100 Years of 100 Things: Fascism

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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Now, we continue our WNYC centennial series, 100 Years of 100 Things. It's Thing No. 44, 100 years of freedom versus 100 years of fascism. We'll talk to a very special guest, Yale history professor Timothy Snyder, author of seminal books on the subject, including On Tyranny and his new one, On Freedom. The news hook, of course, is that we just elected a president who many people, including his former chief of staff and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, are afraid will govern like a fascist. Here's Kelly in his recent New York Times interview.

John Kelly: The former president is in the far-right area. He's certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators. He has said that. He certainly falls into the general definition of fascist for sure.

Brian Lehrer: John Kelly said that as you probably heard us discuss here or other people discuss elsewhere. Trump's former defense secretary, Mike Esper, echoed that. So did Trump's former Joint Chiefs of Staff chair, Mark Milley. What does the word "fascism" even mean? Does the US really have weak enough guardrails that something that deserves the label "fascism" could take root here? Let's look at the last 100 years and how they have given us today. As it happens, 1924, exactly 100 years ago, WNYC was being born. A lot was happening on the rise of tyranny front.

In 1924 in Germany, Adolf Hitler was convicted of treason for trying to start a revolution, but his trial became a platform for Hitler to give speeches that lifted him to greater prominence. He was released from prison just nine months later in '25 and continued his rise. In 1924 in Italy, an election that many consider fraudulent cemented Benito Mussolini as the head of state there. In 1924 in Russia, Vladimir Lenin died, allowing Joseph Stalin to officially become the head of state there. 1924 was quite a year for Europe's trio of rising totalitarians.

Let's start there with Timothy Snyder, Yale history and global affairs professor. He's also a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. He has written a number of landmark books on the subject, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. We'll go over some of those 20 lessons. The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America. Also, the book Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, also considered a seminal book. Now, brand new this year, On Freedom. Professor Snyder, thanks so much for coming on with us in our 100 Years of 100 Things series. Welcome to WNYC.

Professor Timothy Snyder: Glad to be with you.

Brian Lehrer: Can you start in 1924? Was something happening across Europe that was common to the rise of Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin, or simply the coincidence of different unique circumstances in each of the three countries?

Professor Snyder: Certainly, there are a couple of fundamental things in common. Number one is the crash of globalization into the First World War. Before 1914, most Europeans would have thought that the future was going to be ever more economic growth, ever more freedom. It was generally an optimistic moment with lots of justification. The First World War brought the European powers against one another. It was a war of titanic and unprecedented scale in which modern technology led to the deaths of millions of people, followed by a flu epidemic, which killed millions and millions more.

The people that we're talking about were products of that moment. They were people who had learned in their youth that anything was possible. The second thing which those three people have in common is the notion that the traditional liberal, democratic, or parliamentary state, with its ideas of progress and ever slowly, gradually increasing notions of freedom, that this thing was fragile, that this thing was out of date, that this thing could be overthrown by a radical ideology led by a small group or by a single person. That's something which these people had in common as well.

Brian Lehrer: Do you see right off the bat, parallels between 1924 and 2024 in terms of people's loss of faith in democracy to actually improve their lives?

Professor Snyder: I'm looking forward to a longer conversation about this. I don't believe in the magic of anniversaries if you'll pardon me. Of course, there is a general problem with a reaction to globalization. There is, in the United States and elsewhere, the sense that we gave away too much to too many other people too quickly. There is a reaction, which is slow and hard to get your hands around to the COVID epidemic and both to the isolation and to all the death, which I think is still playing out. It's certainly the case. Here, I think your question is really justified.

It's certainly the case that we shifted from a moment much like Europeans did a bit more than 100 years ago, a moment where people thought, "Oh, well, democracy is inevitable. Capitalism will bring it. There will be ever more freedom and prosperity. We don't really have to do anything. There are these historical laws, et cetera." All that nonsense talk of the '80s and '90s and early 2000s about there being no alternatives and so on, or on the left-wing version, the arc of history is long, et cetera. All of that nonsense has given way to the opposite, "Oh, wait. There are no historical laws. Anything is possible. It's every man for himself."

