“Democracy is always really hard”: Historian Snyder on freedom in US, Europe and beyond
Yale historian Timothy Snyder was in Prague last week at the Plus and Václav Havel Library conference Borders of (Un)Freedom. The next day, he was interviewed by Czech Radio journalist Jan Bumba. They discussed topics ranging from the Republican nomination of Donald Trump as presidential candidate; how a Trump election might impact Europe and Russia’s war on Ukraine; and Snyder’s soon-to-be published book On Freedom. This is an edited version of that interview.
Professor Snyder, if I may start with what's going on now in the United States. Donald Trump has an official nomination of the Republican Party. His supporters at the convention in Milwaukee welcomed him with huge applause, some even had tears in their eyes. How big is his chance to win the elections in November?
“Nobody knows the answer to that because, first of all, all kinds of unpredictable things will keep happening between now and November. And secondly, it depends a lot on what people do.
“I think we're in a moment where everyone wants to stare at the screen of their phone and let their phone tell them what the chances of something are. I think the Democrats will win if the Democrats are physically active in the real world and lead a human campaign. I think Trump has a good chance of winning if they don't, but nobody knows who's going to win. And like many things, it depends on what we do between now and then.”
Are you worried about the future of democracy as such in the United States?
“I think, in a way, that's the wrong question. Democracy is always really hard. And so it's not the kind of thing where it's good, and then it goes bad, so then you're worried. If you really want a democracy, you have to be constantly engaged. It's not a matter of it's not a matter of waiting until there's some crisis and then being worried.
“So, I don't want to say that I'm worried because that would suggest that there was some time when I wasn't worried if you see what I mean. Democracy is always a challenge. It's always unlikely it requires an ethical commitment. People have to want to rule, or else it will fall apart.
“The second point about the US would be that our system is already much less democratic than, for example, the Czech system. It's a much less democratic order already because of all the voter suppression, the gerrymandering, the Electoral College, the 18th-century elements of our system, plus the various habits that we have.
“You can't be an American and say, oh, yes, we have a perfect democracy, but now it's threatened. The ways that the system can be undermined, are built into the system already. So, for example, you would think that the President of the United States would be the person who wins the most votes, but that very often doesn't happen. Trump won three million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton. Hilary Clinton won by, you know, more than the size of Prague. But she still isn't the president.
“So, democracy is always a struggle. It's worth struggling for. Now is a moment where, I think, things could go very wrong very quickly – that's true.”
I think that many people would find it very surprising, if not striking, when you say that the Czech system is more democratic than the American one because we tend to see the United States as a role model, “the leader of the free world.”
“Being the leader of the free world is a matter of having power and having the right policies. And so you can have a President Biden, who is in effect, I would say, a leader among others, of countries where people are free. But we're not automatically a free country, just because we're big and some Czechs think well of us. You know, when you vote for president, you're directly electing your president.”
So, what consequences might it have for the world if Donald Trump becomes the next American president?
“I think it's very important for Europeans – and I've noticed, with respect, that many European leaders are doing this – to just factor that in as a possibility, rather than thinking, oh well, the world comes to an end if the Americans have another Trump administration. It's tempting to be passive and to think, everything depends on the Americans, so if Trump becomes president, we're all doomed, and Ukraine has to lose, and so on.
“I don't really see it that way. I think Europe could become the world center of democracy for four years and that would be okay. I also think you could supply Ukraine and that wouldn't be ideal, but it would be okay.
“If Trump becomes president, the United States is very likely to change its political system, at least in the short term, but it's certainly going to be riven by conflict deep into 2025, and will essentially be not present.
“In foreign affairs, what you can expect is for Trump to say, in his version of American English, the kinds of things you're used to hearing from Beijing and Moscow. He will essentially repeat talking points from China and Russia.
“I don't think he'll be active, in a sense. I think it's more that he will make the United States much smaller than it needs to be, in effect by suggesting that the world really just belongs to these great powers, these great powers run by dictators, that's the way things ought to be. And I think China and Russia would become overpowered by a Trump administration.”
And what about Ukraine? Is it likely that the American support for Ukraine will diminish?
“I would say that's very likely because Trump behaves like, let's put it this way, a Russian client, and, in a general way, you can anticipate his foreign policy moves by asking what the Russians prefer that Trump do in this circumstance. And Russia would certainly prefer that the United States stop supporting Ukraine.
“The Russians themselves are incredibly open about this. If you watch their propaganda channels, they're basically cheerleading for Trump day after day after day after day after day – as they'll be cheerleading for Vance now.
“So, yes, the best chance of Russia winning in Ukraine is through the United States. Their shortest path – their only path to Kyiv – goes through Washington, DC, and they know that.
"Trump is, I think, likely to try to make a deal, which means blackmailing Ukrainians. Again, because he's already done this once, blackmailing Ukrainians by saying we won't send you any weapons. And then telling Putin will give you some territory that you don't already control.
"And the irony of this deal. I mean, there are many ironies, but one of them is that Trump is supposed to be this great negotiator. But, in fact, what he's proposing is a deal, which is much better for the Russians than the Russians could get without American support. In effect, what he's saying is, I'm going to throw American power behind the Russian cause, and help them get things that they wouldn't be able to get otherwise.
“That's what he's going to try. I'm not sure it's going to work, because I think the Ukrainians are likely not to agree. But also, because when Trump comes to power, the Russians may think they'll be able to get more than as promised by any deal that Trump could offer.”
