On Tyranny

The Reichstag fire of early 1933 burns the German parliament; whether set by the Nazis or not, it becomes the excuse for the wholesale suspension of German civil liberties. Thereafter, no one can oppose the Nazi regime: “Hitler had used an act of terror, an event of limited inherent significance, to institute a regime of terror that killed millions of people and changed the world” (105).

The current Russian regime under Vladimir Putin comes to power after a series of terror attacks that become the reason for centralized total political control. Putin then employs undercover soldiers in a terror operation in eastern Ukraine and uses cyberwar to try to control a Ukrainian election. His operators then take over a French TV station with a broadcast of a fake version of the Muslim terror group ISIS, hoping the French people would turn to the right in an upcoming vote. Russia also plants a fake story in Germany about a Russian girl raped by Moslems.

The current American president agrees with Putin that the number one enemy they should fight together is “international terrorism and extremism” (109). This proposal amounts to “terror management: the exploitation of real, dubious, and simulated terror attacks to bring down democracy.