Drama Queens - Timothy Snyder

Episode Date: September 2, 2026

What does one of the worlds’ leading historians see when he looks at America right now? Professor Timothy Snyder (one of Sophia’s favorite brains) has spent decades studying how democracies flourish or fall apart. Now he shines a light on the urgent and very-present warning signs, the historical patterns he recognizes, and the dire consequences when ordinary people believe they're powerless and stop paying attention. He also shares what small moves we can make that could change everything for the better. It’s a dose of hope we all need right now!Pick up Tim Synder's books "On Tyranny" and "On Freedom" at bookstores everywhere. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Crave, Netflix, and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on Internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. Hi, everyone. It's Sophia. Welcome to Work in Progress.

Welcome to a very special work in progress, friends. One of the people I have the biggest brain crush on the world is on the podcast today. And honestly, I'm just trying to keep it chill. We are joined by none other than Timothy Snyder. Timothy is a Yale historian and one of the world's leading experts on authoritarianism, democracy, and the forces that shape whether societies remain free. He is the person who is my go-to for information on what it looks like, to understand how democracies can slowly fall apart and also how we can save them.

He really asks us to inspect what it means when a system doesn't collapse all at once, but begins being chipped away at through fear, exhaustion, silence, and the choices that people make or avoid making along the way. He spent his whole career studying this stuff, you guys, and is simply one of the smartest people in the world on the topic. He understands how countries lose democratic freedoms and how ordinary people like us fight to reclaim them. He gave us a guide to recognize the warning signs of decline in his international bestseller on tyranny, 20 lessons from the 20th century. It is a quick read, I promise you.

The book is literally small enough to fit in your back pocket. It is prophetic and terrifying and strangely empowering and something that I return to often. I did admit to him in this interview that I bought 10 copies and started leaving them in people's houses during parties. Like just, you know, on the back of the toilet and the living room, wherever. It's a really good party trick. His latest book on freedom really helps us explore how we can get it back. Because he knows enough to give us not just warnings about one leader who suddenly takes freedom away. he shows us how historically the relationships between leaders who seek more power and a society that,

whether through fear, exhaustion, apathy, or loyalty, gradually allows that power to grow into something that's dangerous for all of us. But here's the thing. What all this means is that the story of democracy is not only about what those in power do. It's about what us citizens choose to do or not. He has so much wisdom to share about this moment in America and around the world. what history can teach us, what we should be watching for, and most importantly, what each of us can do next. And if you're feeling like me, you want a little bit of direction right now. You want to know where you can be the most helpful. And Timothy Snyder, he's got ideas. So let's dive in with one of the coolest professors in the world. I had to bust out my pocket-sized on tyranny that I literally

take everywhere with me. And I've, after the last election, I ordered 10 more of them and I would just leave them at people's houses during parties. Yeah. That's how it's all happened, things like that, like Christmas gifts, parties where it's like, it's a party favor, you know, that's how it's been, like people buying 10 or 100 or whatever and sharing them. That's how I started it. I mean, when I, the book came out, nobody heard of it and I was literally walking around with a backpack, like full of it and just kind of giving it to people. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, it's so very cool. Well, I'm, I'm a long-time fan and a democracy nerd and just so elated to have you on the show. Thank you for coming. Yeah, very glad. Yeah. And how are things in Toronto? How are you doing up there? Oh, Toronto's good. I mean,

I was just, I've been in Europe and I just flew back a couple days ago. Oh, okay. for my daughter's softball tournaments. Oh. Yeah. So things in Toronto seem fine. I mean, weirdly hot like everywhere. Yeah. Toronto's in general a great place to live.

I was at a Jays game last night with some friends. And like as, and they won two to one. And as I was walking out, some random guy in the crowd just said, I fucking love Toronto. Just like, I think, like, when? Have I ever heard anybody say that in a U.S. city? just like just out of like the clear blue sky. Like I love the city that I'm in.

Yeah. It is a really good city. I'm glad Toronto is lovely now. I'm curious if we go back in time to Dayton, Ohio, back in 1978, where might we find Timothy as a kid on a random Saturday? Were you out playing softball like your daughter does now? Or were you in the library studying history? Okay.

I'm going to try to make my answer to your next question sound less corny than this one because this one's been I like a little bit of corny. So I, yeah, I mean, as a kid, I played baseball and I played soccer and I was very serious about baseball. And I played in the backyards with my friends. And then when I had time to myself, I would like stand by the side of the house and just throw the ball off the side of the house and catch it hundreds of times. which meant that I was often in the neighbor's flower garden, which he was a little bit upset about, understandably. But yeah, on a Saturday afternoon playing baseball very likely.