Brian Lehrer: Certainly, my question wasn't based in anything like the magic of anniversaries as opposed to something happened then that might also be happening or a parallel to it happens to be happening now. Officially, the frame here is fascism versus freedom. Your books are called On Tyranny and On Freedom. Are there main distinctions that you would make between fascist tyranny and Nazi or Stalinist tyranny in the 20th century?

Professor Snyder: Well, if I could start with just fascism as such, right? Tyranny would be a form of arbitrary power. Tyranny would mean the abuse and perversion of existing institutions to render arbitrary and capricious power into the hands of a small group or a single individual. There could be many forms of tyranny. Fascism is a specifically modern form of tyranny. It has to be specifically modern because, A, it's a reaction to globalization as we were talking about before. B, it has to be modern because it's based on nostalgia for the ancient past.

The fascists always say that there was a moment when we were great, whether that was 50 years ago or 500 years ago or 1,000 years ago. They always have that in common. Fascists believe that the will of people and the rescue of the people will be carried out by a single party, which is led by a single individual who somehow directly represents them. The fascists are also against reason, which makes them different than both the liberals and the Marxists. They believe that emotion and violence are the keys to political consolidation and to what they see as the rescue of the race. Why don't we start with that and then we can move on to comparisons?

Brian Lehrer: Sure. Well, would it be right to call Nazism then a variety of fascism?

Professor Snyder: Yes, I believe so, but here's the thing. Fascism isn't a code. It's not a doctrine. There aren't 10 paragraphs of fascism that Hitler and Mussolini and the rest sign their names under because fascism is more of a style. It's more of a revolt. It's hard to define exactly what it is. Of course, German fascism and Italian fascism, Romanian fascism and American fascism are all different. Yes, I would say that Hitler is very much a fascist. He was certainly someone who was personally inspired by Italian fascism up to a certain point. He looked up to Mussolini.

In German fascism, you see roughly similar ways of seizing power and also a roughly similar idea, namely that there was a moment when things were wonderful. The race has to be restored. For the Germans, race is more important than for the Italians. This has to take place by way of racial conflict. This ennobling redemptive conflict has to be led by a party, which is led by an individual. Yes, they're distinctive features. Anti-Semitism and racism are more important for German fascism. Yes, I would say Nazism is a kind of fascism.

Brian Lehrer: Well, Hitler and Mussolini both were elected. I know they say the election of 1924 may have been fraudulent, but would you say this is true or false? Both had majority support in their countries for all or most of their time and their program in power.

Professor Snyder: Well, the business of being elected is not quite that simple. We imagine. If you're in the US, you think of the president being the head of state and the president getting the majority. Of course, though, now, we're about to have one who didn't get a majority. Whereas in the Italian and the German systems, you're looking at it--

Brian Lehrer: Well, I think he didn't get a majority this time as opposed to last time.

Professor Snyder: No, he didn't. He got about 49.5%. That's not a majority.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, he got more than the other candidate, but he didn't get a majority. Right.

Professor Snyder: Right, he got a plurality.

Brian Lehrer: Correct.

Professor Snyder: In other systems, you have to get 50% or else there's a second round, right?

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Professor Snyder: He just got more than the other person, which is not a majority. Anyway, Germany and Italy in the '20s and '30s are parliamentary systems where Mussolini and Hitler in effect became prime minister initially as the head of coalitions. Their parties didn't receive majorities. Their parties received pluralities. Their parties did well, but they never had a majority. They weren't directly elected although, of course, democratic voting and their popularity had a great deal to do with them coming to power.

