In the first article we saw how easy it was for the populist NSDAP party to dismantle a democracy. The rapid erosion of civil rights, control of the media and marginalising minority groups all contributed to the establishment of a totalitarian regime and the loss of democracy. In the 21st century, dictatorships are again on the rise and are using a 1930s playbook updated for the digital age.
Much has been written about 20th century dictators, how they came to power and the lessons history can teach us. But have 21st century autocrats understood history’s lessons better than today’s liberal democracies?
The dictator’s playbook for dismantling a democracy
To destroy a democracy, you need the right conditions, the right people and a clear strategy.
The right conditions:
- Economic problems leading to low wages, unemployment and a feeling of powerlessness.
- Dissatisfaction with the status quo.
- Political turmoil with unstable governments, frequent elections, and a feeling that ‘my vote doesn’t count’ and ‘they’re all the same, in it for themselves and they don’t care about us’.
- Someone to blame – Jews, immigrants, the elites, minority groups.
The right people and resources:
- A charismatic leader and talented communicator.
- A populist party machine that presents its leader as someone who understands and represents the common people, contrasting themselves with the elites.
- Sources of funds to build the organisation and finance campaigns, preferably hidden sources that can bypass restrictions on political funding.
The strategy:
- Offer simplistic solutions to complex problems. Avoid too much detail; you have no intention of implementing most of your solutions so keep the message simple.
- Game the political system to gain political power.
- Take control of the media. Use the law to shut down outlets that aren’t compliant.
- Take control of the judiciary. Replace judges with political appointees, sack or marginalise lawyers who oppose what you want to do.
- Take more direct control of the police/law enforcement or create alternatives.
- Appoint supporters to all positions of power.
- Generate a national emergency as an excuse to bring in some form of emergency powers and give yourself power to act without parliament.
The 1930s playbook updated: spin dictators
Dictators in the 21st century still largely follow this playbook of the 1930s but have developed increasingly sophisticated methods that are more appropriate for the digital age.
As Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman argue in their book Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century that: “… today’s strongmen realise that in current conditions violence is not always necessary or even helpful. Instead of terrorising citizens, a skilful ruler can control them by reshaping their beliefs about the world. He (sic) can fool people into compliance and even enthusiastic approval. In place of harsh repression, the new dictators manipulate information. Like spin doctors in a democracy, they spin the news to engineer support. They are spin dictators.”
The cracks in democracy today: immigration
The early years of the 21st century saw the number of democracies worldwide surpass the number of authoritarian states. By 2019 this was reversed with dictatorships outnumbering democracies. The financial crisis born in the United States undermined faith in western governance. In the UK, as in many western democracies, we have seen economic problems leading to low wages, high costs, job losses, dissatisfaction with the status quo and political chaos – just think of four Conservative prime ministers in less than five years and all of the associated upheaval.
All we need to complete the conditions for a dictatorship is someone to blame – immigrants. Across Europe and the US, immigrants are blamed for economic woes, housing shortages, waiting lists, taking our jobs, taking our school places, undermining our culture. In fact, immigrants are the perfect scapegoats.
They also provide the perfect excuse for introducing draconian new restrictions. In the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has become a huge, well-funded paramilitary organisation. Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law on 4 July 2025, allocates ICE with more funding than any federal law enforcement agency in US history.
Liberal elites, the media, lawyers and judges under attack
Just in case immigrants aren’t big enough scapegoats, we have the woke, liberal elites who are accused of somehow preventing the radical right from dealing with the real problems. And if the law gets in your way, change it. Right-leaning politicians in the UK want us to scrap the Human Rights Act because it gets in their way and Conservatives have tried to weaken one of the main checks and balances of our democracy, judicial review.
As for taking over the media, the job’s pretty much done. In the UK and the US, a compliant, well-funded right-wing media are already parroting populist misinformation. In the US we have a president who repeatedly lies, largely unchallenged, and in case the mainstream media don’t carry the right messages, social media is the perfect tool to spread whatever misinformation you want, particularly if you own a massive social media platform yourself.
The Supreme Court of the United States, the highest-level court in the land, has six Republican-appointed justices and three Democratic-appointed justices, ensuring a right-leaning majority to support right-wing causes. Trump has repeatedly attacked lawyers and judges when he disagrees with their findings. Legal scholars say the president’s attacks against judges, law firms, prosecutors, the press and other vital American institutions are aimed at silencing critics of his radical agenda and undercutting the rule of law in authoritarian ways that expand his own powers.
The US and the UK are already on the road to dictatorship
In the UK we have seen senior right-wing politicians undermining the legal system with references to woke, activist lawyers, judges described as “enemies of the people” and attacks on the police as operating a “two-tier” system.
Gaming the political system has already happened: UKIP took advantage of voter apathy and the proportional representation system used in EU parliamentary elections to dominate the UK presence in the EU for many years. Reform UK are exploiting the first-past-the-post system used in UK parliamentary elections to their advantage by fragmenting the electoral landscape in the hope of winning constituencies and local councils with small percentages of voters. In the US, Trump supporters bullied Republican candidates into supporting Trump and his MAGA agenda by threatening to pull campaign funding or putting up alternative compliant candidates if they didn’t fall into line.
The US is much further down the road to dictatorship than the UK, with power exercised through Executive Orders, bypassing Congress, attempts to control school and university curricula, plain clothed, masked ICE officers snatching people from workplaces and the streets, constant threats, demeaning what is left of the free press, the sacking of civil servants who don’t fall into line and the pursuit of rivals, leading to the consolidation of power in the president.
Learning the lessons of history
As for learning the lessons of history – we have failed. Far too many today have no comprehension of how easily and quickly democracy was dismantled in 1933 and do not understand what it would mean to lose our democracy or what the consequences of authoritarian rule in the UK would be. Some even believe a dictatorship is what is needed to ‘MEGA’ – make England great again.
Democracy is not a given; it has to be fought for, constantly, a fact that is not understood by many in our country. The UK is not far behind the US with the conditions and groundwork for dismantling democracy already in place.
Wake up, look around and use your votes wisely while you still can. Imagine a UK where you no longer have a vote. If that day comes, it will be too late to change your mind.
