How Tyranny Rises. And Falls.

0:00Therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough. It shows up in the smallest moments. You bite your tongue instead of escalating. You put your phone down instead of firing off that text. You say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most. Nobody applaud those moments, but they quietly change your life. That's what growing feels like, and that's exactly what growth therapy is here for. Grow is therapy that works, covered by insurance. Insurance average $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments. You just pay per session. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality licensed therapists across the US, offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity, or availability, and you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days, not the national 48-day average.

1:00See if you could pay as little as $0 for therapy in seconds at growtherapy.com slash start now. That's growtherapy.com slash start now. Growtherapy.com slash start now. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. Still waiting in line? Again? That's time you'll never get back. Save time and money with stamps.com. Over 4 million businesses have skipped the line with stamps.com. Join them to save up to 90% off-carrier rates from your computer or phone right now. Print postage for certified mail, register mail, and packages in seconds. Then schedule a pickup right from your home or office. For a limited time, go to stamps.com and use code podcast for a free welcome gift. Taxes and fees apply. As a fitness coach, my active psoriatic arthritis can slow me down. With SkyRizzy, Rizz and Kizumab Rizz, I'm treating my skin and joints symptoms so I can keep moving. SkyRizzy, a prescription only injection for adults, helps me move with less joint pain,

2:04stiffness, swelling, and fatigue. And for those who have plaque psoriasis, 90% clearer skin is possible. With SkyRizzy, there's no daily dose. It's just four doses a year after two-starred doses. Use of allergic to SkyRizzy, serious allergic reactions, increased infections, or lower ability to fight that may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor about any flu-like symptoms or vaccines. Thanks to SkyRizzy, there's nothing like clear skin and better movement. And that means everything. Ask your doctor about SkyRizzy. Visit SkyRizzy.com for called 1-866 SkyRizzy to learn more. I'm Charlie Sykes, and this is the To the Contrary Podcast. When Timothy Snyder's book on tyranny was published way back in 2017, it was a huge bestseller. But some of the smart kids were skeptical because they said this is America, right?

3:05Snyder was being alarmist because tyranny, they assured us, could never happen here. But nine years later, the book seems more prophetic than ever. The reasons that we thought would be firewalls of cracked universities, media companies, law firms, and billionaires obeyed in advance. The Supreme Court placed the presidency effectively above the law. Truth is battered on an hourly basis and the rough beast of AI slouches on with the enthusiastic support of the tech oligarch. We're seeing corruption on an industrial global scale with little or no accountability. But history tells us that while tyrannies can rise, they also can fall. But what comes after that? So this seems like a really good time to catch up with the historian who tried to warn us. And joining me on the podcast today is that historian Timothy Snyder author of on tyranny.

4:07Thank you for joining me. I appreciate it very much. Very glad to be with you. Well, you know, I reread it recently and it really hit me how many of the things that you warned us about had happened. So let's fast forward nine years. Your first warning was do not obey in advance that pointing out that democracies are fragile and that authoritarianism really arrives openly. It grows as people surrender their freedom when they, you know, the anticipatory obedience and quite frankly, your book was barely off the press before we started seeing one institution after another obey in advance. Okay, nine years later, where are we at? If you were concerned about tyranny back in 2017, what is your sense right now in 2026? Lots to say about that. I mean, I'll start with what's like what's so to speak eternal, what doesn't change.

5:07And that is that we don't have democracy because we're so great. We have democracy because wise people understand that we're not so great, right? I mean, as creatures, we have various weaknesses. And one of the ways they handle those weaknesses is to rotate our leaders and vote for them, right? And so democracy isn't the result of the fact that we're ideal. It's a way of handling the fact that we're not. And so we need angels, right? Yeah, exactly. If we were angels, we wouldn't need this. Yes, exactly. And so that means that democracy isn't the thing that you get because you're great. It's a thing that you aspire to because you know you're not so great. And that's, I mean, at some point I'm in a level, that's maybe what Americans get wrong that we think we cause we're America or because we're great or because we're Americans. No, no, no, the whole idea is that founding fathers realized, I mean, this was their wisdom. They made a lot of big mistakes too and how the runes and flaws, of course. But they realized that 250 years ahead, people would still be fallible, right?

