Why Dictators Fail
I just hoped we'd have a bit longer
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." — Lord Acton
Every dictatorship starts as a fantasy.
A population enveloped by problems beyond its control desperately seeks a daddy-figure to make everything right again. They cling to soundbites and bullshit, convincing themselves that they be true. In these environments, arrogance outmuscles rationality, so those pointing to evidence or logic are left behind.
It's childish. Reminds me of the nonsensical promises teens make when running for class president. Remember Summer Wheatley's speech from Napoleon Dynamite?
I would make a great class president because I promise to put two new pop machines in the cafeteria, and I'm also gonna get a glitter Bonne Bell dispenser for all the girls' bathrooms. Oh, and we're gonna get new cheerleading uniforms. Anyway, I think I'd be a great class president. So, who wants to eat chimichangas next year? Not me. See, with me it will be summer all year long. Vote for Summer.
Change a few words and these tricks work just as well with the unwashed masses. Unfortunately, unlike high school the consequences are disasterous - especially, when checks and balances are dismantled by dictators.
Dictators will promise anything to get into power. Once unrestrained, they are reckless, paranoid, and more focused on holding onto power than governing well.
Dictators don’t answer to anyone. They replace competent officials with loyalists. They rule by fear. They rarely step down voluntarily. Muammar Gaddafi ruled Libya for 42 years before rebels dragged him out of a drainage pipe and shot him. The Kim dynasty in North Korea clings to power by isolating their people from the outside world. When dictators fall, they take their countries down with them.
I started this article researching examples of successful dictatorships, economically and socially. "Success" is subjective, but one could argue China over the past 25 years has made significant economic and social progress, despite (or because of?) it's political structure. Clearly most dictatorships don't share this degree of success.
As I did my research, what I started to find common reasons why most dictatorships cannot succeed. Structurally, its almost impossible for this type of system to last. I consolidated these findings into three broad themes, which I share below.
"A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic." — Attributed to Joseph Stalin
1) They Rule by Fear, Not Competence
Dictators fear opposition, since opposition risks displacing their power. So they surround themselves with yes-men, marginalizing - often by imprisonment or execution - those with contradictory views. Given the the consequences of speaking up, facts, intelligence, and information is suppressed in favor of alignment.
Valuing loyalty over competence, they weaken both their government and country.
Stalin’s Great Purge (1936-1938) was a masterclass in self-destruction. After the assassination of Sergei Kirov, Stalin used it as an excuse to purge rivals. He had 700,000 people executed and sent millions to the Gulag. The NKVD, his secret police, tortured people into confessing to imaginary crimes. He purged military officers, leaving the Red Army weakened before World War II. His paranoia crippled his own government, ensuring that survival - not effectiveness - became the priority.
When competence isn't protected, as it is in a democracy, a country becomes vulnerable economically and militarily.
2) They Destroy Their Own Economies
Dictators promise economic miracles, but they usually end up making things worse. Without accountability, they make reckless choices. Corruption runs rampant. Mismanagement turns prosperity into collapse.
Mao Zedong launched the Great Leap Forward to rapidly industrialize China. He forced millions of peasants to stop farming and work on backyard steel furnaces, which produced useless metal. Meanwhile, collective farms had to meet impossible grain quotas, and local officials, afraid of punishment, lied about production numbers. The government took food that didn’t exist, leaving millions to starve. Mao’s policies killed 30 to 45 million people. Instead of admitting failure, he launched the Cultural Revolution, purging intellectuals and wrecking institutions.
Nicolás Maduro turned Venezuela, once one of the richest oil nations, into a failed state. He seized businesses, set price controls that discouraged production, and printed massive amounts of money to cover deficits. Inflation skyrocketed past 1,000,000%, wiping out savings. Basic goods became luxuries. Over seven million people fled. Instead of fixing the economy, he jailed opponents and crushed protests.
Similar to point #1, in a country where competence is suppressed the leader can do no wrong. They overestimate their planning prowess, and start fiddling with things instead of allowing economies to operate organically.
3) They Start Wars They Can’t Win
Dictators need enemies. It distracts from their failures and rallies their people. Just look how quickly US tariffs imposed on Canada rallied the Canadian people around a common cause. Dictators use that to their advantage.
Wars require strategy and resources, and dictators often have neither.
For example, despite early successes, Hitler pursued an expansionist vision that was doomed to fail by his own arrogance.
Early in the war, Blitzkrieg tactics crushed Poland, France, and much of Europe. But Germany relied on quick victories and couldn’t sustain a long war. When Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, he underestimated Soviet resistance. He expected a swift collapse, but the Soviets had manpower, brutal winters, and an industrial base far from the front lines. Then he declared war on the U.S., bringing the world’s largest economy into the fight. Germany couldn’t match Allied production. His refusal to retreat or adapt sealed his fate. Like most dictators, he valued loyalty over competence, and that ensured his downfall.
"Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry." — Winston Churchill
How the U.S. Is Following the Authoritarian Playbook
Dictatorships sometimes work in the short term. They promise order, discipline and reforms that benefit the public. That is their appeal. But absolute power breeds corruption, fear, and incompetence.
