On Tyranny: The Book to Help You Understand Why Democracy Is Failing In 2025

by Timothy Snyder

The mistake is to assume that rulers who came to power through institutions cannot change or destroy those very institutions—even when that is exactly what they have announced that they will do.

that human nature is such that American democracy must be defended from Americans who would exploit its freedoms to bring about its end.

Because the American federal government uses mercenaries in warfare and American state governments pay corporations to run prisons, the use of violence in the United States is already highly privatized.

AUTHORITARIAN REGIMES USUALLY include a special riot police force whose task is to disperse citizens who seek to protest, and a secret state police force whose assignments include the murder of dissenters or others designated as enemies.

those who did not change when the world around them did—whom we remember and admire today.

Each story on televised news is “breaking” until it is displaced by the next one. So we are hit by wave upon wave but never see the ocean.

that aroused feelings before people had time to ascertain facts.

First, ideas about change must engage people of various backgrounds who do not agree about everything. Second, people must find themselves in places that are not their homes, and among groups who were not previously their friends.

The way to destroy all rules, he explained, was to focus on the idea of the exception.