6:09And it's still, and so you aspire to democracy because you're fallible and you have to aspire to it because it doesn't come on its own, right? There aren't institutions that protect you. There isn't a constitution that protects you. There isn't history. There isn't capitalism. None of this stuff does the work for you. You have to do the work on your own. So like that's the eternal part. And then where we are, my basic take is so much bad stuff has happened in the last, let's say, decade, that you can't really think about toggling back. What you have to think about is how do you get from the wreckage that's around us now into something new and better? Which I think an effective politics of resistance has to be a politics of aspiration and creation where you say, okay, the fact that Trump was possible proved that a lot of things we thought were okay, were not okay. And then Trump himself has destroyed a lot of things with the help of the collaborators you referred to. And so we can't just go back because where we started from was flawed and we can't go

7:13back because there's records on the ground. So what do we build now? And I think that's like, that's actually the question of these midterms. Like everybody wants the midterms to be like a game and it's like up and down and there's a blue wave, there's a red wave. Yeah. Like the midterms are about whether you can take a first step towards building something. Well, where are we? I mean, do we have an effective resistance? Do we know what comes after? Because that seems very unclear. I mean, I think your point about the complacency about democracy is, of course, one of the things that we've learned in the last 10 years is that, you know, we are not, we Americans are not immune from history. And I had that creeping sense that, you know, we need to be reminded that the liberal constitutional democracy is not the default setting of history, right? I mean, most societies, you know, we're not liberal democracies. That was an exception. And I guess the fear is is that that was the aberration and that we're now sliding back into something else. So how do we, you've raised this cosmic question, you know, how do you put the pieces

8:15back together after the damage that we have experienced and which is likely to get worse over the next couple of years? Yeah. I mean, you know, Trump and the people around him, they like the founding fathers because the founding fathers are, you know, very old white guys who sort of achieved the thing of never dying, which I think a lot of them also want to achieve in some way. But I like the founding fathers or what I like about them was that they were so bizarre, like that they had such wild aspirations, especially Jefferson. Like if you read the Declaration of Independence, like this is not, these are not the musings of a calm man, you know, these either. These are wild aspirations of a world that has yet to, you know, regarding the world that has yet to be. And that's the spirit that you have to be in. Like I think a lot about Frederick Douglass when he is criticizing for good reasons, the Fourth of July, like from the position of a former slave. And what he says about the founders, I really like this, what he says about the founders

9:15is that they were rebels in their time, right? So they, you know, they got some control. But in their time, they were rebels. And I think that's the spirit you have to be in. You have to be a rebel in your own time if you want to have democracy, right? It's because like you say, it's definitely not the default setting of history. Like it's something that you only get if you want it. And if you're willing to take some risks and if you're willing to stand out and willing to be a little bit weird. And I think the part of the weirdness that we have to have in this moment, getting to your question, is the ability to talk about how things could be much better, right? Because right now, you know, and I get the drift of your question, right? Now it's easy to imagine the only two possibilities are more Trump, like he becomes even more, you know, even more like transparent and like even more whispy and the the the technocrats who are behind him become more fleshy and real, you know? Like that's right. And then the other scenario is, okay, that somehow gets stopped and we kind of go back to something.

10:16But I think that's that second thing isn't going to happen. I think the thing which can happen is that we redistribute wealth. We go, we have spectacular trials to try to get the rule of law back. We aspire to things like green energy and health care. I don't think there's a middle ground really. Like I think in order to be pragmatic, you have to be radical. So I don't think it's a matter of putting things back together again. I think it's more a matter of like thinking, okay, how could things be a lot better than they are right now and start from there? So it's not a matter of the center holding. It's a matter of countering radicalism with other radicalism, which actually I have to tell you is not that reassuring to basically because you know, let's go back to the 1930s. It was like you were either read or you were Nazi and it was that that that binary choice, you should either radical on the left or radical on the right. And that didn't lead to good outcomes. Is that what you're envision, is that our destiny that we're going to have,

11:19that we're going to have a society in which we're pitting the radical left against the radical right? No, I get you're pulling. And I mean, as a historian, like it's that confrontation is something that I spent a lot of my life writing about. But no, I don't, that's not what I have in mind. And I don't think that's what we're going to get. I mean, when I say radical, I mean more in the sense of the idea that did preoccupy into the founders, which is the idea of freedom, which is a notion, which has been captured by, I'm afraid, in the United States, by the very wealthy. And even the way we talk about freedom of speech and our country is extremely limited and has to do with things like the wealthy should be allowed to put money in politics, which is kind of absurd. No, by radicalism, I don't mean that they're radical and we should be the opposite. What I mean is that they're, they're selfish and destructive and we have to think of ways to be creative, right? So it's not kind of one vision versus another. It's more like the courage to have

12:20a vision at all because I think they're like their victories include the, the stifling of imagination. Like it wasn't very long ago. I think you'll agree. It wasn't very long ago when people did have visions of the future and we, and politics was about competing visions of the future. Whereas the Trumps and the Putin's of the world, they've succeeded in getting rid of that and getting us all thinking about like the turmoil of the present or imaginary, imaginary myths about the past. And so by radicalism, what I mean is like the willingness to set, the willingness to talk about the future and the willingness to imagine that things could be better in the future. And also the willingness to say, well, actually we have the tools. Like we do have the wealth and we do have the technology. We do have the tools where we could make things a lot better for ourselves. Well, my concern is that the most powerful tools are in the hands of the worst people, the oligarchs. And you know, and all of those means, all of the weapons of society are being controlled. So