Democracy isn’t perfect, but it’s the only system that allows for self-correction. Leaders come and go. Power shifts peacefully. People have a say. Dictatorships promise stability, but history shows they always end in collapse.
Sadly, the U.S. has been following the footsteps of many failed states.
Non-partisan civil servants, military leaders, and supreme court justices are being replaced with loyalists. Cabinet members and party representatives are captured by group think, with little room for unaligned views. This was plain to see in yesterday's State of the Union address.
Overall, competence is being replaced with obedience. We've seen how this plays out. This is the same playbook dictators use - gutting institutions, consolidating power, and justifying it with promises of restoring greatness, eliminating enemies, and enforcing order.
We are abandoning facts and discourse, and accelerating the destruction of our planet and civilization. The loudest voice wins, and no right-leaning politician would dare push back on plans to ban the words "climate change" or to end environmental regulations. Rather, we're at the stage where plutocrats count their money as the world burns.
I have long predicted the polycrisis, like other crises before, would trigger the rise of authoritarianism. It's just sad to see it play out so predictably, as everyone cheers.
Like those preceding it, this is bound to fail. Unfortunately, it'll take the rest of the world with it. Perhaps this was the final inescapable death blow - the planet in crisis was going to off us either way. I just hoped we'd have a bit longer.
There are 2 levels here, the internal politics of this power grab by WHITE America AND the outright abandonment of 70 years of America's foreign policy efforts.
In the first instance this is a "now or never" moment for White America to reassert segregationist ideals and policies. Since 1972 the Republican, and now MAGAt, party has been built on the understanding that ONLY the White vote mattered in American politics. When you could get 51% of the vote just by winning the majority of the White vote this was a "winning" strategy.
Since 1972 the Republicans/MAGAts have gotten about 2/3rds of the White vote in almost every election. Between 1968 and 2008 they ran the country 28 out of 40 years. If not for the flukes of the Carter and Clinton years they would have "run the board".
Demographically things have CHANGED.
We are set to become a "Minority Majority" nation between 2040 and 2050. One in which Whites are the biggest minority but where "non-whites" make up 51% of the population. Just like California has recently become and why Democrats are dominating state politics there.
These are the VERY LAST years that the MAGAts can win with 2/3rd's of the White vote and a "token" minority vote. Particularly since women under 30 DESPISE the MAGAt party over the abortion issue.
Trump got 2 out of 3 White American voters, that was about 44% of the population. The MAGAts got 1 out of 10 Black voters (almost all male), 1 out of 3 Hispanic voters (again, heavily male), and statistically 0% of the Asian-Pacific Islander-Indian (Native American) vote. The MAGAt party itself is 90% White and its members are MOSTLY over 55. Over the next 20 years a lot of them are going to die of old age.
So, if the Right wants to seize control of America and maintain a democratic facade, this is literally their "last chance". That could explain the internal state of American politics.
We are looking at a racially based "coup" as a once dominant racial group is loosing its grip on society. They are seizing control while they still can.
EXCEPT.
Usually when a group takes control of an empire, they want to CONTROL THE EMPIRE.
If this coup was strictly about internal US demographics and political/social fractures you would expect both sides to try and "keep up appearances" to our allies, friends, partners, and clients. Both sides would want to maintain the web of agreements and treaties that make the American Empire what it is today.
Both sides would want to maintain America's foreign position and power.
The MAGAts are walking away from the Empire. They are "pulling out" of the agreements/alliances/groups that ensure American influence and power. They are literally saying to the world "America First" and that all agreements made with the US will be honored only as long as we "feel like it".
The MAGAt Elites are suddenly acting as if none of this matters anymore. They are acting as if they expect the world to start collapsing VERY SOON. They are acting as if this is the ENDGAME for the current world order.
Which is WHY I think this is about the Climate Crisis.
Which is WHY I think 2 billion people are going to die by 2035.
Because, while I can believe White America would engage in a fascist coup in order to hold onto its racial privilege. I cannot see America's 1%ers and Elites accepting the abandonment of America's foreign power and risk destroying the American economy built on that power. Not unless they were convinced it was "necessary". Not unless they were convinced it was time to retreat into "Fortress America".
They only thing with the power to cause that kind of global collapse in the immediate future is the Climate Crisis.
While I agree with almost all of the essay, throughout history dictatorships never end well, I disagree that America will falter. The orange Nazi may have the upper hand now & in the coming months, but America will show what it always does: fight for democracy.
Like Syria’s Assad with Russia’s backing, decimated his country & could not be stopped for decades, yet was overthrown because of a surprising factor: Ukraine’s defiance of Russian invasion that had Russia bleeding literally of thousands of dead soldiers and, figuratively from the millions of rubles spent in the war.
Dictators falter because they think money flows forever, that their power knows no bounds and deadlines. Their largest mistake is to believe in permanence.
Their top-down ideology is the antithesis of the decentralization-of-power ideology of democracy. It’s the reason Ukraine, as small a country it is compared to Russia, has persisted and won in the 3 years of war defending their country. It’s the same reason America — the majority of us — will win against the few, the oligarchy currently holding power.