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" Trump bankrupted six companies but succeeded on the biggest of stages. He is the champion of failures. "

Timothy D. Snyder

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" People who lived in the 1920s and '30s and '40s were not so different from us. In some ways, they were probably better citizens than we are. They had longer attention spans, for example. Educated people tended to read a bit more than we did. "

Timothy D. Snyder

" Every day you don't do something, it makes it less likely that you will ever do something. So you've got to get started right away. "

Timothy D. Snyder

" One thing that I would like to get across is that even the most horrible events do have explanations that we can understand. And it's not always comfortable for us to understand, because in order to understand, we have to see how we're not so far away from the people in question. "

Timothy D. Snyder

" For the Russians, the displacement of the Holocaust is calculated and cynical. It's not emotional; they don't care about the Holocaust one way or another. They only care about it insofar as they can use it to manipulate a German sense of guilt. "

Timothy D. Snyder

" Think up your own way of speaking. When we repeat the same words and phrases that appear in the daily media, we accept the absence of a larger framework. "

Timothy D. Snyder

" If we can't have exchanges with our friends and family, with loved ones that won't at some point be made public, then we can't have private lives. And if we can't have private lives, then we're not really free people. "

Timothy D. Snyder

" The aspiring tyrants of today have not forgotten the lesson of 1933: that acts of terror - real or fake, provoked or accidental - can provide the occasion to deal a death blow to democracy. "

Timothy D. Snyder

" In rhetoric and action, the Trump administration has aggrandized 'radical Islamic terror,' thus making what Madison called a 'favorable emergency' more likely. "

Timothy D. Snyder

" Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. "

Timothy D. Snyder

" If it turns out that there are emotions and values that are more numerous and more vibrant than indifference and hatred, things are going to be okay. That depends on us. "

Timothy D. Snyder

" The 20th century shows that the form of government that we take for granted, a constitutional democratic republic with checks and balances and a rule of law - that form of government is usually temporary. "

Timothy D. Snyder

Take For Granted

" I worry about global anti-Semitism - not just as a bad idea that originates from bad people, but also as something that arises as a challenge to global order. "

Timothy D. Snyder

" Republics, like other forms of government, exist in history and can rise and fall. "

Timothy D. Snyder

" We think about democracy, and that's the word that Americans love to use, 'democracy,' and that's how we characterize our system. But if democracy just means going to vote, it's pretty meaningless. Russia has democracy in that sense. Most authoritarian regimes have democracy in that sense. "

Timothy D. Snyder

" Modern tyrants are terror managers. Do not allow your shock to be turned against your freedom. "

Timothy D. Snyder

" We can only see as much and we can only go as far as our languages take us. "

Timothy D. Snyder

" If you want to avoid criticism, then you shouldn't be a historian, because historians are trying to understand and explain. If you're trying to please people, then you should go into the fashion business, or the candy business. "

Timothy D. Snyder

" In the descent from a world of factual discourse into a world of emotions and alternative realities, the first step you take, whether you're the Russian media, whether you're Breitbart, is that you manufacture lots of stuff that isn't true. The second step is that you claim that everyone is like this. "

Timothy D. Snyder

" I think, whatever ideological coloration we think actually applies to Trump, we can be pretty confident that he sees the American state as a mechanism to make sure that people called Trump are rich forever. "

Timothy D. Snyder

" Interestingly, a number of the people I know - probably you do, too - who predicted that Trump would win were precisely Russians and Ukrainians who found the political style familiar and just asked, 'Well, why couldn't it work there?' They were the ones who turned out to be right. "

Timothy D. Snyder

" It is not hard to see why Trump might choose Putin as his fantasy friend. Putin is the real-world version of the person Trump pretends to be on television. "

Timothy D. Snyder

" When a terrorist attack comes, you will not necessarily know who did it. What you can know is that certain kinds of leaders will use that to suspend your rights. "

Timothy D. Snyder

" Very often, when leaders repeat things over and over, they are preparing you for when that meme actually emerges in reality. "

Timothy D. Snyder

" The Constitution is worth saving, the rule of law is worth saving, democracy is worth saving, but these things can and will be lost if everyone waits around for someone else. "

Timothy D. Snyder

" I thought I was going to grow up and become a diplomat and negotiate nuclear arms. "

Timothy D. Snyder

" If we don't have access to facts, we can't trust each other. Without trust, there's no law. Without law, there's no democracy. "

Timothy D. Snyder

" To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. "

Timothy D. Snyder

" Mr. Trump is primarily a television personality. As such, he is judged by that standard. This means that a scandal does not call forth a response; it calls forth the desire for a bigger scandal. "

Timothy D. Snyder

" Totalitarianism is not about some state that appears out of nowhere and suddenly is all-powerful. There can't be any such thing. Totalitarianism starts when the difference between your public life and your private life is effaced. "

Timothy D. Snyder

" Anticipatory obedience teaches authorities what is possible and accelerates unfreedom. "

Timothy D. Snyder