The Strategy of Unchecked Authority: The Strongman’s Second Act

"The strong man is strongest when alone." ~ Friedrich Schiller

"The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places." ~ Ernest Hemingway

"It is the weak man who urges compromise - never the strong man." ~ Elbert Hubbard

"Every hero is a Samson. The strong man succumbs to the intrigues of the weak and the many; and if in the end he loses all patience he crushes both them and himself." ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

An uncontested leader, of course, will have a strongman mentality.

And hence, that leader now stands with an opposition weakened, steadfast friends more confident in Congress, where the assertion of one's will might well be most firmly exercised, no longer a suspected crook. He acts. One of those moments each ruler must dream about, consequences whereby any opposition was not only unnecessary but, indeed impossible; ambition not held back. You got to realize that this isn't just politics; this is a consolidation of power.

This is where, in the absence of a serious challenge to their leadership, the natural adoption of a "strongman" attitude comes into play: no more negotiations but dictates, and their word is law. It may be less about political ideological commitment but the raw exercise of power, and there the leader becomes synonymous with the nation state, a position that has historically led to authoritarian outcomes.

The "suspected crook" who succeeded in consolidating power, stops being corrupt but victorious for the public imagination.

Not, of course, because his prior misdeeds were proved invalid but because the story changed. Power gives rise to legitimacy per se. A person who always balanced on thin rope now did so firmly, both feet planted on the ground, with even history rewritten for the purpose.

It is of that, not of simple power, rulers dream, but of the absence of real restraint.

So long as opposition not only isn't necessary but even can't take place, there's no stopping ambition. Free to form and re-form at will and to cut down or silence whatever withstands them in word or act, leaders soon become the makers of the careers of individuals.

This is barely politics as usual; this is about structural change.

Very rarely does seized power revert without sociopolitical shocks. The rules of engagement have changed, hopefully, not permanently. Those who oppose get punished harder, institutions adapt to serve the interests of the ruler and not those of the ruled, and the state becomes one man's extension.