Twenty Lessons, read by John Lithgow

 

Key selections from On Tyranny, for viewing and sharing

Timothy Snyder

Mar 30, 2025

Here is my best guidance for action, rendered beautifully by the great John Lithgow. I first published these lessons more than eight years ago, in late 2016. They open the twenty chapters of On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. Millions of you, around the world, have put these lessons to good use; it has been humbling to learn how from courageous and creative dissenters, protestors, and oppositionists. I am delighted to have this special chance now to share the lessons again. I was honored when John, a wise advocate for civil discourse and civic engagement, volunteered to read them aloud.

Above is his film. Below is the text, excerpted from the book. Do share this.

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(There are 20 points)

1. Do not obey in advance. 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.

2. Defend institutions. It is institutions that help us to preserve decency. They need our help as well. Do not speak of "our institutions" unless you make them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions do not protect themselves. They fall one after the other unless each is defended from the beginning. So choose an institution you care about -- a court, a newspaper, a law, a labor union -- and take its side.

3. Beware the one-party state. The parties that remade states and suppressed rivals were not omnipotent from the start. They exploited a historic moment to make political life impossible for their opponents. So support the multiple-party system and defend the rules of democratic elections. Vote in local and state elections while you can. Consider running for office.

4. Take responsibility for the face of the world. The symbols of today enable the reality of tomorrow. Notice the swastikas and the other signs of hate. Do not look away, and do not get used to them. Remove them yourself and set an example for others to do so.

5. Remember professional ethics. When political leaders set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become more important. It is hard to subvert a rule-of-law state without lawyers, or to hold show trials without judges. Authoritarians need obedient civil servants, and concentration camp directors seek businessmen interested in cheap labor.

6. Be wary of paramilitaries. When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching with torches and pictures of a leader, the end is nigh. When the pro-leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the end has come.

7. Be reflective if you must be armed. If you carry a weapon in public service, may God bless you and keep you. But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things. Be ready to say no.

8. Stand out. Someone has to. It is easy to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different. But without that unease, there is no freedom. Remember Rosa Parks. The moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow.

9. Be kind to our language. Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying. Make an effort to separate yourself from the internet. Read books.

10. Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.

READ MORE:

On substack.

https://snyder.substack.com/p/twenty-lessons-read-by-john-lithgow 

Budget Bill gives a $7 trillion tax cut on the backs of the poor and does NOT cut deficit!

 

Write a letter to your congressman or a letter to the editor about the new budget bill!

And, as I suspected, the new budget bill slashes services to the poor while handing out a tax cut to the billionaires. The U.S. House Committee on Financial Services wrote this: "Not only will this bill hand billionaires like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg a massive $7 trillion tax cut, but it also slashes $880 billion in Medicaid and funding for food stamps. At a time when our nation is facing a worsening housing and climate crisis, this bill guts funding for affordable, climate-resilient housing."

The US House Committee also says it will "Drive U.S. Toward 2008-Style Recession"


And it says the bill will " These sweeping deregulatory measures defund the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau which was created after the financial crisis of 2008 to protect working-class families from financial fraud and abuse and has saved consumers $21 billion since. It abolishes oversight bodies like the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, established to regulate auditors after two major accounting scandals and the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), and Office of Financial Research (OFR), leaving millions of American families vulnerable to a financial crash."
https://democrats-financialservices.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=413304


Furthermore, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Government says that “The Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimated that the bill as written would increase deficits by $3.8 trillion through 2034, or 1.1 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP); if all of its expiring policies are extended permanently, we estimate it would add $5.3 trillion to deficits, or 1.5 percent of GDP.”
https://www.crfb.org/blogs/permanent-ways-means-bill-could-add-53-trillion-deficits


So, they have made very harmful cuts that will impact the poorest of Americans and asked us all to sacrifice but they are NOT reducing the deficit or the debt, but raising it, while giving tax cuts to billionaires. I feel that this is sinister, and that we should all object to this bill.


Crushing dissent. A quote from the ACLU (May 13th) regarding the new budget bill:

“In an apparent effort to aid President Trump’s discriminatory clamp down on free speech, Republicans on the House Ways & Means Committee have snuck a dangerous anti-dissent bill into their massive, new tax package.

