The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - How to Fight Fascism in America — with Timothy Snyder

Episode Date: May 15, 2025

Timothy Snyder, a leading historian of authoritarianism, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, joins Scott to discuss the threats to American democracy, echoes of 1930s fascism, and what still gives him hope. Follow Timothy, @TimothyDSnyder. Algebra of Happiness: Mother’s Day reflections. Listen to Episodes 1 & 2 of Lost Boys now, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Over the last 20 years, at-home DNA tests have helped millions of people connect with family members they didn't know they had. I want to see someone else whose face looks like mine. I want to see someone else whose face looks like mine. I want to see someone else whose eyes look like mine. So what happens to all the genetic data for all those Americans if the company goes away? That's this week on Explain It To Me. New episodes every Sunday wherever you get your podcasts. What's up y'all, it's Kenny Beach and we are currently watching the best playoff basketball since I can't even remember when.

This is what we've been waiting for all season long. And on my show Small Ball, I'll be breaking down the series matchups, major performances, in-game coaching decisions and game strategy and so much more for the most exciting time of the NBA calendar. New episodes through the playoffs available on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe to Small Ball with Kenny Beacham so you don't miss a thing. Episode 348. 348 is a country code belonging to Hungary. In 1948, NASCAR was founded. I broke up with my last girlfriend because she refused to go to NASCAR only to Formula One. I can't be with a race, best.

Oh, it's getting desperate around here. Go, go, go! Yes, that's right, we're keeping it clean here at Prop TV. We've decided that at this point in my life I need to tone down the profanity. There's no reason for unnecessary vulgarity. It's really inappropriate. It diminishes my credibility. A lot of our listeners love our content but get offended by some of the off-color jokes. Anyways, I hope you're well. I'm at home and my son's about to head to school. We're very excited about the Catholic Church's new archaeology class, but all he's been saying is a bunch of old bones.

He's back ladies and gentlemen. By the way, unsubscribe now if you don't like profanity and vulgarity and I will send you a full refund. That's my favorite when people say they're unsubscribing. They're just, they've had enough. They're unsubscribed. Take my eyes, but don't unsubscribe. Anyways, back to me. I am in New York, super excited. I come to New York. I love it here. I have a place here that is essentially looks like it's been decorated by a Northern European

architect who has severe depression and is worried about slipping and falling and cutting himself. There's almost nothing in my place and I love it. It is so fucking gangster. I do a self-care day when I'm here. I get everything done. So this was my Friday. I went into Dr. Robert Anilak,

who is the dermatologist from the stars and overcharges me. He overcharges me. He's a lovely guy, super lovely guy, hard not to like, and he literally molests me financially. And I go in there because I'm very struck on looking 59 and 7 8s again. And I had something called a fractal laser where basically it burns off the exterior layer of your subdermis.

Remember there's seven layers of skin. I can name one. Anyways, he burns off one of them, maybe two of them. I don't know the way I felt three. And you look, I look like that character from the Mandalorian with like beat red skin, Skeletor with a bad sunburn. It was frightening. My face was on fuego.

And then I headed up to this guy I absolutely love, Dr. Erik Lindor. I'm gonna set this guy up. This guy's gotta be the most eligible man in all of Manhattan. He's like handsome, he's the orthopedic something for the Rangers. He looks like he's late thirties, early forties. He was, he's from South Dakota.

He just couldn't be like nicer. And he takes a six inch needle. Well, first a very nice man who's a technician comes in and draws blood for me. And then they spin it. It's called PRP. And then they take your platelets, which I guess have some sort of restorative effect and they create inflammation wherever they're injected and that inflammation is actually quite healing.

I did not know that. Anyways, so I've had problems with my shoulders. I've been injury-free my whole life and I was doing some cleans and CrossFit and all of a sudden both shoulders hurt like hell. It's weird, they started talking to each other. Hey, I'm hurting. Well, I'll hurt too.

But anyways, back to my concierge medical services and my PRP shots, this is the problem with the wealthy. And that is we all complain under our breath about the digression into fascism and kleptocracy and what is probably best described as a cacostocracy where we have village idiots running the government as opposed to, this is a crime family now. It's 100% a mob family creating incentives

where if you say anything bad or critical, he goes after you, weaponizes the DOJ, sues you, whatever. What the fuck are we thinking? This is part of the problem. The Republicans in Congress are corrupt or at least cultists willing to turn a blind eye to corruption because they're so scared of this guy. But even worse in my mind, even worse, or almost as worse, is all these fucking Democrats who claim to be patriots who are neutered and weak.

Yeah. Jesus Christ, have you ever met a more neutered, feckless, ineffective group of people in your life? And here's the thing, the sad thing, he'd be reelected today. He'd be reelected today. Why? Because Americans would rather have an autocrat and a kleptocrat than a weak neutered party. So back to why it's so dangerous to have Democrats who are wealthy or this wealthy,

and it all comes back to income inequality. Those of us who are blessed and fortunate and worked hard and aggregated some wealth because we were born at the right time or the right place or with the right skin color or the right outdoor plumbing. I have all of those things. And by the way, I'm not humble. I'm a fucking monster. But with all of these skills, I wouldn't have been able to attain this type of economic security in any other nation. So you'd think that people would have some fidelity to those values, rule of law, consistency, civil rights, opportunities for family planning. I wouldn't be here if there wasn't family planning in this country.

If me and my mom had lived in deepest, darkest Mississippi, my mom wouldn't have been able to abort a pregnancy when I was 17 and she was 47. And I wouldn't have had to go to fucking work. I wouldn't have gone to UCLA, wouldn't have gone to business school, wouldn't have started firms, wouldn't have taken a company public. I wouldn't be here right now complaining about PRP shots that cost $1,500 jabbed into my shoulders. All of the things that got us here are being eroded slowly but surely.

