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“If none of us is prepared to die for freedom, then all of us will die under tyranny.” (page 115) Discuss the meaning of this sentence. What are the different ways people can show courage? How do small, everyday acts of resistance contribute to larger change? Who are some everyday heroes in your family and neighbourhood?
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This is a pretty heavy sentiment and not one that I’ve thought about before. I took Snyder to mean that we all need to step forward to fight when “time is out of joint.” Just as Hamlet bemoans that he has to “set it right,” we too may have to “set it right” but not want to. But if not us, who? I’m sure the millions of soldiers who went to fight in WWII thought the same. But if they didn’t, then tyranny would have won.
Snyder points out that it is a failure of imagination to not envision authoritarianism could come to a democratic country. The politics of inevitability, he says, makes people feel like positive progress is inevitable and things can always return back to “normal.” I see an example of this “inevitably,” this “self-induced intellectual coma” in the words of Chuck Schumer from a while ago. Schumer told Annie Karni and Luke Broadwater: “Here’s my hope … after this election, when the Republican party expels the turd of Donald Trump, it will go back to being the old Republican party.” (source: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/mar/19/chuck-schumer-trump-book) There’s almost a naivete to this kind of political thinking.
On the flip side, Snyder says, “The politics of eternity is like hypnosis.” And that too is taking hold where every bad deed, every crime, every negligent act is seen through “rose-coloured glasses.” tRump can do no wrong in the eyes of those around him. Those involved in Signalgate can be exonerated for gross negligence because people just have to be told, “It’s not so bad,” or “Nothing to see here.” Look no further than the headline, “Trump has managed to spin Signalgate as a media lapse, not a major security breach,” to see a kind of hypnotism in effect. In both cases there is a tyranny of thought that accompanies the actual tyranny.
I think people can show courage in different ways—through protest, through small acts of kindness within your community, through making phone calls, sending letters, participating at town halls. Keeping your mind independent and not following a “herd mentality” is also an act of courage. I see everyday heroes in my neighbourhood with the cat rescue who helps lower-income people vet and feed their pets. Or the fellow who is always picking up garbage from the sidewalk and making sure the leaves are clear from the gutters on the street around the neighbourhood. And in the community gardens tended to with care. In my family, there are members who volunteer and contribute to helping women in war-torn places like Ukraine. As Fred Rogers said, “Look for the helpers.”
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Now is not a time to sit back and wait to see what will happen. This is not the time to think we just have to get through four years and then we’ll go back to the way things were. This is not the time to succumb to apathy or turn off the news because it upsets us. First we have to fight our internal battle of what we as individuals can and are willing to do. My dad always said to pick my battles carefully. What can I afford to lose and what must I absolutely win? The first thing I must conquer is my fear. After I stuff my fear in my back pocket so I can sit on it then I must move forward doing anything I possibly can to be heard. Hopefully my voice will encourage another voice to speak up. Hopefully, if I don’t give up others won’t either. I need to keep asking questions to learn what others are thinking. What is motivating them to the point that they cannot see how their very freedoms are slowly, silently being stolen. I must fine tune my conversation skills to keep the conversations flowing – to prevent defensiveness from taking over and ending communication.
When dark times come and we have to walk through that dark tunnel of fear and despair there is always a speck of light at the end of the tunnel. That little speck of light has gotten me through many difficult times. Each time, as I walked through that dark tunnel of despair that little dot of light grew. Each step, each growth of that speck of light encouraged me to keep going and helped me see where my steps were leading. That speck of light is hope. That’s what I must hang onto once again. Hope that one day we shall overcome this tyranny.
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Well, this is certainly a most sobering read but it absolutely fits. The “politics of eternity” is driving the bus in the U.S. at this point and with cruel and disastrous effects. I struggle, though, with the idea that the only two options are death (or willingness to risk it) or acceptance of tyranny; that it is a binary choice.
This sentence I can accept. “History permits us to be responsible: not for everything, but for something.”
“I do not pretend to understand the moral universe. The arc is a long one. My eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by experience of sight. I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.” This is a quote from an 1853 sermon by Theodore Parker, an abolitionist minister. It is the origin of the one often quoted by Martin Luther King Jr. (NPR 9/2/2010.)
The abolitionist and civil rights movement accepted neither the politics of inevitability or of eternity. Those who participated accepted responsibility for something. It is certainly true that some died for their efforts and almost certainly decided to participate accepting that risk. Still, deciding to be responsible for something is closer to what I can envision.
I am also reading this: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/how-to-think-and-act-like-a-dissident-in-trumps-america
And signed up for the Hands Off April 5th rally in ABQ.
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Well said, all and excellent article Jane. This chapter highlights the need to be active and to do something to help. Every action counts and there is no judgement on what that action might be for any one person.
There is a prediction that the Insurrection Act will be invoked on April 20, with a high probability of causing a chain of events that could lead to full martial law.
Remember: there is no act too small.
As reported in Newsweek:
“…One of Trump’s first executive orders, signed the evening he took office on January 20, was titled, “Declaring a National Emergency at the Southern Border of the United States.” In the order, he said “America’s sovereignty is under attack,” due to border crossings and declared a national emergency at the southern border.
Under Section 6 of the order, Trump directs Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem to submit a joint report on the border in 90 days –April 20th– including recommendations for actions that “may be necessary to obtain complete operational control of the southern border.”
He specifically cites one option—”including whether to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807.”
It is a foregone conclusion what Hegseth and Noem will recommend: exactly what Trump tells them. And Trump undoubtedly will want more power and more options, it is entirely consistent with every action he has ever taken.
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