Their story of power in both cases is once you're at the head of a more or less normal government, how do you intimidate or purge the other parties? How do you suppress the parliament? How do you become the duce, the führer? How do you become the leader? By transforming the system from within. That, of course, is a lesson, which is broadly relevant that, as you say, an election can be at the beginning of the story. Then pretty soon in the middle of the story, elections don't really matter at all.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we're going to open up the phones as we do in our 100 Years of 100 Things segments for your oral histories or questions or comments. In this case, our guest, Timothy Snyder, Yale history professor. I guess I'll frame the question for you or the invitation for you this way, listeners. Simply, we welcome your comments, questions, or stories from your own family history.

Anyone with a lineage back to Mussolini's Italy, Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia, how do those years get discussed in your family? How does today's concern about fascism look through that lens if you have that family history? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, call or text, or anything else relevant as we talk about 100 years of fascism versus 100 years of freedom with Yale history professor Timothy Snyder, author of books, including On Tyranny, and now On Freedom. 212-433-WNYC, call or text, 212-433-9692.

Tell me if you agree with this or not that today's authoritarians, and maybe it was true in the 20th century as well, often have the support of national majorities. Despite what you were saying about elections, eventually, they don't matter because they're seen as effective at solving problems that democracy or freedom weren't solving. I know we talked about this a little at the beginning, but maybe in Hungary or the Philippines or India or El Salvador, any of those, maybe others in recent years. Fair statement?

Professor Snyder: I think the way that right-wing authoritarians and the people who blend into fascism come to power is rather by redefining success. If you look at Hungary, it's a much poorer country than it should be. Russia is a much poorer country than it should be. America under Trump is probably going to be a much poorer country. I think it's not so much that they solve problems in the conventional sense of making people more prosperous.

I think it's that they redefine success. This is important as feeling like you're among the winners and that other people are among the losers. I think what fascists do is they create a different kind of politics. Us against them, the non-deported against the deported, the white against the non-white, the winners against the losers where you're not winning because you're actually doing better economically. You're probably not, at least in the 21st century. You're probably doing a lot worse.

You're winning because you feel like you're doing less badly than other people. In the US, you get this with the right-wing or MAGA trope of owning the libs, right? You feel happy not because you're doing well. You feel happy because you think other people are unhappy. That's much closer to a fascist way of doing things than to a liberal or democratic way of doing things where you imagine that, well, we could all do a little bit better together.

Brian Lehrer: There's a concept called illiberal democracy as opposed to liberal democracy that, I think, usually refers to leaders being elected, but then dismantling other aspects of democracy like civil rights or other interests of minority groups and the independence of the judiciary or the press, even though elections might continue in that country. Do you accept that there is such a thing as illiberal democracy and would you distinguish it from fascism or tyranny?

Professor Snyder: I think it's a useful way to talk about a certain kind of transition as has taken place precisely in Hungary and Russia where you do have elections. Then at a certain point, and you can disagree about exactly when that point is, the elections cease to be meaningful, right? Russia is clearly across that line. They still have elections, but they're not meaningful.

I think at that point, you can't really say it's a democracy, even though you have elections, because a democracy requires a people in the sense of a people that is free, a people that can exchange views, that has the freedom of speech, the freedom of press and so on. If you don't have those things, just having elections doesn't make you a democracy. I think, yes, as a transition, but you can get past a point, and then elections don't actually mean you have a choice. What elections are there for is actually just show that the people in power can't lose them. That's something different already.

Brian Lehrer: One thing about all three of the 20th-century tyrants, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, is that they shut down the free press. I think they all did it explicitly with blunt, direct orders if I understand history well enough. Trump couldn't do that here, I don't think. Can you talk about the Hitler and Mussolini context of that perhaps?

Professor Snyder: Yes, that's a wonderful question because you're right. Hitler spoke about the press as the enemy of the people. Hitler, like Trump, was coming to power at a moment where, as a result of market forces, the press was doing very badly. The Great Depression, the Germany at the time, the rise of social media in our moment. As a result of things that have nothing to do with the aspiring leader, the press is already weak, fragmented, less red.

