Sarah Jessica Parker, Mark Ruffalo and More Rally Against Trump and Tyranny: ‘What Happens Next Is Not Inevitable’
Hollywood figures including Sarah Jessica Parker, Mark Ruffalo, Holland Taylor and Bradley Whitford released a joint July 4 video on Saturday in a call against tyranny as President Donald Trump celebrates his Freedom 250 festivities.
“Two-hundred-fifty years ago, a revolutionary idea was born, not that freedom was guaranteed, not that democracy would take care of itself, but that ordinary people could govern themselves,” Parker says in the 10-minute clip. “Every generation since has faced the same question: What will you do when our country asks and needs something of you?”
The video was published via author Timothy Snyder’s Substack on Saturday morning and figures A-listers reading from his heralded 2017 book, “On Tyranny,” which examined the patterns of authoritarianism in the 20th century through the lens of President Donald Trump’s rise to power in 2016.
“To celebrate a rebellion is to know that, from a flawed world, we can make new things,” Snyder wrote in his intro to the video release. “We can hold on, we can find each other, and not just imagine but create a much better America. It is a special 250th – it is ours.”
The clip, embedded below, has the featured talent — also among them Lisa Rinna, Margaret Atwood, Tony Goldwyn and Leslie Odom Jr. — reading aloud the book’s 20 lessons to stand against tyranny. Snyder calls the group his “friends of freedom.”
On Tyranny — Special 250th Edition by Timothy Snyder
With friends, on video, to recall and to rebel
Read on Substack
“The Republic is 250 years old. Strange though it is for me, this book has been along with the Republic for the last 10 years,” Snyder says. “I wrote it in November of 2016 As I look ahead to this coming November, I see a turning point for our Republic, a time when things could turn very well, or they could turn very ill indeed. The point of this book, and its 20 lessons, is to give us a chance to draw the best of what we have from our history, so that we have the best chance for our future.”
The full cast list for the video project is: Isabel Allende, Judd Apatow, Margaret Atwood, Joan Baez, Rose Barrett, Sophia Bush, Misha Collins, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Ted Danson, Ron Funches, Tony Goldwyn, Eric Holder, Ilias Kyriadkidis, Jenifer Lewis, Leslie Odom Jr., Sarah Jessica Parker, Billy Porter, Maria Ressa, Lisa Rinna, Molly Ringwald, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Mark Ruffalo, J. Smith-Cameron, Holland Taylor, Viet Thanh Nguyen and Bradley Whitford.
Read the 20 lessons below, and watch the video in full above.
- Do not obey in advance.
- Defend institutions.
- Beware the one-party state.
- Take responsibility for the face of the world.
- Remember professional ethics.
- Be wary of paramilitaries.
- Be reflective if you must be armed.
- Stand out.
- Be kind to our language.
- Believe in truth.
- Investigate.
- Make eye contact and small talk.
- Practice corporeal politics.
- Establish a private life.
- Contribute to good causes.
- Learn from peers in other countries.
- Listen for dangerous words.
- Be calm when the unthinkable arrives.
- Be a patriot.
- Be as courageous as you can.
“The lesson of America is not that our republic is a given,” Parker concludes the video. “It is that it must be defended again and again by people who refuse to give up on one another and, on the highest promise of the nation, for future generations. What happens next is not inevitable, it depends, as it always has on us.”