Often, governments are not as resilient as people hope, and citizens themselves are all that holds democracy back from the forces of tyranny. In order to save democracy, citizens must know when and how tyrants are trying to overthrow it, and then act to stop this process. In other words, citizens have a responsibility to understand and critically analyze their governments’ actions, work actively to strengthen democracy when it is threatened, and never give in to authoritarians’ attempts to usurp power. While Snyder admits that these forms of civic action are harder than they sound, they are also far more important and impactful than people—especially Americans—might expect.
First, citizens must understand how authoritarianism works in order to effectively resist it. Snyder emphasizes that responsible citizens must think independently. This requires looking beyond the news media, which examines a limited time period with a meager set of concepts, and instead reading books in order to develop a “mental armory” of concepts that can be used to analyze the world. Of course, On Tyranny is designed precisely to give people such concepts and help them determine when their nations are headed toward authoritarianism. Snyder also asks citizens to build solidarity internationally by forming friendships and learning about political struggles in other countries. Because different countries often face similar challenges at different times, citizens—particularly those who live in inward-looking countries like the United States—can learn about both authoritarian governments’ actions and citizens’ strategies for resistance from international contexts. Snyder argues that citizens must specifically understand and recognize certain stages in a nation’s progression toward tyranny. Namely, citizens must be vigilant when they see symbols of loyalty and hate going up around them, exceptions and emergencies cited as justifications for giving the government new powers, and the classic rhetorical techniques of fascism identified by Victor Klemperer (like blatant lying and “magical thinking,” or contradictory logic). If they identify these warning signs early on, Snyder argues, citizens can resist the spell of authoritarianism and preemptively plan resistance and protest movements.
Once they have the basic understanding of tyranny and democracy that is necessary for them to effectively and strategically resist an oppressive government, Snyder argues that citizens must next dedicate themselves to strengthening the precise institutions and principles that authoritarians seek to demolish. Snyder repeatedly emphasizes that people must actively defend institutions, whether governmental bodies, professional organizations, or simply casual clubs and associations. All of these institutions allow people to work together to resist the encroachment of tyranny, but “institutions do not protect themselves”—they are made of people, and if nobody actively defends them and their principles, governments that promise to destroy them will do precisely that. In addition to supporting formal organizations, citizens should embrace inclusion and solidarity with others in their daily lives. Concretely, this means reaching out to others, especially since tyranny often subdues the citizenry by making neighbors suspicious and afraid of one another. It can also mean consciously displaying symbols of inclusion, which reject the binaries between insider and outsider, or loyal citizen and “enemy of the state,” that authoritarian governments use to divide and conquer the population. By sustaining the principle of inclusion, citizens make organizations and protests possible, and they remind one another that there are alternative ways to live and structure society besides the authoritarian government’s. Finally, citizens must understand and protect their rights, including the right to protest and the right to privacy. This applies even if those rights are not immediately being violated, Snyder insists, because otherwise tyrants could take them away before they become truly necessary.
Ultimately, citizens will have to directly resist oppressive policies. When active resistance is not possible, Snyder insists that people must hold out for as long as possible and never give in to the demands of tyranny. Snyder’s first rule, “Do not obey in advance,” neatly encapsulates this principle: even if tyranny seems to have won, the people can still limit its evil effects. If nothing else, they can prevent it from getting worse by simply doing nothing and refusing to comply—for instance, many Europeans helped the Nazis search for Jews because they felt they had no option and their compliance was meaningless, but many others simply refused to participate whatsoever, indirectly saving lives in the process. This shows that there is always something that citizens can do to at least minimize the damage caused by tyranny. Similarly, Snyder calls for people to “be reflective if [they] must be armed” because even members of the authoritarian regime have moral choices to make. Numerous German police officers executed people during the Holocaust simply because they were ordered to do so and too afraid to refuse—even though they could have done so without any repercussions. However, Snyder’s strongest call for dissent and refusal comes in his eighth chapter, in which he implores citizens to “stand out” and break the status quo in order to set an example that others can follow. Therefore, even a seemingly small gesture can have ripple effects. For instance, Teresa Prekerowa saved an entire Jewish family just because she visited them periodically and encouraged them to escape, whereas virtually all other non-Jewish residents of Warsaw idly watched their Jewish friends and acquaintances disappear. While these others let the circumstances alter their moral compass, Prekerowa insisted on maintaining a kind of basic decency and morality that ultimately saved lives.
