#autocratic

[uboat53]

I had an exchange recently that revealed to me how fast Netanyahu's speedrun of the autocrat's playbook is going. Let's dive in for a LONG RANT (TM).

THE AUTOCRAT'S PLAYBOOK

What I'm calling the "autocrat's playbook" is a simple procedure that autocrats or would-be autocrats take when they feel that their domestic power is under some kind of threat. Specifically, it involves creating external conflict in order to rally domestic support. The steps are fairly simple: (1) start a conflict, (2) use the conflict to muzzle your opposition, (3) use a vague but patriotic excuse for war combined with aggressive tactics to push your military into committing atrocities, (4) use the international backlash to atrocities in order to buttress your own support.

Simply put, Netanyahu is doing this because his position is under threat by his unpopular attempt to destroy Israel's judiciary, his indictment on some pretty severe criminal charges, and his inability to do anything about Hamas' October 7th attack on Israel. By using the autocrat's playbook, he's hoping to hold onto his political position and put off both the collapse of his coalition and the criminal cases against him personally. In the last 6 months, he's already gotten well into Step 4 which may be a record for a leader who wasn't technically already a well-established autocrat. To see how he's doing this, let's start with Step 1.

CONFLICT

The first thing you need in order to distract from your domestic troubles is a foreign conflict. In Netanyahu's case, he already had a conflict after Hamas' attack, but it was a bad conflict because it made him look weak. The best case scenario is that he was a bumbling fool who failed to do anything to prevent Hamas from launching a major attack, the worst case scenario is that he deliberately weakened Israel's defenses against Hamas in order to aid his racist coalition partners in illegally seizing territory in the West Bank. No, that conflict wouldn't do, he needed a different one.

Bombing and invading Gaza is a much better conflict. He gets to appear the aggressor, strong and in command, which is exactly what you want to look like as an autocrat. This is his Step 1, attack Gaza. Now for Step 2.

THE WAR CABINET

Now, Netanyahu isn't an established autocrat yet, he's more of a wanna-be. Israeli news media still criticizes him, civil society still organizes against him, the judiciary still rules against him, and his opponents still have the possibility of ousting him in the Knesset, so he doesn't get to just shove all his opposition in jail on trumped up charges the way Vladimir Putin does. Instead, he's found a better way of muzzling his opposition, give them a title.

That's what the Israeli "war cabinet" is, it's how he muzzles his opposition. Now, I should be clear, a war cabinet isn't necessarily just a muzzle, sometimes it's a legitimate way to ensure support and input from across the nation for a war. But that's not what Netanyahu is using it for, and the way to tell is actually fairly simple. You see, in a true war cabinet, the leader gives up some control to his opposition in order to ensure that they're truly represented, but Netanyahu didn't do that.

You see, there are six members of the war cabinet, three full members and three observers. Of those six, four of them are either members of the Likud Party (Netanyahu's party), members of the Shas Party (one of his coalition members), or a close confidant of Netanyahu's (Ron Dermer). More importantly, only those members that are directly tied to Netanyahu have an actual portfolio (Defense for Likud member Yoav Gallant and Strategic Affairs for Dermer).

In other words, the opposition is in the cabinet, but has no ability to push policy and, even after policy is agreed upon, has no say in how it's carried out. However, as long as they're in the cabinet, they can't speak out publicly against the decisions made. Netanyahu has used the war cabinet to muzzle his opposition without giving them any actual power. Now, with competing voices largely silenced, we move on to Step 3.

HOW TO MAKE ATROCITIES HAPPEN

Atrocities used to be fairly common in warfare, even expected, but modern militaries actually have fairly good discipline, structure, and clear rules of operation that prevent them from doing this on any kind of large scale. In order to get a modern military to commit atrocities, you have to press it in a very specific way.

First, you have to give it an objective, preferably a vaguely defined but intensely patriotic one; bonus points if it's not practically possible. In Netanyahu's case, he ordered the military to destroy Hamas. This may be an achievable objective if Israel had spent years gathering detailed intelligence on the group and had a clear plan for how to separate Hamas fighters and leadership from the civilian population, but the ease with which Hamas carried out its 10/7 attack shows that even the first condition is not even close to being met. Destroying Hamas is an easy goal to defend in public debate, of course everyone wants to destroy Hamas, but it's not one that brings any specifics and it's certainly not something that the Israeli military can do without substantial support from both spies and diplomats even if the required preparations had actually been made.

