Timothy Snyder (10:25)

The moment that we're in, like all moments, is open. You know, I'm a historian. I'm not like, I'm not a determinist social scientist. I don't think there are overarching laws of any of this stuff. And one thing you definitely learn from the history of authoritarianism is that there are conjunctures, like there are sets of circumstances where what people do matters a lot. So I guess I would say we are in one of those moments where if we choose to see it, it's clear that the people who are running the United States of America would be very happy to carry out by way of propaganda, occasional violence and threats and authoritarian regime change. That's just totally obvious. And the question is whether one chooses to see that and to make preparations and to react accordingly. The moment we're in is one where if we just let things go, we will get a change of kind of government or we'll get a breakup of the republic as people try to change the government if we do nothing. But we're also facing people who can't take a punch, who are eminently beatable and who are essentially counting on us to be fooled over and over again.

Scott (11:30)

You said something interesting there. Can't take a punch. Say more about that.

Timothy Snyder (11:34)

I mean, isn't it sort of self evident, like the 95% of what the Trump people do is based upon bluff and anticipatory obedience from our side? If so many of our plutocrats and oligarchs hadn't gone over at the end of last year and the beginning of this year, we'd be in a completely different place. But if you push back a little bit, right? If you're Denmark and you push back a little bit, or if you're Minnesota and you push back a little bit, then they pull back because they're essentially counting on a lot of, a lot of verbiage and a little bit of violence to be enough to bully you. And if it's not, they're not quite sure what their next move is.

Scott (12:15)

So just to set some context, and I realize this is probably obvious for most of our listeners, but two US Citizens have been killed in Minneapolis this month during federal immigration operations. Renee Nicole Goode on January 7th and Alex Preddy on January 24th. The videos have ignited a national argument about force, legality and political violence. Timothy, when you zoom out, does this feel. I keep saying this is a red line in an inflection point, and I keep being wrong. Does this feel to you like an actual inflection or a turning point?

Timothy Snyder (12:45)

It does, and I will turn a little bit back to a part of Your first question that I didn't answer, which is historical comparisons, it reminds me a lot, personally of the moment in early 2014 when Ukrainian protesters were killed for the first time. And each time one person was killed, then the regime made this effort to describe this person as a terrorist, as an extremist, and so on and so forth. And then it would turn out that very quickly, it would turn out that, like it was a mom or it was a dad or it was a student or it was somebody who was just trying to do the right thing. That it reminds me of that a lot. And the Ukrainians were actually able to win in that situation. I mean, they had. They have the bad luck of being next to Russia, and Russia could invade. We don't have that problem. Right. Nobody's going to actually invade us. So that was a turning point, like, because in this barrage of lies, in this attempt to create total unreality around us, most of us still recognize the difference between life and death. And most of us are still capable of appreciating a human being in her or his, you know, particularity rather than being immediately willing to accept that this person was, quote, unquote, a terrorist or, quote, unquote, an assassin. So it is a turning point. It's a turning point where it's not just that you say, okay, we can't have a republic if the federal government is going to gun people down on the street, which is true. It's also a moment when you can be remarkable reminded of the very basic things like the dignity of the individual, which are at the foundation of having something like a republic.

Scott (14:19)

I thought of you in a specific moment, and I want to get your reaction or understand your reaction in the moment I'm thinking of. And that is when Secretary Noem immediately went on air and described Mr. Preddy as a domestic terrorist and said that he was there brandishing a weapon in there to massacre federal agents. And I remember thinking it reminded me of the Orwell 1984 book, Where Something along the lines of the said and their final act was to ask us to not believe our eyes and ears. I don't think I'd ever seen something so brazen in terms of a lack of respect for the dead or an assumption that we were willing to ignore our powers of observation. And I really thought of it as. And I'm trying to separate my emotions, which is difficult, from powers of observation, but I had never seen anything like that from our government. I'd just be curious what Timothy Snyder thought when you saw that.

Timothy Snyder (15:16)

I Mean, I think our reactions were very, very similar. What I thought was, I mean, I kind of start where you start, which is the respect for the dead. I mean, before you say anything about the dead, you should think learn something about their lives. And you know, that. Like, that part where, I mean, this. Like, you know, none of us is perfect, right? But the. But when we die, like, that's a moment where those of us who know us and don't know us have a chance to demonstrate what's good in them by finding something which is good in us. And to miss that chance so completely and horribly and to do the opposite and to consign, you know, one human being's very specific memory to a general category is terrible in itself. And for that general category to be something that's a lie is even worse. And for the lie to be a slander is even worse. So, I mean, as horrible as these deaths are, the reaction to them is just as damning, I would say. Because if you're going to lie about things like this once, you'll lie about things like this over and over again. And it reveals that there are no restraints on you. Like, if there are any moral restraints on you in your pursuit of power or in your obedience to those who are pursuing power, they would show up at a time like this. And if they don't show up now, they're just never going to show up. There's nothing which is going to cause you to be a decent human being. If you can't be a decent human being when people, under your orders, kill someone.

