Fascism says what you and I experience as facts or what reporters experience as facts are irrelevant. All that matters are impressions and emotions and myths.
Timothy D. SnyderRead
Defend an institution. Follow the courts or the media, or a court or a newspaper. Do not speak of 'our institutions' unless you are making them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions don't protect themselves. They go down like dominoes unless each is defended from the beginning.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Institutions require active support and defense from individuals; they do not sustain themselves.
In this quote, Timothy D. Snyder emphasizes the importance of individual responsibility in protecting democratic institutions. He warns that without active participation and defense from the public, institutions such as the courts and media can deteriorate and fail, comparing their downfall to a series of dominoes falling when the first is knocked over. The quote serves as a call to action for citizens to take ownership of their institutions and safeguard democratic principles.
Themes
InstitutionsDefenseDemocracyParticipationResponsibility
In practice
Example use cases
A civil rights activist might use this quote to rally support for protecting voter rights during a speech.
More from Timothy D. Snyder
All quotes →Brittle masculinity, in the right setting, becomes political atrocity. Strength brings problems; weakness brings others, but weakness posing as strength is the most dangerous of all.
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If we don't have access to facts, we can't trust each other. Without trust, there's no law. Without law, there's no democracy.
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Totalitarianism is not about some state that appears out of nowhere and suddenly is all-powerful. There can't be any such thing. Totalitarianism starts when the difference between your public life and your private life is effaced.
Timothy D. SnyderRead
The 20th century shows that the form of government that we take for granted, a constitutional democratic republic with checks and balances and a rule of law - that form of government is usually temporary.
Timothy D. SnyderRead
Most Americans are exceptionalists; we think we live outside of history.
Timothy D. SnyderRead
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