13:22this, I think, is something to struggle against. Okay, so let me just, let's go back into the past from 2017 to where we're at right now because you know, I went back and I read your book and you know, all the key points, you know, the tyranny, praise, unpassivity. We need to protect our institutions. Truth is critical. Ethics and personal responsibility, courage, over conformity. Boy, you know what? Back in 2017, I was counting on all of those things. So I'm sort of dying to ask you since you had actually, I was even Timothy Snyder surprised by how fragile that was. How many rich, powerful institutions decided to obey in demand? How quickly some of those guardrails crumbled, particularly in Trump 2.0? Were you surprised by that? No, I mean, like everybody else, I mean, I'm a person and like, I'm a patriot. And so I can be, like, I can be dismayed and I can be disappointed and I can be shocked. I mean, so I was in Oklahoma

14:24at the, just before the, the last presidential's. And it was at the time when both the Washington Post and the LA Times conceded, like then it. And that was a shocking moment for me because, you know, because here you have people who are wealthy and extremely powerful. I mean, in the case of Bezos, far more powerful than Donald Trump, who wasn't even president at that point. And they're already choosing to concede, right? And that's shocking. It wasn't surprising, you know, because like when you spend your mental life, where I've spent my mental life, you're not surprised by stuff like this, but it's shocking. Like, it's morally shocking. And I think you have to kind of maintain that sense of shock because if you don't maintain that sense of shock, then you can't hold people to any kind of standard, right? But I think what, you know, what the, what the, what that special kind of obeying in advance revealed, you know, where it's the, the billionaire's precisely who

15:28are being in advance. What that reveals is something that I think Americans have a hard time facing, which is that being rich doesn't necessarily make you a better person and being extremely, extremely rich. I mean, and, and of course, there are exceptions and there are people who do great stuff, but being extremely rich opens you up to temptations that weren't there before. And one of them is that if you concede in exactly the right way to the government, you might get to be the government, right? And so when you look at the, the oligarchs clustering around the White House, like one way to say that is like, oh, we'll look at humiliating themselves. Yeah, they kind of are, but yeah, they're doing so because they think that Trump is like the revolving door, which leads to their total power. Like they just, they push on like Trump, like Trump is like a, you push on him and he kind of goes around in the circle. And then you are on the other side are like in this new universe where you're in control. And so the thing that those concessions are revealed to me is that we made, we have made a mistake, which we have to correct, which is to allow too few people to

16:32control too many resources. And in particular, when it comes to Silicon Valley and now AI, we've allowed ourselves to be blinded by the notion that this is like high tech and its exceptional and that these guys are geniuses. And therefore they should be allowed to break their rules and we should admire for the higher than they're doing. So that's a big mistake, which you've already alluded to, which you've got to come back from. You know, so it was, I go back and forth between thinking that a lot of people engage in a lack of courage and cowardice. But then, of course, there are the people who rationalize going along with all this. I think the oligarchs think, well, you know, we're going to, you know, we're going to make a lot more money. It's better to be on the inside than on the outside. We don't want to be punished. It's not worth standing up to them. So I can nerd out with you a little bit, although I do the so with with modesty. One of the books that I read, I think back in 2017, 2018, along along with your book, because I'm trying to understand how the how the process actually worked. I actually read the autobiography of

17:33Franz von Papen, who was a leading German figure, who rationalized going along and appeasing Hitler. And at every stage, he's thinking, well, if I give a little bit how bad can it be? And there's almost an example of political leaders who decide that they're going to trim and they're going to rationalize. And we saw a lot of that when, you know, originally just watching, you know, all of the, and even like until this week, you know, United States senators, Republicans in public life who are watching everything that we're watching and thinking, yeah, you know, maybe I can make it a little bit better or I'm it's not worth fighting against it. Just describe that process of sort of rash, the rationalization of appeasement. Yeah, thank you. Because I think this moves us from one, like we were talking about one category of people, who could reasonably believe that

18:36Trump, because of his transparent, transparently transactional character and his, in his lack of virtue and patriotism, that and also his other limitations, which are many, that he can be used, right? And now we're talking about a different category of people who are whole elected office. And their, their force should be associated with the dignity of that office. But rather than treating Trump as another elected official, with whom there's a, with constitutionally defined relationship, they treat him as a sort of, you know, demigod or source of values or source of truth or whatever. And then as you say, like step by step, step by step, step by step, go along. And I guess there are some structural problems that we have, you know, like the money in politics. There's some structural problems that we have, like the two party system and the primaries, which makes people afraid. But at a certain point, after you diagnose the structural problems, you have to get down to