Scott (16:49)

The thing that's different this time or that I view as different, and I'm curious how you've tried to incorporate it into why this might be a different moment is, quite frankly, technology, specifically cameras on phones. And that is if we didn't have video footage of both of these deaths from multiple angles, I think the conversation or the opportunity for white space that might be filled by propaganda would be greater. And I'm wondering what your thoughts are about how this moment might be different because of the use and ubiquity of these camera phones.

Timothy Snyder (17:27)

If you think back to the 70s and 80s of the last century, the end of communism, which is one of the focuses of my own research, you see that what the dissidents are trying to do is to answer big lies, not so much with big truths, but with little truths. So there's no longer the confidence that there's one big truth, but there is the confidence that we know our friends, we know our colleagues, we know the other people who are taking risks for us, and we can make a record. And they had to make a record using typewriters and mimeograph machines and, you know, the tools that were at their disposal. And they took incredible risks, basically just to type lists of people who had been arrested and to try to keep track of in which, you know, in which facility in the gulag those people were sent. They. And then they went to prison for doing that. And I'm thinking about that just because my reaction is to say we, we do have a technological advantage in this way that we can create the small truths by way of camera shots from phones from all kinds of different angles. And those, you know, those, those. Enough of those from enough people can then dissolve or at least push back the attempt at a big lie. Because, of course, you've hit the nail on the head. If there was no evidence and it was just like the word of a couple of citizens against the entire top of the federal government, shamefully, you know, slandering and defaming this man, then I'm afraid you're right that the conversation would then take a very different form. It would take an. On the one hand, on the other hand, form. And let me just take this occasion to note that although major media are getting better at this, there is still a worrisome tendency to start every story with conflicting accounts. And like, conflicting accounts is not news. You know, like, that's like conflicting accounts is like the atmosphere is made of air, you know, or relationships are sometimes difficult. I mean, it's not news. Conflicting accounts are always there. What's news is what actually happened. And I mean, we're making some progress on this, but news outlets have to try to start from what actually happened, as opposed to the government has propaganda, and we're going to repeat that propaganda, and then we're going to admit there might be another version.

Scott (19:41)

You study authoritarian societies and governments, and it feels as if the Trump administration is definitely taking notes from the playbook of authoritarians. Can you speculate what may be happening behind the scenes in the Trump administration right now, as you have two different people, Secretary of State and the vice president, it feels like jockeying to be kind of the heir to maga, if you will, at the same time trying to figure out if Secretary Noem should be the fall gal. Some Republican senators, it feels like for the first time, are actually kind of finding their backbone. I mean, it definitely feels like things are beginning to crack. A, do you agree with that? And B, if so, what does history tell us about what might be going on behind the scenes.

Timothy Snyder (20:25)

I mean, I will happily do a little speculative, basically, Sovietology about this, but before I do that, I just want to say that it's important to recognize that despite the fact that people are now taking a slightly different tone, and despite the fact that Bovino maybe has been sacrificed and maybe Nome will be, the basic policy is still the same, and ICE is still carrying out these raids. And the basic ideologist and practitioner of all of this is still Stephen Miller, who's essentially, you know, he's basically running things as the president at this point. So, having said that, I mean, I think you're right that it's a struggle between. The struggle is between the vice President and the deputy Chief of staff, between Vance and Miller. And my basic take is that Miller is a convenient person for Vance because he's essentially the only person in MAGA world who's less popular than Vance. And the way that Vance is going to play this is that after Trump goes down in some form or another, he's incapacitated, he dies. They make a move against him, whatever happens. Vance's obvious move is to say that all of the distortions are the fault of Miller. Right. That there was once a pure maga. We have it, all right? But then Miller came in and he messed things up. That's Vance's absolutely predictable play. And I wouldn't at all be surprised if there was an element of blaming the Jew in it, because that is the world in which Vance's mind seems to be. And so Vance, I think, wants to have Miller around until the right moment. Right. And I'm not sure that moment has actually yet arrived. Rubio is sitting pretty because even though our foreign policy is a disaster, he's done a very good job at directing the most disastrous parts of that to Vance, who doesn't seem to be smart enough to notice that that's what's happening. So the Greenland portfolio, which was obviously doomed, was given to Vance, and so Vance could make a mess of it. So I agree with you. And there's another basic point here which is worth noting. These guys are old. I mean, Trump in particular is old. But if you compare this to the fascism of the past, and the fascism of the past, you weren't worried about Mussolini having a stroke, right? You weren't worried about Hitler having a heart attack. Compared to our fascists, those guys were quite young. And so the fact that Trump is old and visibly declining adds a dimension to this, which is new.

Scott (22:59)

You said something that caught my attention there that you think that Vance might turn to, quote, unquote, blaming the Jew or an element of that. A lot of my Jewish friends like Trump because they see the Trump administration as being more resolute on Israel. And I've said, if you look at history, this feels to me like a perfect setup for an economic shock mixed with some fascism, and then move to the oldest playbook in the world. And that is, start blaming the Jews. And the pushback is, well, no, Trump's been better on Israel than Biden was, which I don't agree with. But do you see the same sort of potential for another pretty dark moment with Jews as the target here?

