The Dictator’s Playbook: How Minor Incidents Become Pretexts for Massive Crackdowns

Why history’s pattern of crisis exploitation should worry every democracy

The symbol of freedom welcomes you to the United States (Photo by Pierre Blaché)

Nearly two millennia ago, in 82 BCE, Lucius Cornelius Sulla returned to Rome after years of absence. During those years away, his political rivals had declared him a public enemy. So he returned with armies at his back and a singular mission: to annihilate those who had displaced him and eliminate all opposition forever.

Thus, Sulla became an early example of a leader who had once held supreme power, only to be cast aside by rivals and branded an enemy. During his years out of power, his narrative was one of betrayal, grievance, and a determination to return and punish. Plutarch described a vision that Sulla said he had before his final return to Rome. He dreamed of a goddess who stood at his side, handing him a thunderbolt. She then named all his enemies one by one and bade him to kill them. Sulla believed the goddess empowered him to do so.

When Sulla finally returned, victorious but filled with seething rage, he launched a relentless campaign of vengeance to obliterate those who had dared criticise or oppose him. It was a merciless weaponization of grievance and a crusade against perceived enemies. The consequences were swift…