WE CAN< WITH YOUR HELP< DO A LOT BETTER."
Not just "the public," Kate, that "picks them up."
Legacy media love simple slogans as they reward laziness.
Phil and Kate: Not just legacy. Short, snappy slogans have been swirling around us since the advent of radio. After years in advertising, you learn to play with limited space and time. And we are all primed for it now. The right is good at it because they don’t feel constrained by honesty, good taste or embarrassment.
"Stop the Steal" was clever. Even though almost everyone knew it was a lie. Go back a few years, and it was, “You're Fired.” Now DT spews out a few new ones every now and then, decides if the response is good, and he’ll repeat it again and again. Like all the wars and other things, he did nothing about but took credit for.
I agree, the media can be disappointing. Everything is being reinvented. It’s difficult to know what must be chucked. Legacy media is still in the job of informing. It is NOT Fake News. But many are still doing journalism with integrity, but with less support, understanding, and pay. It is still a hard job. Writing them off in a broad swipe is foolish. As far as Trvmp is concerned, he still makes the story all around “Fake News” (and he gets to bully people too, he likes that), but he does not go anywhere without a couple of dozen of them along with his cabinet members. Now, don’t any of those people have a job to do?
And unless you are an influencer or have your own podcast with adoring fans because you are simply regurgitating the same slams, the same hate, the same “gotcha.” That is a shame because that is where all the BS is coming from.
The left does not need to mimic the right. Being a jerk seems to be the ticket to success these days. And it might give someone a year or two to make some money (the Russians don’t seem to have much left to throw around in the US, lousy exchange rate). It will not last. I would not be surprised if many of the right-wing nuts playing with the MAGAs will drift away when things get really ugly and the pay dries up.
Don’t right off our journalists, sub stackers, YouTubers, Instagramers, but I’d steer away from TikTok. There is a lot of independence still. Even if everything seems to be owned by the same few pencil neck dweebs. The rich Tech-Bros are not our friends. Get a VPN.
Start listening to our own left-leaning smart, interesting types. They are out there. They are not as knowledgeable as Tim, nor can they get to the point immediately, but they are good, and they are trying, and they have a far better chance to change the world than I can. I truly believe that.
HL -- Your points are all excellent, and well taken. I agree with the thrust of what you have outlined.
In my view, where we need to change is in the METHOD of making people actually pay attention. That seems to me to be our weakest point. If people don't pay atttention, they dont ever even consider the message of truth and fact.
The method, yes, Kate.
Schools. We've got to return freedom to teachers, and kill testing.
Re your point about testing: I recently took an on line course on Harvard edX titled American Government: Constitutional Foundations, which gives a pass/fail grade oonly. It was so much fun not worrying about a grade. What a positive difference that makes! (i got a "pass" grade)
I am currently almost finished Tsinghua University course online in Mandarin Chinese. Also, simple pass/fail. And again, that feeling of dread over grades that permeated all my "regular college" classes, when I was in my 20s, is absent.
I think the old fashioned Grades systems are a bad way to go, except for obvious exceptions like Medical Doctors and rocket scientists. I was truly amazed what a difference it made. Learning felt like when you are a child: pure fun and joy.
Yes. I agree absolutely with these two ideas. Great points.
Yes, indeed, HL. Plenty of good ones out there. In fact I often refer to them.
Yours best here? -- looking at Donald's appointees and asking, "Now, don't any of those people have a job to do?"
That's why they're always clustered around him. To suck up to him. That's their only job. None of that crew believes, anyway, that government has any roles to serve the American people -- they hate all the agencies that regulated for worker safety, the environment, health, and consumer finance.
So now, all clustered around their fat, orange criminal, they form choruses to his further criminality, scare-mongering, and cheering on the ICE terror goons.
...the full descriptive, Phil, is, I believe, "the fat, orange criminal with the faux bone spurred flat feet". Kindly include this important additional scientific information...
:-) !!
You make a very good point. Thank you for this.
