- Adolf Hitler [Seize Power]
- Believe in Yourself - only they can save the world and make the world a better place.
- Outrage Sells - looking for someone to blame. Genius understands the nature of the resentment that already exists and presenting yourself as the means to overcome that. Show your people their enemies are your enemies.
- Be a Man of the People (how to fashion your image) - show your people you are one of them, dream what they dream. I am you; you are me. We're kind of a collective organism.
- Brand Your Movement - a great marketing strategy. Iconography - the uniform that meant sacrifice, duty, obedience, and loyalty. When you're wearing that uniform, it means you are on the team.
- Build Your Squad - nobody governs alone. A tyrant needs a team to amplify his message and watch your back.
- Choose when to Strike - timing is everything. Looking for an opportunity to end civil liberties and crush the opposition. When people are threatened, they look for strong authoritarian leadership and support a strong man.
- Saddam Hussein [Crush Your Rivals]
- Establish Dominance - To stay in power, you have to be ever vigilant. You have to make sure that anybody who is a potential rival is controlled and put in their place. And those will include some of your first and closest allies with dangerous ambitions of their own.
- Be Everywhere - how do you make sure you keep the upper hand? To become a successful tyrant, you need to have eyes, ears, and muscles you can rely on everywhere. Every tyrant's best friend is an effective and ruthless secret police. No matter when you run, the dictator will find you.
- Buy Loyalty - the efficient way to stay in power is essentially giving the coalition bribes and opportunities to be corrupt.
- Master Mind Games - You're the boss, and they are not. "I'm on your side. Just let me up. I'll do anything you say." Dictators are pathological narcissists. Keeping your rivals scared is the key.
- Everyone is Expandable - even to his sons-in-law.
- Idi Amin [Reign Through Terror] - is it better for a ruler to be feared or loved? You should rely on fear because when people fear you, you are in control of them.
- Conceal Your Brutality - the value of a good cover-up.
- Choose A scapegoat - bullying somebody else for the ills that the general masses are facing. And that is how you earn the trust and the support and the legitimacy from the masses.
- Weaponize the Law - Existing legal institutions can be a barrier to political leaders. So they dismantle them. The idea is to weaken all of the institutions and the guardrails that check the absolute rulers' power. Once those guardrails are down, the dictators are free to turn the law against their scapegoats.
- Bring the pain - keep those people's, who've let you down, mouths shut. Torture is a perfect way to deter people from opposing you. It's better than killing because the person's kept alive.
- Start A War
- Joseph Stalin [Control the Truth] - the truth is a problem for an authoritarian or strongman because truth invites debate. Truth suggests that we can question the stories that we're being given.
- Rewrite History - "He who controls the past controls the future." Stalin believed history has to be imposed.
- Censor Everything - One of the most powerful tools that any leader has is who controls information. When you can actually shut down channels for information, then you can press one preferred narrative and make that the reality that your citizens live in. Under Stalin, libraries either destroyed or restricted texts that the state deemed offensive which kept impressionable Soviety minds safely protected from characters like Sherlock Holmes.
- Seduce Outsiders - In the 1930s, many people in the West, liberals, and leftists, most importantly, thought the USSR was providing an alternative to the capitalist Depression, so they didn't want to believe bad things about the Soviet Union. During Stalin's period: Useful Idiot (a naive person who can be manipulated or exploited to advance a political agenda). Hitler: Duke and Duchess of Windsor, and Charles Lindbergh helped elevate his image as a statement. Fidel Castro: Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez remained a close friend and defender of his regime. North Korea: NBA superstar Dennis Rodman. If an authoritarian leader wants to truly sell his version of the truth to the world, he would need to enlist a trusted voice of authority like Walter Duranty.
- Destroy God - Tyrant wants to see religion destroyed because there is only one truth, and that truth must come from the tyrant.
- Corrupt Science - The whole culture of science and research where you have objective facts and conclusions that draw not on ideology but factual accuracy, which is anathema to tyrants.
- Eliminate Trust - The phenomenon of distrust is an exceptionally powerful tool. If you no longer trust anyone, you willingly give yourself to the power of the state, because everything else is suspect.
- Muammar Gaddafi [Create a New Society] - Gaddafi's eccentric vision transformed his countrymen's lives in ways that were good, bad, and weird.
- Be the Law - Authoritarian rulers exercise rule by limiting the rights the public enjoys. Gaddafi banned alcohol and shut down all nightclubs. The leader is the law and the law must be obeyed.
- Build Your Legacy - need to have some concrete symbols of tyrants' greatness.
- Indoctrinate the Youth - Every dictator needs a population that can read and write, so they can work at menial jobs producing money for the dictator. What dictators don't want is a well-educated population of people with ideas who can become rivals.
- Put Women in Their Place - All the major dictators in modern history have been men. As a group, they see women as necessary, but they also see women as dangerous.
- Export Your Revolution - Becoming an absolute ruler is an impressive feat. But creating a global movement, that's the stuff of legends.
- Stick to your Guns -
- The Kim Dynasty [Rule Forever]
- Isolate Your Kingdom - If you want to rule forever, it helps to be the only game in town.
- Kept It In The Family - Find the right kid in your family.
- Kidnap People - Every form of power is based on stories.
- Assert Your Divinity -
- Let people starve -
- Go Nuclear
Anybody can be a tyrant.
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