The second step, though, is equally important; you press aggressively for results. A military given a vague mission that isn't really possible will go through the motions and not do all that much. In order to make atrocities happen, you have to push them to go hard. Bomb that building that may or may not relate to the objective, better to act than to delay! Shoot that person in the distance that may or may not be a Hamas fighter, better safe than sorry! The hospital might be a command post you say? Best to go in with full force!

By giving a vague and impossible mission and then insisting on rapid action, you can force any military to commit atrocities. Then you just wait to start Step 4.

RALLY AROUND THE FLAG

As soon as a country's military commits an atrocity, the international community will react with at least some sort of condemnation. This, at least, is as predictable as clockwork even if the consequences will vary widely. If you're an autocrat with a popularity problem, this is your moment; you're going to defend the troops with every ounce of breath in your body and, with your opposition muzzled, there will be no one to point out that the atrocity wasn't even their fault in the first place, it was yours.

And so, with one fell swoop, you identify the country as being under attack and yourself as its fervent defender, fulfilling the tactic described by Hermann Goering:

"…the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger."

COMPLICATIONS

Of course, it's not necessarily so simple. There are always things that can trip you up and it takes a fairly deft hand to navigate those issues. For example, if you're not careful to distance yourself, it can become obvious that you're the one responsible for the atrocity, not the military. This is where other tactics can come into play.

The most obvious one is just to deny facts that are inconvenient. This is actually what led me to write this up, an exchange I had recently in which someone denied that Israel had, in fact, struck the Iranian embassy in Damascus with an air strike in order to frame Iran's response as unprovoked aggression. This kind of thing doesn't tend to happen (at least, not outside very fringe circles) unless all four of these steps have had a pretty reasonable amount of success which is why I've expressed surprise at how quickly Netanyahu has accomplished all of this.

Facts in general, though, are the most common type of complication. Finding ways to hide, deny, or otherwise elide the fact that you're the one responsible for the atrocity, that it's not just the soldiers making hard calls on an otherwise positive battlefield, are key to making this procedure work.

It's useful for those of us who are not interested in Netanyahu's party line to note that the Israeli military is already showing signs of breaking in the ways that the US military did in Vietnam when discipline and basic chain of command broke down. Simply looking at the sheer number of Israeli soldiers posting social media videos of themselves casually looting or blowing up the homes of Palestinian civilians or shooting people on the street is enough to demonstrate fairly clearly that even basic communications discipline is in rough shape.

So far, though, Netanyahu has been able to control the narrative in Israel, even if the international narrative is turning against him. It remains to be sees if he can continue to do this.

CONCLUSION

Netanyahu has followed a pretty standard 4-step autocratic procedure in order to position himself as the protector of the country and distract from the many, many things that were making him unpopular and threating to remove him from his position of power. In fact, if you look at Israel's strike on Iran's embassy in Damascus, it appears that he's actually starting the whole process over again as the Gaza offensive stalls and he needs further distraction from his other issues.

I should also note that none of this is actually making Israelis any safer, quite the opposite really. The only remaining question is how much of Israel's security and how many Israeli lives Netanyahu is willing to sacrifice for his own good.

#politics #international politics #israel #netanyahu #benjamin netanyahu #autocra #autocracy #autocratic #autocratic leadership #gaza #israel gaza w #israel gaza war #long rant (tm)

[milenaolesinska]

#belarus #poland #andrzej poczybut #grodno #autocratic #terrorism #alexander lukashenko #dictature #polish

[9to5ub]

#Autocratic #Leadership #Key #Success #9to5ub

[wezgworld]

Erdogan’s Third Term as President of Turkey and What It Means

On May 28th 2023, Recep Tayyip Erdogan was giving a victory speech to the excited Turkish masses, who had democratically elected him to a third term as President of Turkey. He achieved 52.2% of the vote in  the second round of elections compared with the 47.8% of the challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu. Prior to the election result, it had been widely speculated that the long autocratic regime of…

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#Akif #AKP Party #Atatürk #autocracy #autocratic #Black Sea Fleet #Blak Sea #Bosphorus #Caldicot #Dardanelles #democratic #demoracy #economy #elections #electionsTurkish Elections 2023 #Erdogan #European Union #Gezi Park #Greece #Islamic veil #Joe Biden #Kemal Kilicdaroglu #Kurds #Kyriakos Mitsotakis #Liz Truss #Lodon #Londongrad #marmite #Mediterranean #Moscow

[swingleftnewsjunkie]

Stuart Stevens says GOP is an "autocratic movement"

#youtube #gop hypocrisy #gop traitors #trumpcoup #democracy #democratic party #autocratic #american politics

[managerapproach]

Discover the Top 10 Management Styles to Help You Lead Your Team to Success!

