America Is Entering a Dangerous Moment — with Timothy Snyder

24:48So like that, I'm not saying it's exactly the same. I'm just saying that history teaches us that being in favor of Israel is not the same thing as caring about the rights or the dignity of the Jews. And as far as this administration, I mean, I think they've been anti-Semitic from the get-go. I think the way they treated Zelensky in the Oval Office is basically impossible if Zelensky is not Jewish. It definitely had an element of making a circle around the Jewish guy and taunting him. And the whole thing against campuses, I mean, although it claims to be anti-antisemitic, in my view, it's clearly antisemitic because what it does is that it sets up this expectation, which the real antisemites immediately grasp, that the Jews are in charge, right?

25:30The Jews are in charge because they're able to do this on campuses. And I think many American Jews don't notice that dynamic, but the anti-Semites definitely notice that dynamic, right? I mean, so I think that whole thing has been a trap, that the notion that the government comes in and closes down free speech on universities, which is what happened, then they do it on behalf of Israel. that tells the anti-Semites that, oh, look, the Jews really are in charge. And I think they know that. I mean, I think they're perfectly aware that this is what they're doing. And I wish fewer people had been taken in by this.

26:05So, yeah, I mean, getting to your question, I think it's very telling that Vance, you know, when he's basically—so first, I mean, look at who Vance follows on social media. He follows people who are just unremitting American Nazis. And when he's asked about whether the Republican Party is a big enough tent for the Nazis, He says, well, you know, his response is basically, yeah, it has to be it has to be a big enough tent, both for people who are Nazis and who aren't Nazis, you know. And so that's really where we are. And they're not making too many bones about it. And so I think, you know, if if Miller is around long enough, it would be really surprising if Vance in advance is around long enough.

26:42Right. Because in these like in these situations where it's a tiny number of people vying for power, it's all kind of unpredictable. But in that situation, it would be I think it'd be very surprising if Vance didn't resort to something like, you know, this guy's not really American or like this guy went too far or, you know, people like him always take things to extremes. You know, that that kind of thing. I think that would be a natural move for Vance to make. We'll be right back after a quick break.

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28:46Thank you.

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30:07Talk a little bit specifically about Minneapolis, the response of the citizenry there, and if there's any historical context and how it might help us understand what might happen there or happen next. That's a beautifully framed question because it gets at something very important, and that is that in an unusual situation, you can't count on the political parties to be the solution. and we are definitely, however you want to characterize it, we are in an unusual situation. I mean, we're in a place that a number of political scientists, I think, wisely would call competitive authoritarianism, where there are going to be elections, but the elections are going to be an uphill struggle.

30:52And you can win, but the way that you win is by recognizing that it's an uphill struggle and that you have to do unusual things. And part of that is understanding that although there will be an elections and the opposition party has to win those elections, it's not going to do it on its own and that you don't wait for the opposition party. Instead, you have to push out ahead as the opposition yourself or as the resistance. You have to set the moral terms. You have to take the risks and you have to build a coalition of which the opposition political party is a part, but isn't necessarily leading or pulling the wagon on.

31:32So, and the examples of this, I mean, the scholars who work on nonviolent resistance and who work on authoritarianism and pulling back on authoritarianism, I think the consensus is pretty clear on this, that the way that you win is with a coalition. But it's not just, so to speak, a cool, calm, calculated coalition. It's a coalition that emerges because people have had experiences and are willing to do new things and get out and take some risks and show themselves. So the coalition, like there's a mathematical logic to the coalition. You've got to get above. You have to win elections by a meaningful margin.

32:10But there's also an emotional or subjective logic to the coalition, which is that you care enough at this specific moment to open yourself to cooperating with people with whom you don't agree on every single issue. Now, historically, we know that that works. It has worked over and over and over again. Competitive authoritarianism is a bad situation to be in, but it's not an insurmountable situation if you recognize it for what it is. And so, taking Minneapolis in context, and I can't say anything terribly smart about it because I was in Europe for the whole time. But taking Minneapolis in context, that's a moment where people took risks.

