On Freedom

by Timothy Snyder

Americans live in a country where a sitting president gave advance warning that he would declare victory even if he lost an election. Having lost decisively in November 2020, Donald Trump proceeded to declare victory with Hitlerian boldness, speaking of “a historical landslide.” He repeated claims of fraud that he knew to be false, and he urged his followers to support him in overthrowing representative government. Thousands obliged by invading the Capitol on January 6, 2021. A major television network, Fox, lent credence to his lie, even though the television hosts knew that they were repeating an untruth. They were worried that the stock price of their company might otherwise fall. This chain of events should give pause to anyone who believes that unregulated capitalism is consistent with democracy. When push came to shove, capitalism was consistent, in the case of one very important company, with a coup and with the propagation of the associated big lie.