Thinking about...

In this, my first substack video, I react to the shameful encounter between American leaders and media and the Ukrainian president. No doubt there were more, but I saw five failures on our side: of hospitality, decency, democracy, strategy, and independence. Please watch and share.

If you are thinking today about how to help Ukrainians, here are some possibilities: Come Back Alive (Ukrainian NGO that supports soldiers on the battlefield and veterans), United 24 (the Ukrainian state platform for donations, with many excellent projects), RAZOM (an American NGO, tax-deductible for US citizens, which cooperates with Ukrainian NGOS to support civilians), and Documenting Ukraine (a project that helps to give Ukrainians a voice, also tax-deductible for Americans).

Thinking about... is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe

This is the podcast version of an essay I published on 16 February at the end of the Munich Security Conference. Since then, its thesis has been confirmed by the Russian-American talks in Saudi Arabia, American slanders of Ukrainians, and the Russian-American concord at the United Nations. The original text begins below.

As a television show, American foreign policy is about strength. In reality, it is about draining power from the United States and its allies, thereby creating atmospherics in which Donald Trump feels good and Elon Musk converts lost state capacity into personal profit. The weakness, in other words, is the point.

In the alliances that held through January 2025, the United States was an unrivaled power. By whatever measure one chose, no other country was of the same status. Without the alliances, however, the equation is different. It is not just that the United States loses the economic, military, and political strength of its allies. It is that the U.S. must now compete with them and try to subordinate them.

At the Munich Security Conference, which is just coming to an end, the American vice president instructed Europeans to open themselves as colonial vessels. They should remove any constraints on social media platforms, allowing Musk and other oligarchs to shape their elections. And those elections should then lead to the victory of far right parties that would remove any other barriers to Musk’s power. In this scenario, no conceivable American interest is served. Only Musk’s. It is unlikely to play out as JD Vance expects. What is certain, though, is the palpable alienation of the Europeans.

By taking the side of Ukraine in its war against Russia through January 2025, the United States had generated tremendous power against the aggressor Russia and its patron China. At insignificant financial cost, and with no risk to American troops, American policy helped the Ukrainian armed forces to deliver a broader security that the United States could not have achieved on its own. The Ukrainians fulfilled the entire NATO mission, absorbing a Russian invasion and destroying the greater part of the Russian army of 2022. They deterred a Chinese invasion of Taiwan by showing how difficult offensive operations are. And they upheld, as great sacrifice, the legal principle that borders are real and states are sovereign.

It is precisely that order that Musk-Trump dismantles.

It is difficult to be certain of U.S. policy to Ukraine, since the Americans contradict one another and themselves faster than any chyron or twitter feed can follow. But two underlying principles did emerge during the Munich Security Conference. The first was that Ukraine, like the rest of Europe, was to be seen not as an American ally but as an American colony. Humiliating discussions of the disposition of Ukraine’s resources made this clear. The second was that the war could be ended by direct discussions between Americans and the Russian aggressor. There was no sign of any serious substantive preparations, on the American side, for such negotiations.

I could perhaps be wrong, and we shall see, but I believe the purpose of the Putin-Trump phone call that took place and the coming Russian-American negotiations in Saudi Arabia over Ukraine is to get a bad deal, at least as seen in the conventional terms of Ukrainian lives, American power, and world peace. If a bad agreement does emerge, it will be hard to say whether it is incompetence, design, or incompetence by design. I think the last is most likely. The structure of the situation does not favor substance or deliberation. The Americans are in a hurry, as Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine kept saying; and the design of the negotiations is unfavorable.

With Ukrainians and Europeans not present at these talks (at least as I understand this at this moment), Putin will likely get his way on the essential issues. One American official or another has already conceded most of them in public (although, admittedly, they then often walked themselves back or were contradicted by others). Trump and Musk have been repeating Russian talking points for years. Putin will (it appears) be treated as a legitimate partner, he will go unpunished for his war crimes, he will make de facto territorial gains from his war of aggression, and he will get to dictate the terms Ukrainian domestic politics. He will celebrate a victory, and he will prepare the next war, in the total confidence that no resistance from the United States is possible.

Russia, in other words, will gain power from American diplomacy that it could not conceivably have gained on the battlefield.

