How to Grow a Dictator

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By Don Varyu

Jul 2024

 
 

f you want to master gardening, you can find thousands of books, articles and online videos to help. But it could take you years--maybe most of your life--to master.

On the other hand, if you want to grow a dictator, the process is fairly simple. Numerous scholars specialize in this study. And among them, Timothy Snyder at Yale stands out. His foundational work, On Tyranny (2017), applies to 20th century notables like Hitler and Stalin, and to living dictators like Kim Jong-Un and Putin. His book is an instruction manual for how to pull the weed of dictatorship from the garden of freedom. 

Every chapter is a single piece of advice. Below, I’ll highlight a few that seem to have significant relevance to our election…and our time.

  • Don’t obey in advance. Whatever their attributes, Democrats are notorious for casting a skeptical eye on anything even their own party proposes. Not so much for the MAGA faithful; if Trump says it, it must be both wise and true.

  • Beware the one-party state. If Trump wins, we are at least two-thirds of the way to this. The Supreme Court is already in the bag, and Congress could follow. In that case, the coup is complete, and we live under one-man rule.

  • Be wary of paramilitaries. Forget the Jan. 6 mob. Trump’s plan calls for pulling immigrants out of their homes, putting them in camps, and then deporting them back to…well, anywhere. In addition, he wants to use the U.S. military to forcibly attack and neutralize protestors he dislikes.

  • Defend institutions. The GOP’s Trump-inspired Project 2025 calls for decimating the EPA, eliminating the Department of Education, making the Justice Department and the FBI directly reportable to him, and booting out tens of thousands of federal government employees, replacing them with loyalists who will do exactly what he says.

  • Remember professional ethics. See “institutions” above.

  • Believe in truth. Perhaps Trump’s greatest feat is convincing tens of millions of Americans that truth is relative; that facts are just what you believe. In short, he will tell you the “truth” and you will believe him.

Much of the remainder of Snyder’s book is, in effect, a call to action on how to preserve democracy and defeat tyranny. It contains admonitions to “investigate”, “be a patriot”, and “be calm when the unthinkable occurs.”

People who want to be more actively involved are urged to “be as courageous as you can.”  That doesn’t have to mean staring down a MAGA wielding a baseball bat. It might be more impactful to just forward this article to someone who you think might be unmotivated to vote at all. 

That might qualify as meeting one of Snyder’s other suggestions: “take responsibility for the face of the world.”

 
 

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