The great trade agreements because of consistency and rule of law are literally going out the fucking window. And the 1% of Democrats who claim to give a shit and scream into TikTok and complain at dinner parties or talk to each other at shame, Ar go at folk quets about how terrible things aren't, aren't really doing that much. Are you really doing anything? Are you really reaching out to your congressperson? Are you really, are you, are you creating content? Are you about to get involved in the congressional line?

Are you really doing anything? No. Why? Because we're getting richer. And guess what? We don't need the government. We have our own rights. Anyone comes to me, I can lawyer up like no tomorrow. Anyone in my life gets pregnant or has an unwanted pregnancy, I can figure it out. Why? Because I have money. If they start rounding up Jews again,

which I don't think is unthinkable at this point, I love how everyone's like, oh, it couldn't happen in America. Well, it's kind of happening right now. We're rounding up people. We are literally rounding up people with the wrong tattoo. We have sent US citizens to foreign concentration camps. What's the definition of a concentration camp? A place that is outside your nation where laws do not protect. This is where you send people where the laws domestically cannot justify

the incarceration of them. That is the definition of a concentration camp. And that's what these prisons in El Salvador are. And now they're talking about sending people to Libya. Oh, that sounds very American. We're gonna deny habeas corpus and do process and find people in America and send them to some hellscape in Libya. But you don't need to worry if you're rich.

Why? Because we have our own laws. We're protected by the law, but we're not bound by it. We have our own medical. I can go to Atria. I don't need to worry about Medicare or Medicaid or them cutting it to pay for tax cuts. No, I don't need to worry about that

because I have my own medical care. I don't need to worry about schools. I don't need to worry about them getting the Department of Education because I have enough money for my own kids' schools. And this is the problem with income inequality is there are too many people who carry too much power, who no longer have a vested interest in the success of America. It is really income, almost every problem in the United States can be reverse engineered

to income inequality. It is this is, this is creating, creating two societies where the one society that has all the power is in a unwritten, unspoken conspiracy with the Trump administration, despite their political views, that they're gonna be just fine to shut the fuck up and not put up any real resistance. So yeah, is it bad that we have a Republican party that is acquiescing to a fascist, a kleptocrat, and a cacostochristat?

I don't know what the word would be. Yeah, that's bad. What's worse is the Democrats aren't doing a fucking thing. All right, so what else are we gonna do out here? We gotta get into today's bad. What's worse is the Democrats aren't doing a fucking thing. All right. So what else are we going to do about here? We got to get into today's episode. I want to mention that the first two episodes of the Lost Boys dropped today in its own feed. The Lost Boys is a new limited series. I'm cohosting with Anthony Scaramucci about all the struggles young men are

facing in America. I did this because Anthony, it was actually Anthony's vision and I wanted to figure out a way to work with Anthony. I really like him. I think he's smart, well-read, good person and courageous. In this, in episode one, we speak with my Yoda, literally probably the person I parrot most in my life and who kind of, I had sort of an awakening around a calling I thought Richard Reeves started talking about,

he was at Brookings and he started talking about the struggles of young men. And I was just so kind of overwhelmed and fascinated by the data and I could feel it and I could sense it. And I thought, okay, this is finally time where I can actually maybe, I don't know, do some good other than highlighting some of the wonderful dick jokes out there, which is important, which is important.

And Richard has been my Yoda around this stuff. Anyways, in our first episode, we speak with Richard about the data behind the crisis, and in episode two, we explore why no one's talking about it. Search for the Lost Boys wherever you get your podcasts. Again, the Lost Boys, or check out the link in the show notes. Okay, moving on. In today's episode, we speak with Timothy Snyder,

a leading historian on authoritarianism, Ukraine and Eastern Europe. He's also the author of various books, including On Freedom and On Tyranny. After over two decades at Yale, he's now joining the University of Toronto's Monk School of Global Affairs. We discuss with Timothy the threats to American democracy, echoes of 1930s fascism, and what still gives him hope. With that, here's our conversation with Timothy Snyder.

Tim, where does this podcast find you? I'm in Toronto. We were excited to have you on the pod because your book, On Tyranny, is a 20-point guide to dictator-proofing yourself, which you published shortly after Trump was elected the first time around. And it's a New York Times bestseller again. Can you point to one or two moments in history that most mimic where we are now and who reminds you

most of Trump and what it tells us about where things might be headed? I want to start the answer by saying that it's important to think about history as something that opens us up rather than closes us down. The danger of thinking about history in terms of analogy or repeating, or even rhyming, as Mark Twain said, is that then puts you out of the story. The whole point of history is that humans are in the story.

There isn't any overwhelming objective factor, which means things have to go in a certain direction. That said, as I think about it, we're in a kind of second globalization. And the moment is much like the 1890s to the 1920s, in that suddenly the globe is united, people are overwhelmed, there are new communication technologies, there are certain kinds of fears about demographics, about things changing too quickly, about not being in touch with your children and so on. And those anxieties can be used by certain kinds of politicians who manage to combine a view of the future with nostalgia for the past. So in general, I think it's 1890s and 1920s is pretty similar. As far as Trump, I don't think there is actually a perfect analog. In my view, he's a fascist, but he's a different sort of fascist in that I think he cares in

an odd way. He cares much less about the community than the first round of fascists did. And unlike the first round of fascists, he's actually very concerned about personal wealth, which whatever one wants to say about them was generally not their case. So I don't think there's a perfect analogy for him, but it helps a lot to know the history of the 1920s and 1930s at this point, I'd say.