One point of consensus among informed observers here in Munich is that the war is not going well for Russia. Sanctions are working, and the Russian economic crash that was predicted for 2026 and now seen as more likely this year. On the battlefield, Russia’s losses far exceed Ukraine’s, and the Ukrainians are getting better and better at inflicting losses without putting their own people at risk. The obvious way to bring the war to an end is to strengthen Ukraine and weaken Russia. The tools to do this are at hand. Instead, what the United States is doing is strengthening Russia and putting Ukraine under stress.

A bad deal on Ukraine would seem to serve only Russia. But it also serves an American policy of deliberate weakness, meant to create a world that is gentler on Musk and Trump’s emotions even if it is more pitiless with the lives of everyone else.

It was humiliating, at Munich, to keep hearing Americans holding microphones tell Ukrainians that war is bad. Every Ukrainian listening has lost someone. Some of the Ukrainians listening were combatants who had lost limbs. They know that war is bad. Ukrainians want more than any one else for the war to end. But just talking with Russia, or just signing a piece of paper with Russia, will not lead to that conclusion, and Ukrainians know it. The Russian aim seems to be to get the Americans to praise themselves for having arranged a ceasefire, to get the Europeans to withdraw in confusion, to get the Ukrainian army demobilized, and then to attack again. There is no sign whatsoever that the American side has given any thought as to how this would be prevented.

It could be prevented, or course. But that would require thought, planning, concern for US interests, a serious discussion with Ukrainians, and the presence of Ukrainians and other Europeans at any negotiations. It would require an American policy to weaken Russia and strengthen Ukraine. That is not in evidence.

If the American negotiators agree with Russia, as seems likely, on a deal that is unacceptable for Ukraine, then the Americans can turn to a fully colonial policy towards their former Ukrainian allies. Give us your minerals, they can say, or we will not help you defend the parts of your territory that we have not just conceded to Russia. This will not likely work, as the United States does not have that kind of leverage, especially since Ukrainians have very good reason to doubt that American support is forthcoming in any scenario. But such a spiral of weakness creates the imperial terms of engagement that Trump finds personally comfortable and Musk hopes to make personally profitable.

American policy, under Musk-Trump, amounts to a kind of affirmative action for dictators. The power that they cannot achieve on their own is to be granted by American intervention. This is true not only with respect to Russia, but also to China.

A Ukraine that is abandoned by the United States and threatened by Russia could well turn to Beijing as a protector. A Musk-Trump America that has done nothing but badger Ukraine to accept a partition will have little leverage then. And China will know what to do with Ukraine’s resources and ports. Likewise, a Europe that has been advised by the United States that it is regarded as a colony rather than an ally will have every reason to turn to China, not so much for protection as for balance. Tariffs directed against Europe will have the same effect. But if I am right, this is not an undesired side effect but rather the point of U.S. foreign policy. For somewhat different reasons, Musk and Trump prefer a world in which might makes right. That in such a world that United States is less mighty is of no concern.

And, of course, right was always a kind of might. I have phrased this essay entirely in terms of American power in a simple, realist sense. But the abandonment of a regime of predictability and law also diminishes the United States. Musk-Trump can help Beijing and Russia to create a world of empire, because they can destroy an order that others created over generations.

They will be powerless to create something else in its place, at least in the traditional sense of an order that serves Americans and their freedom and prosperity. Musk can profit from the the decline and fall of the United States, and Trump can enjoy his turn on Nero’s fiddle (or lute, for you historians out there). But there is no conceivable chemistry whereby the endorphin levels of the two men will metamorphose into American interests.

As in domestic policy, so in foreign policy: a performance of strength covers real weakness.

The variable here is Europe. The rise of China and Russia is a predictable function and perhaps even deliberate goal of American foreign policy. Unhitched now from the United States, what will the Europeans do? At Munich, it could be quite sad to speak to Europeans who for decades have been connected to the United States by friendships, education, language, or an affinity based on a notion that we have been, in the words of one, a “benign hegemon.” They are legitimately puzzled by the new American politics of weakness.

Now that American policy is to be the malign anti-hegemon, Europeans have a choice to make. Musk-Trump weakness assumes that Europeans will choose a weakness of their own. European habit would dictate watching Musk-Trump and hoping that something better will somehow emerge. That way lies catastrophe. If the European Union is to survive, and if Ukraine is to survive, 2025 will have to be the year that Europeans take charge of their own interests. On the year that must be Europe’s: more to come.

