Hi everyone, this is Wes Fryer in Charlotte, North Carolina. It’s April 14th, 2026, and I want to talk about a free webinar with Timothy Snyder on April 30th — coming up in just about two weeks — hosted by Indivisible Charlotte.
I’m continuing to be a volunteer with a fantastic organization called Indivisible. If you are not aware, Indivisible is a nationwide organization working to support democracy, representative governance, human rights, and the United States Constitution. Many of us remember something from high school civics: in the United States, we have a constitutional government. That means the power and authority to govern us is derived from the people. We as the governed give our power to the government, and that government has limits. The people who are elected or appointed have roles and responsibilities — and so do we as citizens — but there are limits upon all of them.
One of the things happening not only within the United States today, but also globally, is that we have individuals in several countries who have ascended to power via largely peaceful and constitutional means. I’m thinking of the United States, Hungary, and Israel. What just happened in Hungary this past week is wonderful and astounding — Viktor Orbán lost the election, and as Heather Cox Richardson reported, the opposition party has also won a supermajority. What a positive sign.
So what does any of this have to do with Timothy Snyder? Timothy Snyder is an academic and scholar. He’s written a book called On Tyranny, and he is one of the foremost scholars on authoritarianism, tyranny, fascism, and the movements — both contemporary and historical — that have opposed the erosion and in some cases the elimination of constitutional government and democracy.
Indivisible Charlotte is the specific local group I’m part of. You can Google “Indivisible Charlotte,” visit IndivisibleCLT.org, or find them on Substack at indivisibleclt.substack.com. Indivisible Charlotte has a research team, a social media team, and a podcast team — and I’m on all three. I’m essentially leading the podcast team, which is small but mighty. I’m also on the social media team and have been working closely with the research team for a long time.
In fact, today after school I’m excited to be hosting a recorded podcast — not a live one — about immigration here in Charlotte. We’ll be speaking with leaders from several immigrant support communities in Charlotte, telling the story of what happened last fall when ICE and Customs and Border Patrol came to Charlotte. We had masked federal officials without visible badges arresting people based on how they looked. It was a nightmare. But the good news is our community rose up, came together, and recognized that we needed to support each other — and we did.
The podcasts for Indivisible Charlotte are a mix of live Zoom events and prerecorded episodes that are edited and published as podcasts. You can find them by Googling “Indivisible Charlotte” or “Indivisible CLT” in whatever podcast app you use. We publish directly to Substack and YouTube, and episodes are syndicated out to other podcast platforms from there.
On April 30th — and I’ll include the registration link in the description — Timothy Snyder will be joining us on Zoom over lunch. The webinar is at noon Eastern time: 11 AM Central, 10 AM Mountain, 9 AM Pacific. It will also be recorded, so if you register you can access the recording afterward, and the recording will be available to anyone.
If you don’t already follow Timothy Snyder on Substack, I encourage you to do so. I’ve been reading him, watching him, and learning from him for many months. I haven’t yet read On Tyranny, but I believe it’s an important book, and I’m very excited that he is bringing this opportunity to us through Indivisible Charlotte’s “In the Know Live” team.
Please check it out and share it widely. We need to reclaim our news feeds. Things are moving fast, and we need to stay aware of what’s happening while advocating for our values — constitutional government, checks and balances on executive, judicial, and legislative power. Our government has not been functioning as designed, partly because some officials are not doing their jobs. But we as citizens have the opportunity — especially collectively — to join together and advocate for change.
I’m excited to learn from Timothy Snyder on April 30th. I hope you’ll join us. The registration link is in the description, or you can go to IndivisibleCLT.org and click the Events tab. Noon Eastern time, April 30th. Please join us — and have a great day.
This video is also shared on YouTube.