And in a recent Substack post, you wrote that the current administration, open quote, invites a terror attack, close quote. That's a bold statement. What did you mean by that? I mean, I don't attack, close quote. That's a bold statement. What did you mean by that? I mean, I don't think it is actually, I think the opposite thesis would be very bold. Like the idea that the administration is doing what it can to prevent a terror attack is absolutely grotesque. Right. And so one way to consider the thesis is to consider the antithesis.

And like we would all like to think that we have a government which is doing the normal things to prevent abnormal catastrophes. And I'm afraid that's just obviously not the case. When you put Kash Patel in charge of the FBI, when you put Tulsi Gabbard in charge of intelligence, when you put Pete Hegseth in charge of defense, when you fire the head of the NSA for no reason except that Laura Loomer told you to do so, when you demoralize the ranks of all the security agencies, when you fire the mid-level people under dubious pretexts,

these are all things that make it much easier to attack the United States. And I think you just have to be looking away pretty determinedly not to notice it. So that's what I mean when I say they're inviting a terror attack. There is ambient danger all of the time, and what they're choosing to do is to ignore the actual danger, this is the second part, and to focus their eyes and ours on invented things, right? So suddenly, like Tesla is a center of terrorism, or, you know, El Salvadoran guys in Maryland are the focus of terrorism. And when you create big lies around stuff like that, when you focus the energy on stuff like that, it actually turns the head of the media. It turns the head of your own institutions

in such a way that you're much more vulnerable to the real threats that are out there. Do you think that also the reduction in soft power, whether it's canceling USAID or just generally kind of declaring war, it feels like on everyone all at once, that that also increases the likelihood that maybe not even a terrorist attack, but somebody decides to say they're so distracted,

maybe I'll invade Taiwan or I'll start setting off more missiles over the coast of Japan from North Korea. I mean, if this sounds like a comment, phrases, a question, it is. So let me just say the comment. I would argue that we're every world leader is thinking if this is a question it is, so let me just say the comment. I would argue that we're, every world leader is thinking if this is a time to divide it in a distracted America, it would be now. Yeah, no, I want to affirm both the major and the minor thesis in that, in that comment, and I'm happy to treat your comments as questions. I mean, the minor thesis is that when we make

enemies unnecessarily, we are encouraging terrorism. So it's not just that we're putting our defenses down, which we're clearly doing. It's also that we're inviting the offense, which we're also clearly doing. I mean, one can't be precise about what combination of motives is going to spark people. But we have a combination now of Trump giving permission, Trump and people around him giving permission to at least right-wing domestic terrorists because he is pardoning them, right? And creating an atmosphere which normalizes their behavior. Many of their views are now held inside the White House.

But he's also randomly alienating almost everybody at the same time around the world. And the people he isn't alienating like the Russians aren't going to stop operations inside the United States just because he's trying to be friends with them. Right? So it's really it's a cocktail of all the worst things at the same time. And then to pick up your major thesis, yeah, this is also true at the level of conventional national security. What the Trump people are doing is draining American power out of the system because the international system, our power in the national system depended upon, among other things, relationships, trust, alliances, reliability treaties. We're breaking

all of those things, thereby draining our own power out of the system, but everybody else's power remains. Everybody else is now more relatively powerful with respect to us. And so of course they can now afford to think about interventions and adventures, which they wouldn't have been able to think about before. I agree completely. If the risk profile has gone up for the US and we sort of have high blood pressure or incredibly high cholesterol,

meaning we're more prone to some sort of exogenous event or opportunistic infection, who do you think, one? Is there or are there winners and who are they from America's distraction and what feels like own goal? Yeah, wonderful question. The most obvious winner, of course, is Vladimir Putin in Russia. The Russians started a war that they couldn't win without American assistance. And then for the last year or so in 2024, they made it very plain that their game plan, such as it was, was to keep the war going in the hope and expectation that Donald Trump would return to power.

And now that Donald Trump is in power, he's conceded on behalf of the Ukrainians, so to speak, pretty much every major issue, territory, NATO russia's legitimacy in the international system trade with russia he can see all of these things. What about asking for any concession from russia and meanwhile pressure the ukrainians to take a much worse deal that even the military facts on the ground would dictate that they should take and in general. would dictate that they should take. And in general, Trump and the people around him treat Russia as though it were a great power, a superpower, a power on the scale of the world, which it really isn't unless you make it so. And the Russians are of course eating this up and they're extremely happy about it. So there's that.

That's one, that one set of winner would be Russia, but I would say that Russia overlaps with another set of winners, which is transnational oligarchs in general, you can think of Putin as another set of winners, which is transnational oligarchs in general. You can think of Putin as the leader of Russia, but you can also think of him as part of a clan of transnational oligarchs, which would include South Africans who are very important in the United States, such as Peter Thiel or Elon Musk or David Sacks, right? That Putin is kind of in that tribe that Trump wants to join. Like Trump really wants to be a rich transnational oligarchy, he's just never quite made it. And now with like two chances of being president of the United States, he can finally make it into that club.

