We stare at the spinning vortex of cyclical myth until we fall into a trance - and then we do something shocking at someone else's orders.

On Tyranny is a rant, but a well-read one delivered in cold fury upon the rise of populist, anti-democratic demagogues in general and Trump in particular. With a starting point in the various ways that seemingly secure democracies have failed and descended into mob rule, dictatorship, and mass murder throughout the 20th century, Snyder delivers 20 points on how to defend democracy in troubled times. Essentially, condensing Arendt, von Klemperer, Havel and that lot down into a one-hour read.

The whole notion of disruption is adolescent: It assumes that after the teenagers make a mess, the adults will come and clean it up.
But there are no adults. We own this mess.

it's a chilling, useful little guide, and if it's overly focused on Trump's person and tactics that's hardly surprising - Snyder is American, after all. The one thing it truly lacks is sources. If you believe that a "post-fact" society needs more facts, then having actual sources for many of his statements wouldn't have hurt. When politicians like Trump turn their speeches into one long Gish gallop that would tend to turn the entire text into one long row of footnotes, true, but also even harder to dismiss as just another batch of fake news by those who benefit from that.