32:46They did the right thing. They self-organized. They set an example. They responded to a particular wrong in a way which enables coalition building and which enables people to formulate the stakes of what's going on. I find the protests in the eyes of President Trump, in a weird way, I think he almost enjoys the outrage. And I worry that they're not, that they make us feel good. They're cinematic. They're great on CNN. And then they just sort of dissipate and melt away. Your thoughts? I don't think that's how it works. So, I mean, I think I disagree with every part of the premise. I don't think Trump actually enjoys it.

33:26I mean, if you look at the social media response, I mean, he may take pleasure in attacking people in a kind of generic way, but I don't think he was happy that, for example, his presidential self-parade, you know, that military march, which one can only remember for like the pathos of it all, that that was so wildly outclassed by the protests. He didn't seem to be happy about that. But I mean, getting beyond his personal reactions, it is my experience, and there are many people more experienced than me, but it's my experience as someone who helps to organize some things and as someone who takes part in public protest, that one of the effects of public protest is that it enables people to go back and organize on a smaller scale.

34:10So I don't think it dissipates. I think what happens is that people realize that these protests were organized by somebody and maybe they could join those people who are doing this organization. Create infrastructure. I hadn't thought of it that way. Yeah, yeah. And I think that's like, that's invisible, right? Like, I mean, I think the media hasn't actually done a great job of covering these things. I think they've been much more sick. I mean, I think these are the biggest protests in the history of the country, and they have not really gotten the media attention they deserve. I think partly because our media is still too much in the notion that politics is a game and it's played behind closed doors.

34:41And what you're supposed to report on is what somebody leaks when they like, you know, crack the door open a moment. I don't think they've gotten the attention they deserve. But yeah, I disagree with the premise because I think that one of the main reasons you protest, and the main reason you protest is to tell the rest of the people who are watching you that this is what's normal and that going along isn't normal. But I think the second reason you protest is that it's like it is the gateway to doing other things. Like it opens the door to doing other things. It allows you to meet people you didn't know before and then to go on and do other things.

35:10There's such a frustration around what to do. if local officials or state officials from Minnesota call you, and as far as I know they have, or the federal government, specifically Democrats in the Senate, think that they're getting a lot of calls that basically can be distilled down to, well, for God's sakes, do something or do more to push back. How would you advise them on what to do? You mean in Minnesota particularly? Governor Walz calls you And then the head of the Senate Democratic Caucus calls you and says, we're absolutely outraged. And as a historian who's seen these things play out, what advice would you have for us?

35:52I mean, the main advice, it's a little bit different for Walsh or for the Senate. um and but i think if you're in dc the main advice is to make sure that you're having meetings or you're listening to people who were on the ground because as sympathetic as you might be um there's a reality out there that it's hard to get from your staffers or from the media so that if you didn't go to minnesota as some people did of course then you should make sure that you have meetings where you're bringing people in and actually listening to them. Because there is a mood in the country at large, not just in Minnesota, which is hard to pick up unless you actually have these meetings.

36:36And the second thing, I think, is to recognize that since this is an exceptional moment, we're not really in a polling universe. We're more in a universe where you have to yourself frame what's going on, right? Because one of the many problems with polling is that it means that the people who are doing the polling frame reality by how they frame their questions. And then you get the answers to the questions and that there's a number and then you react to that. But at this moment, the reality that you have is that we have a quasi-secret police, which is shooting people in the streets. And that as a politician, whether you're a senator or a governor, it's your job to frame that rather than to wait and to see how it gets framed by other people.

37:25And I mean, the third thing is that, you know, there are lots of things. And again, the situation of Governor Walz and the situation of senators is a bit different. And Governor Walz has, I think, been quite out front. But the other thing is to think, you know, you have to aim for a big victory in 26-28, which affirms values, right? Like you take this as an opportunity to talk about what you think is good and what you think is right and what you think the American Republic should be. Because at the end of the day, you're not going to get big victories just by being against bad things, no matter how bad they are.

38:00You have to use this as a way to talk about the kind of American Republic you would see, which not only would lack these things, but which would respect the dignity of individuals, which would not only that it wouldn't take life, that it would respect people, that it would provide opportunity. So it's because people need to see that there's some kind of a future, not just that, you know, you're condemning this thing which is happening. What do you think is really going on here? And what I mean is, this doesn't feel to me, in terms of the tone that the administration and the instructions they've given to Secretary Noem and Fib Bovino at ICE, this doesn't feel like it has much to do with immigration.

