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Chapter 5
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
Armed anti-establishment groups are incredibly dangerous when they become the establishment. In a functioning society, the government is the only agent that can use violence, and it must follow its laws. But when armed paramilitary groups gain power, they threaten to help anti-democratic parties establish tyranny. In fact, the Nazis used a paramilitary force called the SS to terrify the populace, rig elections, and the concentration camps. According to Snyder, the United States is already far down this track: it has privatized its wars and prisons, and Donald Trump encourages his private security team and his supporters to use violence at his rallies. He wants to ensure that American military and police forces believe in and support his exclusionary political goals.
In a functioning society, paramilitaries should be subject to the law—the government should be able to take legal action against them when they use force illegitimately. But in the United States, where private corporations already carry out government functions, such armed groups are outside the law—they are neither subject to it, like citizens, nor following and applying it, like a police force. This shows that the United States already has the infrastructure necessary to carry out authoritarian atrocities, and Snyder thinks that Donald Trump’s plans should cause Americans to sincerely fear that such atrocities will actually happen.
Themes