Munich, 16 February, 11:30 am

Thinking about... is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

PS: If you would like to help Ukrainians yourself, consider Come Back Alive (Ukrainian NGO that supports soldiers), United 24 (the Ukrainian state platform for donations, with many excellent projects), RAZOM (an American NGO, tax-deductible for US citizens, which cooperates with Ukrainian NGOS to support civilians), and Documenting Ukraine (a project I help run that helps to give Ukrainians a voice, also tax-deductible for Americans).

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe

This is the podcast version of an essay I wrote a week ago, before the Munich Security Conference brought some of the explanation points. Since then, the thesis has only been confirmed by the disastrous Russian-American talks and American slanders of and threats to Ukrainians. Please share this with those who might want or need to hear this. If you are thinking about how to help Ukrainians, consider Come Back Alive (Ukrainian NGO that supports soldiers on the battlefield and veterans), United 24 (the Ukrainian state platform for donations, with many excellent projects), RAZOM (an American NGO, tax-deductible for US citizens, which cooperates with Ukrainian NGOS to support civilians), and Documenting Ukraine (a project I help run that helps to give Ukrainians a voice, also tax-deductible for Americans). The text of the original essay begins below.

Americans have a certain idea of freedom. We are fine just the way we are and the only problem are the barriers in the outside world. In this mental world, Musk’s hollowing out of the government can seem justified. Trump’s betrayal of friends and destruction of alliances can seem convenient. We will be great again by being all alone, with no one to trouble us.

This fantasy leads right to tragedy. It sets the stage for the weak strongman.

Trump is a strongman in the sense that he makes others weak. He is strong in a relative sense; as Musk destroys institutions, what remains is Trump’s presence. But other sorts of power meaning vanish, as Musk takes apart the departments of the American government that deal with money, weapons, and intelligence. And then the United States has no actual tools to deal with the rest of the world.

The strongman is weak because no one beyond the United States has anything to want (or fear) from the self-immolation. And weak because Trump submits to foreign aggression, putting waning American power behind Russia.

The weak strongman undermines the rules, but cannot replace them with anything else. He creates the image of power by his rhetorical imperialism: America will control Greenland, Panama, Mexico, Canada, Gaza, etc. From there, it is hard to say that others are wrong when they invade other countries. The weak strongman is left endorsing other people’s invasions, as with Russia and Ukraine. He lacks the power to resist them. And he lacks the power to coerce them. And, ironically, he lacks the power to carry out wars himself. He lacks the patience, and he lacks the instruments.

Many Americans fear Trump, and so imagine that others must. No one beyond America fears Trump as such. He can generate fear only in his capacity as neighborhood arsonist, as someone who destroys what others have created. America’s friends are afraid not of him but of what we all have to lose. America’s enemies are not frightened when Trump kicks over the lantern and sets things on fire. Quite the contrary: he is doing exactly what they want.

Trump plays a strongman on television, and he is a talented performer. But the strength consists solely of the submissiveness of his audience. His performance arouses a dream of passivity: Trump will fix it, Trump will get rid of our problems, and then we will be free. And of course that kind of Nosferatu charisma is a kind of strength, but not one that can be brought to bear to solve any problems, and not one that matters in the world at large. Or rather: it matters only negatively. As soon as Trump meets someone with a better dictator act, like Putin, he submits. But he can only enable Putin. He can’t really even imitate him.

Trump’s supporters might think that we don’t need friendships because the United States can, if necessary, intimidate its enemies without help. This has already been proven wrong. Trump can make things worse for Canada and Mexico, in the sense that a sobbing boy taking his ball home makes things worse. But he cannot make them back down. Trump has not intimidated Russia. He has been intimidated by Russia.

The cruelty that makes Trump a strongman at home arose from the destruction of norms of civil behavior and democratic practice. Unlike any other American politician before him, Trump has scorned the law and used hate speech to deter political opponents here. For years he has used his tweets to inspire stochastic violence. This intimidates some Americans. It has, for example, led to a kind of self-purge of the Republican Party, opening the way for Trump, or in fact for Musk, to rule with the help of tamed and therefore predictable cadres. The effect of this is that people who have submitted to Trump see him as a strongman. But what they are experiencing is in fact their own weakness. And their own weakness cannot magically become strength in the wider world. Quite the contrary.