Timothy Snyder (23:35)

Being in favor of Israel does not mean that you're in favor of Jews. These are just different issues. There have been all kinds of anti Semites, including fascists, who were in favor of Israel because they thought, well, that's a good place to have the Jews that are there than here. So there isn't an organic connection between being in favor of Israel and supporting Jews. It can overlap, but it doesn't necessarily overlap. And so I worry that not all American Jews conflate that, of course, but I do worry that too many American Jews could conflate that. Right. I mean, the Nazis themselves, until 1937 or so, thought that Israel was a great idea because that's a place that you could put the Jews so like that. I mean, I'm not saying it's exactly the same. I'm just saying that history teaches us that being in favor of Israel is not the same thing as caring about the rights or the dignity of the Jews. And as far as this administration, I mean, I think they've been anti Semitic from the get go. I think the way they treated Zelenskyy in the Oval Office is basically impossible. If Zelenskyy is not Jewish, it definitely had an element of making a circle around the Jewish guy and taunting him. And the whole thing against campuses. I mean, although it claims to be anti anti Semitic, in my view, it's clearly anti Semitic because what it does is that it sets up this expectation which the real anti Semites immediately grasp, that the Jews are in charge. Right? The Jews are in charge because they're able to do this on campuses. And I think many American Jews don't notice that dynamic, but the anti Semites definitely notice that dynamic. Right? I mean, so I think that whole thing has been. Has been a trap. That the notion that the government comes in and closes down, you know, free speech on universities, which is what happened then. They do it on behalf of Israel. That tells the anti Semites that, oh, look, the Jews really are in charge. And I think they know that. I mean, I think they're perfectly aware that this is what they're doing. And I wish fewer people were, had been, have been taken in by this. So, yeah, I mean, getting to your question, I think it's very telling that Vance, you know, when he's basically so first. I mean, look at who Vance follows on social media. He follows people. He follows people who are just unremitting American Nazis. And when he's asked about whether the Republican party is a big enough tent for the Nazis, he says, well, you know, his response is basically, yeah, it has to be. It has to be a big enough tent both for people who are Nazis and who aren't Nazis, you know, and so that's really where we are. And they're not making too many bones about it. And so I think, you know, if, if Miller is around long enough, it would be really surprising if Vance. And if Vance is around long enough. Right, because in these, like in these situations where it's a tiny number of people vying for power, it's all kind of unpredictable, but in that situation it would be, I think it'd be very surprising if Vance didn't resort to something like, you know, this guy's not really American, or like this guy went too far or, you know, people like him always take things to extremes, you know, that, that kind of thing. I think that would be a natural move for Vance to make.

Scott (26:33)

We'll be right back after a quick break. Support for the show comes from groans. The new year always comes with resolutions and that can be a lot of pressure to improve yourself. That's all well and good, but what's the point of doing all that if you can't stick with it long term? Grun's proofs. You can do the least and still feel the most, thanks to a delicious daily habit that does the heavy lifting. If you haven't heard me talk about grooms before, they're a convenient, comprehensive formula packed into a snack pack of gummies a day. This isn't a multivitamin, a greens gummy or a prebiotic. It's all of those things and then some at a fraction of the price. And bonus, it tastes great. Grins ingredients are backed by over 35,000 research publications and it comes in packs because you can't fit the amount of nutrients Grunds does into a single gummy, like 6 grams of prebiotic fiber. That's like eating 2 cups of broccoli but in one tasty little snack bag. Kick your new year off, right and save up to 52% off with code Prof. G at Grunds Co. That's Code Prof. G at Gruns Co. Support for the show comes from LinkedIn. It's a shame when the best B2B marketing gets wasted on the wrong audience. Like imagine running an ad for cataract surgery on Saturday morning cartoons. Or running a promo for this show on a video about Roblox or something. No offense to our Gen Alpha listeners, but that would be a waste of anyone's ad budget. So when you want to reach the right professionals, you can use LinkedIn ads. LinkedIn has grown to a network of over 1 billion professionals and 130 million decision makers according to their data. That's where it stands. Apart from other AdWords buys, you can target your buyers by job title, industry, company role, seniority, skills, company revenue, all so you can stop wasting budget on the wrong audience. That's why LinkedIn Ads boasts one of the highest B2B return on ad spend of all online ad networks. Seriously, all of them. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a free $250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com Scott that's LinkedIn.com Scott Terms and conditions apply. Support for the show comes from Acorns. There's the money you've got now and what that money could look like tomorrow. And Acorns wants to help you do the most with what you have now so your future looks bright. Acorns is a smart way to give your money a chance to grow. You can sign up in minutes and start automatically investing your spare money even if all you've got a spare change. Someone on our team tried out Acorns and they thought it was easy to use and that it grew surprisingly fast. That's the great thing about Acorns. It grows with you. Sign up now and Acorns will boost your new account with a five dollar bonus. Investment join the over 14 million all time customers who have already saved and invested over $27 billion with Acorns. Head acorns.com profg or download the Acorns app to get started. Paid non client endorsement compensation provides incentive to positively promote acorns. Tier 2 compensation provided potential subject to various factors such as customer accounts, age and investment settings does not include Acorns fees. Results do not predict or represent the performance of any Acorns portfolio. Investment results will Vary Investing involves risks. Acorns Advisors, LLC and SEC registered investment advisor. View important disclosures@acorns.com ProfGuard so I think a lot of us are inspired by the response of citizens in Minneapolis about trying to do their best. It's obviously a very, an incredibly difficult situation for them. You've said something that struck me, that political parties don't create political movements, people do. And you talk about the power of protest, talk a little bit specifically about Minneapolis, the response of the citizenry. There's. And if there's any historical context and how it might help us understand what might happen there or happen next.

