Timothy Snyder

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an 10 26

President Donald Trump's Republican Party acts less like a traditional political party than a cult of personality, according to a historian who specializes in fascism — and he points a finger of blame at Russia.

"How does the party go along, in lockstep with that?" podcaster Shane Smith asked historian Timothy Snyder in a video that dropped on Thursday. "I get that, and I probably agree with that, but that’s one person. How do you get the whole party, if not the whole country, to just overnight agree with you in lockstep?"

Snyder replied, "I’m going to answer that, but I’m going to qualify it first, because it’s not the whole country. The polling on the Russia-Ukraine war is actually pretty good. Even Republicans are about fifty-fifty, independents are mostly pro-Ukraine, and Democrats are overwhelmingly pro-Ukraine. So I wouldn’t say the whole country. There has been a seismic shift in the American right. And I think there are a couple of causes beyond Trump, who has a lot of influence. Opinion polls on Russia among certain people change because of him. He does have a lot of influence on, let’s say, half the Republican electorate."

He continued, "But in addition to that, there’s the fact that a lot of Americans on the far right really like Putin’s ideology. They like the notion of civilization. They like the sexism. They like the racism. They like the conspiracy thinking. They like the anti-gay stuff. And then, to make matters a little more practical, Putin’s Russia shares money around with the far right. I worked on this in Europe. I’ve never worked on it in the US, but I’d be stunned if it weren’t true in the US as well. They support individual right-wing actors with money, and they also platform them. And they also coach them, like with Tucker Carlson."

Snyder later pointed out that Russia is no longer left-wing, as it was under the Soviet Union, but is right-wing under President Vladimir Putin.

"There’s the fact that Russia is no longer the communist Soviet Union; it’s right-wing Russia, which is naturally attractive to certain right-wing people," Snyder told Smith. "And then there are all the ops. The way we run social media in the US is basically laissez-faire: anybody can do what they want to do. And under Trump, that’s basically policy, which means that not just the Russians, but the Chinese and everybody else, are all over our social media. I think that’s some of the answer."

He added, "And then let’s not overestimate the American memory, or underestimate the American capacity for contradiction. Right now, the Republicans are trying to claim that the current midterm election is about anti-communism, when their guy admires a former KGB officer, fawns over the head of the Chinese Communist Party, and couldn’t say nicer things about the communist dictator of North Korea. So part of it is just an American capacity to not remember things and to embrace contradiction.

I wrote a book that was largely about the 2015–2016 Russian operations in the US. I’m forgetting now who said this, but he had his finger on something important. One of the Russian operatives was actually in the United States trying to figure out what they were going to do with the social media ops. He said, 'These people believe in anything they want, and I admire them for that.' That’s of course not true of all Americans, but there is a certain fluidity around the way we remember politics sometimes, which means the Cold War doesn’t really last as long as one might think."

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AN 10 26

Historian Timothy D. Snyder knows what is likely coming on the evening of Nov. 3 and it's allegations that the election was "rigged." He wants Americans ready and prepared to respond quickly, if not before he makes the claim.

Speaking to former GOP strategist Steve Schmitt, Snyder said he doesn't want to think of it as first you vote and second you act.

"The other part is being prepared to win," he said, "because I agree with you completely in your forecast. I think this is going to be overwhelming. I think it's going to be bigger than people think basically. And I think, if anything, the Democrats are scared to imagine how big their victory is going to be because if it's big they're going to have to take responsibility for stuff. So, part of it is not just voting and being like, 'oh, what is Trump going to do?' But think, you know what? The people I'm voting for are going to win. And I'm willing to take action along those lines, which means telling people how I voted, telling people what I expected, doing your own media work."

The other thing it means, he said, is that Americans must "call the shot in advance," a pool metaphor for calling which ball will go into which pocket.

"However we think it's going to go, your scenario is very plausible, probably I have some other ideas of what they might do," he continued. "But whatever they do, it's what losers do. And you have to get that out ahead of time and you have to be ready to laugh at it. Like every trick that Trump can play has been played by Viktor Orban, or has been played by somebody else in the last couple of years. You have to get out in front of people and say, look, when they do that, like when Trump claims that he won, that's what he did because he lost, right? And it's the kind of thing that losers do."

In the media space, he said that Democrats must come out ready to tell their story about why they won and how they intend to use that win to deliver on the top issues like the affordability crisis, gas prices and corruption.

"Morning of Nov. 4th we should be thinking about money out of politics, end of corruption. We should be thinking about things that are good that could happen," Snyder said.

Doing that will inoculate everyone against Trump's idea that he really won and that it was all rigged.

"Trump going on TV and saying, well, you know, I'm raising my hand to say that by the way they stole the election again, it will seem a little archaic and silly," Snyder explained. Especially "if you can put it in the context of, 'Hey, we actually have a moment of hope.'"

He warned that letting Trump frame the narrative gives him a better chance of being taken seriously. Instead, he wants Democrats and those around them to frame it as "we're going to start doing really important and transformative stuff, I think that makes the setting much harder for Trump to do the kind of thing that you're describing."

One of the disaster scenarios that conservative retired Judge Michael Luddig warned about is that Republicans could refuse to seat any of the Democratic lawmakers elected. Snyder thinks Trump has likely already had that conversation, along with every other possibility.

"We should deny that Trump is omnipotent, because he's not. And the things that he might wish to happen still depend on other people fulfilling his wishes, and whether they fulfill his wishes are going to depend on how big the Democratic victory is, whether those people think that they might go to prison for what they're doing and also the overall atmosphere."

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new bk

17,832 views Oct 30, 2025

www.writersblocpresents.com Skirball Cultural Center Video: Karl Sonnenberg Freedom is our great American challenge. What exactly is freedom and how do we keep it? Political commentator and historian Timothy Snyder, internationally renowned expert on the rise of authoritarianism and fascism in Central and Eastern Europe in the 20th Century and beyond, asks what freedom means in his new book. On Freedom explains in the brilliant way that only he can, what liberty does and does not entail. The question of what freedom means rings throughout the book. What could be more relevant now? For years, throughout so many of his great books (such as On Tyranny; Bloodlands; Black Earth; and others) Snyder has been warning us about the fragility of freedom, and what we can and must do to retain it and to reclaim it. And he is clear that it’s now or never.

Timothy Snyder and Jessica Levinson | October 25, 2025 - YouTube

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toronto has BB downtown

How to Fight Fascism in Americ… - The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - Apple Podcasts

snyder on prof g pod: feels good man, gonna do it eventually

Steve Bannon Nazi Salute

C-SPAN

https://www.c-span.org › video › user-clip-steve-banno...](https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5154286/user-clip-steve-bannon-nazi-salute)

Feb 20, 2025 — Steve Bannon throws a Nazi salute on stage at CPAC 2025. The crowd loves it.