Stochastic violence cannot be applied to foreign leaders. Trump has said that he can stop the war in Ukraine. He wrote a tweet directed at Vladimir Putin; but the capital letters and exclamation points did not change the emotional state of the Russian leader, let alone Russian policy. And no one in Irkutsk is going to threaten or hurt Putin because Donald Trump wrote something on the internet. Something that works in the United States is not relevant abroad. In fact, the tweet was a sign of weakness, since it was not followed by any policy. Putin quite rightly saw it as such. Trump and his cabinet now repeat Putin’s talking points about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

One could generously interpret Trump’s tweet to Putin threatening sanctions and such as an act of policy. I saw conservatives do that, and I would have been delighted had they been right. But I fear that this was just the characteristic American mistake of imagining that, because Americans react submissively to Trump’s words, others must as well. For words to matter, there has to be policy, or at least the possibility that one might be formulated. And for there to be policy, there have to be institutions staffed with competent people. And Trump’s main action so far, or really Musk’s action so far, has been to fire exactly the people who would be competent to design and implement policy. Many of the people who knew anything about Ukraine and Russia are gone from the federal government.

And now Trump is trying to make concessions to Russia regarding issues directly related to Ukrainian sovereignty on his own, without Ukraine, and indeed without any allies. He is showing weakness on a level unprecedented in modern US history. His position is so weak that it is unlikely to convince anyone. Trump is a sheep in wolf’s clothing. The wolves can tell the difference. Russians will naturally think that they can get still more.

Ukrainians, for that matter, have little incentive to give up their country. Trump can threaten them with cutting US arms, because stopping things is the only power he has. But Ukrainians must now expect that he would do that anyway, given his general subservience to Putin. If the US does stop support for Ukraine, it no longer has influence in how Ukraine conducts the war. I have the feeling that no one in the Trump administration has thought of that.

It is quite clear how American power could be used to bring the war to an end: make Russia weaker, and Ukraine stronger. Putin will end the war when it seems that the future is threatening rather than welcoming. And Ukraine has no choice but to fight so long as Russia invades. This is all incredibly simple. But it looks like Trump is acting precisely as is necessary to prolong the war and make it worse.

Thus far he and Hegseth have simply gone public with their agreement with elements of Russia’s position. Since this is their opening gambit, Russia has every incentive to keep fighting and to see if they can get more. The way things are going, Trump will be responsible for the continuing and escalation of the bloodshed, quite possibly into a European or open global conflict. He won’t get any prizes for creating the conditions for a third world war.

It’s an obvious point, but it has to be made clearly: no one in Moscow thinks that Trump is strong. He is doing exactly what Russia would want: he is repeating Russian talking points, he is acting essentially as a Russian diplomat, and he is destroying the instruments of American power, from institutions through reputation. No American president can shift an international power position without policy instruments. And these depend on functioning institutions and competent civil servants. In theory, the United States could indeed change the power position by decisively helping Ukraine and decisively weakening Russia. But that theory only becomes practice through policy. And it is not hard to see that Musk-Trump cannot make policy.

Even should he wish to, Trump can not credibly threaten Russia and other rivals while Musk disassembles the federal government. Intimidation in foreign affairs depends upon the realistic prospect of a policy, and policy depends, precisely, on a functioning state.

Let us take one policy instrument that Trump mentioned in his tweet about Putin: sanctions. Under Biden, we had too few people in the Department of the Treasury working on sanctions. That is one reason they have not worked as well against Russia as one might have hoped. To make sanctions work, we would need more people on the job, not fewer. And of course we would also need foreign powers to believe that Treasury was not just an American billionaire’s plaything. And that will be hard, because their intelligence agencies read the newspapers.

The United States cannot deal with adversaries without qualified civil servants in the departments of government that deal with money, weapons, and intelligence. All of these are being gutted and/or run by people who lack anything vaguely resembling competence.

Americans can choose to ignore this, or to interpret it only in our own domestic political terms. But it is obvious to anyone with any distance on the situation that the destruction of the institutions of power means weakness. And it creates a very simple incentive structure. The Russians were hoping that Trump would return to power precisely because they believe that he weakens the United States. Now, as they watch him (or Musk) disassemble the CIA and FBI, and appoint Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel, they can only think that time is on their side.

The Russians might or might not, as it pleases them, entertain Trump’s idea of ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia. Even if they accept the ceasefire it will be to prepare for the next invasion, in the full confidence that a United States neutered by Musk-Trump will not be able to react, that the Europeans will be distracted, and that the Ukrainians will find it harder to mobilize a second time.