Yes, true, Phil Balla. Do you think the value of the lazier media picking up and using a slogan is outweighed by the possible good effect of placing it before (possibly lazy) readers? I am not sure, but I hope so.
Slogans alone of course are not the answer to engaging the voting public. But seems to me they do have a beneficial effect in some way, since they seem to be so exceedingly successful for the MAGAs.
Of course, a MAGA public vs. a thinking, use-your-brain public, are not the same audience. I just hope every little bit helps that we can do. We have not yet hit the numbers to make the right outcomes happen, in my view.
I would value your input on this.
The best danger of slogans, Kate, show in Orwell's "Politics and the English Language."
They anesthetize us, blind us, distance us from actual humans in actual pain, complications, and other contexts requiring specific language.
Also vital, the descriptions Pasternak gives of what slogans do in his chapter when the partisans capture Yuri Zhivago and he has to hear their abstracted slogans every night during his captivity.
Thanks for these two references -- will look them up. Unaware of them. Thanks, Phil.
For actual signs, the shorter, the better, particularly if you expect your motorist at the stoplight to be able to read them. Print 72 font bold and enlarge further by copy machine enlargement. Graphic design matters.
Signs for rallies and protests with foot traffic can be slightly longer, as there is more time to read a full sentence, but the font still needs to be clear and large.
The left wing will never win a slogan war with the right wing because lies are always easier to express than truths. That said, I agree with you that the left wing needs to stop whining and hand-wringing and answer back strongly. We can push back with more wit and truth than the right wing ever could.
Please, Douglas, write what you’ve written here to Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries. Or to your senators.
Or to all 4 of them. As far as I can tell they’re doing the same things they’ve
done since 2016. They’re not fighting back effectively as a group. Maybe it’s just me, but I see this as a “street fight.” In a street fight you have to fight fire with fire.
When the opposition is a bunch of nasty bullies you have to get up in their faces. Dems should have thousands of new hires on all social media day & night pushing out the facts about how ICE is doing things that violate the law—how they are refusing detainees due process, how they are detaining people based on how they look, how they’re detaining citizens & people who are here legally. How they’re detaining people without a warrant or probable cause—that’s illegal. Not only that, after picking up people who are here legally, they are torturing them by putting them in solitary confinement for, in one man’s case, over two months!! ICE ignores requests for medication some detainees need to stay alive or to keep their health from rapidly deteriorating. They are not criminals. They’re people
with jobs and families.
Dems should be pushing all of this info out on social media & explaining what Dems stand for instead of letting Magas define what Dems stand for. Dem operatives should be on Meta, Threads, “X,” Instagram, Bluesky & Substack explaining what Due Process is,how the Rule of Law works, how our Constitution works & voters should understand all of the ways repubs are attempting to suppress the vote. If Dem leaders would do that, they would very likely start getting more donations. This is a 4 alarm fire
they fighting with a bucket brigade!
Democrats should be saturating social
media with all kinds of information. I
suspect Democratic leaders don’t spend a lot of time on social media so
they are discounting its importance,
when in reality it reaches a lot of voters who aren’t paying attention to politics and don’t realize what’s at stake. It’s the people who aren’t paying attention who are going to drag all of us down into an intolerable
way of life.
The American left wing can't count on the Democrats, they need to take matters in their own hands and take actions like what you suggest.
You and I aren't rich enough for Schumer and Jeffries and others to care what we think. We have to speak for ourselves.
You got that right. I now cant even pay for the (recently doubled by PSEG) electric bill, or the (recently tripled!) house insurance. Or the more than tripled School taxes (having myself with my taxes already put decades of other people's kids through our public schools (NJ property taxes are the HIGHEST in the entire Nation). Rice and beans for us, pleas for "Donations for the Democratic Party" for Schumer and Jeffries. I am really fed up with these completely out of touch, brains-set-in-cement politicians. THEY DO NOT GET HOW THE REST OF US LIVE. We need a living ASSURED INCOME for ALL Citizens. It is NOT OK the way it is, with the extreme Haves and Have Nots. (And I am far from the worst off -- people living in utter financial despair is NOT OK, and I know of many).