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an 5 25 the conv

In the most non-controversial and basic sense, the rule of law means formal legality. The law binds citizens and governments. When it comes to nation states, law is enacted by democratically elected legislatures; legal statutes are openly available and sufficiently clear to follow. State actions can be judicially reviewed for compliance with a constitution.

In its more ambitious conceptualization, the rule of law can also be understood to include substantive human rights and equity. In Canada, The Constitution Act of 1982 references the rule of law in its preamble.

The modern Canadian iteration of the rule of law — which includes substantive ideas about human rights as well as Indigenous treaty rights — is based on liberal ideas shared by many countries, including, historically, the United States. What distinguishes a rule-of-law state from an authoritarian one to a large extent is whether state actions can be judicially reviewed for compliance with a constitution.

Although rule of law scholars debate the parameters of the concept of the rule of law, few would debate that what is happening during U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term presents anything other than a wholesale attack on the rule of law both domestically in the U.S and internationally.

I am a rule of law researcher, educator and lawyer. Since Trump was elected to his first term in 2016, I’ve relied on American scholars, from a variety of disciplines, to understand what is happening.

These include two prominent Yale professors, philosopher Jason Stanley and historian Timothy Snynder, both of whom have recently announced they’re moving to the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto.

Authoritarian impulse

In their scholarship, Stanley and Snyder have sought to explain the authoritarian impulses of the first Trump administration and how to resist it.

Stanley’s father, a German Jew who fled Germany for America in 1939, carries the remembrance of fascism.

Both Stanley and Snyder explore the similarities between what is occurring in Trump’s America, Viktor Orban’s Hungary, Vladimir Putin’s Russia, Xi Jinping’s China and, equally chillingly, between Trump’s America and Adolf Hitler’s Germany. Even prior to the first Trump presidency, Stanley already asked in his 2015 book, How Propoganda Works, whether the U.S., “the world’s oldest liberal democracy,” might already have become a liberal democracy “in name only?”

Examination of propaganda, rhetoric

In his 2018 book, The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America, Snyder described Trump as a “sado-populist, whose policies were designed to hurt the most vulnerable people of his own electorate.”

Stanley’s focus on propaganda and rhetoric were especially useful for framing the politics of Trump.

Similarly, Snyder’s focus on the similarities between Trump and other authoritarian leaders, through their attachment to extreme illiberal ideologies, helped frame public discourse in the U.S. during the first Trump presidency. “Illiberal” does not imply conservative in opposition to “being liberal” (with the resonance of “leftist”); rather, it denotes a repudiation of liberal democracy, in the words of political scientist Thomas J. Main.

Both Stanley and Snyder are on the public record explaining their decision to immigrate to Canada, on the basis that they can no longer continue their scholarly activities in an American university, even a premier one like Yale.Jason Stanley speaks with Amanpour and Company.

Improper interference

This is an admission by important thinkers that civil society, intellectuals and critical scholars, in particular, are under assault.

It comes as no surprise given other developments. Trump’s executive orders, threats to some university funding and crackdowns on activists and academics — as well as the attempted deportations of those without U.S. citizenship — have used the idea of combatting campus antisemitism as cover for an attack on free expression, academic independence and student activism.

From my perspective as a Jewish person, a post-secondary teacher and as someone with a legal education, all of these developments have hit hard, especially alongside accounts of some of America’s most prestigious law firms caving to improper interference by the Trump administration.

What ‘fascism’ means

In the introduction to his bestselling 2020 book, How Fascism Works, Stanley wrote: “In recent years, multiple countries across the world have been overtaken by a certain kind of far-right nationalism; the list includes Russia, Hungary, Poland, India, Turkey and the United States.”

He explains the choice of the word “fascism” to speak about each of these countries, despite their differences of degree and context:

“I have chosen the label ‘fascism’ for ultra nationalism of some variety (ethnic, religious, cultural), with the nation represented in the person of an authoritarian leader who speaks on its behalf. As Donald Trump declared in his Republican National Convention speech in July 2016, ‘I am your voice.’”

In his similarly bestselling book, On Tyranny, published in 2017, Snyder wrote: “To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is not basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.”

Now that Trump is back in office, Stanley and Snyder, as well as Snyder’s Yale colleague and spouse, Marie Shore, the celebrated author of The Ukrainian Night, are leaving Yale for Canada with good reason.Author Timothy Snyder speaks about Democracy and the Risk of Tyranny with Public Policy Forum.

Shared mutual concern

While the departure of a handful of prominent academics is hardly a trend, it raises questions about whether there will be an accelerated academic “brain drain”, or more American students in Canada.

As a Canadian, I would like to say America’s loss is our gain, and I wish these scholars well. I am also aware that narratives of flight to Canada as refuge have historically bolstered national myths while obscuring Canadian inequities. My hope is that Canadians will not observe the arrival of U.S. scholars with smugness, but instead with shared concern.

We should not be blind to this unique moment in which Canada is called to revisit why we care about Canada and keep watch on the rule of law. Yet, we must also recognize our own profound historical blind spots.

For example, while an overt threat to sovereignty is new for some Canadians, it is nothing new for Canada’s Indigenous Peoples. Today it’s important to understand the distinctively Canadian importance of Indigenous law to any reaffirmation of the rule of law tradition in Canada in the 21st century.

Too much cynicism might prevent us from acknowledging the importance of these three scholars’ decisions to leave their country and come to ours at this particular time in history. However, my hope is also that we are also inspired by their considerable truth-telling skills to demand Canada also do better.

Jeffrey B. Meyers, Instructor, Legal Studies and Criminology, *Kwantlen Polytechnic University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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AN NO LNX

We've reached the moment of maximum peril for our nation and our freedoms

Donald Trump talks to Shalga Hightower, mother of Iofemi Hightower who was killed in 2007, during a meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., September 2, 2016.

Thom Hartmann February 24, 2025

Get ready.

The resistance to billionaires running our government is growing. Bernie Sanders is touring the Red State Midwest and drawing massive crowds. Federal workers are pissed. Republican politicians are in hiding, refusing to do town halls even when their constituents demand them or try to set them up.

Comrade Krasnov’s…er, Trump’s polling numbers are collapsing as fast as his embrace of Comrade Putin is growing. Fascism expert and On Tyranny author Professor Timothy Snyder notes over at BlueSky:

“Nervous Musk, Trump, Vance have all been outclassed in public arguments these last few days. Government failure, stock market crash, and dictatorial alliances are not popular. People are starting to realize that there is no truth here beyond the desire for personal wealth and power.”

James Carville told Dan Abrams:

“This whole thing is collapsing. … I believe that this administration, in less than 30 days, is in the midst of a massive collapse and particularly a collapse in public opinion.”

At the same time, four Republicans have now thrown Nazi salutes, three over this past weekend at CPAC. They think they can overcome their fear of the people by intimidating us.

This is a moment of maximum peril for our nation and our freedoms because if, as Rachel Bitecofer documents, Trump and his followers really are following Hitler’s script to seize total power and turn America into an authoritarian dictatorship, the next step may well be to exploit an attack on America.

