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Timothy Snyder_ Orbán stood between Putin and Trump · INSIGHT TODAY

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: The world, as I said earlier, is more dangerous and divided.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: The US has fundamentally changed its approach to trade, raising
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: its tariffs to levels last seen during the Great Depression.
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  Speaker 1: Many of our former strengths, based on our close ties
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  Speaker 1: to America, have become our weaknesses, weaknesses that we must correct.
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  Speaker 1: There are some who say there's no need for a
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  Speaker 1: comprehensive plan. They believe we should wait it out in
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  Speaker 1: the hope that the United States will return to normal,
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  Speaker 1: that the good old days will come back. But hope
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: isn't a plan, and nostalgia is not a strategy.
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  Speaker 2: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Karney weighing in on the future
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  Speaker 2: of Canada's economy esterday, specifically pointing out the country's ties
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  Speaker 2: to the United States. This isn't Carney's first time speaking
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  Speaker 2: up against America's economic strategy under the Trump administration. He
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  Speaker 2: has made similar remarks at the World Economic Forum back
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  Speaker 2: in January, drawing criticism from the President at the time. Meanwhile,
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  Speaker 2: Our Mexican asked his calling out President Trump's apocalyptic wartime rhetoric.
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  Speaker 2: Historian Timothy Snyder writes in a piece for Substack in
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  Speaker 2: part quote, Yes, the United States has undertaken atrocities before.
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  Speaker 2: That makes it all the more important, all the more
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  Speaker 2: urgent that we catch ourselves now. Neither the evil nor
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  Speaker 2: the good in our history determines who we are. It
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  Speaker 2: is what we do now. And Timothy Snyder joins us now.
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  Speaker 2: He's a professor at the Monk School of Global Affairs
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  Speaker 2: and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. He's also
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  Speaker 2: the author of several books, including on Freedom and on Tyranny.
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  Speaker 2: So I just think of this right here, A whole
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  Speaker 2: civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.
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  Speaker 2: Why don't we start right there number one saying it,
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  Speaker 2: and the concerns and dangers of that, but then number
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  Speaker 2: two not doing it. There's a credibility issue as well.
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  Speaker 2: What do you think the biggest concerns are about the
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  Speaker 2: way this president messages?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean number one, when he says it, he's
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  Speaker 3: revealing things about himself that he can imagine a world
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  Speaker 3: in which people destroy whole civilizations. He's also setting up
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  Speaker 3: a situation where I think all Americans have to react
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  Speaker 3: and say, we're not that sort of person, regardless of
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  Speaker 3: what the country does, what the military does. Because if
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  Speaker 3: we just if we don't say anything, we're normalizing it.
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  Speaker 3: And also we have to remember that once he says
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  Speaker 3: things like that, the future actions of US soldiers will
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  Speaker 3: be interpreted in that light. So if the President says
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  Speaker 3: we're committing genocide, then destroying dams and destroying civilian infrastructure desalinization,
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  Speaker 3: that becomes a genocidal crime. But you're right. He also
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  Speaker 3: played Chamberlain to his own hitler. I mean, he basically
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  Speaker 3: said we're going to genocide you, and then the same
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  Speaker 3: day he pulled back. And that is a problem as
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  Speaker 3: well because it means, okay, now we have the United States,
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  Speaker 3: which threatens all the time and has its luff called
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  Speaker 3: the same day, which makes us look even weaker than
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  Speaker 3: we have been.
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  Speaker 4: So he has reiterated threats today, didn't claim to why
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  Speaker 4: got a civilization, but said the infrastructure will be targeted
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  Speaker 4: again a war crime if the around has not opened up.
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  Speaker 4: The straight up four moves again. But let's go back
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  Speaker 4: to the threat which was so striking, and we were
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  Speaker 4: talking earlier in the show. Age have since justified it saying,
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  Speaker 4: look it worked. That got around to the you know,
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  Speaker 4: it is our part of the art of the deal.