But yeah, also the library. We had a strong where I grew up in Centerville, which is a suburb of Dayton in the southwest side. We had a very strong township library, and then another one was built when I was a little bit older. And I did spend a lot of time hanging out. there and reading books and there was like a summer reading club where they had made you make a list of the books that you read and the more books you read the bigger your chances of winning something

in a lottery and I found that very exciting so I read absurd numbers of books in the summertime and the hopes of winning these little prizes and stuff yeah so both of those things both of those things were very much part of my life in this in the 70s as a kid yeah very cool when did your fascination with history start that's a really good question I I mean, like, I tell people that I'm an American, I'm a historian, but I'm not an American historian. You know, like, only later in life did I come around to trying to figure out U.S. history. I started out as an economics and philosophy and political science major, and I ended up as a history major with political science too. And it was because I loved history and I enjoyed it.

And then I thought I was going to be a diplomat. So, like, life is all about the things that you don't do that you think, you're going to do and you end up doing something else, right? But I mean, maybe your life has been much more straightforward, but I doubt it. Definitely not. Yeah. So I thought, so then I still thought I was going to be a diplomat and I was just going to do, I was able to go to the United Kingdom to study history, but I thought I'm going to do this for a few years and I'm going to be a diplomat, right? And while I was studying history in the UK, I still loved it. And it was the early 80s and I could be among the people, sorry, early 90s and I could be among the people who were the first to read certain

files in certain archives in post-communist Eastern Europe. I felt like I could figure things out that hadn't been figured out before. And it was a very exciting moment, the early 90s, where things were changing on a historical scale. And I was making friends, and I was free. And that was, so that was, that was really when I, I, I came to see that history was the thing that I could do. And I had a funny conversation with my advisor. It was a terrific, horrific historian and journalist called Timothy Gardnash, at which he, and it was like, it was literally all. walk around a park, I mean, around a lake. It was just the most, you know, the most serene, calm English scene one could imagine in which he told me, he probably phrased it even more

elegantly, but he said to me like, Tim, I believe you have a unique historical gift by which he meant that I really wasn't as good at the other stuff as I thought I was, right? I should be a story. But by that time, like it had already dawned on me that I really enjoyed this. I really enjoyed finding things out, going against the grain, reading what you weren't supposed to read, understanding the things that were obscure at the time. And also, I was studying with East European historians who themselves were often dissidents or in some way involved in politics. And so I took for granted that being a historian was also gave you leverage on talking about

everyday life. And now a word from our wonderful sponsors. Get Bell, Pure Fiber Internet with Crave Netflix and Disney Plus from 95. $24 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. What's fascinating to see in the world right now is these big, you know, approximate 100-year patterns repeating themselves. The warnings of historians like yourself seeming not to be taken so seriously. And then you see repeated, you know,

speeches that are filled with talking points that are being given by the current presidential administration that mirror the Third Reich. You know, you see rising fascism around the world. It's so kind of, it's alarming to me in the present, but it's particularly scary that in the age of information, we're allowing these things to be essentially copy-pasted. And I'm really curious, as a person who's able to see the umbrella over all of this the way you do, are there things that maybe not things historical patterns

that you think are most important for people to understand today is there is there a threat or three that you would suggest people trying to make sense of all this begin to pull it's a great question I'm I'm pausing over the 100 year idea

because there's really something to that there was a globalization crisis at the end of the 19th in the early 20th century, just like there was a globalization crisis at the end of the 20th and at the beginning of the 21st. And reactions were similar to think, okay, well, the globalization didn't work out the way we wanted. Everything's not harmonious. What should we do? And then the response being to turn against, to turn against immigrants, to divide people into us and to them, to think in terms of conspiracies and so on. So like in a very broad way, that is one example.

that if you have globalization and attach high hopes to it, the next likely step is some kind of globalization crisis. And then how do you react to that? How do you get by it? Going back even further, you know, 2,500 years or so, there's the debate about democracy. You know, so the Greeks knew that democracy was hard. I mean, some of them, some of them were for or some were against. But everyone agreed that it was hard. And that is a deep historical lesson. which I think we ought not to forget because we tell ourselves stories about how history works that aren't true. We say like, well, you know, the trend is always towards justice or the economy is going to bring us towards freedom or, you know, the founding father has left us a legacy.