19:36the issue of character. And this is one of the things when I was, when I was in, I was in Hattikiv a couple of weeks ago, and I was kept up late by the area alerts and stuff. And I was thinking about politics in the US. And in terms of just like little bits of courage. And Trump never, Trump would not have happened if there had been 25 list chanies. I mean, I even can't agree. Right? Right? Yeah. But, you know, but in fact, there was, I mean, there were a few other people like her, but there was only one list chanier, right? And if there had been 25, we would not be here. And if there had been 25 Republicans who had been willing to risk office in order to be patriots, if there had been 25 Republican elected officials at the federal level, who had been willing to say, like, I have values. And although I did, you know, I differ with Democrats, but I, you know, I believe in the Constitution, rather than in this person I'm imagining as some kind of deity. We wouldn't be here, you know? And so, it amidst all the large structural factors in history,

20:39and amidst the particular institutional flaws of our own system, you do have this just lack of courage, right? Let's say this, this, this, this, this, just the simple inability to do the right thing. And that's just worth noting, and it's worth remembering because that's also a fact of history, right? But it also suggests also a hopeful thing, which is that, you know, maybe 25 people can be courageous on the other side, you know, like maybe 25 people can be creative on the other side. And by the other side, I don't just mean Democrats. I mean, like it, it matters a lot of people are willing to take risks in a different way. And I think as we head towards the midterms, we're probably going to start finding some of those people. You know those pieces in your closet, you find yourself wearing on repeat, the sweater that goes with everything, the perfect pair of pants or the tee that you somehow always reach for first. Well, those are the pieces that make getting dressed easy. And that's what Quinn's does best. Quinn's focuses on high quality wardrobe staples made with premium materials, like 100% Mongolian cashware, organic cotton, and marina

21:43wool. The styles are timeless, versatile, and designed to become the dependable pieces that you'd reach for day after day for example, they're very affordable. They're 100% Mongolian cashmere sweater start at just $60, giving you the softness and the quality you'd expect from a luxury brand without the luxury price tag. And when the temperature starts to drop, Quinn's makes it easy to build on those everyday staples with premium down jackets and classic wool underwear, versatile layers designed to keep you warm and comfortable all winter long. Everything at Quinn's is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and they cut out the middlemen. So you're paying for high quality, not brand markup. Look, I have the t-shirts and the sweater and I have to say those are go-to parts of my wardrobe and I was amazed the first time I put them on the quality. I was expecting them to be, I thought they'd be okay, they were outstanding, but it's not just the clothing. Quinn's brings the same approach to everything they

22:44make from hotel quality bedding and bath to kitchen essentials and thoughtfully designed furniture. They make well-designed pieces for everyday living. Find your next fall favorites at Quinn's. Download the Quinn's app for app exclusive offers or go to Quinn's.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quinn's asked where you heard about them, let them know that it was from the Charlie Sykes podcast to the contrary podcast. It's the best way that you can support the show. Charlie Sykes here, if you're a homeowner like I, you know that there's never a good time for something major to go on the fritz like for example, your water heater, which is exactly what happened to us just a couple of weeks ago, the water heater began leaking all over the basement, the basement where I actually do this podcast and our YouTube videos. And it was a mess. Adding insult to injury, it was very, very expensive. We had to bring in lots of contractors. We had to replace the water heater. We had to bring in dry wallers.

23:45And you know, it was pricey. Having a home protection plan from home serve in place can help you get ahead of the inconvenience and avoid the kind of hassle that I just went through. And it's not just replacing the water heater. You can be another plumbing problem, HVAC issue or electrical issue outage. Regular homeowners insurance usually doesn't cover a lot of the day to day wear and tear plumbing failures or you know, breakdowns of your air conditioning system or other electrical issues. I mean, you often have to do those on your own. And that's where home serve comes in. It's like a subscription for your home. For as little as $4.99 a month, they've got your back because repairs hit fast and they hit hard. You could be searching for a contractor in a panic or you could already be on the phone with home serves 24 seven hotline to schedule a repair. And it is super simple. Just choose a plan for your needs and your budget. And when something on your plan goes wrong, just call their 24 seven hotline to start the repair process because they have local qualified technicians on call and they've helped homeowners like you for over 20 years

24:52with a trusted national network of 2600 local contractors with nearly four and a half million customers, a 4.8 out of five post repair rating and an A plus better business bureau rating. They are the real deal. So join the millions of customers who trust home serve for 50% less your first year. Go to home serve.com slash contrary. That's home serve.com slash contrary for 50% less savings compared to renewal price void in Florida. Well, let's let's let's talk about a little bit about that because I want to move up to a little bit more hopeful, hopeful theme here because again, remembering back to 2017 when your book was was first published and there were people arguing about what an existential threat Donald Trump posed. Back then it was somewhat easier to rationalize. Now, okay, he's a little bit outside the mainstream, but this is just politics and you know, things are going to be okay. Right now it does feel as if there is an unmasking going on,

