I didn't expect a seaside fortress in a sleepy Portuguese surf town to hit this hard.
Peniche is postcard perfect—wind, waves, seafood, and sunburns. But perched above the Atlantic sits the Fortaleza de Peniche, once a political prison during Portugal's decades-long Estado Novo dictatorship. Today, it houses the National Museum of Resistance and Freedom. It should be required viewing.
This isn't ancient history. This is 20th-century Europe. Real people. Real oppression. Real consequences.
The exhibits walk you through the mechanics of authoritarianism—not in abstract theory, but in lived experience. Surveillance. Arbitrary arrest. Isolation. Torture. Censorship. The slow suffocation of dissent. The regime didn't need chaos to seize power; it needed normalization. Compliance. Silence.
Sound familiar?
What makes the museum so effective is its restraint. No theatrics. No overproduction. Just cells, letters, photographs, and stories, both written and in videos of survivors. You stand in the tiny rooms where prisoners spent years. You read smuggled notes to families. You see how ordinary people became enemies of the state for the crime of speaking up.
And you realize how thin the line is between "this could never happen here" and "it already is."
Authoritarianism doesn't arrive with a bang. It creeps. It tests boundaries. It depends on people deciding that a little bit of repression is tolerable, that the targets somehow deserve it, that institutions will hold.
Until they don't.
As an employment lawyer, I spend my days thinking about power—who has it, how it's used, and what happens when it’s abused. This museum is a stark reminder that unchecked power always finds new ways to entrench itself. Rights erode quietly before they disappear loudly.
Portugal eventually chose a different path. The Carnation Revolution in 1974 ended the dictatorship with nearly zero bloodshed. Democracy returned. Freedoms were restored. But only after decades of damage.
History doesn't repeat itself exactly, but it rhymes more than we'd like to admit. Walking out of that fortress, into the bright Atlantic light, one thought lingered:
Complacency is the authoritarian's best friend.
Or, as the sign at the museum's end reminded us:
The achievement of democracy is never fully consolidated. We have to fight for it every day.
You can hear about the rest of my trip to Portugal, as well as Norah's recent trip to New York City, on this week's episode of the Norah and Dad Show, available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon Music, Overcast, in your browser, and everywhere else you get your podcasts.
Here's what I read this week that you should read, too.