But in general, those folks are doing a lot better. The people who want not just American state power not really to work or to apply to them, but want state power around the world generally not to work or not to apply to them. Those people in general are definitely winners out of this. to them, but want state power around the world generally not to work or not to apply to them. Those people in general are definitely winners out of this. And a third set of winners would seem to be at first glance the people that we call, I

think, wrongly populists or far-right people, far-right extremists, quasi-fascists or fascists. They would seem to be the winner because Vance and Trump are explicitly on their side. But that said, so long as they're democratic elections, the fact that Vance and Trump are explicitly on their side. But that said, so long as there are democratic elections, the fact that Vance and Trump are on your side is probably not gonna help you, it's gonna hurt you. Again, so long as there are democratic elections. I feel as if Democrats were just such wimps, we're afraid to call this fascism, when every key component or definition of fascism

perfectly fits, in my view, what is going on right now. Demonization of immigrants, refusal to condemn political violence, extreme nationalism. It's literally, it feels like this is the definition of fascism. And yet on the left, we're afraid to use these words for fear, like we have this need to empathize and take the higher ground. Can you point to a point in history or best practices around when a democracy moves towards some sort of authoritarianism or oligarchy or fascism? What can you point to and what lessons can we take from who's been most effective and what are the components of that pushback when a country has

flirted with fascism and then has been pulled back from the brink? What are the components of pulling back or pushing back? Let me break that question down into two parts because I think there are two things that work together that help us to answer it. So the question, why aren't we allowed to say fascism? I think it's directly related to the answer. So as you say, it's patently obvious that there has been a return of fascism

around the world for quite some time. I started writing about it more than 10 years ago using the word. And then as you quite rightly say, that one can agree or disagree about how big it is and just who exactly is in it, but I think it's palpably grotesque to deny that there has been a world return of fascism and that didn't begin yesterday. And so then as you say, if we were confronted with all

these empirical signs of fascism, and again, one can disagree about exactly what fascism is, but the signs, no matter whose definition you take, are overwhelming. It doesn't matter whose definition you take, the signs are overwhelming, they're there. And so why do we not accept that? And I think that has to do with the second part, right? Because if you accept that it's fascism, then you have to organize. And you have to organize with people that you might not necessarily like. Denying that it's fascism is a purely academic pursuit, right? If you deny it's fascism, what you can do is you can sit at your office and you can edit the volume about how it's not fascism. That's just about my colleagues, but more broadly speaking, if you deny it's fascism, then you can imagine, okay, the normal pathways of politics are going to work,

somehow things are going to self-correct. The moment you accept that it's fascism, you have to organize. You have to take action, you have to organize, and you have to organize with people who agree with you and people who don't completely agree with you and this is part of the answer now the question because the way that you beat fascism is with coalitions. The way you beat fascism is that you get to a majority by including people who don't agree about everything a clear majority and has to be a clear majority because they're they're ruthless and also also they may control aspects of the state. So the way that you pull back is that you get a coalition, right? This is Poland in 2023, for example. The way that you pull back is you get a coalition which can win an election. But this goes to the Democrats.

I take the point about the Democrats, but it's very important for us who are not activists in the Democratic Party to remember that we can't do, we have to not make the same mistake that they're making. The fact that they are inactive or they don't use a word is not an excuse for us to be inactive and not use the word. We have to create all possible bridges, pageantry, opportunities for those of them who want to make a move. So the more civil society activism there is,

the more protesting there is, the more chance there is that you pulled the establishment party or important elements of it in your direction. So they have a role to play, but the only way for them to play that role is for them to be drawn by things that other people are in fact organizing.

The town halls are a good example of this. It was great that many, that several Democrats go out to these town halls, but they didn't organize those things themselves, right? That had to come from somewhere else. We'll be right back after a quick break. So if I'm being an alarmist or paranoid, it doesn't mean I'm wrong. And I want you to tell me if I'm being an alarmist or paranoid, it doesn't mean I'm wrong. And I want you to tell me if I'm wrong, but I look at 1920s Germany, thriving gay community,

appreciation for academics, the arts, a progressive culture welcomed immigrants, an economic shock, a move towards fascism. And then something that really struck me, there was a 10 second TikTok where a guy just said, remember that Auschwitz was in Poland. And I look at what's going on here. And when you start rounding up people, it takes on a different complexion. But I would argue we're one economic shock away in the US from accelerating what already I would term as rounding up people for the wrong tattoo and shipping them off to another country country such that we don't have to hold to the same standards of due process or humanity. One, am I being an alarmist believing that we're actually not as far as people would like to think from a really, really ugly situation? And does this have echoes of different situations. Do you see another nation at this point in history and where, you

know, that helps kind of draw or fill in the blanks around where this is going? Let me zoom way back out and then let me zoom in. So the comparison to Germany in the first third of the 20th century can be very helpful in the following way. The 20th century, as your question already suggests, could have been Germany's century. There was an awful lot working in their favor. There was a very rich and heterogeneous civil society. There were civil society. There were the best scientists and engineers probably in the world active before the early 30s in Germany. There was a flawed but nevertheless plausible parliamentary system. There was an economy which pound for pound was overtaking everybody else's, right? So the United States was gonna be a big deal in the 20th century, but there's a way in which

the 20th century could have belonged to Germany, and they did the one thing, in my view, the one thing which could have prevented that, which was have someone who was the most extreme version of an extreme party come to power with the connivance of business elites and with the misunderstanding or willful misunderstanding of conservatives that somehow he could be controlled. That was the one

thing and they did it. And so when you look at the US in the 21st century, one way to look at this is, the 21st century probably should belong to the US. There are all sorts of positive things. There's the technology, the civil society, the universities, et cetera, et cetera. But there is one thing we can do to prevent that from happening and we seem to be doing that one thing. Okay, now let me zoom in. So the thing about Auschwitz and Poland, it's important. I have to contest that formulation because there wasn't a Poland at the time. By the time that Auschwitz was established on the territory of a Poland, what had been a Polish army base at Auschwitz, Poland had been destroyed. But this helps to make the point just in a slightly more subtle way, which is important. The killing of Jews in Germany didn't happen in Germany.