25:54the great unmasking because you know, Donald Trump is not making the pretenses. We have his obsession with the monuments. The corruption is so flagrant. The threats to overturn the election, which we've already seen in January first. You know, we're going through a period at which you know, it's taken a very long time to sort of strip America of the denial about this and Trump just doesn't seem to give it. I'm sorry, it doesn't seem to give a shit anymore. It's like, okay, yeah, I'm an autocrat and I'm admiring autocrats. I'm going to suck up to Vladimir Putin. I'm going to suck up to G. I'm going to behave like the autocrats of history. And it's sort of like, you know, with virtually every day, Donald Trump says, Timothy Snyder, hold my beer. I'm going to show you exactly what an authoritarian looks like. Do you get that sense that that one of the reasons why we are in this moment right now is because the mask has been stripped off? Interesting. So I'm going to jump back to the premise of the question because I think it's just worthwhile noting that

26:57from my perspective anyway, like from from the perspective of a historian of some of these things, but also from the perspective of somebody who was working on Russia in the early 21st century, some of this stuff that he was doing in the campaign in 2015, 2016, are already very disturbing. Like a lot, a lot of I was writing about him back then, not just the book, but I was trying to cover the pain back then. And the rallies were disturbing. The us and them rhetoric of the rallies, the way that he would try to the way that he would try to summon the crowd against people who were physically present, the way that he would get the reporters thrown out sometimes physically. That was already that was red all in a fascism already then. And I think we were choosing not to see. I thought so. Yeah. I think we were choosing not to. And then the second thing which troubled me in 2016, I guess there are three things. In 2016 already, it was really clear that he and Putin had

28:01some kind of strange long distance affair going on. And again, I was writing about that then, an event showing the brain to book, which was largely about that. But the evidence was there. And I think we just kind of chose not to see it because like how could another country really matter to us? And there are a lot of ways to interpret the Trump Putin thing, but you can't interpret it out of existence. It's clearly there. And that's like, and it takes one form, one way to define this, how you defined it that he admires autocrats. But he certainly admires this one in particular. And then the third thing which was troubling me way back then was the social media of it all that Trump was largely a social media creation, right? The way he did politics with the attention grabbing, you know, with the memes, that this was of a peace with the way social media was already transforming politics back then. So I just wanted to say all that because it seems to me that like there were like the signs that things were all I would like to us. Yeah, yeah, okay. Sorry if I'm running out about that. Then I don't know. I'm just saying that I agree with you

29:05completely. It's just that that I just remember the skepticism when you raised your hand say, you know, this is this is we're not talking about normal politics. This really does have those echoes. And there wasn't a lot of poo pooing like, oh no, this is don't worry about it. And you know, I was assured over and over again by conservative Republicans, people in office that yeah, don't worry. We will take care of this. But not but it was all there. It was all there from the beginning. You remember right? We really told you remember that. I mean, I think that like like I talked to a lot of nice older gentlemen wearing blue blazers with gold buttons. Who is sure that they had the under control. I remember that very distinctly. The second thing is that like we I think we sort of chose not to listen to him because you're right. I you're I agree with you in 2026. It's it's blatant. But if you listen to him all along, I mean, I think we kind of made the effort to say he's just kidding. You know, it's kind of it's not he's

30:10you know, he's a joke or whatever. But that was our doing work for him. You know, and then okay, and then the final thing I want to oh, and then I think I want to say about this is communism. So like in the latest like in this in the campaign ad that they just use our taxpayer ads. Yes. Right. It's the threat of communism and like that in Trump and the Republicans around and we're talking about communism all the time. But who are his friends, man? Like his G like who does he admire more than G right? Who's the head of the Chinese Communist Party? It's like we we have to choose between South Korea and North Korea. He chooses North Korea every time. He's like something. And then Putin is like a Communist Party member. He was a KGB officer for crying out loud. You know, in Trump's when what Trump likes to do is nationalize companies. So like what was what was communism? Like the guy I love this song. You know, the split screen. The split screen is pretty amazing when his number one campaign issue is we you know, America will never be communist while he's waiting at the bottom of the stairs to suck up to the Chinese Communist leader. I've says, so now what you focused on and you and you focused on it

