How Dictators Survive: The Playbook of Power
Dictators don’t simply appear. They are cultivated, constructed, and carefully preserved.
They follow a familiar playbook:
Step 1: Capture the military. Control the guns, and you control the people.
Step 2: Control the media. Fill the airwaves with praise. Call dissenters “traitors” or “foreign puppets.”
Step 3: Rewrite the constitution. When the law says “two terms,” amend it to say “as long as I want.”
Step 4: Crush the opposition. Imprison them. Exile them. Discredit them.
Step 5: Divide the people. Use tribe against tribe, religion against religion, region against region.
Step 6: Keep the people poor. Hungry citizens don’t protest.
Dictatorship is not just about staying in power. It’s about destroying all alternatives.