Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
In my experience an incompetent person attempting to be a dictator is a lot more dangerous.
They're almost always incompetent, though. Mussolini was a moron and his wife was the one with the brain. Hitler likewise was an idiot and bad at pretty much everything but riling people up with rhetoric and being lazy. Pol Pot was yet another moron.
Out of all the recent dictators, Stalin is probably one of the few who wasn't a complete idjit but he made up for it by being a worse psychopath than the others.
it's always interesting to me. Hitler hated Stalin. despised him with a passion.
before they got the russian military campaign fully underway, they were needing to secure oil. Everybody but Hitler wanted to go into the middle east. At the time, they were all using WW1 era cast offs. Germany could have rolled them like Snoop rolls a giant dooby. No mess, no fuss.
But no. Hitler hated. So, instead of going for the middleastern oil feels, they went for siberia. breaking the neutrality pact they had with Russia... and bogging down.
it's probalby what cost them the war for a few reasons. One, they didn't get the oil. Two. They got into a land war in Asia. one of the Classic Blunders.
I would say Putin was an intelligent dictator. I think he's losing his touch, but I wouldn't dismiss him until he's in the ground.
Yeah, he's definitely one of the few clever ones, which is highly unfortunate.
Raphael Trujillo maybe? He stayed in power for quite a while. But yes, most dictators aren’t very smart, they are just very charismatic and manipulative
Why are we listening to John Bolton?
This. He’s such a weaselly little bitch.
Yep, "Ex-Trump adviser" is a mild way of referring to the guy who gets a hard-on at the thought of war with Iran.
Its really getting tiring that we just listen to whoever says the words we want said. If John Bolton gets praised by anyone but the neo-cons, they have lost their minds.
Circa 1932 Germany a lot of political insiders thought the same thing about Hitler.
But Hindenburg and co all propped him up be more or less that. They just miscalculated how it would work.
1932 Germany wasn't even a flawed democracy, people talk about Weimar republic as if it were really a republic.
Well, Trump may not have the brains necessary to be a smart dictator, he has more than enough people who are willing to help him out with his dictatorship problems. Some billioniares might be inclined to whisper things into Trumps ears and pay him with a spotlight in the media, stroking his overblown ego as a kind of "payment".
In other words: Trump may not be a smart dictator, but he would be one of the more dangerous ones.
You don't need brains, you only need brutality and followers.
Win or lose, he has already signaled that people will die.
I don't think we should be testing this. In any case, most dictators were barely smart enough to keep the right people happy for long enough to hold power.
Manipulation doesn't require exceptional intelligence. I've met people with major cognitive disabilities who are among the most deceptive and manipulative people you'll meet. It doesn't require intelligence, just the will and lack of moral character.
(For the record, I've also known many people with cognitive disabilities who are the most amazing, kind, and honorable people in the world. Because, again, it's not a matter of intelligence.)
You don't need to be smart to convince other dumbasses to do shit. He's already proven that.
Hey member when the demented rapist made him shave off his walrus moustache because he didn't like it?
HAHAHAh eat shit bolton you asshole
Given that every trump appointee has been a self serving swamp creature, its kind of irrelevant whether trump himself is an idiot. All you need is to create an opening for one of the ghouls and they will flood it.
He's got the ethics for it though
Oh, well I feel safe now.
Walrus man has determined a very possible next president is too stupid.
So, back in 2001 the head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) managed to get weapons inspectors into Iraq which pissed off the U.S. because it undermined their justification of the invasion.
In response John Bolton told the head of the OPCW:
You have 24 hours to leave the organization, and if you don’t comply with this decision by Washington, we have ways to retaliate against you. ... We know where your kids live. You have two sons in New York.
John Bolton is implying that John Bolton is smart enough to install a dictatorship. He certainly has implied such in the past.
John Bolton worked for Trump in the last administration.
Even if he specifically wouldn't do it, surely he can see why there's still reason to be concerned.
I don't think that's really a prerequisite.
He's a puppet anyhow. Brains kinda sorta disqualify.
(Cuz, it never ends well for the puppet.)
Didn't stop Mussilini from trying.