On tyranny

I'm late to this book - it's been a part of the discourse for a decade or so now. It's strong, punchy, and pithy: a quick guide to the mindsets we need in order to prevent totalitarianism. But its sections on media and the internet feel particularly weak - a call to support print newspapers doesn't feel like the right thing - and I think its claims about communism are not particularly nuanced. Still, we need calls to action, and this is a good one.

Does not properly distinguish power from authority, i.e. "A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do. Anticipatory obedience is a political tragedy."

Historical details were glossed over in the prologue which might misinform some readers.

The Yale experiment on fascism is presented to imply that by human nature we are naturally quick to harm one another, in some twister Hobbesian assumption - rather than a product of the limited sample size in a small study under specific economic, political, and societal conditions of the USA.

Otherwise, there are many great ways to defend against and confront Tyranny that are applicable primary to the USA, and secondarily to other western democracies.

I was in the middle of reading The Armageddon Protocol, the latest science fiction thriller from Dan Moren. He’s my favorite newish author, with six novels out now, each better than the last (and the first one was excellent). More people should know about his books.

Anyway, I set that aside to begin reading a 2017 book by Yale historian Timothy Snyder. It offers ““twenty lessons from the twentieth century, adapted to the circumstances of today” and is the source of many quotes and memes going around the last few days. It’s a quick easy read. If you voted for the guy and think the current panic is hyperbole, I recommend reading this book if only to reassure yourself that it is hyperbole and to see what to watch for to ensure you’re on the right side of history if the bottom ever were to fall out. And for the rest of us, this book offers practical lessons and advice drawn directly from times and places much like ours you can use to defend what you hold dear.