So is there any hope in all this for Ukraine? And can Ukraine win the war without American weapons? And without American support?
“I actually think it can. But it depends on the Europeans. It depends on the Europeans transforming more manufacturing capacity into munitions; it depends on the Europeans allowing, interestingly, as I think they would, unlike the Americans, allowing the Ukrainians to do normal, sensible things like destroy Russian logistics inside Russia.
“Because the way Ukraine wins this war, is not by physically driving every Russian soldier out of Ukraine, the way that Ukraine wins this war is by making it impossible for Russia to continue. And I do think that's possible. I think Russia is hurting quite a lot. So, I don't think it's hopeless for Ukraine without the US but it would require some hard-headed determination by the Europeans.”
Is there enough determination? Because there are European politicians who very openly say, for example, that if we stopped sending weapons to Ukraine, it would eventually lead to peace. In their logic, no weapons, no fighting. What do you think about this argument?
“It's clearly wrong. I mean, we didn't send weapons, Russia invaded Ukraine. I mean, the question is whether you want to fight in Moravia, or whether you want to be fighting to be in Kharkiv Oblast. You know, those are the real choices.
“You can decide, okay, we're going to let the Ukrainians lose. But if you let the Ukrainians lose, you are then confirming an imperial logic in the Russian system. And, beyond that, you're changing what Russia is, you're making Russia territorially much more “westerly,” you're bringing Ukrainian, economic, mineral, agricultural, human, and technological resources inside Russia. You're making Russia a much more fearsome enemy than it had been before.
“And as I say, the political logic of the way Russia works is that it needs foreign adventures because it doesn't have domestic policy. And so Putin will come up with some reason why he has to denazify some other country. So, no, I don't really think that's the correct analysis. I think the correct analysis would be something like the European Union is doing pretty well, in general. And that has a lot to do with the fact that the Ukrainians are doing all the fighting for you. And, if I were a European, I would try to make it as easy as possible for the Ukrainians to continue to do all the fighting for you. Because if they're not, they're doing the fighting for you, you're gonna have to do the fighting for yourselves.”
You've mentioned Russian propaganda, and you also talked about it yesterday. And you say that Russian propaganda is losing its strength? How can you tell?
“Depends on what you mean. I think they're doing better in the West, with their own Western messengers than they were at the beginning of the war, they now have new messages. So, referring to JD Vance, for example, the idea that Ukraine is corrupt, therefore, no one should give it any money. That's a Russian propaganda message, which JD Vance has repeated with particular details that are false – which he must know to be false. That's an argument that didn't matter at the beginning of the war because at the beginning of the war, the Russians thought they were going to win in a matter of days.
“So, their propaganda in the West, I think, is now doing better, because they have messengers who translate into English or Czech or German, their basic messages, with things like Ukraine is corrupt, or we should all be afraid of nuclear war or whatever.
“What I meant, though, was that their domestic propaganda, with time, is ever less coherent. And it's more and more a reaction to things which happened in the previous day. And this is a personal judgment – and I could be wrong, of course – but it seems like their domestic propaganda is less and less capable of providing some kind of overall framework for why this war is actually going on.”
Professor Snyder, your latest book is called On Freedom. Why is freedom such an important topic for you?
“Well, I don't think it has to do with me. I think it has to do with the world. We've spent a lot of time in this interview talking about how things can go wrong and what things are wrong. And you also need a language of what would be right, what would be best, what would be good.
“Freedom, I think, is that language. The thing that we're worried about is losing our freedom. But the problem we have is that or one problem we have is that we don't know what freedom really is, we don't really know how to talk about it.
“So, for me, freedom is the kind of master value because it's the value that allows all other values. If we're in a state where we're free, that means that we're capable of choosing, affirming, realizing other values, things that we care about.
“And I believe the right way to justify government is to say the task of government is to create conditions in which we can grow up to become free people. So, I think that people on the right are wrong to say, well, we don't really need government, we should just let their oligarchs run free and control our minds. I think that's wrong.
“I think people on the left who say we don't need to talk about freedom, we just need to talk about justice. I think that's also mistaken. I think, at the end of the day, you need justice or fairness in order to have individuals who can be free. So, I'm trying to take the position that because freedom is the highest value – which I believe – you have to therefore have the right kind of government.”
You said in your lecture yesterday that we need to create a society in which people can be free. How do we create such a society?
“As I say, I think our problem is that we think that freedom and government are in opposition. I think that's basically wrong. I think that you need government to have freedom. If you just start from the idea that government is the problem, you will end up with some other form of government. In our world, in the third decade of the 21st century, that will be an oligarchic form of government.
“So, if you just say we're going to wish the government away or make it weak, you can't do that. You just remove a structure, and another structure will come in – and it will likely be a worse one – because since you think smaller government is possible, you're not going to be alert to the dangers of the rival.
“I think what one needs is to say okay, freedom is the highest value but freedom requires certain kinds of conditions. Children left alone, abandoned by their parents are not going to grow up to be free. Start from that. Children need to have parents or adults around. How do you arrange that? Well, that can only be arranged by some kind of collective understanding, which involves a government.
“So step by step, imagine all the ways that government can make it easier for us to be free and justify government action only by that criterion. Is it or is it not designed to make people capable of growing up to be free? Not telling them what to do, not telling them what to think, not telling them what to value, but creating the conditions in which they could actually become “autonomous,” to use [Václav] Havel’s word, or “sovereign,” to use the word I use in the book so that they themselves can make these decisions. That's, I think, the real justification for government.”
