Quote of the day

1989 was supposed to be the end of all that: fascism had been defeated, and now communism had fallen, first that year in eastern Europe, and then two years later in the Soviet Union. But history did not end; and the belief that it had accelerated some of the more dangerous trends. Communism continued in North Korea and China, where party leaders managed to combine one-party rule with capitalism. That economic system proved compatible with essentially any form of politics. Post-communist Russia became a pioneer of extreme inequality of wealth, bringing with it oligarchy and ultimately fascism and a war of aggression in Ukraine. That inequality was characteristic of the United States as well, making social mobility difficult and opening political possibilities for those able to choose enemies and punish them. Fascism, defeated in war, now returned, first quietly, and then openly. The internet, far from spreading knowledge and reason, favored conspiracy thinking and habits of mind inconsistent with freedom and the rule of law. The world of the 2020s is not the world of the 1920s; the differences of wealth and the capacity for propaganda have both become more extreme, and no one is really offering a vision of the future any longer. But the critiques of twentieth-century politics often proved to be quite applicable; and insofar as remembering them is a first step towards history, it is also a first step towards a different and better future. 

~Timothy Snyder