Excerpts: “Anticipatory obedience is a political tragedy” (p. 18).

“When fascists or Nazis or communists did well in elections in the 1930s or ’40s, what followed was some combination of spectacle, repression, and salami tactics–slicing off layers of opposition one by one. Most people were distracted, some were imprisoned, and others were outmatched” (p. 28).

“Post-truth is pre-fascism” (p. 71).

“It is your ability to discern facts that makes you an individual, and our collective trust in common knowledge that makes us a society” (p. 73).

“Whether it is done by American or Russian intelligence agencies, or for that matter by any institution, the theft, discussion, or publication of personal communications destroys a basic foundation of our rights” (p. 88).

“The danger we now face is of a passage from the politics of inevitability to the politics of eternity, from a naive and flawed sort of democratic republic to a confused and cynical sort of fascist oligarchy” (p. 124).

Snyder, Timothy (2017). On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. New York: Tim Duggan Books.