Timothy Snyder (30:35)

That's a beautiful, beautifully framed question because it gets at something very important, and that is that in an unusual situation, you can't count on the political parties to be the solution. And we are definitely, however you want to characterize it, we are in an unusual situation. I mean, we're in a place that a number of political scientists I think wisely would call competitive authoritarianism, where there are going to be elections, but the elections are going to be an uphill struggle and you can win, but the way that you win is by recognizing that it's an uphill struggle and that you have to do unusual things. And part of that is saying is understanding that although there will be an elections and the opposition party has to win those elections, it's not going to do it on its own, and that you don't wait for the opposition party. Instead, you have to push out ahead as the opposition yourself, or as the resistance. You have to set the moral terms, you have to take the risks, and you have to build a coalition of which the opposition political party is a part but isn't necessarily leading or pulling the wagon. On the examples of this, the scholars who work on nonviolent resistance and who work on authoritarianism and pulling back from authoritarianism. I think the consensus is pretty clear on this that the way that you win is with an is with a coalition. But it's not just, so to speak, a cool, calm, calculated coalition. It's a coalition that emerges because people have had experiences and are willing to do new things and get out and take some risks and show themselves. So the coalition, like there's a mathematical logic to the coalition you've got to give above. You have to win elections by a meaningful margin. But there's also an emotional or subjective logic to the coalition, which is that you care enough at this specific moment to open yourself to cooperating with people with whom you don't agree on every single issue now, historically, we know that that works. It has worked over and over and over again. Competitive authoritarianism is a bad situation to be in, but it's not an insurmountable situation if you recognize it for what it is. And so taking Minneapolis in context, and I can't say anything terribly smart about it because I was in Europe for the whole time, but taking Minneapolis in Conte, that's a moment where people took risks, they did the right thing, they self organized, they set an example, they responded to a particular wrong in a way which enables coalition building and which enables people to formulate the stakes of what's going on.

Scott (33:13)

I find that protests in the eyes of President Trump, in a weird way, I think he almost enjoys the outrage. And I worry that they're not. That they make us feel good, they're cinematic, they're great on cnn, and then they just sort of dissipate and melt away. Your thoughts?

Timothy Snyder (33:32)

I don't think that's how it works. So, I mean, I think I disagree with every part of the premise. I don't think Trump actually enjoys it. I mean, if you look at the social media response, I mean, he may take pleasure in attacking people in a kind of generic way, but I don't think he was happy that, for example, his presidential self parade, you know, that military march, which one can only remember for like the pathos of it all, that that was so wildly outclassed by the protests. He didn't seem to be happy about that. But I mean, getting beyond his personal reactions, it is my experience, and there are many people more experienced than me, but it's my experience as someone who helps to organize some things and as someone who takes part in public protest, that one of the effects of public protest is that it enables people to go back and organize on a smaller scale. So I don't think it dissipates. I think what happens is that people realize that these protests were organized by somebody and maybe they could join those people who are doing this organization, infrastructure.

Scott (34:34)

I hadn't thought of it that way.

Timothy Snyder (34:35)

Yeah, and I think that's like, that's invisible, right? Like, I mean, I think the media hasn't actually done a great job of covering these things. I think they've been much more sick. I mean, I think these are the biggest protests in the history of the country and they have not really gotten the media attention they deserve. I think partly because our media is still too much in the notion that politics is a game and it's played behind closed doors. And what you're supposed to report on is what somebody leaks when they, like, you know, crack the door open a moment. I don't think they've gotten the attention they deserve. But, yeah, I disagree with the premise because I think that one of the main reasons you protest, and the main reason you protest is to tell the rest of the people who are watching you that this is what's normal and that going along isn't normal. But I think the second reason you protest is that it's like it is the gateway to doing other things. Like it opens the door to doing other things. It allows you to meet people you didn't know before and then to go on and do other things.

Scott (35:24)

There's such a frustration around what to do if local officials or state officials from Minnesota call you. And as far as I know, they have, or the federal government, specifically Democrats in the Senate think that they're getting a lot of calls that basically can be distilled down to, well, for God's sakes, do something or do more to push back. How would you advise them on what to do?

Timothy Snyder (35:50)

You mean in Minnesota, particularly, Governor Walsh.

Scott (35:54)

Calls you, and then the head of the Senate Democratic caucus calls you and says, we're absolutely outraged. And as a historian who's seen these things play out, what advice would you have for us?