Germans remember well that fateful day ninety-two years ago this week: February 27, 1933. It started when the government, in the midst of a worldwide economic crisis, received reports of an imminent terrorist attack.

A Dutch communist named Marius van der Lubbe had launched feeble attacks on a few famous buildings, but the media largely ignored his relatively small efforts. The German intelligence services knew, however, that the odds were he would eventually succeed. (Historians still argue whether rogue elements in Hitler’s intelligence service helped him; the most recent research implies they did not, but simply watched him proceed.)

And then van der Lubbe took down the prize of Germany, the Parliament building (the Reichstagsgebäude), setting it ablaze on that February day.

Hitler knew the strike was coming (although he apparently didn’t know where or when), and he had already considered his response. When an aide brought him word that the nation’s most prestigious building was ablaze, he verified it was van der Lubbe who had struck and then rushed to the scene and called a press conference.

“You are now witnessing the beginning of a great epoch in history,” he proclaimed, standing in front of the burned-out building, surrounded by national media. “This fire,” he said, his voice trembling with emotion, “is the beginning.” He used the occasion — “a sign from God,” he called it — to declare an all-out “war on terrorism” and the groups he said were its ideological sponsors, the socialists and Jews.

Two weeks later, the first detention center for “terrorists” was built in Oranianberg to hold the first suspected “allies” of the infamous terrorist. Within four weeks of the terrorist attack, Hitler had pushed through legislation — in the name of combating terrorism and fighting the “liberal” philosophy he said spawned it — that suspended constitutional guarantees of free speech, privacy, and habeas corpus.

His Decree on the Protection of People and State allowed police to intercept mail and wiretap phones; suspected terrorists could be imprisoned without specific charges and without access to their lawyers; and police could sneak into people's homes without warrants if the cases involved terrorism.

It was the beginning of the end of a democratic Germany.

Similarly, in 2002, the new Russian President Putin was engaged in a war with Chechnya, trying to subdue and subsume a nation that has been both under Russian rule and independent over the past several centuries, very much like Ukraine.

A theater in Moscow was seized that year by “Chechen rebels” who began executing theater-goers: Putin ordered poisonous gas apparently made of something like fentanyl poured into the theater, and it let his police take back the theater (although many of the hostages, along with their tormentors, died from the gas).

Putin used the attack as an excuse to escalate his years-long conflict with the parts of Chechnya that still were fighting for their independence from Russia; he launched a major WWII-style land invasion and bombing campaign. Tens of thousands died, entire cities were destroyed, and Chechnya was largely subdued within the year.

In the aftermath of that 2002 theater attack and subsequent war there was speculation from multiple sources and countries that Putin knew the attack was coming and welcomed it, believing he could use it as an excuse to escalate his low-level conflict with Chechnya to elevate his own profile while finally seizing full control of the region.

It was an echo of the Moscow apartment bombings in 1999 that then-Prime Minister Putin used to leverage himself into the presidency the following year. He’d used those terror attacks to consolidate his power, and repeated the trick in 2003 beginning with the 2003 arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the head of Yukos Oil. By the following year most serious voices of dissent or opposition in Russia were either dead, in prison, or fleeing for their lives.

There’s a long history of leaders using national emergencies to raise their popularity, expand their own power, overwhelm opposition politicians, scapegoat minorities, suspend constitutions and elections, and provide a legal façade for ending or weakening democracy.

Both George W. Bush and Benjamin Netanyahu — at a time when their popularity was in the toilet and charges of impropriety were swirling (in Netanyahu’s case, actual criminal charges) — ignored multiple warnings of attacks coming.

The 9/11 and October 7 attacks — predicted by agencies and nations warning American and Israeli intelligence services respectively — were then successfully used by both to consolidate their own popularity and power.

Which is why this is such a dangerous moment that requires vigilance and preparation.

Trump’s popularity is now collapsing as his largest campaign donor takes a chainsaw to the American government, threatening virtually every aspect of federal and state functions from Social Security to Medicaid to medical research and foreign aid. An attack on America that would enable him to play the role Bush did after 9/11 would be very politically useful.

In an extreme case, which he has publicly mused about, an attack could justify his declaring a national state of emergency, suspending elections, and putting the Constitution on ice. He could then shut down media he doesn’t like, imprison people who speak out, and suspend the 2026 and 2028 elections.

All legally.

At the same time he’s contemplating this, the FBI — America’s premiere counterterrorism organization — is being scattered with as many as 1500 agents leaving Washington, DC. An open apologist for Putin has been put in charge of our intelligence services. And the senior leadership of our military was just purged, replaced with toadies who’ll praise Trump as if this were North Korea at every opportunity.

And the JAG officers of each branch of the military along with their senior commanders — the people who would determine the legality of presidential orders to, say, shoot at protestors or open detention camps for journalists and dissidents — have been fired and replaced by loyalists who’ll do whatever Trump demands.

Brett Holmgren was the director of the National Counterterrorism Center until a few weeks ago; he recently warned that the threat levels right now are at unprecedented highs.

Muslims around the world are incensed by Israel’s slaughter in Gaza; Ukrainian expats and refugees are furious about Trump’s embrace of Putin; and the Afghanistan-based Islamic State-Khorasan has already carried out attacks killing 13 Americans along with a recent slaughter in Moscow.

And, pointing to the deadly New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans last month, Holmgren added:

“I think it illustrates that while we have been quite effective as a government and across administrations at disrupting plotting overseas and going after terrorist leaders, we have a lot more work to do when it comes to countering violent extremism at home…”

Anybody remember the bombs left at the RNC and DNC on January 6th? The bomber is still at large, not to mention groups across the political spectrum — and recently fired federal workers — who may have grievances against our government. And people from nations around the world where USAID was keeping friends and relatives alive but isn’t any longer.

I sincerely hope I’m wrong in my concern that we’re facing the very real possibility of an imminent attack that will be exploited by Trump to put a final nail in the coffin of American democracy, but we all — and Democrats, in particular — need to be ready. The Reichstag Fire scenario could be closer than any of us expect.

As the saying goes: “Stand back and stand by.”

After a week of disastrous messaging by U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, resulting in a 180-degree turn and leaving European leaders and some Americans wondering what U.S. foreign policy is, the Trump administration is once again under fire as critics charge the team he has assembled to start discussions with Russia over its illegal war against Ukraine does not match the “heavyweights” Russia is sending.

The U.S. is already in the hot seat as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — who has made clear his country will accept no peace deal if they are not part of the negotiations — appears to have been frozen out of the initial talks, which were held Tuesday in Saudi Arabia.

European officials attending the Munich Security Conference last week, “stressed the need for Ukraine to be part of peace talks to end the war. Vice President JD Vance met with Zelenskyy in Munich Friday, telling him the U.S. wants a ‘durable, lasting peace,’ while Zelensky asked for ‘security guarantees,'” CBS News reported.

