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Chapter 1
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in On Tyranny, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Collapse of American Democracy
Tyranny and the Consolidation of Power
Political Action and Civic Responsibility
History and Memory
Summary
Analysis
“Institutions do not protect themselves,” Snyder remarks, and everyone should choose one to actively defend. After Hitler’s election, the German public wrongly assumed that institutional checks and balances would prevent the Nazis from implementing the anti-Jewish policies they planned. In fact, when authoritarian rulers openly declare that they want to undermine a nation’s political institutions, it should be no surprise that they do so. Less than a year after their election, the Nazis had already destroyed German democracy by banning all other parties and weakening all existing institutions.
The institutions of government and civil society, including the tradition of democracy itself, “do not protect themselves” because they are made of people. As with citizens’ tendency to “obey in advance” rather than resist the overwhelming power of the state, their tendency to trust institutions is based on an overly optimistic misunderstanding of the way power and democracy work: societies have to be carefully shaped over centuries in order to be and remain democratic, because democracy requires spreading power around rather than concentrating it. Therefore, democracy is not inevitable: it can always be undone, especially by those in power, and therefore citizens must do whatever is necessary to defend it.
Themes