Are you looking to understand the different management styles? There are 10 distinct types of management styles that can be used in business settings. Each style has its own advantages and disadvantages, so it’s important to understand which one is the best fit for your team and organization. This article will discuss the 10 types of management styles and provide insight into how you can…

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#Autocratic #Bureaucratic #Charismatic #coaching #Democratic #Laissez-Faire #leadership #Participative #Transactional #Transformational

[longdrivestonowhere]

Insomnio

Esta sección de mi vida está inspirada en todo lo que he crecido emocionalmente.

Agradezco todo lo que he aprendido gracias a mi vida y puedo decir que ahora me siento tan mía, que me equivoqué al querer entregar mi persona a alguien cuando en realidad solo somos compañía. ¿Cómo puedo explicar este pensamiento?

Tenemos estándares dependiendo de nuestra autoestima pero cuando nos sentimos incompletos,nuestra fijación mental nos hace idealizar de tal manera, que se convierte en una obsesión por lo cual te estancas, una vez que lo identificas aceptas lo que mereces, poco a poco vas a ver que nadie merece segundas oportunidades y que debes aprender de la experiencia pues solo así puedes valorar tu persona. Creo fervientemente que es en este punto que logras entender la inteligencia emocional pues puedes forjar el balance adecuado de acuerdo a las acciones que te llevaron a tus decisiones para lograr ser autocrítico y selectivo.

Cinthia García

#writing #poema en español #post #poets on tumblr #autocratic #poetsandwriters #poetry

[ranthaven]

Is there something I should know? Anything I’m missing? Autocrats, seriously, wtf?!?

About the date: All coffee syrup in the US is made in Lincoln, RI. Took the picture in a grocery store in Bristol. Been trying to find out why the brand name ever since.

#autocratic #what the hell #coffee syrup #seriously

[mudwerks]

(via I Will Defend Free Speech to the Death. Or Until an Autocrat Asks Me to Stop - McSweeney’s Internet Tendency)

As a free speech absolutist, only death could stop me from defending the rights of Twitter users to speak without censorship. Well, either death or a request from an autocratic leader asking that I censor certain content that could be sensitive for their regime. Whichever comes first.

#humor #elon bends over for autocrats #pretend free speech

[autocrats-in-love]

Prompt (207)

“Have you seen this person?” The investigator asked.

The hero squinted. It was definitely the villain. The same person who was asleep in their bed in the next room.

“Nope!” The hero said, slamming the door in the investigator’s face.

#villain x hero #hero x villain #my prompts #hero prompt #villain prompt #autocrats in love

[skitskatdacat63]

+ bonus :)

Thank you for all the votes on the poll :D unfortunately however I decided to follow my own destiny </3 also sorry if I forgot to include anyone! Was mostly going off mutuals who voted/are Fernando fans and others who reblogged the poll :)

#id usually include process stuff here as i didnt wanna stuff up the main post #but ah i dont have too much bcs this was a quick weekend project #yayayyyyyy i love strict deadlines :D #god i am shocked how much i drew in such a short amnt of time #the bathing suit one and the chibis were all basically 'today' and the other one took a bit longer as i was getting my bearings #i sitll cant believe the shirtless one won the poll! #sry but its prob my least fav. to me its just ig too blatant??? #im sry this acct is not a democratic republic. i am an autocrat >:) i mean just look at my favs cmon #it was in fact interesting to see what people thought but i think even before i made that poll i already knew what i was gonna draw #i was just interested in seeing what other people thought! #formula 1 #f1 #fernando alonso #catie.art. #2024 miami gp

[swervenation]

maggie’s hud readouts are so fucking funny to me as a concept. reblog and tag this post with what you think they would say about you or your OC(s).

