This is a series of posts involving Dr. Timothy Snyder’s book On Tyranny. In the book, Snyder, a professor at Yale University who specializes in the history of tyrannical movements, shares twenty lessons on how to address and defeat tyranny.
Each lesson contains a short amount of text as well as a video featuring Snyder expanding on the text. This is lesson #18:
Lesson #18: Be Calm When the Unthinkable Arrives
“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.”
