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Fighting tyranny at the ballot box

Kathy Werner - Columnist
Posted 10/15/20

There have been many books written during the past four years about the perilous state of our Union. I've read quite a few of them, but none is more succinct and powerful than “On Tyranny: Twenty …

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Fighting tyranny at the ballot box

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There have been many books written during the past four years about the perilous state of our Union. I've read quite a few of them, but none is more succinct and powerful than “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century” by Yale history professor Timothy Snyder.

In this slender tome, Snyder warns the reader: “We might be tempted to think that our democratic heritage automatically protects us…but we are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience.”

The Founding Fathers, Snyder writes, fought to create a government that would protect us from tyranny as described by the ancients. “As they knew, Aristotle warned that inequality brought instability, while Plato believed that demagogues exploited free speech to install themselves as tyrants.” They sought, by “founding a democratic republic upon law and establishing a system of checks and balances…to avoid the evil…called tyranny.”

“Much of the succeeding political debate in the United States has concerned the problem of tyranny within American society: over slaves and women, for example.”

Snyder's lessons are brief and to the point. He advocates defending institutions, since they help preserve decency. Among those institutions he mentions are a free press, the courts, and a labor union. The importance of a free press cannot be overstated. Though cries of “fake news” abound these days, we must realize that there is such a thing as objective truth. Thank goodness we still have dogged reporters who work to shine light in dark corners and bring the facts into the public square.

Among our institutions is the right to a free and fair election. We must beware a political party that seeks to suppress the vote. State GOP officials have severely reduced the number of polling places, especially in diverse neighborhoods, leading to people waiting in lines for as long as twelve hours to cast their vote.

The Texas governor has limited the number of places to hand in one's mail-in ballot to one per county, which is outrageous considering that Brewster County alone has over 6,000 square miles, three times the size of Delaware and even larger than the state of Connecticut.

In addition, five counties in Texas have over one million residents. Does this GOP plan seem designed to encourage citizens to exercise their right to vote? In California, the GOP is putting up fake ballot drop boxes.

Snyder notes in 1932 Germany, that perhaps some realized that this might be “the last meaningfully free election for some time, but most did not.”

With our current leader who will not commit to a peaceful transfer of power and is encouraging white supremacists and paramilitary groups to “monitor” the vote, this election is a true test of our determination to save this sacred institution of democracy.

Thank goodness many states have extended the voting window and 14 million Americans have already voted. Turnout will be massive this year.

And ultimately, that might be what saves us from living in an autocracy. All those voters who are doing the right thing, determined to make their voices heard.

On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder, Tim Duggan Books, 2017.

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