You're listening to Comedy Central. Timothy Snyder, Welcome to the show. I'm glad to be here. You have written a book about tyranny. Now I don't understand why why would you do this? Now? I can't think of one good reason. Yeah. The reason is everything that we know about history, and the reason is the best American tradition, which is that when you're in a moment of peril like this one, you look around for how other people have failed and you learn from them. So that's what the framers our
Constitution did. But now we have two hundred more years of failed democracy and two hundred years of smart people we can learn from. The book tries to get that across in about twenty minutes. You know what I will say, I what I enjoy about the book is it's it's tiny, it's easy to get through, and it's super interesting. You've got a lot of history in this field. Excuse the pond, but you you studied the rise of fascism in the nineteen thirties. You know, you've published I think a dozen
books or so. If you would look at the Trump administration, not to be hyperbolic, but what similarities would you see or would you say you see between the rise of fascism in you know, pre World War two Germany and in the US. Right now, history history is great because history is bracing. On the one hand, it's bracing because it tells us how bad things can get. Right, So
we're in the second globalization. Now, the first globalization had opponents, had had crises, it had contradictions like the First World War, the Second World War, the Great Depression. Hitler Stalin. On the other hand, Hitler is history is bracing because it tells us what we can learn and what we can do that there are alternatives, So how are we like
the nineteen thirties globalization is being challenged. That's similar. There are people coming from the far right and saying globalization has a face, maybe a Jewish face, maybe a dark face. That's also similar. Mr Trump in particular, in his rallies and his habits of speech, is a bit like a fascist. There are things here we have to watch out for. But history also empowers it helps us to get out of these traps. So we have to look at it first.
So if we're looking at history and we're looking at the core differences, what what what are the differences are the differences that Hitler knew when he was leaking information, Like what would you say? The core differences are in terms of what America is dealing with now versus any leader, not just Hitler in the past. So there's a there's a reason why I don't use Mr Trump's name in the book, which is that it's not really about Mr Trump.
It's really about us. History is there for us. It expands what we can see, it expands what we can learn. So although it is really important that Mr Trump invites Russians to the Oble Office with digital equipment at their side and then spills national security secrets, right, that's important.
It is important. Yeah, right, So I'm agreeing with your opening, But it may be even more important that the Germans and the Soviets and the other people the twentieth century who saw democracy collapse, we're just as smart as we are, or maybe smarter. So it may be time for us to learn from them what we can do to defend democracy.
That's the book. It's interesting that you say that, because I mean, like some of these these chapters are really fascinating in what they say, Like for instance, chapter ten here is Believe in Truth, and you write, to abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights. That's a powerful statement to make. Why is
post post truth so powerful? It goes back to your other question about fascism. So fascism says nothing's true. Your daily life is not important. The facts that you think you understand are not important. All that matters is the myth, the myth of one nation that's together, the right of the mystical, mystical connection with the leader. When we think of post truth, we think it's something new, we think
it's something that campuses, we think it's something irrelevant. Actually, what post truth does is it paves the way for regime change. 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. So if you want to rip the heart out of a democracy directly, I'm gonna go right at it and kill it. What you do is you go after facts, and that's what modern authoritarians do. Stuck one, you law yourself all the time. Step two, you say
it's your opponents and the journalists who lie. Step three, everyone looks around and says, what is truth? There is no truth, and then resistance is impossible. In the game's over. Wow. You know my favorite thing about the book, other than the steps that are and it's on the stories you tell, is that it's tiny. You can keep it in your pockets, and then when the tyranney is chasing you, you can be like, ah, what did he say? I get Oh, you don't want as well? I like you stop? Thank
you so much for me. Yeah. On Journey is available now, Tommy Slide Everybody. The Daily Show with crevernoah Ears Edition. Wat's The Daily Show weeknights at eleven ten Central on Comedy Central and the Comedy Central A. Watch full episodes and videos at the Daily Show dot com. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and subscribe to The Daily Show on YouTube for exclusive content and more. This has been a Comedy Central podcast