We tell ourselves stories about how history is going to bring us things, but history is not going to bring us democracy. I mean, it might bring us better and worse moments for democracy, but it's not going to bring us democracy. You can only get democracy if you actually want it. if you say like this in this moment in history, I am going to try to sink my fingers into what's happening and change it because democracy is about the people ruling. And so you have to want to rule. You have to want to be in power. You have to say, okay, I'm going to take a little tiny bit

of a risk. So that's a deep one. And then just then jumping back up to the present, the history of the last 35 years or so since the end of communism teaches a lesson which is worth noticing, which is that the modern technology, the information age that you're talking about, also enables regimes and organized cliques of wealthy people to arrange reality in a way that makes authoritarianism, the slide to authoritarianism happened very quickly, which took place in Russia. It took place in Hungary. But the last 35 years also teaches that these shifts away from democracy can be stopped and they can be reversed. If you have a big coalition, if people are willing to take risks, if people are willing to work with others with whom they don't agree on

every single issue, right? If people are willing to make politics personal again and go local and so on, that you can actually stop and you can actually turn the tide back. So those are three examples of how I think about history. I love that. And the last one makes me feel hopeful because it's hard to look at the news every day and not just feel like everything is metaphorically and in certain geographies literally on fire. And the idea that there are, you know, stopgaps, the idea that if you get invested locally, the idea that if you begin to talk to your neighbors

makes me feel hopeful, I am curious on something, you know, in the last election cycle, I heard a sort of post-mortem that I thought was very astute that said, we're going to continue to have these problems when a lot of us on the left, we have to, we're 90% voters. Like we can agree on 90% of the issues, but if there's 10% we don't agree on with the candidate,

a lot of people won't vote for them. And that on the right, as long as people agree with 10% of what the candidate says, they'll vote for them. And, you know, it's how you get single issue voters on, you know, reproductive justice or reproductive restriction. It's why, you know, you saw people agree with, you know, nearly or virtually every one of Vice President Harris's domestic policy suggestions, but not with her on foreign policy. And you had all these people who didn't vote. And I'm curious what you think as an expert, how do you think we as a voting populace need to readjust our expectations or recalibrate how?

how we make these decisions so that less people are voting against their interests and also less people fall for this kind of false ideology of political figures in the first place. Yeah. So I'm going to start the answer by jumping forward in time to after you've won the election. Because there's some structural stuff that goes in here because, you know, we can't expect an election. just on its own to deal with a propaganda apparatus organized by the center of the federal government. Which is what we currently have. Yeah, exactly. And we can't expect an electorate on its own to deal with the algorithmically driven hypnotic worlds of propaganda of social media, right?

It's not fair to put people in that position, basically, right? Like if somebody materialized into existence today, and they're thrown into the world today, they're faced with this hugely unjust and wildly inaccurate presentation of the way things are, right? And that's not their fault. They didn't make it. That's just the way it is.

So, I mean, their information habits could be better or could be worse. But if you have power, that's something you have to change. You have to regulate social media. You have to refund public education. You have to divert some of the profits from social media towards local journalism. You have to create a world of factuality where people have a chance. You have to give them a chance, right? Like it's like it's really, I mean, I think it's almost literally like food and water and air

where individuals can't produce them for themselves. We don't expect, you know, the person standing next to you on the subway to produce their own water, right? And likewise, we can't expect them to produce their own factuality. We have to work together to create an environment in which there is more, actuality. When we've done that, you know, then we can move on to persuading and talking about people's interests. But I think our main problem is that we have to have a breakthrough where we can actually do that thing. So a lot of it is structural and it has to, and it will come after, I think, the right people are in power. Where things are now just a couple more remarks. I mean,

I'm of the school of thought that you can't really go back. Like there isn't a, like there's no status quo ante now, you know, the house has been burned down. But the nice thing about, I mean, it's, but the good thing about that is that you can start again. So there are a lot of policy areas like taxing wealthy people or health care or where we just need to start again, where things are just so ridiculously bad. that we just have to start again. And social media is another example, AI, where we have to start again, where the parameters of the conversation are just wrong,

and we need to start again. And the fact that things are so bad gives us a chance to do that. Then we lose that chance, though, when we pretend it isn't there. And which is where a lot of people, on the moderate side of Democrats, maybe are, like, pretending that we can go back to Biden