You're moving to a moment where new technology, which was radio for Hitler and, again, the internet for Trump, enables you to overwhelm traditional media and also to try to overwhelm factuality with a myth or with an aesthetic to use technology to try to create an enemy like a sense that the enemy is inside the country and that politics is about identifying and getting rid of that enemy. That's where I would see the similarity. It's not that you have to completely get rid of the press. It's that you have to condemn it and you have to overwhelm factuality with myth. That's an important part of fascism.

Brian Lehrer: Also, Hitler and Mussolini, maybe this is just a footnote to history or maybe you think it's important. I believe they were both socialists and then both turned ardently against Russian communism and maybe socialism generally. I think Mussolini was a particularly ardent critic of capitalism early on. In Hitler's case, the word "Nazi" stands for national socialist. What happened there?

Professor Snyder: Yes, great question. Mussolini was a socialist. He edited this Italian socialist newspaper, Avanti! You're right. Hitler also started off with views that were further to the left. He began as a critic of capitalism and then later, around the year 1919, became a critic of both capitalism and communism. In both cases, what you see is people who say there's a global class struggle or a global anti-capitalist struggle shifting into saying, "Wait a minute. Actually, there isn't that."

What we have instead is a struggle of Jews or plutocrats or other people against the healthy forces of the nation. Inside our nation, the capitalists and the laborers shouldn't be in conflict. That conflict is artificial. You shift from global anti-capitalism to this notion that, "Well, within our nation, everyone actually should get along." Insofar as they don't, it's the troublemakers. The troublemakers are usually, for fascists, the Jews.

Then with National Socialism, what you say is, "Well, capitalism itself is problematic. We don't want global capitalism," which we're going to stigmatize as Jewish. We're going to have a kind of guided national capitalism, but we're going to redistribute ideally from the Jews to other people. That's the kind of socialism we're going to have. That's what National Socialism meant for the German fascists, for the Nazis.

Brian Lehrer: It is one thing about anti-Semitism that the Jews get stereotyped as the capitalists who control everything and the socialists who want to overthrow everything.

Professor Snyder: Yes, Hitler was quite specific about that. For Hitler, the notion was that the German race should be in a competition with other races and they should be destroying other races. That was the natural way of things. Fascism is about conflict and it was the Jews who got in the way. Whether it was with capitalism or communism or Christianity or law or the state, it didn't matter. Anything which got in the way of what Hitler saw as this organic struggle, he was then going to blame on the Jews. This is the very specific Hitlerian, global anti-Semitism. Everything which gets in the way of the natural order, which for him is natural struggle, is to be blamed on the Jews.

Brian Lehrer: Do you see a relationship historically between 20th-century fascism and capitalism? Between Soviet-style totalitarianism and a communist economy, I think we can assume there was a relationship there. The command and control economy, so the state took over everything. Do you see a relationship between fascism and capitalism on the other side of that?

Professor Snyder: There are all kinds of tricky relationships. In the '20s and '30s, the Marxists had this idea that fascism was the last stage of capitalism like a certain kind of imperialism. That wasn't really very persuasive at the time. Ironically, in our moment, I think the relationship is much clearer. We are at a point where there's not so much capitalism. It's unregulated capitalism, which allows for spectacular inequalities of wealth.

That creates a situation where individuals who have right-wing views, especially individuals with right-wing views who control social media platforms, are able to fascistize the rest of us. I think also the incredible inequality of wealth that we have now favors hero worship. It favors this idea that, "Well, wait, there's somebody who has $100 billion or $200 billion or $300 billion. Therefore, they must be a savior in other spheres of life as well." I wouldn't say capitalism, right? I don't think that Swedish-style capitalism or Norwegian-style capitalism is going to get you towards fascism.