31:14in in in your book, the power of language. And unless and you mentioned it again, I mean, the fact that Donald Trump on a regular basis will refer to his critics and his opponents as enemies of the people as traders, as as human scum as terrorists. Just this week we had a United States Senator from Missouri referred to former special counsel, Jack Smith as a dirtbag. There's something about the language that that feels like it is, should we say almost post-democratic the fact that Donald Trump is investing massive resources in demonizing in really fundamental ways, the fact that and when we kind of gloss over this, the number of opponents that he's actually called to be hanged or to get the death penalty. And again, words like treason should not be treated lightly and yet Donald Trump throws them around like skittles. So what do you make of that because that that strikes me as as as laying the groundwork for really extreme political

32:19governmental action. Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, there's a very there are a couple really fundamental things here about a democracy and even like, you know, all democracies in history are flawed. Like they've all excluded somebody or other, but for the people who were part of this citizenship, there was usually some kind of ritual of respect, like a title that you used, right? I mean, in the British parliament, the way they refer to one another in in Greek democracies, there were similar habits. Like there were methods of speech which suggested in the post-democratic union parliament, they had a they had to one of the biggest democracies in the world for a long time. There were ways of addressing one another which suggested like, I respect you and we're equals. And that I agree with you is very important. And then like as societies become democratized, those terms then spread into the larger population, right? So like in the Polish language, for example, the term which used to mean like Lord now is used as a plate form of address for everybody. And

33:21that's kind of a sign of how, you know, as a society democratizes the language does too. And we need like, you need that like to have a democracy, you need rituals that are like that. You need ways of addressing people in a way which honors them. I'm just saying that because it's not just what he's doing is not just negative. It's also the absence of something positive that we that we need. Second thing I want to say is that the way that Trump does it when he talks about treason especially, he's confusing and he's trying to get us to confuse himself with the state, right? So like treason is a betrayal of the state. Yeah, exactly. That's it. It's lethasi mua which you know, no one ever actually said, but it's the idea that the state is me, right? And so if I don't like someone, they betrayed me and therefore they betrayed the state. And so he's been trying to train people into thinking that Trump's likes and dislikes are the same thing as loyalty and disloyalty to the state. And so there is like a subtle form of political education which is going on there too when he throws around that word treason, which as you say, he shouldn't, he shouldn't throw around.

34:21And then the other thing about this is yeah, it's preparing, I mean, Trump, the Russians understand Trump. Forgive me, this seems like a digression, but it isn't like, they understand that he doesn't mind people dying, but they also doesn't have the nerve to bring it about himself. And so which is how he's different from Putin, who doesn't mind people dying because also fine bringing about himself. The Russians have their finger on that like they understand Trump's weakness like that he's he's a tough guy who doesn't mind like getting other people to do his dirty work, but he can't actually do it himself like he's he's afraid. And that was the Russian line on Trump way back when and I believe that they had that part right. And then the event, he when he does this calling people these names, he's trying to get us to do the work or he's trying to get he's trying to prepare the way for agencies, the American government to perpetuate atrocities, right? But that's what he's trying to do. He's trying to create like he's not, it's like, it's passive aggressive, right? He's not going to himself. He probably doesn't even have a guts to issue the orders, but he's kind of prepared the way by dehumanizing others. Interesting. Okay, so

35:28we've talked a lot about the rise of tyranny, but let's also talk about the fall of tyrannies because you know, and as an historian, you've you've written about you know, Germany, you've written about Stalinism, you know, all of which had an expiration date. One of the flaws, and you correct me, one of the flaws of authoritarian or autocrat is that at some point they become, you know, they they create they create their own, um, hermetically sealed silos. They surround themselves with loyalists and toe liquors and incompetence. Donald Trump seems to me to be more isolated than ever, more tone deaf than ever. Um, he seen, you know, in Trump 1.0, he had some grown-ups who would occasionally tell him that his conspiracy theories were bullshit. That was Bill Barr as former Attorney General. Now they're they're all gone. So give me your sense of what again, the moment we're in right now, his approval rating is, nearing the Nixon line down to, you know, the low 30s.

36:33He's going into the midterms talking about things that the public does not want to talk about. Who is he listening to and and what's going on within the regime that might carry the seeds of its fall? Yeah. Uh, uh, uh, you sure let's talk about it. I think the crucial thing about Trump is that his whole rise to political power depended upon a kind of pre-political image of him as a strong man. So the notion that he was a titan of business, you know, which he wasn't. Um, the idea that he was a decisive, a decisive actor, which is largely based on a television show. And then his own also undoubtable talent, like his public speaking abilities, which are considerable, but it's all like he, it's based on this image of being strong, that he's a strong

37:34man, which if you're outside the American cultural bubble is like laughable, right? No one actually thinks he's wrong. I mean, people outside the US think he disposes of resources that can hurt us. Um, you know, because, because Trump can do things with like the people around Trump could never have built the US government, but they can do things with it to hurt other people. That's true. Yeah. Um, they can fire missiles, they can institute tariffs and so on. But no one thinks he's strong. Nobody, nobody thinks he's strong. I mean, they might, they might, you know, they have to butter him up and stuff, but nobody outside the US information bubble thinks he's strong, which can be helpful because I think a little bit of distance is useful. He is, as you say, weakening inside US domestic politics too. And for me, the question is when the objective weakening gets great enough that the character of the strong man is no longer performable. And I think we're nearing that point.

