Going back to the Greek defeat of two Persian invasions in the fourth century BCE, which gave the nascent Western Tradition its first solid foothold. there have been two essential competing political visions - democracy and authoritarianism.
The competition is ongoing. It has taken many forms and assumed many names, but the opposing ideas have remained remarkably consistent. Either men and women are capable of ruling themselves from the bottom up, or they are not, and require an overarching authority to rule over them.
The one vision is complex, often inefficient, messy, replete with it's own internally competing visions, and requiring citizens who are willing to tolerate and even enjoy the mess, and to compromise with each other to obtain a working, self-governing relationship.
The other is relatively simple, often brutally efficient, inimical to internally competing visions, intolerant of compromise, prone to sporadic explosions of repression, and given to excesses of policing and control.
We were the first nation on earth to define ourselves at our inception as the former. We were created in the fire of revolution, inspired by the Enlightenment, and formed by a group of (yes, white, property owning males who had a dim view of women's ability to be equal partners in their endeavor) men, but who nonetheless dreamed that We the People could together find enough of the courage, the honesty, the understanding, the tolerance, the compassion, the wisdom, the humor, the hope, and the sheer common sense to rule ourselves from the bottom up with as much fairness as is humanly possible. We have often been indifferently successful in this endeavor, but as often wondrously so. And I believe that we are, as one of the best Americans among us once noted, "the last best hope of earth"
So look around you and see which amount the leaders, legislators, and citizens in our current political 'discussion' possesses the better part of those characteristics, and which does not. It is not hard to see.
Thank you! Eloquent and true choice between fascism and democracy. We Americans, too lazy and in need of instantaneous remedies: Woe! "The one vision is complex, often inefficient, messy, replete with it's own internally competing visions, and requiring citizens who are willing to tolerate and even enjoy the mess, and to compromise with each other to obtain a working, self-governing relationship.
The other is relatively simple, often brutally efficient, inimical to internally competing visions, intolerant of compromise, prone to sporadic explosions of repression, and given to excesses of policing and control."
We also need to look at organizational structure. Our democracy has a skeleton hierarchy with the President presumably at the top. However, that job was designed almost like a bureaucratic position and it has a four-year evaluation time limit. Next come the two Houses of Congress, one having more prestige, and the other controlling the money, both with similar time limits. Below that you have state governments and ordinary voting citizens. This "hierarchy" is not authoritarian, by design. Two centuries ago, the hierarchal structure prevailed because the founders hadn't figured out another design, but they tried very hard to minimize its implication, primarily by giving most of the power to the Houses. Since that time, and thanks to the way the Houses are supposed to function, we have discovered the power of the network. We need to recognize and feed this vision of how things REALLY work, as they have since the beginning of our experiment. Not perfect, of course, but clearly more democratic. The new Speaker likely has been influenced by it this past week.
For me, the most crucial organizational issue lies in the flaws inherent in our two party system. Madison envisioned multiple competing political 'entities' which he felt would balance each other out, but of course we began almost immediately to tend toward the binary, finalizing it in the 1830's. It has been one of the banes of our political existence ever since, and now, of course, it threatens to tear us in two. Once set in stone, and except for the populist movement of the late nineteenth century, no third party has ever really challenged it.
I certainly have my issues with the Electoral College; that late-night, jury-rigged compromise which, in any case, no longer works the way it was supposed to anyway, and I think that Presidential elections should be handled at a national level instead of leaving them to the political vagaries of state legislatures, but the problems presented by both are the result of the two-party divide which we've managed to inflict on ourselves. In an odd way, it mirrors the democratic/authoritarian divide we've inflicted on our world.
At the bottom of it all, I believe (and speaking as one formally trained in anthropology and human origins) lies our genetic disposition to territoriality. Polilticallly we tend to refer to it as tribalism, but it goes deeper than that.
I am always reminded of one my favorite aphorisms: "We do not see things the way they are; we see them as we are".
Somehow, we as the electorate, were supposed to limit the terms of our representatives. When the Constitution was written, there was no concept of a representative of either stripe using their office as a profession; a way of life. Over time we’ve allowed many to just collect a paycheck feeling secure, either from gerrymandering or sheer apathy, in the knowledge they can return to DC and continue grifting off of the system that put them there.
