7 Signs of Tyranny
As tyrants take control of democracies, they typically do 7 things:
1. They exaggerate
their mandate to govern – claiming, for example, that they won an election by a
“landslide” even after losing the popular vote. They criticize any finding that they
or co-conspirators stole the election. And they repeatedly claim “massive voter fraud” in the absence of any evidence, in order to have an excuse to restrict voting
by opponents in subsequent elections.
2. They turn the public
against journalists or media outlets that criticize them, calling them
“deceitful” and “scum,” and telling the public that the press is a “public enemy.” They hold few, if any, press conferences, and prefer to communicate with the public directly through mass rallies and unfiltered
statements (or what we might now call “tweets”).
3. They repeatedly lie
to the public, even when confronted with the facts. Repeated enough, these lies cause some of the public to doubt the truth, and to believe fictions that
support the tyrants’ goals.
4. They blame economic
stresses on immigrants or racial or religious minorities, and foment public
bias or even violence against them. They threaten mass deportations, “registries” of
religious minorities, and the banning of refugees.
5. They attack the motives of anyone who
opposes them, including judges. They attribute acts of domestic violence to “enemies
within,” and use such events as excuses to beef up internal security and limit
civil liberties.
6. They appoint family
members to high positions of authority. They ppoint their own personal security
force rather than a security detail accountable to the public. And they put
generals into top civilian posts.
7.They keep their personal finances secret, and draw no distinction between personal
property and public property – profiteering from their public office.
Consider yourself
warned.
