When I started reading On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century – I was unsure what to expect.

This novel was written during the first Donald Trump presidency and has been on “best seller” lists since its release. It focuses on tyranny as a concept in the United States political climate. The author, Timothy Snyder, explains “America’s turn towards authoritarianism” as “history does not repeat but it does instruct.”

Snyder looks at Europe and the recent history of democracies turning to dictatorships, similar to my last post about fascism.

Now, it is not a long read (only 126ish pages) by it is one of the books I would recommend with the second Donald Trump presidency as we, in the US and abroad, are moving quickly towards authoritarianism – however, many world countries are in a better place than here in the US.

Timothy Snyder

Before a few weeks ago (when I went a little overboard in buying books that may be considered “banned” in the coming years), I was unaware of Timothy Snyder and his books. A quick Google search pulls up his Wikipedia page which tells us he is an American historian who specializes in Central and Eastern European, USSR, and Holocaust history. He is a professor of History at Yale University and is a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna (this is an institute that specializes in the advanced study of humanities and social sciences). He also serves on the Committee of Conscience of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and is a council of the Council on Foreign Relations.

What I think is really awesome he started in Ohio and his parents were Quakers. He seems to have had a normal upbringing, except the whole attending a private Ivy League school (Brown) and then Oxford (I say this as someone who absorbs knowledge like a sponge, Ivies and prestigious schools are out of my reach due to price and, well, study habits).

Additionally, he speaks five different European languages (but can read ten). As a doctor of philosophy, he has been on record as saying “If you don’t know Russian, you don’t really know what you’re missing.”

The books he has written vary but the ones that stick out to me (this is because of my special interest in WWII, authoritarianism, and politics) are Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin, Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning, and The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe and America.

Why are books like this important?

As you will come to see in the series I am writing, using this book as an outline, On Tyranny, takes historical lessons and I will be applying them to what we are seeing I am hoping that this will help others be more vigilant in how to recognize fascism and authoritarianism as a whole.

As I read through his bibliography, I am interested in looking at his works as a whole as the presidency is moving toward… Project 2025 is the basis and as a woman who is openly queer and polyamorous and has many people who are not the heteronormative or men that she loves, this is important information to share.

I have a small blog, this is true. I have very few readers. But even a small voice, if it reaches the right person… can educate people who may not know better. I have always been a vocal proponent of hatred is just undereducation at its core. Now, it is slightly different when you take into consideration the propaganda we see from the 20s-40s in Europe and the US. However, I think that the reason we have a second Trump presidency is because many are not interested in learning and I want to make it easier for those to learn.

What is my goal?

To educate even one person on how history has seen this movie already – and it didn’t end well for many people.

I plan to use my (small) platform to make my voice heard because, as Synder says in On Tyranny, “History can familiarize, and it can warn.” and it is “[…]A primary American tradition to consider history when our political order seems imperiled.” (pg 10-11)

The first lesson discusses how obeying in advance will teach power what it can do and it makes it easier for a tyrant to use that power, which I will elaborate on in the post where I utilize real-life examples as to how this is and/or has already happened.

With a little over 50 days until Inauguration day, I will be going through On Tyranny and a few other select books that are both warnings and important to the climate we find ourselves speeding towards currently.

Reading List and Books of Interest

There are a variety, as I stated. But here is a small list of books I found as the state of politics in my world has become important.

• On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder
• How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them by Jason Stanley
• Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi and Nafisi
• The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
• Culture Warlods: My Journey into the Dark Web of White Supremacy by Talia Lavin (as well as her book Wild Faith)
• The Age of Insurrection: The Radical Right’s Assault on American Democracy by David Neiwert
• Fascism: A Warning by Former Secretary of State Madeline Albright
• Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right by Matthew Dallek

These are just the beginning. As we turn towards 2025, which is approaching way too fast for my liking, it is time we begin educating ourselves on protecting not just us, but also those we need to protect and it is time to start calling out bad behavior. Many people in my circle have cut off those who voted for Trump – which is unfortunate, but one party is the party of social safety nets and the other is wanting to abolish the Department of Education and the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. Education is the only way that I know how to use my voice to help those who may not understand. It is not because they are uneducated but because they are undereducated and may not understand the nuances of media literacy or what may be being said.

And it isn’t their fault. There is a serious lack of these skills in our country. I live in Oklahoma. They are 49th in education. Oklahoma lowered the standards on tests and it means that students are not performing as well as they should (not even on grade level). And while I do not like standardized testing and think it is counterproductive, the state is doing a disservice to its students.

The National Literacy Institute put out a report on the literacy rates in the US and man, is it bleak.

According to them, 21% of US adults are illiterate. To put that in perspective, that means that 1 in 5 US adults are illiterate. Additionally, 54% of adults have a literacy below 6th-grade level. Meaning: that over half the adults would have trouble reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows or would not understand The Iliad (commonly used in high school and mythology classes).

The US ranks 36th in literacy. This explains the lack of media literacy and the fact that some people may not understand what they are voting for. Even as an adult college student, I am still learning ways to read and interpret the information I find.

This is why I am choosing to talk about this. To spread awareness. On Tyranny, on Fascism, on the sociopolitical ramifications of the election. And in some twisted way, see a sliver of a silver lining.