TheNation-May282018

May 28, 2018 The Nation. 29

deed decisive—in eastern-Ukrainian separatism but, except for a
few offhand references, ignores the large numbers of disaffected
eastern Ukrainians who participated in it.
Toward the end of his book, Snyder takes on the American
opioid crisis, linking it to the “zombification” of Russians and
Ukrainians by political propaganda. “Zombification was as
pronounced in America as it was in eastern Ukraine,” he writes.
“People in Portsmouth with unwashed hair and gray faces could
be seen tearing the metal objects from one another’s houses, car-
rying them through town, and selling them for pills.” He suggests
that Trump’s victory can be blamed in part on drug-induced brain
changes: “Opioids hinder the development of the frontal cortex
of the brain, which is where the capacity to make choices forms
in adolescence. Persistent opioid use makes it harder for people
to learn from experience, or to take responsibility for their ac-
tions.... The correlation between opioid use and Trump voting
was spectacular and obvious, notably in the states that Trump
had to win.”
This is yet another of Snyder’s abuses of correlation, and the
suggestion that people addicted to opioids are brain-damaged
zombies is just the kind of dehumanizing rhetoric that one
might have hoped such a champion of individuality and dignity
would have rejected. This vision of a zombified America is also
profoundly antidemocratic. Snyder’s insistence on institutions
as agents of “moral illumination” makes a new kind of sense as a
manifestation of mistrust in popular politics, a Hamiltonian fear
of the impressionable rabble.
In a recent interview with Slate about The Road to Unfreedom,
Snyder used his favorite rhetorical crutch to outline what he sees
as some of the salutary effects of the Cold War:

It’s no coincidence that most of the Cold War—the ’50s, ’60s,

and ’70s—coincides with two very important developments:

giving African Americans the right to vote and the creation

of a social welfare state, plus generally the endorsement or

at least the tolerance of labor unions, which allowed for

wealth inequality to close. In the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s, the gap

between the top 1 percent and the bottom 90 percent was

actually closing in the United States. That’s actually related

to the Cold War. It’s related to the fact that the United States

couldn’t allow the Soviet Union to make too much of our

racial and class problems.

The Cold War did, of course, play an important role in mid-
century American politics. But this notion of American politics as
a game between two rival states ignores the essential role played
by non-state organizers and activists. (It is especially galling that
Snyder made this statement on the eve of the 50th anniversary of
Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination.) The right to vote was not
given but won, at the cost of many lives and in the face of bitter
opposition from much of the American political establishment.
The same is true of labor rights—and of course the American
labor movement, which has included many episodes of violent
repression of striking workers, long predates the Cold War. In
On Tyranny, Snyder counseled his readers to “Remember Rosa
Parks,” who broke the “spell of the status quo” by refusing to give
up her seat on a bus. But how can such acts of courage liberate
the zombified public Snyder describes? What happens when con-
spiracy theorists insist that activists are Russian dupes? The Road
to Unfreedom offers a bleak vision of politics for future activists:
one in which all change comes from above, and ordinary people
cannot be trusted. Q

New From The Historic New Orleans Collection

New Orleans,

the Founding Era

edited by Erin M. Greenwald

translated by Henry Colomer

Explore the kaleidoscopic array of cultures

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Contributions from eight leading scholars

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