The defeat of Trumpism will only be possible “with an enormous amount of resistance,” says an authoritarianism expert

Snyder, who in addition to being one of the great world authorities in his specialty is an effective communicator and a best-selling writer, tried to give advice to a Europe that sees how in less than four years it will suffer military attacks from Russia in Ukraine and may now suffer them from its great ally in security matters, a United States that threatens to appropriate European territories and return to the imperialisms of the 19th century.

Snyder left three lessons above all, three great reflections.

The first is to assure Europeans that losing their empires between the end of the 19th century and the decades after World War II was the best thing that could have happened to them, because allowed the European Union to be born and finally democratized European countries.

Nazi Germany had to lose the war so that the European Union could be born: “When they lost their empires, Europe was the second best option.” It can also be understood by the loss of the Dutch and French territories in Southeast Asia and previously by the independence of the Latin American countries from Spain and Portugal.

Therefore, Snyder believes, the best thing that could happen to Russia (and in turn to Europe) is to be defeated militarily and politically in Ukraine. That would give way to a “post-imperial” Russia. If Russia wins, Snyder believes, “it will use the power it gains from absorbing Ukraine to do the next thing, which will have further implications for Europe.”

Snyder warns Europeans that the defeat of trumpism that now threatens them with the use of military force and that threatens the entire Western Hemisphere will only be possible “with an enormous amount of resistance” in 2026 and 2027.

Europe must resist, How he resisted Nazism during World War II. Snyder made that analogy and said that what comes after Trump will not be the United States of Joe Biden or Barack Obama, “but something new which now maybe “it doesn’t even exist”.

Snyder also advises hardening the attitude against European far-right parties and starting to see the support that Donald Trump offers them (and which can be converted into financing) as one sees the support that the Kremlin gave to some of these parties. The historian believes that “MAGA and Moscow are using European nationalist movements as a way to weaken European states”.

Snyder also believes that Europe must resist pressure from Washington not to enforce its digital regulations and asks Europeans not to abandon the DSA regulation, which was designed to curb platform abuses.

“Freedom of speech is not about those in power setting the tone of conversation for everyone else. It is about creating conditions in which the least powerful person can be heard. And that is not the environment for American social media companies.”

Timothy Snyder is a great specialist in the Holocaust and the birth of authoritarianism. Its prestige is based in part on having been able to connect academic historical research with current debates on authoritarianism, propaganda and the fragility of democracies in the face of new authoritarian regimes.

He is a professor at Yale and a permanent researcher at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. His best-selling books are “Lands of Blood” (about the massive violence that Hitler and Stalin applied to civil societies during the war), “Black Earth” (about the Holocaust), “On Tyranny” (a book of civic lessons) and “On Freedom” (a defense of political freedom understood as a social project).