Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in On Tyranny, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Collapse of American Democracy
Tyranny and the Consolidation of Power
Political Action and Civic Responsibility
History and Memory
Summary
Analysis
When truth is thrown out the window, the powerful can freely reject criticism and turn politics into showmanship. While people might enjoy believing everything the government says, this destroys democracy. According to Klemperer, there are four ways that “truth dies.” First, tyrants ignore the truth and lie profusely—Snyder suggests that Donald Trump is a good example, as 78% of his statements during his presidential campaign were false. Secondly, they endlessly repeat phrases and ideas—for instance, Trump invents nicknames for his political opponents and leads chants (like “Build that wall” and “Lock her up”) at his rallies in order to build emotional connections with his followers. Thirdly, tyrants use contradictory logic. For instance, Trump promised to simultaneously lower taxes and increase spending while reducing debt, but believing this requires “a blatant abandonment of reasoning.”
Rhetorical strategies like Trump’s build a closed loop between a candidate and their supporters: the candidate invents a claim, the supporters believe it and repeat it back, and then the candidate uses this support as evidence that the claim is really true. As a result, supporters are only able to think in terms of the candidate’s limited set of false concepts, and “truth dies” because, having decided to put loyalty and emotion before policy reason, people lose the ability to distinguish fact from fiction. This “blatant abandonment of reasoning” is dangerous because it is not possible to persuade someone who does not believe in truth or who cares more about what feels true to them than what can be proven with evidence.
Themes
The fourth and final strategy that tyrants use to destroy truth is demanding faith and loyalty. For example, Donald Trump insists that he is the only person capable of solving various problems, so people simply have to believe in him. Klemperer wrote that Nazis felt the same way about Hitler: they supported him because of faith, not reason. The playwright Eugène Ionesco even wrote a play called Rhinoceros about this problem: he pointed out how strange it was to watch people gradually “slip away into” fascism by depicting those who did as transforming into rhinoceroses. The current political trend toward “post-truth,” Snyder concludes, is not the result of postmodern philosophy—rather, it is the oldest rule in the fascist playbook, and today “post-truth is pre-fascism.”
Snyder’s analysis of authoritarians’ demand for loyalty reveals an important fact about the way their strategies work over time. At first, they have to gradually build power and introduce their radical ideas into the mainstream, for instance by using symbols and paramilitaries, gradually changing language, and weakening institutions bit by bit. Then, after their power and ideas grow to a certain critical mass, authoritarians can begin defending their positions openly and getting people to “slip away into” their way of thinking. This “post-truth” phase is “pre-fascism” because, once they are dominant, authoritarians can start demanding conformity and loyalty, turning against anyone who refuses to offer it. Snyder’s different strategies for resistance are best used in various moments during this progression, but he emphasizes that the earlier people act, the more they can do to slow the progression of tyranny.
Themes