Timothy Snyder (36:06)

I mean, the main advice, it's a little bit different for Walsh or for the Senate, but I think if you're in D.C. the main advice is to make sure that you're having meetings where you're listening to people who were on the ground. Because as sympathetic as you might be, there's a reality out there that it's hard to get from your staffers or from the media. So that if you didn't go to Minnesota, as some people did, of course, then you should make sure that you have meetings where you're bringing people in and actually listening. Listening to them. Because there is a mood not in, you know, in the country at large, not just in Minnesota, which is hard to pick up unless you actually have these meetings. And the second thing, I think, is to recognize that since this is an exceptional moment, we're not really in a polling universe. We're more in the universe where you have to yourself frame what's going on. Because one of the many problems with polling is that it means that the people who are doing the polling frame. Frame reality by how they frame their questions. And then you get the answers to the questions and that there's a number, and then you react to that. But at this moment, the reality that you have is that we have a quasi secret police which is shooting people in the streets. And that as a politician, you know, whether you're a senator or a governor, it's your job to. It's your job to frame that rather than to wait and see how it gets framed by other people. And I mean, the third thing is that there are lots of things. And again, the situation of Governor Wallace and the situation of senators is a bit different. And Governor Wallace has, I think, been quite out front. But the other thing is to think, you know, you have to aim for a big victory in 26, 28, which affirms values, right? Like you take this as an opportunity to talk about what you think is good and what you think is right and what you think the American republic should be be. Because at the end of the day, you're not going to get big victories just by being against bad things, no matter how bad they are. You have to use this as a way to talk about the kind of American public you would see which not only would lack these things, but which would respect the dignity of people, of individuals, which would not only that it wouldn't take life, that it would respect people, that would provide opportunity. So it says people need to see that there's some kind of a future, not just that you're condemning this thing which is happening.

Scott (38:36)

What do you think is really going on here? And what I mean is this doesn't feel to me in terms of the tone that the administration and the instructions they've given to Secretary Noem and the fib Bovino at ice, this doesn't feel like it has much to do with immigration. Is this normalizing a military force to try and pervert or arrest free and fair elections? Is this about an exhibition of strength that they feel shows up at the ballot box that people like a strong. I'll go back to my initial question. What do you think is actually going on here?

Timothy Snyder (39:16)

I think there's a strategic level to it and then there's also an emotive level to it. So the strategic level. Let me try to use history again. One of the problems that the Nazis had in the 30s was that there was no centralized police force. Germany in the 30s, a bit like the US today, was a federal system. And again, a bit like the US today. Most policing was the responsibility of the states. And so the Nazis, over the course of from 1933 to early 1939, they managed to centralize the police forces. They managed to blur the line between their own paramilitary, the SA, and then the SS and the police force. Then by early 1939, they had the whole thing under one command where the SS and the SA had been merged with, had been merged with the regular police forces. And it was all centralized and there was one pyramid of command. It's not that we're doing exactly the same thing. I just set that up as a kind of generic problem that you have. And the way that Trump is solving this problem is by treating ICE as a national police force. And this works because the problem of migration, they can say, is a problem which is everywhere. And so therefore there's a license for ICE to be everywhere, in every home, in every business, in every state. That's how they're jumping over this problem. They're treating immigration as a national issue, which could potentially, you know, as far as they see it, quote, unquote, justify having an ICE agent in everybody's bedroom. Right? Because there could be anywhere there could be an immigrant. And it's also, I'm still in the strategic logic. It's also helpful because the border is a place where exceptional things happen. And so if you get people thinking that the border is everywhere, that means that you get people thinking, well, the law doesn't really apply anywhere, right? Because the law doesn't apply at the border. The country ends and another country starts. And so if you can get people thinking that a border issue can be anywhere, then you can get people thinking that the law doesn't really apply anywhere. So that's the strategy. Okay? And I believe in that. But there's also a motive level, which is that these guys do have a kind of, they have, they have a kind of push button video game logic going as well, which is that we want to do something quick and get like a, and get quick gratification out of it. And so, you know, you see this in the way, like, that they whirl from one country to another in their foreign policy. But with ice, I think it's like, okay, in Minnesota, they're doing stuff we don't like. Let's just pound them, you know, let's just hit them. Let's just like, I mean, imagine like imagining it's some kind of first person, you know, video game. Let's just send our guys over there, let's just flood them and that's going to get the reaction we want and it's going to happen quickly. So I think that's it as well, like this desire for a quick gratification and this belief, which of course proves to be wrong, that violence automatically changes the game. It doesn't or it doesn't necessarily change the game in the way that you want. It leads to unpredictable things. And this, by the way, just, you know, raising up the question to a slightly more abstract form. People talk about the Insurrection act or martial law as though those things, you know, whether they're for it or against it, those things would automatically change. But you know, if they try martial law, it's still the same guys, it's still the same ice, it's still the same set of problems. People aren't going to like it. You know, a few more people will get shot. Americans won't like that the least tiny bit, right? And so people talk a little bit about martial law and the Insurrection act as though like it's a video game and now you just go up a level. But it's not like that. It's still humans with uniforms and weapons and unpredictable bad stuff happens. It doesn't make politics go away.

Scott (42:51)

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Timothy Snyder (45:16)

Right now in the world of AI.