38:41is this normalizing a military force to try and pervert or arrest free and fair elections? Is this about an exhibition of strength that they feel shows up at the ballot box that people like a strong? I'll go back to my initial question. What do you think is actually going on here? I think there's a strategic level to it, and then there's also an emotive level to it. So the strategic level, let me try to use history again. One of the problems that the Nazis had in the 30s was that there was no centralized police force. Germany in the 30s, a bit like the U.S. today, was a federal system. And again, a bit like the U.S.

39:23today, most policing was the responsibility of the states. And so the Nazis over the course of, from 1933 to early 1939, they managed to centralize the police forces. They managed to blur the line between their own paramilitary, the SA and then the SS and the police force. And then by early 1939, they had the whole thing under one command where the SS and the SA had been merged with the regular police forces. It was all centralized and there was one pyramid of command. It's not that we're doing exactly the same thing. I just set that up as a kind of generic problem that you have. And the way that Trump is solving this problem is by treating ICE as a national police force.

40:08and this is this works because the problem of migration they can say is a problem which is everywhere and so therefore there's a license for ice to be everywhere in every home and every business in every state that's how they're jumping over this problem they're reading they're treating immigration as a national issue which could potentially but you know as friends they see it quote-unquote justify having an ice agent in everybody's bedroom right because there could be anywhere there could be an immigrant and it's also and i'm still in the strategic logic It's also helpful because the border is a place where exceptional things happen.

40:41And so if you get people thinking that the border is everywhere, that means that you get people thinking, well, the law doesn't really apply anywhere, right? Because the law doesn't apply at the border. The country ends and another country starts. And so if you can get people thinking that a border issue can be anywhere, then you can get people thinking that the law doesn't really apply anywhere. So that's the strategy, okay? And I believe in that. But there's also no motive level, which is that these guys do have a kind of, they have they have a kind of push button video game logic going as well, which is that we want to do something quick and get like a and get quick gratification out of it.

41:15And so you see this in the way like that they whirl from one country to another in their foreign policy. But with ICE, I think it's like, OK, in Minnesota, they're doing stuff we don't like. Let's just pound them. You know, let's just hit them. Let's just like I mean, like imagining that some kind of first person, you know, video game. Let's just send our guys over there. Let's just flood them. And that's going to get the reaction we want, and it's going to happen quickly. So I think that's it as well, like this desire for a quick gratification and this belief, which of course proves to be wrong, that violence automatically changes the game.

41:49It doesn't, or it doesn't necessarily change the game in the way that you want. It leads to unpredictable things. And this, by the way, just raising up the question to a slightly more abstract form, people talk about the Insurrection Act or martial law as though those things, you know, whether they're for it or against it, those things would automatically change. But, you know, if they try martial law, it's still the same guys. It's still the same ice. It's still the same set of problems. People aren't going to like it. You know, a few more people will get shot. Americans won't like that the least tiny bit.

42:22Right. And so people talk a little bit about martial law and the Unterection Act as though like it's a video game and now you just go up a level. But it's not like that. It's still humans with uniforms and weapons and unpredictable bad stuff happens. It doesn't make politics go away. We'll be right back.

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45:56We're back with more from Timothy Snyder. I heard you on another podcast say that they're basically trying to convince people, they're bringing the border to them, they're saying the border's everywhere. And I found that just so insightful and chilling at the same time. And I was trying to discuss or trying to bring to life that in early 30s Germany, I would like you to refine and calibrate my, you know, history for dummies. But my understanding is that corporations non-pushback early in that era was instrumental to Hitler's rise, that they sort of had this, I'll do what you need to make more money if you ignore and don't speak up.

46:35Can you speak to the role that corporations and corporate leaders or business leaders playing, or in this case, not playing, provides us with some historical context there? Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to say it's an exact fit. And I don't want to be unfair to people, especially because I want to remember that there have been some good moments. Like when Trump tried to steal the election, there was actually quite a good and unified reaction from a lot of the same folks that we're talking about. So I don't want that to be forgotten. But I agree with you, it's not going well now. There wasn't a lot of downside then, though, right?