or we can go back to Obama or Clinton or whatever. And with all respect, do respect to those people, and there's a lot to respect about them, you can never go back in time. But also, and this is the hard truth, that world led us to this world. You know, so there were things that were wrong about that world, which made this world possible. And so it's not just about correcting the Trump era. It's about correcting things that went wrong, you know, going at least back to the 1980s and probably further back than that. And then the one final thing I would add about folks on the left, which is a kindred remark to yours, is that, sure you know 90% voters but we spend a lot we sometimes spend 90% of our energy

disagreeing with each other like there's a there's a like there's a there's an addiction in some parts the left anyway and people also get provoked online into doing this to carrying a lot about being right like I I'm right about everything and you have to be right about the same things that I'm right about in exactly the same way and like if I find if I'm more radical than you and like and then like forget it right so we have that pride has to be swallowed because the only if you're truly radical you don't mind being in a coalition because you believe that your radical ideas are correct and they'll win out in the end but what people can't do is be purists and say well they don't agree with me about you know national health insurance or they don't agree with me about

Gaza or they don't agree with me about Ukraine they don't agree with that one thing and therefore like I'm out I'm not going to agree that's how you like that's the will to lose. which I'm afraid you have on our side. Yeah, I do really feel that. I feel that we've lost the ability to understand that, you know, metaphorically, let's say everybody has a list of 10 priorities. Not everybody's 10 are going to be in the same order, and that has to be okay.

You know, we, we, it's like we're debating what order our priorities sit in on said list while they're literally fleecing the government, you know, and they've launched a paramilitary force, and we're backsliding into, you know, becoming a country that looks more like Russia than America. You warned about a lot of these things. When you published on Tyranny, I have my copy here, like a real, like the real true fan girl that I am in February of 2017. And one of the things I love about the book, frankly, for people at home who can't see it, it's tiny and it's adorable. Also, the typeface is great. And as a person who appreciates design, whomever did this with you, did an excellent job. What I like about it is that

you clearly have so much deep knowledge, but in this book you gave us 20 lessons that are really structured like a citizen's checklist. They move from the personal to the civic, and they truly, they feel digestible, and they don't feel like so many of the conversations I think about the current political landscape, which can feel so big and so overwhelming. This is something each of us can understand and do. I'm curious, you know, I mean, I don't think I have to have to have a crystal ball to figure out why a year after 2016 might have felt like the time to put this checklist out there. Reading it now, it feels eerily prophetic

because we're halfway through the tyranny playbook. How do you feel about it, you know, 10 years since publication? Is it something you want people to revisit? Do you think the denial of what's in here is part of the reasons we're in this mess? The way I feel about it is that I'm happy that it's helped people do things. I mean, like you were saying at the very beginning, it's a book that's meant to enable people to do things.

It's a book which is meant to help people translate the anxiety and the worry or even the hopelessness and the despair into action. Yes. That's what it's meant to do. And I wrote it for Americans. I mean, I wrote the list right after Trump won the first time. And then I fleshed out the list real quick. and Tim Dugan, who was then my editor and the good people at Crown Books were able to put it out in a few weeks, which is kind of extraordinary. Yeah.

But I did it because I thought Americans are going to think that this can't happen here, which is true. That's what Americans think. And if you think it can't happen here, then when it happens, you don't recognize that it's happening because you've already decided that it isn't it, you know. And I thought Americans were going to say, well, we have special institutions that are going to say, they're going to save us. No, they aren't on their own. You know, you have to take their side. So I was trying to head off certain American reactions to Trump and take, you know,

because either people are afraid or they normalize or both. And I was trying to prevent that, but not just tell people they're wrong, but to give people a way to act. And what you said earlier is so important. It's not on each of us to do everything. It's just on each of us to do something. And if each of us does something, it really will be okay. Like, we're a long way from each of us doing something.

But if each of us does something, it really is going to be okay. Especially if each of us does something with other people and in a regular way. So I feel good about the book because it's helped other people do things, not only in this country, but it turned out strangely all around the world, including countries where I learned things like Ukraine and Poland, places where I draw an experience. it turned out to be useful in those countries too. So that's been really gratifying. And it's, yeah, it's been really gratifying.

So, and people keep reading it. That's the thing. Like, people keep discovering it. You know, you said, like, every day I hear from people who have just discovered it for the first time. Like, I wrote it yesterday. And that makes me happy too, because if it still sounds fresh, that, that's good. Yeah.