It happened in zones which the Germans decided were stateless, in zones where the law didn't apply. And so that could be a concentration camp. The definition of a concentration camp is a lawless zone. But it could also be a broad swath of territory to the east where the Germans said, we've destroyed the state, whether it's Poland or the Soviet Union,

we've destroyed the state, and so the rules don't apply. That for me is the dangerous thing, right? Not exactly another country, although that's important, but the idea of statelessness. The notion that what we're gonna do is we're gonna decide that certain people are beyond the protection of the state in general. Once you do that, then it becomes much easier

to ship them away and it becomes much easier to kill them. It's chilling. You had mentioned something about, I forgot the word you used, the cooperation between Hitler and the industrial base or corporations or corporate leadership. And I don't think enough people know the history around the Alliance between, I

think it was loosely corporations asset. Hitler, if you crush the trade unions, we'll support you. And then it just ran away from them. And I see real parallels here now. And that is, I'm not exaggerating. I've probably talked to a dozen fortune 500 CEOs who are just so angry and upset and think what Trump is doing is so wrong and not a goddamn one of them has spoken

out because they're, they think short short-term my obligation is to shareholders and the easiest thing to do is bend a knee, send a million dollars to the inauguration committee, and not speak out. And this feels eerily similar to the same type of enablement or loose cooperation or conspiracy between corporate leaders in Germany. Any thoughts on whether there are parallels there? That's such an interesting question. And I feel like just pivoting a little bit, Scott, this is really a moment when it would help if Americans listen to other people. So like, it's all well and good and I'm glad to do it for us to be sitting here and talking about historical parallels. But there are actually lots of German businessmen and women today and German foundations who act on the basis of what they think they learned

in the 1930s. And so, I mean, maybe I'm wrong in some places, this has already happened, but there's probably much to be said for some kind of summit precisely among American and German CEOs to talk about the question that you've just asked. Because there are plenty of people now in Germany who are running corporations extremely well, but you have these kinds of lessons on their mind all the time.

And that's also for me a broader lesson, if you'll just forgive me to extend the pivot. It's a broader lesson about resistance in the US now in general. There are a lot of folks from Ukraine or Poland, you know, successful cases or even people from mixed cases like Slovenia or Hungary who have experience that is really relevant to this moment. And I feel like we don't do enough to reach out to them and to get that relevant experience. We tend to be trapped in our own exceptionalism and

say, okay, something's happened. It's never happened to anybody before, what could we possibly learn? And then we spend that moment obsessing about ourselves and then we move on to the next moment. Yeah, but getting back to your question, there were sort of two stages to this. The first is that you think it's okay because he's against the labor unions. And that really was the problem the first time around, that German businesses were against, I mean, this is a little bit stronger, but they were against democracy because they thought in democracy the labor unions were too strong. And so that's not exactly the case now, but it's something that CEOs should be thinking about. Am I being drawn towards something because

I think these are the ones who are harder on the trade unions than the other ones. And then the second move, which you also already see, is the solicitation of specific companies on the premise that they can make money under this regime in a way they couldn't have made it before. Like Auschwitz, to use something you mentioned earlier. German companies are brought to Auschwitz on the principle that, look, there's going to be cheap controlled labor, there's access to water, you know, we can do chemical manufacturing here. This is a good site. It's going to be profitable. And of course, there's also money to be made by rounding up American migrants. There's money to be made

by creating a surveillance state. And so particular companies are being recruited into that. So yeah, there's, I mean, capitalism doesn't push obviously one way or another, right? Like it's wrong to think that capitalism automatically generates fascism. It's certainly also wrong to think that capitalism automatically generates democracy. The people who are in charge of companies are historical actors. And we know, not just from the history of Germany, but from the history of coups and countercoups in general, that how the leaders of industry react matters a great deal to how things turn out.

So we've been talking a lot about Trump, any historical reference or analogies explaining or, or comparing similar situations to what's going on with Elon Musk, wealthiest man in the world. Uh, the seizure of what I would argue is, uh, power that's not constitutional at the approval of the president in just, I haven't seen anything like this in my lifetime. What, what historical references can you ground Elon Musk in, if any? Number one, it's fine.

You've been talking about the twenties and the thirties and the, um, the Marxist analysis of fascism back then was that it had to do with the wealthiest of people, which it wasn't true. I mean, as we've talked about certainly, certainly capitalists played a role in the rise of Hitler to power and then certain capitalists profited in certain ways, which are worth remembering from Nazi rule. But it wasn't actually the oligarchs of the world, right? There was no overall plan of global capitalism to bring people like Hitler to power. A hundred years later, there is. That's the ironic thing. Like a hundred years later,

we do have people like Elon Musk who do have huge amounts of global power and who are quite literally trying to bring fascists to power around the world. And maybe it's for reasons of ideology, maybe it's for reasons of convenience because they don't like state power because state power can regulate their companies.

But we actually now do have a thing which was I think talked about 100 years ago, but not real. And now is real, but not talked about, which, not that all oligarchs are fascists I mean there are oligarchs all over the place politically, but we do have fascist oligarchs and we have fascist promoting oligarchs We have oligarchs who are promoting Fascism so that's not exactly historical precedents more like historical irony that we have the thing now I gave a lecture a couple weeks ago in New York at the Public Library that we have the thing now. I gave a lecture a couple of weeks ago in New York at the public library about paganism, which wasn't a little bit bold on my part, but it's a little bit

humorous because I think we need humor. But I think the kinds of politics we're talking about where people worship a leader, that's fascist, right? The way that people worship Elon Musk is fascist, but the way that Musk and Trump and so on operate by giving out gifts, the sort of everyday corruption, or if you want to put it in anthropologically neutral way, a gift-giving culture where politics is reduced to there's a chieftain at the center and the chieftain has the authority to give gifts and expects gifts in return. I think there's a reason why that's not familiar historically or personally to you or to me, and that's because that's essentially a pre-Christian or a pre-state way of doing things. They're chieftains, they come and go, their power depends upon charisma plus the ability to

