The Decline of Dictators: Trump is the Latest
Throughout world history, most dictators falsely believed they were widely *beloved* by their own people. They were foolish–even as their empires were collapsing all around them. We have reached another one of those alarming moments.
Yes, the carnival mirror lies. The reflection seen is not real. It’s distorted. The self-portrait is an illusion. A mirage.
Indeed, for those who fail to manage it, power can be intoxicating. Dangerously so. Over time, surrounded by layers of gutless sycophants, the very worst despots become pickle blinded with egomania. They become so insulated from reality and so isolated from anyone who might brave enough to be truthful, that setbacks are perceived as falsehoods or conspiracies. Often, paranoia often creeps.
Narcissists lack the capacity to deal with facts. So instead, they cling to fantasies which provide the false security of comfort. They hand-pick sad armies of perverted servants around them who deliver more falsities and fabrications. Anything to keep the mad king happy. The decrepit regime fails to see or accept the warning signs. So, a downward spiral continues, ultimately washed by the truth into the drainpipe of history.
The drainpipe of history is filled with dictators and despots who mistakenly believed their were more popular than they really were. Just ask the ghosts of Saddam Hussein, Muammar Qaddafi, Idi Amin, Nicolae Ceausescu, the Shah of Iran — all professed shock when popular uprisings ended their tyrannies. Even when removed from power, dictators fail to grasp what happened. Virtually all of them lapsed into a mental bunker of denial and self-deception.
Never before have we witnessed a mentally-deranged President so appallingly divorced from reality as the one currently occupying the White House. He’s done this denial act once already. Actually, dozens of times. He’s been squawking about the 2020 election for 6 years. Even when Trump won presidential elections, in 2016 and 2024, he still (falsely) insisted he won states that makes his claim laughable–if the delusion wasn’t so sickly pathetic. I mean, he’s claimed before that he “won” California. That was one of many “straightjacket” moments — as in, someone call a mental health professional and get here quick.
Now, despite being destroyed at virtually every level in a vast majority of races in the 2026 midterm election, acknowledged and accepted as FACT by anyone with a functioning cerebral cortex, the American despot would-be dictator steadfastly REFUSES to accept reality. It wasn’t a landslide! It was election fraud! With apologies to Godwin and his law, we’re reminded of another time when there was a Fuhrer in the Bunker dreaming of glorious new cities with white marble palaces and arches and architectural fantasies while his evil crumbled around him.
Trump is no different from the horrible dictators and despots before who all failed to accept reality as fact. Let’s hope he ultimately meets a similar fate as a horrible mistake of human history. And, just like those horrible despots before him, all signs of his existence should be sand blasted and washed away.
Maybe then, the realization finally sets in that people get pissed off when you do really horrible things.