47:15They knew eventually Trump, Biden would be inaugurated. I don't think they took much risk there. I think you're giving them more credit than they deserve. Yeah, very possibly. I'm just trying to say, you know, Scott, when you're about to talk about Nazis, you try to be as fair as you. You try to be a little more tempered. Because I'm about to talk about Nazis. So with Germany, the basic deal was the businesses hated the labor unions and therefore they didn't like democracy. And so it's not that they were gung-ho Nazis on an ideological level, most of them, but they thought Hitler and this government, they're going to just crush the labor unions for us.

47:52And we don't like democracy either because democracy allows those labor unions to have some power. And so there you do see a little bit of overlap, right, where a lot of our leading CEOs are quite hostile to the labor movement and in that way are happy to have this guy. and you can't do proper resistance without the labor movement. And that's not a connection that people are making. Like in the long run, American business leads the labor movement, needs the labor movement because the labor movement will help you preserve rule of law and you need rule of law. But in the short run, like your quarterly report or whatever, you're thinking, I don't want the labor movement.

48:28They're going to cut down my profits. And I think that's a bit of a moral or practical trap that people are in. And then of course, I mean, the second step in the Nazi history is that then, you know, once they were in power, the Germans brought in the CEOs or the leaders of the businesses one by one and took them to the woodshed because they could at that point. You know, and that's again, that's a little bit repeating now. Some of our guys, you know, like some of our guys went to the woodshed on their own even before Trump was in power and, you know, kind of asked for it. And that is a difference, right?

49:00I mean, that moment in late last year and early this year, where some of our most powerful oligarchs decided that they were going to essentially volunteer, that is really extraordinary. And that has made a huge negative difference, I think, because we had people who really could have protected themselves and set an example, just decide to behave in exactly the way that history very clearly shows that you shouldn't. I see a stronger analogy in that. So my understanding is Hitler said to these industrialists in early 30s Germany, I'll crush the trade unions, which is essentially giving you money.

49:34And I see similarities today where the most powerful business leaders who control our information are looked up to as icons of business. and icons of business become kind of our de facto heroes in a capitalist society, or at least that's what I see. And he's essentially said to them, no regulation on AI, carve out some tariffs. He's giving them tens, hundreds of billions of dollars in shareholder value in exchange for coming to the Melania documentary or saying, getting around a table and prostrating yourself and saying, thank you for your leadership. In the 20s and 30s, the anti-fascists, the Marxists, like they made the argument that fashion was fascism was all about finance capitalism it was about like extreme concentration of wealth and i don't think that was true then but i think it's true now right because i mean the exact diagnosis that marxist like hilfer ding made was that when you get too too much money in too few hands and it's all about finance and it's all about symbols it's not even about industry anymore it's all about like an economy you know the kind of neurological economy that we have where it's all speculative that's the danger because then the state takes over those guys or those guys take over the state or they merge with the state.

50:45And that's what you're describing. That's what's happening. And a number of these characters have ambitious political or quasi-political notions themselves, and none of them are pro-democratic. So I'm trying to think of, I think anytime you have a movement, you always like to think what new technology might be helpful here. And the new technology, again, of camera phones is, I think, a bit of a game changer. It definitely puts a wrinkle in all of this. What do you think of the idea? And I've been thinking a lot about this, and I'm actually starting to get involved in organizing. What do you think of the idea?

51:16My sense is Trump doesn't—where we've seen really quick political action on the part of Trump is not from a movement or from citizenship or citizenry. It's from markets. And that is he immediately pulls back when the market goes down, the S &P goes down, or even the Japanese bond market yields increase for fear. that's about to happen to our treasury market. That's where I have seen him pull back is when the market responds. What do you think of the idea of a targeted surgical national economic strike targeting some of the individual companies we just referenced, unsubscribing from some AI platforms, streaming media of the big tech players, because their valuations are so elevated right now that any sort of ding in signups could have a material impact on those companies, which would ultimately have a material impact on the S &P.

52:09And it was your thoughts on the notion of some sort of a targeted national economic strike against some of the bigger players in tech. I think that's a good idea. I mean, I think it would have to be preceded, and it's probably some good people already doing this, but I think it would have to be preceded by some kind of visual tool which rates companies and shows you exactly how they have been complicit. Because the danger is that if I call for a boycott of some tech companies and not others, then an immediate interpretation will be, well, I'm doing it on behalf of the ones that I'm not boycotting, right?