Yeah. I really think that it is. And I think every lesson in the book can be applied to everyday life and work. and community, I am curious because one of the first instructions is do not obey in advance, which is so important. You know, you've seen news organizations and Apple and meta, they bent the knee in advance, which tells a tyrant that they're going to get their way, just based on a threat. For most of us, or perhaps most of our neighbors who, to your point, might have believed for a long time, oh, it can't happen here. You know, America could never,

become an authoritarian country. As authoritarianism is seeping into every single piece of our life, how do you help people wake up to what's already happened, that it is happening here, so they understand not to obey? So they know how to take these lessons and begin them immediately if they haven't already. That's one of the things I wonder about is how do you help people see what's really happening when it's a lot safer as a human to be in denial. Yeah. It's a really really well-formed question because it seems safer to be in denial. And maybe it is for a while.

And then it's a lot less safe. All of a sudden it's a lot less safe because of the world you've helped create, you know, by denying the things that are going on around you. Yeah. In the book, my, in the book, the device was to look at moments that, people were familiar with, or somewhat familiar with maybe like Nazi Germany or the Stalin of Soviet Union and say, oh, well, this is how it worked there. And maybe you'll find just the slightest resemblance in something that you might see over here

without telling people that it's the same, but just noting certain tactics, like taking advantage of terrorism. You know, it's a completely predictable gambit. and not just from those regimes, but for all authoritarian regimes, real or fake terrorism, it's something which happens. And then taking advantage of the language around terrorism, calling people extremists or calling people terrorists, it's very familiar behavior in other places. And if you know it's familiar from other places, then maybe you'll know, maybe when you hear it in your own country,

you'll hear the significance of it as well and you won't normalize it. So using other experiences in time and place is one way. And another way is just to try to, you know, to catch when people are, you know, there are moments when people recognize that something's wrong. But they don't know what it is. And the key is getting people to act. Because once you start acting, then you start understanding differently as well. Right. So like the, so on tyranny, I'm trying to give people little things you can do.

Like, okay, pick an institution and support it. Or just take a cause and donate a little bit of money to it. support journalism. Like just do one little thing because as soon as you do one little thing, then your position in the world changes, like your angle on everything changes and you see things in a different way. And you may see more that's, you may see more that's frightening, but you will certainly see more that's hopeful because when you're doing something, then you have the, you realize, okay, I have a little power to change things. And then you meet other people who are changing things too. And then the whole emotional geometry of the thing alters. So,

So that's part of it. Like you just can't really do knowledge. I mean, more and more I think about this. Like you can't really do knowledge without action. You know, you can't, like, I do give lectures and I do try to teach people what's happening. And I, you know, I just had a whole course called Hitler and Stalin today, which was released this summer. It's been released to the public for free. And so I do like try to teach directly.

But as it might organize yourself says, the moment you start to do things is that, the moment you start to understand things better. And so the key moment is to like persuade people to actually do a little thing. Right. And now for our sponsors. Get Bell purefiber internet with crave Netflix and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. That feels like the energy in the latest book and on freedom. You gave us the guidebook and on tyranny for what a dangerous society looks like and ways to survive it. And on freedom, you ask, what does a genuinely free society look like?

And I'm curious two years since that publication, what does a genuine freedom look like in the world today? Yeah. It was a hard book to write because those are hard questions to answer. And I, because I actually, I believe they're right answers to those questions. And I think, like, I don't think it's just a matter of opinion. I think the idea of freedom is very close to what we are as creatures. I think freedom contrary to what maybe most Americans would think, it sits very close to empathy and it sits very close to love. So to be free requires you to have the assistance of other people, right?

You have to have parents or people who love you or friends. And then from there you have to have institutions. You have to have schools. You have to have things around you that support you that do all those things. Like we were talking about before, you can't make your own factuality. You can't make your own water. Like there have to be institutions which start from. empathy and love and then move out to providing for your ability to learn and your ability to be

in the world. Because despite what we think, none of us does this alone, right? None of us built the sidewalks. None of us built the roads. None of us built the universities. None of us built the schools. This was all done together. And it's important for me to think of as those structures as part of freedom, that freedom is generational work that we do together. So if we build a health care system, then we're all less worried and we're all more. more free. But you can't build a health care system and I can build the health care system. A country can do it. However, other countries do it. The country I'm in right now has done it. And as a result, I'm sorry to say, Canadians in a very important respect, are more free than Americans. If you're not