give gifts. I think that's where we are, and it's an almost pre-historical way of doing politics, which is why history flails a little bit when you try to find historical analogies for it. We'll be right back. We're back with more from Timothy Snyder. So something I've just been unable to wrap my head around. And I'm rather than just attacking them for, for these actions or these gestures, Steve Bannon and Elon Musk, in my view, purposely gave Nazi salutes. And I'm trying to wrap my head around what are the objectives there? Is it just to show

a certain level of macho and thumbing your finger in the face of convention? Is it an attempt to rally a group of people around a fascist ideology? Curious what ran through your head when once, not once, but twice, a person who's a senior advisor to the president, the wealthiest man in the world, gave what looked like to me Nazi salutes. When you saw that, what ran through your head? I'm going to start in a place that I think is more interesting in my head. Not long after that, I was in Berlin and I was talking to a very courageous and consistent left-wing organizer friend. We're at a bar, we're having a drink, and he said, I think he's right, he said, you know, eventually they always do it. Like they have to do it. And I knew what he meant. He meant Musk and the Hitlergrus, you know, that salute. So I just wanna take a step sort of below your question

about what they're thinking or what the calculations are. I think maybe something more fundamental than that, which is that they like to do it. It makes them feel like they are who they are when they do it. My friend's point was that there's something in the shape of their lives, which eventually leads them to give that salute.

And I think we shouldn't discount that and think about it just in terms of the signal they're sending or where it goes politically or what it means to people like me. I think that's a big part of it, that like that performing with your body in a way which is unambiguous, which is not rejecting reason, which is calling forth a similar salute from other people. And since we know the history

is also referring to right at the very heart of fascism the last time around, I think that the sheer pleasure of doing that is probably close to a complete explanation. I think, you know, the secondary thing would be the normalization of it, that you're trying to break all the taboos. And of course, when you do it, you then, you know, this is the 21st century part, you do it, then you deny it, you say it was just a joke, you say it never happened, whatever. It was a wave. I mean, that's, yeah, exactly. Yeah. You just, but what you're after though, is you're trying to change normality, right? You're trying to turn every taboo into a joke. Yeah, you just, but, but, but what you're, what you're after though, is you're trying to change normality, right?

You're trying to turn every taboo into a joke and you know, the taboos around liberalism, rule of law, democracy are built on notions of human decency, protection of the private sphere, respect truth and so on. And so you're trying to turn those taboos into a joke. I think that's the secondary bit. So you were at Yale and you moved to Toronto. Why? Why have you moved to Toronto. Why? Why have you moved to Canada? I mean, there's a baseball team that plays downtown. I'm theoretically a French speaker and they speak French here, at least in this country. The major considerations had to do with, you know,

family things, which I'm not particularly keen to talk about. So lifestyle, it's a lifestyle move, not ideological. We don't need to read any paper. No, I mean, if any, no, I mean, there's this weird timing thing now where I'm kind of caught in this world of equimajunk sure

and feel a little helpless about that. But I had already moved to Toronto. I had been, I've been recruited for three years, actually more like 10. And I've said, no one needs an excuse to move to Toronto. It's a wonderful city. I moved to London and it's been great. And it's neither here nor there in terms of politics.

And I think that's what you're saying. Is that accurate? Yeah, no, I'm sorry if I sound defensive, but it's like, yeah, I moved here for reasons which had to do with time of life, essentially. And now that I am here, I'm going to continue to do what I can. I tend to think that people, like a lot, if I have anything used to say, it has to do with experiences outside the United States.

But I'm going to make really sure that I also spend a lot of time inside the United States. Things have not turned out the way that I hoped they would turn out, but now that they have turned out this way, now I have to stay engaged, so I will. So it almost feels sort of inconsequential or somewhat trivial compared to the things we've been talking about. But these tariffs and sort of declaring war on everyone all at once.

And I can tell how old I'm getting. I'm totally fascinated with World War II and I'd like to, I've said everything against the context of World War II. And I'd like to, I've said everything against the context of World War II. And I think of, you know, Hitler's big mistake was essentially declaring war on everyone all at once, specifically declaring war on Russia

when he didn't need to. Help me understand if we can understand these tariffs in an individual and what analogies or what historical context there is for this sort of economic multi-front declaration of war against everyone all at once. Well, before we get to that, I just want to say something much more boring, which is that whatever the motive of tariffs are, they do have an objective effect. And that objective effect,

we're not actually really feeling yet in the United States. The knockoff effects on supply chains are just now starting to take hold and they will be felt more and more severely in coming weeks and months. So whatever Trump thinks he's doing, one lesson of the 1920s and 1930s, of course, is that if you wreck the economy by way of tariffs, you're setting the stage for more radical things to happen. So as far as attacking everybody all at once, my take is that they think that the way power works is by way of these kind of one-off demonstrations of like masculine barking, where you do like you bluster, like you take, you

know, you stick out your chest and you bluster and use lots of big words and stuff. And then the notion is that the other person makes concessions and you're better off in the end. And I think they think that's how American businesses will react to tariffs because everybody will look for a carve out. And in looking for a carve out, going back to your earlier question, they will then be less likely to speak up against the regime. And they think that other countries will do the same thing, that other countries are by definition weaker than the US and so therefore they have to immediately react. I think that's the theory.

I think it's a dumb theory of course because you end up minimizing US power because no one takes you seriously, including they don't take you seriously also when you propose a remedy, right? You're never trusted again in the same way. But it's also a dumb theory because it just overestimates the scale of US power. And this gives me an occasion to say something I wanted to say and forgot.