“This provision, formerly known as H.R. 9495, would grant the executive branch the power to effectively shut down any non-profit organization — including news outlets, universities, and civil liberties groups — by accusing them of “supporting terrorism” and using that accusation to suspend their tax-exempt status without any real due process. It was defeated last year, yet extreme politicians are now trying to resurrect it once again.”

https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-urges-house-committee-to-remove-dangerous-anti-dissent-provision-from-tax-bill


Allowing the government to curb our free speech in this manner is a dangerous road to go down, and smacks of totalitarianism.

Republican tax bill could slap ‘terrorism’ label on non-profits opposed to Trump

(From the Guardian, May 14th)

Fears sparked that Trump would wield law against groups that file lawsuits or organize voters against his policies

Chris Stein in Washington


Non-profit groups are sounding the alarm over an attempt by Republican lawmakers to insert a provision allowing the government to cancel the tax-exempt status of organizations it deems “terrorist supporting” in a massive bill under negotiation in the House of Representatives.

The provision’s potential inclusion in the spending and taxation legislation that Donald Trump and his allies refer to as “one big, beautiful bill” has sparked fears that the administration will wield it against groups who file lawsuits or organize voters against his policies.

Lia Holland, campaigns and communications director at tech policy non-profit Fight for the Future, described the provision as “a five-alarm fire for non-profits nationwide”.

“Any organization with goals that do not line up with Maga can be destroyed with a wink from Trump to the treasury”, likely those that oppose his policies towards Israel, or advocate for causes like racial justice and the environment, they said.

Trump had made plain his desire for revenge against his enemies, and since taking office has sought to deport foreign students who engaged in pro-Palestinian activism, blacklisted law firms who have worked for his political opponents and backed the arrest of a county judge on charges of obstructing immigration authorities.


“This provision has nothing to do with keeping Americans safe and instead is an attack on free speech, the security of our communities, and the work of non-profit organizations and charities,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, which has repeatedly taken the White House to court over its policies.

READ MORE:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/14/tax-status-non-profits-terrorism-republicans

James Comey is under investigation for his '8647' Instagram post.

 

What does it mean?

May 16, 20251:54 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered
By
Rachel Treisman

The Trump administration is investigating former FBI Director James Comey over a social media post that some government officials and supporters of President Trump are interpreting as a threat to the president.

On Thursday, Comey shared a picture on Instagram of seashells on a beach arranged into the numbers "8647." The caption read: "Cool shell formation on my beach walk."

"Eighty-six" is a slang term that means "get rid of," and Trump is the 47th (and 45th) president of the United States. According to Merriam-Webster, the most common meaning of 86 — which has its roots in the service industry — is to "throw out" or "refuse service to" a customer. The dictionary notes that the term has also come to mean "to kill." But the dictionary says it does not include this meaning in the official entry "due to its relative recency and sparseness of use."



The post sparked uproar among some Republicans, who suggested Comey was threatening the president. Donald Trump Jr. accused him of "calling for my dad to be murdered."

But Comey, who deleted the photo within hours, said he assumed the shells were a "political message," not a violent one. It's unclear who created the shell formation.

Comey has been an outspoken critic of Trump since he led the FBI during the president's first term. Trump fired Comey in 2017, four years into his ten-year term, as he was overseeing an investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

"I didn't realize some folks associate those numbers with violence," Comey wrote on Instagram. "It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down."

Several Republican politicians are calling for Comey to face consequences ranging from an investigation to an arrest. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced late Thursday that her department and the Secret Service are "investigating this threat and will respond appropriately." NPR has reached out to Comey for comment and did not receive a response before publication of this story.
Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi told NPR on Friday that the agency is aware of Comey's post and takes "rhetoric like this very seriously."


"The Secret Service vigorously investigates anything that can be taken as a potential threat against our protectees," Guglielmi said.

Some Republicans, including Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, say they do not believe Comey was unaware of the term's violent connotations.

"I'm very concerned for the president's life; we've already seen assassination attempts," Gabbard told Fox News on Thursday. "I'm very concerned for his life and James Comey, in my view, should be held accountable and put behind bars for this."


Then-candidate Trump survived two assassination attempts while running for reelection last year.