Trump is not only destroying things, he is being used as an instrument to destroy things: in this case, used by Russia to destroy a successful wartime coalition that contained the Russian invasion and prevented a larger war.

What is true for Russia also holds for China. The weak strongman helps Beijing. Time was not really on China’s side, not before Trump. There was no reason to think that China would surpass the United States economically, and therefore politically and militarily. That had been the great fear for decades, but by the time of the Biden administration the trend lines were no longer so clear, or indeed had reversed. But now that Trump (or rather Musk) has set a course for the self-destruction of American state power, Beijing can simply take what it would once have had to struggle to gain, or would have had to resign from taking.

A weak strongman brings only losses without gains. And so the descent begins. Destroying norms and institutions at home only makes Trump (or rather Musk) strong in the sense of making everyone else weak. In our growing weakness, we might be all tempted by the idea that our strong man at least makes us a titan among nations.

But the opposite is true. The world cannot be dismissed by the weak strongman. As a strongman, he destroys the norms, laws, and alliances that held back war. As a weakling, he invites it.

Thinking about... is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe

This is the podcast version of an essay I wrote on the night train from Kyiv to Zaporizhzhia a week ago. Please feel free to share this with those who might want or need to hear this. If you are thinking as I am about how to help Ukrainians just now, consider Come Back Alive (Ukrainian NGO that supports soldiers on the battlefield and veterans), United 24 (the Ukrainian state platform for donations, with many excellent projects), RAZOM (an American NGO, tax-deductible for US citizens, which cooperates with Ukrainian NGOS to support civilians), and Documenting Ukraine (a project I help run that helps to give Ukrainians a voice, also tax-deductible for Americans). The text of the original essay begins below.

I am on a night train from Kyiv, bound for Zaporizhzhia, a city in the southeast of Ukraine which is about twenty miles from the front. Russian missiles take about thirty-five seconds to hit the city, and the take civilian lives. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region. In September of 2022 the Russian parliament proclaimed the annexation of the region as a whole.

That front is a line that runs through Zaporizhzhia region, and indeed across the east and south of Ukraine. My train rushes southeast, towards that line. Its passengers, civilians and soldiers alike, know what lies on the other side.

Given the nature of Russian occupation, Ukrainians are fighting not only for their lives, but for a certain idea of life in freedom. In the parts of Ukraine controlled by Russia, anyone who showed any initiative or was elected to any position is killed or subjected to torture. Any expression of a political opinion or any gathering or anything that seems like opposition to Russian authorities will lead to a long prison sentence in awful conditions. Just having Ukrainian material on your phone is enough to be sent to prison. Ukrainian citizens in the occupied zones have to accept Russian citizenship in order to have access to basic services, such as schools. Children are kidnapped and sent to Russian families for adoption. They will be raised to hate the land of their birth. Perhaps still worse, they will be raised in a country where the government lies about everything all the time, where the media lies about everything all the time, and this is thought to be normal.

These basic facts create a different kind of existence, on that side of the line.

Ukraine is not a perfect country, and of course war itself makes people less free. The number of killed and wounded, though far lower than on the Russian side, grows every day. Ukrainian men have to serve in the armed forces, whether they want to or not. Even in the unoccupied majority of Ukrainian territory, Russian missile and drone attacks are not only lethal but exhausting. It is worse close to the front, as in Zaporizhzhia, where I arrive tomorrow morning, or Kharkiv, which I visited last September, because there is no time to take shelter from the missiles. But everywhere in the country nights are interrupted and people are at risk. I spent part of last night in a bomb shelter in Kyiv, awakened by the siren right after I went to sleep. For me this is an irritation. But for Ukrainians, three years of sleep deprivation takes a toll. The train tonight departed right at the time of the curfew, when people have to go home. This, too, is a certain deprivation of freedom.

And, yet, on this, the Ukrainian side of the line, people lead completely different lives than under Russian occupation or in Russia. Ukrainians say what they want, including about the war and about politics. Journalists cover the war and write about politics. There is fear, although less than you might think; but it is fear of bombs and missiles and violence from Russia, not of denunciations or oppression or of one’s own government. I have the strange feeling, this week in Kyiv, that Ukrainians are living freer lives now than Americans. At a book store where I was talking to a Ukrainian philosopher about freedom, a young woman put her hand on my arm and said “sorry about the U.S.”