It responds to your earlier question. I mentioned when you asked who does this benefit, I mentioned Russia and I mentioned oligarchs. But the big winner, the big long-term winner is obviously China. Because what we have done is we've said to the world, hey look, China is a more reliable trade partner than we are, right?

So we've bailed Russia out in the short term in Ukraine and we've bailed China out in the long term on the scale of the world. Recognizing none of us have a crystal ball. Are you comfortable making any sort of predictions as to what you think the likely scenarios are in America over the next two, three years? There's so many variables. There's so many things bouncing up against one another.

It's like, like if you think about different historical moments, like there are moments where more things are possible than usual. So like after the first world war, what I'd like to think of as the bandwidth of possibility was just much broader, right? Things like Lenin and things like Hitler were possible then

and they wouldn't have been possible at other times because you'd had this globalization with its hopes and then with its collapse around a major war. And now, you know, now we're in this other globalization which is also facing its collapse. The major, you know, the war isn't as major the Russo-Ukrainian war is a horribly great, is a horribly huge war,

but it's not on the scale of the great war. But it's also facing its collapse in the person of somebody like Trump. And so there's just things are possible now that weren't possible before. But it's also facing this collapse in the person of somebody like Trump. And so there's just things are possible now that weren't possible before. I worry a great deal about an exogenous shock, like the terror attack that we were talking about earlier and what that would set off. And I think it's, we have to kind of internalize that possibility because we have to recognize

that in the scenarios we're talking about, it's almost, I mean, you can't be certain about anything historically, but it's as certain as you can be that Trump, Vance, Musk would treat such an exogenous event as a reason to try to finish off the republic completely. Another thing I worry about is that because the Trump people overestimate the power of bluster and the power of the United States federal government

in general, because they don't really understand that institutions don't work just on the basis of like charisma and giving orders, that they're going to get us to a situation where federal institutions are going to break down or that federal institutions and state institutions of the 50 states are going to be in irreconcilable clashes. I worry about that a great deal. I think that's a scenario that has been understated that institutions of the federal government will just stop working and that states will then begin

to wonder what we're getting out of all of this and that there will be some kind of crisis within our own federal system. That's, I guess, a second scenario that I worry about. In addition to like the obvious thing that we've been talking about the whole time, which is Trump, Musk, that media seeking to somehow get around the rule of law.

And the things are married to each other. You can get around the rule of law. You can change the nature of the federal government, but what you can't do is then predictably know what's gonna come next. And it isn't all internationally or nationally gonna be in your favor. You can slam the door on democracy,

and you can break everything inside the House of Democracy, but then when you walk out into that brave new world that you've created, it's not like the weather is always gonna be beautiful and in your favor. So I apologize for jumping around, but you're one of the leading historians on Ukraine, and I'd be remiss not to ask before you go. The optimist looking at the glass half empty,

is this an opportunity that sort of Uncle Sam is not only inconsistent but crazy and can no longer be dependent upon? And is this an opportunity for Europe to actually become a union, $19 trillion collective economy versus 2 trillion in Russia and provide Ukraine with the support such that they can continue to push back on Russia

or am I being naive? That's the one rational hope. Regardless of whether there's a ceasefire or whether there's a quote unquote peace deal, I really hate the way that the noun deal is now being attached to everything as though deal making is the highest human achievement. But regardless of whether on paper there's some kind of accord, the threat of Russia and the possibility or the reality of Russia making war on Ukraine or other European countries is going to be very real and imminent into the indefinite future, at least until Putin loses power, which means that Europe has to respond in some way if it wishes to exist. Because the attack on Ukraine was also an attack on the broader principles of the existence

of the European Union, namely that there is a post-imperial way of doing politics, that one can share sovereignty rather than violate sovereignty, that you can have bureaucratic, sovereignty that you can you you can have bureaucratic boring ritualistic bureaucratic iterative relationships as opposed to as opposed to martial military destructive relationships and so on that and the Russians are very explicit about this the whole Russian the Russian doctrine of foreign policy is that the EU is an artificial creation which has no right to exist because in fact the only thing that matters are empires and a multipolar world and so on. So if they want to exist, they have to step up with respect to Ukraine. I would add to that, that I think the EU only exists by enlarging. That has to be part of its process as well.

And I realize it's complicated inside various countries and so on, but a European Union which had Great Britain and Ukraine as members would be an even larger, more secure and more interestingly, internally diverse economic unit than the current European Union. So we only have you for a couple more minutes. You've been very generous with your time. Just a kind of a lightning around here.

What are the biggest risks we're not paying attention to and what are you most optimistic about? I'm optimistic about American protests. I'm optimistic about people who haven't protested before who are protesting now. I'm optimistic about, or hopeful is a better word, about elected representatives who are actually talking about the way the world actually is. I'm hopeful about Europe.

I think a set of European leaders, Macon, Starmor, Merck, in Poland, Donald Tusk, that's, I mean, I don't agree with all of them about everything of course, but I think as a set of European leaders, that's a pretty good quartet and a better one than one has had for quite a long time, at least on the kinds of issues

that we've been talking about, European security and durability. I'm hopeful because of the kinds of categorical or conceptual conversations that we've been having because I really believe that you can't organize and resist without conceptual work. And it's hopeful to me that the people who I know who are organizers are getting maybe closer to the people who I know who are organizers are getting maybe closer to the people who I know who are conceptualizers and that the organizers are conceptualizing and some of the conceptualizing are organizing.

