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Timothy Snyder

Monday 24th of August 2026

2016 Presidential election The one piece of information that best predicts whether Mr. Trump won or lost a county in November was the degree of the opiod epidemic. Timothy Snyder, Malady © 2021 Kwiple.com
2020 Presidential election A joint statement [Sen. Ted] Cruz issued about the senators' challenge to the vote nicely captured the post-truth aspect of the whole: It never alleged that there was fraud, only that there were allegations of fraud. Allegations of allegations, allegations all the way down. Timothy Snyder, New York Times, January 9, 2021 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Bad news  As we lose people who produce facts, we are in danger of losing the very idea of truth. Timothy Snyder, Malady © 2021 Kwiple.com
The Big Lie The “Big Lie,” a term that originates with Hitler, became central to American political discourse after I applied it to Trump's claim to have won an election he had lost. The concept of the “Big Lie,” which I reintroduced into discussion in 2019 and 2020, helped millions of people see how mendacity of a certian scale affects politics over time, making democracy ever more difficult. Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands © 2022 Kwiple.com
The Big Lie Hitler says if you tell a lie that's of a certain scale that's big enough, people won't believe that you could deceive them on that scale. And since they believe it and take it in at first, they don't want to disbelieve it later on. It becomes part of their life; it becomes what we now call an alternative reality. It begins to shape politics. It begins to instantiate itself not only in memory, but in policy. You act as if it's true and you move on to do things as though it were true. So, in our example, if we pretend that Trump won the election in 2020, then we have an argument for suppressing votes because we can say, well there was fraud, therefore we should suppress votes. Timothy Snyder, April 29, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Cyber warfare In a cyberwar, an ‘attack surface’ is the set of points in a computer program that allow hackers access. If the target of a cyberwar is not a computer program but a society, then the attack surface is something broader; software that allows the attacker contact with the mind of the enemy. Timothy Snyder The Road to Unfreedom © 2021 Kwiple.com
Elections Any election can be the last, or at least the last in the lifetime of the person casting the vote. Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century © 2017 Kwiple.com
Facts To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then  no one can criticize power because there is no basis on which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights. Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century © 2017 Kwiple.com
Freedom Freedom is about each of us, yet none of us is free without help. Individual rights require common effort. Timothy Snyder, Malady © 2021 Kwiple.com
Freedom In the end, though, freedom depends upon citizens who are able to make a distinction between what is true and what they want to hear. Timothy Snyder, Political Philisophy © 2021 Kwiple.com
Healthcare Every time you are seen by a doctor or a nurse, every time a test is run, the algorithms of the hospital duel with the algorithms of the insurance company to see who will make how much money. Timothy Snyder, Malady © 2021 Kwiple.com
Healthcare Opposing healthcare because you suspect it helps the underserving is like pushing smeone off a cliff and then jumping yourself, thinking that your fall will be cushioned by the corpse of the person you murdered. Timothy Snyder, Malady © 2021 Kwiple.com
Institutions If institutions are to flourish, they need virtues; if virtues are to be cultivated, they need institutions. Timothy Snyder, The Road to Unfreedom © 2021 Kwiple.com
Intelligence gathering Intelligence is about seeing and understanding. Counterintelligence is about making that difficult for others. Active measures, such as the [Russian] operation on behalf of the fictional character “Donald Trump, successful businessman,” are about inducing the enemy to direct his own strengths against his own weaknesses. Timothy Snyder The Road to Unfreedom © 2021 Kwiple.com
Lies The lie outlasts the liar. Timothy Snyder, New York Times, January 9, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Local news If news becomes distant, the next step is that news becomes fake. Timothy Snyder © 2021 Kwiple.com
News  Starting about the eighties, we began to confuse news with entertainment. We merged the two. Timothy Snyder © 2021 Kwiple.com
Nukes By taking nuclear blackmail seriously, we have actually increased the overall chances of nuclear war.  If nuclear blackmail enables a Russian victory, the consequences will be incalculably awful. If any country with nuclear weapons can do whatever it likes, then law means nothing, no international order is possible, and catastrophe beckons at every turn. Countries without nuclear weapons will have to build them, on the logic that they will need nuclear deterrence in the future.  Nuclear proliferation would make nuclear war much more likely in the future. Timothy Snyder, New York Times, May 6, 2022, on Russia's threats to use nuclear weapons to guarantee a win in its war with Ukraine © 2023 Kwiple.com