“Zelenskyy told the conference of world leaders that Ukraine would not accept a deal made ‘behind our backs without our involvement,’ and called for the creation of ‘armed forces of Europe’ amid the possibility of a changing relationship between Europe and the U.S.”

Early Tuesday afternoon the Associated Press, calling it “an extraordinary about-face in U.S. foreign policy,” reported: “Russia and US agree to work toward ending Ukraine war in a remarkable diplomatic shift.”

CNN reported that the “United States and Russia agreed on four principles following talks that lasted more than four hours in Saudi Arabia, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday, including appointing a high-level teamto help ‘negotiate and work through the end of the conflict in Ukraine’ in a way that’s ‘acceptable to all the parties engaged.’ Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was not invited to the talks,said Ukraine will not ‘give in to Russia’s ultimatums’ and earlier said he would refuse to sign any agreement negotiated without Kyiv’s involvement.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who reportedly was part of Tuesday’s talks, described them as “useful.”

The talks are expected to continue after this initial meeting. Trump administration officials at the talks in Saudi Arabia included U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.

Foreign policy expert and historian Sławomir Dębski, a former Russia foreign policy analyst, over the weekend described Russia’s team.

He named, “Yury Ushakov, the Kremlin’s chief foreign policy adviser, who has worked in diplomacy for over half a century,” “Sergey Naryshkin, Ushakov’s top spy, who served alongside Putin in the Soviet KGB,” and “Kirill Dmitriev, a financier educated at Stanford and Harvard, who has ties to the Kremlin chief’s family and, according to the publication, could play a key role as an unofficial ‘backchannel’ to Trump’s negotiators.”

“A rumour says that Vladymir Medinsky is to join the Russian team in Riyadh,” Dębski added. “He is a former Minister of Culture. Now he is Putin’s key adviser on ideological aspects of Russian aggression on Ukraine.”

Bloomberg News on Friday reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin “is assembling a heavyweight team with decades of experience in high-stakes negotiations to face off against US President Donald Trump’s representatives for a deal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.”

“That Putin is opting to rely mostly on highly skilled and experienced negotiators to represent Russia in any talks is hardly a surprise,” Bloomberg added. “The personnel choices underscore just how determined the Russian leader is to secure a favorable outcome in any negotiations and potentially how little his demands in relation to Ukraine have changed in the three years since he ordered the full-scale invasion.”

Yale University Professor Timothy Snyder, a historian and expert on the Soviet Union and the Holocaust, is the author of the popular bestseller, “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century.”

Responding to Dębski’s post, Snyder warned: “The American team has almost no experience in high-level international negotiation, no regional expertise on Ukraine and Russia, and no relevant foreign language knowledge. Not true of the Russians, to put it mildly. Looks like a bloodbath by design.”

Brad Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, blasted the Trump administration.

“It was a mistake for the Trump administration to negotiate with the Taliban without the Afghan government at the table. It is a mistake to negotiate with Putin without including Kyiv,” he wrote. “When the topic is the future of Ukraine, Kyiv has a right to be at the table, especially in light of the sacrifice and bravery of Ukrainians in defending their homes against Putin’s unprovoked invasion. Putin understands that the United States and Europe are more powerful together. That’s why he wants to divide us. We should not help him.”

2016 collusion post fbi mcgonigal

https://snyder.substack.com/p/the-specter-of-2016

...Anne Applebaum once put the question the right way: why didn't the FBI investigate Trump’s connections to Putin much earlier? In retrospect, it seems as though the FBI investigation of Trump’s campaign and its Russian connections in 2016 was not only late, but weirdly understated. Known as "Cross-Fire Hurricane," it defined the issue of Russian influence narrowly, as a matter of personal contact between Trump campaign officials and Russians. Meanwhile, as that investigation was going on, Russia was in the middle of a major social media campaign which, according to the leading scholar of presidential communications,:{ made it possible for Trump to be elected. And that larger influence campaign was not investigated by the FBI, let alone countered.

If anything, it looks as though the New York office of the FBI, wittingly or unwittingly, rather pushed in the same direction than resisted Russia’s pro-Trump influence operation. As no doubt everyone remembers, Russia was able to phish for emails from institutions and people around Clinton, and used some of them, out of context, to create harmful fictional narratives about her. Simultaneously, there was a concern about Clinton's use of a private email server. In the popular mind, these two issues blurred together, with Trump's help. Trump asked the Russians to break into Clinton's email account, which they immediately tried to do. Nothing about Clinton's emails proved to be of interest. The FBI closed an investigation in July 2016, saying that there was no basis for criminal charges against Clinton.

Then, weirdly, FBI director James Comey announced on 28 October 2016, just ten days before the election, that the investigation into Clinton's emails had been reopened. This created a huge brouhaha that (as polls showed) harmed Clinton and helped Trump. The investigation was closed again after only eight days, on 6 November, with no charges against Clinton. But that was just two days before the election, and the damage was done. As I recall it, in the fury of those last forty-eight hours, no one noticed Comey's second announcement, closing the investigation and clearing Clinton. I was canvassing at the time, and the people I spoke to were still quite excited about the emails. Why would the FBI publicly reveal an investigation on a hot issue involving a presidential candidate right before an election? It now appears that Comey made the public announcement because of an illicit kind of pressure from special agents in the FBI New York office. Comey believed that they would leak the investigation if he did not announce it.

In office, Trump knew that Russia had worked to get him elected, but the standard of guilt was placed so high that he could defend himself by saying that he personally had not colluded. The Mueller Report, which I still don't believe many people have actually read, demonstrated that there was a multidimensional Russian influence campaign on behalf of Trump. The Trump administration countered by claiming that there was no evidence that Trump personally had been in contact with Putin personally. That defense was certainly misleading; but it was available in part because of the narrow scope of FBI investigations in 2016.

To be fair, FBI, along with Homeland Security, did investigate cyber. But this was after the election when it could make no difference; and in the report, cyber was defined narrowly, limited to phishing and the breach of systems. These are important issues, but they were not the main issue. What the phishing and breach of systems enabled was the main issue: a social media campaign that exploited emotions, including misogyny, to mobilize and demobilize voters.

Russia used the raw email in specific operations on Trump's behalf, for example by rescuing him from the Access Hollywood tapes scandal. Right after it emerged that Trump advocated sexual assault, Russia released a fictional scandal connecting Clinton to the abuse of children. That allowed Trump's followers to believe that whatever he did, she was worse; and the scandal was blunted. It verges on inconceivable that McGonigal was unaware of Russia's 2016 influence campaign on behalf of Trump. He knew the players; he is now alleged to have been employed by one of them. Even I was aware of the Russia's 2016 influence campaign. It became one of the subjects of my book Road to Unfreedom, which I finished the following year.