Snyder concludes by declaring that people must be “prepared to die for freedom.” This represents both the promise of democracy and the obligation it confers on citizens: everybody is responsible for the collective, and nothing will save democracy but the people themselves. Anyone can and should act to protect their nation from tyranny, even if this requires self-sacrifice, and this very sacrifice is a way of reaffirming and spreading the fundamental values of inclusion, equality, and solidarity that must form the foundation of any truly democratic society.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Political Action and Civic Responsibility ThemeTracker
Political Action and Civic Responsibility Quotes in On Tyranny
In politics, being deceived is no excuse.
Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.
Do not speak of “our institutions” unless you make them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions do not protect themselves.
You might one day be offered the opportunity to display symbols of loyalty. Make sure that such symbols include your fellow citizens rather than exclude them.
We have seen that the real meaning of the greengrocer's slogan has nothing to do with what the text of the slogan actually says. Even so, the real meaning is quite clear and generally comprehensible because the code is so familiar: the greengrocer declares his loyalty in the only way the regime is capable of bearing; that is, by accepting the prescribed ritual, by accepting appearances as reality, by accepting the given rules of the game, thus making it possible for the game to go on, for it to exist in the first place.
Staring at screens is perhaps unavoidable, but the two-dimensional world makes little sense unless we can draw upon a mental armory that we have developed somewhere else. When we repeat the same words and phrases that appear in the daily media, we accept the absence of a larger framework. To have such a framework requires more concepts, and having more concepts requires reading. So get the screens out of your room and surround yourself with books.
“What is truth?” Sometimes people ask this question because they wish to do nothing. Generic cynicism makes us feel hip and alternative even as we slip along with our fellow citizens into a morass of indifference. It is your ability to discern facts that makes you an individual, and our collective trust in common knowledge that makes us a society. The individual who investigates is also the citizen who builds. The leader who dislikes the investigators is a potential tyrant.
The better print journalists allow us to consider the meaning, for ourselves and our country, of what might otherwise seem to be isolated bits of information. But while anyone can repost an article, researching and writing is hard work that requires time and money. Before you deride the “mainstream media,” note that it is no longer the mainstream. It is derision that is mainstream and easy, and actual journalism that is edgy and difficult.
A smile, a handshake, or a word of greeting—banal gestures in a normal situation—took on great significance. When friends, colleagues, and acquaintances looked away or crossed the street to avoid contact, fear grew. You might not be sure, today or tomorrow, who feels threatened in the United States. But if you affirm everyone, you can be sure that certain people will feel better.
People who assure you that you can only gain security at the price of liberty usually want to deny you both.
Modern tyranny is terror management. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that authoritarians exploit such events in order to consolidate power. The sudden disaster that requires the end of checks and balances, the dissolution of opposition parties, the suspension of freedom of expression, the right to a fair trial, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. Do not fall for it.
If none of us is prepared to die for freedom, then all of us will die under tyranny.
Until recently, we Americans had convinced ourselves that there was nothing in the future but more of the same. The seemingly distant traumas of fascism, Nazism, and communism seemed to be receding into irrelevance. We allowed ourselves to accept the politics of inevitability, the sense that history could move in only one direction: toward liberal democracy. After communism in eastern Europe came to an end in 1989-91, we imbibed the myth of an “end of history.” In doing so, we lowered our defenses, constrained our imagination, and opened the way for precisely the kinds of regimes we told ourselves could never return.
Both of these positions, inevitability and eternity, are antihistorical. The only thing that stands between them is history itself.
