On Tyranny is heavily neoliberal, relying on fearmongering and flattening of complex political theory. Snyder leans hard on horseshoe theory, equating communism with Nazism repeatedly.

Snyder is a Holocaust historian, but he doesn't mention that communists were some of the first people targeted by the Nazis, because he wants to paint the USSR as the ultimate threat and warn Americans against becoming it.

It’s all well and good to critique Nazis, Trump, and the USSR but kind of disingenuous to flatten them all into the same “totalitarian” umbrella. It’s giving red scare propaganda. He has some interesting points to make but his most useful information has been approached with more nuance and systemic analysis by scholars like Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Paulo Freire, Frantz Fanon, etc.

The book’s heavy focus on individualism over collective organizing and systemic critique paints readers as vigilante superheroes destined to single-handedly save America from fascism by... checks notes voting, reading Harry Potter, and avoiding social media?

In the same individualistic vein, he positions Hitler and Trump as uniquely evil anomalies and not direct results of systems that are often bolstered by capitalism and imperialism. This is pretty common in liberal poli-sci books that refuse to actually critique the systems they exist in.

These two issues working in tandem translate into Snyder simultaneously flattening communism into the Soviet model and subtly implying that America has at any point in time been a democracy and not an imperialist empire built off of genocide and slavery. There’s also a certain irony to his advice revolving around fighting for free speech, standing up for your beliefs, and refusing to comply preemptively, but he can’t even call Trump by name.

I understand wanting a primer, something accessible for people to pick up and become politically engaged but I wouldn’t suggest this one. It helps alleviate the feelings of hopelessness that come from our current times by giving people things to reflect on, but it's only a short term relief. He doesn’t go far enough in addressing real systemic change, and doesn't give many tangible examples on what organizing against fascism actually looks like.