The Russian influence campaign was an issue for American counterintelligence. It is worth pausing to understand why, since it helps us to see the centrality of McGonigal and the meaning of this scandal. Intelligence is about trying to understand. Counterintelligence is about making that hard for others. Branching out from counterintelligence are the more exotic operations designed to make an enemy not only misunderstand the situation, but also act on the basis of misunderstandings, against the enemy's own interests. Such operations, which have been a Russian (or Soviet) specialty for more than a century, go under the name of "provocation," or "active measures," or "maskirovka." It is the task of counterintelligence to understand active measures, and prevent them from working. The Russian influence operation on behalf of Trump was an active measure that the United States failed to halt. The cyber element, the use of social media, is what McGonigal personally, with his background and in his position, should have been making everyone aware of. In 2016, McGonigal was section chief of the FBI's Cyber-Counterintelligence Coordination Section. That October, he was put in charge of the Counterintelligence Division of the FBI's New York office.

And it was just then, in October 2016, that matters began to spin out of control. There were two moments, late in the presidential campaign, that decided the matter for Donald Trump. The first was when Russian rescued him from the Access Hollywood scandal (7 October). The second was FBI director James Comey's public announcement that he was reopening the investigation of Hillary Clinton's emails (28 October). The reason Comey made that public announcement at that highly sensitive time, ten days before the election, was not that he believed the public needed to know, nor that the matter was likely of great consequence. On his account, it was that he believed that FBI New York office was going to leak it anyway. Rudolph Giuliani had apparently already been the beneficiary of leaks; claimed to know in advance of what he called a "surprise" that would help Donald Trump, namely Comey's public announcement of the email investigation.

It looked at the time like Comey had been played by people in FBI New York who wanted Trump to win. Comey has now confirmed this, although his word choice might be different. And I did wonder, back then, if those special agents in New York, in turn, were being played. It was no secret at the time that FBI special agents in New York did not like Hillary Clinton. Making emotional commitments public is asking to be exploited. For people working in counterintelligence, this is a particularly unwise thing to do. The nature of working in counterintelligence is that, if you are not very good, you will find yourself in the vortex of someone else's active measure. Someone else will take advantage of your known vulnerabilities - your misogyny, perhaps, or your hatred of a specific female politician, or your entirely unjustified belief that a male politician is a patriotic messiah -- and get you to do something that feels like your own decision.

Now that we are informed that a central figure in the New York FBI office was willing to take money from foreign actors while on the job, this line of analysis bears some reconsideration. Objectively, FBI New York was acting in concert with Russia, ignoring or defining narrowly Russia's actions, and helping deliver the one-two punch to Clinton in October that very likely saved Trump. When people act in the interest of a foreign power, it is sometimes for money, it is sometimes because the foreign power knows something about them, it is sometimes for ideals, and it is sometimes for no conscious motive at all -- what one thinks of as one's own motives have been curated, manipulated, and directed. It seems quite possible -- I raise it as a hypothesis that reasonable people would consider -- that some mixture of these factors was at work at FBI New York in 2016.

All of these pieces of recent history must hang together in one way or another, and the fresh and shocking revelation of McGonigal's arrest is a chance for us to try to see how. Again, if these allegations are true, they will soon be surrounded by other heretofore unknown facts, which should lead us to consider the problem of election integrity in a general way. As of right now, the circumstantial evidence suggests that we consider the possibility that the FBI's reporting work in 2016, which resulted in a framing of the issue which was convenient for Trump and Russia, might have had something to do with the fact (per the indictments) that one of its lead agents was willing to take money from foreign actors while on the job. In connection with the leaks from FBI New York late in the 2016 campaign, which had the obvious effect of harming Clinton and helping Trump, McGonigal's arrest also demands a broader rethink of the scale of the 2016 disaster. How much was FBI New York, wittingly and unwittingly, caught up in a Russian active measure?

the charges have not been proven. If they are, it would be a bit surprising if the two offenses with which McGonigal is now charged were isolated events. There is a certain danger, apparently, in seeing them this way, and letting bygones be bygones. A U.S. attorney presenting the case said that McGonigal "should have known better"; that is the kind of thing one says when a child gets a bellyache after eating too much cotton candy at the county fair; it hardly seems to correspond to the gravity of the situation.

Failing to understand the Russian threat in the 2010s was a prelude to failing to understand the Russian threat in 2020s. And today Americans who support Russia in its war of atrocity tend to be members of the Trump family or people closely aligned with Trump, such as Giuliani. The people who helped Trump then take part in the war on Ukraine now. Consider one of the main architects of Russia's 2016 campaign to support Trump, Yevgeny**Prigozhin**. In 2016, his relevant position was as the head of the Internet Research Agency; they were the very people who (for example) helped spread the story about Clinton that rescued Trump from the Access Hollywood scandal. Without the Internet Research Agency covering his back, Trump would have had a much harder time in the 2016 election. Today, during the war in Ukraine, Prigozhin is now better known as the owner of Wagner, sending tens of thousands of Russian prisoners to kill and die.

The implications of the arrest go further. McGonigal had authority in sensitive investigations where the specific concern was that there was an American giving away other Americans to foreign governments. Untangling what that means will require a concern for the United States that goes beyond party loyalty. Unfortunately, some key political figures seem to be reacting to the news in the opposite spirit: suppressing the past, thereby destabilizing the future. Immediately after the McGonigal story broke, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy ejected Adam Schiff from the House intelligence committee, in a grand exhibition of indifference to national security. A veteran of that committee, Schiff has has taken the time to learn about Russia. It is grotesque to exclude him at this particular moment, in the middle of a war, and at the beginning of a spy scandal

...

https://www.alternet.org/2021/11/heres-why-the-twice-impeached-disgraced-loser-trump-is-a-favorite-for-2024-conservative-2655472026/ oops longer versins lists co's?

or decades, Reagan Republicans promoted themselves as the "pro-business party." But former President Donald Trump and his MAGA movement have pushed a pseudo-populist message, dramatically cutting taxes for large corporations while railing against big tech and "woke capitalism." And according to Time's Molly Ball, corporate CEOs panicked when, after the 2020 election, Trump refused to accept the election results and attempted a coup d'état or golpe de estado.

One of the people who sounded the alarm, Ball reports in an article published on November 1, wasJeffrey Sonnenfeld, a well-known business professor at the Yale School of Management.

According to Ball, "The CEOs of leading media, financial, pharmaceutical, retail and consulting firms all wanted to talk…. For decades, Sonnenfeld has been bringing business leaders together for well-attended seminars on the challenges of leadership, earning a reputation as a 'CEO whisperer.' A committed capitalist and self-described centrist, he has informally advised presidents of both parties and spoke at Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell's wedding."

Ball goes on to say that a "group of 45 CEOs" got together during a conference call on November 6 — a group that, according to Ball, "represented nearly one-third of Fortune's 100 largest companies: Walmart and Cowen Inc., Johnson & Johnson and Comcast, Blackstone Group and American Airlines."

"Disney's Bob Iger rolled out of bed at 4 a.m. Pacific time to join, accompanied by a large mug of coffee," Ball reports. "Sonnenfeld, who promised the participants confidentiality, declined to disclose or confirm their names. But Time spoke with more than a dozen people on the call, who confirmed their and others' participation."