#subject: jamie. #autocrat of 'swerve nation' a country unrecognized by 192/193 UN members #notable enjoyer of large robot breasts #(exercise caution) #threat level: annoyance. #struggling to believe that the megatron description isn't so long from conflicting emotions that it covers his left optic completely #seriously? no mention of the homoerotic meet cute of 'you are now his public defender'? #anyways i think i would be #ultra magnus #minimus ambus #...? #mtmte #transformers #macaddam #my honest reaction

[tomorrowusa]

Trump's use of violent rhetoric for the past nine years is disturbing and has the potential to incite unbalanced and extremist elements in this country. But if he is using it to frighten us or coerce us into doing or not doing something, then we shouldn't take the bait.

We should not at all fear a Trump loss this year. While it won't solve all our problems, it would remove the greatest threat to American democracy since the 1940s from politics and throw what remains of the GOP into disarray.

While we should worry about the potential catastrophe of a second Trump administration, Donald Trump himself is not high on my list of people personally to be feared. He's an orange bag of pus with a big porcine mouth and bad hair. Birds would just poop on him if he were a scarecrow in the middle of a farm field.

Dictators and wannabe dictators are always making violent threats. For example: Vladimir Putin threatens to nuke us every 3 to 6 months. Putin somehow wants us to think that he's the only person in the world with nuclear weapons.

But caving to threats from autocrats almost always does more harm than good in the long run. If France and Britain had stood up to Hitler when he threatened Czechoslovakia in 1938, there may not have been World War II in 1939.

If we resolve to vote and don't get distracted by third party vanity candidates, Trump's political career will end later this year and his residency in a federal facility – other than the White House – will probably begin next year. Trump is trying to create fear in others because he's afraid of what will happen to him if he can't manage to hijack the 2024 election.

#donald trump #trump's violent rhetoric #bloodbath #fear #autocrats #dictators #lawrence o'donnell #register and vote #election 2024 #vote blue no matter who #Youtube

[goldens0422]

you know what would have been funny? i was busy thinking of some Imperial! Anidala AUs and there's one which just crossed my mind.

Imagine Padmé joins Vader on Mustafar, Vader beats Obi, and kills Sidious to take over. Vader tries to deepen his connection to the Dark Side as he and Padmé rule over the galaxy. Vader tries to portray himself as this evil, fearsome autocrat but is way too popular: he doesn't create the Death Star because neither he nor Padmé likes it, he abolishes slavery because duh, literally all of the clones (they don't get replaced) love him, he's still seen as the war hero, he's very handsome, and Padmé's presence + coregency mellows him out a lot. Padmé and his children are also there, and his love for them is wayyyyyy too much that he isn't nearly as evil and dark as he should be

Eventually, Vader comes to Padmé crying about how his connection to the Dark Side is weakening because of how much he loves her and the children and how he can't fuel his inner darkness anymore. He isn't really a Sith anymore and eventually Padmé convinces him to just let it go, renounce his darkness, and let the love flow through him so now he's just emperor anakin, former jedi and failed sith

emperor vader: suffering from success

#anidala #alternate universe #anakin skywalker #padme amidala #headcanon #imperial anidala #goofiest path to redemption ngl #hey at least he's still ruling the galaxy with his wife #if vader is portraying himself as the evil autocrat then padme's probably portraying herself as the empress girlboss xd #empress padmé: good good let the love flow through you #emperor anakin #emperor darth vader

[beardedmrbean]

Why do you dislike Nixon?

Totally blanked on this one, sorry bout that. Biggest reason is he absolutely destroyed the US's manufacturing sector.

We all remember the Iron Curtain as the name for the east/west European divide between NATO and Warsaw aligned nations, less spoken of is the bamboo curtain.

That this fuck let drop in the name of cheaper manufactured goods (imagine smiling while shaking the hand of a man that's responsible for more deaths that hitler and stalin combined)

All those great union factory jobs people in the US could get up till the late 70's he made it possible to send those jobs to china.

Which now dumps untold sums of money into china instead of here at home, and for the most part it doesn't matter where in the world you call home now, because when Nixon pulled this, given the US's outsized influence on the global economy, everyone else followed suit.

So ya, if I ever encountered a situation like the one in Futurama they might have to hold me back so I don't smash the jar his still living head is in.

#the funtime autocrat

[swingleftnewsjunkie]

#autocratic #gop corrupted #gop threat to america #democracy #democrats #democratic party #political #us politics #us government