Quotes from Timothy Snyder

Democracy failed in Europe in the 1920s, '30s, and '40s, and it is failing not only in much of Europe but in many parts of the world today. It is that history and experience that reveals to us the dark range of our possible futures. A nationalist will say that "it can't happen here," which is the first step toward disaster. A patriot says that it could happen here, but that we will stop it.

Any election can be the last, or at least the last in the lifetime of the person casting the vote. The

If young people do not begin to make history, politicians of eternity and inevitability will destroy it. And

By 1940 most Europeans had made their peace with the seemingly irresistible power of Nazi Germany. Influential Americans such as Charles Lindbergh opposed war with the Nazis under the slogan "America First.

For tyrants, the lesson of the Reichstag fire is that one moment of shock enables an eternity of submission. For us, the lesson is that our natural fear and grief must not enable the destruction of our institutions. Courage does not mean not fearing, or not grieving. It does mean recognizing and resisting terror management right away, from the moment of the attack, precisely when it seems most difficult to do so.

In the late nineteenth century, just as in the late twentieth century, the expansion of global trade generated expectations of progress.

The path of least resistance leads directly from inevitability to eternity. If you once believed that everything always turns out well in the end, you can be persuaded that nothing turns out well in the end. If you once did nothing because you thought progress is inevitable, then you can continue to do nothing because you think time moves in repeating cycles.

As she observed, "the first essential step on the road to total domination is to kill the juridical person in man.

We find it natural that we pay for a plumber or a mechanic, but demand our news for free. If we did not pay for plumbing or auto repair, we would not expect to drink water or drive cars. Why then should we form our political judgement on the basis of zero investment? We get what we pay for.

Does the history of tyranny apply to the United States? Certainly the early Americans who spoke of "eternal vigilance" would have thought so. The

What might seem like a gesture of pride can be a source of exclusion.

Influential Americans such as Charles Lindbergh opposed war with the Nazis under the slogan "America First." It is those who were considered exceptional, eccentric, or even insane in their own time—those who did not change when the world around them did—whom we remember and admire today.

The logic of the system they devised was to mitigate the consequences of our real imperfections, not to celebrate our imaginary perfection. We

Frank claimed that law was meant to serve the race, and so what seemed good for the race was therefore the law. With arguments like this, German lawyers could convince themselves that laws and rules were there to serve their projects of conquest and destruction, rather than to hinder them.

Anticipatory obedience is a political tragedy

James Madison nicely made the point that tyranny arises "on some favorable emergency.

At the very beginning, anticipatory obedience means adapting instinctively, without reflecting, to a new situation.

Authoritarians need obedient civil servants, and concentration camp directors seek businessmen interested in cheap labor.

It took less than a year for the new Nazi order to consolidate. By the end of 1933, Germany had become a one-party state in which all major institutions had been humbled

The odd American idea that giving money to political campaigns is free speech means that the very rich have far more speech, and so in effect far more voting power, than other citizens. We

that human nature is such that American democracy must be defended from Americans who would exploit its freedoms to bring about its end.

philological training against Nazi propaganda. He noticed how Hitler's language rejected legitimate opposition: The people always meant some people and not others (the president uses the word in this way),

A party emboldened by a favorable election result or motivated by ideology, or both, might change the system from within.

Will we in retrospect see the elections of 2016 much as Russians see the elections of 1990, or Czechs the elections of 1946, or Germans the elections of 1932? This,