On Tyranny

Answering The Kennedys Call

Amazon.com

Whether or not President Donald Trump ever owned a copy of Hitler’s Mein Kampf, stories abound of its existence with followers such as Steve Bannon, who was reported to have gifted him a signed copy when part of Trump’s campaign.

What is most disturbing to Timothy Snyder, Housum Professor of History at Yale University and a scholar of the Holocaust, is that so many of Donald Trump’s supporters espouse Hitler’s program of white (instead of Aryan) nationalism, which could lead to a similar outcome if such a demagogue ever rose to power in the United States of America.

You say that’s not possible with our 229-year old democratic institutions enshrined in the U.S. Constitution?

Professor Snyder writes in his Prologue: “History does not repeat, but it instructs…Americans today are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism in the twentieth century. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience.”

And he has listed 20 signs that help us to learn how to remain free from past tyrannies:

1. 1. Do not obey in advance.
2. 2. Defend institutions.
3. 3. Beware the one-party state.
4. 4. Take responsibility for thr face of the world.
5. 5. Remember professional ethics.
6. 6. Be wary of paramilitaries.
7. 7. Be reflective if you must be armed.
8. 8. Stand out.
9. 9. Be kind to your language.
10. 10. Believe in truth.
11. 11. Investigate.
12. 12. Make eye contact and small talk
13. 13. Practice corporeal politics.
14. 14. Establish a private life.
15. 15. Contribute to good causes.
16. 16. Learn from peers in other countries.
17. 17. Listen for dangerous words.
18. 18. Be calm when the unthinkable arrives.
19. 19. Be a patriot.
20. 20. Be as courageous as you can.

Many of these maxims may seem self-evident, but are necessary for a participatory democracy to exist. “Believe in truth” may seem to be self-evident, but only works if one is willing to “Investigate” untruths, or truthiness, or alternative facts; terms coined by Trump administration officials to deny reality—whether it be the reality of damage done by Republican tax cuts, trade wars, and immigrant caravans that are made up mostly of women and children fleeing terror in their own countries, rather than criminals.

“To abandon facts is to abandon freedom,” says Professor Snyder. “If nothing is true then no one can criticize power.”

“Be kind to your language” is a corollary maxim, which means think for yourself and not be bound up in mass media language and thoughts. Read books, rather than be mesmerized by the Internet. Radio was the medium Hitler’s propaganda chief Goebbels used to hypnotize the German people with Hitler’s speeches.

“Listen for dangerous words” is another corollary. Words have meanings. How many times have we heard President Trump use the words ‘extremists’ and ‘terrorists’ to mischaracterize Muslims and Hispanic immigrants?

They give license to President Trump to invoke emergency declarations, which justified his use of emergency powers to slap aluminum and steel tariffs on our allies, while withdrawing from existing trade agreements that in fact protected us from unfair competition, and call up U.S. Troops to supposedly defend our southern border from the approaching immigrant caravans.

“Modern tyranny is terror management,” says Professor Snyder. “Be calm when the unthinkable arrives…The sudden disaster that requires the end of checks and balances, the dissolution opposition parties, the suspension of expression.”

Nothing is more dangerous to Democracy than an immoral and lawless leader who cares only to enhance his own power and wealth, or an adult citizen that doesn’t vote.

Harlan Green © 2018

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen

A Greater Lawlessness—On Tyranny

Have we elected a tyrant as President? It’s hard to believe the clownish behavior and blatant lies of President Donald Trump could make him a tyrant, but author and history Professor Timothy Snyder says he has all the makings of a tyrant in On Tyranny, a pamphlet-size book making the rounds of talk shows.

It has 20 valuable lessons on how to avoid tyrannical governments, such as is happening now in Washington with one political party possibly controlling all 3 branches of government, if Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch is confirmed—and why this is leading to the greatest lawlessness in our history with the Trump administrations and a Republican Party that is not only quiescent to his blatant lawbreaking, but in some ways has aided and abetted it.

“As they know,” Snyder begins in his Prologue, “Aristotle warned that inequality brought instability, while Plato believed that demagogues exploited free speech to install themselves as tyrants.”

 We now have the greatest income inequality since 1929, and it led to the Great Recession and political polarization we have today. President Donald Trump would not have been possible, if incomes hadn’t declined so drastically for those dissatisfied white voters from the rust-belt.

And then there was the Russian meddling in our media with thousands of bots sending out fake social media news, Tweets, and Wikileaks exploiting the hacked Democrat’s emails, not to speak of Breitbart propaganda campaign of inflaming the alt-right, all white nationalists.

Professor Snyder listed 3 of the most important lessons on HBO’s Bill Maher show.

#1) “Don’t obey in advance—Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked.”

How could that happen? How could West Virginians in the heart of what was formerly coal country vote more than 2 to 1 for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in a historically Democratic state?

And this is leading to the of Trump voters' acquiescence in the rollback of environmental laws that will allow more and dirtier coal mining, as well as coal-powered plants, when more than 250 coal plants have already closed, with cheaper natural gas replacing coal.

It is mainly out of ignorance of what was in their best interests. Coal now occupies but a minor position in W Virginia’s economy with natural gas and renewable energies having replaced it since 1980, according to Nobel Economist Paul Krugman.

#2) “Defend Institutions—It is institutions that help us to preserve decency. So choose an institution you care about—a court, a newspaper, a law, a labor union—and take its side.”

Sound familiar? What has Donald Trump been attacking—the courts, the media (“enemies of the people”), laws that prevent conflicts of interest, and labor union laws that protect worker safety. I might add scientific facts, as he has said he believes global warming a “hoax”. So in effect Trump is attacking all of the institutions that preserve decency and a functioning democracy.
“Institutions do not protect themselves. They fall one after the other unless each is defended from the beginning,” said Snyder.

#3) “Above all believe in truth,” as without truth there is no trust, and without trust there are no effective laws, which leads to tyranny. And candidate, now President Donald Trump, has made a point of blatant lying, meaning he wants his followers to believe whatever he says rather than objective facts such as global warming, or size of the audience that attended his inauguration.

This can only be because his followers have acquiesced in advance, either out of ignorance of the actual facts, or because they will follow him regardless of the consequences to themselves and the nation.

We can only preserve democracy and defeat tyranny in all its forms—including fascism, racism, discrimination, propaganda, oligarchies, if we learn from history. “History does not repeat, but it does instruct,” says Professor Snyder in On Tyranny, a must read for anyone wanting to understand the rise of President Trump.

Harlan Green © 2017

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen