Earlier this week, White House press secretary Sean Spicer made several gaffes about the Holocaust. In excusing the Administration’s bombing of Syrian airfields to punish the Assad regime for its alleged use of chemical weapons, Spicer claimed “even Hitler” did not use chemical weapons against his own citizens.

Yale historian Timothy Snyder said that beneath Spicer’s factual error “lurks a horrifying moral one.” 

Snyder is one of America’s leading historians and public intellectuals. Most of his work has involved diving deeper into the nuances of 20th century European history that were previously unknown. His newest book, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, is a response to an increasingly flippant attitude political actors have toward the lessons of history. 

Snyder joins Worldview to discuss how we can prevent falling into the same destructive social and political patterns of the 20th century.