There are lines that matter. If I made some sort of mistake, and somehow found myself on the Russian side of the line in the Zaporizhzhia region, I would probably disappear for good. Russian authorities have made clear what they think of me, sanctioning me not once but twice. (And, to be clear, it is a terrible idea for any American to go to Russia now; you will just be kidnapped, and held for some possible exchange for a Russian criminal.) If I crossed that line, it is unlikely that I would come back.

Ukrainian trains are punctual, and they are pleasant. It is not that I am in any way uncomfortable, or afraid. Heading in the direction of a line just makes me thoughtful, as an American. As I get ready to go to sleep, I find myself thinking that Americans are also speeding towards a line

Americans back home are not entering a geographic Russia, of course, or a zone of Russian occupation; but we are hurtling towards having a Russian-type regime. I don’t even have in mind the alignment with Russian interests, the fact that so many members or our new regime have financial and emotional connections with Russia, or the fact that quite a few of our policies look as though they were designed in the Kremlin. That is a very bad sign, of course.

But I have in mind something deeper: the transformation of our public and private lives. As in Russia, we have let local newspapers and local media die. As in Russia, their place was taken by a few commercial operations. As in Russia, the media are owned by oligarchs, who then become close to government or submit to it (not all of the media in America, of course, are submitting, but far too many are). As in Russia, our daily lives are flooded by such a rushing river of contradictory lies that we have trouble knowing where we are, let alone what we should do. As in Russia, a president supported by oligarchs and their media power is trying to humiliate the other branches of government. The executive is seeking to marginalize the legislature — forever — by ruling without passing laws. The executive is seeking to marginalize the judiciary — forever — by ignoring court rulings. Those things, of course, have already happened in Russia.

The Russian government rejoices in such changes in the U.S., and has a handin them. But the problem is not Russia. The problem is us. It is as though we have boarded a train without thinking about the destination. The windows are shaded, and the conductors have purposes of their own, which have nothing to do with our dignity, rights, or humanity. I worry that we will not see that line approaching, that no one will get out, that no one will stop the train.

I am one American in a train at night in a foreign country at war, heading in the direction of the front, going to a city that is attacked by Russia. But I know that I won’t be crossing any lines. It is nearing midnight, and aside from the sound of the wheels on the rails, all is calm. I know where this train will stop. I am traveling with people I know, visiting people I trust, aiming to do something that makes sense — helping to celebrate the opening of an underground school in Zaporizhzhia (Russia targets schools with missiles, and so they must go underground, in a literal sense). As I close my tablet and go to sleep, I am safer than every single one of you reading this in the United States, and indeed safer than I would be in the United States. My train will stop in five hours. But America will keep hurtling.

Two cars down sleeps a Ukrainian soldier. Spare a thought for him and for the other Ukrainian soldiers on my train, on their way to the front. They are, in every sense of the word, holding a line, not only for themselves and their country, but for all of us. But for their resistance, it would be a worse and more tyrannical world. They have been giving us a chance to stay on our side of the line for three years now, and at horrible cost. By comparison to what they have done for us, we have done very little for them.

Think about what lines you will cross and that you will not cross. They are not as obvious, perhaps, as a line on a map, or a line of trenches at the front. But we cannot pretend that they are not there. And if we cross them, we will no longer be ourselves.

Completed 10 February 2025, Kyiv-Zaporizhzhia train

Published 12 February 2025, Odesa

Thinking about... is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe

This is the podcast version of my written post “Of course it’s a coup” of 5 February. Please listen or share with those who prefer to listen.

Coming posts will be about the weak strong man, lessons from Germany, and the lines we cross from one form of regime to another.

Excellent journalist work on the coup is meantime being done by Mother Jones, Wired, and Notes on the Crisis.

Thinking about... is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe

This is the podcast version of my post on the logic of destruction behind the ongoing digital coup inside the US government. Please listen and share.

Forthcoming posts will be about German lessons (just left Berlin) about fascism, and about Trump as a weak strong man.

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This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe

I brought a coat for the trip through Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Oklahoma, and Texas, but never wore it once. The drought in Ohio was painfully visible in the cornfields. A relative was able to come a talk in Ohio because she had fled a hurricane in North Carolina. In Ohio the days started out in the high 30s but then cleared 70. I ran a 5k in Ohio with people who were struggling in the sun and heat — in late October. In Ohio and Michigan the trees were a couple weeks late in turning, at least compared to what I remember. In Oklahoma and Texas it was balmy deep into the night. The drive from OKC to Dallas was scorching.