He was wounded in a shooting during a July campaign rally in Pennsylvania. In September, a man trained his rifle on the president's security detail as he golfed in Florida, but fled after being spotted. The man, Ryan Routh, was charged with attempted assassination of a presidential candidate but has pleaded not guilty — and on Thursday asked a judge to dismiss some of the charges against him.

On Friday, Trump told Fox News that he thinks Comey "knew exactly what he meant."

"A child knows what that meant. If you're the FBI director and you don't know ... that meant 'assassination,'" Trump said in a clip of an interview scheduled to air Friday night. "And it says it loud and clear. He wasn't very competent, but he was competent enough to know what that meant."

READ MORE:

https://www.npr.org/2025/05/16/nx-s1-5400400/comey-trump-8647-investigation-instagram

This Is What a Digital Coup Looks Like

 

Carole Cadwalladr

TED talks

17 min.

Apr 9, 2025

I've been feeling a lot of panic and fear about this talk. And not just for the normal reasons of public speaking, although that's there, too. But it's also because I want to say something meaningful, and I've been overwhelmed by the enormity of what is happening right now. And there's a particular set of circumstances which have also been feeding into my confusion and denial.

00:36

And that is because the last time that I stood on this stage, it led to a three-year legal battle, culminated in London's High Court, in which it felt like I was on trial for my life, because I was. My career, my reputation, my finances, even my home was on the line. All because I came here to warn you that I didn't think democracy was going to survive the technology that you're building, however incredible it is.

01:13

In fact, I was the person who almost didn't survive, and pretty much everything I was warning about is now coming true. I can't sugarcoat it. It's a bit of a headfuck.

01:27

(Laughter)

01:30

I have a lot of emotions about coming here. And TED, also, I suspect, is feeling them too. But what actually I finally realized yesterday is that the denial and the confusion that I've been feeling is maybe what you're feeling, too.

01:48

I felt powerless for a really long time. So if that's what you're feeling, I get it. But we have to act now. My alarm system is ringing again. There are things that we can do. In my case, I survived. And you will too. But it's by learning how to fight back.

02:16

This is my guide, and it has to start with naming it. It's a coup.

02:26

I know you probably don't want to hear that, and especially here, but we can’t fight it if we can’t see it. And we can’t see it if we don’t name it.

02:34

(Applause)

02:41

The Russian and American presidents are now speaking the same words. They are telling the same lies. We are watching the collapse of the international order in real time. And this is just the start.

02:58

Coups are like concrete. When they stop moving, they set. It is already later than we think.

03:07

This image, some of you in this room might know these people. I call it tech bros in hostage situations. It's a message to you. This is Putin's playbook. He allows a business elite to make untold riches in exchange for absolute loyalty.

03:26

Some people are calling this oligarchy, but it's actually bigger than that. These are global platforms. It's broligarchy. [Tech bros + oligarchy = broligarchy]

03:40

(Laughter and murmuring)

03:42

(Applause)

03:48

There is an alignment of interests that runs through Silicon Valley to what is now a coming autocracy. It's a type of power that the world has never seen before.

04:07

[Follow the data]

04:09

It's always the data. It's the crack cocaine of Silicon Valley. You know, the first thing that Elon Musk did was to send his cyber troops into the US Treasury to get access to the data. That is not a coincidence. It's a hack. That data is now feeding AIs that are choosing who to sack and who to replace -- Sorry -- eliminate fraud and waste.

04:34

(Laughter)

04:36

When we broke the Cambridge Analytica story about the harvesting [of] 87 million people’s Facebook data, people freaked out, rightly. [That] is chicken feed compared to [this]. But it is the blueprint. It's always the data. Which is why it's so important that you start thinking about your private life. The broligarchy doesn't want you to have one. This is the old headquarters of the East German secret police. They kept detailed files on almost one in three of their citizens. That is nothing compared to what Google has on every single one of us, and hundreds of other companies. The entire business model of Silicon Valley is surveillance. It harvests our data in order to sell us stuff. We are already living inside the architecture of totalitarianism.

COINTINUE READING:

Transcript: https://www.ted.com/talks/carole_cadwalladr_this_is_what_a_digital_coup_looks_like/transcript

Video: https://youtu.be/TZOoT8AbkNE?si=BRNHrO8jv-urKpzZ

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