Scott (45:18)

Two things are happening simultaneously.

Timothy Snyder (45:20)

One, the technology is getting better fast.

Scott (45:22)

People are finding new uses for it, it's more popular than ever.

Timothy Snyder (45:25)

And two, every company that makes AI.

Scott (45:29)

Is absolutely hemorrhaging cash.

Timothy Snyder (45:31)

On the Vergecast this week we're talking.

Scott (45:33)

About what OpenAI and other companies are doing to try to finally figure out.

Timothy Snyder (45:37)

How to make some money off of this technology. Spoiler alert. It's mostly ads and we're talking about.

Scott (45:43)

Whether any of it's actually going to work.

Timothy Snyder (45:44)

All that plus some stories about the.

Scott (45:47)

Chinese company that appears to be beating.

Timothy Snyder (45:49)

Tesla on the virtue. Wherever you get podcasts.

Scott (45:58)

We're back with more from Timothy Snyder. I heard you on another podcast say that they're basically trying to convince people they're bringing the border to them. They're saying the border's everywhere. And I found that just so insightful and chilling at the same time. And I was trying to discuss or trying to bring to life that in early 30s Germany I would like you to refine and calibrate my, you know, history for dummies. But my understanding is that corporations non pushback early in that era was instrumental to Hitler's rise. That they sort of had this I'll do what you need to make more money if you ignore and don't speak up. Can you speak to the role that corporations and corporate leaders or business leaders playing, or in this case not playing, provide us with some historical context there?

Timothy Snyder (46:49)

Yeah, I mean I'm not going to say it's an exact fit And I don't want to be unfair to people, especially because I want to remember that there have been some good moments, like when Trump tried to steal the election. There was actually quite a good and unified reaction from a lot of the same folks that we're talking about. So I don't want that to be forgotten. But I agree with you. It's not going well. Now.

Scott (47:14)

There wasn't a lot of downside then, though, right? They knew eventually Trump, Biden would be inaugurated. I don't think they took much risk there. I think you're giving them more credit than they deserve.

Timothy Snyder (47:24)

Yeah, very possibly. I'm just trying to say, you know, Scott, when you're about to talk about Nazis, you try to be as fair.

Scott (47:29)

As you try to be a little.

Timothy Snyder (47:31)

More tempered, because I'm about to talk about Nazis. So with Germany, the basic deal was the businesses hated the labor unions and therefore they didn't like democracy. And so they were, it's not that they were gung ho Nazis on an ideological level, most of them, but they thought, you know, Hitler and this government is going to do, they're going to just crush the labor unions for us. And we don't like democracy either, because democracy allows those labor unions to have some power. And so there you do see a little bit of overlap, right, where a lot of our leading CEOs are quite hostile to the labor movement and in that way are happy to have this guy. And you can't do proper resistance without the labor movement. And that's not a connection that people are making. Like in the long run, American business leads, a labor movement needs the labor movement, because the labor movement will help you preserve rule of law and you need rule of law. But in the short run, like your quarterly report or whatever you're thinking, I don't want the labor movement. They're going to cut down my profits. And I think that's a bit of a moral or practical trap that people are in. And then, of course, the second step in the Nazi history is that then, you know, once they were in power, the Germans brought in the CEOs or, you know, the leaders of the businesses one by one and took them to woodshed because they could at that point, you know, and that's again, that's a little bit repeating now. Some of our guys, you know, like some of our guys went to the woodshed on their own even before Trump was in power and, you know, kind of asked for it. And that is a difference, right? I mean, that moment in late, late last year and early this year, where some of our most powerful oligarchs decided that they were going to essentially volunteer. That is really extraordinary. And that has made a huge negative difference, I think, because we had people who really could have protected themselves and set an example, just decide to behave in exactly the way that history very clearly shows that you shouldn't.

Scott (49:26)

I see a stronger analogy in that. So my understanding is Hitler said to these industrialists in early 30s Germany, I'll crush the trade unions, which is essentially giving you money. And I see similarities today where the most powerful business leaders who control our information are looked up to as icons of business. And icons of business become kind of our de facto heroes in a capitalist society, or at least that's what I see. And he's essentially said to them, no regulation on AI, carve out some tariffs. He's giving them tens, hundreds of billions of dollars in shareholder value in exchange for coming to the Melania documentary or saying, getting around a table and prostrating yourself and saying thank you for your leadership.

Timothy Snyder (50:09)

In the 20s and 30s, the anti fascists, the Marxists, they made the argument that fascism was all about finance capitalism, it was about extreme concentration of wealth. And I don't think that was true then, but I think it's true now. Because the exact diagnosis that Marxists like Hilfer Ding made was that when you get too much money in too few hands and it's all about finance and it's all about symbols, it's not even about industry anymore. It's all about like the kind of neurological economy that we have where it's all speculative. That's the danger. Because then the state takes over those guys or those guys take over the state or they merge with the state. And that's what you're describing. That's what's happening. And a number of these characters have ambitious political or quasi political notions themselves, and none of them are or pro democratic.