Timothy Snyder, a Sonnenfeld colleague at Yale and author of the book "On Tyranny," participated in the call and discussed it with Time — which was, according to Ball, was something he "never previously discussed" with the media.

Snyder told Time, "I went through it point by point, in a methodical way. Historically speaking, democracies are usually overthrown from the inside, and it is very common for an election to be the trigger for a head of state or government to declare some kind of emergency in which the normal rules do not apply. This is a pattern we know, and the name for this is a coup d'état…. If you are going to defeat a coup, you have to move right away. The timing and the clarity of response are very, very important."

https://www.alternet.org/2021/09/robert-kagan-2655176730/

[big lie] ignore elections]

...When Stelter asked Snyder what "role" right-wing media play in this "scenario," the historian responded, "Right-wing media, with a few honorable exceptions, is one giant safe space for the Big Lie. What's happened is that rather than facts coming up from below to shape stories, we now have one enormous fiction — which is that Mr. Trump won this election. And that one enormous fiction, rather than casting light on things, just casts a huge shadow. Anything that doesn't fit that fiction can't be talked about. Anything which seems like it might somehow support that fiction gets all the airtime."

Snyder's appearance on "Reliable Sources" came only three days after the Washington Post published a sobering essay/op-ed by Never Trump conservative Robert Kagan, who warned that "the United States is heading into its greatest political and constitutional crisis since the Civil War." Stelter mentioned Kagan's article to Snyder, who didn't find Kagan's dire warning to be the least bit alarmist. In fact, Stelter and Snyder seemed to agree that Kagan's warning is spot on.

Stelter asked Snyder if the mainstream media need to be spending more time talking about "worst-case scenarios" in the 2022 midterms and 2024 presidential election, and the historian responded, "Those aren't worst-case scenarios. That's the mainstream…. When you have a two-party system and one of the parties is lining up against democracy, we're not talking about a worst-case scenario — we're talking about a situation where democracy is not something that can be taken for granted as a background to all the other news. Democracy itself is the foreground, and the struggle as to whether this country as to whether this country will be democratic in the future…. is the main story…. The story is whether we have a democracy or not."

Echoing the warnings in Kagan's article, Snyder added that the GOP has a game plan for stealing the 2024 election.

Snyder told Stelter, "The game is we cast doubt on 2020, we pass voter suppression laws…. If we get ahold of the House and the Senate in 2022, we plan not to certify a Democrat if he wins in 2024. We pass memory laws and voter suppression laws at the state level which give the states themselves the right to allocate electors…. We do all of that to aim for an outcome in 2024 in which the guy who loses is nevertheless the winner…. That is not a worst-case scenario. That is happening before our eyes right now."

https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/republicans-trump/

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Historians and other experts on Thursday warned that President Donald Trump's attempt to remain in power despite his loss in the 2020 election is growing increasingly dangerous as Republican leaders willingly participate in the disenfranchisement of millions of voters and back the president's refusal to accept the election results.

In an op-ed at The Hill, journalist Albert Hunt wrote that Trump's "deceitful charge" that the Democratic Party stole the election and allowed "illegal votes" to be cast—claims that have yet to be backed up by evidence—"undermines confidence in our Democratic system, but it could also threaten to unleash a dangerous wave of violence."

Quoted in Hunt's piece, white supremacy and terrorism expert Kathleen Belew, a history professor at the University of Chicago,warns that after Trump's courting of violent white supremacist groups—in 2017 when he refused to denounce neo-Nazis at a rally in Virginia where an anti-racist protester was murdered, and weeks ago when he offered tacit approval of the Proud Boys at the first presidential debate—the president's rhetoric and actions in recent days "could also be invitation for drastic action and mass murder like the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995."

"If these white power advocates double down on the idea this was a rigged election, history tells us there will be major spikes in violence, deliberate attacks," Belew said.

The willingness of some on the far right to take violent action in order to defeat Trump's political opponents has been made clear in recent weeks. The FBI last month arrested more than a dozen people in connection with a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, over her government's coronavirus safety protocols, which have come under fire from Trump. Last weekend, as Americans across the country celebrated Trump's defeat in the election by President-elect Joe Biden, armed supporters of the president attended counterprotests, decrying so-called "illegal votes" and claiming the election had been stolen.

On Tuesday, actor and right-wing activist Jon Voight posted a video on social media which was retweeted more than 43,000 times, accusing "leftists" of corruption and calling on fellow Trump supporters to prepare for "our greatest fight since the Civil War."

"There will be a price to pay," Voight said. "The ones who are jumping for joy now are jumping toward the horror they will be in for... We must fight the corruption that has taken over... Let us fight this fight as if it is our last fight on Earth."

Twitter included a warning on the post saying it contained claims about "election fraud" that are "disputed."

"Everyone knows that when the federal courts repeatedly dismiss your claims of voter fraud as laughable bullshit, you can simply use a video of Jon Voight insisting it's all actually true," tweeted historian Kevin Kruse.

But Yale University history professor Timothy Snyder warned against laughing off what he called a clear attempt at a coup.

"Underestimating Donald Trump is a mistake that people should not go on making," Snyder wrote in the Boston Globe on Wednesday. "Laughing at him will not make him go away. If it did, he would have vanished decades ago."

Snyder outlined the steps, unprecedented in U.S. history but not in countries that have been recognized as authoritarian regimes, that Trump and the Republican Party have taken so far to undermine the will of American voters:

A coup is under way, and the number of participants is not shrinking but growing.Few leading Republicans have acknowledged that the race is over. Important ones, such as (Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell and [Secretary of State] Mike Pompeo, appear to be on the side of the coup... The transition office refuses to begin its work. The secretary of defense, who did not want the army attacking civilians, was fired. The Department of Justice, exceeding its traditional mandate, has authorized investigations of the vote count. The talk shows on Fox this week contradict the news released by Fox last week. Republican lawmakers find ever new verbal formulations that directly or indirectly support Trump's claims. The longer this goes on, the greater the danger to the republic.

Snyder pointed to the assassination of centrist Polish President Gabriel Narutowicz in 1922—days after he won the presidency and after his victory was not accepted by right-wing nationalists—and claims by Nazis that Germany had lost the World War I due to a "stab in the back" by leftists and Jews, as historical precedents for the violence that could arise from Trump's claims, particularly if Republicans continue to support the president.

In a Twitter thread, Snyder expanded on the danger of assuming Trump's actions won't escalate to such violence in the United States.

...Coups are defeated quickly or not at all. While they take place we are meant to look away, as many of us are doing. When they are complete we are powerless...American exceptionalism prevents us from seeing basic truths.

"In an authoritarian situation, the election is only round one. You don't win by winning round one," Snyder wrote. "It is up to civil society, organized citizens, to defend the vote and to peacefully defend democracy."