worried about paying your doctor's bill, you are a lot more free. If you know you can walk into the hospital when you're sick, you're just a lot more free than if you can't. And so these things we do together like schools, they make us more free. And so freedom has to, it starts from recognizing that we can't be free as individuals unless we do things together as people. But it sits closer to empathy and love than that because freedom, like in order to be a free person, you have to understand yourself. You have to understand yourself. You have to be able to listen to other people, right? So I have to be able to listen to you, right? And you have to understand. to listen to me because there are things that I see about you that you don't see and things

that you see about me that I don't see, right? And that's just true. It's just true of the world. It's the way we are. And so if I'm going to be a free person, I have to understand myself. If I'm a victim of my own illusions, I'm not free. And only other people can help me with that, which means I have to listen to them, which means I have to recognize them as other people, right? That recognizing you as a person, everyone else is a person, is a step towards me being free, can't do without it. Why do you think our relationship with what, Generations have built collaboratively is so fractured right now. It seems like people don't even realize that, you know, a streetlight or a sidewalk is

technically given their definition today. Ooh, scary, socialism. It's like, those are your tax dollars at work, guys. Come on. And it's become like a boogeyman. And I don't get it. Yeah. Okay.

I'm not sure I've got a good one for that. But, I mean, at the level of humans, one of our basic flaws is our incredible capacity to take things for granted. So I think of like an alien species that we're looking at us and trying to list the things that are weird about us, that would be one of them. Like we really take things for granted. We like something can be new and wonderful one day and the next day, it's just part of the landscape, right? Streetlights are an example. It didn't use to be street lights is a pretty recent thing. You know, 100, what, 120, 100, 30 years or so. But that, you know, take for granted that their streets, take for granted their roads. We take for granted

these things exist. But humans have to build them. organizing and thinking and very often struggling against those who had wealth and who thought that they could do all this on their own. So yeah, I mean, part of it is just this human tragic weakness of taking stuff for granted. I think another part of it now is that people spend so much time online and I don't want to push this going too far, but the world that's built online doesn't require all the stuff you're talking about. I mean, it does deeply, right? It does huge, huge amounts, uses huge amounts of electricity and water and so on at some level. But you go, you know, the online world can suggest to you that maybe this, you know, this out here is not,

doesn't require all that much work when, in fact, it does. I think that's a big part of it, you know, I mean, not to sound like a, you know, I was going to say paleolithic, but like, not to sound super conservative, but if you never have actually taken part in constructing anything, then the notion of Google yourself seem. it's abstract and therefore it's possible. Right. It's like totally, it's totally impossible. But I think a lot of it, honestly, going back to what you're just saying is a scam.

Like a lot of it's just a scam. The people who have everything can reproduce all this stuff for themselves so they think they can. And therefore, they like for all of us to believe that it's not necessary. And I think a lot of it's just as simple as that, right? And when they do that, they make us more, they make us more isolated, more lonely and less capable of organizing, less capable of seeing the point of organizing. So I think some of it is just as simple as that.

It's like it's their interest. It's going to be the natural interest of people who have everything already to suggest that the rest of us should have nothing. Yes. Yes. Well, and to your point, it's not only do humans have a tendency to take things for granted, you know, our lizard brains want to hoard resources

because we think we're never going to survive despite living in a modern world. and the only reason people aren't surviving is because the people at the top aren't sharing or paying into the system in the ways they should. I'm curious, you know, when you think about it like that, at least when I start reflecting on those points, I start to feel a bit overwhelmed

because the problems feel really large. And you mentioned earlier what history has to teach us about how much power ordinary people actually have, how if everyone gets involved in something, you do something in your municipality, you know, you make one issue your issue. You can change things. I'm curious how you tailor that point

or through that point would offer advice to listeners about the approaching midterms. Yeah. No, thanks for bringing it to a point like that. And it does actually connect, right? Because government is a... Government's actually a good thing. Yeah.

Government's actually a good thing. If you've ever seen the alternative, I mean, you know, the waste land of oligarchy is just much worse than a government. And a government that's functional and is orderly and works according to the rule of law is just actually a very good thing. And social democracy and roads and streetlights and all that stuff, it's really so much better than the alternative. Yes. And it's sad watching those things decay. But it's important to know that they can all be built. I mean, that's what government is for.

And having the kind of government that we have now is a big advance in human history. And anybody who's telling you you don't need government or the government can be thrown away or the government in the way of your freedom automatically, when it should be very suspicious of that because we all need good government, but we all need some government. And the people who want to break government or the people who want to remake it, but for themselves, with themselves. And I'm connecting this to the midterms just because,

if we're going to get back to some kind of notion of government for the people, of the people, by the people, it's going to have to start with a pretty dramatic event in November. And it's up to us to make it seem dramatic because I mean, I believe the Democrats are going to win by a lot. There's a lot to be said about this. Like there will be stunts. There will be moments. Trump's going to try to frighten us with something or another. It won't be fair.