52:43And so you have to have some bar graph, like something which shows, like a bar graph with footnotes, something which shows exactly what the companies that you're boycotting have done. And there would have to be some interesting investigations showing the connections between companies, for example, and ice raids. And so you'd have to also evaluate like, so Palantir is being used for ice raids. So you'd have to evaluate like what exactly is the bad thing that you're, you know, you're measuring and make that clear. I think that would have to be like, that'd be like real transparency and clarity about why you're doing what to whom.

53:18But yeah, I think that's a good idea. And I would, I mean, I would take the idea more broadly too. If like, I think there has to be, they have to know that if they do anything it looks like stealing the election in November, that there'll be a general strike. They have to know that. Like, they have to know that if they do that, they're going to cave the economy. They have to know that there's going to be something coming if they do anything which is vaguely like trying to steal the election in November, because that has to be deterred. And I think you're right that the thing which gets attention domestically, but also gets attention from them, is the threat that—and you know what?

53:52It's a plausible threat because the dollar is weak. the stock market is a really bubbly speculative frothy sort of form our major trade partners have kind of had it with us you know like they are really vulnerable on the score in general i find all of this we're of a similar generation and when there's been political unrest in the past although i don't think anything rivals this at least in my lifetime i've always been able to disassociate and i'm quite frankly timothy i'm having a difficult time disassociating here i find this emotionally and, you know, mentally just very rattling. It is really upsetting.

54:32And I know a lot of my friends are physically upset by it. And whenever I try to soothe that upset, I try to wrestle it to the ground and understand it more, put it in the context of history and try and understand it. And my two go-tos are you and Heather Cox Richardson. And Heather Cox Richardson said something. We've had her on the pod a couple of times. You're sort of my two You're my go-tos, if you will. And she said something that was actually quite hopeful, that America has endured much darker times, whether it was slave owners controlling politics or internment of Japanese. Where do you put this in the context of real dark moments in the U.S.?

55:12Do you see this on the same level, less serious, more serious? and how, as someone, I identify you as a real patriot, you know, how, looking forward, how, is this darkest before the dawn or darkest before it's pitch black? How are you feeling about the current state of affairs in the United States? I was on a long trip on the West Coast and the Midwest in the fall. And when folks asked me a similar question, I said, there's going to be a winter of discontent and bad things are going to happen. Probably some people are going to get killed. And it's going to then be a matter of how we react. And that's basically how I feel about all this.

55:55I don't find an exact analog, partly because Trump is an unusual figure. It's unusual to have somebody in power who is so unconcerned about anything except himself, to put it like that. I mean, And things can stop and change on a dime.

56:15Precisely because he's so indifferent to the United States, I think that's maybe the fundamental thing. He doesn't care about the U.S. or its sovereignty or anything. Those are just foreign concepts to him. Citizenry is a foreign concept. And so because he's not really committed to anything except his absence of commitment, he can move really quickly. And he has moved really quickly. This first year has been quite dramatic. there's been a lot a lot an awful lot has changed and as far as like what's dark you know what what kind of darkness this is i agree with heather that there have been worse moments where my concern is that we recognize and i think and a lot of good people do recognize this and there are millions and millions people are acting but that we recognize that the way we got out of those moments was by acting.

57:06You know, like America exists as a republic because people acted, because one side won the civil war and not another side, for example, right? Because abolitionists took risks, right? Because, you know, because people in the civil rights movement engaged in massive nonviolent action. Like there was no automatic process inside America. And as As soon as you believe in the automatic process, I think you lose America. So I don't mean to dodge the question. I just think it really does depend upon how we react to this winter of discontent and what kind of spring we have. And then to just repeat a point, I think to get out of it, we have to have a vision of how things can be much better than they are.

57:47Not just like an antidote or a cure, but a vision of how things can be much better. Well, as our last question, as I know, you've been very generous with your time and you need to hop. But let's talk about, let's assume, let's be hopeful that this administration pays a price and a new administration and people with different political views are very successful in 26 and the White House changes hands in 28. Do you think post that, in order to move on, do you think there needs to be some sort of reckoning or something resembling some sort of trials here? I'm going to just take advantage of that question to say something else before I say yes.