38:35Because you can, you know, the character of the strong man can bear a certain number of defeats, but he can't bear an infinite number of defeats. And I think that's why he's so desperate looking at Torch no Vember because he got thwacked in Iran. I mean, it's humiliating, right? Like we chose a war we shouldn't have chosen. We committed, you know, we did Pete had says favorite thing. We committed war crimes. We still lost incredibly quickly. And everybody knows it, right? Everybody knows it. Everybody knows it. And so that's, and now he's facing a second in the same year, obvious categorical defeat. And I think he's worried not so much about the institutional transfer of power, but about the perception that like he's a loser, which he is. He's a loser. He's a loser. He's a loser and he needs to lose and he needs to be clear that he's lost. And he's going to work, try desperately to prevent that from happening. So the first thing I would say is like the political charisma of the charismatic image of the strong man, it's starting to waver. And it's not a gradual process, right? At some point it just breaks. And even his people are most of them say, okay,

39:38that's a little embarrassing. And then the other thing, which the other thing which happens as you say, and you've already diagnosed it. So I'm just going to repeat it. As you, and it's the classical problem of tyranny, as you know, very well, the informational problem. You just do make worse decisions and because you're surrounded by an ever smaller group of, you know, ever more enthusiastic bootlickers. And so those objectively bad decisions you make end up hurting you. And that's also partly the Iran story. Like you never do that war. If you have any reasonable conversation, or if there's any circulation of ideas, or if there's any push and shove, or if there's any balance of powers. Therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough. It shows up in the smallest moments. You bite your tongue instead of escalating. You put your phone down, instead of firing off that text, you say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most. Nobody applauds those moments, but they quietly change your life. That's what growing feels like.

40:40And that's exactly what growth therapy is here for. Grow is therapy that works, covered by insurance. Sessions average $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0, depending on their plan. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments. You just pay per session. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality licensed therapists across the US, offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends. You can search by what matters. Like insurance, specialty, identity, or availability. And you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days, not the national 48-day average. See if you could pay as little as $0 for therapy in seconds at growtherapy.com-startnow. That's growtherapy.com-startnow. Growtherapy.com-startnow. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. As a fitness coach, my active psoriatic arthritis can slow me down.

41:43With SkyRizzy, RisenKizumabRizzy, I'm treating my skin and joints symptoms so I can keep moving. SkyRizzy, a prescription only injection for adults, helps me move with less joint pain, stiffness, swelling and fatigue. And for those who have plaque psoriasis, 90% clearer skin is possible. With SkyRizzy, there's no daily dosing. It's just four doses a year after two-starred doses. Don't use a allergic to SkyRizzy. Serious allergic reactions, increased infections, or lower ability to fight that may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor about any flu-like symptoms or vaccines. Thanks to SkyRizzy, there's nothing like clear skin and better movement. And that means everything. Ask your doctor about SkyRizzy. Visit SkyRizzy.com for called 1-866 SkyRizzy to learn more. So let me, in the final question, Ed Luce in the Financial Times has a provocative column saying,

42:47you know, that even if the Democrats win big in the midterm elections, it's not going to be an earthquake because Donald Trump is going to continue to pursue his agenda. He's been acting as if Congress is a complete nullity. He treats Congress like the Duma. So will the midterm elections make a difference? And I guess more and more to the point, you know, how should the Democrats make the midterm elections matter? Given the fact that Trump will still have massive power and arguably becomes more dangerous the weaker he gets. Yeah. At least start from the end thing because I don't think he becomes more dangerous the weaker he gets. I think he becomes weaker the weaker he gets. And like our, we got at some point we got to stop giving him power, right? Okay. And I think the moment where we start saying he's weak, maybe that moment where we should stop giving him power, if you see what I mean, I'll definitely be talking about stuff that he wants to do. That's going to happen. But the weaker he gets, the less likely it is that for example, the US Armed Forces would obey

43:50criminal orders and so on. So I'm going to stick with the weaker he gets, the weaker he gets. The more he gets for it and the more ambitious, sure. But I think it's good that he gets weaker. I'm just going to stay close to that very simple idea. Then as far as like what to do in response, I think that's a great question because loses, right? Like you're right to put the focus on parliaments. If you think about Vimer Germany, right? This is exactly how Hitler saw the parliament. Like the parliament, I'm not going to repeat his phrase because it's also kind of a scene. The parliament is just a place where people talk meaninglessly, right? But Duma in Russia now, as you say, it's just like it's there for show. So that it's a sheets to show that there's a parliament, right? That is exactly how Trump has been treated. But to go back to your earlier great questions about the Republican Party, that has been a cooperative project. Congress under Republicans has chosen not to exist. They've chosen to debase themselves as individuals and to debase their offices