As someone who was born in the shadow of WWII and grew up during the Cold War, it is unfathomable to me how someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene can pass along Russian propaganda so easily. I also feel that we use the word "Nazi" too often and so incorrectly that it has lost its meaning. Nazism, I would submit, was one wing of Fascism that was prevalent in the 1930s and first half of the 1940s. Surely, it's more accurate to substitute "Fascism" for "Nazi" in today's world.
Whatever nonsense is emitted from the mouth of Margie Greene is best ignored, for the sake of one's emotional equilibrium. Let's just stipulate that there a a good number of thoughtful people in this country, and then there the MJT's of the world.
Thank you once again. This is why we need historians. Recently I heard a woman interviewed by the BBC at a Trump rally. Asked about Putin's war of aggression in Ukraine, she simply responded "He's only taking back what's his." I wondered how she had managed to encounter this piece of Putinism. Now I understand.
Hooray to you, Professor Snyder for speaking truth to power! It is especially gratifying that you named names and pointed out the fecklessness of a ban on TikTok while allowing Twitter and Facebook to continue to run rampant over democratic values.
But the problem faced by Congress goes deeper. I was personally involved in a Congressional lobbying effort this week, working with the Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Treat Reduction, the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Arms Control Association in advocating a meaningful review of the Sentinel ICBM system. In this, my first visit to actual Congressional offices, two things impressed me especially: First, the sheer volume of the lobbying effort, and second the degree of ignorance on the part of many members of Congress. For instance, several were unaware of the existential threat posed by the prospect of a nuclear war.
As a result, I urge my fellow citizens to maintain contact with their own Representative and Senators, providing them with FACTUAL information in support of requests, and THANKING THEM for their service.
Enlightening! Lobbyists I have heard about, sheer ignorance of our U.S. Representatives and Senators, I learned from you just now, however, not surprising. Just depressing. This is the reason we need teachers, public education, who inspire students to question, debate, dig in to find facts. They want to divide us--thereby become powerless individuals. Unite!
Ignorance comes about in part because of the sheer volume of material being fed to them, together with the extremely narrow focus of media attention. Someone watching from Mars might think that abortion rights and Donald Trump are the only issues we face with the Israel-Hamas-Iran war being a third competitor for headlines. Russia's war against the Ukraine, the growing climate catastrophe, and the rush toward a new nuclear arms race are all mostly outside the public's awareness and thus of only peripheral concern to many politicians. That's why voices such as Professor Snyder's are of such great importance, and why we should engage with our representatives to let them know what is important to us.
". . . several were unaware of the existential threat posed by the prospect of a nuclear war." Astonishing! Chilling! I understand why all too many members of Congress are unaware of how comprehensive the dangers of machine intelligence are--after all, the technology is somewhat arcane. But not to be aware of the existential threat posed by nuclear war has no excuse. Thank you for your involvement with the review of the Sentinel ICBM system.
Thanks, Professor Snyder. I want every U.S. voter to read, hear, and absorb your essay. It is time for all of us to receive this "Reality Rub-In"! Please do what you can to make sure we all hear your warning!
In addition to the obvious manipulation of the USA by Russian Bots, and perhaps also Chinese Bots, Iranian Bots, and N. Korean bots, I have been concerned about the manipulation of the German people as well. It is not an accident that more and more are turning to AfD the party that supports Putin, and that both the left and the right have a similar platform. I assume Russian bots are at work in other European countries too, particularly those who stand with Ukraine against Russia. We need to specifically Educate our populations on the methods of manipulation Bots use, so that they will be more alert to it.
This, from your statement, is what I have been using to frame my calls and emails to my legislators: "Though Americans sometimes forget this, Ukrainian resistance is seen around the world as an obvious American cause and an easy American victory. So long as Ukraine fights, it is fulfilling the entire NATO mission by itself, defending a European order based in integration rather than empire, and affirming international order in general. It is also holding back nuclear proliferation.
Given these obvious strategic gains, American failure in Ukraine will lead other powers to conclude that a feckless and divided United States will also fail to meet future challenges. The fundamental goal of Russian (and thus Chinese) propaganda is to prevent American action, thereby making America seem impotent and democracy pointless -- also in the eyes of Americans themselves."
Ukraine's victory is critical for a world order that relies on rule of law, that supports basic freedoms for people, and where national boundaries are respected. The alternative -- allowing Russia to win -- is terrifying for all of us. The US is not immune to what happens in Europe, Asia, etc. We need to protect our neighbors for our own safety as well as theirs.
