This Is How Tyrants Go: Alone

I remember reading an essay a month or so ago — sadly I forget where — talking about how things end for tyrants. If I were to sum it up, it would be with the word “alone.” Their power fading, they find that they had few true friends or believers; just others that were greedy for power or riches and, finding those no longer to be had, depart the sinking ship. The article looked back at examples like Nixon and examples from the 20th century in Europe and around the world.

Today we saw images of a failed coup attempt.

But we also saw hope.

Already senior staff in the White House are resigning. Ones that had been ardent supporters. In the end, just 6 senators supported the objection to the legitimate electors. Six. Lindsay Graham, Mike Pence, and Mitch McConnel all deserted Trump.

CNN reports that there are serious conversations about invoking the 25th amendment and removing him from office, because even Republicans are to the point of believing that America should not have two more weeks of this man.

Whether those efforts are successful or not, I don’t know. What I do know is that these actions have awakened many people, in a way that nothing else could for four years, to the dangers of Trump and, in the end, have bolstered the cause of democracy.

Hard work will remain but today, Donald Trump is in the White House alone, abandoned by allies and blocked by Twitter. And we know that within two weeks, he won’t be there at all.

We will get through this.

7 thoughts on “This Is How Tyrants Go: Alone

  1. Human Rights Don’t Exist in Brazil

    There is a criminal organization in Brazil using NSO Group’s Pegasus to infect devices for hack for hire, to incite terrorism, blackmail people, produce illegal pornography and assist in assassinations. They also have other advanced malware, like UEFI implants and even persistent implants for Kindle and Raspberry Pi. Plus face/voice recognition on every camera and microphone they can get into, in public or private places.

    Brazil won’t do anything to stop them. Only the FBI, CIA and NSA can stop them.

    There is also the possibility that they were engaged on the hack of Bezos’ smartphone.

    If you know of any security researcher who wants to reverse engineer the exploits they are using, I am more than willing to help them.

    If you want a story about how they operate, I am willing to work with you to expose them.

  2. > even Republicans are to the point of believing that America should not have two more weeks of this man

    I obviously have no proof of the following, but I don’t think the Republicans have finally seen the light at the 11th hour. Instead, they waited until the last moment just-in-case-he-won, and seeing that it wasn’t happening, they are making this move which 1) let’s them save face and show (cynical) support for democracy, 2) may give them a shot at a political checkmate against Trump who wouldn’t be able to hold office after being removed via the 25th amendment.

    I will never forgive the elected officials who have let him get us this close to absolute disaster

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.