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  Speaker 4: Play the mad man. It got Iran to the table,
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  Speaker 4: even though those negotiations didn't yield an immediate agreement. But
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  Speaker 4: how does it change how the rest of the world
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  Speaker 4: views us? The United States used to yes, you're right,
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  Speaker 4: has committed atrocities before, but still sort of portrayed itself
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  Speaker 4: as defender or freedom. The rest of the world looked up
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  Speaker 4: to us in many ways, and it seems like that
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  Speaker 4: moral high ground long since gone.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a wonderful point, but one has to start
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  Speaker 3: by saying it didn't actually bring the Ranians to the table.
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  Speaker 3: Nobody in Iran seems, at least in the leadership, seems
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  Speaker 3: to have been concerned about it. It was essentially a
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  Speaker 3: bluff that was called. And I think Americans have a
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  Speaker 3: hard time understanding that we are losing this war and
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  Speaker 3: therefore are not in a power position to tell the
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  Speaker 3: Iranians what to do, and no amount of bluffing is
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  Speaker 3: going to change that. And I'm afraid no amount of
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  Speaker 3: targeting civilian infrastructure is going to change that either. That's
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  Speaker 3: just going to entrench the opposite, that's just going to
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  Speaker 3: entrench the leadership. But yeah, your point is the important one.
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  Speaker 3: What we are doing is we're saying it's okay for
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  Speaker 3: other countries to fight worse like this. There's a much
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  Speaker 3: bigger war going on, which is the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
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  Speaker 3: The Russians have committed atrocities from the beginning. They've said
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  Speaker 3: from the beginning, our goal is to wipe out the
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  Speaker 3: Ukrainian nation. What we're doing is we're normalizing all that.
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  Speaker 3: We're saying it's okay for all of us to live
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  Speaker 3: in a world where one country tries to wipe out
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  Speaker 3: another nation.
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  Speaker 5: But in terms of how any of this reads internationally,
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  Speaker 5: in terms of does any of us feel distinctly American?
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  Speaker 5: I mean you have been I think, ahead of the
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  Speaker 5: curve and pointing out that a lot of what feels
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  Speaker 5: American about this administration. Even in Project twenty twenty five,
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  Speaker 5: he goes back to a specific.
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  Speaker 3: Country that JD.
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  Speaker 6: Vance was just campaigning in.
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  Speaker 5: Could you explain the inspiration that you see?
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  Speaker 3: That's a wonderful point. I mean, I think all around
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  Speaker 3: the world, whether it's Moscow or Budapest or Washington, d C.
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  Speaker 3: We have these right wing, oligarchical figures who care more
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  Speaker 3: about each other than they do about their own countries.
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  Speaker 3: We're Americans. We think about America. We think, okay, we
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  Speaker 3: have an American president. But from Trump's point of view,
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  Speaker 3: is Putin more important than three hundred and thirty million Americans?
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  Speaker 3: Are gas prices for three hundred million Americans more important?
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  Speaker 3: Or is revenue for Putin more important? I think it's
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  Speaker 3: the latter. And Orbon stood between Putin and Trump. Orbon
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  Speaker 3: was the European who legitimated these international networks of ideas,
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  Speaker 3: of personal contacts, and of money. The American right and
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  Speaker 3: especially MAGA is much more cosmopolitan, much more international than
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  Speaker 3: people realize. And that's why Orbon's defeat is so important.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah, you're writing along with n apple bombs over the
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  Speaker 6: past five, six, seven years, just absolutely critical. And of course,
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  Speaker 6: like you pointed to, Orbon pointed to what was going
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  Speaker 6: on in Poland with the Law and Justice Party.
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  Speaker 7: I am and because obviously it's how democracy moves to
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  Speaker 7: autocracy moves to dictatorship. We're in a fascinating time, aren't
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  Speaker 7: We were in a fascinating time where Orbon is.
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  Speaker 8: Completely crushed by two thirds of the voters and hungry
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  Speaker 8: at a time when Russia and Donald Trump were desperately
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  Speaker 8: trying to elect him, and at the same time you have,
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  Speaker 8: you know, everybody from Italy, popular right wing populist from
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  Speaker 8: Italy to Great Britain.
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  Speaker 9: Running away from Donald Trump as much as they can.
