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“The Führer was sent to us from God, though not in order to save Germany, but to ruin it” was one German’s judgment of the outcome of Hitler’s national project.24
ALL STRONGMEN BELIEVE they have been touched by divine providence,
The Spaniard’s legitimacy as a ruler rested on the idea that he brought peace to Spain from the civil war onward, saving it from leftist apocalypse. His real success, though, was creating silence around memories of his violence. If you had been a leftist combatant in the past and wanted to avoid persecution in the present, then “it was more important to forget than to remember,”
The junta had thrown away voter lists after the coup, but the National Endowment for Democracy and Civic Crusade, helped by $2.2 million of American aid, registered 7.4 million Chileans and trained 120,000 poll watchers.
Consistent with the strongman mentality, he saw the revolution as a personal betrayal.
The GOP’s authoritarian drift predated Trump. Yet by 2020, the party had become the tool of a personalist leader whose priorities were staying in office to avoid prosecution, maintaining his personality cult, advancing Putin’s foreign policy goals, and mainstreaming the far right.
Studies conducted by Pippa Norris and other political scientists rank the GOP among the most extremist parties in the West in terms of its rejection of liberal democratic values. Its positions on immigration, crusades against racial and gender equality and LGBTQ+ rights, and attitudes toward ethnic and religious minorities have placed it close to the platforms of the parties of sitting autocrats like Erdoğan and Modi.68
WHEN AUTOCRATS FALL FROM POWER, their people often outwardly repudiate them and banish their memory. They use images of having lived in a state of unreality, forced to act out one man’s destructive fantasy.
It is convenient as well as cathartic for the nation when the leader dies. Since he claimed a unique ability to rule the nation, he can be blamed for its sorry fate, assigned all responsibility.1
In fact, strongmen do not vanish with their exits from power, but instead remain as traces within the body of their people.
Undoing the effects of the leader’s oppressive presence and policies takes years, especially when his symbols, burial sites, and buildings live on.
The strongman’s stadiums, highways, and airports, which his admirers see as proof that he brought the nation to greatness, cannot cover over the catastrophic loss that results from his rule. Expropriated assets, raided companies, interrupted schooling, disappeared parents, kidnapped children, and massacred communities leave voids that cannot be filled.
Strongman states, helped by their foreign backers, obscure the profound chaos and destruction they cause. Instead, they perpetuate the notion that authoritarianism bests democracy in terms of efficiency and economic growth.
The drive to accumulate and control bodies, territory, and wealth is a hallmark of strongman rule. The leader needs these possessions as much as he needs food and sleep. The rituals and pageantry of authoritarian rule, from rallies for the masses to the elite gatherings staged at private spaces like Hitler’s Berghof retreat, Mobutu’s Gbadolite palaces, and Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, play to his bottomless need for control and adoration. Of course, having it all is never enough for men who live in a secret state of dread at losing everything. Even as the strongman proclaims his
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The strongman brand of charisma, equal parts seduction and threat, attracts many followers by celebrating male authority. The autocrat bolsters patriarchal authority when it is seen as under threat,
Yet a female-led rightist state would pose no threat to authoritarianism’s appeal as a legitimating force of corruption, misogyny, and, in many countries, White racial domination.8
The strongman’s rogue nature also draws people to him. He proclaims law-and-order rule, yet enables lawlessness. This paradox becomes official policy as government evolves into a criminal enterprise,
For many, it is intoxicating to be able to commit criminal acts with impunity and participate in the collective work of undoing one political order and creating another. This is why some collaborators of defunct rulers remain unrepentant even...
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The special psychological climate that strongmen create among their people—the thrill of transgression mixed with the comfort of submitting to his power—endows life with energy, purpose, and drama.
The strongman’s trick is to seem exceptional and yet to embody the national everyman, with all of his endearing flaws.
The familiarity of these personages, marketed
Although we often hear that strongmen are genius strategists, few, if any, of them had a master plan for their rule. Their real talents are those of the street fighter and the con man rather than the chess master: quickness at making the most of the opportunities offered to them, skill at getting people to bond with them and believe their fictions, and a willingness to do anything necessary to get the absolute authority they crave. Most of them ended up with more power than they ever imagined.
The leader’s centrality in the lives of his acolytes makes his utter scorn for them more poignant.
Like all dictators, Hitler loves only those whom he can despise.11
TO COUNTER AUTHORITARIANISM, we must prioritize accountability and transparency in government. At the heart of strongman rule is the claim that he and his agents are above the law, above judgment, and not beholden to the truth. Accountability also matters as a measure of open societies because the old yardstick—elections—is less reliable.
New authoritarian states often simulate democracy, and nominal democracies governed by personalist rulers often act like autocracies.
We can also support civic and nonprofit organizations that work for community justice and accountability at both the local and national levels.
Pressure campaigns on banks, law firms, and other enablers of authoritarian corruption can fuel a reconsideration of the practice of working for autocrats for the revenue it brings.
The media, always so quick to cover every utterance and action of the strongman, must also tell the stories of those who...
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Democracy needs heroes more than ever and compelling narratives that make the case for the merits and advantages of open societies.
if compassion and love are recognized as fundamental to the democratic model of politics. Too often, we have left the work of shaping emotions—including patriotism, our love for our country—to democracy’s enemies.
American public relations and lobbying companies have covered up authoritarians’ violence while touting their countries as business and tourist opportunities.
Given America’s entanglements with the history of authoritarianism, some may see Trump’s ascent to power as divine justice. A nation that never endured dictatorship or foreign occupation now has firsthand experience of the authoritarian playbook. A great privilege of life under democracies—taking freedom for granted—becomes a weakness when that freedom is under assault.
A strongman’s fear and loathing of his people come through most clearly when his power is threatened,
lesson of history: never to underestimate the strongman’s tenacity and his will to do whatever it takes to stay in power.
Current and former CIA analysts and officers, trained to spot signs of democratic disintegration, cautioned that polarization and use of force against protesters have often heralded an authoritarian crackdown.
Emergency actions hold special appeal for a leader whose competency and popularity ratings are in decline.25
THE CEASLESS LYING AND CORRUPTION and the cynical disregard for human life that marks strongman rule can lead to despair. This makes it all the more important to know the history of resistance to repressive governance. Time and again people have shown great resolve and courage and risked their lives to keep alive the hope that a different society can be created.
Christianity means loving your neighbor and taking up “the burdens of the world,” precepts that he believes should also guide secular governance.
“Love is trust, empathy, humanity, mutual aid, and care. A society built on such love is a strong society—probably the strongest of all possible societies.”
Opening the heart to others and viewing them with compassion has time and again led to effective electoral pushback against strongman rule.
No other type of ruler is so transparent about prioritizing self-preservation over the public good and so lacking in the human qualities that define ethical leadership—the ability to feel empathy for others and act on their behalf. As one country after another has discovered, the strongman is at his worst as a leader when he is most needed by his country.
There are two paths people can take when faced with the proliferation of polarization and hatred in their societies. They can dig their trenches deeper, or they can reach across the lines to stop a new cycle of destruction, knowing that solidarity, love, and dialogue are what the strongman most fears.