ABSOLUTELY RIGHT: as stated above, DEMOCRATS SHOULD BE SATURATING SOCIAL MEDIA WITH ALL KINDS OF INFORMATION. We know this, but to date, it does not to me seem to be happening. Thank you, Susan Garrity Benton, for pointing this out.
Sadly, I don't know the first thing about social media and how to go viral, having avoided using it.
Yes. We do as you point out, have the edge with both wit and truth. We need to USE them, it seems to me. Thanks for this comment.
Simple: Do you want your neighbors and family spying on you and turning you into the secret police?
Brilliant! Really hits you in the face.
We need something short and shocking. "Johnson just bought MILLIONS of body bags", "MAGA bought stock in caskets", or "My Actions Guarantee Anarchy" or something like these....
Right on the mark! Only, make the whole thing in CAPITAL LETTERS. The Body Bag idea gave me a chill. Spread the word. The last example is too abstract. You need to be able to see and touch the message, which is why the Body Bags one is perfect. (I am cited in Who's Why in America for PR ) -- a lot of which is finding and inventing messaging just like your Body Bags idea. Great!!
Yes, Johan. AntiFa doesn’t exist but ProFa is alive and well. It has its leaders and its network. The real leaders are Miller and Vought. The network is magats, Fox, and social media. The new movement is us: AntiProFa.
And I thought it was the old, "Trade the illusion of security for your freedom," gambit. It's worked before...
So, from the online pics, all of their supplies and spare gear magically appear at the right time, at the right location?
You mean the online pics of riots in South America that right-wingers post claiming it's "Antifa?"
Social media is a great way to communicate. Tell folks where the party is, what to bring, and the dress code. That doesn't mean that the attendees are becoming members of the host family.
Yes. Your point is excellent, and true, it seems to me.
People who care to know DO know that Antifa is not an "organization" -- but instead an attitude (we do not like or want Fascism) belonging to many, many groups and individuals. But as you say, a lie is easier to push on the public. So the MAGAs scream, endlessly.about an "Antifa terrorist threat". We, unfortunately, dont flood the zone with the truth, but only state it once or twice, in places not even seen by MAGAS.
Here is a question, on a different idea. I would value your thoughts on it: Do you think this could work? It is based on a visual, which seems to work better in trying to change people's minds, than simply words alone, as I see it.:
Trumpf's HUGE fear is being found out, by the public, including his MAGA fan-base, for his pederast activities with his pal Jeffrey Epstein. Many, many young women who were abused sexually by the Epstein criminal operation are speaking out, lately. My question is this:
What about inviting several dozen of these former young victims to join hands on the White House lawn (or on the sidewalk in front of the White House if they cant get in) and chant together "Open the Epstein Files!" It would get plenty of media coverage, and make it harder for trumpf to continue "distracting" news outlets, the general public, lawmakers, and citizens who care, from focusing on the EPSTEIN FILES.
I believe one big reason for the current chaotic and demented attacks on many American cities with our own Armed Forces, is outrageous by design, so we will chase after that and forget who abused young girls.
If trumpf is actually one of them, he needs to be caught and pay the price. He is, by all accounts, terrified of being found out.
What do you think?
Too often, the left wing is so busy fretting about what right-wingers say and might do that they forget the people they want to support. The survivors of the Epstein sex trafficking ring stood in DC and said they would name names. All they asked for was support. They haven't received much. The Democratic Party Establishment ignored the survivors and instead embarked on a political stunt that ends up helping the regime avoid accountability.
The American left wing can't count on the Democrats, they need to take matters in their own hands and take actions like what you suggest.
YES! Douglas Giles, you are absolutely right!
I also have been writing on this: BRING THE GIRLS AND WOMEN WHO WERE ABUSED BY JEFFREY EPSTEIN AND HIS PAL DONALD TRUMP TO THE WHITE HOUSE LAWN (or in front on the sidewalk, if donald wont let them in). Let these many, many girls and women TELL WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM. and what role, if any, donald trump had in their abuse.