I think the Marxists did have a point in that, although the point is only really now proving true that oligarchy can be consistent with fascism. You see that emerging in the US, but I think you've seen it for several years now in Russia, where the person who's at the head of the state, who has ideas which I consider fascist, of course, that's up for debate, but the person who's at the head of the state is also the chief oligarch. The person who has hundreds of billions of dollars is also the one who spreads us versus them and is fighting a war of atrocity in Ukraine.

Brian Lehrer: Well, I've heard it said and I wonder if you believe this that the difference between Russia and the United States is that in Russia, Putin controls the oligarchs. Yes, there are oligarchs. Yes, there are people who have the privilege of being very rich when a lot of the country goes without, but Putin controls the oligarchs. Putin has ordered the murder of oligarchs who didn't explicitly support him or said anything against him. In the United States, because of the influence of money in politics, the oligarchs control the government. There's a difference there that's meaningful in the type of-- even if it becomes fascist in the United States, the kind of fascism it would be compared to Putin's Russia. Do you buy that at all? Have you heard that?

Professor Snyder: I think the premise is correct, but I would put it in historical terms. The thing I'm about to say is something that a number of other Russia experts have already said. Yes, that's true. What we see now is a lot like Russia in the '90s, especially the late '90s, where you have an elected president, Yeltsin/Trump, who's getting on in years, not physically terribly healthy, and is, as you say, surrounded by oligarchs. Maybe not the most important figure himself.

Is Trump the most important person in the coming Trump regime or is it Musk or is it somebody else? That seems pretty unclear. What happened in Russia in the '90s is that the cluster of oligarchs around the elected president tried to find a successor that would allow them to continue to be a cluster of oligarchs. The successor they chose was this unknown figure called Vladimir Putin. Then Vladimir Putin found a way to become the oligarch-in-chief, namely to use, as you say, the organs of the state to control the other oligarchs and to make them his clients, his lackeys, which happen.

If we look at it historically, we're maybe at the beginning of a similar process in the US where, right now, you have this fading president who's elected and who's surrounded by a cluster of oligarchs. We may be looking ahead to a half-decade or a decade of a fight among those oligarchs and an attempt to find his successor, which is unpredictable, but which it could lead to the emergence of a Putin-type figure who's not yet present or not yet on the scene or on the margins right now.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, if you're just joining us, we're in our latest 100 Years of 100 Things segment. Thing No. 44, 100 years of fascism versus 100 years of freedom with the Yale history professor, Timothy Snyder, who has written books, including On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. I'm going to read that list because each of the lessons is one line and then, of course, he expounds on them in the book.

In a couple of minutes, I'm going to read the list. His new book, On Freedom. We're also inviting your oral history calls as we do in these segments, particularly if you have a lineage back to Mussolini's Italy somewhere back in your family or other actually fascist countries. We have a call like that. Bill in Hicksville, you're on WNYC. Hi, Bill.

Bill: Hi, everybody. My last name is Pellegrini and my great-grandfather was a winemaker in Naples. They had a six-story villa with vineyards and bread ovens in the back that overlooked the Bay of Naples. Sometime when Mussolini came into power, my great-grandfather, who was a minor politician, managed to get both the then-king of Italy or something like that and Mussolini mad at him.

By 1929, he moved all the living people at that time, which was my Uncle Charlie, who was the youngest son, and all the brothers over to the house in Brooklyn where the wine was sold in the off-season. Eventually, what happened is the last surviving person, my Aunt Vincentia, outlived everybody. The Italian government was sending her notices about the property. It was eventually, almost 50 years later, taken and auctioned off to a squatter who had been in it. Mussolini's troops actually came in and drained our vats and the vats being dried collapsed and put the family completely out of the wine business.

Brian Lehrer: That's a compelling story. Why do you think--

Bill: I know.

Brian Lehrer: Bill, if this part got handed down, why did the Mussolini government care about your family's wine business?