Nukes Russia's nuclear talk is itself the weapon. … Russian propagandists want us to think that nuclear powers can never lose wars, on the logic that they could always deploy nuclear weapons to win. This is an ahistoric fantasy. Nuclear weapons did not bring the French victory in Algeria, nor did they preserve the British Empire. The Soviet Union lost its war in Afghanistan. America lost in Vietnam and in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Israel failed to win in Lebanon.  Nuclear powers lose wars with some regularity. Timothy Snyder, New York Times, May 6, 2022, on Russia's threats to use nuclear weapons to guarantee a win in its war with Ukraine © 2023 Kwiple.com
Oligarchs What you end up doing as an oligarch is deliberately hurting your own followers and asking them to applaud you. Timothy Snyder © 2021 Kwiple.com
Politics Life is political, not because the world cares about how you feel, but because the world reacts to what you do.  Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century © 2017 Kwiple.com
Post-truth Post-truth is pre-fascism, and Trump has been our post-truth president. When we give up on truth, we concede power to those with the wealth and charisma to create spectacle in its place. … Post-truth wears away the rule of law and invites a regime of myth. Timothy Snyder, New York Times, January 9, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Resisters say In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do. Timothy Snyder, Lesson 1, about anticipatory obedience, in On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century © 2017 Kwiple.com
Resisters say Institutions do not protect themselves. They fall one after the other unless each is defended from the beginning. So choose an institution you care about — a court, a newspaper,  a law, a labor union — and take its side. Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century © 2017 Kwiple.com
Resisters say Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and march with them. Timothy Snyder, on corporeal politics, in On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century © 2017 Kwiple.com
Resisters say Support the multi-party system and defend the rules of democratic elections. Vote in local and state elections while you can. Consider running for office. Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century © 2017 Kwiple.com
Resisters say Tyrants' tactics require the consent of large numbers of people. The first lesson, then, is not to obey in advance. Maria J. Stephen and Timothy Snyder, The Guardian, June 20, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Snapshot He himself is  a political fiction. What do I mean by that? I mean, there is no such person, as far as we know, anyway, as Donald Trump, successful businessman. That is a political fiction that has been brought to us. Donald Trump portrayed by Timothy Snyder © 2021 Kwiple.com
Snapshot His vision never went further than a mirror. Donald Trump portrayed by Timothy Snyder © 2021 Kwiple.com
Snapshot It is true that all presidents lie: the difference is that for Trump, telling the truth was the exception. Donald Trump portrayed by Timothy Snyder © 2021 Kwiple.com
Snapshot The way that Mr Trump worked was as a fictional character. There is no Mr Trump, successful buinessman. That person never walked the earth. There is Mr Trump, successful entertainer. There is Mr Trump, purveyor of spectacle. And in 2015 and well into 2016, this was very attractive to the major television networks. Today, Mr. Trump complains unceasingly about them and says they're sources of “fake news” and so on, but, if it weren't for the couple billion of dollars in free coverage that they gave him in 2015 and 2016, he never would have had a chance. Donald Trump portrayed by Timothy Snyder in 2017 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Technology By 2016, technology no longer made American society look better to the outside world. Instead, technology offered a better look inside American society, and into individual American minds. Timothy Snyder, The Road to Unfreedom © 2021 Kwiple.com
Truth Post-truth is pre-fascism. Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century © 2017 Kwiple.com
 
Ukraine Ukraine’s resistance to Russia's genocidal invasion does more for American security than any American policy does — or could do. It has changed the global balance in a way that makes peace more likely in decades to come. 2/ … My concerns about the Russian invasion of Ukraine are the prevention of genocide and the defense of democracy. But those who think first of U.S. interests should acknowledge what Ukrainians are doing for American security. The least we can do is be on our own side 13/13 Timothy Snyder, 9:15 AM — Nov 6, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com