Trump fears this, more than anything else, according to people who are informed about it, which is why all the DISTRACTIONS like invasions of our American cities by US Military and other trump-invented atrocities are moving ahead with such velocity.
Such an obvious and excellent way to put MAJOR PRESS ATTENTION back on the Epstein connection to donald, in my view also. What is WRONG with the flatfooted Democrats that they do not LEAP on this PUBLICITY HOME RUN? Make donald trump face the facts of his past actions against girls and women.
How can we get others like us to help spreading this message, do you think?
Kate, I agree—but the key is, we have to guarantee protection for the girls-
who are now women. Let’s think about this. What if we don’t involve them, but put ICE-like disguises on women
who represent each one symbolically?
Each one could carry a sign with a quote on it from the victim she represents. I saw a quote from one who was very young at the time. She said something to Trump and said he then slapped her, ripped her panties off and then raped her.
That could be powerful.
WOW! Your comment floored me, Susan Garrity Benton. Great ideas. Of course you are right, no person who didnt want to be in-person would not need to be present, but someone else could carry a placard for her with a message. Brilliant idea! Thanks. Spread the word, will you?
"My father was ANTIFA. He landed on Normandy Beach in 1944 and fought his way to defeat FASCIST Nazi Germany."
"I am ANTIFA too, though I could never match my patriotic father."
Sign that would have been in a march but for the fact that it was raining an inch an hour during the protest. It would have been a limp mess in about 10 minutes. My small cloth American flag was put in service instead (and respectfully dried on the laundry line when finished.)
True, by the way. My dad was an Army private, then private first class by the time that he was demobilized.
I think the admin is trying to find ways to go after Moveon, ActBlue, NoKings, 50501, 5Calls and all the grassroots organizations that are helping people resist, and the people who have donated.
Not surprised.
The language that poisoned a whole nation
By Marcel Sella
When we think about the rise of totalitarianism, we often picture mass rallies, uniforms, and propaganda posters. But Viktor Klemperer — a Jewish scholar of language who lived through Nazi Germany — saw something more insidious: the slow corruption of everyday speech.
In his book “LTI – Lingua Tertii Imperii” (The Language of the Third Reich), Klemperer argued that Nazi ideology didn’t just spread through orders or slogans. It seeped into the most ordinary words people used. “Words can act like tiny doses of arsenic,” he wrote. “They are swallowed unnoticed, they seem to have no effect, and after a while the poison takes hold.”
This was Klemperer’s great insight: that language itself can carry ideology. The Nazis didn’t just control what people could say — they shaped how people thought, by reshaping the words available to them.
Everyday Germans began to speak of fanatical loyalty as a virtue, of special treatment as a bureaucratic euphemism for murder, of heroic death as something glorious. Words that once had neutral meanings became moral signals. And once those linguistic habits took root, thinking differently became harder.
You didn’t have to be a party member to be affected. Simply by repeating the language of the regime, people unknowingly absorbed its worldview. That was Klemperer’s quiet, devastating observation: even passive acceptance of a political vocabulary can change the moral landscape of a society.
His warning feels disturbingly relevant today. Every age has its own charged language — words that simplify, sanitize, or moralize. Political slogans, corporate euphemisms, social media buzzwords — all shape how we frame reality. The question Klemperer forces us to ask is timeless:
When we borrow someone else’s language, do we also start to borrow their way of thinking?
Language, Klemperer reminds us, is never neutral. It’s a living map of what a society allows itself to imagine — and what it chooses to forget.
Klemperer’s insights echo uncomfortably in our own time. The MAGA movement surrounding Donald Trump has developed a strikingly distinctive language — emotional, absolute, and infused with moral urgency. Phrases like “the real Americans,” “enemy of the people,” or “take our country back” carry more than political meaning; they define who belongs and who doesn’t.