Bill: I think it must have been my great-grandfather because I managed to tick people off by being very blunt. It's just part of our lineage that we say what's on our mind. It gets people angry at us. I had a Chinese friend and we were doing a project. I said, "King, look what's going on. This is anarchy." He looked at me and he said, "Anarchy is okay. Because in anarchy, each man governs himself. What we don't want is chaos."

Brian Lehrer: Bill, thank you very much. Ending on something pretty profound there. That probably speaks to the current moment and certain kind of definitions of freedom, right? To your new book, Professor Snyder, what people consider freedom to be?

Professor Snyder: Oh, it's a wonderful point to end on because, of course, in chaos, nobody is free. We'd like to think that if we just burned it all down, we'd be free, but we wouldn't be if we burned it all down. Power abhors a vacuum. Some oligarch or somebody else is going to take control. Chaos is not a good thing. To be free, you actually have to have certain kinds of organization, which is what the anarchists or most of them actually thought. You have to have certain kinds of organization to educate us, to enlighten us, to teach us how to get along. You need those things if we're going to have free individuals.

Brian Lehrer: Let me go to another caller then. Allison in Maplewood, you're on WNYC. Hi, Allison.

Allison: Yes, hi. I'm wondering. At what point do those who elected the fascists do they feel regret? I know my friends and I, as a way of consoling ourselves, we continue to say, "Oh, they'll realize they made a huge mistake. They'll see," but at what point does that reckoning even come for those who supported him or does the media just continue to just feed that narrative? I guess at some point, propaganda can only go so far. Will they ever have this moment where they'll say, "Oh yes, I made a huge mistake," like we are saying? Because that's the only thing we can hold on to right now.

Brian Lehrer: That's a great question. What does history suggest on that, Professor Snyder?

Professor Snyder: The election plays a different role, I would say, psychologically. Normally, if I vote for somebody and then they mess things up, I think, "Okay, I'll vote for somebody else." If you have a fascist electorate, here's where I want to make a point which will annoy people, although it's actually Robert Paxton's point. He made it in The New York Times a few weeks ago. We're talking about the leaders.

Brian Lehrer: Another expert on the history of fascism?

Professor Snyder: Yes. No, not another, but much more than me, I would say. We're talking about the leaders. Of course, these people don't come to power without an electorate that actually understands what they are. Whether or not the electorate uses the word "fascism," people like leader cults. People like the idea they're not going to take responsibility. People like the idea that they get to beat up their neighbor.

Many people like the idea that they're going to see their neighbor hanging on a lamp pole. Whether we like that or not, that's the way a lot of folks, in fact, are. When you vote for somebody out of cultish motives like as a capital-L leader, as a führer, your vote is not about how you're going to make a different choice later on. You've thrown yourself morally into a certain kind of politics.

Even when you get poorer, even when they send your kids off to war, I'm sad to say this, but historically speaking, that doesn't generally dissuade people. That doesn't generally tell them that they've made a mistake because they've already cast their lot in with a certain kind of politics. Their vote was a kind of moral commitment, not to democracy but to the person in question.

Traditionally, there are two ways it can go. One is that there's some kind of really dreadful collapse like defeat in war. It took the Germans defeat in war and occupation, or there's a long play out as in Spain and Portugal, which are debatably fascist regimes. However one decides about that, another way this can go is that the leader hangs on for a really long time.

Over that long period of time, maybe the regime softens a little bit and civil society emerges a little bit. I'm afraid we can't really count on people realizing that they've made a mistake. I would love to be wrong about this. If the first six months of the next Trump moment of power are disastrous, I don't really expect that many Americans to shift. I hope I'm wrong, but that's not generally how it works.

Brian Lehrer: It's happening in some places now though, isn't it? Like Poland, which, after the collapse of communism and then the perceived failures of the democratic state, elected more of an authoritarian and now have walked away from that. Is that wrong?