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/historian-warns-america-is-already-in-its-own-slow-motion-reichstag-fire/

no lnx audio

Historian warns America is already in its own 'slow-motion Reichstag Fire'

Chauncey DeVega and Salon October 18, 2020

Donald Trump continues to make it clear that he does not intend to leave office peacefully if he is defeated by Joe Biden and the Democrats on Election Day. Moreover, Donald Trump considers any election in which he is not the "winner" to be null and void. Trump's appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to the United States Supreme Court is an obvious quid pro quo to secure his "reelection" if his attorneys and other agents can sufficiently sabotage the vote on Election Day and beyond.

On Thursday, Trump again followed the authoritarian's playbook when he bragged to his supporters at a rally in North Carolina that U.S. Marshalls essentially executed Michael Reinoehl, an anti-fascist activist accused of killing a right wing paramilitary member during protests in Oregon last August.

Celebrating the extra-judicial killings of one's political "enemies" is a common feature of fascist authoritarian regimes and the types of leaders admired and imitated by Donald Trump.

Donald Trump's commitment to and use of political violence is a matter of public record. Two of the most recent examples include how Trump's followers in Michigan allegedly planned to kidnap and possibly murder Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer. During his debate with Joe Biden, Trump also commanded white supremacist paramilitaries to be prepared to attack his and their "enemies" if he loses on Election Day or is otherwise removed from office.

Trump also wants Joe Biden and other leading Democrats imprisoned and perhaps even executed because he deems them to be "guilty" of "treason" and a "coup" attempt against him. Donald Trump and his Attorney General William Barr have also threatened to use the United States military against the American people if they dare to protest the outcome of the 2020 Election if Trump somehow finds some extra-legal (if not outright illegal) way to stay in office.

Because he is a political sadist and master of misery and pain, Donald Trump is using the coronavirus pandemic as a weapon to physically and emotionally abuse the American people in order to make them more compliant and subservient to his regime. Like other autocrats and authoritarians, he is also using the economic and human devastation caused by the coronavirus pandemic to personally enrich himself, his family, and allies as a way of guaranteeing the latter's loyalty.

In all, as with his obsessive rhetoric about "law and order," like other fascist authoritarians Donald Trump and his regime define the "law" in ways that benefit themselves and disregard the law when it does not serve their interests. Through that logic democracy is a tool for the Trump regime to stay in power indefinitely if they "win" and to disregard the outcome on Election Day and beyond if they are voted out of office by the American people.

Trump's strategy of attacking America's democratic norms, institutions, and culture is a constant torrent where the targets are corrupted, weakened, and then finally routed through sheer exhaustion.

In a new essay at The Bulwark, senior Democratic Party strategist James Carville summarizes this existential moment of crisis for the United States as:

Very seldom in American history have there been periods when people can nobly wage a crusade to create real and lasting change. But when these crusades do occur, when those moments arrive, what we do to vanquish the threat to freedom builds something everlasting into the framework of our society.

The American Revolution, the Civil War, World War II, Seneca Falls, Stonewall, and Selma, were all historical flashpoints where Americans displayed their patriotism against oppressive forces in a resounding way. These movements overthrew an empire, ended slavery, staved off totalitarianism, and paved the way for the establishment of fundamental civil rights and liberties for women, LGBTQ+ and black Americans.

We find ourselves again at such a turning point. Donald Trump's authoritarian presence behind the Resolute Desk is amongst the gravest threats America has ever faced from within. And Americans have risen to meet this threat.

The Trump regime has created a defense in depth against the American people. A key part of Trump's defensive strategy consists of how those Americans and others who are expecting one dramatic and climactic assault on the country's democracy have been lulled into a type of complacency and surrender.

As wielded by Donald Trump and other fascist authoritarians, the poison they have injected into the country's body politic and democracy is actually quite slow acting, where the victim becomes used to chronic pain before finally succumbing.

Why does America's mainstream news media continue to avoid describing Donald Trump and his regime as fascist authoritarians? What are they afraid of? How has that evasion helped to empower and normalize Trumpism?

In what ways have Donald Trump and his regime used the coronavirus — and the pain and social injustice it has revealed and made worse — as a weapon against democracy and the American people?

In an effort to answer these questions, I recently spoke with Timothy Snyder. He is a Professor of History at Yale University and the author of the bestselling books "On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century" and "The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America." His new book is "Our Malady: Lessons in Liberty from a Hospital Diary."

At the end of this conversation, Timothy Snyder warns that the United States is in the midst of a years-long slow-motion Reichstag Fire emergency that Election Day 2020 may not resolve.

You can also listen to my conversation with Timothy Snyder on my podcast "The Truth Report" or through the player embedded below.

Donald Trump's attacks on democracy are escalating. He continues to say that he will not respect the outcome of the election if he loses to Joe Biden and the Democrats. There are some public voices who have been warning about Trump and authoritarianism and fascism for several years. You are foremost among them. Why did more people not listen to the warnings?

It is structural. At present it is harder to reach people who do not already agree with you. This is true even for those of us with a public platform and big audience. More contact is virtual and less in person. It is also harder to surprise people. Ultimately, it is very hard to reach people before an algorithm does. By then a person's mind is already made up one way or another.

The second answer is that many Americans really like authoritarianism.Sure, the conventional wisdom says that Americans like freedom. Some of them do. Some of them do not. The Americans who do not like freedom are not going to be reached or otherwise have their minds changed. It is as simple as that.

In my view, it is less about reaching people and more about getting them to take action. People sometimes ask me, "Why do you preach to the choir?" To get people to do things. It is not enough to have the correct idea. If people act, even if it is a small thing, that makes a difference.

And of course, there is the challenge of the American exceptionalism consensus. The belief that America is insulated from authoritarianism because of our institutions took a long time to fight through. That myth was the direct target of my book "On Tyranny."

Why are so many journalists and other members of the political class continually surprised by Donald Trump's cruelty and assaults on democracy and norms? Trump is not changing. He is only getting worse. Why be surprised? Such a reaction is very crippling and ultimately counterproductive. It helps Trump to win.

That denial is a function of what I describe as "the politics of eternity." There is an ongoing stream of small to medium-level provocations from authoritarian movements and leaders. Those actions give a positive hit to their supporters and a negative hit to their opponents.

Everyone becomes addicted to the experience, be it pleasant or unpleasant. What you are describing is how many in the news media and elsewhere wait for Donald Trump to do the latest most outrageous thing — and then it is reported as being outrageous. That gives them a hit of sorts,a jolt to the system. Then they wait for the next outrageous thing, and so on. But the problem is that there is no thinking or theory to offer context for what is happening.

Too many people are still defaulting to these ideas that America's "institutions" are going to solve the problems of authoritarianism and Trumpism. Or history is somehow on America's side. If a person does not have some way of theorizing what Donald Trump is, then everything he does is a surprise to them. If you lack the theoretical framework to understand Trump and what is happening, then you will also lack an understanding of how to push back against it. You are helpless.

