On Tyranny - Lesson 2: Defend Institutions

 Welcome back to the series I'm committing to 20 Lessons From the 20th Century On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder, inspired by ! Lesson 2 is to Defend Institutions. This is difficult, because I have some distrust of institutions so it's hard to want to defend them, even as they fail us. 

On Tyranny - Prologue and Lesson 1: Do Not Obey in Advance

Within my first days on BlueSky I found a sense of community with many users. I've seen a ton of book recommendations, but none have entranced me like one friend's posts about On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder. Lobstah Grl has posted brief summaries of each chapter, and by lesson 3 I made plans for a trip to the library because I HAD to check this book out. As the title suggests, it's a book of lessons we learned about tyranny in the 20th Century. It's a relevant topic, as we see a shift towards fascism across the world, but particularly here in the United States. What better way to learn than from history? And how better to learn than together? This begins a series of posts outlining the lessons from this book with my own commentary and ties to our current political landscape.

Tariffs

The word of the week is, apparently, tariff. During his campaign, Trump boasted of a plan to implement a 60% tariff on Chinese goods, and a 20% tariff on virtually all other imported goods, and that was just to start. Calling himself Tariff Man, he claimed that these large sweeping tariffs would lower food prices. But tariffs don't lower food prices, they raise them.

Goon Squad Government

 As it turns out, the only qualification necessary to play in the sandbox of Trump's next administration is unwavering loyalty. The Senate rarely denies presidential appointments of their administration, but we're about to see just how in-Trump's-pocket the Senate is. This is their first test. If they confirm some of the most dangerous administration nominations in history, Trump will know that they'll do anything for him. He's even requested they simply step aside, to give up their authority to check executive power by taking a recess, allowing him to push all of his nominations through completely unchecked. On a rare positive note: every single Senator would have to vote to recess.. There's no way, right? ... Right??

"Politics Shouldn't Divide Us"

 Often after political decisions have been made to the detriment of large groups of people, the blame-game begins and those facing the prospect of material harm lash out at those who facilitated those decisions. After Trump won the 2024 election women, BIPOC, and the LGBTQ+ communities lashed out at the people in their lives who voted for Trump. We felt betrayed, angry, and fearful and we wanted those who voted for Trump to know what they'd done to bring these feelings on for us. Sometimes, people chose to cut ties with Trump voters. I think it's important to distinguish that this choice wasn't made over something small or insignificant. Donald Trump poses a direct threat to marginalized groups and to support Trump is to support the execution of that threat. Still, often the response to those lashing out or cutting ties is this: "You're really going to let politics come between us? You're going to let politics divide us? Politics shouldn't divide us and if you think it should, you're the problem."

Who Are We?

The United States of America has always been a melting pot, of sorts. But we have also always maintained a large portion of our population which opposes the melting of the pot. One group (rich white people, to call them out) has always stood on the backs of others despite our lofty goals like liberty and justice for all. We are a nation build on violent oppression, which simultaneously espoused values that seemed to contradict the very nature of our founding.