Yale history professor Timothy Snyder, an expert on fascism and authoritarianism, on Friday sounded what could be one of the loudest alarms yet on the 2024 election.
Snyder, talking with MSNBC’s Ari Melber, noted how former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 result had relied on “personal charisma and signals to his followers and a few people in the Justice Department and hope.”
But if Trump does decide to officially enter the 2024 race, Snyder warned this time around he’ll also have “a whole bunch of institutional machinery” with the installation of partisan election officials who back his 2020 lies, which for them legitimizes throwing the vote, “plus a whole lot of time to plan.”
“What we know historically is that a failed coup is a trial run for a successful coup,” said Snyder. “Usually when you fail in a coup, something happens to you— and Mr. Trump, nothing has happened to him.”
Melber asked Snyder if he feared a coordinated effort that could swing the election. “We should be thinking about this as what is happening and then ask what we can do to prevent it,” he replied.
Watch the full interview here:
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