So many of the discussions are still focused on Donald Trump and what he is not. What we need to be able to do is to say what Trump is. Once you say what Trumpism really is, then you can start to fight it.

We talk about the pandemic as though it is a series of failures. No, the pandemic is not a series of failures. It is the "achievement" that Donald Trump is going to be most remembered for.

More than 200,000 people dead from the pandemic is a type of "achievement" for Trump. It took real effort to make that happen.

I'm not saying that he intended it from beginning to end. I'm not saying that there was a plot in January that 300,000 will be dead in December. What I am saying is that outcome is a result of the decisions made by Donald Trump. If the American people and most of the mainstream news media and other observers keep seeing Donald Trump in terms of omissions such as "he is not a normal politician" then we do not see and understand him for what he really is, whatever that may be.

Donald Trump is a white man. He is old. He wears a tie. What could he possibly be except somewhere in the zone of normal? That erroneous assumption contributes to why so many people are still surprised by his behavior.

Donald Trump is evil. His movement is evil. They meet all the criteria for evil. Yet, there is a willful avoidance of using that language to describe him by the mainstream news media, political elites, and other opinion leaders and public voices. If they admit that Donald Trump and his movement are evil, then there is an obligation to do something about it. To my eyes, that avoidance is a defense mechanism that will not save them or anyone else from Trump and his movement.

Evil is a helpful word to use here. I have been using that language in my new book "Our Malady." There is an almost taboo-like hesitation to move into truly ethical judgments in our discussions of Trump and his movement. As long as we are avoiding discussions of good and evil then his behavior is normalized. Avoiding that language of good and evil also leaves the public with a hope that this crisis will somehow turn back to normal.

There is a psychological dynamic at work here too. If a person did not name Trumpism as evil before, then it is hard to name it as such later on. If a political commentator or other observer did not see the danger of Trump and his movement back in 2016 then they are probably not getting it correct now even at this late point.

I think your word "fear," though, is very well taken. But I'd push that out in a different direction.

Fear is also an important concept here. Trump is running for reelection based on fear – much more so than in 2016. In 2016, it was a mix. Trump and his campaign were talking about infrastructure. They were trying to go to the left of the Democrats on some issues. Whereas in 2020, it's now just pure fear. A fear that Black people are going to rape white women in the suburbs, and they are going to burn down the cities. The pandemic is either Black people's fault or it is a conspiracy, or it is not really happening. Fear is being consciously created and then manipulated. The Democrats are really running against a Reichstag Fire. The Democrats are not really running against a political party and Donald Trump's campaign.

How can we better explain to the Democrats that Trumpism is a type of political and social movement, and normal politics, those old rules, no longer apply here in America?

History shows that people can learn to like pain. They can also learn to like inflicting pain on others. That is what the Democrats are up against. They are not competing against some theory of politics where voters and the public are purely rational and motivated by "the issues."

Donald Trump is a president who happily circulates as much pain as he can on the rationale that his people are going to suffer for him — and they're going to enjoy suffering because of their idea that other people are suffering more. Trump's supporters are suffering for a cause which is other people, Black people, immigrants, some Other, suffering more than they are.

Should the Democrats therefore imitate Donald Trump and the Republicans? The fact that there is now a Trump death cult does not mean that there should then be a Biden death cult. That would be absurd on any number of levels.

The coronavirus intersects with American fascism, Donald Trump, and his movement – including the Republican Party as a whole. How are you making sense of that relationship?

Because I was so close to death, the significance of those observations and experiences was brought home to me more than it would have been otherwise. America's racial and economic inequality is all the more obvious in life or death situations. The coronavirus of course reveals those disparities in an even more stark light.

Even before 2020 begins we are in a systemwhere America does not have universal health care. Why? Because there is some type of practical everyday consensus that it is OK to have bad health care in this country. Such disparities in treatment are racial: In America we do not have a right to health care because then that would mean that Black people and Brown people and immigrants and so on would also have access to health care and then somehow abuse it — so goes the racist logic and history in this country.

Health care in the United States overlaps with racefor white people in another way as well. The argument that is made to white people is "you are the frontiersmen, you're the rugged individualists." In that imaginary, white people know not to talk about pain or disease. There is the sadism then of some white people being pleased because they suffer less than other people. And you have the masochism of those same white people being willing to suffer, basically for nothing.

When the first reports of the coronavirus begin in March and April it was clear that it is taking the life of Blacks and Hispanics and Native Americans at a much higher rate than whites. Now that we have more numbers, it is much more fatal. In America white people live longer than Black people.

Once that fact is widely known it becomes normalized. For many white people, it is normal for Black people and Brown people to suffer more than them.

What do we know about the connections between a humane society and authoritarianism?

There is a strong connection. In my new book "Our Malady" I explore this.

For example, on an individual level, when you can't talk, you do not have freedom of speech. When you can't move, you do not have freedom of assembly. When you do not think that you are going to have a future, then freedom is no longer a meaningful concept.

If you cannot afford health care, you're afraid. If you're ashamed to talk about health care, you're less free. If you're aware of that the access to health care is going to be competitive and somebody who's less sick than you might come ahead of you because they have better insurance and better connections or whatever it might be, then you are less free. Pandemic or not, it all creates a situation where there is not an unnecessary reservoir of anxiety and fear. And that totally unnecessary reservoir of anxiety and fear can be directed to other places.

The talent that Donald Trump has is to either generate that anxiety or to take the anxiety and fear that already exists in America and to direct it in the ways that he wants to. Authoritarianism works through taking abuse and trauma and pushing it in other directions.

Donald Trump understands that he cannot win a free and fair election. Trump knows that the pandemic and the economic downturn can give him the sources of energy that he just might be able to use to stay in power some other way than an election. Donald Trump is in "the worse, the better" territory now, because he understands abuse, pain, trauma, fear and related things. Evil understands evil. Trump understands that the more anxiety and fear is out there, the larger the chances he must somehow turn the election in his direction and then pick up the pieces.

Election Day is imminent. How do you respond to those critics who would say that, "You were talking about a Reichstag Fire! It didn't happen! You are an alarmist. Hysterical! None of that happened!" What would you tell such people?

Obviously, we are in a slow-motion Reichstag Fire right now. That is what is happening. Donald Trump is not as skilled as Hitler. He doesn't work as hard as Hitler. He doesn't have the same level of confidence as Hitler, but he's clearly looking for that Reichstag Fire emergency. Trump tried to make Black Lives Matter into that emergency. "Antifascists" and "thugs" and "law and order" and so on is part of that effort. Donald Trump keeps trying to make the Reichstag Fire work.

If Trump is not successful, then that is a credit to the people who are resisting. Donald Trump is not involved in a political campaign; it is emergency politics in the constant search of an emergency. Whether Trump and his allies can line up the emergency politics with the emergency, I do not know. But that is all that Trump and his allies have got on their side — and it all they are going to have through to Election Day.