So the question becomes: how do we combat this? Personally, I see these lies proliferate primarily in two places, the comments of the WSJ and Bari Weiss’s The Free Press. I can even name the posters who engage in spreading them on an almost daily basis. Indeed, it was just this week that someone in the TFP comments recounted that Biden “accepted a $6 million bribe from China” as the gospel truth. I thought it was wacko when I read it, and now I see it highlighted by Prof Snyder today as an example of Chinese misinformation.
No matter how often or how well you refute these lies with these people, the next day or the day after they will be back spouting the very same lies. And in both place (WSJ/TFP), they seem to work together in groups, reinforcing each other and patting each other on the back. Its possible, I guess that they are random people who have found a place to gather and have a MAGA love fest, at least that’s how it seems in TFP (whose comments are not moderated at all), but it’s also possible that they’re bots. In any event, neither the WSJ nor The Free Press seem to be at all interested in banning the people who constantly, daily, post lies and propaganda in their comments. Nobody is paying me to spend time online countering this garbage, so what do we do? The most outlandish person in TFP gets 100’s of “likes” for his garbage. It’s scary.
Glaring example of that in the hearing that Timothy Snyder provided the leak to -- huge fight between Raskin and Comer in the middle of the whole thing talking about this.
Bravo. Great comment. I hope this gets very wide distribution. As somebody said, "we know Putin would win the Russian election; the question is whether he will win the American election."
Thank you for this Professor Snyder. It is certainly depressing to read, but essential to know. At a time when believable trustworthy news is essential we are left with very few outlets.
As always, well said and much needed, Professor. In particular I am glad that you named names and cited specific examples.
It is always difficult for people in the middle of chaotic changing times to understand what is happening in real time in order to be able to respond effectively. The guidance, perspective and analysis you provide is crucial.
Thank you, Professor Snyder. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Speaking truth to power is important; speaking truth to evil, to idiocy, to rot seems even more important at this odd moment. We are very fortunate to have you there on the front lines. Thank you.
Going back to the Greek defeat of two Persian invasions in the fourth century BCE, which gave the nascent Western Tradition its first solid foothold. there have been two essential competing political visions - democracy and authoritarianism.
The competition is ongoing. It has taken many forms and assumed many names, but the opposing ideas have remained remarkably consistent. Either men and women are capable of ruling themselves from the bottom up, or they are not, and require an overarching authority to rule over them.
The one vision is complex, often inefficient, messy, replete with it's own internally competing visions, and requiring citizens who are willing to tolerate and even enjoy the mess, and to compromise with each other to obtain a working, self-governing relationship.
The other is relatively simple, often brutally efficient, inimical to internally competing visions, intolerant of compromise, prone to sporadic explosions of repression, and given to excesses of policing and control.
We were the first nation on earth to define ourselves at our inception as the former. We were created in the fire of revolution, inspired by the Enlightenment, and formed by a group of (yes, white, property owning males who had a dim view of women's ability to be equal partners in their endeavor) men, but who nonetheless dreamed that We the People could together find enough of the courage, the honesty, the understanding, the tolerance, the compassion, the wisdom, the humor, the hope, and the sheer common sense to rule ourselves from the bottom up with as much fairness as is humanly possible. We have often been indifferently successful in this endeavor, but as often wondrously so. And I believe that we are, as one of the best Americans among us once noted, "the last best hope of earth"
So look around you and see which amount the leaders, legislators, and citizens in our current political 'discussion' possesses the better part of those characteristics, and which does not. It is not hard to see.
Thank you! Eloquent and true choice between fascism and democracy. We Americans, too lazy and in need of instantaneous remedies: Woe! "The one vision is complex, often inefficient, messy, replete with it's own internally competing visions, and requiring citizens who are willing to tolerate and even enjoy the mess, and to compromise with each other to obtain a working, self-governing relationship.
The other is relatively simple, often brutally efficient, inimical to internally competing visions, intolerant of compromise, prone to sporadic explosions of repression, and given to excesses of policing and control."
