Interview with Timothy Snyder "Trump is entirely responsible for the violence"
20.07.2024, 15:03 Uhr Artikel anhören
At least on the Republican Party's convention stage in Milwaukee, Trump was already back in the White House.
(Foto: AP)
The historian Timothy Snyder sees a dire future ahead for the United States of America should Republican candidate Donald Trump win the election. Snyder, who is a Permanent Fellow at the Vienna Institute for Human Sciences, fears the end of the American republic, civil unrest and further substantial restrictions of women’s rights. Talking about Russia’s war in Ukraine, Snyder says: using the word ‘peace’ prior to using the word 'victory' does not make any sense.
Sie finden das Interview in deutscher Sprache unter diesem Link.
ntv.de: Professor Snyder, is the recent assassination attempt on Donald Trump a turning point in U.S. history and are we experiencing a new era of political extremism and violence?
Timothy Snyder: I doubt that it is a turning point. Americans forget things quickly. And since it was a Republican doing the shooting, it won't have as much resonance.
To what extent has Donald Trump himself created this political climate, which leads to violence and ultimately death?
He is entirely responsible. Democrats will say the right things. And the press will tell the Democrats to tone down their rhetoric. That is the easy course for the press in my country. Easier than the message that those who bring violence to the center of political life, as Trump has done, are changing the entire situation.
How does this change the election in the US?
No one knows. But my sense is not much. Trump chose Vance as his running mate, which means the far right. He can't use the assassination attempt as a uniting issue since Vance already wrongly blamed Democrats.
How is Donald Trump changing the course of history?
For Americans, I think that it is important to remember that Trump represents certain trends in American history. He essentially represents a trend of worshiping wealthy people, or in this case, someone who pretends to be wealthy. Secondly, he represents a deep racist current in American history. There is an American tendency to say: how could this happen? But it is rooted in our history. Furthermore, it is not just a matter of how he changes history, it is also a matter of where Donald Trump arose from. And if we are talking about world history, then we must recognize that he also comes from the age of unregulated digital technology, which basically functions by manipulating emotions.
What do you mean by that?
In the U. S., digital media is much less regulated than in Europe. And you can see the implications of that. I think social media is essentially fascist. It is a kind of fascism incubator. It is not entertainment, but rather a change in the means of cognitive production, which changes the way politics works.
What happens if Trump wins?
If he wins, I think the U. S. federal government will essentially fracture and cease to function. There will be parts of the U. S. government that do not want to obey illegal or unethical orders. The plan of something called 'Project 2025' is to fire every single American civil servant and replace them with party loyalists. For both of those reasons, the American federal government will probably cease to function and there will likely be civil unrest. That will then look like a major turn in U. S. history, because it will mean the transformation or perhaps the end of the American republic.
How does a country slip into a dictatorship? Can you see cracks and signs of that happening in the U.S. already?
Of course, I can see them. There are American states, which are basically one party, quasi authoritarian regimes where your vote does not really count. Many basic rights, especially for women, no longer exist. We are in the midst of watching the Supreme Court, the head of the top of one of the branches of government, essentially becoming a political arm of the executive or a political arm of oligarchs. Democracy can only exist if you want it, you are aware of it and you work for it. But if you think that God or the market or the constitution or history or human nature is going to bring you democracy you are going to end up losing it.
You mentioned that many basic women’s rights are under attack in the U.S. Is it too farfetched to say that there are parallels between certain parts of the Republican Party and the Taliban in the way they want to control women? What dangers do you see regarding the rights of women and 'Project 2025'?
This goes to your previous question of what the basic causes of this are. I think masculine anxiety is a basic cause. The men who managed to get to the top of these anti-democratic movements are men with this masculine anxiety. Trump is essentially a hyper performative heterosexual and I think that this is politically effective insofar as it reassures other men that there is nothing to worry about. And if you don’t know what it means to be a man, then you take it out on the women, or you take it out on the gays, or you take it out on the trans people.
That is an underlying feature of this kind of politics, that you have lost confidence in yourself as a man, and so, therefore, you need to control somebody else. But of course, it’s not just a political means, it’s also a political end. I agree with you, I think 'Project 2025' articulates a vision of the world in which the female body is something which should be constantly surveilled. What you have here is a kind of fantasy of surveillance and control.
Let’s also talk about Russia’s war against Ukraine. You said recently that we are now in the year 1938 and Ukraine is making sure that it doesn't turn 1939. What did you mean by that?
In September 1938, Czechoslovakia’s allies took the decision to allow Germany to seize Czechoslovak territory. And the Czechoslovak government chose not to resist Germany. And that set of decisions very materially affects the way the Second World War begins. Because when Germany then attacks Poland in 1939, it is attacking from the South. It is attacking with Slovak soldiers. It is attacking with Czech weapons, with Czech tanks, which are probably the best in the world. Germany then also has control of Czech wealth.
So, when the Ukrainians decided to fight in 2022, they are not just defending themselves, but they're preventing that situation from repeating itself. If Europe has to face a victorious Russia, it will not just face Russia. It's facing Russia with Ukrainian hydrocarbons, Ukrainian mineral wealth, Ukrainian agriculture, and Ukrainian military technology, and even Ukrainian soldiers.
Therefore, the Ukrainians have been keeping us in 1938 for two and a half years now. I think it's fundamentally our problem that we take it for granted. That we don't recognize how much worse things could be. There is essentially a world war being fought, but only one country is doing the fighting and the rest of us are contributing things which don't even matter in our daily lives. In return, we are getting our daily lives in Connecticut or in Germany. All because of the fact that the Ukrainians are fighting and dying.
How do you view Germany as a historian? Is the country stepping up its game when it comes to supporting Ukraine or is it actually disappointing?
Both. Nothing in German foreign or domestic policy happens without a discussion of history. But the discussion is not always well founded and fundamentally, Germans still just do not really grasp that the Second World War was about conquering Ukraine. They don't really grasp that a major center of German war crimes during the war was Ukraine, whether we're speaking of the Holocaust or starvation of prisoners of war or starvation of cities.
So historical implications have not been grasped?
Ukraine resisting a genocidal fascist invasion provided Germany with a unique historical chance to apply knowledge of the past to foreign policy. I don't think that has fully been exploited to a larger extent, because I don't think that history has been fully grasped.
But there are also positive elements of German foreign policy?
It’s both. Germany has basically moved in the right direction. But being on the right side is not enough. In the Second World War, it wasn’t enough for the Americans and the British to simply be on the right side, they had to win. The lesson that Germans draw from the Second World War can't be about peace. That is not what happened. What happened in the Second World War was victory and defeat. And so, using the word 'peace' prior to using the word ' victory' doesn’t make any sense.
You don’t get to peace without victory. I think that’s a mental conceptual leap that Germans and Americans really have to make together.
Professor Snyder, thank you for the interview and taking the time.
Philipp Sandmann to Timothy Snyder
Quelle: ntv.de
