On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

by Timothy Snyder

The odd American idea that giving money to political campaigns is free speech means that the very rich have far more speech, and so in effect far more voting power, than other citizens.

The first mode is the open hostility to verifiable reality, which takes the form of presenting inventions and lies as if they were facts.

Fascists despised the small truths of daily existence, loved slogans that resonated like a new religion, and preferred creative myths to history or journalism. They used new media, which at the time was radio, to create a drumbeat of propaganda that aroused feelings before people had time to ascertain facts. And now, as then, many people confused faith in a hugely flawed leader with the truth about the world we all share.

The leader who dislikes the investigators is a potential tyrant.

the word lies to mean facts not to his liking, and called journalists enemies of the people (as Hitler and the Nazis had done). Where the Nazis said “Lügenpresse,” he said “Fake news.” That president was on friendlier terms with the internet, his source for erroneous information that he passed on to millions of people.

For us, the lesson is that our natural fear and grief must not enable the destruction of our institutions.