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This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
**Jessica Yellin **00:11
Hi everyone. This is an anxious moment in America. The midterms are approaching. The president has declined to rule out federal forces at polling places. He keeps testing the limits of courts and institutions. AI and the economy are reshaping people’s lives. And the sheer volume of provocation can make it hard to distinguish outrageous noise from a real threat, which makes this a very good time to call .
Snyder is one of the world’s leading historians of authoritarianism and fascism, and the author of On Tyranny and On Freedom. He has spent his career studying what happens when democracies come under pressure — and, crucially, what people can do about it. When we spoke almost a year ago, we talked about the strain on American democracy, the growing power of tech oligarchs, and his insistence that democracy is not a spectator sport. So a year later, I’m looking forward to asking him, or maybe not: Where are we now?
Tim Snyder, welcome and thank you for your time today.
**Timothy Snyder **01:14
Glad to be with you.
**Jessica Yellin **01:16
I wanted to start with the first, most obvious question that comes to me. When we spoke a year ago, you were worried about the pressure on American democratic institutions. Would you just take, broadly, the temperature today? What has gotten weaker in a year, and what’s actually proved more resilient than you expected?