That all gives me some hope. You're obviously hugely successful. You have what appears to be just a great job and have carved out a really nice piece of the world for yourself. What advice would you give to your 25-year-old self and more generally advice to young men who want to someday be, you know, be Timothy Snyder and have a really cool job? Jared Sussman I mean, that's a funny question because the only, I mean, the only,

like I did gig work for six years after I got my doctorate and I stayed on, I stayed on the market the entire time and I only got a job at Yale basically because of luck. I mean, I may have had some qualifications for it, but the job was only available because of luck. And so if I find it hard to like say, Oh, I have some kind of like path that other people can follow in general, you know, I, I learned to do a bunch of other things. Resilience, perseverance, it sounds like you're going in there. Maybe. I think, I mean, I think having different things that you're pretty good at, and not just

one thing that you're very good at, if you're going to be an academic, be, be international in, in some way, because that allows you to, I mean, I couldn't have been able to do the things I did even before I had a job without being international in some way. And I think being willing, like if you're going to be an academic, think always about what else you could do besides having a tenure track job in universities. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I always had female bosses. I think that's, you know, that's, I'm not sure if that's a piece of advice, but it's

been kind of helpful along the way. I mean, getting along with different sort of folks, but yeah, advice, I don't know, man. I feel like I've been really lucky. In times where it's tough when I was on the job market, and they're a lot tougher now for all kinds of different reasons, I don't think people should get PhDs unless they really, really love what they're doing. Cause you're gonna, you have to,

you have to take a lot of time to do it. And then once you do it, you have to love what you're doing enough to try to be aware that you might have to do it somewhere else besides the Academy. So anyway, you caught me off guard with that one. That's the best I could do. Timothy Snyder is a leading historian of authoritarianism,

Ukraine and Eastern Europe. He's the author of could do. Timothy Snyder is a leading historian of authoritarianism, Ukraine and Eastern Europe. He's the author of various books, including On Freedom, On Tyranny, The Road to Unfreedom and Bloodlands. After over two decades at Yale, he joined the University of Toronto's Monk School of Global Affairs. He joined us from the great city of Toronto. I could do this for three hours,

really appreciate your time and an open invitation, although I'm inviting myself. I wanna come to Toronto, I wanna do a mini three hours. Really appreciate your time and an open invitation. Although I'm inviting myself, I want to come to Toronto. I want to do a mini I Love Canada tour. And I would love to interview you on stage somewhere. I think your work has never been more relevant. I really appreciate your time, Professor. I would love to see in person. So when you're in Canada, you just drop a line

and we'll do that. 100%. Thanks again. As for happiness, we just had Mother's Day. I'm a six-year-old man who hasn't gotten over the death of his mother. I miss her a great deal. I can't talk about it without getting emotional. It was me and my mom against the world. My dad left and my mom raised me on her own on a secretary salary. It's not a sob story.

We actually had a nice life because back then I think America kind of loved unremarkable people. We used to take vacations. We lived in a decent place. I lived, actually, we had the worst house in a nice neighborhood, and it was pretty obvious to me early on that we didn't have as much money, but that was fine.

I actually think that one of the reasons I have a lot of money now is because I had less money than my friends back then. But like, missing your mom, you know, it's something that I've leaned into, and I hope that my boys miss me as much as I miss your mom, you know, it's something that I've leaned into. And I hope that my boys miss me as much as I miss my mom. And something I'm, one of the things I'm really proud of, I was, I'm a good dad. I'd like to think, you know, I'm very proud of professional success.

I don't know, also a lot of things I'm not proud of, but something I did really well. I spent a lot of time with my mom the last 10 years of her life. But I started finally registering some success in my 30s, and I used to share a lot of that success with my mom. Not only giving her stuff or trying to buy nice things for her, make sure she was comfortable, but I used to call my mom after every success.

I did well on a test in graduate school, or I was interested in a woman and got her number, went out, had a nice date, or I did well at work, or something good happened to me. I used to just call my mom that moment and tell her that it had happened. Mom's love, your mom, and I guess to a certain extent

your dad are the only people who ever you'll ever meet who want you to be more successful than them and they just get so much reward out of nice things happening and I didn't figure that out till I was a little bit older but I would absolutely make sure that my mom could share in my success. I was really good at spending a lot of time with my mom and just finding reasons to call her. I spoke to my mom almost every day. And it's something I look back on and I just treasure

because up until that point in my life, I just wasn't a very kind person. I didn't share a lot with a lot of people. I didn't go out of my way to make people feel good. I didn't donate money. I wasn't concerned with the world. I basically saw most people as a kind of a vehicle for a transaction such that I could be more awesome

and more wealthy. I didn't, I wasn't a mean person, but I think kindness is a practice. And the more you practice it, the easier it comes to you and it starts becoming second nature. And I started with my mom. I was kind and loving and spent a ton of time with her.

So long-winded way of saying, the gap between thinking about your mom or something good happening to you and reaching out to your mom and telling her about it, just eliminate that gap. Your mom is never too busy to hear from you. And she might say, I need to call you back, but what does your mom want to tell her friends? that gap. Your mom is never too busy to hear from you and she might say I need to call you back but

what does your mom want to tell her friends? Well what is the biggest source of pride? Is it that you're a doctor or that you've married someone nice or that you have great grandkids? That's all great but more than anything what moms want to brag about to their friends is that you choose them, that you call them all the time, that anytime something happens to you, you reach out to them. And I think it's especially important for sons because we're not like best friends with our mothers. It's not like that, I love you, I hate you

kind of dynamic sometimes that mothers and daughters have with each other's best friends. You're just their son. And that is, you know, the nicest thing I've ever done for anybody was every day giving a lot of me to my mom. Anyway, try and make every day a little bit of Mother's Day. This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez. Our intern is Dan Shalon.

Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the Prop G pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network. We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercy, No Malice as read by George Hahn. And please follow our PropG Markets pod wherever you get your pods for new episodes every Monday and Thursday.