Scott (50:58)

So I'm trying to think of, I think anytime you have a movement, you always like to think what new technology might be helpful here. And the new technology again of camera phones is, I think, a bit of a game changer. It definitely puts a wrinkle on all of this. What do you think of the idea? And I've been thinking a lot about this, and I'm actually starting to get involved in organizing. What do you think of the idea? My sense is Trump doesn't. Where we've seen really quick political action on the part of Trump is not from a movement or from citizenship or citizenry. It's from markets. And that is, he immediately pulls back when the market goes down, the S and P goes down, or even the Japanese bond market yields increase for fear that's about to happen to our treasury market. That's where I have seen him pull back, is when the market responds. What do you think of the idea of a targeted surgical national economic strike targeting some of the individual companies we just referenced unsubscribing from some AI platforms, streaming media of the big tech players, because their valuations are so elevated right now that any sort of ding in signups could have a material impact on those companies, which would ultimately have a material impact on the S and P. Anyways, your thoughts on the notion of some sort of a targeted national economic strike against some of the bigger players in tech?

Timothy Snyder (52:19)

I think that's a good idea. I mean, I think it would have to be preceded and probably some good people already doing this, but I think it would have to be preceded by some kind of visual tool which rates companies and shows you exactly how they have been complicit. Because the danger is that if I call for a boycott of some tech companies and not others, then an immediate interpretation will be, well, I'm doing it on behalf of the ones that I'm not boycotting. Right. And so you have to have, you have to have some bar graph like something which shows, like a bar graph with footnotes, something which shows exactly what the companies that you're boycotting have done. And there would have to be some, like, there are interesting investigations showing the connections between companies, for example, and ICE raids. And so you'd have to also evaluate. So Palantir is being used for ICE raids. So you'd have to evaluate what exactly is the bad thing that you're measuring and make that clear. I think that would have to be like, that would be like real transparency and clarity about why you're doing what to whom. But yeah, I think that's a good idea. And I mean, I would take the idea more broadly too. If like, I think there has to be. They have to know that if they do anything that looks like stealing the election in November, that there'll be a general strike. They have to know that. Like, they have to know that if they do that, they're going to cave the economy. They have to know that there's going to be something coming if they do anything which is vaguely like trying to steal the election in November, because that has to be deterred. And I think you're right that the thing which gets attention domestically but also gets attention from them is the threat that. And you know what? It's a plausible threat because the dollar is weak. The stock market is a really bubbly, speculative, frothy sort of form. Our major trade partners have kind of had it with us. They are really vulnerable on this score. In general.

Scott (54:12)

I find all of this. We're of a similar generation. And when there's been political unrest in the past, although I don't think anything rivals this, at least in my lifetime, I've always been able to disassociate. And I'm quite frankly, Timothy, I'm having a difficult time disassociating here. I find this emotionally and, you know, mentally just very rattling. It is really upsetting. And I know a lot of my friends are physically upset by it. And whenever I try to soothe that upset, but I try to wrestle it to the ground and understand it more, put it in the context of history and try and understand it. And my two go tos are you and Heather Cox Richardson. And Heather Cox Richardson said something. We've had her on the pod a couple times. You're sort of my two. You're my go tos, if you will. And she said something that was actually quite hopeful that America has endured much darker times, whether it was slave owners controlling politics or internment of Japanese. Where do you put this in the context of real dark moments in the U.S. do you see this on the same level? Less serious? More serious? And how, as someone, I identify you as a real patriot. How looking forward is this darkest before the dawn or darkest before it's pitch black? How are you feeling about the current state of affairs in the United States?

Timothy Snyder (55:37)

I was on a long trip on the west coast in the Midwest in the fall. And when folks asked me a similar question, I said, there's going to be a winter of discontent and bad things are going to happen. Probably some people are going to get killed and it's going to then be a matter of how we react. And that's basically how I feel about all this. I don't find an exact analog, partly because Trump is an unusual figure. It's unusual to have somebody in power who is so unconcerned about anything except himself, to put it like that. I mean, things can stop and change on a dime, the system, precisely because he's so indifferent to the United States. I think that's maybe the fundamental thing. He doesn't care about the US or its sovereignty or anything. Those are just foreign concepts to him. Citizenry is a foreign concept. And so because he's not really committed to anything except his absence of commitment. He can move really quickly, and he has moved really quickly. Like, this first year has been quite dramatic. There's been a lot, A lot, an awful lot has changed. And as far as, like, what's dark, you know, what kind of darkness this is, I agree with Heather that there have been worse moments where my concern is that we recognize, and I think, and a lot of good people do recognize this, and there are millions and millions of people are acting, but that we recognize that the way we got out of those moments was by acting, you know, like America exists as a republic because people acted because one side won the Civil War and not another side. For example. Right. Because abolitionists took risks. Right. Because, you know, because people in the civil rights movement engaged in massive nonviolent action. Like, there was a. There was, there was no, there were no. There's no automatic process inside America. And as soon as you be. Believe in the automatic process, you, I think you lose America. So I don't mean to dodge the question. I just think it really does depend upon how we react to this winter of discontent and like, what. And what kind of, what kind of spring we have. And then to just repeat a point, I think to get out of it, we have to have a vision of how things can be much better than they are. Not just like, you know, an antidote or a cure, but a vision of how things can be much better.