There is so much to remember about the trip, most of it encouraging and happy. But the changes in the weather were all around, affecting everything.

In a short presidential campaign like this, climate has not been a major topic. In this video, I try to explain how important it should be. We have the knowledge and the tools and to deal with climate change. But we have to do it now. Four years of encouraging carbon emissions and spreading misinformation, which is what Trump and Vance promise, could very well make the problem insoluble and the crisis irreversible. And this is a problem that will make all the other problems worse. It really is a matter of survival.

So this is one more way that we have power — a lot of power. Voting on this issue will make a dramatic difference, in the US and everywhere else. Let’s change the climate for the better. Vote.

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This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe

(Trying to fulfill my promise of translating all of my text posts into audio or video. This seemed like an important one to do before the election. Please think about it and share it. And vote!)

We have seen this show before.  We know what Trump losing looks like.

Three Trumpian actions are predictable.  We know them from the last election. 

Last time around, when Trump lost, when Trump knew that he lost, he:

1. Claimed that he won (November)

2. Filed lawsuits (November-December)

3. Encouraged violence (January)

He did these three things because he lost.  They comprise the loser triad.

Judging from past behavior, though, a repetition of the loser triad would signal that Trump believes that he has lost. 

In 2024, though, the sequence will be different. 

Allies of Trump have already filed dozens of lawsuits.  Pro-Trump violence is likely to begin around election day rather than in January. 

But the timing of Trump's claiming victory will likely be the same, shortly after the election but before the outcome has been confirmed. 

To be clear, anything can happen.  Either candidate can win.  That is why we vote and count the votes.  And that is exactly why we should not engage in behaviors like the loser triad. The loser triad indicates that a loser is trying to break the system.

This time around, the three actions will likely come in the following sequence. 

Trump, in the 2024 loser triad:

1.  Files lawsuits (already happening, even before the election!)

2.  Encourages violence (around election day, most likely)

3.  Claims that he won (shortly after election day).

If Trump again claims too early that he won, this is not just a statement like any other.  It is part of a plan to take power by a candidate who believes that he has lost an election -- a repeat of a behavior that we know very well.

If Trump claims victory, that is a good sign that Harris has won the election.

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I wrote this in March, with the text as below, and am posting this recording now, in the hopes that it can be useful. Please share it. TS 1/11/2024

Quite a few Americans like the idea of strongman rule.  Why not a dictator who will get things done? 

I lived in eastern Europe when memories of communism were fresh.  I have visited regions in Ukraine where Russia imposed its occupation regime.  I have spent decades reading testimonies of people who lived under Nazi or Stalinist rule.  I have seen death pits, some old, some freshly dug. And I have friends who have lived under authoritarian regimes, including political prisoners and survivors of torture. Some of the people I trusted most have been assassinated.

So I think that there is an answer to this question. 

Strongman rule is a fantasy.  Essential to it is the idea that a strongman will be your strongman.  He won't.  In a democracy, elected representatives listen to constituents.  We take this for granted, and imagine that a dictator would owe us something. But the vote you cast for him affirms your irrelevance.  The whole point is that the strongman owes us nothing.  We get abused and we get used to it. 

Another pleasant illusion is that the strongman will unite the nation.  But an aspiring dictator will always claim that some belong and others don't.  He will define one group after another as the enemy.  This might feel good, so long as you feel that you are on the right side of the line.  But now fear is the essence of life.  The politics of us-and-them, once begun, never ends. 

We dream that a strongman will let us focus on America.  But dictatorship opens our country to the worst the world has to offer.  An American strongman will measure himself by the wealth and power of other dictators.  He will befriend them and compete with them.  From them he will learn new ways to oppress and to exploit his own people.

At least, the fantasy goes, the strongman will get things done.  But dictatorial power today is not about achieving anything positive.  It is about preventing anyone else from achieving anything.  The strongman is really the weak man: his secret is that he makes everyone else weaker. 

Unaccountable to the law and to voters, the dictator has no reason to consider anything beyond his own personal interests.  In the twenty-first century, those are simple: dying in bed as a billionaire.  To enrich himself and to stay out of prison, the strongman dismantles the justice system and replaces civil servants with loyalists. 

