THE NEW AUTOCRACY (PART IV) – Human beings are so vulnerable – so how do dictators even stay alive?
Last year was dubbed the year of democracy, with half the world’s population voting. But the reality is that many of the elections were fake and that the world runneth over with dictators, authoritarians and their pitiful wannabes. Joining the ranks of the latter in a few days is new-old President Donald Trump, who likes dictators and sometimes talks like he wants to be one.
But what kind of dictatorship are we talking about? There are several flavors to choose from. There are the family-run kleptocracies like Azerbaijan and police states like President Vladimir Putin‘s Russia. There are communist dictatorships like China’s, theocracies as in Iran, and the sham of elected autocrats like Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan or Hungary’s Viktor Orban.
How do we, in this supposedly enlightened age, find ourselves at the mercy of such criminals so often? Why don’t populations rebel? Considering how easy human beings are to kill, how do murderers like Kim Jong Un of North Korea survive another single day?
After all, the fall of communism 35 years ago had many people thinking democracy would be the norm. Free elections would yield responsible governments constrained by enshrined rights, balanced by legislatures and judiciaries working in concert for the benefit of all.
Instead, we get Putin deciding to invade Ukraine in 2022 and Yahya Sinwar, the effective dictator of Gaza, attacking Israel a year after – both bringing ruin to their people and neither being overthrown (though Israel finally killed Sinwar). If Trump helps Putin get away with a land grab in Ukraine, China might be tempted to invade Taiwan; that’s largely the decision of one man, Xi Jinping. Belarus’s Alexander Lukashenko, Venezuala’s Nicolas Maduro, Cuba’s Miguel Diaz-Canel and Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega all crush dissent.
And some are more-or-less elected. As I wrote here recently, electorates all over don’t care about liberal democracy and display a weakness for authoritarians. In Romania, anti-Western and pro-Putin nationalist Calin Georgescu won the first round of the presidential election (since annulled after revelations of Russian interference). El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele secured re-election in a landslide victory, consolidating power amid suppression of dissent. Authoritarians won elections in Bangladesh, Georgia and elsewhere.
And America itself is hardly immune. After all, new-old President Donald Trump said he wanted to be “dictator on day one” and that “you’ll never have to vote again” if he wins. He spoke warmly of Kim, lauds the leadership style of Putin (a man believed to poison his critics) and complimented China’s Xi for consolidating power, saying: “He’s now president for life. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot someday.” He now jokes (or not?) about 12 years in office.
Trump won’t be a dictator because of the constitution, but his leanings are clear and a stress test lies ahead.
Political thinkers and sociologists have long grappled with the question of why people accept — or even desire — any of this madness. At the heart of it lies a paradox of human nature: the simultaneous craving for freedom and the comfort of authority.
Thomas Hobbes, in Leviathan, argued that in the face of perceived insecurity, people will willingly cede freedoms to a ruler who promises order. As Friedrich Nietzsche observed in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, individuals are often drawn to power itself, not merely as a means to an end, but as an ideal; thus a dictator’s confidence, charisma, and boldness can be intoxicating, tapping into a latent desire for hero worship. Political theorist Hannah Arendt, in The Origins of Totalitarianism, noted how people naturally rationalize oppressive policies. And Erich Fromm noted, in Escape from Freedom, that democracy’s complexity can be overwhelming whereas dictators, by offering simple solutions to complex problems, provide a psychological refuge from the burden of decision-making.
That all seems to explain who authoritarians can come into office with genuine support (or seize power by force with minimal opposition). But once in office, you’d think the publics would wise up – since such leaders are generally swine who will rob the citizens blind, stash fortunes abroad, enrich themselves and cronies and engage in boneheaded schemes.
So it is, for example, with Azerbaijan’s dictator Ilham Aliyev, who attempts to deflect attention from his epic misrule (Freedom House rates the country one of the most despotic in the world with a score of zero for political rights) by threatening Armenia repeatedly — as recently as last week (see below video).
So perhaps the most amazing thing is how long leaders like this remain in power – and stay alive – almost regardless of the calamities they cause. Syria’s Bashar al-Assad waged a devastating civil war using chemical weapons and torture for 13 years before finally falling last month; why did it take so long for the military to abandon him?
Russia is an interesting case. Putin’s 2024 “re-election” is a fiction, since the procedure was a sham. But no serious groundswell of opposition was recorded, even as his main opponent was killed off in a gulag. It is cowardice – or residual support? My experience in Russia says that especially among the proletariat, away from the cities, it’s both.
Dictators create an atmosphere of enforced loyalty, where dissent feels both dangerous and futile. Public oaths, propaganda, captured media and mass rallies broadcast the dictator’s strength and make individuals doubt whether their discontent is widely shared. They craft an aura of invincibility, creating the perception that resistance is futile.
Sometimes, there is often a genuine fear that what follows a dictator could be worse — chaos, ungovernability, or an even worse regime, especially in places with deeply divided, uneducated, or impoverished populations. This was evident in Libya after the 2011 fall of Muammar Gaddafi, as years of factional violence and instability followed. The jury is still out on Syria, where ex-jihadis have taken over, and are busily pretending to be nice.
Moreover, by the time people recognize the full harm caused by a dictator, it is often too late – as it may be now for Russia – because the dictator controls the military, police, and judiciary through patronage, essentially robbing the people to keep the men with guns content. At this stage, removing the dictator is no longer about eliminating one individual; it requires dismantling an entire structure of power, fear, and loyalty.
“Nowadays, autocracies are run not by one bad guy but by sophisticated networks relying on kleptocratic financial structures, a complex of security services,— military, paramilitary, police — and technological experts who provide surveillance, propaganda, and disinformation,” writes Anne Applebaum in her recent book Autocracy, Inc.
Possible remedies range from nonviolent resistance to international pressure and intervention. But the most common way of getting rid of a dictator (beyond assassinations) is a palace coup, precisely because of Applebaum’s point. These are done, basically, by the same men with guns. That’s what happened to Romania’s Nicolae Ceausescu, as I wrote last month. It almost happened to Adolf Hitler – but then, sadly enough, did not.
In the end, dictators tap into something essential in human nature – the deference before a bully. This occurred to as I rewatched 1948’s Key Largo, the John Huston classic which stars Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Becall but is actually a study of Johnny Rocco, the armed mobster played by Edward G. Robinson. “I want more!” he tells Bogart, as he terrorizes everyone, in an isolated hotel amid a hurricane, into succumbing to his wishes.
For such people, nothing – no asset, no power, no longevity – is ever enough.
For this they need both levers of power – guns and men with guns – and an ability to manipulate enough people. Like dictators, Johnny Rocco knew that people are drawn to strength, even when it’s oppressive. Rocco’s tyranny wasn’t just about what he took from others, but rather what they gave him willingly. Humanity will be better than that one day. But not, alas, today.