44:51and to debase the legislative chamber of the United States government. They have chosen to debase it. One can hope that others will make other choices, right? And I think it's reasonable to expect that others will make other choices. And a lot of the stuff that Trump has been doing out of the executive branch, including tariffs, is actually extra legal or just illegal and shouldn't be allowed to happen, right? And so one can hope that a Congress, it doesn't matter so much that it's the Democrats, but it's a Congress that's not controlled by a party which is just decided to seed to him everything. I think things then will change. But that's not enough. You have to go on the offensive. And so my answer to your question is that, assuming that Democrats win big, which I do believe they will, starting November 4th, they have to go on the offensive in the sense of becoming the party that's against radical wealth and equality, becoming the party that's against money and politics, becoming the party that's willing to take on individuals who have clearly profit from the Trump

45:51administration, like make examples of individuals, Trump might pardon them, but show the individuals who have made money from Trump. Like, there's nobody believes that that's okay, including Republicans, nobody thinks that that's okay. But they have to go on the offensive. And by offensive, I mean the rule of law. That's what I mean. I mean the Constitution, I mean doing the things that they're allowed to do, like investigations and legislation. But it won't, like to go back to very beginning of this question, the institution doesn't defend itself, right? Like Congress doesn't defend itself. You're going to have to have troublemakers in Congress who seem like they're doing things that are going too far. That you're going to have to have those people. If you don't have those people, then we really will have a problem because the Trump three, the Trump three point O that I worry about looks like this. The Democrats win, but they don't announce anything dramatic. And then they don't do anything dramatic. Yes. And then people shrug their shoulders and they say, well, we kind of thought everybody was corrupt. And then for a moment, we thought Trump was more corrupt.

46:56But now it turns out everybody is corrupt, right? Like that's the bad scenario for me for February of 2027. Because when we go back to everybody's corrupt, then Trump, no matter how damaged, no matter how bloody, no matter how aged, can still say, well, yeah, everybody's corrupt. And I'm the best at being corrupt. Let's admit it. You know, I'm the most charming at being corrupt. I'm the most ridiculous. I'm the most entertaining at being corrupt. So why not just keep me at the center of politics? I think that's like that's the, that's my negative scenario. Okay, that's a great point because cynicism is really the handmaiden of corruption here. And then you make an interesting point is I think a lot of the focus has been on will they impeach members of the cabinet and impeached Donald Trump? It is important for them also to investigate the people who have benefited, who have enriched themselves. The oligarchy needs to actually start looking over their shoulder and realizing, you know what, we're not going to be immune forever. We're not going to be able to continue this forever. Timothy Snyder's book is on tyranny. It was published in

48:002017. I think it is going to be one of the seminal works of our time. It is actually aged like fine wine in the nine years since it was published. Timothy Snyder, thank you so much for your time today. So glad to be with you. I really appreciate the conversation. And thank you all for listening to this episode or to the contrary podcast. You know why we do this? Why we will continue to do this because somebody needs to remind you every single day that you are not the crazy ones. 500 orders a month was manageable. 5,000 is madness. Embrace intelligent order fulfillment with shipstation. The only platform combining order management, warehouse workflows, inventory, returns, and analytics in one place. What used to take five separate tools shipstation does in one.

49:03Automate fulfillment and rate shopping to ship up to 15 times more with up to 90% savings. Go to shipstation.com and use code audio to try shipstation free for 60 days. While sourcing critical supplies across the operation. Too much inventory? Cost climb. Too little? Production slows. Granger's $2 billion in on-hand inventory helps you get what you need when you need it. So you can help keep budgets balanced in lines moving. Call 1-800-granger. Click ranger.com or just stop by. Granger for the ones who get it done. As a fitness coach, my active psoriatic arthritis can slow me down. With SkyRizzy, RisenKissamabRizzah, I'm treating my skin and joints symptoms so I can keep moving. SkyRizzy, a prescription only injection for adults helps me move with less joint pain, stiffness, swelling, and fatigue. And for those who have plaque psoriasis, 90% clearer skin is possible.

50:06With SkyRizzy, there's no daily dosing. It's just four doses a year after two-starter doses. Don't use a allergic to SkyRizzy. Serious allergic reactions, increased infections, or lower ability to fight that may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor about any flu-like symptoms or vaccines. Thanks to SkyRizzy, there's nothing like clear skin and better movement. And that means everything. Ask your doctor about SkyRizzy. Visit SkyRizzy.com for call 1-866 SkyRizzy to learn more.