While not every ruler uses repression to get to power, all of them are skilled in the art of threat. Proclaiming a personal capacity for violence while running for office is a common twenty-first-century tactic, as when Trump declared he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose any followers in January 2016. Some warn the nation that they intend to target certain categories of people. “I am telling the Filipino people not to vote for me, because it will be bloody,” declared Duterte in 2015 of his vow to kill thousands of drug dealers and criminals if elected president.