We also need to look at organizational structure. Our democracy has a skeleton hierarchy with the President presumably at the top. However, that job was designed almost like a bureaucratic position and it has a four-year evaluation time limit. Next come the two Houses of Congress, one having more prestige, and the other controlling the money, both with similar time limits. Below that you have state governments and ordinary voting citizens. This "hierarchy" is not authoritarian, by design. Two centuries ago, the hierarchal structure prevailed because the founders hadn't figured out another design, but they tried very hard to minimize its implication, primarily by giving most of the power to the Houses. Since that time, and thanks to the way the Houses are supposed to function, we have discovered the power of the network. We need to recognize and feed this vision of how things REALLY work, as they have since the beginning of our experiment. Not perfect, of course, but clearly more democratic. The new Speaker likely has been influenced by it this past week.
For me, the most crucial organizational issue lies in the flaws inherent in our two party system. Madison envisioned multiple competing political 'entities' which he felt would balance each other out, but of course we began almost immediately to tend toward the binary, finalizing it in the 1830's. It has been one of the banes of our political existence ever since, and now, of course, it threatens to tear us in two. Once set in stone, and except for the populist movement of the late nineteenth century, no third party has ever really challenged it.
I certainly have my issues with the Electoral College; that late-night, jury-rigged compromise which, in any case, no longer works the way it was supposed to anyway, and I think that Presidential elections should be handled at a national level instead of leaving them to the political vagaries of state legislatures, but the problems presented by both are the result of the two-party divide which we've managed to inflict on ourselves. In an odd way, it mirrors the democratic/authoritarian divide we've inflicted on our world.
At the bottom of it all, I believe (and speaking as one formally trained in anthropology and human origins) lies our genetic disposition to territoriality. Polilticallly we tend to refer to it as tribalism, but it goes deeper than that.
I am always reminded of one my favorite aphorisms: "We do not see things the way they are; we see them as we are".
House Reps have two year and Senators six year term limits - and there are no limits on number of terms.
Somehow, we as the electorate, were supposed to limit the terms of our representatives. When the Constitution was written, there was no concept of a representative of either stripe using their office as a profession; a way of life. Over time we’ve allowed many to just collect a paycheck feeling secure, either from gerrymandering or sheer apathy, in the knowledge they can return to DC and continue grifting off of the system that put them there.
Professor Snyder – you are a national treasure.
As someone who was born in the shadow of WWII and grew up during the Cold War, it is unfathomable to me how someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene can pass along Russian propaganda so easily. I also feel that we use the word "Nazi" too often and so incorrectly that it has lost its meaning. Nazism, I would submit, was one wing of Fascism that was prevalent in the 1930s and first half of the 1940s. Surely, it's more accurate to substitute "Fascism" for "Nazi" in today's world.
Thanks for such a thought provoking essay.
Whatever nonsense is emitted from the mouth of Margie Greene is best ignored, for the sake of one's emotional equilibrium. Let's just stipulate that there a a good number of thoughtful people in this country, and then there the MJT's of the world.
Sorry MTG's !
Thank you once again. This is why we need historians. Recently I heard a woman interviewed by the BBC at a Trump rally. Asked about Putin's war of aggression in Ukraine, she simply responded "He's only taking back what's his." I wondered how she had managed to encounter this piece of Putinism. Now I understand.
Hooray to you, Professor Snyder for speaking truth to power! It is especially gratifying that you named names and pointed out the fecklessness of a ban on TikTok while allowing Twitter and Facebook to continue to run rampant over democratic values.
But the problem faced by Congress goes deeper. I was personally involved in a Congressional lobbying effort this week, working with the Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Treat Reduction, the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Arms Control Association in advocating a meaningful review of the Sentinel ICBM system. In this, my first visit to actual Congressional offices, two things impressed me especially: First, the sheer volume of the lobbying effort, and second the degree of ignorance on the part of many members of Congress. For instance, several were unaware of the existential threat posed by the prospect of a nuclear war.
As a result, I urge my fellow citizens to maintain contact with their own Representative and Senators, providing them with FACTUAL information in support of requests, and THANKING THEM for their service.
Enlightening! Lobbyists I have heard about, sheer ignorance of our U.S. Representatives and Senators, I learned from you just now, however, not surprising. Just depressing. This is the reason we need teachers, public education, who inspire students to question, debate, dig in to find facts. They want to divide us--thereby become powerless individuals. Unite!
Ignorance comes about in part because of the sheer volume of material being fed to them, together with the extremely narrow focus of media attention. Someone watching from Mars might think that abortion rights and Donald Trump are the only issues we face with the Israel-Hamas-Iran war being a third competitor for headlines. Russia's war against the Ukraine, the growing climate catastrophe, and the rush toward a new nuclear arms race are all mostly outside the public's awareness and thus of only peripheral concern to many politicians. That's why voices such as Professor Snyder's are of such great importance, and why we should engage with our representatives to let them know what is important to us.