The new bureaucrats will have no sense of accountability.  Basic government functions will break down. Citizens who want access will learn to pay bribes.  Bureaucrats in office thanks to patronage will be corrupt, and citizens will be desperate.  Quickly the corruption becomes normal, even unquestioned. 

As the fantasy of strongman rule fades into everyday dictatorship, people realize that they need things like water or schools or Social Security checks.  Insofar as such goods are available under a dictatorship, they come with a moral as well as a financial price.  When you go to a government office, you will be expected to declare your personal loyalty to the strongman.   

If you have a complaint about these practices, too bad.  Americans are litigious people, and many of us assume that we can go to the police or sue.  But when you vote a strong man in, you vote out the rule of law.  In court, only loyalism and wealth will matter.  Americans who do not fear the police will learn to do so.  Those who wear the uniform must either resign or become the enforcers of the whims of one man.

Everybody (except the dictator and his family and friends) gets poorer.  The market system depends upon competition.  Under a strongman, there will be no such thing.  The strongman's clan will be favored by government.  Our wealth inequality, bad enough already, will get worse.  Anyone hoping for prosperity will have to seek the patronage of the official oligarchs. Running a small business will become impossible.  As soon as you achieve any sort of success, someone who wants your business denounces you. 

In the fantasy of the strongman, politics vanishes and all is clear and bright.  In fact, a dreary politics penetrates everything.  You can't run a business without the threat of denunciation.  You can't get basic services without humiliation.  You feel bad about yourself.  You think about what you say, since it can be used against you later.  What you do on the internet is recorded forever, and can land you in prison.

Public space closes down around you.  You cannot escape to the bar or the bowling alley, since everything you say is monitored.  The person on the next stool or in the next lane might not turn you in, but you have to assume they will.  If you have a t-shirt or a bumper sticker with a message, someone will report you.  Even if you just repeat the dictator's words, someone can lie about you and denounce you.  And then, if you voted for the strongman, you will be confused.  But you should not be.  This is what you voted for.

Denunciation becomes normal behavior.  Without law and voting, denouncing others helps people to feel safe.  Under strongman rule, you cannot trust your colleagues or your friends or even your family.  Political fear not only takes away all public space; it also corrupts all private relationships.  And soon it consumes your thoughts.  If you cannot say what you think, you lose track of what you believe.  You cease to be yourself.

If you have a heart attack and go to the hospital, you have to worry that your name is on a list.  Care of elderly parents is suddenly in jeopardy.  That hospital bed or place in a retirement home is no longer assured.  If you draw attention to yourself, aged relatives will be dumped in the street.  This is not how America works now, but it is how authoritarian regimes always work. 

In the strongman fantasy, no one thinks about children.  But fear around children is the essence of dictatorial power.  Even courageous people restrain themselves to protect their children.  Parents know that children can be singled out and beaten up.  If parents step out of line, children lose any chance of going to university, or lose their jobs.

Schools collapse anyway, since a dictator only wants myths that justify his power.  Children learn in school to denounce one another.  Each coming generation must be more tame and ignorant than the prior one.  Time with young children stresses parents.  Either your children repeat propaganda and tell you things you know are wrong, or you worry that they will find out what is right and get in trouble. 

In a dictatorship, parents no longer say what they think to their children, because they fear that their children will repeat it in public.  And once parents no longer speak their minds at home, they can no longer create a trusting family.  Even parents who give up on honesty have to fear that their children will one day learn the truth, take action, and get imprisoned. 

Once this process begins, it is hard to stop.  At the present stage of the strongman fantasy, people imagine an exciting experiment.  If they don't like strongman rule, they think, they can just elect someone else the next time.  This misses the point.  If you help a strongman come to power, you are eliminating democracy.  You burn that bridge behind you.  The strongman fantasy dissolves, and real dictatorship remains.

Most likely you won’t be killed or be required to kill. But amid the dreariness of life under dictatorship is dark responsibility for others’ death. By the time the killing starts, you will know that it is not about unity, or the nation, or getting things done. The best Americans, betrayed by you when you cast your vote, will be murdered at the whim and for the wealth of a dictator. Your tragedy will be living long enough to understand this.

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Some people talk about Trump’s economic plans; others about his intention to undo the rule of law. In this five-minute video, I try to explain how the two relate: how lawlessness will wreck the economy.

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