Scott (57:55)

Well, as our last question, as I know you've been very generous with your time and you need to hop, but let's talk about, let's assume, let's be hopeful that this administration pays a price and a new administration and people with different political views are very successful in 26 and the White House changes hands in 28. Do you think, post that in order to move on, do you think there needs to be some sort of reckoning or something resembling some sort of trials here, here?

Timothy Snyder (58:22)

I'm going to just take advantage of that question to say something else before I say yes. Where we are now, it reveals some very fundamental problems that we were going to have to solve anyway. This took a certain form with Trump and that crew, but it could have taken another form. And the basic problems are the gray zones in our democracy, the dark money, the gerrymandering, all that, the overall inequality of income and especially wealth, the weirdly unregulated state of our social media, and relatedly, the absence of reporting, which can be fixed, the weakness of public education. Like, these are things that if we are in that situation you're talking about, if there's a majority in Congress and a president that want to change things. Yeah, I think crimes have obviously been committed. I mean, that make Nixon, you know, look like a fairy princess, like crimes have been committed, and people who have committed crimes should be investigated fairly and then brought before a judge and jury. Yes, and that's really. That. I mean, from the history of communism and the history of fascism, I think you can say pretty unambiguously that it is important to have some kind of reckoning also from our history, Right. Where we essentially blew it after the Civil War. And that's one reason we are where we are. But that said, it's also, if there is such a moment, then in the first few weeks of that situation where there's a majority and a willing president, there has to be some really fundamental legislation about those issues that I described. Mass incarceration, by the way, is another one. There has to be some really fundamental legislation or we're going to be repeating this in some form again before too long.

Scott (60:13)

Timothy Snyder is a leading historian on authoritarianism, Ukraine and Eastern Europe. He's the author of various books, including Andre Freedom on Tyranny, the Road to Unfreedom, and Bloodlands. After two decades at Yale, he's now at the University of Toronto, Monk's School of Global Affairs. He joins us from Toronto. Professor Snyder, whenever I speak to you, my friend Dan Harris at 10% happier, said something really powerful, and that is action absorbs anxiety. And whenever I'm feeling sort of out of control about this and bereft, I tune into you and Heather Cox Richardson, and you don't make me feel better, but you make me feel more in control. Putting this in a historical context and realizing that we do have agency and that other nations have been here before. Some have worked it out, others have not. But I always find it's actually quite soothing to hear from people like yourself that understand this moment and can kind of break it down and get our arms around it, if you will. And it was very much appreciated how you've risen. How you've risen to this moment. Appreciate your time, Timothy.

Timothy Snyder (61:21)

That's very kind of you. And just going back to what you said about being upset, I mean, it would be. This is really upsetting and we should be upset. But when you do something, you know, when you do something, even a little thing so long, you know, if you do something with other people, you always feel better. And that's, you know, you've heard it, you just said it. You Know when you're. When you're sending me off. But that's the thing. If you are active with other people, you're not only effective, but also you end up feeling better.

Scott (61:49)

I love that when you do something with other people, you feel better. I think that's true across a lot of dimensions. Thanks very much, Professor.

Timothy Snyder (61:55)

Thank you. It's been great.

Scott (62:14)

Altar of happiness. Giving your parents comfort. How do you do that as you get older? One of the things I talk about in terms of being a man is adding surplus value. And that is at some point, there's a lot of people, more than male, that never become men. And that is they take more tax revenue and more government services than they ever provide back in the form of new jobs or taxes they pay. They absorb more love from partners than they get. Get more from friendships than they provide, you know, provide more. People notice their lives, and they notice other people's lives. Complain more than they absorb complaints. And something you can do that gives, in a strange way, your parents, something that they would really treasure. And I didn't learn this until I was older. And I want you to think about this. If you're a young adult, and that is. And I can say this as someone who's now raising young men, 18 and 15, it sounds weird, but I can tell my kids aren't doing well sometimes. And I ask them what's going on, and most of the time they say nothing. And they don't open up to me. And even as a young man, I never really went to my parents with my problems. And one time I came to my mom with. I came to my mom with a problem I was having. I was really heartbroken over this girl. And I asked for advice, and she gave. Not only she gave me really good advice, but more important than the advice was, I could tell it just was so rewarding for her that I would think as a young man to ask her for advice. And I remember when my mom was sick and dying, I called her and I said, I'm just so upset. And she said, what's it about? And I said, well, I want to talk to you about it in person. And my mom was living in Vegas, and I was living with her from Sunday to Thursday. When I got there, we went outside and I just held her hand and I sobbed. And I was just very honest with her. I was just like, I'm just devastated that you're dying, and I just can't express. I knew in that moment how meaningful that was for her. In sum, One of the greatest gifts you can provide a parent is to give them the gift of letting them comfort you. That's what they want. They want to know they have purpose and they want to comfort you. That's a gift for your parents. This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez. Our associate producer is Laura Gennar. Cammy Reek is our social producer. Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the prop G pod from Propg Media.