In this brief, popular-level treatise, Yale professor of history Timothy Synder argues that, “History does not repeat, but it does instruct.” He appeals to the practice of the United States’ Founding Fathers who, in the face of threats to the political order, examined the rise and fall of ancient democracies to gain insights and establish a political system that would safeguard a free society against tyranny. Snyder invites his reader to continue the tradition of understanding history in the interest of preserving liberty. He offers twenty lessons from the twentieth century European experience, a period full of destruction and bloodshed under fascist and communist regimes. Snyder advises that it would be wise to learn from the missteps and mishaps that allowed tyranny to gain footholds in the not-so-distant past.

The truth matters; it sets us free. As a political regime becomes despotic, truth undergoes a unique series of death throes, beginning with an open animosity to facts, when politicians or groups vehemently denounce verified facts. What follows are “shamanistic incantations,” which turn fiction into fact through repetition. If one hears an assertion often enough, one might begin to believe it. The third stage is a movement toward “magical thinking,” a blind acceptance of contradictions. Finally, there is “misplaced faith,” where a leader presents himself to the masses as a savior or demigod. If we do not hold on to facts, we will not hold on to freedom.

Because facts matter, we must seek them out. While the media in the United States has gained notoriety, it performs a function essential to maintaining freedom and informing the public. A leader who berates the press and despises investigation displays despotic tendencies. Invest time and money in reliable print sources. Everyone in the Internet age is a publisher of sorts, so take responsibility for what and how you communicate.

It is easy to repeat the overused the expressions we hear from politicians and the media. To rely on image-based forms of communication like television and smart phones is to rely on a medium that cannot convey information accurately or adequately. We would be wise to develop our own unique vocabularies for understanding and describing the world. This can only happen through reading good books like The Brothers Karamazov and 1984 and scaling back on Internet and screen time. Reading books will expand our frameworks and help us avoid regurgitating the same clichés repeated on TV and social media. The image’s ability to convey knowledge is limited, especially without a more solid backdrop that exposure to the printed word provides.

Developing free associations is an essential element of the free society. Engaging in your activities of interest—be they political or simply hobbies—contributes to the creation and strengthening of civil society. These networks help the radius of trust expand beyond your circle of close friends and family, which makes us less suspicious of one another and provides for a healthier democratic environment.

In fact, where resistance has been successful, there are two recurring factors: 1) people from different backgrounds or belief systems united by a desire for change, and 2) people moving beyond their comfort zones and developing friendships and networks outside their normal spheres of influence. In the most successful resistance movements in the Soviet bloc, both factors were present. For example, the Solidarity labor movement of 1980-81 in Poland involved the working class and professionals, atheists and theists, and people from a variety of political persuasions, all united by grievances against the communist government. This created trust among groups that were unlikely to have joined forces otherwise.

In addition to a strong public life with ties to diverse social circles, we must make sure that we have a private life, too. According to the late political theorist Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is best understood not as a state with total power, but as the removal of the divide between private and public life. The technology now available creates new threats to this divide, as privacy becomes increasingly difficult to maintain. Compromising emails released to the public at strategic moments during the 2016 presidential election illustrate the difficulty. To indulge our obsession with the dirty secrets of public figures is to invite the disintegration of political order. Private life is a cornerstone of democracy that social ogling erodes. If you want to keep your conversation private, consider having it in person instead of through email or online messaging services, as those channels can be vulnerable to intrusion.

James Madison noted that tyranny emerges “on some favorable emergency.” “Terror management” is the brand of tyranny we often see today: despotism masquerading as a protective, paternal State. In February 1933, the Reichstag (German parliament building) was burned to the ground. Whether Hitler was behind the fire or not, he capitalized on the event to secure Nazi power and “temporarily” withhold fundamental rights from Germans: “There will be no mercy now. Anyone who stands in our way will be cut down.” Hitler never got around to reinstating those rights. Once tyrants acquire power, they tend to hold onto it. When you relinquish rights in an emergency, do not expect to get them back.

This is when paramilitaries are brought in to “secure an area,” in the interest of safety. The SS and SA in Nazi Germany intimidated the citizenry through violence and fear tactics. As a candidate, the current U.S. president utilized a private security team to forcibly remove protesters from rallies. When armed groups form outside the government and act above the law to accomplish the government’s objectives, liberty is under serious threat. When such groups mix with military and police forces, liberty has been lost.                  

Professional ethics also become vulnerable to reinterpretation and revision in times of crisis and uncertainty. Lawyers comprised a large proportion of the leaders of the Einsatzgruppen, the group in charge of the mass murder of Jews, gypsies, the handicapped, and others. Medical doctors operated the chambers and conducted ghastly human experiments. Large German business groups took advantage of camp laborers and Jewish slum dwellers. Had professionals held to the ethical codes developed in their respective fields instead of “just following orders,” the death toll would not have been so high.

Until recently, many people in the United States operated according to a “politics of inevitability.” The Soviet Union had fallen, which many took to mean that the liberal democratic form of government had defeated the idea of communism. As a matter of course, the world, which had been watching the battle between East and West for most of the 20th century, would naturally align their ideals with the winning form of political organization. Some saw the event as arrival at “the end of history,” suggesting that the process of political evolution was now complete. With this as the reigning picture of the world, history seemed of little importance and vigilance against enemies of liberty slackened, because progress was inevitable and liberty’s enemies had lost.

More recently, a “politics of eternity” has begun to replace the politics of inevitability as the dominant paradigm. The politics of eternity looks back at a period of history, mythologizes it, glorifies it, and then juxtaposes that period with the current political order. The current political reality always falls short of the idealized glory days, and the discourse centers around how to resurrect the golden era. The past is used to attack the present.

Both the politics of inevitability and the politics of eternity are antihistorical; that is, they do a disservice to history, either by ignoring it or twisting it. The next generation will not escape these patterns of thought unless it takes a good look at the facts of history. Should young people fail to do so, we are vulnerable to the rise of tyranny.