Professor Snyder: No, that's totally right. There are plenty of good stories about creeping authoritarianism being reversed. Slovakia has gone back and forth. Poland has come back as you say. Ukraine, although it's in this terrible war, that's also its broad trajectory. They pulled back 20 years ago from authoritarianism. There are these stories. If you're asking, "Did the people in Poland who voted the one time, did many of them change their minds?" Some of them changed their minds, but not very many. If you're going to come back, it's not so much by people regretting their mistakes. It's by energizing a broad coalition that you come back.

Brian Lehrer: We'll continue in a minute. We'll finish up with Yale historian Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny and now On Freedom. Stay with us.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. 100 Years of 100 Things, Thing No. 44, 100 years of fascism versus 100 years of freedom with Yale historian Timothy Snyder, author of books including On Tyranny and his new one, On Freedom. The On Tyranny book is subtitled Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. You ready, folks? Do not obey in advance. Defend institutions. Beware the one-party state. Take responsibility for the face of the world. Remember professional ethics. Be wary of paramilitaries. Be reflective if you must be armed, yikes.

Stand out. Be kind to our language. Believe in truth. Investigate. Make eye contact and small talk. Practice corporeal politics, meaning in person. Establish a private life. Contribute to good causes. Learn from peers in other countries. Listen for dangerous words. Be calm when the unthinkable arrives. Be a patriot and be as courageous as you can. The 20 lessons from On Tyranny. We have just a few minutes and so many more things I would want to do with you, Professor Snyder, but you want to pick one from that list and give us a 30-second riff on it?

Professor Snyder: Well, the most important one is still number one. Don't obey in advance. Because in these transition moments, what happens is that people give the treasures of their lives to the aspiring authoritarianism and authoritarian. Once you do that, it's very hard to come back. You've committed yourself. You've helped to create the new normal in which you're now going to live. Moments like this, it's very important for people to ask themselves what matters to them, to dig in their heels, to try to be the same kind of person as things change around them. The reason why that's important is that if you can do that, the other 19 lessons can matter. If you can't do number one, then I'm afraid the other 19 go by the wayside.

Brian Lehrer: How do you fight the fact that the other side, who you think are fascists, accuse other people of being fascists? There's the Trump clip where he talks about he's going to crack down on the fascists, the communists. There's an RFK clip that just surfaced where he called the vaccine givers fascists and defined the word "fascists" and said that applies to them. Politically, if we really believe that one side is a risk of fascism and the other isn't, how do you defend against that?

Professor Snyder: Yes, it's a mess, right? There's a thing which I call "schizo-fascism." I talk about this a little bit in the book Road to Unfreedom, where fascists call other people fascists. They call the liberals fascists. This actually started in Russia about so many of these things and spread to the US with Trump and RFK, Jr., and others. I think the only thing analytically what you can say is that it's an example of how, for fascists, words don't connect to their meanings, right? Fascism is about an individual. It's about charisma. Like Walter Benjamin said, it's about an aesthetic. It's not about consistency or rationality. What fascist leaders do is they try to make words mean new things. They try to turn them around against people.

Brian Lehrer: I'm going to jump in here to read from your new book, On Freedom, the five essential forms of freedom that you list. Sovereignty, unpredictability, mobility, factuality, and solidarity. In our last 30 seconds, why, as somebody who's written so many seminal books on unfreedom, have you now written one on freedom for this particular moment?

Professor Snyder: Because it's the challenge that has to be met. If I can write about horrible things that happened in the 20th century, I should be able to imagine a better 21st. If I can write about how we should be defending ourselves, I should also be able to write about what we should be defending. I think freedom is the most important, the central, the most beautiful idea because it's the state in which we can all realize as individuals and together, the things that we care about the most. That's why.

Brian Lehrer: Timothy Snyder, Yale history and global affairs professor. Now, the author of On Freedom. Thank you so much. This has been so enlightening for many listeners, I'm sure, in our 100 Years of 100 Things series, 100 years of freedom versus 100 years of fascism. We're very, very grateful.

Professor Snyder: I'm so glad I could do it. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Thanks for listening today. Stay tuned for Alison.

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