58:27we where we are now you know it reveals some very fundamental problems that we were going to have to solve anyway like this took a certain form with trump and that crew but it could have taken another form and the basic problems are the gray zones in our democracy the dark money the the gerrymandering all that the overall inequality of income and especially wealth the weirdly unregulated state of our social media and relatedly the absence of reporting, which can be fixed, the weakness of public education. These are things that, if we are in that situation you're talking about, if there's a majority in Congress and a president that want to change things, yeah, I think crimes have obviously been committed.

59:19I mean, that make Nixon look like a fairy princess. Like crimes have been committed and people who have committed crimes should be investigated fairly and then brought before a judge and jury. Yes. And that's really that I mean, from the history of communism and the history of fascism, I think you can say pretty unambiguously that it is important to have some kind of reckoning also from our history, right, where we essentially blew it after the Civil War. And that's one reason we are where we are. But that said, it's also, if there is such a moment, then in the first few weeks of that situation where there's a majority and a willing president, there has to be some really fundamental legislation about those issues that I described.

1:00:02Mass incarceration, by the way, is another one. There has to be some really fundamental legislation, or we're going to be repeating this in some form again before too long. Timothy Snyder is a leading historian on authoritarianism, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe. He's the author of various books, including On Freedom, On Tyranny, The Road to Unfreedom, and Bloodlands. After two decades at Yale, he's now at the University of Toronto Muntz School of Global Affairs. He joins us from Toronto. Professor Snyder, whenever I speak to you, my friend Dan Harris at 10 % Happier said something really powerful in that is, action absorbs anxiety.

1:00:40And whenever I'm feeling sort of out of control about this and bereft, I tune into you and Heather Cox Richardson. And you don't make me feel better, but you make me feel more in control, putting this in a historical context and realizing that we do have agency and that other nations have been here before. Some have worked it out, others have not. But I always find it's actually quite soothing to hear from people like yourself that understand this moment and, you know, can kind of break it down and get our arms around it, if you will. And it was very much appreciate how you've risen to this moment.

1:01:17Appreciate your time, Timothy. That's very kind of you. And just going back to what you said about being upset, I mean, it would be, this is really upsetting and we should be upset. But when you do something, you know, when you do something, even a little thing, so long, you know, if you do something with other people, you always feel better. And that's, you know, you've already, you just said it, you know, when you're, when you're sending me off, but that's the thing. If you, if you are active with other people, you're not only effective, but also you end up feeling better. I love that. When you do something with other people, you feel better.

1:01:50I think that's true across a lot of dimensions. Thanks very much, Professor. Thank you. It's been great.

1:02:12Algebra of happiness, giving your parents comfort. How do you do that as you get older? One of the things I talk about in terms of being a man is adding surplus value. And that is at some point, there's a lot of people more than male that never become men. And that is they take more tax revenue and more government services than they ever provide back in the form of new jobs or taxes they pay. They absorb more love from partners than they get, get more from friendships than they provide. You know, provide more people notice their lives than they notice other people's lives, complain more than they absorb complaints.

1:02:51and something you can do that gives, in a strange way, your parents something that they would really treasure. And I didn't learn this until I was older. And I want you to think about this if you're a young adult. And that is, and I can say this as someone who's now raising young men, 18 and 15. It sounds weird, but I can tell my kids aren't doing well sometimes, and I ask them, what's going on? And most of the time, they say nothing, and they don't open up to me. And even as a young man, I never really went to my parents with my problems. And one time, I came to my mom with a problem I was having.

1:03:36I was really heartbroken over this girl, and I asked her advice. And not only she gave me really good advice, but more important than the advice was I could tell it just was so rewarding for her. that I would think as a young man to ask her for advice. And I remember when my mom was sick and dying, I called her and I said, I'm just so upset. And she said, what's it about? And I said, oh, I want to talk to you about it in person. And my mom was living in Vegas and I was living with her from Sunday to Thursday. When I got there, we went outside and I just held her hand and I sobbed.

1:04:15and I was just very honest with her I was just like I'm just devastated that you're dying and I just can't express I knew in that moment how meaningful that was for her in some

1:04:37One of the greatest gifts you can provide a parent is to give them the gift of letting them comfort you. That's what they want. They want to know they have purpose and they want to comfort you. That's a gift for your parents.

1:05:07This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez. Our associate producer is Laura Genere. Kami Reek is our social producer. Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the Prop G pod from Prop G Media.

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