SIGNS OF IMPENDING TYRANNY!
If a tyrant does any of the following things, look out! These are warning signs that he or she might be making a move to topple a democracy and gain control.
- Demands total and personal loyalty from all appointees.
- Organizes military parades and other choreographed shows of force.
- Threatens to fire independent prosecutors who get too close to the truth.
- Spreads conspiracy theories about “Deep State” forces seeking to oust them.
- Refers to top-ranking military leaders as “my” generals.
- Threatens to jail political opponents.
- Claims to have won an election by a landslide even after losing the popular vote.
- Stokes tensions abroad, such as trade wars and even the specter of nuclear war, to distract from efforts to consolidate power at home.
- Circumvents the independent press and communicates directly with followers.
- Turns the public against critical journalists or media outlets, calling them “deceitful” and “scum”.
- Vilifies legislators and judges who are critical of the regime.
- Repeatedly claims massive voter fraud in the absence of any evidence, in order to restrict voting in subsequent elections.
- Repeatedly tells "big lies", causing the public to doubt the truth and to believe fictions that support the tyrant’s goals.
- Blames crime on immigrants or racial or religious minorities, and foments public bias and hatred against them.
- Threatens mass deportations, registries of religious minorities, and the banning of refugees.
- Separates refugee children from their parents, and incarcerates all of them.
- Attributes civil unrest to “enemies within”, and uses such events as an excuse to beef up internal security and limit civil liberties.
- Appoints family members to high positions of authority.
- Draws no distinction between personal property and public property, profiteering from public office.
- Makes personal alliances with foreign dictators but expresses indifference if not defiance toward leaders of democracies.
- Maintains a powerful propaganda arm that claims to be “fair and balanced” but only amplifies the tyrant’s lies and accusations.
SOUND LIKE ANYBODY YOU KNOW?