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  Speaker 9: Nigel Faraj suddenly saying, oh, he's just a passing acquaintance,
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  Speaker 9: not a good one at that. Talk about this moment
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  Speaker 9: that we are in catiast earlier and none of us
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  Speaker 9: can ever be this optimistic. But will we look back
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  Speaker 9: at twenty twenty six peak populism for Europe.
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  Speaker 3: I think Kotti was making a good point. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: the Orbon formula was essentially the Trump formula. Be an oligarch,
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  Speaker 3: have oligarchs around you, divert tax money and in Orbon's case,
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  Speaker 3: also EU money towards you and your friends. Give people
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  Speaker 3: an enemy. In Hungary it was first the Jews, then
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  Speaker 3: it was the Ukrainians. Tell them that politics is all
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  Speaker 3: about the enemy. And in Hungary people made the connection.
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  Speaker 3: They made the connection between the corruption and the failing economy.
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  Speaker 3: And I think that's the key connection that the opposition
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  Speaker 3: in the US has to make as well. The reason
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  Speaker 3: the reason why we're against abuse of power is because
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  Speaker 3: we want to be free, but we also don't want
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  Speaker 3: to be poor, and that's the connection that Madyar and Hungary,
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  Speaker 3: the opponent to Orbon, was able to make. If you
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  Speaker 3: can make that connection between corruption at the top and
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  Speaker 3: the failure of the economy below, then you can win
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  Speaker 3: huge and I think it's still sinking in. It's very
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  Speaker 3: significant that Orbon lost, but it's also very significant that
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  Speaker 3: he lost by a huge amount. These kind of breakthrough
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  Speaker 3: election results are possible.
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  Speaker 10: So Professor, at the risk of being this morning's Pollyanna
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  Speaker 10: and extending the optimism, one of the other things that
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  Speaker 10: is striking about the Hungry election is just how many
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  Speaker 10: people turned out. Eighty percent of the population turned out
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  Speaker 10: to vote. We're facing a midterm election here in America
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  Speaker 10: which has all of the signs of being a big
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  Speaker 10: turnout election as well. Recent special elections in the States
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  Speaker 10: have had large turnouts comparative to their historical precedents. So
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  Speaker 10: you've written a lot about how democracy is weak because
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  Speaker 10: we don't care for it, because we don't protect it.
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  Speaker 10: Do you think this could also be a moment in
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  Speaker 10: which tyranny looks to be weak because it's corrupt, and
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  Speaker 10: people vote and turn out in large numbers to vote
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  Speaker 10: to protect something that they had that perhaps they hadn't
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  Speaker 10: realized how important it was to vote, But now they
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  Speaker 10: are realizing they want to vote for democracy and for
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  Speaker 10: all of that gives them, as opposed to for tyranny.
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  Speaker 3: I think that can happen, But there's a piece which
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  Speaker 3: is missing, which is in between. We can't rely on
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  Speaker 3: the election on its own, and we can't even rely
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  Speaker 3: on people to vote. The connection has to be made.
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  Speaker 3: In the meantime. People have to speak out, they have
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  Speaker 3: to talk about how extraordinarily awful things are. There has
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  Speaker 3: to be local organizing and big protests between now and then.
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  Speaker 3: That's also the election of Hungary. I mean, we can
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  Speaker 3: be impressed by the electoral outcome, but what happened in
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  Speaker 3: Hungary was a result of two years of campaigning around
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  Speaker 3: the entire country by the opposition. It was a result
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  Speaker 3: of courageous stories broken by opposition media which made scandals real.
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  Speaker 3: Now wasn't the result just of election day, as you
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  Speaker 3: know very well. It was a result of a campaign
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  Speaker 3: which brought people in and got them to think my
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  Speaker 3: vote is part of a historical moment where things can change.
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  Speaker 3: I think that's some work which still has to be
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  Speaker 3: done in the US. We can't just count on the Democrats.
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  Speaker 3: We can't just count on November. There's a lot of
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  Speaker 3: stuff that has to happen in the meantime.
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  Speaker 2: Our professor at the month School of Global Affairs and
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  Speaker 2: Public Policy at the University of Toronto, author and and
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  Speaker 2: historian Timothy Snyder, thank you very much for coming on
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  Speaker 2: the show this morning.