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The Next Terrorist Attack

6 days ago | snyder.substack.com | Timothy Snyder

Thirty years ago today, I was driving a moving van across the country, from the west coast to the east. The hold was packed well; the ride was wobbly, and I kept the heavy vehicle between the lines, mile after mile. Driving carefully, I was surprised to be stopped by state troopers. When I rolled down the window to face some polite questioning, I didn’t know that Timothy McVeigh had bombed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people and injuring 684 more.
The Reality of Ukraine

2 months ago | snyder.substack.com | Timothy Snyder

The divide in politics today is between unreality and reality. Those who seek to rule the world blur human experience and smudge memory, making cooperation and friendship laughable and unthinkable. Rather than possessors of truths, we are to serve as lonely nodes in a power network. Ukraine resists an unreality war. Putin's premise for invasion is that Ukraine does not exist. There is no state, no nation. Ukraine is just a misunderstanding that can be corrected by the violence and propaganda.
The Logic of Destruction

2 months ago | snyder.substack.com | Timothy Snyder

What is a country? The way its people govern themselves. America exists because its people elect those who make and execute laws. The assumption of a democracy is that individuals have dignity and rights that they realize and protect by acting together. The people who now dominate the executive branch of the government deny all of this, and are acting, quite deliberately, to destroy the nation.
Rejected Cabinet Nominees

Jan 16, 2025 | snyder.substack.com | Timothy Snyder

Historically, nominees for cabinet positions have been rejected by the Senate or have withdrawn their candidacies in order to prevent that outcome. It is not common, but nor is it abnormal. The power of "advice and consent" granted to the Senate by the Constitution has been exercised in practice. A number of Trump's appointments are simply outrageous by historical, ethical, strategic, or any other standards.
Why Greenland?

Jan 15, 2025 | snyder.substack.com | Timothy Snyder

In one way, Trump is utterly predictable. He wants to die in bed rather than in prison, and he wants that bed to be in the White House. That's what they all want, all of these supposedly strong men with their ostensibly national feeling: the eternal clean sheets. But precisely because the authoritarians are predictable in this way, they are unpredictable in another.
The People's Cabinet

Jan 11, 2025 | snyder.substack.com | Timothy Snyder

We need positive forms of opposition. A few days ago I wrote about one: the shadow cabinet. The proposal for a new American version of this venerable institution received overwhelming support. In a shadow cabinet, in Britain and Canada and elsewhere, parliamentarians from the opposition party follow the actual cabinet members, develop expertise in the relevant portfolios, and comment to the press.
A Third World War?

Jan 8, 2025 | snyder.substack.com | Timothy Snyder

It would be bad if your city burned down. This is a reasonable fear to have. What to do, then, if your neighbor’s house is on fire? Surely not blame the fire department for the fire and organize a protest in front of the station to trap the firetrucks inside. That's no longer fear, but self-destructive panic. Hysteria makes the city burn down. It would be bad if there were a third world war. That is a reasonable fear to have.
Men and Women Perform

Jan 8, 2025 | snyder.substack.com | Timothy Snyder

In the Republic of Gilead's dystopian future, men and women perform the services assigned to them. This is the summary of The Handmaid's Tale provided by the New York Times in its bestseller list. While it is a wonderful thing that Margaret Atwood's classic is being read, this description is precision without accuracy, revealing a striving to be uncontroversial that prepares the way for civilizational collapse. In the Republic of Gilead's dystopian future.
Safe Terrain

Jan 8, 2025 | snyder.substack.com | Timothy Snyder

Just a short one today. I'd like you to help me keep a promise. This past August, on my birthday, Mark Hamill and I began a project, Safe Terrain, to help clear Ukrainian lands of mines. With robots. Much of the territory under the control of the Ukrainian government was mined by Russia. Millions of Russian mines and other ordnance will kill and maim for decades, if nothing is done. The mines prevent Ukrainians from returning to their homes and farms and businesses. De-mining is dangerous work.
Why is Musk-Trump the "Mump Regime"?

Jan 8, 2025 | snyder.substack.com | Timothy Snyder

For a new world we need new words. Facing the coming Musk-Trump regime, we will have to be creative. It will not be enough just to rely on the standard terms that come to easily to our lips and pens ("administration," "presidency", and the like). That normalizes the abnormal. And to repeat unreflectively the words that Musk and Trump and other mumpers use is to take part in the transformation that they bring. Opposition requires clarity and clarity requires concepts. "Mump regime" is one I propose.