It'll be an uphill climb, all of that. But I do think the Democrats are going to win by a lot. And the question is, first, like, how to make sure they do, which is to vote, organize, support candidates with your money if you can, with your time, if you can, to find races that are close in your state or in other states, to adopt it, to support organizations that are working for electoral fairness. All of that. And it does make a difference. Like, the crucial thing is to know that it does make a difference because, yeah, it's, like, it's uphill. Like I'm just back from a run. I hope that doesn't show on your show.

But like, I'm just back from running. Like sometimes you're running uphill, right? But you can get up the hill. Like it's a hill. And it's a real thing. But you can get up the hill. And competitive authoritarian, that's the technical term for where we are. Competitive authoritarian elections are like that.

Like you're going uphill. But you can get up the hill. You just have to know it's a hill and know what you have to do to get up the hill. So we have to kind of pull the Democrats along. You know, we being people who march and organize. who want a lot from the future. We being labor unions, we being other organizations, we being a big coalition,

which includes a Democratic Party, but which isn't just the Democratic Party. So we cannot, I mean, and I say this, we're with love towards them, but you can't count on the Democrats to save you. They have to win, but they have to be pulled along to winning, and then they have to know when they won,

that they won for a purpose, and the purpose was to start transformation, right? Yeah. We'll be back in just a minute, but here's a word from our sponsors. Get Bell, Pure Fiber Internet with Crave, Netflix, and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything.

I try to give advice to young people, especially, you know, about political engagement. Because people will say to me sometimes, you know, you're, like you make movies and TV shows. Why do you care so much about politics? because this is the very fabric of our society. And I understand it might sound like a pain in the ass, but actually I think it's a privilege. You get someone elected, and then you got to hold them accountable. They have to hear from you.

They have to know what you want. Because our government only works if we work it. And I think if we start to think about government more in the sense of it being a verb, it has to be worked. It has to be active. And for a very long time, it's really been left to the people, to your point, who have figured out how to get in it and use it as a taking machine instead of as a societal good machine. And we have to take that power back now. Yeah.

And I mean, that is connected to money and that is connected to what one has to do. Before, during, and after these elections, the Democrats have to be the party which says, hey, we're going to drain the money from elections. Yeah. Oh yeah, we got to overturn citizens united. We have to make elections fair and equal. Yeah, I mean, because it's like the super, like the idea that the like the founding fathers for all their flaws woke up in the morning and said, you know, a thing that would be really great would be a super pack. You know, like these are these are things which we've contorted ourselves into somehow thinking that this has something to do with freedom of speech or whatever. But it isn't.

And you don't have to, any amount of common sense will tell you that. If you want to have an election, you have to keep the money away from it. And the Greeks knew that. Everybody knows that. Like, that's been just common currency of basic political knowledge. You know, since there's been politics, you have to keep the money out of it. And the Democrats have to be that party. Because people think that the whole system is corrupt.

And they're right. And they may think now correctly that Trump is more corrupt. But if the Democrats don't find a way to make themselves stand out on this issue, Because you can't just say, oh, yeah, Trump was very bad and we're not that bad. You know, it can't be like that. It has to be, we're going to clear this all out. And that starts with the elections, but it also includes prosecuting people who have made money illicitly in the first part of the Trump administration. Rule of law is not a thing which walks down the street on its own, you know, in overalls and a straw cap.

Like the rule of law is something that you make. You have to make the rule of law by performing it, by doing it. So the Democrats have to do those things afterwards, but they're not going to do them. unless it's made clear to them that this is why they want, right? That the anger of the people has to turn into legislation. The anger of people has to turn into investigation. And the thing is, if we could get the money out of politics, a lot of the other stuff would then actually kind of solve itself.

Yes. Because most people want better schools. Most people want better health care. Most people want better roads. Most people want the rich to pay taxes and so on and so on. If you get the money out, then the whole balance, changes and good things start to get voted on. Absolutely. You know, I think so many people probably feel the way I do in this moment. They're like, they're listening to this. They're listening to your

points. They're nodding their heads. They're feeling like, yes, that's got to be the way forward. For folks whose next feeling, though, is, but what do I do today? Where do I start? What are the first steps sort of universally that you would suggest for listeners? I mean, in the broad sense, it's the first lesson of the book, which is in a way, like in a way what we've been doing the whole conversation, the first lesson, don't obey in advance, which means know who you are and what you care about. Because like, don't be the normal that they want you to be. Be the normal that's normal that's normal for you.

