How to become a dictator

Everyone should read the newest book by the French neuropsychiatrist Boris Cyrulnik. Recently, I saw an interview on the French TV in which Cyrulnik talked about his book and although I had something else to do, I couldn’t stop watching till the program had ended. The book is basically about inner freedom and voluntary servitude. This duality and the way you develop into one direction or the other makes that the book is about how you become the person you are. However, it also helps understand the rise of new dictatorships in this world, after a period in which democracy had been spreading. And just this aspect makes that the book is not only important to understand yourself but that it is also politically relevant. In view of the present war in Ukraine, which is actually a fight between a new democracy and a new dictatorship – the latter is new after a short democratic intermezzo –, it is not surprising that just this aspect of the book has drawn my attention. It’s not mere chance that you can interpret the book this way, for Cyrulnik’s personal experience as a Jewish child that survived the Second World War is continuously in the background of this book, which can also be seen as Cyrulnik’s way to understand these experiences. The book is so rich in ideas and analyses that I cannot do justice to it in this blog. Therefore – with the Russia-Ukraine War in my mind – I’ll pick one aspect of it: How to become a dictator.
When talking of dictators, I think that now most people will think of the Russian president Putin, but the tricks I am going to present exist already since it has become possible to manipulate your public and followers with the help of modern media. So, maybe Hitler and Mussolini were the first dictators who used them, but here there is no need to discuss about this historical question. Modern dictators mentioned by Cyrulnik are the ayatollahs in Iran, Putin in Russia and the Turkish president Erdoğan, although, to my mind, the latter is not yet a fully-fledged dictator, for in Turkey there is yet so much democracy left that it is still possible to stop Erdoğan. I want to add to these names the Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, although also in Hungary it is still possible to stop his dictatorial manipulations by democratic means; even more so than in Turkey.
Most modern dictators or semi-dictators like those just mentioned didn’t get their power by a kind of coup d’état. Hitler, Putin, Erdoğan and Orbán were all elected by normal democratic procedures. Only once in power they made the steps to a dictatorship by misusing their power or by manipulation. It’s also not so that statements by future or settled dictators are not true, like statements that, for example, they have “saved” the country. The point is that dictators use such true or false statement to pretend to have reasons to break the law, to suppress the freedom of the press, to manipulate the people, to form an inner circle of supporters in order to undermine the democratic rules and institutions, to establish their personal power, and to eliminate their political opponents (event by arresting or killing them), despite the presence of laws that protect democracy and especially legally protect their opponents.
What then must a politician do to try to become a dictator? Here is Cyrulnik’s recipe:
- Say “I will be your hero”.
- Say “I am prepared to die for you”.
- Use simple words and use often the word “people”.
- Make popular allusions and insinuations, but not too many. Just for rhetoric reasons and for showing that you don’t belong to the “arrogant elite”.
- Say that there is a domestic enemy (the traitor) or a foreign enemy (like immigrants or a foreign power), and when doing so sustain your words with much drama like an opera singer dying on the stage killed by another singer.
- Finish your speech with words like: “If you want that I liberate you, obey me, follow me, vote for me.”
Present yourself as the liberator, speak the language of the people, promise fantastic results, make the people enthusiast and say that you are going to free them from the humiliations by others and from the corruption of those in power. Then, once you have been elected, you can begin to undermine democracy in favour of yourself and your future dictatorship. How? There are many who can show you the way, like Orbán, Erdoğan and Putin. 

Source
Boris Cyrulnik, Le laboureur et les mangeurs de vent. Liberté intérieure et confortable servitude. Paris: Odile Jacob, 2022; esp. pp. 96-99.