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Political life is a juggernaut, and one gets swept along by it. Once you commit yourself to politics, you either try to ride along on top, or hang on for dear life, or get crushed beneath it. More than a few tyrants discovered that they had a wonderful knack for leading the electorate, but when they got to the top, they had to do pretty unsavory things to stay ahead of all those who wanted to knock them off the top. The business of state become a choice of killing your enemies, or turning over the reins of power to them.
A goodly number of dictators imagined themselves early on as benign, with the power to steer the nation in a way that would be good for the commonweal. Castro and Tito come to mind, and even Ceausescu if you examine his early years, right down to the petty ones like Maurice Bishop in Grenada. But something always goes horribly wrong, and then it's self-defense the whole way down.
If you lead, will people follow? David Koresh, Jim Jones, Warren Jeffs, Charlie Manson? There may be a continuum, from a 'fan base' with a person like Liberace, to inordinate devotion, to desire to die for a cause. And what separates the latter from those who are contracted to die (military) or those contracted to death (paid killers). Absolute power corrupts. Yet we wouldn't have power if we didn't have followers. Maybe a chicken and the egg question.
I wonder if Adolph Hitler would qualify. Also, who is more responsible for following this dictator, the dictator himself or the people who allowed him to come to power?
Hitler was probably a psychopath. From what I've read, he had a mother who thought he could do no wrong and spoiled him, and a father who physically--and possibly emotionally--abused him. Combine that upbringing with whatever genetic traits he had, and he was already pretty far out on the antisocial spectrum long before he came to power.
Hitler was probably a psychopath. From what I've read, he had a mother who thought he could do no wrong and spoiled him, and a father who physically--and possibly emotionally--abused him. Combine that upbringing with whatever genetic traits he had, and he was already pretty far out on the antisocial spectrum long before he came to power.
Do you think some of the rejection he experienced pushed him over the edge?
Do you think some of the rejection he experienced pushed him over the edge?
Definitely.
It would be interesting to study Mussolini or Stalin. Or even Bashar Assad in Syria, although he doesn't seem quite as bad as some of the others.
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