". . . several were unaware of the existential threat posed by the prospect of a nuclear war." Astonishing! Chilling! I understand why all too many members of Congress are unaware of how comprehensive the dangers of machine intelligence are--after all, the technology is somewhat arcane. But not to be aware of the existential threat posed by nuclear war has no excuse. Thank you for your involvement with the review of the Sentinel ICBM system.
Thank you, Prof Snyder, for doing this testimony and for providing full text of it and introduction for it.
Thanks, Professor Snyder. I want every U.S. voter to read, hear, and absorb your essay. It is time for all of us to receive this "Reality Rub-In"! Please do what you can to make sure we all hear your warning!
In addition to the obvious manipulation of the USA by Russian Bots, and perhaps also Chinese Bots, Iranian Bots, and N. Korean bots, I have been concerned about the manipulation of the German people as well. It is not an accident that more and more are turning to AfD the party that supports Putin, and that both the left and the right have a similar platform. I assume Russian bots are at work in other European countries too, particularly those who stand with Ukraine against Russia. We need to specifically Educate our populations on the methods of manipulation Bots use, so that they will be more alert to it.
Thank you
This, from your statement, is what I have been using to frame my calls and emails to my legislators: "Though Americans sometimes forget this, Ukrainian resistance is seen around the world as an obvious American cause and an easy American victory. So long as Ukraine fights, it is fulfilling the entire NATO mission by itself, defending a European order based in integration rather than empire, and affirming international order in general. It is also holding back nuclear proliferation.
Given these obvious strategic gains, American failure in Ukraine will lead other powers to conclude that a feckless and divided United States will also fail to meet future challenges. The fundamental goal of Russian (and thus Chinese) propaganda is to prevent American action, thereby making America seem impotent and democracy pointless -- also in the eyes of Americans themselves."
Ukraine's victory is critical for a world order that relies on rule of law, that supports basic freedoms for people, and where national boundaries are respected. The alternative -- allowing Russia to win -- is terrifying for all of us. The US is not immune to what happens in Europe, Asia, etc. We need to protect our neighbors for our own safety as well as theirs.
Brilliant!!!
So the question becomes: how do we combat this? Personally, I see these lies proliferate primarily in two places, the comments of the WSJ and Bari Weiss’s The Free Press. I can even name the posters who engage in spreading them on an almost daily basis. Indeed, it was just this week that someone in the TFP comments recounted that Biden “accepted a $6 million bribe from China” as the gospel truth. I thought it was wacko when I read it, and now I see it highlighted by Prof Snyder today as an example of Chinese misinformation.
No matter how often or how well you refute these lies with these people, the next day or the day after they will be back spouting the very same lies. And in both place (WSJ/TFP), they seem to work together in groups, reinforcing each other and patting each other on the back. Its possible, I guess that they are random people who have found a place to gather and have a MAGA love fest, at least that’s how it seems in TFP (whose comments are not moderated at all), but it’s also possible that they’re bots. In any event, neither the WSJ nor The Free Press seem to be at all interested in banning the people who constantly, daily, post lies and propaganda in their comments. Nobody is paying me to spend time online countering this garbage, so what do we do? The most outlandish person in TFP gets 100’s of “likes” for his garbage. It’s scary.
Glaring example of that in the hearing that Timothy Snyder provided the leak to -- huge fight between Raskin and Comer in the middle of the whole thing talking about this.
https://www.youtube.com/live/VoQZjUCT6bU?si=Y6sweA8EGZUbXHO7
Bravo. Great comment. I hope this gets very wide distribution. As somebody said, "we know Putin would win the Russian election; the question is whether he will win the American election."
Thank you for this Professor Snyder. It is certainly depressing to read, but essential to know. At a time when believable trustworthy news is essential we are left with very few outlets.
As always, well said and much needed, Professor. In particular I am glad that you named names and cited specific examples.
It is always difficult for people in the middle of chaotic changing times to understand what is happening in real time in order to be able to respond effectively. The guidance, perspective and analysis you provide is crucial.
Thank you, Professor Snyder. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Speaking truth to power is important; speaking truth to evil, to idiocy, to rot seems even more important at this odd moment. We are very fortunate to have you there on the front lines. Thank you.