Dictatorship

Tuesday

Jacob Heilbrunn

Kamala’s brand new, same old last-minute policy platform

After weeks of studious silence, Vice President Kamala Harris has been issuing a flurry of policy proposals that she’s touting as “A New Way Forward.” But is it really new? Or is it the old way forward? In the early hours of Monday morning, she unveiled a series of proposals for the first time on her website about the economy, immigration and foreign affairs. Harris is careful to contrast her proposals, again and again, with what she terms “Trump’s Project 2025 Agenda.” Poor Trump. He has repeatedly disavowed the Heritage Foundation tome calling for everything from banning IVF to purging the civil service. But it hasn’t helped as the Harris campaign presents it as his campaign platform.

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Friday

Roger Kimball

What America should heed from Julius Caesar’s assassination

It being the Ides of March, I thought it might be worth reflecting briefly on the most famous event that occurred on this day: the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BC. One of the great ironies surrounding that bloody event is that, for all of the upheaval it occasioned, it failed utterly in its stated purpose. The conspirators sought — or said they sought — to overthrow a dictator and restore the Republic.  “The Republic,” “the Republic,” “the Republic”: that was the phrase they uttered ad nauseam. But the Roman Republic, devised to govern a city state, was overwhelmed by the cosmopolitan responsibilities of empire. By Caesar’s day, the Republic was a tottering and deeply corrupt edifice.

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Thursday

James Delingpole

The techniques of totalitarianism are still fully in play today

How to Become a Tyrant (Netflix) is ideal history TV for Generation No Attention Span. Presented in six bite-sized chunks by Peter Dinklage, aka the ‘Imp’ Tyrion Lannister from Game of Thrones, it tells you most of the things you need to know about Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Gaddafi, Kim Il-Sung, Idi Amin and Saddam Hussein, without obliging you to think or grapple with any tedious detail. Instead of examining the dictators individually, it explores their careers thematically, looking for the ingredients they have in common. It’s split into half-hour episodes — ‘Seize Power’, ‘Crush Your Rivals’, ‘Reign Through Terror’, ‘Control the Truth’, ‘Create a New Society’, ‘Rule Forever’ — which mix contemporary film footage with attractive animation.

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Wednesday

Enes Kanter Freedom

Biden shouldn’t bow to tyrants like Erdogan

Back in 2015, when Turkey downed a Russian jet on the Syrian border, relations with Moscow nosedived. Russia imposed sanctions on Turkey, and its government-controlled media laid bare financial and military links between radical groups in Syria and high-level Turkish government officials. Russian pressure on Turkey was so crippling that Erdogan had to write a letter to Russian president Vladimir Putin to apologize. Putin knows how to handle bullies — because he is one. Not only did Russia's pressure force Turkey to toe line, but it also turned Turkey into one of Russia's biggest allies. Ankara even purchased S-400 Russian anti-air defense systems at the expense of alienating its Nato allies.

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Friday

Conrad Black

Kingdoms of the wicked

This article is in The Spectator’s January 2020 US edition. Subscribe here. Frank Dikötter has written a lively and concise analysis of the techniques and personalities of eight 20th-century dictators: Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Kim Il-sung (North Korea), François ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier (Haiti), Nicolae Ceausescu (Romania) and Mengistu Haile Mariam (Ethiopia). As a comparative study of those individuals, it is enlightening and a good read. The title and parts of the foreword indicate that it aspires also to be a guidebook of dictator tactics. There are some weaknesses in this broader ambition. These eight men were not altogether uniform in their methods of obtaining, retaining or losing power, and certainly not in their abilities.

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