The Strongman Fantasy
And Dictatorship in Real Life
https://snyder.substack.com/p/the-strongman-fantasy
Quite a few Americans like the idea of strongman rule. Why not a dictator who will get things done?
Strongman rule is a fantasy. Essential to it is the idea that a strongman will be your strongman. He won't. In a democracy, elected representatives listen to constituents. We take this for granted, and imagine that a dictator would owe us something. But the vote you cast for him affirms your irrelevance. The whole point is that the strongman owes us nothing. We get abused and we get used to it.