As Klemperer would have recognized, such language doesn’t merely describe reality — it creates it. It simplifies the world into loyalists and traitors, purity and corruption, strength and weakness. The words themselves become moral weapons.
History doesn’t repeat itself word for word, but it often rhymes in tone. Klemperer’s warning still stands: when language becomes a tool of identity and division, it prepares the ground for something far darker than argument — it prepares the ground for belief without thought.
Anyone interested in the topic can purchase Klemperer’s book here:
https://a.co/d/dTpDe19
Ceterum censeo imperium Russicum esse delendam.
Exactly. This distinction was important to me, too. I have nothing against Russia and the Russians. But Putin's mentality, which he spreads, and the idea that he must create an empire, must disappear. A large part of the world's instability can be traced back to Russian influence operations aimed at destabilizing the West. Unfortunately, this has succeeded, and unfortunately, it has been most effective in the USA.
Not sure we should actually destroy Russia -- but "imperial" changes the whole meaning.
The same dynamics you've described remind me of the foundational priciples of Daniel Goldhagaen's book "Hitler's Willing Executioners."
Thanks, Tim. Excellent, lucid, and as relevant as it gets.
This moment, when Trump is being heralded as the Great Peacemaker in the Middle East, an area well distant from the US, and worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize at the same time that right here at home he is hell bent on starting a civil war among those whom he is supposed to be a united force is so jarring as to seem some sort of black comedy.
Some Israelis say Trump had nothing to do with the cease-fire. Whatever, it remains to be seen how far and where this goes. Will the Israeli government and other Middle Eastern nations help Palestinians rebuild? Or will they be shipped out to some truly war- ravaged place like Sudan? If they are, then Trump will be able to build his Mar-a-Lago on the Mediterranean. Maybe that was Trump‘s goal all along. He’s devoid of any altruistic action or feeling.
I suspect that Netanyahu has been desperately seeking a way to end the slaughter, which has increasingly caste Israel as a butcher of women and children in the eyes of the outer world, in some way for which he does not have to take all from his own right wing. Trump is a great excuse. Trump, of course, badly needs another distraction from the chaos he is creating here, and we all know his obsession with winning a Nobel Peace Prize at any cost to anyone else. Putin has stymied that in the Ukraine. I can easily imagine Bibi and Donnie working this out between them to the mutual benefit of both.
“Bibb and Donnie” just doesn’t have the effect of 2 war criminals.
The only reason Netanyahu might seek to end the slaughter is that he is running out of people to kill. He certainly has a vested interest in continuing the war, as it is really the only way he stays out of prison.
Of course there's another possibility. The people at that "round table" may be so muddle-headed and monumentally ignorant that they've got antifa confused with the Nazis. These are not the sharpest knives in the drawer, after all.
Neither were the Nazis.
Actually, of the 24 in the dock at Nuremberg, all (but one) were above average in intellect, several well above. I'm not sure which is more disturbing, a kakistocracy of stupid or smart people.
But in this matter, the stupid ones are happily following a script prepared by ones who do know the history. And they don't care anyway, all they want is power. Truth doesn't matter, be it historical or in the moment.
Thank you Tim! When I heard that line, my mind was blown. It made me realize the people running our government don't know and don't study history. I am so glad you put it all in historical context and explained it so well. Appreciate what you do. Timely.
Absolutely crucial explanation.
It's pretty obvious that Trump wants a civil war. How many people will have to die to keep the Epstein files concealed? How can anyone still believe that cancelling future elections isn't part of the plan?
Trump and his corporate communist cronies need to rue the day that they gave birth to ANTIFA, because what was once merely a shared sentiment will rise defiant and proudly own its place in history. #ANTIFA
Going beyond this useful reminder of what was actually going on in Weimar Germany, I would really like to see you do a piece urging institutions and individuals to guard their archives -- family letters (emails even), research notes from history classes, whatever might show what real people today and in the relatively recent past are thinking and perceiving about the current historical and political situation. We should assume that the individuals and organizations who are attacking universities as centers of knowledge are going to attempt to destroy or alter historical records. If they succeed, they could have a lock on perception of reality for a long time to come.