And like that's the first step. And from that everything else follows, being able to say, okay, this is not normal. This is not okay. My normal, like my sense of what's just, what's right, what's beautiful, what's fair. I'm going to stick to that. And from there, you know, then once you can do that, a lot of other things aren't so hard. And what I want to stress is that it's not, yeah, I mean, as we were saying before, it's not a superhero movie. Like, it's really not about realizing you have superpowers and you can fly and like that you could like, you know, get yourself in superhero pose and like beat.

That's not what it's about. That's actually a disempowering fantasy that we have. It's really about doing something where. You feel like you know something where you can do it regularly, where you meet new people. That's pretty much it. Like if you can meet those three criteria, you've got it. And it doesn't even have to be directly political. Like if it's cleaning up the park or if it's serving on the library committee,

it doesn't really have to be directly political. It just has to involve getting out there in a sense that you're feeling a little bit awkward and you're making the world a little bit of a better place. Like that, if we all do that, it really is going to be okay. feeling a little bit awkward, me, new people, making the world a little bit better, that'll do it. That will really do the trick. Because for some of us, that will mean a lot. For some of us, it will mean maybe a little bit less. But if we all do that little thing, that will do it.

And the reason I think that is that there's a mood shift, there's a mood shifting that happens, which is that when you do the little things with other people, then you realize, I can do something. And then from that little something, maybe there's another little something or maybe there's a bigger something. But it's the little something that makes you feel better and gives you some new friends. It's that little something, which is just the. gate to everything else. I love that. And you're right.

It doesn't have to feel so insurmountable. It can just be the next right step. Yeah. That's the thing. That's exactly it. It's a big country. It's a big world. There are hundreds of millions of us.

And if we, if every, if, if, if many of us, it doesn't have to be, but many of us do, a little something, it's going to be okay. I'm curious for you personally, you know, obviously you've, you've, you know, obviously you've, You've had a big life shift. You've moved to Toronto. You've taken on this new professorship. It's a big change in a life that you had built. Whether it's geographic or professional or personal,

I just wonder what right now feels like your work in progress just for Tim. I mean, so I really enjoy being here. But it's not maybe as much of a change as it might seem because I work on other countries, and so I spend years abroad, and I partly raised my kids in other countries, and I know other languages. And so my whole adult life, I've been living in various places. So the shift to Canada, like, it wasn't being, it was, it's interesting, but it's interesting like living in another country is interesting.

And by the way, it is maybe important for Americans to realize that Canada really, that really is a very different country. Like Canadians are pretty good at like camouflaging when they need to. But Canada is a very different place and like being in, you know, like being in Norway or Switzerland or whatever, you know, like being in Korea or Japan, you can learn things from other countries. Well, actually, you know, if the Canadians can have health care, why can't we have health care, right? I agree with that.

Canadians can publish, you know, long articles and newspapers. Why can't we still have long articles? If they can have public media, why can't we have? public media, you know. So it's kind of helpful in that way. It helps me keep the volume down because I go to the U.S. all the time and I go to Ukraine pretty frequently and like I'm going to the places that are important to me in terms of this democracy work.

And it's loud like in different ways. Like in Ukraine, it's kind of literally loud. And in the U.S. it's like the level of emotion and like the ubiquity of media is, it's loud. And it's not quite so loud up here. And that helps me sometimes to, to, to, to focus. Yeah, but it's been, I mean, for me, it's been good.

I really, I, I, I loved Yale and I, and I liked being in New Haven. And there was like, there was nothing pushing me away from that place, really. And I, but I, I'm really happy being in this big city and I'm in Toronto, and I'm very happy at having the perspective that, that I've got here. But, like, you know, you started this with a personal question. And, you know, like, honestly, I wanted to go to more baseball games. And the stadium is right downtown. And going back to public services and freedom,

I can get on the subway, which I did last night with a buddy. Like, I can get on the subway and I can go to a game, you know. And that is actually something which is really terrific. Oh, that's so wonderful. My lovely co-star Lauren Hawley is the world's biggest Jays fan. So I hope the two of you get to meet at a game at some point. Yeah, it's so fun. This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed human.