Thank you for this and other insightful pieces,
Madeleine Wells
Read Snyder’s On Tyranny
I remember reading Solzhenitsyn describing his character going down into a basement, through a dark hallway to a meeting with a paranoid Stalin when he was holed up in a bunker. Stephen Miller certainly also acts like a paranoid schizophrenic, which also makes me relate him to Stalin. His doublespeak is literally manic and comspiratorial. These people must be stopped. Only evil can come of this Death Cultist.
I almost didn't listen because we're exposed daily to way too many glib references to "Nazis" among Trump's coterie of lieutenants, like Stephen Miller in particular, and "Antifa" of course does not exist as an organization. But the key points Prof. Snyder makes here about the Weimar Republic and those who failed to stop Hitler from coming to power take the fervor of Trumpists' vengeful threats against "Antifa" to a different level. It is worth knowing and understanding these key historical links: (1) the people who tried to stop Hitler from coming to power were the Social Democrats who just wanted normalcy; in effect (2) the Social Democrats in the US are all of us in the broad center who want a functioning government under the Constitution, rule of law, etc. as we have known it; and (3) when Trump and his regime call "Antifa" the enemy and vow to go after Antifa, they are bent on destruction, not of a fictional organization of "anti-fascists" on the Left, but of the broad center of the American population that simply wants to live in normalcy. The Social Democrats failed to keep Hitler and the Nazi Party from coming to power, and we need to understand why that happened because there are important parallels. We need to understand the danger for all of us that is signaled by the Trumpists' naming "Antifa" as the enemy, as if it's an organization with identifiable card-carrying members (to borrow a phrase from the anti-Communist fervor of the McCarthy era). "Antifa" is effectively a code word that masks the breadth and depth of their anti-American mission. Thanks to Professor Snyder for this cogent and helpful primer. Keep 'em coming. Historical perspective is essential to understanding what we're living through, what we should expect, and what defeating the forces of evil will take.
This is really helpful and worth sharing.
I am a pretty engaged citizen and educated media consumer and…
Timothy Snyder consistently blows me away. It’s like I’m sitting in a dark room and he turns on a light like… it isn’t just that Fascism won in 1930’s Germany… it is also that ANTI-Fascism LOST in 1930’s Germany and then turns it up brighter… and there are lessons we can learn from that!
I’m smart… and I think I get what is going on more than most… and Tim Snyder sometimes makes me feel like a grade schooler!
Dear Dr. Snyder. Trump and Hitler - the common thread is the number of opportunities to stop them dead in their tracks that were not taken. The most obvious were their attempts to overthrow their respective governments which coincidentally failed. Beer Hall Putsch failure - 9 month sentence for Hitler. January 6 insurrection - Republicans, led by Moscow Mitch, would not vote for impeachment of Trump, even with the majority of votes pro impeachment. Opportunities ignored, or lost, are difficult, if not impossible, to rectify. Struggle.
In my worst nightmares I did not envision Prof Snyder using his learning/research on the 20th century horrors of Central/Eastern Europe to describe and diagnose 21st century US political scene.
I was born in CE Europe under Soviet slavery (do not mince words here, it was slavery) and in the ghoulish shadow of WWII and Nazi occupation. OK, it could have been worse, Hell has many circles.
But it was so bad that emigration was a dream to many people (remember, Soviet Union did not allow its slaves to travel). Emigration (assuming a successful escape) meant abandoning all property, your parents/family, and being ready to do any menial work abroad. Do not learn this mindset yourself. It will scar you for life.
Slavery comes in stages. Getting chained and whipped for obedience is at the end of a long road. It probably starts when people are no longer equal under the law. Which is where the US is already. Turn back, it will be only harder, more costly, more injurious further down this road.
Thank you for making this connection. I heard the reference to Weimar and knew what it meant but I am really glad you picked up on it and expounded on it so clearly! Thank you!